by Colin Dexter
'Not getting very far sitting here, Lewis, are we? What's the programme?
'That's what I just asked you.'
'Well, there's this fellow from Bedford, you say?'
'Former undergraduate, sir.'
'Yes, well—is he at home?'
'Dunno. I can soon find out.'
'Do that, then. See him.'
'When—?'
'What's wrong with now? The way you drive you'll be back by teatime.'
'Don't you want to see him?'
Morse hesitated. 'No. There's something much more important for me to do this afternoon.'
'Go to bed, you mean?'
Slowly, resignedly, Morse nodded. 'And try to fix something up with Brooks. Time we paid him a little visit, isn't it?'
'Monday?'
'What's wrong with tomorrow? That'll be exactly a week after he murdered McClure, won't it?'
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead
(BENJAMIN FRANKLIN)
BRENDA BROOKS WAS in a state of considerable agitation when she went through into the kitchen to put the kettle on. But at least she was relieved to he home before him; to have time for a cup of tea; to try to stop shaking. The anguish, the sheer misery of it all, were as strong as ever; with only her growing fear a new element in the tragedy . . .
After the first inevitable bewilderment—after the uncomprehending questions and the incomprehensible answers—her immediate reaction had been to wash the bloodstained clothing—shirt, trousers, cardigan; but instead, she had followed the fierce instructions given from the invalid's bed that the clothes be carted off to the rubbish dump, and that the affair never be referred to again.
Yet there the event stood—whatever had happened, whatever it all meant—forming that terrible and terrifying secret between them, between husband and wife. No longer a proper secret, though, for she had shared that secret . . . those secrets; or would it not be more honest to say that she had betrayed them? Particularly, therefore, did her fear centre on his return now: the fear that when he came in he would only have to look at her—to know. And as she squeezed the tea-bag with the tongs, she could do nothing to stop the constant trembling in her hands.
Automatically almost, between sips of tea, she wiped the tongs clean of any tannin stain and replaced them in the drawer to the right of the sink, in the compartment next to the set of beautifully crafted knives which her sister Beryl had given her for her first wedding—knives of many shapes and sizes, some small and slim, some with much longer and broader blades, which lay there before her in shining and sharpened array.
The phone rang at 2:45 p.m.: the Pitt Rivers Museum.
The phone rang again just before 3 p.m.: Mrs. Stevens.
'Is he home yet?'
'No.'
'Good. Now listen!'
The front door slammed at 3:20 p.m., when, miraculously as it seemed to Brenda, the shaking in her hands had ceased.
Almost invariably, whenever he came in, she would use those same three words: 'That you, Ted?' That afternoon, however, there was a change, subconscious perhaps, yet still significant.
'That you?' she asked in a firm voice. Just the two words now—as if the query had become depersonalised, as if she could be asking the information of anyone; dehumanized, as if she could be speaking to a dog.
As yet, still holding out on the battle-field, was a small fortress. It was likely to collapse very soon, of course; but there was the possibility that it might hold out for some little time, since it had been recently reinforced. And when the door had slammed shut she had been suddenly conscious—yes!—of just a little power.
'That you?' she repeated.
'Who do you think it is?'
'Cup o' tea?'
'You can get me a can o' beer.'
'The museum just rang. The lady wanted to know how you were. Kind of her, wasn't it?'
'Kind? Was it fuck! Only wanted to know when I'd be back, that's all. Must be short-staffed—that's the only reason she rang.'
'You'd have thought people would be glad of a job like that, with all this unemployment—'
'Would be, wouldn't they, if they paid you decent bloody rates?'
'They pay you reasonably well, surely?'
He glared at her viciously. 'How do you know that? You bin lookin' at my things when I was in 'ospital? Christ, you better not 'a bin, woman!'
'I don't know what they pay you. You've never told me.'
'Exackly! So you know fuck-all about it, right? Look at you! You go out for that bloody teacher and what's 'er rates, eh? Bloody slave-labour, that's what you are. Four quid an hour? Less? Christ, if you add up what she gets an hour—all those 'olidays and everything.'
Brenda made no answer, but the flag was still flying on the small fortress. And, oddly enough, he was right. Mrs. Stevens did pay her less than £4 an hour: £10 for three hours—two mornings a week. But Brenda knew why that was, for unlike her husband her employer had told her exactly where she stood on the financial ladder: one rung from the bottom. In fact, Mrs. Stevens had even been talking that lunchtime of having to get rid of her B-registration Volvo, which stood in one of the run-down garages at the end of her road, rented at £15 per calendar month.
As Brenda knew, the protection which that rusting, corrugated shack could afford to any vehicle was minimal; but it did mean that the car had a space—which was more than could be said for the length of the road immediately outside Julia's own front door, where so often some other car or van was parked, with just as much right to do so as she had (so the Council had informed her). It wasn't that the sale of the old Volvo ('£340, madam—no, let's make it £350') would materially boost her current account at Lloyds; but it would mean a huge saving on all those other wretched expenses: insurance, road tax, servicing, repairs, MOT, garaging . . . what, about £800 a year?
