Inspector Morse 11 - The Daughters of Cain

by Colin Dexter

  Often in life it was difficult enough to gird up one's loins and go through with one's commitments. On this occasion, though, it had been far more difficult not to do so . . .

  But at least Ted Brooks had relented somewhat, that previous evening—and she knew why. He'd decided he was feeling a whole lot better. He thought he might venture out—would venture out—into the big wide world again: the big wide world in this case being the East Oxford Conservative Club, well within gentle walking distance, where (he said) he'd be glad to meet the lads again, have a pint—even try a frame of snooker, perhaps. And he'd have a bite to eat in the club there; so she needn't bother 'erself about any more bloody baked beans.

  Brenda had almost been smiling to herself that evening, when on the pretext of getting another pint of milk from the corner-shop she'd given Mrs. S a quick ring from the nearby BT kiosk, just before nine o'clock.

  But what . . . what about those other two things.

  She was a good ten minutes early; and in leisurely, but tremulous, fashion, she crossed the Broad and walked up St. Giles's; past Balliol College; past St. John's College; past the Lamb and Flag; and then, waiting for the traffic lights just before Keble Road, she'd quickly checked (yet again) that the letter was there in her handbag.

  For a few moments this letter almost assumed as much importance as that second thing—the event which had caught her up in such distress, such fear, since the previous Sunday, when her husband had returned home, the stains on the lower front of his shirt and the top of his grey flannel trousers almost adequately concealed by a beige summer cardigan (new from M&S); but only by the back of cardigan, since the front of it was saturated with much blood. And it was only later that she'd noticed the soles of his trainers . . .

  Opposite her, the Green Man flashed, and the bleeper bleeped; and Mrs. Brenda Brooks walked quickly over to the Old Parsonage Hotel, at Number 1, Banbury Road.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When you live next to the cemetery, you cannot weep for everyone

  (Russian proverb)

  THE OLD PARSONAGE HOTEL, dating back to 1660, and situated between Keble College to the east and Somerville College to the west, stands just north of the point where the broad plane-tree'd avenue of St. Giles's forks into the Woodstock Road to the left and the Banbury Road to the right. Completely refurbished a few years since, and now incorporating such splendid twentieth-century features as en suite, centrally heated bedrooms, the stone-built hotel has sought to preserve the intimacy and charm of former times.

  With success, in Julia Stevens' judgement.

  In the judgement, too, of Brenda Brooks, as she set herself in a wall-settee, in front of a small, highly polished mahogany table in the Parsonage Bar, lushly carpeted in avocado green with a tiny pink-and-peach motif.

  'Lordy me!' Brenda managed to say in her soft Oxfordshire burr, gently shaking her tightly curled grey hair.

  Whether, etymologically speaking, such an expression of obvious approval was a conflation of 'Lord' and 'Lumme,' Julia could not know. But she was gratified with the reaction, and watched as Brenda's eyes surveyed the walls around her, the lower half painted in gentle gardenia; the upper half in pale magnolia, almost totally covered with paintings, prints, cartoons.

  'Lordy me!' repeated Brenda in a hushed voice, her vocabulary clearly inadequate to elaborate upon her earlier expression of delight.

  'What would you like to drink?'

  'Oh, coffee, please—that'll be fine.'

  'No it won't. I insist on something stronger than coffee. Please!'

  Minutes later, as they sipped their gins and slimline tonics, they read through the menu: Julia with the conviction that this was an imaginative selection of goodies; Brenda with more than a little puzzlement, since many of the imported words therein—Bagel, Couscous, Hummus, Linguini, Mozzarella—had never figured in her own cuisine. Indeed, the sight of such exotic fare might well, a decade or so back, have prompted within her a stab of some sympathy with a husband constantly complaining about baked beans, about sardines, about spaghetti . . .

  In the past, yes.

  But no longer.

  'What's it to be, then?'

