Inspector Morse 11 - The Daughters of Cain

by Colin Dexter

  At least that's something you're never likely to do, thought Lewis. But the thought was not translated into words.

  'Now,' continued Morse, 'just tell me about this second great discovery of yours.'

  'Just give me ten more minutes—nearly ready.'

  Morse ambled somewhat aimlessly around the rooms so splendidly cited by Messrs. Adkinson: Sitting/Dining-Room; Fully Fitted Modern Kitchen; Cloaks/Shower Room; Guest Bedroom; Master Bedroom Suite; Luxury Bathroom. But nothing, it appeared, was able to hold his attention for long; and soon he returned to the murder room.

  For Lewis, this brief period of time was profitable. His little dossier—well, three items held together by a paper-clip—was now, he thought, complete. Interesting. He was pleased with himself; trusted that Morse would be pleased with him, too.

  Not that Morse had looked particularly pleased with anything these last few minutes; and Lewis watched him taking a few more books from the shelves, seemingly in random manner, opening each briefly at the title page, then shaking it quite vigorously from the spine as if expecting something to fall out. And even as Lewis watched, something did fall out from one of them—nothing less than the whole of its pages. But Lewis's cautious amusement was immediately stifled by a vicious scowl from Morse; and nothing was said.

  In fact, over only one of the title pages had Morse lingered for more than a few moments:

  THE GREAT PLAGUE AT ATHENS

  Its Effect on the Course and Conduct

  of the Peloponnesian War

  BY

  FELIX FULLERTON MCCLURE, M. A., D. PHIL.

  Student of Wolsey College, Oxford

  Correction.

  Late Student of Wolsey College, Oxford . . .

  At 5:45 p.m. PC Roberts knocked, and entered in response to Morse's gruff behest.

  'Super just rang through, sir—'

  ' ''Rang" through,' muttered Morse.

  '—and wanted me to tell you straightaway. It's Mrs. Phillotson, sir. She died earlier this afternoon. Seems she had another emergency op . . . and well, she didn't pull through. He didn't tell me any more. He just wanted you to know, he said.'

  Roberts left, and Lewis looked on as Morse slowly sat down in the brown leather armchair, staring, it seemed, at the design on the carpet—the eyes, usually so fierce and piercing, now dull and defeated; a look of such self-loathing on his face as Lewis had never seen before.

  It was five minutes later that Lewis made an offer which (as he knew) could hardly be refused.

  'Fancy a beer, sir? The King's Arms down the road's open—Open All Day, it says outside.'

  But Morse shook his head, and sat there in continued silence.

  So for a while Lewis pretended to complete an already completed task. Perhaps he should have felt puzzled? But no. He wasn't puzzled at all.

  Tomorrow was Thursday . . .

  And the next day was Friday . . .

  Strange how they'd both cropped up already that day: the Man Who Was Thursday and the Girl Who Was Friday. Yet at this stage of the case, as they sat together in Daventry Court, neither Morse nor Lewis had the vaguest notion of how crucial one of the two was soon to become.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  You; my Lady, certainly don't dye your hair to deceive the others, nor even yourself; but only to cheat your own image a little before the looking-glass

  (LUIGI PIRANDELLO, Henry IV)

  WHEN FOR A SECOND time she had put down the phone Eleanor Smith stared at her own carpet, in this case threadbare, tastelessly floral affair that stopped, at each wall, about eighteen inches short of the chipped skirting boards.

  The calls hadn't been unexpected. No. Ever since she'd read of McClure's murder in the Oxford Mail she'd half expected, half feared that the police would be in touch. Twice at least twice, she remembered sending him a postcard; and once a letter—a rambling, adolescent letter written just after they'd first met when she'd felt particularly lonely on a dark and cloudy day. And knowing Felix, even a bit, sh thought he'd probably have kept anything she might have sent him.

  Their first meeting for a drink together had been in the Chapters Bar of The Randolph. Good, that had been. No pretences then, on either side. But he'd gently refused to consider her a 'courtesan' if only for the reason (as he'd smilingly informed her) that anagrammatically, and appropriately, the word gave rise to 'a sore—'.

  Yes, quite good really, that first evening—that first night, in fact—together. Above all perhaps, from her point of view, it had marked a nascent interest in crossword puzzles, which Felix had later encouraged and patiently fostered . . .

  They'd found her telephone number in his flat—of course they had. Not that it was any great secret. Not exactly an ex-directory, exclusive series of digits. A number, rather, that in the early days had been slipped into half the BT phone-boxes in East Oxford, on a card with an amateurishly drawn outline of a curvaceous brunette with bouncy boobs. Her! But it was there; there in that telephone-thing of his on the desk. She knew that, for she'd seen it there. Odd, really. She'd have expected someone with such a fine brain as Felix to have committed her five-figure number to a permanent place in his memory. Seemingly not, though.

  Poor old Felix.

  She'd never loved anyone in life really—except her mum. But among her clients, that rather endearing, kindly, caring sort of idiot, Felix, had perhaps come nearer than anyone.

  He'd never mentioned any enemies. But he must have had at least one—that much was certain. Not that she could help. She knew nothing. If she had known something, she'd have volunteered the information before now.

