The Secret of Annexe 3

by Colin Dexter

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Tuesday, January 7th: p.m.

  A certain document of the last importance has been purloined.

  (EDGAR ALLAN POE)

  ‘WELL, I’LL BE buggered!’ Morse shook his head in bewildered disappointment as he stood, once again, in Margaret Bowman’s bedroom – The Complete Crochet Manual in his hands. ‘It’s gone, Lewis!’

  ‘What’s gone?’

  ‘The card I showed you – the card from the Lake District – the one signed “Edwina”.’

  ‘You never showed it to me,’ protested Lewis.

  ‘Of course I—. Perhaps I didn’t. But the handwriting on that postcard was the same as the handwriting on the back of your whatsitsname Indian place in Walton Street. Exactly the same! I can swear to it! The postcard was from Ullswater or some place like that and’ (Morse sought to bully his brain into a clearer remembrance) ‘it said something like “It’s Paradise Regained – I wish you were here”. But, you know, it’s a bit odd, on a postcard, to say “I wish you were here”. Nineteen times out of twenty, people just say “Wish you were here”, don’t they? Do you see what I mean? That postcard didn’t say “It’s Paradise Regained” – then a dash – “I wish you were here”; it said “It’s Paradise Regained minus one. Wish you were here”. That card was from Margaret Bowman’s lover, telling her there was only one thing missing from his Paradise – her!’

  ‘Not much use if it’s gone,’ said Lewis dubiously.

  ‘It is though! Don’t you see? The very fact that Margaret Bowman came back a second time shows exactly how important it is. And I think I remember the postmark – it was August. All we’ve got to do is to find out who spent his holidays up in the Lake District last August!’

  ‘It might have been the August before.’

  ‘Don’t be so pessimistic, man!’ snapped Morse.

  ‘But we ought to be pessimistic,’ persisted Lewis, remembering his recent experience with the beauty clinics. ‘Millions of people go up to the Lakes every summer. And who’s this “Edwina”?’

  ‘He’s the lover-boy. Tom Bowman would have been very suspicious, wanting to know who the fellow was if he’d signed his own name. But the man we’re dealing with, Lewis – the man who almost certainly murdered Bowman – is pretty clever: he changed his name – but he didn’t change it too much! And that gives us a whacking great clue. The fellow signs himself “T” on the Indian thing – and then signs himself “Edwina” on the postcard. So we’ve already got his Christian name, Lewis! The “T” doesn’t stand for Tom – it stands for Ted. And “Ted” is an abbreviation of “Edward”; and he signs himself in the feminine form of it – “Edwina”! QE bloody D, Lewis – as we used to say in the Lower Fourth! All right! You say there are a few millions every year who look forward to hearing the rain drumming on their caravan roofs in Grasmere. But not all that many of them were christened “Edward”, and about half of them would be too old – or too young – to woo our fair Margaret. And, what’s more, he’ll pretty certainly live in Oxford, this fellow we’re looking for – or not too far outside. And if he can afford to spend a holiday in the Lake District, he’s probably in work, rather than on the dole, agreed?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘And – just let me finish! – not everybody’s all that familiar with Paradise Regained. Mr Milton’s not everybody’s cup of tea in these degenerate days, and I’m going to hazard a guess that our man was a grammar-school boy!’

  ‘But they’re all comprehensives now, sir.’

  ‘You know what I mean! He’s in the top 25 per cent of the IQ range.’

  ‘The case seems to be closed, then, sir!’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody sarcastic, Lewis!’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but—’

  ‘I’ve not finished! What was the colour of Bowman’s hair?’

  ‘Well – blondish, sort of.’

  ‘Correct! And what have Robert Redford, Steve Cram and Ian Botham got in common?’

  ‘All the girls go for them.’

  ‘No! Physical appearance, Lewis.’

  ‘You mean, they’ve all got blond hair?’

  ‘Yes! And if Margaret Bowman’s running to form, this new beau of hers has got fair hair, too! And if only about a quarter of Englishmen have got fair hair—’

  ‘He could be a Swede, sir.’

