by Colin Dexter
‘No?' queried Morse again.
'So be it! There is little more to tell you. The biggest single clue in this case I passed over almost without reading it, until my sergeant jogged my memory. It was contained in a police report of the road accident in which Kemp crippled his wife - and also killed the driver of the other car, a Mrs P. J. Mayo, a thirty-five-year-old woman from California: Mrs Philippa J. Mayo, whose husband had earlier been killed in a gunnery accident on the USS South Dakota. That would have been bad enough for Philippa Mayo's parents-in-law, would it not? But at least the man had been serving his country; at least he'd died for some cause - whether that cause was justified or not. What of Philippa's own parents, though, when she is killed? Their daughter. Their only daughter. Their only child. A child killed needlessly, pointlessly, tragically, and wholly reprehensibly - by a man who must have appeared to those parents, from the reports they received, as a drunken, selfish, wicked swine who deserved to be as dead as their daughter . . . Above all, I suspect, the parents were appalled by what seemed to them the quite extraordinary leniency of the magistrates at the criminal hearing, and they came over to England, father and mother, to lay the ghost that had haunted them night and day for the past two years. But why only then, you may ask? I learn that the wife had been suffering from cervical cancer for the previous three years; had just endured her second massive session of chemotherapy; had decided that she could never face a third; had only at the outside six more months to live. So the pair came over to view the killer of their daughter, and if they deemed him worthy of death, they vowed that he would die. They met him the once only, on the night before he died: a cocky philanderer, as they saw him; a cruel, conceited specimen; and now a man who, like Philippa Mayo's mother, had so very little time to live. The link between the two crimes, and the motivation for them, was clear to me at last, and the link and the motivation merged into a single whole: the implacable hatred of a man and his wife for the person who had killed their daughter. 'For Theodore Kemp.
'I keep mentioning "man and wife" because I finally persuaded myself that no one single person on his own could have carried through the murder of Kemp. It could have been any two people, though, and we had to try to find out as much about all of you as we could. When you signed in at The Randolph, you all filled in a form which asked overseas visitors to complete full details of nationality, passport number, place passport issued, permanent home address, and so on. But, as you know, I also had to ask Mr Ashenden to collect your passports, and from these, my sergeant here' (the blood rose slowly in Lewis's cheeks) 'checked all the details you had given and found that two of you lived in the same block of retirement flats. But these two were not registered as man and wife; rather they had decided to play the waiting game, to take advantage of anything that might crop up, to "optimise the opportunity", as I believe you say in America. And that opportunity materialised - in the person of Eddie Stratton.
'Stratton had been out at Didcot on the afternoon Kemp died, and what is more he could prove his presence there conclusively - with photographic evidence. And I - we -were led to believe that his quite innocent statements about his train journey back to Oxford were equally true. But they weren't. Cleverly, unwittingly, as it seemed, he gave a wholly unimpeachable alibi to a man he saw in the carnage ahead of him - a man to whom he owed a very great deal. But he did not see that man, ladies and gendemen! Because that man was not on the Didcot-Oxford train that afternoon. He was in Oxford . . . murdering Dr Kemp.'
The last few words sank into the noiselessness of the stifling room. And then Morse suddenly smiled a little, and spoke quiedy:
'Can you hear me all right at the back, Mr Aldrich?' 'Pardon, sir?'
'Don't you think it would be far better if you . . .' Morse held out the palm of his right hand and seemed to usher some invisible spirit towards the front row of the seats.
Aldrich, looking much perplexed, rose from his seat and walked forward hesitantly down the central aisle; and, turning towards him, Janet Roscoe smiled expectantly and pointed her hand to the empty seat beside her. But Aldrich ignored the gesture, and slipped instead into one of the empty seats immediately behind her.
'As I say,' resumed Morse, 'the person Stratton claimed to have seen was never on the train at all. That person told me he'd been to London to see his daughter; but he'd only ever had the one daughter . . . and she was dead.'
Morse's audience was hanging on his every word, yet few seemed able to grasp the extraordinary implications of what he was saying.
