by Colin Dexter
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really!’
‘Can you prove it?’
‘Not offhand, I suppose, but—’
‘Would the landlord remember you there?’
‘Course he would! He paid us, didn’t he?’
‘The group you’re in – was playing there?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were there all the evening?’
‘Till about two o’clock the next morning.’
‘How many others in the group?’
‘Four.’
‘And how many people were there at the Friar that night?’
‘Sixty? – seventy? on and off.’
‘Which bar were you in?’
‘Lounge bar.’
‘And you didn’t leave the bar all night?’
‘Well, we had steak and chips in the back room at about – half-past nine, I suppose it was.’
‘With the rest of the group?’
‘And the landlord – and the landlady.’
‘This is New Year’s Eve you’re talking about?’
‘Look, Sergeant, I’ve been here a long time already tonight, haven’t I? Can you please ring up the Friar and get someone here straight away? Or ring up any of the group? I’m getting awfully tired – and it’s been one hell of an evening for me – you can understand that, can’t you?’
There was a silence in the room – a silence that seemed to Phillips to take on an almost palpable tautness, as the import of Wilkins’s claim slowly sank into the minds of the detectives there.
‘What does your group call itself, Mr Wilkins?’ It was Morse himself who quietly asked the final question.
‘The “Oxford Blues”,’ said Wilkins, his face hard and unamused.
Charlie Freeman (‘Fingers’ Freeman to his musical colleagues) was surprised to find a uniformed constable standing on his Kidlington doorstep that evening. Yes, the ‘Oxford Blues’ had played the Friar on New Year’s Eve; yes, he’d played there that night, with Ted Wilkins, for about five or six hours; yes, he’d be more than willing to go along to Police HQ immediately and make a statement to that effect. No great hardship for him, was it? After all, it was only a couple of minutes’ walk away.
By 9.30 p.m. Mr Edward Wilkins had been driven back to his home in Diamond Close; Phillips, at long last, had been given permission to call it a day; and Lewis, tired and dejected, sat in Morse’s office, wondering where they had all gone so sadly wrong. Perhaps he might have suspected – and he’d actually said so – that Morse’s ideas had all been a bit too bizarre: a man murdered in fancy-dress outfit; and then another man spending the night of the party pretending he was the murdered man and dressed in a virtually identical outfit. Surely, surely, the simple truth was that Thomas Bowman had been the man at the party, as well as the man who’d been murdered! There would be (as Lewis knew) lots of difficulties in substantiating such a view; but none of them were anywhere near as insurmountable as trying to break Wilkins’s alibi – an alibi which could be vouched for by sixty or seventy wholly disinterested witnesses. Gently, quietly, Lewis mentioned his thoughts to Morse – the latter sitting silent and morose in the old black leather armchair. ‘You could be right, Lewis.’ Morse rubbed his left hand across his eyes. ‘Anyway, it’s no good worrying about it tonight. My judgement’s gone! I need a drink. You coming?’
‘No. I’ll get straight home, if you don’t mind, sir. It’s been a long day, and I should think the missus’ll have something cooking for me.’
‘I should be surprised if she hasn’t.’
‘You’re looking tired, sir. Do you want me to give you a lift?’
Morse nodded wearily. ‘Just drop me at the Friar, if you will.’
As he walked up to the entrance, Morse stopped. Red, blue, green and orange lights were flashing through the lounge windows, and the place was athrob with the live music of what sounded like some Caribbean delirium at the Oval greeting a test century from Vivian Richards. Morse checked his step and walked round to the public bar, where in comparative peace he sat and drank two pints of Morrell’s bitter and watched a couple of incompetent pool-players pretending to be Steve Davises. On the wall beside the dartboard he saw the notice:
7th January
LIVE MUSIC 7–11 p.m.
Admission Free!!
