by Colin Dexter
He was sitting in the bar of the Randolph Hotel with an architect, an older man, who talked of space and light and beauty, who always wore a bowler hat, who studied Greek and Latin verses, and who slept beneath a railway viaduct. They talked together of life and living, and as they talked a girl walked by with a graceful, gliding movement, and ordered her drink at the bar. And the architect nudged his young companion and gently shook his head in wistful admiration.
'My boy, how lovely, is she not? Extraordinarily, quite extraordinarily lovely.'
And Morse, too, had felt her beautiful and necessary, and yet had not a word to say.
Turning in profile as she left the bar the young girl flaunted the tantalizing, tip-tilted outline of her breasts beneath her black sweater, and the faded architect, the lover of the classical poets, the sleeper beneath the viaduct, stood up and addressed her with grave politeness as she passed.
'My dear young lady. Please don't feel offended with me, or indeed with my dear, young friend here, but I wish you to know that we find you very beautiful.'
For a moment a look of incredulous pleasure glazed the painted eyes; and then she laughed — a coarse and common cackle of a laugh.
'Gee, boys, you ought to see me when I'm washed!' And she placed her right hand on the shoulder of the architect, the nails pared down to the quick and the index finger stained dark brown with nicotine. And Morse woke up with a start in the early light of a cold and friendless dawn, as if some ghostly hand had touched him in his sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
(Søren Kierkegaard)
MORSE WAS IN his office by 7.30 a.m.
When he was a child, the zenith of terrestrial bliss had been a long, luxuriating lie in bed. But he was no longer a child, and the fitful bouts of sleep the night before had left him tired and edgy. His thoughts as he sat at his desk were becoming obsessive and his ability to concentrate had temporarily deserted him. The drive to the office had been mildly therapeutic, and at least he had The Times to read. The leaders of the superpowers had agreed to meet at Vladivostok, and the economy continued its downhill slide towards inevitable disaster. But Morse read neither article. He was becoming increasingly less well-informed about the state of the nation and the comings and goings of the mighty. It was a cowardly frame of mind, he knew that, but not entirely reprehensible. Certainly it wasn't very sensible to know too much about some things, and he seemed to be becoming peculiarly susceptible to auto-suggestion. Even a casual reminder that a nervous breakdown was no rarity in our society was enough to convince him that he would likely as not be wheeled off into a psychiatric ward tomorrow, and the last time he had braced himself to read an article on the causes of coronary thrombosis he had discovered that he exhibited every one of the major symptoms and had worked himself into a state of advanced panic. He could never understand why doctors could be anything but hyper-hypochondriacs, and supposed perhaps they were. He turned to the back page of The Times and took out his pen. He hoped it would be a real stinker this morning. But it wasn't. Nine and a half minutes.
He took a pad of paper and began writing, and was still writing when the phone rang an hour later. It was Mrs. Lewis. Her husband was in bed with a soaring temperature. Flu, she thought. He'd been determined to go in to work, but her own wise counsels had prevailed and, much it appeared to her husband's displeasure, she had called the doctor. Morse, all sympathy, praised the good lady's course of action and warned her that the stubborn old so-and-so had better do as she told him. He would try to call round a bit later.
Morse smiled weakly to himself as he looked through the hurriedly written notes. It had all been for Lewis's benefit, and Lewis would have revelled in the routine. Phillipson: ticket office at the Playhouse; check row and number; occupants of seats on either side; check, trace, interview. The same with the Taylors and with Acum. The Ritz, the Jericho Arms and Lonsdale College. Ask people, talk to people, check and re-check, slowly and methodically probe and reconstruct. Yes, how Lewis would have enjoyed it. And, who knows? Something might have come of it. It would be irresponsible to neglect such obvious avenues of inquiry. Morse tore the sheets across the middle and consigned them to the waste-paper basket.
Perhaps he ought to concentrate his attention on the knife. Ah yes, the knife! But what the dickens was he supposed to do with the knife? If Sherlock were around he would doubtless deduce that the murderer was about five feet six inches tall, had tennis elbow and probably enjoyed roast beef every other Sunday. But what was he supposed to say about it? He walked to the cabinet and took it out; and summoning all his powers of logical analysis he stared at it with concentrated intensity, and discovered that into his open and receptive mind came nothing whatsoever. He saw a knife — no more. A household knife; and somewhere in the country, most probably somewhere in the Oxford area, there was a kitchen drawer without its carving knife. That didn't move forward the case one millimetre, did it? And could anyone really be sure whether a knife had been sharpened by a left- or a right-handed carver? Was it worth trying to find out? How fatuous the whole thing was becoming. But how the knife had been carried — now that was a much more interesting problem. Yes. Morse put the knife away. He sat back in the black leather chair, and once again he pondered many things.
The phone rang again at half-past ten, and Morse started abruptly and guiltily in his chair, and looked at the time in disbelief.