'So why keep it?' That's what Julia had asked Brenda.
She would have been more honest if she had told Brenda why she was going to sell it. But that lunchtime, at least, the telling of secrets had been all one-way traffic.
After dropping off the drooping Morse, Lewis returned to Kidlington HQ, where before doing anything else he looked at the copy of the Oxford Mail that had been left on Morse's desk. He was glad they'd managed to get the item in—at the bottom of page 1:
* * *
MURDERED DON
The police are appealing for help in their enquiries into the brutal murder of Dr. Felix McClure, discovered knifed to death in his apartment in Daventry Court, North Oxford, last Sunday.
Det. Sergeant Lewis, of Thames Valley C.I.D, informed our reporter that in spite of an extensive search the murder weapon has not been discovered.
Police are asking residents in Daventry Avenue to help by searching their own properties, since it is believed the murderer may have thrown the knife away as he left the scene.
The knife may be of the sort used in the kitchen for cutting meat, probably with a blade about 2" broad and 5-6" in length. If found it should be left untouched, and the police informed immediately.
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Men will pay large sums to whores
For telling them they are not bores
(W. H. AUDEN, New Year Letter)
LATER THAT AFTERNOON it was to be the B-B-B mute: Biscester-Buckingham-Bedford. Fortunately for Lewis the detached Davies' residence was on the western outskirts of Bedford; and the door of 248 Northampton Road was answered immediately—by Ashley Davies himself.
After only a little skirmishing Davies had come up with his own version of the events which had preceded the showdown between himself and Matthew Rodway . . . and Dr. Felix McClure: an old carcass whose bones Lewis had been commissioned to pick over yet again.
Davies had known Matthew Rodway in their first year together. They'd met in the University Conservative Association (Lewis felt glad that Morse was abed); but apart from such political sympathy, the two
young men had also found themselves fellow members of the East Oxford Martial Arts Club.
'Judo, karate—that sort of thing?' Lewis, himself a former boxer, was interested.
'Not so much the physical side of things—that was part of it, of course. But it's a sort of two-way process, physic and mental; mind and body. Both of us were more interested in the yoga side than anything. You know, "union"—that's what yoga means, isn't it?'
Lewis nodded sagely.
'Then you get into TM, of course.'
'TM, sir?'
'Transcendental Meditation. You know, towards spiritual well-being. You sit and repeat this word to yourself—this "mantra"—and you find yourself feeling good, content . . . happy. Everything was OK, between Matthew and me, until this girl, this woman, joined. I just couldn't take my eyes off her. I just couldn't think of anything else.'
'The TM wasn't working properly?' suggested Lew helpfully.
'Huh! It wasn't even as if she was attractive, really. Well, no. She was attractive, that's the whole point. Not beautiful or good-looking, or anything like that. But, well, she just had to look at you really, just look into your eyes, and your heart started melting away.'
'Sounds a bit of a dangerous woman.'
'You can say that again. I took her out twice—once to the Mitre, once to The Randolph—and she was quite open about things. Said she'd be willing to have sex and so on: fifty quid a time; hundred quid for a night together. No emotional involvement, though—she was very definite about that.'
'You agreed?'
'Well, I couldn't afford that sort of money. Hundred? Plus a B&B somewhere? But I did ask her about coming up to my room one evening—that was just after I'd started sharing with Matthew—when he had to go home for a family funeral. But it was a Tuesday, I remember, and she said she had to be very careful which day of the week it was. She could only do Saturday or perhaps Sunday because she knew somebody on the staircase and she wasn't prepared to take any risks.'
'What risks?'
'I don't know.'
'One of the other students—undergraduates there?'
For the first time the casually dressed, easy-mannered Davies hesitated. 'She didn't say.'
'Who else could it have been?'
Davies shrugged, but made no reply.
'There were two dons on the staircase, I understand—"Students" don't you call them?'
'Only a bloody pedant would call 'em Students these days.'
'I see. And, er, Dr. McClure was one of those dons.'
'You've done your homework.'
'Go on please, sir.'
'Well, I had to go up for a Civil Service Selection thing on November the fifth, Bonfire Night, in Whitehall. Whole weekend of it—Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Anyway, I got so pissed off with all the palaver that I didn't stay for the Sunday session. I caught the ten-something from Paddington back to Oxford on Saturday night and when I got back to the staircase—well, there they were. We had two single beds in the one room, you see; and she was in his bed, and he was in mine. I don't quite know why, but it just made me see red and . . .'
'You'd tried to do the same yourself, though, so you said?'
'I know, yes.'
'You were just jealous, I suppose?
'It was more than that. It's difficult to explain.'
'You mean, perhaps, if she'd been in your bed . . .?'
'I don't know. You'd have to ask Freud. Anyway, I went berserk. I just went for him, that's all. He'd got nothing on—neither of 'em had—and soon we were wrestling and punching each other and knocking everything all over the bloody place, and there must have been one helluva racket because there was this great banging on the door and, well, we quietened down and I opened the door and there—there he was: that stuffed prick McClure. Well, that's about it, really. Matthew'd got a cut on his mouth and one of his eyes was badly bruised; I'd got a gash on my left arm but . . . no great damage, not considering. McClure wanted to know all about it, of course: who the girl was—'
'Who was she?'
