the Jewel That Was Ours

by Colin Dexter

  Diffidently, Lewis followed.

  It was during this hour, between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., as Morse and Lewis were later to learn, that the scene was irreversibly set for murder.

  At 3.20 p.m., to an audience slightly smaller than anticipated, Cedric Downes was pointing to the merits of the stained-glass windows in University College chapel, and especially to the scene in the Garden of Eden, where the apples on the tree of knowledge glowed like giant golden Jaffas. At 3.30 p.m., in the Archive Room of the New Bodleian, Sheila Williams was doing her best to enthuse over a series of Henry Taunt photographs taken in the 1880s - also to an audience slightly smaller than anticipated. But the slides selected by Dr Theodore Kemp, to illustrate the development of jewelled artefacts in pre-Conquest Britain, were destined to remain in their box in the Elias Ashmole Memorial Room that sunny afternoon.

  19

  At Oxford nude bathing was, and sometimes still is, indulged in, which used to cause mutual embarrassment when ladies passed by in boats

  (Marilyn Yurdan, Oxford: Town & Gown)

  At 9.30 p.m. the University Parks had long been closed - since before sundown in fact. Yet such a circumstance has seldom deterred determined lovers, and others slightly crazed, from finding passage-ways through or over fences and hedges into this famous precinct - the setting for countless copulations since the Royalist artillery was quartered on its acres during the Civil War.

  Two of these latter-day lovers, Michael Woods (aged seventeen) and Karen Jones (two years older), and both from the village of Old Marston to the east of the Parks, had sauntered over the high-arched Rainbow Bridge across the Cherwell, and come to 'Mesopotamia', a pathway between two branches of the river, when young Michael, encouraged by the fact that he was now resting the palm of his right hand upon the right buttock of the slightly forbidding Karen - and without any perceptible opposition on her part - steered the nymphet into the enclosure known as Parson's Pleasure. This famous and infamous bathing place is to be found at a point where the Cherwell adapts itself to a pleasingly circumscribed swimming area at a bend of the river, with a terrace of unsophisticated, though adequate, cubicles enabling would-be bathers to shed their clothing and to don, or not to don, their swimming costumes there. Green-painted, corrugated-iron fencing surrounds Parson's Pleasure, with the access gate fairly jealously guarded during the summer months, and firmly locked after the waters are deemed too cold for even the doughtiest of its homoerotic habitués. But whether from an unseasonable gale, or whether from recent vandalism, one section of the perimeter fencing lay forlornly on the ground that evening; and very soon the young pair found themselves seated side by side in one of the cubicles. In spite of her seniority in years, Karen was considerably the more cautious of the two in the progress of this current courtship. And justifiably so, for Michael, as vouched for by several of the village girls, was a paid-up member of the Wandering Hands Brigade. After several exploratory fingerings along the left femur, a sudden switch of tactics to the front of her blouse had heralded a whole new manual offensive - when at that point she decided to withdraw to previously prepared positions.

  'Mike! Let's get out of here, please! I'm getting a bit chilly—'

  'I'll soon see to that, love!'

  'And it's a bit spooky. I don't like it here, Mike.'

  He'd known, really, ever since they'd slipped through the hedge at half-past eight; known when he'd kissed her briefly on the Rainbow Bridge above the swollen and fast-flowing waters, testing the temperature and finding it not warm enough for any further penetration into the underclothing of a girl who seemed dressed that balmy evening as if for some Antarctic expedition. He stood up now, and (as she thought) with a surprisingly gallant, almost endearing gesture, refastened the only button on her blouse he'd thus far managed to disengage.

  'Yeah! Gettin' a bi' chilly, innit?' he lied.

  The moon as they walked from the cubicle was bright upon the waters, and Karen was wondering whether she might slighdy have misjudged this lively, fun-loving youth when her eyes caught sight of something lying lengthways across the top of the weir in front of them.

  'Yaaaaahhhhh!'