  Brenda shook her head. 'I'm sorry, but I just can't eat anything. I'm all—I'm all full up, Mrs. Stevens, if you know what I mean.'

  Julia was too sensible to argue; and in any case she understood only too well, for she'd experienced exactly the same the day before when she'd sat on a bar-stool there, alone, feeling . . . well, feeling 'all full up,' as Brenda had so economically phrased it.

  Half an hour later, as she was finishing her Poached Salmon with Lemon Butter, Salad, and New Potatoes, Julia Stevens had been put in the (latest) picture about Ted Brooks. She'd known all about the verbal abuse which led to a broken heart; and now she learned of the physical abuse which had led to a broken hand.

  'I'm so wicked—did you know that? You know why? I wished' (she whispered closely in Julia's ear) 'I wished him dead! Can you believe that?'

  Most people in your position would have murdered him, you dear old thing, said Julia, but only to herself. And suddenly the realization that such a viciously cruel man should have ruined the life of such a sweet and lovable woman made her so very angry. Yet, at the same time, so much in control.

  Was it perhaps that the simultaneous keeping of her secret with the hearing of another's was an unsuspected source of strength? But Julia had no opportunity of pursuing this interesting line of thought, for Brenda now opened her handbag and passed over the letter she'd received the previous Tuesday—not through the post, but pushed by hand through her letter-box.

  'Just read it, please! No need to say anything.'

  As Julia put on her school-ma'amish spectacles, she was aware that the woman seated beside her was now in tears.

  The silent weeping had subsided into intermittent snuffling as Julia finished reading the agonised and agonising pages.

  'My God,' she whispered.

  'But that's not all. There's something else—something even worse. I shall just have to tell somebody, Mrs. Stevens—if you can bear it.'

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Hate is the consequence of fear, we fear something before we hate it. A child who fears becomes an adult who hates

  (CYRIL CONNOLLY, The Unquiet Grave)

  Dear mum—dearest mum!

  Its been a long time hasn't it and I didn't really want to write but I can't talk about it, I just can't. I was never much good with words but I'm going to try. Its about why I left home and how I couldn't really ever tell you about it. I'm writing now because my friend at the hospital told me about him and she said he's a lot better and going home soon—and all I want you to do is let him get very much worse again and don't look after him—just let him die that's what I want because he bloody deserves it! You thought I left because I hated school and dreamt of boys and sex and got mixed up with drugs and all the punk scene and all that, and you were right in a way because I did. But you got upset about the wrong things, that's what I'm saying. Why did I leave you mum—tell me that. You can't think it was much fun for me with sod all to pay for anything and nowhere to bloody go, I'd just got one thing going for me and that was what you and dear old dad gave me, a good pair of thighs and a good pair of tits all the randy buggers wanted to get their hands on and believe me they paid good money for it. All I'm saying mum is I never really had to slum it after those first few weeks in London anyway. I never had the guts to tell you why but I've got to tell you now so here goes. Don't get too upset about it all, well not about me anyway, just about that horny bastard you married thirteen years ago.