The fabulous
CALYPSO QUARTET
Morse pondered a quick third pint; but it wanted only a couple of minutes to eleven, and he decided to get home – just a few minutes’ walk away, along Carlton Road and thence just a little way down the Banbury Road to his bachelor flat. But something thwarted this decision, and he ordered another pint, a large Bell’s Scotch and a packet of plain crisps.
At twenty minutes past eleven he was the last one in the public bar, and the young barman wiping the tabletops suggested that he should finish his drink and leave: it was not unknown (Morse learned) for the police to check up on over-liquored loiterers after a live music evening.
As he left, Morse saw the Calypso Quartet packing away its collection of steel drums and sundry other Caribbean instruments into the back of an old, oft-dented Dormobile. And suddenly Morse stopped. He stopped dead. He stopped as if petrified, staring at the man who had just closed the back door of the vehicle and who was languidly lolling round to the driving seat. Even in the bitter late-night air this man wore only a blood-red, open-necked shirt on the upper part of his loose-limbed body; whilst on his head he had a baggy black-and-white checked cap that covered all his hair apart from the beaded dreadlocks which dangled on either side of his face like the snakes that once wreathed the head of the stone-eyed Gorgon.
‘You all right, man?’ enquired the coloured musician, holding both hands up in a mock gesture of concern about a fellow mortal who seemed to have imbibed too freely perhaps and too well. And Morse noticed the hands – hands that were almost like the hands of a white man, as though the Almighty had just about run out of pigment when he came to the palms.
‘You all right, man?’ repeated the musician.
Morse nodded, and there appeared on his face a stupidly beatific smile such as was seldom seen there – save when he listened to the love duet from Act One of Die Walküre.
Morse should (he knew it!) not have left things where they were that night. But his eyelids drooped heavily over his prickly-tired eyes as he walked back to his flat and in spite of his elation, he had little enough strength left, little appetite for anything more that day. But before throwing himself on the longed-for bed, he did ring Lewis; and prevailed upon Mrs Lewis (still up) to rouse her husband (an hour abed) for a few quick words before January 7th drew to its seemingly interminable close. And when, after only a brief monologue from Morse, a weary-brained Lewis put his receiver down, he, too, knew the identity of the man who on New Year’s Eve had walked back to the annexe of the Haworth Hotel with Helen Smith on the one side and Philippa Palmer on the other.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Wednesday, January 8th: a.m.
Matrimony is a bargain, and somebody has to get the worst of the bargain.
(HELEN ROWLAND)
AT THE DESK of the Haworth Hotel the following morning, Sarah Jonstone greeted Sergeant Lewis as if she were glad to see him; which indeed she was, since she had at last remembered the little thing that had been troubling her. So early in the day (it was only eight thirty), her excessively circumferenced spectacles were still riding high upon her pretty little nose, and it could hardly be claimed, at least for the present, that she was being hectically overworked; in fact Lewis had already observed her none-too-convincing attempt to conceal beneath a pile of correspondence the book she had been reading when he had so unexpectedly walked in – on Morse’s instruction – to interview her once again.
It was just a little corroboration (Lewis had pointed out) that was needed; and Sarah found herself once again seeking to stress the few unequivocally certain points she had made in her earlier statement. Yes, she did remember, and very clearl
y, the man coming out of the Gentlemen’s lavatory just before the New Year’s Eve party was due to begin; yes (now that Lewis mentioned it) perhaps his hands hadn’t been blackened-over as convincingly as the rest of him; yes, the two of them, ‘Mr and Mrs Ballard’, had kept themselves very much to themselves for the greater part of the evening – certainly until that hour or so before midnight when a series of eightsome reels, general excuse-mes and old-time barn-dances had severed the last ties of self-consciousness and timidity; and when ‘Mr Ballard’ had danced with her, his sweaty fingers leaving some of their dark stain on her own hands, and on her blouse; yes, without a shadow of doubt that last fact was true, because she remembered with a sweet clarity how she had washed her hands in the bedroom washbasin before going to bed that night, and how she had tried to sponge the stain off her blouse the following morning.
