by Colin Dexter
'Is he the one who died?'
The tramp looked at Morse with what could have been a glint of suspicion behind the dark lenses, and took a swig on the bottle. 'Christ, you can say that again, mister.' He shuffled along the railings towards Carfax, and was gone.
Morse crossed the road yet again, and walked past the snack bar, past a well-stocked bicycle-shop, past the cinema, and then turned left into the curving sweep of Beaumont Street. Momentarily he debated between the Ashmolean, just opposite on his right, and the Randolph, immediately on his left. It wasn't a fair contest.
The cocktail-bar was already quite full as Morse waited rather impatiently for a group of Americans to sort out their gins and tarnics. The barmaid wore a low-cut dress and Morse watched with what he told himself was a fascinated indifference as she finally leaned forward over the beer-pump to pull his order. She was too young, though – no more than twenty-odd – and Morse was beginning to formulate the philosophy that men were attracted to women of roughly their own age – well, give or take ten years or so either way.
He sat down, savoured his beer, and took out cutting number three from his pocket. It was dated Wednesday, 19 October.
TRAGIC FALL FROM CHURCH TOWER
Yesterday morning the Reverend Lionel Lawson fell to his death from the tower of St Frideswide 's Church in Cornmarket. Only ten minutes earlier he had conducted the regular 7.30 a.m. Communion Service, and two members of the congregation were among the first to discover the tragedy.
The church tower, formerly a favourite viewing-point for tourists, has been closed to the public for the last two years as signs of crumbling have become evident in the stone fabric on the north side. But the tower was not considered unsafe, and only a week ago workmen had been up to check the leads.
Mr Lawson, a bachelor, aged 41, had been vicar of St Frideswide's for almost eleven years. He will be remembered above all, perhaps, for his social work, since in addition to his deep involvement with the church's flourishing youth activities he invariably took a compassionate interest in the plight of the homeless, and there can be few regular down-and-outs in Oxford who have not at some time or another enjoyed his hospitality.
As a churchman he made no apologies for his High Anglican views, and although his strongly voiced hostility towards the ordination of women was not universally popular his large and loyal congregation will mourn the death of a dear friend and pastor. He studied theology at Christ's College, Cambridge, and later at St Stephen's House, Oxford.
Only last month Mr H. A. Josephs, churchwarden of St Frideswide's, was found stabbed to death in the church vestry.
Mm. Morse looked at the last sentence again and wondered why the reporter had deemed it his duty to stick it in. Wasn't there a bit too much of that post hoc, propter hoc suspicion about it? Yet a murder followed very shortly afterwards by a suicide was by no means uncommon, and the reporter would hardly have been the only one to suspect some causal connection. For if Lawson had somehow managed to murder Josephs, then it was surely only honourable and proper for a servant of the Lord to be stricken so sorely in conscience as to chuck himself off the nearest or most convenient pinnacle, was it not?
Morse drained his beer, fiddled in his pockets for some more change, and looked vaguely around him. A woman had just walked up to the bar and he studied her back view with growing interest. A good deal nearer his own age than the barmaid, certainly: black-leather, knee-length boots; slim figure; tight-belted, light-fawn raincoat; spotted red headscarf. Nice. On her own, too.
Morse sauntered up beside her and heard her order a dry Martini; and the thought crossed his mind that all he had to do was to pay for her drink, ask her over to his lonely corner, and talk of this and that in a quiet, unassuming, intelligent, fascinating, masterly way. And then – who knows? But a middle-aged customer had risen from his seat and clapped a hand on her shoulder.
'I’ll get that Ruth, love. You sit down.'
Miss Rawlinson unfastened her headscarf and smiled. Then, as she appeared to notice Morse for the first time, the smile was gone. She nodded – almost curtly, it seemed – and turned away.
After his third pint, Morse left the cocktail-bar and from the foyer rang through to the City Police Station. But Chief Inspector Bell was on holiday, he was told – in Spain.
It was a long time since Morse had undertaken any extended exercise, and he decided on impulse to walk up to north Oxford. Only half an hour, if he stepped it out. As if to deride his decision, bus after bus passed him: Cutteslowe buses, Kidlington buses, and the eternally empty Park and Ride buses, subsidised at huge cost by the City Fathers in the vain hope of persuading shoppers to leave their cars on the outskirts. But Morse kept walking.