  I was thirteen when it started and we had the flu together him and me and so you remember we were both in bed when you went off cleaning one Thursday morning, you see I even remember the day of the week, and he came into my bedroom about eleven and brought me a cup of bovril and he said how nice looking I was getting and what a nice little figure I was getting and all that bullshit and how proud he was to
have a daughter like me, well a step-daughter. Then he put his arm around me and started robbing my neck and back a bit through my pyjamas and told me to relax because that would do me good and soon I was lying down again with my back to him, and then I'm not sure how it happened but he was lying down and I could feel his hand inside my pyjama top and he was feeling me, and I didn't know what to do because for a start I just thought he was being affectionate and I didn't want to upset him because we'd both be embarrassed if I tried to push him away. Please mum try to understand! Perhaps its difficult to know where the line comes between affection and sex but I knew because I felt something hard against me and I knew what it was. I just felt scared then like that first day in school when I was in a room I shouldn't have been in and when I just got kept in for what wasn't my fault at all, but I thought it was my fault. Oh mum I'm not explaining things very well. And then he grabbed my hand and pulled it back behind him and pushed it inside his pyjamas and told me to rub him, and I just didn't know what I was doing. It was the first time I'd ever felt a man like that and he was sort of silky and warm and I felt afraid and fascinated at the same time. All I know is I'd done what he wanted before I had the chance of thinking about what I was doing and suddenly there was all that sticky stuff all over my pyjama bottoms, and you won't remember but when you came home I told you I'd put them in the washing machine because I'd been sweating. Afterwards he kept on saying that it was me who'd agreed to do it, me who'd started it all not him. Mum! He was a wicked liar, but even if it was just one percent me you've got to forgive me. He made the most of everything, my God he did. He said if I told you about what he'd done he'd tell you about what I done, and I got scared stiff you'd find out, and it was like blackmail all the time those next three awful years when he made me do everything he wanted. You could never believe how I loathed him, even the sight of him, I hated him more than I've ever hated anybody since. Well that's it mum, I wonder what your thinking. He's a shit and I never never never want to see him again unless its to stick a bloody great big knife in his great fat gut and watch him squirm and hear him squeal like the great fat pig he is. And if you want any help with sticking the fucking pig you just let me know because I'll only be too glad to help. There's only one other thing to tell you and perhaps its why I've written to you now. I've always kept in touch with Auntie Beryl, its been a secret but she's always let me know how you are and she wrote a fortnight ago and told me how he's been treating you mum—you must have let her know. Your mad to stick it, your a matyr that's what you are. I've just read through all this and I know one thing I said you can do but you can't—not yet—and that's get in touch with me, but its better that way though don't be surprised if you see me. Not just yet though, its been such a long long time and I can't quite face it, not yet. I love you mum, I shall always love you better than anybody. One last thing and its odd really but I read in the Oxford—

  Julia turned over the page but that was the finish: the last part of the letter was missing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  We all wish to be of importance in one way or another

  (RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Journals)

  LEWIS, ON HIS WAY for an appointment with the House Matron of Wolsey, had dropped Morse in the Broad, where the Chief Inspector had swilled down a double dosage of penicillin pills with a pint of Hook Norton in the White Horse, before making his way to the Pitt Rivers Museum of Ethnology and Pre-History—for his own appointment.

  Sooner or later, inevitably, a golden afternoon will captivate the visitor to Oxford; and as he walked leisurely up Parks Road, past the front of Wadham on his right, past the blue wrought-iron gates at the back of Trinity on his left, Morse felt deeply grateful that he had been privileged to spend so much of his lifetime there.

  And one of those captivated visitors might have noticed a smile of quiet satisfaction around Morse's lips that early afternoon as he turned right, just opposite Keble, into the grounds of the Oxford University Museum—that monument to the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival, and the home of the Dodo and the Dinosaur. Some clouds there were in the pale blue sky that September day: some white, some grey; but not many.

  No, not many, Morse.

  Oddly, he'd enjoyed the short walk, although he believed that the delights of walking were often ludicrously exaggerated. Solvitur ambulando, though, as the Romans used to say; and even if the 'ambulando' was meant to be a figurative rather than a physical bit of 'walking'—well, so much the better. Not that there was anything intrinsically wrong with the occasional bit of physical walking; after all, Housman had composed some of his loveliest lyrics while walking around the Backs at Cambridge, after a couple of lunchtime beers.

  Solvitur ambulando, yes.

  Walk along then, Morse, since perhaps you are now walking towards the solution.

  On the stone steps leading up to the entrance porch, he read the notice:

  THIS MUSEUM IS OPEN

  TO THE PUBLIC

  12 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Mon–Sat.