  Or would she?

  The very last thing she wanted was to get involved with the police. With her job? Come off it! And in any case there was no point in it. The last time she'd been round to Felix's apartment had been three weeks ago, when he'd cooked steak for the two of them, with a bottle of vintage claret to wash it down; and two bottles of expensive champagne, one before . . . things; and one after.

  Poor old Felix.

  A very nice person in the very nasty world in which she'd lived these last few years.

  Easy enough fooling the fuzz! Just said she wasn't there, hadn't she? Just said she was in Spain. Just said there'd been this photo of a bare-breasted tourist in Torremolinos. Been a bit of a problem if that second copper'd asked for the photo, though. But he'd sounded all right—they'd both sounded all right. Just not very bright, that's all. Would they check up on her? But what if they did? They'd soon understand why she'd told a few fibs. It was a joke. Bit of fun. No one wanted to get involved in a murder enquiry.

  And whatever happened she couldn't be a suspect. Felix had been murdered on Sunday August 28th, hadn't he? And on that same Sunday she'd left Oxford at 6:30 a.m. (yes!) on a coach-trip to Boumemouth. Hadn't got back, either, until 9:45 p.m. So there! And thirty-four witnesses could testify to that. Thirty-five, if you included the driver.

  Nothing to worry about, then—nothing at all.

  And yet she couldn't help worrying: worrying about who, in his senses, would want to murder such an inoffensive fellow as Felix.

  Or in her senses . . .

  Was there some history, some incident, some background in Felix's life about which she knew nothing? Sure to be, really. Not that he'd ever hinted—

  Then it struck her.

  There was that one thing. Just over a year ago, late May (or was it early June?) when that undergraduate living on Felix's staircase had jumped out of his third-floor window—and broken his neck.

  'That undergraduate'? Who was she fooling?

  Poor Matthew!

  Not that she'd had anything to do with that, either. Well, she'd fervently prayed that she hadn't. After all, she'd only met him once, when Felix had become so furiously jealous.

  Jealousy!

  At his age—forty-one years older than she was. A grandfather, almost. A father, certainly. Yet one of the very few clients who meant anything to her in that continuum of carnality which passed f
or some sort of purpose in her present life.

  Yes, a father-figure.

  A foster-father, perhaps.

  Not a bloody step-father, though! Christ, no.

  She looked at herself in the mirror of the old-fashioned dressing-table. The pallor of her skin looked ghastly; and her dark hair, streaked with a reddish-orange henna dye, looked lustreless—and cheap. But she felt cheap all over. And as she rested her oval face on her palms, the index finger of each hand stroking the silver rings at either side of her nostrils, her sludgy-green eyes stared back at her with an expression of dullness and dishonesty.

  Dishonesty?

  Yes. The truth was that she probably hadn't given a sod for McClure, not really. Come to think of it, he'd been getting something of a nuisance: wanting to monopolise her; pressuring her; phoning at inconvenient moments—once at a very inconvenient moment. He'd become far too obsessive, far too possessive. And what was worse, he'd lost much of his former gaiety and humour in the process. Some men were like that.

  Well, hard luck!

  Yes, if she were honest with herself, she was glad it was all over. And as she continued to stare at herself, she was suddenly aware that the streaks of crimson in her hair were only perhaps a physical manifestation of the incipient streaks of cruelty in her heart.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill

  (ARISTOTLE, Nicomachean Ethics)

  MORSE HAD FINISHED the previous evening with four pints of Best Bitter (under an ever-tightening waist-belt) at the King's Arms in Banbury Road; and had followed this with half a bottle of his dearly beloved Glenfiddich (in his pyjamas) at his bachelor flat in the same North Oxford.

  Unsurprisingly, therefore, he had not exactly felt as fit a Stradivarius when Lewis had called the following morning; and it was Lewis who now drove out to Leicester;

  It was Lewis who had to drive out to Leicester.

  As the Jaguar reached the outskirts of that city, Morse was looking again through the items (four of them now, not three) which Lewis had seen fit to salvage from McClure's apartment, and which—glory be!—Morse had instantly agreed could well be of importance to the case. Certainly they threw light upon that murky drink-drugs-sex scene which had established itself in some few parts of Oxford University. First was a cutting from the Oxford Mail dated Tuesday, June 8, 1993 (fourteen months earlier):

  * * *

  DRUG LINK WITH

  DREAM SON'S SUICIDE

  At an inquest held yesterday, the, Coroner, Mr. Arnold Hoskins, recorded a verdict of suicide on the death of Mr. Matthew Rodway, a third-year undergraduate reading English at Oxford.

  Rodway's body had been discovered by one of the college scouts in the early hours of Friday, May 21, at the foot of his third-floor window in the Drinkwater Quad of Wolsey College.

  There was some discrepancy in the statements read at the inquest, with suggestions made that Mr. Rodway may perhaps have fallen accidentally after a fairly heavy drinking-party in his rooms on Staircase G.

  There was also clear evidence, however, that Mr. Rodway had been deeply depressed during the previous weeks, apparently about his prospects in his forthcoming Finals examination.