  ‘What? A Swede who’s read Paradise Regained?’

  For Lewis, the whole thing was becoming progressively more improbable; yet he found himself following Morse’s deductive logic with reluctant admiration. If Morse were right there couldn’t be all that many employed, fair-haired people christened Edward, in the twenty-five to forty-five age range, living in or just outside Oxford, who had spent their most recent summer holidays in the Lake District, could there? And Lewis appreciated the force of one point Morse had just made: Margaret Bowman had been willing to make two extraordinarily risky visits to her house in Charlbury Drive over the last twenty-four hours. If the first had been to fetch her building society book (or whatever) and to get some ready cash out, it couldn’t really be seen as all that incriminating. But if the overriding purpose of the second, as Morse was now suggesting, had been to remove from the house any pieces of vital evidence that might have been hidden in the most improbable places . . .

  Lewis was conscious, as he sat there in the Bowmans’ bedroom that afternoon, that he had not yet even dared to mention to Morse the thought that had so obstinately lodged itself at the back of his mind. At the time, he had dismissed the idea as utterly fanciful – and yet it would not wholly go away.

  ‘I know it’s ridiculous, sir, but – but I can’t help worrying about that crane at the back of the hotel.’

  ‘Go on!’ said Morse, not without a hint of interest in his voice.

  ‘Those cranes can land the end of a girder on a sixpence: they have to – match up with the bolts and everything. So if you wanted to, you could pick up a box, let’s say, and you could move it wherever you wanted – outside a window, perhaps? It’s only a thought, sir, but could it just be that Bowman was murdered in the main part of the hotel? If the murderer wraps up the body, say, and hooks it on to the crane, he can pinpoint it to just outside Annexe 3, where he can get an accomplice in the room to pull the box gently in. The murderer himself wouldn’t be under any suspicion at all, because he’s never been near the annexe. And if it had been snowing – like the forecast said – there wouldn’t be any footprints going in, would there? There’s so much mess and mud outside the back of the hotel, though, that nobody’s going to notice anything out of the ordinary there; and nobody’s going to hear anything, either – not with all the racket of a disco going on. I know it may be a lot of nonsense, but it does bring all those people staying in the hotel back into the reckoning, doesn’t it? And I think you’ll agree, sir, we are getting a bit short of suspects.’

  Morse, who had been listening with quiet attention, now shook his head with perplexed amusement. ‘What you’re suggesting, Lewis, is that the murderer’s a crane-driver, is that it?’

  ‘It was only a thought, sir.’

  ‘Narrows things down, though. A fair-haired crane-driver called Ted who spent a week in Windermere or somewhere . . .’ Morse laughed. ‘You’re getting worse than I am, Lewis!’

  Morse rang HQ from the Bowmans’ house, and two men, Lewis learned, would immediately be on their way to help him undertake an exhaustive search of the whole premises at 6 Charlbury Drive.

  Morse himself took the car keys and drove back thoughtfully into Oxford.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Tuesday, January 7th: p.m.

  No words beyond a murmured ‘Good-evening’ ever passed between Hardy and Louisa Harding.

  (The Early Life of Thomas Hardy)

  INSTEAD OF GOING straight back to Kidlington HQ, Morse drove down once more into Summertown and turned into Ewert Place where he drove up to the front steps and parked the police car. The Secretary, he learned, was in and would be a
ble to see him almost immediately.

  As he sat waiting on the long wall-seat in the foyer, Morse was favourably struck (as he had been on his previous visit) by the design and the furnishings of the Delegacy. The building was surely one of the (few) high spots of post-1950 architecture in Oxford, and he found himself trying to give it a date: 1960? 1970? But before he reached a verdict, he learned that the Secretary awaited him.

  Morse leaned back in the red leather armchair once again. ‘Lovely building, this!’

  ‘We’re very lucky, I agree.’

  ‘When was it built?’

  ‘Finished in 1965.’