  It was already past noon, and on the grass a large party of visiting schoolchildren were unharnessing ruck-sacks and extracting packed lunches as Morse walked hurriedly by. It wasn't that he positively disliked schoolchildren; just that he didn't want to meet any of them.

  Inside the glass-roofed, galleried building, Morse continued on his course, quickly past a huge reconstruction of a dinosaur ('Bipedal, but capable of quadripedal locomotion'); quickly past some assembled skeletons of African and Asian elephants. Nor was he long (if at all) detained by the tall show-cases displaying their specimens of the birds and insects of Australasia. Finally, after making his way between a statue of the Prince Consort and a well-stuffed ostrich, Morse emerged from the University Museum into the Pitt Rivers Museum; where he turned right, and knocked on the door of the Administrator.

  Capital 'A.'

  'Coffee?' she invited.

  'No thanks. I've just had some.'

  'Some beer, you mean.'

  'Is it that obvious?'

  'Yes.'

  She was a tall, slim woman in her mid-forties, with prematurely white hair, and an attractively diffident smile about her lips.

  'Some women,' began Morse, 'have an extraordinarily well-developed sense of smell—' But then he stopped. For a second or two he'd anticipated a little mild flirtation with Jane Cotterell. Clearly it was not to be, though, for he felt her clear, intelligent eyes upon him, and the tone of he voice was unambiguously no-nonsense:

  'How can I help you?'

  For the next ten minutes she answered his questions.

  Brooks had joined the eight-strong team of attendants the Pitt Rivers Museum—quite separate from the University Museum—almost exactly a year ago. He worked a fairly regular thirty-five-hour week, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with an hour off for lunch. The attendants had the job of cleaning and maintaining the premises; of keeping a watchful eye on all visitors, in particular on the many school-parties regularly arriving by coach from near and far; sometimes of performing specific tasks, like manning the museum shop; of being helpful and courteous to the public at all times—'more friendly than fierce'; and above all, of course, of safeguarding the unrivalled collection of anthropologic and ethnographic items housed in the museum . . .

  'A unique museum, Inspector.'

  'Do you ever get anybody trying to steal things?'

  'Very rarely. Last summer we had someone trying to get into the case with the shrunken heads in it, but—'

  'Hope you caught him.'

  'Her, actually.'

  'I'd rather rob a bank, myself.'

  'I'd rather not rob at all.'

  Morse was losing out, he realised that; and reverted his questioning about Brooks.

  The man was, in the Administrator's view, competent in his job, not frightened of work, punctual, reasonably pleasant with the public; private sort of person, though, something of a loner. There were certainly some of his colleagues with slightly more endearing qualities.

  'If you'd kno
wn what you know now, would you have appointed him?'

  'No.'

  'Mind if I smoke?' asked Morse.

  'I'd rather you didn't.'

  'Did he smoke?'

  'Not in the museum. No one smokes in the museum.'

  'In the Common Room, or whatever you have?'

  'I don't know.'

  'You don't associate him with drugs at all?'

  She glanced at him keenly before replying. 'There are no drugs here—not on my staff.'

  'You'd know—if there were?

  'As you say, some women have a particularly well-developed sense of smell, Inspector.'

  Morse let it go. 'Have you still got his references?'

  The Administrator unlocked a filing-cabinet beside her and produced a green folder marked 'BROOKS, E'; and Morse looked through the half-dozen sheets it contained: Brooks's CV; a carbon of the letter appointing him wef September 1, 1993; a photocopied page giving details of Salary, National Insurance, Job Specification, Shift-Patterns; two open, blandly worded testimonials; and one hand-written reference, equally bland.

  Morse read this last item a second time, slowly.

  To the Administrator, Pitt Rivers Museum

  Dear Madam,

  I understand that Mr. Edward Brooks has applied to you for the post (as advertized in the University Gazette, June '93) of Assistant Attendant at the Museum.

  Brooks has worked as a scout at Wolsey College for almost ten years and I recommend to you his experience and diligence.