by Colin Dexter
"Washed 'em down with two pints, you mean?"
Morse smiled and wiped his forehead with a ortwh handkerchief.
"You know the difference between us, sir--betveen y and me T'
'Fell me."
"I got married, and so I've got a missus who' alw tried to look after me."
"You're lucky, though. Most people your age are vorced by now."
"You never--never met a woman---you know, the ri woman?"
Morse's eyes seemed focused far away. "Nearly, Nero once."
"Plenty of time."
"Nonsense! You don't start things at my age. ¥u p 'em up. Like the job, Lewis." Morse hesitated. "L%k' I not told anybody yet--well, only Strange. I'm Packing the job next autumn."
Lewis smiled sadly. "Next Michaelmas, isn't it?,, "I could stay on another couple of years after tl but..."
"Won't you miss things?"
"Course I bloody won't. I've been very lucky-at le in that respect. But I don't want to push the luck to fa mean, we might get put on to a case we can't crck.,, "Not this one, I hope?"
"Oh no, Lewis, not this one."
"What's the programme---?"
But Morse interrupted him: "You just asked the if ] miss things and I shan't, no. Only one thing, I Sttlpose shall miss you, old friend, that's all."
He had spoken simply, almost awkwardly, and fqr a lil while Lewis hardly trusted himself to look up. SOhewh behind his eyes he felt a slight prickling; anti son where in his heart, perhaps--he felt a sadness he cot barely comprehend.
"Not getting very far sitting here, Lewis, are we? Wha 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 hira."
"When--T' "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 im portant for me to do this afternoon."
"Go to bed, you mean?"
Slowly, resignedly, Morse nodded. "And try to fix some-thing up with Brooks. Time we paid him a little visit, isn't it T'
"Monday?"
"What's wrong with tomorrow? That'll be exactly a week after he murdered Mc Clure, won't it?"
Chapter Twenty-six
Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead (BEJ^N 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 an-guish, the sheer misery of it ail, were as strong as ever; with only her growing fear a new element in the trag After the fkst inevitable bewilderment---after the uncom-prehending questions and the incomprehensible ansvers--her immediate reaction had been to wash the bloodstained clothing--shirt, trousers, cardigan; but instead, she had fol-lowed the fierce instructions given from the invalid's bed that the clothes be carted off to the rubbish dump, ad that the affair never be referred to again.
Yet there the event stood--whatever had happened, what-ever it all meant--forming that terrible and terrifying secret between them, between husband and wife. No loger 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 cen-tre 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 compamnent ext 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.: 1Vlrs. 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: '°Ilaat 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; dehuman-ized, 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 lit-tle 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 T'
"Kind? Was it fuck! Only wanted to know when I'd be back, that's all. Must be short-staffed--that's the only rea-son 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."
"Exactly! 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 an hour: 10 pounds for three hours--two mornings a week. But Brenda knew why that was, for unlike her husband her employer had told her ex-actly 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 pounds per calendar month.
As Brenda knew, the protection which that rusting, corru-gated 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 fight to do so as she had (so the Council had informed her). It wasn't that the sale of the old Volvo ("340, pounds madam--no, let's make it 350 pounds) would materially boost her current account at Lloyds; but it would mean a huge saving on all those other wretched ex-penses: insurance, road tax, servicing, repairs, MOT, garaging... what, about 800 pounds 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 Mc Clure, discovered knifed to death in his apartment in Daventry Court, North Oxford, last Sunday.
Det. Sergeant Lewis, of Thames Valley C. I. D, in-form
ed 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. AUEtq, New Year Letter)
Later that afternoon it was to be the B-B-B mute: Bisces-ret-Buckingham-Bedford.
Fortunately for Lewis the de-tached
Davies' residence was on the western outskirts of Bedford; and the door of 248 Northampton Road was an-swered 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 Mc Cture: 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 Asso-ciation (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 Mar-tial Arts Club.
"Judo, karate--that sort of thing?" Lewis, himself former boxer, was interested.
"Not so much the physical side of things--that was pa of it, of course. But it's a sort of two-way process, physic and mental; mind and body. Both of us were mom inte ested 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 spiritm well-being. You sit and repeat this word to yourself--th! 'mantra'--and you find yourself feeling good, content.. happy. Everything was OK, between Matthew and me, unt this girl, this woman, joined. I just couldn't take my ey 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, reall Well, no. She was attractive, that's the whole point. N beautiful or good-looking, or anything like that. But, wel she just had to look at you really, just look into your eye and your heart started melting away."
"Sounds a bit of a dangerous woman."
"You can say that again. I took her out twice-once t the Mitre, once to The Randolph--and she was quite ope about things. Said she'd be willing to have sex and so o fifty quid a time; hundred quid for a night together. N emotional involvement, though-she was very defini about that."
"You agreed?"
"Well, I couldn't afford that sort of money. Hundrer Plus a B&B somewhere? But I did ask her about comin up to my room one evening--that was just after I'd starte sharing with Matthew--when he had to go home for a fart ily funeral. But it was a Tuesday, I remember, and she sai she had to be very careful which day of the week it wa She could only do Saturday or perhaps Sunday because sh knew somebody on the staircase and she wasn't prepared t 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 T'
"Only a bloody pedant would call 'em Students these days."
"I see. And, er, Dr. Mc Clure 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 Sun-day 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, 1 went berserk. I just went for him, that's ail. 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 Mc Clure. Well, that's about it, re-ally.
Mattbew'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. Mc Clure wanted to 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 Quad, and Ellie went off--I think Mc Clure put her i 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 t Then, if it happens again..."
Lewis thought he was beginning to get the picture. perhaps you'd already had a warning yourself, sir?" asked quietly.
Unblinking, the thickset Davies looked for several onds into Lewis's eyes before nodding. "I'd had a figh 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 Da' should have smilex L But Lewis saw no humour, only wha thought may have been a hint of cruelty, in the yo 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 k you know, messing around a bit with this girl of mine "Which pub was that?"
"The Grapesin George Street. I think this guy thor 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. "Yon 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 bet."
"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 yon?"
"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?"
'l'hey'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. 'Fhey've left you the car, I see T'
"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 ex-pensive si'de.... "
"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 f'mal question as the two men stood in the front porch: "Where were you last Sunday, sir?"
"Last Sunday?
"Yes. The day Dr. Mc Clure was murdered."
"Oh dear! You're not going to tell me...? What pos-sible reason could I have "
"I suppose you could say it was because of Dr. Mc Clure 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 offi-cious bloody bore, that's all."
"Did you know that he fell in love with Ellie Smith, too T'
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?
"bio."
"Pub? Did you call at a pub? Hotel7 Snackbar? Shop? Garage T"
"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 win-dow of a car he would have given quite a lot to drive. Per-haps 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 (THo Mns BROWN, I Do Not Love Thee, Doctor Fell)
