by Colin Dexter
He stood up, and she walked over to him.
‘Chief Inspector Morse?’ Her face betrayed no emotion whatsoever: no signs of nervousness, embarrassment, co-operation, affability, humour – nothing.
‘Let me get you a drink,’ said Morse.
She took off her raincoat, and as Morse waited his turn again at the crowded bar he watched her from the corner of his eye: five foot five or six, or thereabouts, wearing a roll-necked turquoise-blue woollen dress which gently emphasized the rounded contours of her bottom but hardly did the rest of her figure much justice, perhaps. When he set the glass of red wine in front of her, she had crossed her nyloned legs, her slim-style high-heeled shoes accentuating the slightly excessive muscularity of her calves; and across the back of her right ankle Morse noticed a piece of Elastoplast, as though her expensive shoes probably combined the ultimate in elegance with a sorry degree of discomfiture.
‘I tried to run a half-marathon – for charity,’ she said, following his eyes, and his thoughts.
‘For the Police Welfare Fund, I trust!’ said Morse lightly.
Her eyes were on the brink of the faintest smile, and Morse looked closely at her face. It was undeniably an attractive face, framed by a head of luxuriant dark-brown hair glinting overall with hints of auburn; but it was the eyes above the high cheekbones – eyes of a deep brown – that were undoubtedly the woman’s most striking feature. When she had spoken (with a slight Cockney accent) she had shown rather small regular teeth behind a mouth coated with only the thinnest smear of dark-red lipstick, and a great many men (Morse knew it) would find her a very attractive woman; and more than a few would find her necessary, too.
She had quite a lot to tell, but it took no great time to tell it. She was (she admitted) a high-class call-girl, who regularly encountered her clients in the cocktail bars of the expensive hotels along Park Lane and Mayfair. Occasionally, especially in recent years with wealthy Arabian gentlemen, she would dispense her favours on the site, as it were, in the luxury apartments and penthouse suites on the higher floors of the hotels themselves. But with the majority, the more usual routine was a trip back to Chiswick in a taxi, where her own discreet flat, on the eighth (and top) floor of a private, modern block, was ideal, served as it was by a very superior lift, and where no children, pets or hawkers (in that order) were allowed. This flat she shared with a happy-souled, feckless, mightily bosomed, blonde dancer who performed in the Striporama Revue Club off Great Windmill Street; but the two of them had agreed from the start that no men visitors should ever be invited to stay overnight, and the agreement had as yet remained unbreached. So that was her CV – not much else to say, really. ‘Mr Palmer’, a stockbroker from Gerrards Cross, she had met several times previously; and when the prospect cropped up of a New Year conference in Oxford – well, that’s how this business had all started. They needed an address for correspondence, and she, Philippa, had written and booked the room from her Chiswick flat – perfectly above board. (An address was needed, she insisted; and Morse refrained from arguing the dubious point.) She herself had completed the documentation for both of them at lunchtime on the 31st, though not filling in the registration number of the Porsche which they had left in the British Rail car park. He’d had a good time, her client – she was quite sure of that until . . . And then, of course, there was every chance of him being found out – ‘Just like being caught by the police in a raid on a Soho sex-joint!’ – and he’d asked her to settle up immediately in cash, and then he’d got the pair of them out of there in double quick time, taking her with him to the station in a taxi and leaving her on the platform. From what he’d told her, he was going to book in at the Moat Hotel (at the top of the Woodstock Road) for the rest of the conference, and keep as big a distance as he possibly could between himself and the ill-fated annexe at the Haworth. Did the inspector really have to have his name? And in any case she hadn’t the faintest idea of his address in Gerrards Cross. Quite certainly, in her view, he could have had nothing whatsoever to do with the killing of Ballard, because when she’d gone back to her room after the party she’d actually walked across to the annexe with Ballard, and then gone immediately into her own room with her, well, her sleeping companion, and she could vouch for the fact that he hadn’t left the room that night – or left the bed for that matter! Assuredly not!