  Part Two

  20

  The moon jellyfish like a parachute in air sways under the waves

  (Basil Swift, Collected Haiku)

  It was halfway through the slow movement of Dvorak's American Quartet - with Morse mentally debating whether that wonderful work might just edge out the 'In Paradisum' from the Faure’ Requiem for the number eight spot in his Desert Island cassettes - when the phone rang. For the second time that evening. Some while earlier, a weary-sounding Lewis had informed Morse that Mr Eddie Stratton had gone off somewhere just after lunchtime - from the railway station

  and had still not returned to The Randolph. Naturally such a prolonged absence was a little worrying, especially in view of, well, the circumstances; and in fact an anxious Ashenden had rung Kidlington a few minutes previously, just in case the police knew anything. So Lewis thought he perhaps ought to mention it before going off duty ... To that earlier call Morse had listened with a grudging, half-engaged attention; but he was listening far more carefully now.

  Both Lewis and Max were already on the scene when Morse arrived, the surgeon (incongruously suited in evening-dress) immediately putting the chief inspector into the picture - in a somewhat flushed and florid manner:

  'The dead man lay there, Morse' - pointing to the moonlit water by the weir - ' "something pale and long and white", as the young lady said. Rather good, eh? Somebody'd poked him along here with a punt-pole; and when I arrived his body -

  his naked, semi-waterlogged body - was nudging against the side of the bank - just here - just in front of the changing cubicles, face down, his head washed clean of blood - much blood, methinks, Morse! - his hair rising and falling—'

  'Have you been rehearsing all this stuff, Max?'

  'Just drinking, dear boy . . . hair rising and falling in the water like some half-knackered jelly-fish.'

  'Very fine!'

  'I read that bit about the jelly-fish somewhere. Too good to let it go, eh?' 'He needed a hair-cut, you mean?' 'You've no poetry in your soul.' ‘What party was it tonight?

  'Oxfordshire Health Authority. Guest Speaker - no less!' Max flicked his bow-tie with the index-finger of his right hand, before pointing the same finger at the figure of a man lying covered with a plastic sheet on the splashed grass beside the water's edge.

  'Who is it?' asked Morse quietly.

  'Ah, I was hoping you could tell me that. You're the detective, Morse. Have a guess!'

  'A seventy-year-old Californian whose wife died yesterday - died, according to the best informed medical opinion, of purely natural causes.'

  'And what did he die of?'

  'Suicide - suicide by drowning - about three or four hours ago, just as it was getting dark. Crashed his head against a jagged branch as he was floating by. Anything else you want to know?'

  'Back to school, Morse! I'm not sure he's an American or whether he was recently severed from his spouse. But he's certainly not in his seventies! Forties more like - you could put your pension on the forties.'

  'I propose keeping my pension, thank you.'

  'See for yourself!'

  Max drew back the covering from the corpse, and even Lewis gave his second involuntary shudder of the night. As for Morse, he looked for a second or two only, breathed very

  deeply, lurched a fraction forward for a moment as if he might vomit, then turned away. It was immediately clear, as Max had said, that there had earlier been much blood; soon clear, too, that the body was that of a comparatively young man; the body of the man whom Morse had interviewed (with such distaste) the previous evening; the man who had been cheated of the Wolvercote Jewel - and the man who now had been cheated of life. Dr Theodore Kemp.

  Max was putting his bag into the boot of his BMW as Morse walked slowly up to him. 'You got here early, Max?'

  'Just round the corner, de
ar boy. William Dunn School of Pathology. Know it?' 'How did he die?'

  'Blood probably coagulated before he entered the water.' 'Really? I've never heard you say anything so definite before!'

  'I know, Morse. I'm sorry. It's the drink.'

  'But you'll know for certain tomorrow?'

  ' "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."'

  'It wasn't suicide, then?'

  'Oh no, Morse. That was your verdict.'

  'No chance?'

  'I'm only a pathologist.'