It was Mrs. Lewis again. The doctor had called. Pharyngitis. At least three or four days in bed. But could Morse come round? The invalid was anxious to see him.
He certainly looked ill. The unshaven face was pale and the voice little more than a batrachian croak.
'I'm letting you down, chief.'
'Nonsense. You get better that's all. And be a good boy and do as the quack tells you.'
'Not much option with a missus like mine.' He smiled wanly, and supporting himself on one arm reached for his glass of weakly pale orange juice. 'But I'm glad you've come, sir. You see, last night I had this terrible headache, and my eyes went all funny — sort of wiggly lines all the time. I couldn't recognize things very well.'
'You've got to expect summat to go wrong with you if you're ill,' said Morse.
'But I got to thinking about things. You remember the old boy on the Belisha crossing? Well, I didn't mention it at the time but it came back to me last night.'
'Go on,' said Morse quietly.
'It's just that I don't think he could see very well, sir. I reckon that's why he got knocked over and I just wondered if. .'
Lewis looked at the inspector and knew instinctively that he had been right to ask him to come. Morse was nodding slowly and staring abstractedly through the bedroom window and on to the neatly kept strip of garden below, the beds trimmed and weeded, where a few late roses lingered languidly on.
Joe was still in the old people's home at Cowley, and lay in the same bed, half propped up on his pillows, his head lolling to the side, his thin mouth toothless and gaping. The sister who had accompanied Morse along the ward touched him gently.
'I've brought you a visitor.'
Joe blinked himself slowly awake and stared vaguely at them with unseeing eyes.
'It's a policeman, Mr. Godberry. I think they must have caught up with you at last.' The sister turned to Morse and smiled attractively.
Joe grinned and his mouth moved in a senile chuckle. His hand groped feebly along the locker for his spectacle case, and finally he managed to hook an ancient pair of National Health spectacles behind his ears.
'Ah, I remember you, sergeant. Nice to see you again. What can I do fo' you this time?'
Morse stayed with him for fifteen minutes, and realized how very sad it was to grow so old.
'You've been very helpful, Joe, and I'm very grateful to you.'
'Don't forget, sergeant, to put the clock back. It's this month, you know. There's lots o' people forgits to put the clocks back. Hu
h. I remember once. .'
Morse heard him out and finally got away. At the end of the ward he spoke again briefly to the sister.
'He's losing his memory a bit.'
'Most of them do, I'm afraid. Nice old boy, though. Did he tell you to put the clock back?'
Morse nodded. 'Does he tell everybody?'
'A lot of them seem to get a fixation about some little thing like that. Mind you, he's right, isn't he?' She laughed sweetly and Morse noticed she wore no wedding ring. / hope you won't be offended, Sister, if I tell you that I find you very attractive.
But the words wouldn't come, for he wasn't an architect who slept beneath the railway viaduct, and he could never say such things. Just as she couldn't. Morse wondered what she was thinking, and realized he would never know. He took out his wallet and gave her a pound note.
'Put it in the Christmas fund, Sister.'
Her eyes held his for a brief moment and he thought they were gentle and loving; and she thanked him nicely and walked briskly away. Fortunately the Cape of Good Hope was conveniently near.
Clocks! It reminded him. There was a good tale told in Oxford about the putting back of clocks. The church of St. Benedict had a clock which ran by electricity, and for many years the complexities of putting back this clock had exercised the wit and wisdom of clergy and laity alike. The clock adorned the north face of the tower and its large hands were manoeuvred round the square, blue-painted dial by means of an elaborate lever device, situated behind the clock-face and reached via a narrow spiral staircase leading to the tower roof. The problem had been this. No one manipulating the lever immediately behind the clock-face could observe the effects of his manipulations, and so thick were the walls of the church tower that not even with a megaphone could an accomplice, standing outside the church, communicate to the manipulator the aforementioned effects. Each year, therefore, one of the churchwardens had taken upon himself to mount the spiral staircase, to manipulate the lever in roughly the right direction, to descend the staircase, to walk out of the church, to look upwards at the clock, to ascend the staircase once more, to give the lever a few more turns before descending again and repeating the process, undl at last the clock was cajoled into a reluctant synchronization. Such a lengthy and physically daunting procedure had been in operation for several years, until a mild-looking thurifer, rumoured to be one of the best incense-swingers in the business, had with becoming diffidence suggested to the minister that to remove the fuse from the fuse-box and to replace it after exactly sixty minutes might not only prove more accurate but also spare the rather elderly churchwarden the prospect of a coronary thrombosis. This idea, discussed at considerable length and finally accepted by the church committee, had proved wonderfully effective, and was now a firmly established practice.