A middle-aged couple stood waiting to pay their bill; and while Sarah fetched the account from the small room at the back of Reception, Lewis turned his head to one side and was thus able to make out the title on the white spine of the book she had been reading: MILLGATE: Thomas Hardy – A Biography. O.U.P.
The bill settled, Sarah resumed her seat and told Lewis what she had remembered. It had been odd, though it didn’t really seem all that important now. What had happened was that someone – a woman – had rung up and asked what the New Year’s Eve menu was: that was all. As far as she could recall, the little incident had taken place on the Monday before – that would be December 30th.
Knowing how pleased Morse would be to have one of his hunches confirmed, Lewis was on the point of taking down some firm statement from Sarah Jonstone when he became aware of an extraordinarily attractive brunette standing beside him, shifting the weight of her beautifully moulded figure from one black-stockinged leg to the other.
‘Can I have my bill, please?’ she asked. Although the marked Birmingham accent was not, as he heard it, exactly the music of the spheres, Lewis found himself staring at the woman with an almost riveted fascination.
The whispered voice in his ear was totally unexpected: ‘Take your lecherous eyes off her, Lewis!’
‘Thank you very much, Miss Arkwright!’ said Sarah Jonstone, as the woman turned and left, flashing a brief, but almost interested, glance at the man who had just come in.
‘Good morning, Miss Jonstone!’ said Morse.
‘Oh, hello!’ There was nothing about her greeting that could be construed as even wanly welcoming.
‘Is she the same one?’ asked Morse, gesturing after the departed beauty. ‘The one who was due for the New Year?’
‘Yes!’
‘Well, well!’ said Morse, looking quite extraordinarily pleased with himself and with life in general; and quite clearly pleased with the sight of Miss Doris Arkwright in particular. ‘Could you please ask Mrs Binyon to come along to Reception, Miss Jonstone? There’s something rather important—’
‘She’s not here, I’m afraid. She’s gone up to Leeds. She was going there for the New Year, but—’
‘Really? How very interesting! Well thank you very much, Miss Jonstone. Come on, Lewis! We’ve a busy morning ahead.’
‘Miss Jonstone remembered something—’ started Lewis.
‘Forget it for the minute! Bigger things to worry about just now! Goodbye, Miss Jonstone!’
Morse was still smirking to himself with infinite self-satisfaction as, for the last time, the two men walked from the Haworth Hotel.
An hour later, a man was arrested at his home in southeast Oxford. This time, there were no revolvers on view; and the man in question, promptly cautioned by Sergeant Lewis of the Oxfordshire CID, made no show of resistance whatsoever.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Wednesday, January 8th: noon
Lovers of air travel find it exhilarating to hang poised between the illusion of immortality and the fact of death.
(ALEXANDER CHASE)
THE BOEING 737 scheduled to take off from Gatwick at 12.05 hours was almost fully booked, with only four or five empty seats visible as the air hostesses went through their dumb-shows with the oxygen masks and the inflatable life-jackets. It was noticeable that almost all the passengers were paying the most careful attention to the advice being offered: several tragic air crashes during the previous months had engendered a sort of collective pterophobia, and airport lounges throughout the world were reporting a dramatic rise in the sales of tranquillizing pills and alcoholic spirits. But quite certainly there were two persons on the aircraft (and there may have been others) who listened only perfunctorily to the safety instructions being rehearsed that lunchtime. For one of these two persons, the transit through the terminal had been a nightmare: and yet, as it now seemed, there had been no real cause for anxiety. Documentation, baggage, passport – none had brought any problem at all. For the second of these two persons, worries had sprung from a slightly different source; yet he, too, was now beginning to feel more relaxed. As he looked down from his window-seat on to the wet tarmac, his left hand quietly slid the half-bottle of brandy from his anorak pocket, allowing his right hand to unscrew the cap. The attention of those passengers sitting immediately around him was still focused on the slim-waisted stewardesses, and he was able to pour for himself a couple of tots without his imbibings being too obvious. And already he felt slightly better! It had been a damnably close-run thing – but he’d made it! A sign came on just above him, bidding all passengers to fasten their seatbelts and to refrain from smoking until further notice; the engines vibrated anew along the fuselage; and the stewardesses took their seats, facing the passengers, and smiling perhaps with slightly spurious confidence upon their latest charges. Gradually the giant plane moved forward in a quarter-turn, took up its proper station, and stood there for a minute or two preparing, like a long-jump finalist in the Olympic Games, to accelerate along the runway. The man seated by the window knew that any second now he would be able to relax – almost completely. Like so many fellow criminals, he was under the happy delusion that there was no extradition treaty between Spain and the United Kingdom, and he had read of so many criminals – bank robbers, embezzlers, drug-peddlers and pederasts – who were even now lounging lazily at various resorts along the Costa del Sol. Suddenly the aircraft’s throttles were opened completely and the mighty power seemed almost a tangible entity.