'Names, you know' (Morse's tone was suddenly lighter) 'are very important things. Some people don't like their own names . . . but others are extremely anxious to perpetuate them - both Christian names and surnames. Let's say, for example, that Mr and Mrs Brown here - Howard and Shirley, isn't it - wanted to christen their house, they might think of sucking half of their two names together. What about "W-a-r-d" from his name and "l-e-y" from hers? Make a reasonable house-name, wouldn't it? "Wardley"?'
'Gee, that's exactiy—' began Shirley; but Howard laid a hand on her arm, and the embarrassed lady held her peace.
'Not much good trying to perpetuate a surname, though - not if your daughter gets married. She can keep her maiden name, of course. Can't she? Can't she ... ? But it's easier with Christian names, especially sometimes. A father whose name is "George", say, can call his daughter "Georgie", "Georgina", "Georgette".' (Lewis glanced up at Morse.) 'And the woman who was killed in the road accident was called Mrs Philippa J. Mayo, remember? Her father couldn't give her his own name exactly, but he could give her the female equivalent of "Philip". And Philippa Mayo was the daughter of the only man here who has that name.
Wasn't she, Mr Aldrich?' asked Morse in a terrifying whisper.
58
. . . that fair field Of Enna,
where Proserpin gathring flowrs
Her self a fairer Flowre by gloomie Dis
Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world . . .
(John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV)
'You're serious about all this, sir?' Phil Aldrich cocked his head to one side and his sad features seemed incredulous, and pained.
'Oh, yes,' said Morse, with a quiet simplicity - perhaps also with some pain. ‘You've no daughter in London - or anywhere else now, I'm afraid. You've lost your' alibi, too -the very clever alibi provided by Eddie Stratton as the first of his services for you . . . before he performed his second service, later that same day, by disposing of Kemp's body in the River Cherwell.'
Momentarily, it seemed, Aldrich was on the point of protesting, but Morse shook his head wearily:
'No point - no point at all in your saying anything to the contrary, Mr Aldrich. We've been in touch with the police department in Sacramento, with your neighbours, with the local institution there, including the High School your daughter attended. We've got your passport, and we've checked your home address, and it's perfectly correct. You carried through all your details accurately on to the t.h.f. Guest Registration Card at The Randolph, and doubdess here too, in Bath. But your wife} She was a little "economical with the truth", wasn't she? Your wife -your accomplice, Mr Aldrich - she made just a few little changes here and there to her details, didn't she? It was all right for it to be seen that you
both lived in the same district, the same street, even - but not in the same apartment. Yet you do, don't you, live in the same apartment as your wife? You've been married together, happily married together, for almost forty-two years, if my information is correct. And apart from your daughter, there has only ever been one woman in life you have loved with passion and tenderness - the woman you married. She was a gifted actress, I learned. She was well known on the West Coast of America in many productions in the fifties and sixties - mostly in musicals in the earlier years, and then in a series of Arthur Miller plays. And being an actress, a successful actress, it was sensible for her to keep her stage name - which was in fact her maiden n
ame. But she gave her Christian name to her daughter, just as you did. Philippa J. Aldrich – Philippa Janet Aldrich - that was her name.' Morse nodded sadly to himself, and to the two people who sat so near to one another now.
Then a most poignant and exceedingly moving thing occurred. Only a few minutes since, Phil Aldrich had rejected (as it seemed) the blandishments of a diminutive, loud-mouthed, insufferable termagant. But now he accepted her invitation. He rose, and moved forward, just the one row, to sit beside the woman in the front, and to take her small hand gently into his - the tears now spilling down his cheeks. And as he did so, the woman turned towards him with eyes that were pale and desolate, yet eyes which still lit up with the glow of deep and happy love as she looked unashamedly, unrepentantly, into her husband's face; the eyes of a mother who had grieved so long and so desperately for her only daughter, a mother whose grief could never be comforted, and who had journeyed to England to avenge what she saw as an insufferable wrong - the loss of the jewel that was hers.