Someone had told Morse the story in a pub, and he recalled it now. It pleased him. Lewis, but for his illness, would even now be running up and down the spiral staircase looking at his alibis. But that was out — at least for several days. It was up to Morse himself now to take the fuse away and set the clock aright But not just for an hour — for much, much longer than that. In fact for two years, three months and more, to the day when Valerie Taylor had disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
For having considered God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
(Christopher Smart, My Cat Jeffrey)
DETECTIVE CONSTABLE DICKSON soon realized he was on to something and he felt as secretly excited as the poor woman was visibly nervous. It was the sixth house he had visited, a house on the opposite side of the street from Baines's and nearer the main road.
'You know, madam, that Mr. Baines across the way was murdered on Monday night?' Mrs. Thomas nodded quickly. 'Er, did you know Mr. Baines?'
'Yes, I did. He's lived in the street nearly as long as I have.'
'I'm, er. . we're, er, obviously anxious to find any witness who might have seen someone going into Baines's house that night — or coming out, of course.' Dickson left it at that and looked at her hopefully.
In her late sixties now, scraggy-necked and flat-chested, Mrs. Thomas was a widow who measured her own life's joy by the health and happiness of her white cat, which playfully and lovingly gyrated in undulating spirals around her lower leg as she stood on the threshold of her home. And as she stood there she was almost glad that this young police officer had called, for she had seen something; and several times the previous evening and again this Wednesday morning she had decided she ought to report it to someone. It would have been so easy in the first exciting hours when policemen had been everywhere; later, too, when they had come and placed their no-parking signs, like witches' hats, around the front of the house. Yet it was all so hazy in her mind. More than once she wondered if she could have imagined it, and she would die of shame if she were to put the police to any trouble for no cause. It had always been like that for Mrs. Thomas; she had hidden herself unobtrusively away in the corners of life and seldom ventured forth.
But, yes; she had seen something.
Her life was fairly orderly, if nothing else, and each evening of the week, between 9.30 and 10.00 p.m., she put out the two milk bottles and the two Co-op tokens on the front doorstep before bolting the door securely, making herself a cup of cocoa, watching the News at Ten, and going to bed. And on Monday evening she had seen something. If only at the time she had thought it might be important! Unusual, certainly, but only afterwards had she realized exactly how unusual it had been: for never had she seen a woman knocking at Baines's door before. Had the woman gone in? Mrs. Thomas didn't think so, but she vaguely remembered that the light was burning in Baines's front room behind the faded yellow curtains. The truth was that it had all become so very frightening to her. Had the woman she had seen been the one who. .? Had she actually seen the. . murderer? The very thought of it caused her to shiver throughout her narrow frame. Oh God, please not! Such a thing should never be allowed to happen to her — to her of all people. And as the panic rose within her, she again began to wonder if she'd dreamed it after all.
The whole thing was too frightening, especially since there was one thing that she knew might be very important. Very important indeed. 'You'd better come in, officer,' she said.
In the early afternoon she felt far less at ease than she had done with the constable. The man sitting opposite her in the black leather chair was pleasant enough, charming even; but his eyes were keen and hard, and there was a restless energy about his questions.
'Can you describe her, Mrs. Thomas? Anything special about her — anything at all?'
'It was just the coat I noticed — nothing else. I told the constable. .'
'Yes, I know you did; but tell me. Tell me, Mrs. Thomas.'
'Well, that's all really — it was pink, just like I told the constable.'
'You're quite sure about that?'
She swallowed hard. Once more she was assailed by doubts from every quarter. She thought she was sure; she was sure, really, but could she just conceivably be wrong?
'I'm — I'm fairly sure.'
'What sort of pink?'
'Well, sort of. .' The vision was fading rapidly now, had almost gone.
'Come on!' snapped Morse. 'You know what I mean. Fuchsia? Cyclamen? Er, lilac?' He was running out of shades of pink and received no help from Mrs. Thomas. 'Light pink? Dark pink?'
'It was a fairly bright sort of. .'
'Yes?'
It was no good, though; and Morse changed his tack and changed it again and again. Hair, height, dress, shoes, handbag — on and on. He kept it up for more than twenty minutes. But try as she might Mrs. Thomas was now quite incapable of raising any mental image whatsoever of Baines's late-night caller. Suddenly she knew that she was going to burst into tears, and she wanted desperately to go home. And just as suddenly it all changed.
'Tell me about your cat, Mrs. Thomas.'
How he knew she had a cat, she hadn't the faintest idea, but the tension drained away fr
om her like the pus from an abscess lanced by the dentist. She told him happily about her blue-eyed cat.
'You know,' said Morse, 'one of the most significant physical facts about the cat is so obvious that we often tend to forget it. A cat's face is flat between the eyes and so the eyes can work together. Stereoscopic vision they call it. Now, this is very rare among animals. You just think. The majority of animals have. .' He went on for several minutes and Mrs. Thomas was enthralled. But more than that; she was excited. It was all so clear again and she interrupted his discourse on the facial structure of the dog and told him all about it. Cerise pink coat — it might have been a herring-bone pattern, no hat, medium height, brownish hair. About ten minutes to ten. She was pretty certain about the time because. .