  What was not disputed was that Rodway had taken refuge among one or two groups where drugs were regularly taken in various forms.

  Dr. Felix McClure, one of Rodway's former tutors, was questioned about an obviously genuine but unfinished letter found in Rodway's rooms, containing the sentence 'I've had enough of all of this.'

  Whilst he stoutly maintained that the words themselves were ambivalent in their implication, Dr. McClure agreed with the Coroner that the most likely explanation of events was that Rodway had been driven to take his own life.

  Pathological evidence substantiated the fact that Rodway had taken drugs, on a regular basis, yet there appeared no evidence to suggest that he was a suicidal type with some obsessive death-wish.

  In his summing up, the Coroner stressed the evil nature of trafficking in drugs, and pointed to the ready availability of such drugs as a major contributory factor in Rodway's death.

  Taken in the first place to alleviate anxiety, they had in all probability merely served to aggravate it, with the tragic consequences of which the court had heard.

  Matthew's mother is reluctant to accept the Coroner's verdict. Speaking from her home in Leicester, Mrs. Mary Rodway wished only to recall a bright, caring son who had every prospect of success before him.

  'He was so talented in many ways. He was very good at hockey and tennis. He had a great love of music, and played the viola in the National Youth Orchestra.

  'I know I'm making him sound like a dream son. Well, that's what he was.' (See Leader, p.8)

  * * *

  Morse turned to the second cutting, taken from the same issue:

  * * *

  A DEGREE TOO FAR

  A recently commissioned study highlights the increasing percentage of Oxford graduates who fail to find suitable employment. Dr. Clive Hornsby, Senior Reader in Social Sciences at Lonsdale College, has endorsed the implications of these findings, and suggests that many students, fully aware of employment prospects, strive for higher-class degrees than they are competent to achieve. Others, as yet mercifully few, adopt the alternative course of abandoning hope, of seeking consolation in drink and drugs, and sometimes of concluding that life is not worth the living of it. It may well be that Oxford University, through its various advisory agencies and help-lines, is fully aware of these and related problems, although we are not wholly convinced of this. The latest suicide in an Oxford College (see p. 1) prompts renewed concern about the pressures on our undergraduate community here, and the ways in which additional advice and help can he provided.

  * * *

  Morse now turned again to the third cutting, taken from the Oxford Times of Friday, June 18, 1993: a shorter article, flanked by a photograph of 'Dr. F. F. Maclure,' a clean-shaven, rather mournful-looking man, pictured in full academic dress.

  * * *

  PASTORAL CARE DEFENDED

  Following the latest in a disturbing sequence of suicides, considerable criticism has been levelled against the University's counselling arrangements. But Dr. Felix McLure, former Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Wolsey College, has expressed his disappointment that so many have rushed into the arena with allegations of indifference and neglect. In fact, according to Dr. MacClure, the University has been instrumental over the past year in promoting several initiatives, including the formation of Oxford University Counselling and Help (OUCH) of which he was a founder-member. 'More should be done,' he told our reporter. 'We all agree on that score. But there should also be some recognition of the University's present concern and commitment.'

  * * *

  'You'll soon know those things off by heart,' ventured a well-pleased Lewis as he stopped in a leafy lane on the eastern side of the London Road and briefly consulted his street-map, before setting off again.

  'It's not that. It's just that I'm a slow reader.'

  'What if you'd been a quick reader, sir? Where would you be now?'

  'Probably been a proof-reader in a newspaper office. They could certainly do with one,' mumbled Morse as he considered 'Maclure' and 'McLure' and 'MacClure' in the last cutting, with still no sign of the genuine article, 'former Senior Lecturer . . .'

  Interesting, that extra little piece of the jigsaw—that 'former' . . .

  Lewis braked gently outside Number 14 Evington Road South; then decided to continue into the drive, where the low-profile tires of the Jaguar crunched into the deep gravel.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Whatever crazy sorrow saith,

  No life that breathes with human breath

  Has ever truly longed for death

  (ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, The Two Voices)

  MRS. MARY RODWAY, a smartly dressed, s
lim-figured, pleasantly featured woman in her late forties, seemed quite willing to talk about herself—at least for a start.

  Four years previously (she told the detectives) her husband, a highly-salaried constructional engineer, had run off with his Personal Assistant. The only contact between herself and her former marriage-partner was now effected via the agency of solicitors and banks. She lived on her own happily enough, she supposed—if anyone could ever live happily again after the death of an only child, especially a child who had died in such dubious circumstances.

  She had seen McClure's murder reported in The Independent; and Morse wasted no time in telling her of the specific reason for his visit: the cuttings discovered among the murdered man's papers which appeared firmly to underline his keen interest in her son, Matthew, and perhaps in the reasons for his suicide.

  'He was quite wrong—the Coroner. You do realise that?' Mary Rodway lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply.

  'You don't believe it was suicide?'

  'I didn't say that. What I do say is that the Coroner was wrong in making such a big thing about those hard drugs. That's what they call them: "hard" as opposed to "soft", It's just the same with pornography, I believe, Inspector.'