Morse nodded, a little enviously, perhaps. ‘He was a pretty rich man, then?’
‘Rich enough.’
‘But not rich enough to afford a room in the main hotel?’
‘There weren’t any rooms left. We had to take what was going.’
‘I know, yes. I’m glad you’re telling me the truth, Miss Palmer. I’ve seen your correspondence with the hotel.’
For a few seconds her dark eyes held his – eyes that seemed momentarily to have grown hard and calculating – and she continued in a somewhat casual tone: ‘He gave me the cash – in £20 notes. He was happy for me to make all the arrangements.’
‘You made a bit on the side, then?’
‘Christ!’ It seemed as if she were about to explode at such a banal accusation, and her eyes flashed darkly with anger. ‘You think that I have to rely on fiddling a few quid like that to make a living?’
But Morse couldn’t answer. He was furious with himself for his stupid, naïve, condescending question; and he was relieved when she agreed to a second glass of red wine.
The Happy Hour was over.
The New Year party itself? It had been good fun, really – and the food had been surprisingly good. She herself had dressed up – maybe the inspector preferred ‘dressed down’? – as a Turkish belly-dancer; with her companion, to her surprise, entering into the party spirit with considerable zest and ingenuity, and fashioning for himself from the rag-bag provided by the hotel an outfit not unworthy of an Arabian sheik. Quite a success, too! Not half as good as Ballard’s, of course; but then some people took these things too seriously, as he had done – coming along all prepared with the necessary gear and grease and everything. As far as Philippa could remember, the Ballards had come in a few minutes later than all the rest; but she wasn’t really very clear about the point, or about a lot of other things that went on during that evening. There had been eating and drinking and dancing and no doubt a little bit of semi-licit smooching (yes! on her part, too – just a little) in the candle-lit ballroom, and perhaps later on still a bit of . . . Philippa appeared to have difficulty in finding the right words for what Morse took to be some incidence of sub mensa gropings. Ballard, she thought, hadn’t really come to life until after the judging of the fancy dress, spending much of the earlier part of the evening looking into the eyes (about the only feature he could look into!) of his yashmak’d wife – or whatever was another word for ‘wife’. For it had seemed pretty clear to Philippa that she was not the only one involved that evening in extra-conjugal infidelity.
Anything else? She didn’t think so. She’d already mentioned that Ballard had walked back to the annexe with her? Yes, of course she had. One arm round her, and one arm round Helen Smith: yes, she remembered Helen Smith; and liked her. Liked her husband, John, too, if he was her – augh! What was the point? She didn’t know what their relationship was, and she wasn’t in the slightest degree concerned! The next day? New Year’s Day? She’d had a terrible head – which only served her right; had nothing but coffee at breakfast; had missed the Treasure Hunt; had spent the hour prelunch in bed; had enjoyed the roast beef; had spent the hour post-lunch in bed; and had only begun to take any interest in hotel activities during the late afternoon when she’d played ping-pong with one of the young lads. Oddly enough, she had been looking forward a good deal to going to the pantomime until . . . No, she hadn’t seen anything at all of Mrs Ballard all that day, not so far as she could remember; and, of course, quite certainly nothing of Mr Ballard, either . . .
Morse got another drink for each of them, conscious that he was beginning to make up questions just for the sake of things. But
why not? She couldn’t tell him anything of importance, he was almost sure of that; but she was a lovely girl to be with – he was absolutely sure of that! They were sitting close together now, and gently she moved her left leg against the roughish tweed of his trousers. And, just as gently, he responded, saying nothing and yet saying everything.
‘Would you like to treat me to a night in the Great Western Hotel?’ She asked the question confidently; and yet there had been (had Morse but known it) a vibrancy and gentleness in her voice that had seldom been heard by any other man. Morse semi-shook his head, but she knew from the slow, sad smile that played about his lips that such an immediate reaction was more the mark of sad bewilderment than of considered refusal.
‘I don’t snore!’ said Philippa softly against his ear.