Then the engines seemed to die a little.
And then they seemed to die completely.
And two members of Gatwick Security Police boarded the aircraft.
For the man in the window-seat, beside whom these men stopped, there appeared little point in even thinking of escape. Where was there to escape to?
The Boeing was only very slightly delayed; and five minutes behind schedule it was shooting off the earth at an angle of forty-five degrees and heading for its appointed destination. Very soon, passengers were told that they could unfasten their seatbelts: everything was fine. And six rows behind the now-empty window-seat, a woman lit a cigarette and inhaled very deeply.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Wednesday, January 8th: p.m.
No mask like open truth to cover lies,
As to go naked is the best disguise.
(WILLIAM CONGREVE)
MORSE SAT IN Superintendent Bell’s office in St Aldates awaiting Lewis – the latter having been deputed the task of taking down in his rather laborious longhand the statement from the man arrested earlier that day at his home in south-east Oxford.
‘Damned clever, you know!’ reiterated Bell.
Morse nodded: he liked Bell well enough perhaps – though not overmuch – and he found himself wishing that Lewis would get a move on.
‘Well done, anyway!’ said Bell. ‘The Chief Constable’ll be pleased.’
‘Perhaps he’ll let me have a day or two’s holiday before the end of the decade.’
‘We’re very grateful, though – you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Morse, honestly enough.
It
was a highly euphoric Lewis who came in at a quarter past one, thrusting a statement – four pages of it – on the desk in front of Morse. ‘Maybe a few little errors in English usage here and there, sir; but on the whole a splendid piece of prose, I think you’ll find.’
Morse took the statement and scanned the last page:
in the normal way, but we were hard up and I lost my job in November and there was only playing in the group left with a wife and my four little children to feed and look after. We’d got the Social Security but the HP was getting bad, and then this came along. All I had to do was what he told me and that wasn’t very difficult. I didn’t really have any choice because I needed the money bad and it wasn’t because I wanted to do anything that was wrong. I know what happened because I saw it in the Oxford Mail but when I agreed I just did what I was told and I never knew what things were all about at the time. I’m very sorry about it. Please remember I said that, because I love my wife and my little children.
As dictated to Sergeant Lewis, Kidlington CID, by Mr Winston Grant, labourer (unemployed), of 29 Rose Hill Gardens, Rose Hill, Oxford. 8 Jan.
‘The adverb from “bad” is “badly”,’ mumbled Morse.
‘Shall we keep him here?’ asked Bell.
‘He’s your man,’ said Morse.
‘And the charge – officially?’
‘“Accessory to murder”, I suppose – but I’m not a legal man.’
‘“Party to murder”, perhaps?’ suggested Lewis, who had seldom looked so happy since his elder daughter announced her first pregnancy.
Back at Kidlington HQ, Morse sat back in the old black leather armchair, looking (for the while) imperturbably expansive. The man arrested at Gatwick, almost two hours earlier, was well on his way to Oxfordshire, expected (Morse learned) within the next fifteen minutes. It was a time to savour.