  'How long in the water?'

  'Couldn't possibly say.'

  'Roughly?'

  'Eight, seven, six, five, four hours . . . "Roughly", you said?'

  'Thank you very much.'

  Max walked round to the front of his car: 'By the way, I was talking to Dr Swain again this evening. He's reporting you to the Chief Constable.'

  ' 'Night, Max.'

  ' 'Night, Morse.'

  * * *

  When the surgeon had departed, Morse turned with unwarranted ferocity upon his ill-used sergeant: 'You told me, Lewis, that Mr Eddie bloody Stratton had been missing in quite extraordinarily suspicious circumstances since early afternoon, and that a frenetically distraught Ashenden had rung you up—'

  ‘I didn't! I didn't say that!'

  'What did you tell me, then?'

  'Well, I did mention that Stratton had gone AWOL. And I also said that Dr Kemp hadn't turned up at the railway station when they'd arranged for a taxi to pick him up and take him—'

  'What time was that?'

  'Three o'clock, sir.'

  'Mm. So if there's some evidence of a whacking great crack on his head . . . and if this had been deliberately inflicted rather than accidentally incurred . . . about seven hours ago, say . . . Three o'clock, you say, Lewis, when Kemp turned up again in Oxford?'

  'When he didn't turn up in Oxford, sir.'

  So many lights; the yellow lights of the arc-lamps that shone down on the river-bank; the white lights from the flashes of the police photographers; the blue lights of the police cars that lingered still around the scene. But little light in Morse's mind. He could hang around, of course, for the following hour or two, pretending to know what it was that he or anybody else should seek to discover. Or go back to HQ, and try to think up a few lines of enquiry for the staff there to pursue - men and women looking progressively more unwashed and unkempt and incompetent as the small hours of the morning gradually wore on.

  But there was another option. He could drive down to The Randolph, and sort out that lying sod Ashenden! The bar would still be open, wouldn't it? At least for residents. Surely the bar never closed in a five-star hotel? Isn't that what you paid for? Yes! And occasionally, as now, it so happened that duty and pleasure would fall together in a sweet coincidence; and from Parson's Pleasure, after dutifully forbidding Lewis to linger more than a couple of hours or so, Morse himself departed.

  It was twenty-five minutes after Morse had left the scene that Lewis discovered the first, fat clue: a sheet of yellow A4 paper on which the details of the Historic Cities of England Tour had been originally itemised; and on which the time of the final item that day had been crossed through boldly in blue Biro, with the entry now reading:

  7.30 8.00pm Dinner

  21

  You did not come, And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb

  (Thomas Hardy, A Broken Appointment)

  The parking plots on either side of St Giles' were now virtually empty and Morse drew the Jaguar in outside St John's. It was two minutes past midnight when he walked through into the Chapters Bar, where a dozen or so late-night (early-morning) drinkers were still happily signing bills. Including Ashenden.

  'Inspector! Can I get you a drink?'

  After 'a touch of the malt' had been reasonably accurately translated by Michelle, the white-bloused, blue-skirted barmaid, as a large Glenlivet, Morse joined Ashenden's table: 'Howard and Shirley Brown, Inspector - and Phil here, Phil Aldrich.' Morse shook hands with the three of them; and noted with approval the firm, cool handshake of Howard Brown, whose eyes seemed to Morse equally firm and cool as he smiled a cautious greeting. The reason for such a late session, Ashenden explained, was simple: Eddie Stratton. He had not been seen again since he was observed to leave the hotel just after lunch; observed by Mrs Roscoe (who else?) - and also, as Morse knew, by Lewis himself. No one knew where he'd gone; everyone was worried sick; and by the look of her, Shirley Brown was worried the sickest: what could a man be doing at this time of night, for heaven's sake? Well, perhaps supping Glenlivet, thought Morse, or lying with some lovely girl under newly laundered sheets; and indeed he would have suggested to them that it was surely just a litde early to get too worried - when the night porter came through and asked Chief Inspector Morse if he was Chief Inspector Morse.