59
Je ne regrette rien
(French song)
After the arrests, after the statements from the two Aldriches and from a repentant Stratton, after a second search of the Kemps' residence, the case - at least from Morse's point of view - was finished.
The major statement (the statement to which Morse awarded the literary prize) was made by Mrs Janet Roscoe, who properly insisted on vetting the transcription of her lengthy evidence typed out by WPC Wright. Except at one point, this agreed with the parallel statement made by Mr Phil Aldrich, with each, in turn, substantially corroborated by Mr Edward Stratton's testimony about his own collusion with the Aldriches. The one colossal discrepancy arose from the two wholly contradictory accounts of Kemp's death. Neither Mr or Mrs Aldrich was willing to give any detail whatsoever about what, as Morse imagined, must have been a savagely bitter altercation between Kemp and themselves before the fateful (though maybe not immediately fatal?) blow struck with the stick that originally had rested across Marion Kemp's knees as she sat in her wheel-chair, her eyes (in Janet's splendid phrase) 'glowing with a sort of glorious revenge'. So much was agreed. Kemp had stumbled blindly against a chair and then fallen heavily, the back of his head striking the corner of the fireplace with 'a noise reminiscent of a large egg trodden under foot - deliberately'. So much was agreed. Then there was all that blood. Such a surprising amount of it! And the carpet where most of it had dripped; and his clothes 'sticky and messy with the stuff'. So much was agreed. But which of the two it was who had lashed out ferociously at Kemp with that stick
('Please return to the Radcliffe Infirmary' branded upon it) - ah! that was proving so difficult to decide. It had been Phil, of course - Janet confessed: 'He must have gone quite berserk, Inspector!' But no! It had been Janet all the time, as Phil had so sadly admitted to Morse: a frenetic Janet who had been the happy instrument of eternal Justice. But when Morse had told Janet of the wild discrepancy, she'd merely smiled. And when Morse had told Phil of the same ridiculous discrepancy, he too had merely smiled - and lovingly.
There had been one or two minor surprises in the statements, but for the most part things had happened almost exactly as Morse had supposed. What finally, it appeared, had transmuted an intolerable grief into an implacable hatred, and a lust for some sort of retribution, was the fact that in all the reports the parents had received of the coroner's proceedings and the magistrate's hearing, Philippa's name had never once occurred. A curious catalyst, perhaps, and yet what a devastating one! But the name of Dr Theodore Kemp had been mentioned many, many times; and when they had read of the Historic Cities of England Tour, they had seen that name again. Their plans were made (for what they were) and they duly took their places on the tour - almost enjoying the distanced yet sometimes friendly roles they had assumed. And it was on the coach that Janet had learned of the deceit that the Strattons were plotting . . . And after Janet had taken Laura Stratton's handbag, and put it immediately into her own, far more capacious one, she had gone to her own room, on the same floor, and happily discovered that the Wolvercote Tongue fitted almost perfectly into the small case she'd brought with her containing her portable iron . . .
Then it was the telephone call. . .
Janet had heard everything, clearly, And a plan was immediately formulated. Eddie Stratton was despatched somewhere - anywhere! - so long as he could establish a firm alibi for himself; and Phil sent off to a nearby car-hire firm, whilst she, Janet, remained seated by the extension-phone in her bedroom to deal with the necessary reference for the car firm. The confusion caused by Kemp's delay that day was a godsend; and Phil, after picking up Janet from Gloucester Green, had met Kemp at the railway station (his train two minutes early) informing him that his wife had been taken ill, that his duties were fully taken care of, and that he (Aldrich) was there to drive him directly up to his North Oxford home . ..
After the deed was done, Janet had found herself waiting anxiously for the return of Eddie Stratton; and as soon as she - and no one else! - had spotted him, she steered him away from The Randolph, handed him the Wolvercote Tongue and acquainted him with the second of his duties in the criminal conspiracy in which he was now a wholly committed accessory: the disposal of the body.
