by Colin Dexter
Yours sincerely,
Felix McClure (Dr.)
Well, well.
'Did you know Dr. McClure?' asked Morse.
'No. And I shan't have a chance of knowing him now, shall I?'
'You heard . . .?'
'I read it in the Oxford Mail. I know all about Mr. Brooks's illness, too: his wife rang through early on Monday morning. But from what they say he's on the mend.'
Morse changed tack once more. 'I know a lot of the exhibits here are invaluable; but . . . but are there things here that are just plain valuable, if you know what I mean? Commercially valuable, saleable . . .'
'My goodness, yes. I wouldn't mind getting my fingers on some of the precious stones and rings here. Or do I mean in some of them?'
But Morse appeared to miss the Administrator's gentle humour.
'Does Mr. Brooks have access to, well, to almost everything here really?'
'Yes, he does. Each of the attendants has a key to the wall-safe where we keep the keys to all the cabinets and drawers and so on.'
'So, if he took a fancy to one of your shrunken heads?'
'No problem. He wouldn't have to use a crow-bar.'
'I see.'
Jane Cotterell smiled, and thereby melted a little more of Morse's heart.
'Do I gather you want me to show you a bit about the security system here?'
'Not really,' protested Morse.
She rose to her feet. 'I'd better show you then.'
Twenty minutes later they returned to her office.
'Thank you,' said Morse. 'Thank you for your patience and your time. You're a very important person, I can see that.'
'Really? How—?'
'Well, you've got a capital "A" for a start; then you've got a wall-to-wall carpet; and for all I know you've not only got a parking space, you've probably got one with your name on it.'
'No name on it, I'm afraid.'
'Still . . .'
'What about you?'
'I've got my name on the door, at least for the present. But I've only got a little carpet, with a great big threadbare patch where my megapodic sergeant stands.'
'Is there such a word—"megapodic"?'
'I'll look it up when I get home. I've just treated myself to the Shorter Oxford.'
'Where is your home?'
'Top of the Banbury Road . . . Anywhere near you?'
'No. That's quite a way from where I live.' For a few seconds her eyes looked down at the carpet—that old carpet of hers, whose virtues had so suddenly, so unexpectedly expanded.
Only semi-reluctantly, a few minutes earlier, had Brenda Brooks been persuaded to hand over the last sheet of her daughter's letter. Its content, as Julia saw things, was very much as before. But, yes, it was a bit self-incriminating; especially that rather fine passage just before the end:
He's undermined everything for me mum, including sex! But the very worst thing he ever did was to make me feel it could all have been my fault. Mum! Mum! He's bloody fucked up my life, and if he ever turns up murdered somewhere you'll know it was me, alright?
Strangely, however, Julia had experienced little sense of shock. A hardening of heart, rather; and a growing conviction that if Brooks were to turn up murdered somewhere his step-daughter would not be figuring alone on any list of possible suspects.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
One night I contrived to stay in the Natural History Museum, hiding myself at closing time in the Fossil Invertebrate Gallery, and spending an enchanted night alone in the museum, wandering from gallery to gallery with a flash-light
(OLIVER SACKS, The Observer, January 9, 1994)
MORSE SPENT A WHILE wandering vaguely around the galleries. On the ground floor he gave as much of his attention as he could muster to the tall, glass show-cases illustrating the evolution of fire-arms, Japanese Noh masks, the history of Looms and Weaving, old musical instruments, shields, pots, models of boats, bull-roarers, North American dress, and a myriad precious and semi-precious stones . . .
Then, feeling like a man who in some great picture gallery has had his fill of fourteenth-century crucifixions, he walked up a flight of stone steps to see what the Upper Gallery had to offer; and duly experienced a similar sense of satiety as he ambled aimlessly along a series of black-wood, glass-topped display-cases, severally containing scores of axes, adzes, tongs, scissors keys, coins, animal-traps, specialised tools . . . Burmese, Siamese, Japanese, Indonesian . . .
In one display-case he counted sixty-four Early Medical Instruments, each item labelled in a neat manuscript, in black ink on a white card, with documentation of provenance and purpose (where known). Among these many items, all laid out flat on biscuit-coloured backing-material (clearly recently renovated), his attention was drawn to a pair of primitive tooth-extractors from Tonga; and not for the first time he thanked the gods that he had been born after the general availability of anaesthetics.
But he had seen quite enough, he thought, wholly unaware, at this point, that he had made one extraordinarily interesting observation. So he decided it was time to leave. Very soon Lewis would be at the front waiting for him. Lewis would be on time. Lewis was always on time.
For the moment, however, he was conscious that there was no one else around in the Upper Gallery. And suddenly the place had grown a little forbidding, a little uncanny; and he felt a quick shiver down his spine as he made his way back into the main University Museum.
But even here it was quieter now, more sombre, beneath the glass-roofed atrium, as if perhaps a cloud had passed across the sun outside. And Morse found himself wondering what it would be like to be in this place, be locked in this place, when everyone else had gone; when the school-children were back on their coaches; when the rest of the public, when the attendants, when the Administrator had all left . . . Then perhaps, in the silent, eerie atmosphere, might not the spirits of the Dodo and the Dinosaur, never suspecting their curious extinction, be calling for their mates again on some primeval shore?