‘I don’t know whether I do or not,’ replied Morse. He was suddenly desperately aware that the time for a decision had come; but he was conscious, too, of the need (he had drunk four pints of beer already) to relieve himself, and he left her for a while.
On his return from the ground-floor Gents’, he walked over to Reception and asked the girl there whether there was a room available for the night.
‘Just for yourself, is it, sir?’
‘Er, no. A double room – for myself and my wife.’
‘Just a second . . . No, I’m awfully sorry, sir, we’ve no rooms left at all this evening. But we may get a cancellation – we often get one or two about this time. Will you be in the hotel for a while, sir?’
‘Yes – just for a while. I’ll be in the bar.’
‘Well, I’ll let you know if I hear of anything. Your name, sir?’
‘Er, Palmer. Mr Palmer.’
‘All right, Mr Palmer.’
It was ten minutes later that the Muzak was switched off and a pleasantly clear female voice made the announcement to everyone in the Great Western Hotel, in the lounge, in the restaurant, and in the bar: ‘Would Chief Inspector Morse please come to Reception immediately. Chief Inspector Morse, to Reception, please.’
He helped her on with her mackintosh, an off-white expensive creation that would have made almost any woman look adequately glamorous; and he watched her as she pulled the belt tight and evened out the folds around her slim waist.
‘Been nice meeting you, Inspector.’
Morse nodded. ‘We shall probably need some sort of statement.’
‘I’d rather not – if you can arrange it.’
‘I’ll see.’
As she turned to leave, Morse noticed the grubby brown stain on the left shoulder of her otherwise immaculate raincoat: ‘Were you wearing that when you left the party?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ She squinted down at the offending mark. ‘You can’t walk around semi-nude in the snow, can you?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Pity, though. Cost a fiver at least to get it cleaned, that will. You’d ’a’thought, wouldn’t you, if you dress up as a wog you might keep your ’ands off . . .’
The voice had slipped, and the mask had slipped; and Morse felt a saddened man. She could have been a lovely girl, but somehow, somewhere, she was flawed. A man had been savagely murdered – a man (who knows? with maybe just a little gentleness in his heart) who after a party one night had put his left hand, sweatily stained with dark-brown stage make-up, on to a woman’s shoulder; and she was angry because it would possibly cost a few pounds to get rid of a stain that might detract from her appearance. They said farewell, and Morse sought to hide his two-fold disappointment behind the mask that he, too, invariably wore for most occasions before his fellow men. Perhaps – the thought suddenly struck him – it was the masks that were the reality, and the faces beneath them that were the pretence. So many of the people in the Haworth that fatal evening had been wearing some sort of disguise – a change of dress, a change of make-up, a change of attitude, a change of partner, a change of life almost; and the man who had died had been the most consummate artist of them all.
After she had left, Morse walked back through the lounge to Reception (it must be Lewis who had rung for him – Lewis was the only person who had any idea where he was) and prayed that it would be a different young girl on duty. But it wasn’t. Furthermore she was a girl who obviously possessed a fairly retentive memory.
‘I’m afraid we haven’t had any cancellations yet, Mr Palmer.’
‘Oh, Christ!’ muttered Morse under his breath.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thursday, January 2nd: p.m.
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.
(DOROTHY PARKER)
MR JOHN SMITH returned home that evening, unexpectedly early, to find his wife Helen in a state of tear-stained distraction; and once he had persuaded her to start talking, it was impossible to stop her . . .
Helen had caught the 3.45 train from Reading that afternoon, and arrived in Oxford at 4.20. Apart from the key to Annexe 2 which she clasped tight in the pocket of her duffel coat, she carried little else: no handbag, no wallet, no umbrella – only the return ticket to Reading, two pound coins, and a few shillings in smaller change. A taxi from Oxford station might have been sensible, but it certainly wasn’t necessary; and in any case she knew that the twenty-minute walk would do her no harm. As she began to make her way to the Haworth Hotel her heart was beating as nervously as when she had opened the front passenger door of the BMW, and had frantically felt all over the floor of the car, splayed her hands across and under and down and round the sides of seats and everywhere – everywhere! And found nothing: nothing except a twopence piece, a white indigestion tablet, and a button from a lady’s coat (not one of her own) . . .
