by Colin Dexter
"It's not quite so easy as that, Doctor. My husband's been in hospital for a few days. He's had a bit of a heart attack and he's only just home this morning, so..."
"We can put you in touch with a home-help."
"I can do a little bit of housework, can't I?"
"Not if you're sensible. Can't you get a cleaning-lady in for a couple of days a week?"
"I am a cleaning-lady," she replied, at last feeling that she'd rediscovered her bearings; reestablished her identity in life.
She'd hurried home that morning, inserting and turning the Yale key with her left hand, since it was becoming too painful to perform such an operation with her fight.
"I'm back, Ted!"
Walking straight through into the living-room, she found her husband, fully dressed, lounging in front of the TV, his fingers on the black control-panel.
"Christ! Where the 'ell a' you bin, woman?"
Brenda bit her lip. "There was an emergency--just be-fore my turn. It held everything up."
"I thought you were the bloody emergency from all the fuss you've bin making."
"Baked beans all right for lunch?"
"Baked beans?"
"I've got something nice in for tea."
A few minutes later she took a tin of baked beans from a pantry shelf; and holding it in her right hand beneath a tin-opener fixed beside the kitchen door, she slowly turned the handle with her left. Slowly--yes, very slowly, like the worm that was finally tuming...
And why?
If ever Brenda Brooks could be gin to contemplate the murder of her husband, she would surely acknowledge as her primary, her abiding motive, the ways in which men tally and verbally he had so cruelly abused her for so long.
But no!
Belittlement had been her regular lot in life; and on that score he was, in reality, robbing her at most of a dignity that she had never known.
Would the underlying motive then be found in the knowledge of her husband's sexual abuse of an adolescent and increasingly attractive step-daughter?
Perhaps.
But it was all so much simpler than that. One thing there had been in her life---just the one thing--in which she could rejoice, in which until so very recently she had re-joiced: the skills she had acquired with her hands. And Edward Brooks had robbed her of them; had robbed her even of the little that she had, which was her all.
And for that she cou M never forgive him.
Brenda decided she needn't replay all that last bit to Mrs. Stevens; but she did need to explain what had gone wrong the day before. Not that there was much to say, really. What was it he'd said when she'd told him she'd been invited out to lunch with Mrs. S?
"Well if you think you're going to leave me this lunch-time, you bloody ain't, see? Not while I'm feeling groggy like this."
Why had she ever married the man?
She'd known it was a mistake even before that ghastly wedding--as she'd prayed for God to boom down some unanswerable objection from the hammer-beam roof when the vicar had invited any just cause or impediment. But the Voice had been silent; and the invited guests were seated quietly on each side of the nave; and the son of Brenda's only sister (a sub-postmistress in Inverness), a spotty but mellifluous young soprano, was all rehearsed to render the "Pie Jesu" from the Faur Requiem.
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 Conserv-ative 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 comer-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 things7 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 sum cardigan (new from M&S); but only by the back of cardigan, since the front of it was saturated with m blood. And it was only later that she'd noticed the sole his trainers....
Opposite her, the Green Man flashed, and the ble bleeped; and Mrs. Brenda Brooks walked quickly ove J the Old Parsonage Hotel, at Number 1, Banbury Road, Chapter Twenty When you live next to the. cemetery, you cannot weep everyone (Russian proverb'.
The Old Parsonage Hotel, dating back to 1660, and sitm between Keble College to the east and Somerville Coll to the west, stands just north of the point where the bt plane4ree'd avenue of St. Giles's forks into the Woodst Road to the left and the Banbury Road to the right. C, pletely refurbished a few years since, and now incorp ting such splendid twentieth-century features as en st centrally heated bedrooms, the stone-built hotel has so to preserve the intimacy and charm of former times. With success, in Julia Stevens's judgement.
In the judgement, too, of Brenda Brooks, as she set herself in a wall-settee, in front of a small, highly polis mahogany table in the Parsonage Bar, lushly carpeter avocado green with a tiny pink-and-peach motif.
"Lordy me!" Brenda managed to say in her soft Oxford-shire burr, gently shaking her tightly curled grey hair.
Whether, etymologically speaking, such an expression of obvious approval was a confiation 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 vo-cabulary clearly inadequate to elaborate upon her earlier ex-pression 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 ton-ics, 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 im-ported words therein---Bagel, Couscous, Hummus, Lin-guini, 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 sym-pathy 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 un-derstood 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 ail about the verbai abuse which led to a broken heart; and now she learned of the phys abuse which had l
ed to a broken hand.
"i'm so wicked--did you know that? You know wh, wished" (she whispered closely in Julia's ear) "I wis him dead! Can you believe that7"
Most people in your position would have murdered you dear old thing, said Julia, but only to herself. And denly the raiization that such a viciously cruel man sh have mined the life of such a sweet and lovable wo 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 anotherwas an unsuspec source of strength? But Julia had no opportunity of pm ing this interesting line of thought, for Brenda now ope her handbag and passed over the ltter she'd received previous Tuesday--not through the post, but pushed hand through her letter-box.
"Just read it, please! No need to say anything."
As Julia put on her school-rna'amish spectacles, she, aware that the woman seated beside ber was now in te The silent weeping had subsided into intermittent snuff as Julia finished reading the agonised and agonising pa "My God," she whispered.
"But that's not ail. There's something else--someth even worse. I shall just have to tell somebody, i V 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! 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 ail 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 n-' him. Mum! He was a wicked liar, but even if it was just one per cent 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 t was like blackmail ail 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 munv--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 shail 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 Ma-tron of Wolsey, had dropped Morse in the Broad, where the Chief Inspector had swilled down a double dosage of pen-icillin pills with a pint of Hook Norton in the White Horse, before making his way to the Pitt Rivers Museum of Eth-nology and Pre-History--for his own appointment.
Sooner or later, inevitably, a golden afternoon will capti-vate 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 oien ludicrously exagger-ated. Solvitur ambulando, though, as the Romans used t> say; and even if the "ambulando' was meant to be a figur-. ative 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 hacl 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 re
ad the notice: THIS MUSEUM IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC 12 ^.M.'4:30 P.M. Mon-Sat.
It was already past noon, and on the grass a large party of visiting schoolchildren were unhamessing rock-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 contin-ued 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 be-tween a statue of the Prince Consort and a well-stuffed os-trich, 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?"
'sas a tall, slim woman in her mid-foie?,, with p ilmaturely white hair, and an attractively diffiaent sm /ab, o, ut her lips.,,,, Some women, began Morse,; have an extraordinaril l: Welldeveloped sense of smell--But then he stopped. F( ' ond or two he'd anticipated a little mild flirtation wil T' an Seffe Cotterell. Clearly it was not to be, though, for he fe! her clear, intelligent eyes upon hm, 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 Universit Museum--almost exactly a year ago. He worked a fairl regular thirty-five-hour week, 8:30 ^.M. to 4:30 i,.., wi an hour off for lunch. The attendants had the job of clean ing and maintaining the premises; of keeping a watchf[ eye on all visitors, in particular on the many school-pattie regularly arriving by coach from near and far; sometimes c 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, c safeguarding the unrivalled collection of anthropologic and ethnographic items housed in the museum....