As he came up to the Marston Ferry cross-roads he watched, almost mesmerised, as a north-bound car pulled out of the inside lane into the path of an overtaking motor-cycle. The rider was thrown slithering to the other side of the road where his white helmet hit the kerb with a sickening thwack, and where the near-side wheel of a south-bound lorry, for all its squealing brake-power, ran over the man's pelvis with an audible crunch.
Others on that scene showed, perhaps for the first time in their lives, a desperate courage born of the hour: figures knelt by the dying man, and coats were laid over his crushed body; a young man with greasy shoulder-length hair took upon himself the duties of a traffic policeman; a doctor was on his way from the Summertown Health Centre on the corner; the ambulance and police were already being summoned.
But Morse felt his stomach tighten and twist in a spasm of pain. A light sweat had broken out on his forehead, and he thought he was going to vomit as he averted his eyes and hurried away. The sense of his inadequacy and cowardice disgusted him, but the physical sickness prowling in his bowels drove him on, farther and farther up the road, past the Summertown shops, and at last to his home. Even the Levite had taken a quick look before passing by on the other side.
What it was about road accidents that threw him so completely off balance, Morse had never quite been able to understand. Many a time he had been on the scene of a murder, and examined a brutally mutilated corpse. With an ugly distaste, certainly; but with nothing worse. Why was it, then? Perhaps it was something to do with the difference between death and the process of dying, certainly of dying in a writhing agony after a road accident. Yes, it was the accidental angle of things; the flukey, fortuitous nature of it all; the 'if only' of being just a few yards, just a few inches even, from safety; of being just a second, just a fraction of a second, earlier – or later, it was all that Lucretian business about the random concourse of the atoms, hurtling headlong through the boundless void, colliding occasionally like billiard balls, colliding like a car against a motor-bike. All so pointless, somehow; all so cruelly haphazard. Occasionally Morse considered the ever-decreasing possibility of having a family himself, and he knew that he might be able to face some terrible illness in those he loved; but never an accident.
In the distance sounded the urgent two-toned siren of an ambulance, like some demented mother wailing for her children.
Morse picked up his one pint of milk and shut the door of his bachelor flat behind him. Not the best of starts to a holiday! He selected Richard Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder; but a sudden thought flashed through his mind, and he put the record down again. In the Randolph he had quickly read through cutting number four, the newspaper account of the inquest on Lawson; little of interest there, he'd thought. But had he been right? He read it through again now. The poor fellow had obviously been a terrible sight, his body violently crushed by his fall, his skull – Yes! That is what had clicked in Morse's mind as he had lifted the lid of the record-player. If he himself had been unwilling to look at the face of a dying motor-cyclist, had those two witnesses looked as closely as they should have done at that sadly shattered skull? All he needed now was a little information from the official report of the coroner's hearing; and, knowing the coroner very well, he could get that little information
straightaway – that very afternoon.
Ten minutes later he was asleep.
Chapter Nine
Avoiding the man's look, Ruth Rawlinson finished her second Martini and stared at the slice of lemon at the bottom of her glass.
'Another?'
'No, I mustn't. Really. I've had two already.'
'Go on! Enjoy yourself! We only live once, you know.'
Ruth smiled sadly. It was just the sort of thing her mother kept saying: 'You're missing out on life, Ruthie dear. Why don't you try to meet more people? Have a good time?' Her mother! Her grumbling, demanding, crippled mother. But still her mother; and she, Ruth, her only child: forty-one years old (almost forty-two), a virgin until so recently, and then not memorably deflowered.
'Same again, then?' He was on his feet, her glass held high in his hand.
Why not? She felt pleasantly warm somewhere deep down inside her, and she could always go to bed for a few hours when she got home. Monday afternoon was her mother's weekly bridge session, and nothing short of a nuclear attack on north Oxford could ever disturb those four mean old women as they grubbed for penalty points and overtricks at the small green-baize table in the back room.
'You'll have me drunk if you're not careful,' she said.
'What do you think I'm trying to do?'
She knew him fairly well now, and she watched him as he stood at the bar in his expensively cut suit: a few years older than herself, with three teenage children and a charming, intelligent, trusting wife. And he wanted her.