She walked quickly past the vast glass-fronted Blackwells’ building in Hythe Bridge Street, through Gloucester Green, and then along Beaumont Street into St Giles’, where at the Martyrs’ Memorial she crossed over to the right-hand side of the thoroughfare and, now more slowly, made her way northwards along the Banbury Road.
Opposite the Haworth Hotel she could see the two front windows of the annexe clearly – and so very near! There seemed to be some sort of light on at the back of the building somewhere; but each of the two rooms facing the street – and especially one of them, the one on the left as she watched and waited – was dark and almost certainly empty. A glass-sided bus shelter almost directly opposite the annexe protected her from the drizzle, if not from the wind, and gave her an ideal vantage point from which to keep watch without arousing suspicion. A bus came and picked up the two people waiting there, a very fat West Indian woman and a wiry little English woman, both about sixty, both (as Helen gathered) cleaners in a nearby hospice, who chatted together on such easy and intimate terms that it was tempting to be optimistic about future prospects for racial harmony. Helen stood aside – and continued to watch. Soon another bus was coming towards her, its headlights illuminating the silvery sleet; but she stood back inside the shelter, and the bus passed on without stopping. Then she saw something – something which seemed to make her heart lurch towards her mouth. A light had been turned on in the room on the right, Annexe 1: the window, its curtains undrawn, glared brightly in the darkness, and a figure was moving around inside. Then the light was switched off, and the light in the next room – her room – was switched on. A bus had stopped, the doors, folding inwards, inviting her to climb aboard; and she found herself apologizing and seeing the look on the driver’s face as he tossed his head in contempt before leaning forward over the great steering-wheel and driving away. The light was still on in Annexe 2, and she saw a figure silhouetted against the window for a few seconds; and then that light too was switched off. A man came out of the side door, walked round to the front of the annexe, immediately opposite to her, and disappeared inside; and the two rooms facing the street were dark and empty once more. But the policeman was still there at the side entrance. He had been there all along, his black-and-white checkered cap conspicuous under the light that illuminated the path between the Haworth Hotel
and the cordoned area of the annexe – the red, yellow, and white tabs on the ropes tilting back and forth in the keen wind.
If Helen Smith had ever been likely to despair, she would have done so at this point. And yet somehow she knew that she would not despair. It may have been the cold, the hopelessness, the futility of it all; it may have been her awareness that there could be nothing more for her to lose. She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know. But she sensed within herself a feeling of wild determination that she had never known before. Her whole being seemed polarized between the black-and-white hat across the road and the key still clutched so tightly and warmly in her right hand. There had to be some way of diverting the man’s attention, so that she would have the chance to slip swiftly and silently through the side door. But it had been so much easier than that! He had just walked across to the main hotel, where he now stood drinking a cup of something from a white plastic beaker, and happily engrossed in conversation with a young woman from the hotel.
Helen was in the corridor almost before her courage had been called upon.
No problem! With shaking hand she inserted the key in the lock of Annexe 2, closed the door behind her, and stood stock-still for a moment or two in the dark. Then she felt her way across to the bed nearer the window, and ran her hands along the smooth sheets, and beneath and around the pillow, and along the headboard, and finally over the floor. They had been there: they had been underneath her pillow – she knew it. And an embryo sob escaped her lips as again her hands frantically, but fruitlessly, searched around. There were two switches on the headboard, and she turned on the one above the bed she had slept in: she had to make sure! For half a minute she searched again desperately in the lighted room; but to no avail. And now, for the first time, it was fear that clutched her heart as she switched off the light, left the room and edged her way noiselessly through the side door. Then she froze where she stood against the wall. Immediately opposite, at one of the windows on the first floor of the main hotel, a woman stood watching her – and then was gone. Helen felt quite certain that the woman had seen her, and an icy panic seized her. She could remember little of how she left the hotel; but fear had given its own winged sandals to her feet.