Jane Cotterell sat at her desk for several minutes after the door had closed behind Morse. She shouldn't really have said that about the beer. Silly of her! Why, she could just do with a drink herself, and it would have been nice if he'd asked her out for a lunchtime gin. She felt herself wishing that he'd forgotten something: a folding umbrella or a note-book or something. But as she'd observed, the Inspector had taken no notes at all; and outside, the sun now seemed to be shining gloriously once more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kind of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty
(G. K. CHESTERTON, All Things Considered)
AFTER READING THE (now complete) letter, Julia Stevens re-arranged the pages and read them again; whilst beside her, in a semi-distraught state, sat the original addressee; for whom, strangely enough, one of the most disturbing aspects of the letter was the revelation that her sister Beryl had told her niece the events of that terrible night. Had she (Brenda) made too much of everything when Ted had handled her so roughly? Had it been as much an accident as an incident? But no. No, it hadn't. And whether her account of it had been exaggerated or whether it had been understated—either to her sister over the phone or to her employer in person—certain it was that the recollection of that night in May would remain ever vivid in Brenda's memory . . .
'You're ever so late, Ted. What time is it?'
'Twelve, is it?'
'It's far later than that.'
'If you know what the bloody time is, why the 'ell do you ask me in the first place?
'It's just that I can't get off to sleep when I know you're still out. I feel worried—'
'Christ! You want to worry when I start gettin' in 'alf-past bloody three, woman.'
'Come to bed now, anyway.'
'I bloody shan't—no!'
'Well, go and sleep in the spare room, then—I've got to get some sleep.'
'All the bloody same to me, innit—if I go in there, or if I s
tay in 'ere. Might just as well a' bin in different rooms all the bloody time, you know that. Frigid as a fuckin' ice-box! That's what you are. Always 'ave bin.'
'That's just not fair—that's not fair, what you just said!'
'If the bloody cap fits—'
'It can't go on like this, Ted—it just can't. I can't stick it any more.'
'Well, bloody don't then! Sling your 'ook and go, if you can't stick it! But just stop moanin' at me, d'you hear? Stop fuckin' moanin'! All right?'
She was folding her candlewick dressing-gown round her small figure and edging past him at the foot of the double bed, when be stopped her, grabbing hold of her fiercely by the shoulders and glaring furiously into her face before pushing her back.
'You stay where you are!'
Twice previously he had physically maltreated her in a similar way, but on neither occasion had she suffered physical hurt. That night, though, she had stumbled—had to stumble—against the iron fireplace in the bedroom; and as she'd put out her right hand to cushion the fall, something had happened; something had snapped. Not that it had been too painful. Not then.
As a young girl Brenda had been alongside when her mother had slipped in the snow one February morning and landed on her wrist; broken her wrist. And passers-by had been so concerned, so helpful, that as she'd sat in the Casualty Department at the old Radcliffe Infirmary, she'd told her daughter that it had almost been worthwhile, the accident—to discover such unsuspected kindness.
But that night Ted had just told her to get up; told her not to be such a bloody ninny. And she'd started to weep then—to weep not so much from pain or shock but from the humiliation of being treated in such a way by the man she had married . . .
Julia handed back the letter.
'I think she hates him even more than you do.'
Brenda nodded miserably. 'I must have loved him once though, mustn't I? I suppose he was—well, after Sid died—he was just there really. I suppose I needed something—somebody—and Ted was there, and he made a bit of a fuss of me—and I was lonely. After that . . . but it doesn't matter any more.'
For a while there was a silence between the two women.
'Mrs. Stevens?'
'Yes?'
'What about this other thing? What am I going about it? Please help me! Please!'
It was with anger that Julia had listened to Brenda's earlier confidences; with anger, too, that she had read the letter. The man was an animal—she might have known it; had known it. But the possibility that he was a murderer? Could Brenda have got it all wrong? Ridiculously wrong?
Julia had never really got to know Ted Brooks. In the early days of Brenda working for her, she'd met him a few times—three or four, no more. And once, only once, had she gone round to the Brooks's house, when Brenda had been stricken with some stomach bug; and when, as she had left, Ted Brooks's hand had moved, non-accidentally, against her breasts as he was supposedly helping her on with her mackintosh.
Take your horny hands off me, you lecherous sod, she'd thought then; and she had never seen him since that day. Never would, if she could help it. Yet he was not an ill-looking fellow, she conceded that.
The contents of the letter, therefore, had come as something less of a shock than may have been expected, since she had long known that Brenda had fairly regularly been on the receiving end of her husband's tongue and temper, and had suspected other things, perhaps . . .
But Brooks a murderer?
She looked across with a sort of loving distress at the busy, faithful little lady who had been such a godsend to her; a little lady dressed now in a navy-blue, two-piece suit; an oldish suit certainly, yet beautifully clean, with the pleats in the skirt most meticulously pressed for this special occasion. She felt an overwhelming surge of compassion for her, and she was going to do everything she could to help. Of course she was.