  * * *

  'How the hell did you know I was here, Lewis?' 'You said you were off home.' ‘So why—?'

  'No answer when I rang.' 'But how—?' 'I'm a detective, sir.' 'What do you want?'

  A phone call made just before midnight to St Aldate's Police Station had been relayed to the murder scene at Parson's Pleasure: Mrs Marion Kemp, of 6 Cherwell Lodge, had reported that her husband, who had left for London early that morning, had still not arrived back home; that such an occurrence was quite unprecedented, and that she was beginning (had long begun!) to feel a little (a whole lot!) worried about him. She was herself a cripple, constantly in need of the sort of attention her husband had regularly given her in the evenings. She knew something, though not all, of his day's programme: she'd rung The Randolph at 10.45 p.m. and learned from the tour leader that her husband had not turned up at any point during the day to fulfil his commitments - and that in itself was quite out of character. After an evening of agonising and, now, almost unbearable waiting, she'd decided to ring the police.

  Such was the message Lewis passed on, himself saying nothing for the moment of his own extraordinarily exciting find, but agreeing to pick up Morse in about ten minutes' time, after briefly reporting in to St Aldate's.

  'News? About Eddie?' asked an anxious Phil Aldrich, when the frowning Morse walked back into the bar.

  Morse shook his head. 'We get all sorts of news, sir, in the Force: good news, sometimes - but mostly bad, of course. No news of Mr Stratton, though. But I wouldn't worry too much, not about him, anyway . . .' (the last words mumbled to himself). He wondered whether to tell the four of them seated there about the death of Dr Kemp, for they'd have to know very soon anyway. But he decided they probably had enough on their minds for the moment; and swiftly tossing back the Glenlivet, he left them, making his way thoughtfully to the front entrance, and wondering something else: wondering whether any announcement of Kemp's death - Kemp's murder - would have come as too much of a surprise to one of the four people who still sat round their table in the Chapters Bar.

  There was no time, however, for him to develop such a fascinating, and probably futile thought; for as he stood waiting on the pavement outside the hotel entrance, a taxi drew up, and with the help of the driver a very drunken man staggered stupidly into the foyer. Morse was usually reasonably tolerant about fellow-tipplers, and indeed occasionally rather enjoyed the company of slightly tipsy sirens; but the sight of this fellow pathetically fighting to extricate a wallet from an inner pocket, and then forking out and handing over three £10 notes - such a sight filled even Morse with mild disgust. Yet at least it was all a bit of a relief, wasn't it?

  For the man was Eddie Stratton!

  Clearly there could be little point in interviewing Stratton then and there; and already a solicitous (if censorious) Shirley Brown on one side, and a business-like (if unsmiling) Howard Brown on the other, were guiding the prodigal son to the guest-lift. No! Stratton could wait. With any luck he'd still be there the following morning.

  Unlike the taxi driver.

  Morse caught the man's arm, and held him back as he was walking down the steps. 'You must have brought him
quite a way?' ‘You wha'?'

  'Thirty quid? Must have been - Banbury, was it?' ‘Yeah - could a' bin. Nothin' to do with you, mate.' 'I'm not your mate,' said Morse, fishing for his warranty. 'So? Wha's the trouble?' 'Where did you pick him up?' 'North Oxford.'

  'Expensive ride!' 'I didn't ask for—' 'You took it.'

  'Not short of a quid or two though, these Yanks—' 'I quite like the Yanks.' 'Me too, officer.'

  'There's a bottle there' (Morse pointed back to Reception). 'Leukaemia Fund. Doesn't look as if it's quite full yet.' 'How much?' 'Twenty?'

  Shrugging, the taxi-man handed Morse two of the £10 notes.

  'Where was it in North Oxford? What was the address?' 'I forget.'

  'Shall we make it twenty-five?'