'She called herself Ellie—Ellie Smith.'
'Then?'
'Well, they put me in one of the guest rooms in Great Quad, and Ellie went off—I think McClure put her in a taxi—and that was that. The Senior Tutor sent for me next morning, and you know the rest.'
'Why didn't Mr. Rodway get rusticated, too?'
'Well, I'd started it. My fault, wasn't it?'
'Wasn't he disciplined at all?'
'Warned, yes. You get a warning in things like that. Then, if it happens again . . .'
Lewis thought he was beginning to get the picture. 'And perhaps you'd already had a warning yourself, sir?' he asked quietly.
Unblinking, the thickset Davies looked for several seconds into Lewis's eyes before nodding. 'I'd had a fight in a pub in my first year.'
'Much damage done then?'
'He broke his jaw.'
'Don't you mean you broke his jaw, sir?'
It was a pleasant little rejoinder, and perhaps Davies should have smiled. But Lewis saw no humour, only what he thought may have been a hint of cruelty, in the young man's eyes.
'You've got it, Sergeant.'
'Was that over a woman as well?
'Yeah, 'fraid so. There was this other guy and he kept, you know, messing around a bit with this girl of mine.'
'Which pub was that?'
'The Grapes—in George Street. I think this guy thought it was called 'The Gropes.'
'And you hit him.'
'Yeah. I'd told him to fuck off.'
'And he hadn't.'
'Not straightaway, no.'
'But later he wished he had.'
'You could say that.'
'How did it get reported?'
'The landlord called the police. Bit unlucky, really. Wasn't all that much of a fight at all.'
Lewis consulted his notes. 'You wouldn't say you "went berserk" on that occasion?'
'No.'
'Why do you reckon you got so violent with Mr. Rodway, then?'
Davies stared awhile at the carpet, then answered, though without looking up. 'It's simple, really. I was in love with her.'
'And so was Mr. Rodway?'
Davies nodded. 'Yeah.'
'Have you seen her since?'
'A few times.'
'Recently?'
'No.'
'Can you tell me why you didn't go back to Oxford—to finish your degree? You were only rusticated for a term, weren't you?'
'Rest of the Michaelmas and all the Hilary. And by the time I was back, what with Finals and everything . . . I just couldn't face it.'
'How did your parents feel about that?'
'Disappointed, naturally.'
'Have you told them why I'm here today?'
'They're on a cruise in the Aegean.'
'I see.' Lewis stood up and closed his notebook and walked over to the window, enviously admiring the white Porsche that stood in the drive. 'They've left you the car, I see?'
'No, that's mine.'
Lewis turned. 'I thought you—well, you gave me the impression, sir, that fifty pounds might be a bit on the expensive side . . .'
'I came into some money. That's perhaps another reason I didn't go back to Oxford. Rich aunt, bless her! She left me . . . well, more than enough, let's say.'
Lewis asked a final question as the two men stood in the front porch: 'Where were you last Sunday, sir?'
'Last Sunday?'
'Yes. The day Dr. McClure was murdered.'
'Oh dear! You're not going to tell me . . .? What possible reason could I have—'
'I suppose you could say it was because of Dr. McClure that . . .'
'That they kicked me out? Yes.'
'You must have hated him for that.'
'No. You couldn't really hate him. He was just an officious bloody bore, that's all.'
'Did you know that he fell in love with Ellie Smith, too?'
Davies sighed deeply. 'Yes.'
'Last Sunday,
then?' repeated Lewis.
'I went bird-watching.'
'On your own?'
'Yes. I went out—must've been about nine, half-nine? Got back about three.'
'Whereabouts did you go?'
Davies mentioned a few names—woods or lakes, as Lewis assumed.
'Meet anyone you knew?
'No.'
'Pub? Did you call at a pub? Hotel? Snackbar? Shop? Garage?'
'No, don't think so.'
'Must have been quite a lot of other bird-watchers around?'
'No. It's not the best time of year for bird-watching. Too many leaves still on the trees in late summer. Unless you know a bit about flight, song, habitat—well, you're not going to spot much, are you? Do you know anything about bird-watching, Sergeant?'
'No.'
As Lewis left, he noticed the RSPB sticker on the rear window of a car he would have given quite a lot to drive. Perhaps not so much as fifty pounds, though.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell,
But this one thing I know full well:
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell
(THOMAS BROWN, I Do Not Love Thee, Doctor Fell)
STANDING QUITE STILL behind the curtained window of the first-floor front bedroom, she looked down across the drive at the departing policeman. She had a very good idea of what the interview had been about. Of course she had.
She was completely naked except for the dressing-gown (his) draped around a figure which was beginning to wobble dangerously between the voluptuous and the over-blown—the beginnings of a pot-belly quite certainly calling for some fairly regular visits to the Temple Cowley pool in East Oxford, to plough through some thirty or forty lengths a time (for she was an excellent swimmer).