What about 'this other thing,' though? My god, what could she do about that?
'Brenda? Brenda? You know what you said about . . . about the blood? Are you sure? Are you sure?'
'Mrs. Stevens?' Brenda whispered. 'I wasn't going to tell you—I wasn't even going to tell you. But yes, I am sure. And shall I tell you why I'm sure?'
It was twenty-past two when Julia's taxi dropped Brenda—not immediately outside her house, but very close, just beside the Pakistani grocer's shop on the corner.
'Don't forget, Brenda! Make sure you run out of milk again tonight. Just before nine. And don't say or do anything before then. Agreed? Bye.'
On her way home, Julia spotted the Oxford Mail placard outside a newsagent's in the Cowley Road:
* * *
POLICE
HUNT
MURDER
WEAPON
* * *
and she asked the taxi-driver to stop.
Just before 3 p.m., Ted Brooks was lining up the shot, his eyes coolly assessing the angle between the white cue-ball and the last colour. Smoothly his cue drove through the line of his aim, and the black swiftly disappeared into the bottom right-hand pocket.
His opponent, an older man, slapped a pound coin down on the side of the table.
'Not done your snooker much harm, Ted,'
'No. Back at work in a fortnight, so the doc says. With a bit o' luck.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom
(H. L. MENCKEN)
AS MORSE HAD EXPECTED, Lewis was already sitting waiting for him outside the museum.
'How did things go, sir?'
'All right.'
'Learn anything new?'
'Wouldn't go quite so far as that. What about you?'
'Interesting. That woman, well—she's a sort of major-domo Amazonian type, sir. I wouldn't like her as Chief Constable.'
'Give it five years, Lewis.'
'Anyway, it's about Matthew Rodway. In the autumn term—'
'We call it the Michaelmas Term here, Lewis.'
'In the Michaelmas Term, in his third year, when he was back in college again—'
'In the House.'
'In the House again, he was sharing rooms with another fellow—'
'Another undergraduate.'
'Another undergraduate called Ashley Davies. But not for long, it seems. Davies got himself temporarily booted out of college—'
'Rusticated.'
'Rusticated that term. Some sort of personal trouble, she said, but didn't want to go into it. Said we should see Davies for ourselves, really.'
'Like me, then, you didn't learn very much.'
'Ah! Just a minute, sir,' smiled Lewis. 'Mr. Ashley Davies, our undergraduate, in the Michaelmas Term 1993, was rusticated from the House on the say-so of one Dr. Felix McClure, former Student—capital "S", sir—of Wolsey College.'
'The plot thickens.'
'Bad blood, perhaps, sir? Ruined his chances, certainly—Davies was expected to get a First, she'd heard. And he didn't return this year, either. Murky circumstances . . . Drugs, do you think?'
'Or booze,'
'Or love.'
'Well?'
'I've got his address. Living with his parents in Bedford.'
'Did any good thing ever come out of Bedford?'
'John Bunyan, sir?'
'You go and see him, then. I can't do everything myself.'
'What's wrong?' asked Lewis quietly.
'I dunno. My chest's sore. My legs ache. My head's throbbing. I feel sick. I feel sweaty. It's the wrong question, isn't it? You mean, what's right?'
'Have you had your pills?'
'Course I have. Somebody's got to keep fit.'
'When were you last fit, sir?'
Morse pulled the safety-belt across him and fumbled for a few seconds to fix the tongue into the buckle.
'I don't ever remember feeling really fit.'
'I'm sure you'll blast my head off, sir, but—'
'I ought not to drink so much.'
'I wouldn't be surprised if y
ou'd just washed your pills down with a pint.'
'Would you be surprised if you were quite wrong about that?'
'Washed 'em down with two pints, you mean?'
Morse smiled and wiped his forehead with a once white handkerchief.
'You know the difference between us, sir—between you and me?'
'Tell me.'
'I got married, and so I've got a missus who's always tried to look after me.'
'You're lucky, though. Most people your age are divorced by now.'
'You never—never met a woman—you know, the right woman?'
Morse's eyes seemed focused far away. 'Nearly. Nearly, once.'
'Plenty of time.'
'Nonsense! You don't start things at my age. You pack 'em up. Like the job, Lewis.' Morse hesitated. 'Look, I've not told anybody yet—well, only Strange. I'm packing in the job next autumn.'
Lewis smiled sadly. 'Next Michaelmas, isn't it?'
'I could stay on another couple of years after that but . . .'
'Won't you miss things?'
'Course I bloody won't. I've been very lucky—at least in that respect. But I don't want to push the luck too far. I mean, we might get put on to a case we can't crack.'
'Not this one, I hope?'
'Oh no, Lewis, not this one.'
'What's the programme—?'
But Morse interrupted him: 'You just asked me if I'll miss things and I shan't, no. Only one thing, I suppose. I shall miss you, old friend, that's all.'
He had spoken simply, almost awkwardly, and for a little while Lewis hardly trusted himself to look up. Somewhere behind his eyes he felt a slight prickling; and somewhere—in his heart, perhaps—he felt a sadness he could barely comprehend.