Marion Kemp (this from Stratton's evidence now) had admitted him at Water Eaton Road, where he had divested the corpse of its clothes - how else shift the body without staining his own? And . . . well, the rest was now known. It had not been an unduly gruesome task to a man for whom such post-mortem grotesqueries had been little more than a perfunctory performance. He had wrapped the carpet round the clothes of the murdered man, depositing the bundle behind the boiler in the airing-cupboard. And what of Marion Kemp? Throughout she had sat, Stratton claimed, in the hall-way. In silence.
'And greatly disturbed,' opined Morse.
'Oh no, Inspector!' Stratton had replied.
After leaving Water Eaton Road, Stratton had walked via First Turn and Goose Green to the Trout Inn at Wolvercote where he had thrown the Tongue into the river - and then caught a Nipper Bus back to St Giles', where he'd met Mrs Williams.
Sheila's evidence tallied with Stratton's account. She had invited Stratton back to her house in North Oxford, and he had accepted. Anxious as he was to drink himself silly, and with a co-operative partner to boot, Stratton had consumed considerable quantities of Glenfiddich - and had finally staggered into a summoned taxi at around midnight. . .
Such was the picture of the case that had finally emerged; such the picture that Morse painted on the Friday morning of that same week when Chief Superintendent Strange had come into his office, seating himself gruntingly into the nearest chair.
'None of your bullshit, Morse! Just the broad brush, my boy! I'm off to lunch with the C.C. in half an hour.' 'Give him my very best wishes, sir.' 'Get on with it!'
Strange sat back (and looked at his watch) when Morse had finished. 'She must have been an amazing woman.'
'She was, sir. I think Janet Roscoe is possibly the—'
'I'm not talking about her, I'm talking about the Kemp woman - Marion, wasn't it? Didn't the Aldrich pair take a huge gamble though? You know, assuming she would play along with 'em, and so on?'
'Oh, yes. But they were gambling all along - with the very highest stakes, sir.'
'And you just think, Morse! Staying in that house -with that bloody corpse - in her bedroom - in the hall -wherever - I don't know. I couldn't do it. Could you? It'd send me crackers.'
'She could never forgive him—'
'It'd still send me crackers.'
'She did commit suicide, sir,' said Morse slowly, beginning only now, perhaps, to see into the abyss of Marion's despair.
'So she did, Morse! So she did!'
Strange looked at his watch again and tilted his heavily jowled head: 'What put you on to 'em? The Aldriches?'
'I should have got there earlier, I suppose. Especially after that first statement Aldrich made, about his fictional trip to
London. He wrote it straight out - only three crossings-out in three pages. And if only I'd looked at what he'd crossed out instead of what he'd left in! He was writing under pressure and, if my memory serves me, he crossed out things like "we could have done something" and "our telephone number". He was worried about giving himself away, because he was writing like a married man ... He was a married man . . . And there was another clue, too. He even mentioned his daughter's name in that statement: "Pippa" - which as you know, sir, is a diminutive of "Philippa".'
Strange rose to his feet and pulled on his heavy winter coat. 'Some nice bits of thinking, Morse!'
Thank you, sir!'
'I'm not talking about you, It's this Roscoe woman. Very able little lady! Did you know that a lot of 'em have been little - these big people: Alexander, Augustus, Attila, Nelson, Napoleon . . .'
They tell me Bruckner was a very small man, sir.'
‘Who?'
The two men smiled briefly at each other as Strange reached the door.
'Just a couple of points, Morse. How did Janet Roscoe get rid of that handbag?'
'She says she walked round the corner into Cornmarket, and went into Salisbury's, and stuck it in the middle of the leather handbags on sale there.'
'What about the murder weapon? You say you've not recovered that?'
'Not yet. You see, she walked along to the Radcliffe Infirmary, so she says, and saw a notice there about an Amnesty - for anything you'd had from the place which you should have returned: "Amnesty - No Questions Asked", it said. She just handed it in.'
'Why haven't you got it, then?'
'Sergeant Lewis went along, sir. But there were seventy-one walking sticks in the Physio department there.' 'Oh!'
'Do you want any forensic tests on them?'
‘Waste of money.'
'That's what Sergeant Lewis said.'