  ‘I was just comparing it to some of the hideous structures they’ve put up in Oxford since the war.’

  ‘You mustn’t think we don’t have a few problems, though.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We get floods in the basement fairly regularly. And then, of course, there’s the flat roof: anyone who designs a building as big as this with a flat roof – in England! – hardly deserves the Queen’s medal for architecture. Not in my book, anyway.’

  The Secretary had spoken forcefully, and Morse found himself interested in her reaction. ‘You’ve had trouble?’

  ‘Had? Yes, we’ve had trouble, and we’ve got trouble now, and it’ll be a great surprise if we don’t have more trouble in the future. We’ve only just finished paying for a complete re-roofing repair – the third we’ve had!’

  Morse nodded in half-hearted sympathy as she elaborated the point; but his interest in the Delegacy’s roofing problems soon dissipated, and he moved to the reason for his visit. He told the Secretary, in the strictest confidence, almost everything he had discovered about the Bowmans, and he hinted at his deep concern for Margaret Bowman’s life. He asked whether Margaret had any particular women friends in the Delegacy; whether she had any men friends; whether there might have been any gossip about her; whether there was anything at all that might be learned from interviewing any of Margaret’s colleagues.

  The result of this request was the summoning to the Secretary’s office of Mrs Gladys Taylor, who disclaimed all knowledge of Margaret Bowman’s married life, of any possible extramarital infidelity, and of her present whereabouts. After only a few minutes Morse realized he was getting nowhere with the woman; and he dismissed her. He was not at all surprised that she knew so little; and he was aware that his own abrupt interlocutory style had made the poor woman hopelessly nervous. What Morse was not aware of – and what, with a little less conceit, he might perhaps have divined – was that Gladys Taylor’s nervousness had very little at all to do with the tone of Morse’s questioning, but everything to do with the fact that, after spending the weekend at Gladys’s council house on the Cutteslowe Estate in North Oxford, Margaret Bowman had turned up again – dramatically! – late the previous evening, begging Gladys to take her in and making her promise to say nothing to anyone about her whereabouts.

  The former prison officer at Reception deferred his daily perusal of the Court Circular and saluted the Chief Inspector as Morse handed in the temporary badge he had been given – a plastic folder, with a metal clip, containing a buff-coloured card on which was printed VISITOR, in black capitals, and under which, in black felt tip pen, was written ‘Insp. Morse’. A row of mailbags stood beside the front door, waiting for the post office van, and Morse was on the point of leaving the building when he turned back – struck by the appropriate juxtaposition of things – and spoke to the Security Officer.

  ‘You must feel almost at home with all these mailbags around!’

  ‘Yes! You don’t forget things like that, sir. And I could still tell you where most of ’em were made – from the marks, I mean.’

  ‘You can?’ Morse fingered one of the grey bags and the Security Officer walked round to inspect it.

  ‘From the Scrubs, that one.’

  ‘Full of criminals, they tell me, the Scrubs.’

  ‘Used to be – in my day.’

  ‘You don’t get many criminals here, though?’

  ‘There’s a lot of things here they’d like to get their hands on – especially all the question papers, of course.’

  ‘And that’s why you’re here.’

  ‘Can’t be too careful, these days. We get so many people coming in – I’m not talking about the permanent staff – I’m talking about the tradesmen, builders, electricians, caterers—’

  ‘And you give them all a pass – like the one you gave me?’

  ‘Unless they’re pretty regular. Then we give ’em a semi-permanent pass with a photograph and all that. Saves a lot of time and trouble.’

  ‘I see,’ said Morse.

  A letter was awaiting Morse at Kidlington: a white envelope, with a London postmark, addressed to Chief Inspector Morse (in as neat a piece of typewriting as one could wish to find) and marked ‘Strictly Private and Personal’. Even before he opened the envelope, Morse was convinced that he was about to be apprised of some vital intelligence concerning the Bowman case. But he was wrong. The letter read as follows:

  This is a love letter but please don’t feel too embarassed about it because it doesn’t really matter. You are now engaged on a murder inquiry and it was in connection with this that we met briefly. I don’t know why but I think I’ve fallen genuinely and easily and happily in love with you. So there!

  I wouldn’t have written this silly letter but for the fact that I’ve been reading a biography of Thomas Hardy and he (so he said) could never forget the face of a girl who once smiled at him as she rode by on a horse. He knew the girl by name and in fact the pair of them lived quite close, but their relationship never progressed even to the point of speaking to each other. At least I’ve done that!

  Tear this up now. I’ve told you what I feel about you. I almost wish I was the chief suspect in the case. Perhaps I am the murderer! Will you come and arrest me? Please!

  The letter lacked both salutation and signature, and Morse’s expression, as he read it, seemed to combine a dash of distaste with a curiously pleasurable fascination. But as the girl herself (whoever she was!) had said – it didn’t really matter. Yet it would have been quite extraordinary for any man not to have pondered on the identity of such a correspondent. And, for several minutes, Morse did so ponder as he sat silently at his desk that winter’s afternoon. She sounded a nice girl – and she’d only made the one spelling error . . .

  The call from Lewis – a jubilant Lewis! – came in at 5.10 p.m. that day.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Tuesday, January 7th: p.m.

  If you once understand an author’s character, the comprehension of his writing becomes easy.

  (LONGFELLOW)

  IT HAD BEEN in the inside breast pocket of a rather ancient sports jacket that Lewis had finally found the copied letter. And such a discovery was so obviously what Morse had been hoping for that he was unable to conceal the high note of triumph in his voice as he reported his find. Equally, for his part, Morse had been unable to conceal his own delight; and when (only some half an hour later) Lewis delivered the four closely handwritten sheets, Morse handled them with the loving care of a biblical scholar privileged to view the Codex Vaticanus.

  You are a selfish thankless bitch and if you think you can just back out of things when you like you’d better realize that you’ve got another big thick headaching think coming because it could be that I’ve got some ideas about what I like. You’d better understand what I’m saying. If you can act like a bitch you’d better know I can be a bit of a sod too. You were glad enough to get what you wanted from me and just because I wanted to give it to you you think that we can just drop everything and go back to square one. Well this letter is to tell you we can’t and like I say you’d better understand what I’m telling you. You can be sure I’ll get my own back on you. You always say you can’t really talk on the phone much but you didn’t have much trouble on Monday did you. Not much doubt about where you stood then. Not free this week, and perhaps no
t next week either, and the week after that is a bit busy too!! I know I’ve not been round quite as long as you but I’m not a fool and I think you know I’m not. You say you’re not going to sign on next term for night classes and that was the one really long time we did have together. Well I don’t want any Dear John letter thank you very much. But I do want one thing and I’m quite serious about saying that I’m going to get it. I must see you again – at least once again. If you’ve got any sense of fairness to me you’ll agree to that. And if you’ve got just any plain sense – and forget any fairness – you’ll still agree to see me because if you don’t I shall get my own back. Don’t drive me to anything like that. Nobody knows about us and I want to leave things like that like they were. You remember how careful I always was and how none of your colleagues ever knew. Not that it matters much to me, not a quarter of what it matters to you. Don’t forget that. So do as I say and meet me next Monday. Tell them you’ve got a dental appointment and I’ll pick you up as usual outside the Summertown Library at ten to one. Please make sure you’re there for your sake as much as mine. Perhaps I ought to have suspected you were cooling off a bit. When I was at school I read a thing about there’s always one who kisses and one who turns the cheek. Well I don’t mind it that way but I must see you again. There were lots of times when you wanted me badly enough – lots of times when you nearly set a world record for getting your clothes off, and that wasn’t just because we only had forty minutes. So be there for sure on Monday or you’ll have to face the consequences. I’ve just thought that last sentence sounds like a threat but I don’t really want to be nasty about all this. I suppose I’ve never said too much about what I really feel but I think I was in love with you the very first time I saw the top of your golden head in the summer sunshine. Monday – ten to one – or else!