Yet for some reason she didn't want him. She couldn't quite bear the thought of being intimate with him – not (she reminded herself) that she really knew what intimacy was all about…
Her eyes wandered round the room once more, in particular to a point in the farthest corner of the room. But Morse had gone now, and for some unfathomable reason she knew she had wanted him to stay – just to be there. She'd recognised him, of course, as soon as she'd walked in, and she had been conscious of his presence all the time. Could she get into bed with him? It was his eyes that fascinated her; bluey-grey, cold – and yet somehow vulnerable and lost. She told herself not to be so silly; told herself she was getting drunk.
As she slowly sipped the third Martini, her companion was busily writing something on the back of a beer-mat.
'Here we are, Ruth. Be honest with me – please!'
She looked down at what he had written:
Tick the box which
in your opinion is nearest
to your inclinations. Will
you let me take you to bed
this week? O
next week? O
this year? O
next year? O
sometime? O
never? O
It made her smile, but she shook her head slowly and helplessly. 'I can't answer that. You know I can't.'
'You mean it's "never"?'
'I didn't say that. But – but you know what I mean. You're married, and I know your wife. I respect her. Surely- '
'Just tick one of the boxes. That's all.'
'But-'
'But you'll disappoint me if you tick the last one, is that it? Go on, then. Disappoint me. But be honest about it, Ruth. At least I shall know where I stand.'
'I like you – you know that. But- '
'You've got plenty of choice.'
'What if none of the answers is the right one?'
'One of 'em must be right.'
'No.' She took out her own pen and wrote in a single word before 'sometime': the word 'perhaps'.
Unlike Morse, she didn't sleep that afternoon. She felt fresh and alive, and would have done a few odd jobs in the garden but for the persistent drizzle. Instead she revised the lines for her part in the play. Friday was looming frighteningly near, and the cast was rehearsing at 7.30 p.m. that evening. Not that a tuppenny-ha'penny play at a church social was all that grand; but she was never happy about doing even the smallest things half-heartedly – and they always had a good audience.
Morse himself woke up with a shudder and a grunt at 3 p.m., and slowly focused upon life once more. The newspaper cuttings still lay on the arm of his chair, and he collected them together and put them back in their envelope. Earlier in the day he had allowed things to get out of perspective. But no longer. He was on holiday, and he was going to have a holiday. From his bookshelf he hooked out a thick volume; and just as the Romans used to do it with the Sibylline Books, just as the fundamentalists still do it with the Holy Scriptures – so did Morse do it with the AA Hotels of Britain. He closed his eyes, opened the book at random, and stuck his index finger half-way down the left-hand page. There she was. Derwentwater: Swiss Lodore Hotel. Keswick, three miles S. along the… He rang the number immediately. Yes, they had a single room with private bath. How long for? Four or five nights, Perhaps. All right. He'd be leaving straightaway, and be there about – oh, about nine or ten. Good.
Evesham – about an hour, if he was lucky. Along the old Worcester Road. M5 and M6 – 80 m.p.h. in the fast lane. Easy! He'd be there in time for a slap-up meal and a bottle of red wine Lovely. That's what holidays were all about.
Chapter Ten
The Reverend Keith Meiklejohn exuded a sort of holy enthusiasm as he stood at the door of the church hall. Obviously there was going to be a big audience, and in between the unctuous Good evenings, how nice of you to comes, he debated the wisdom of fetching some of the old chairs from the store-room. It was only 7.20 p.m., but already the hall was two-thirds full. He knew why, of course: it was the Sunday School infant classes' tap-dance troupe, with its gilt-edged guarantee of attracting all the mums and aunts and grandmas. 'Hello, Mrs Walsh-Atkins. How very nice of you to come. Just a few seats left near the front… ' He despatched two reluctant choirboys for the extra chairs, and was ready with his beam of ecclesiastical bonhomie for the next arrival. 'Good evening, sir. How nice of you to come. Are you a visitor to Oxford or-?'
'No, I live here.'
The newcomer walked into the hall and sat down at the back, a slightly sour expression on his face. He gave five pence to the pretty pig-tailed girl who came up to him and stuck the programme in his pocket. What a day! Almost six hours from Keswick to the Evesham exit: single-lane traffic north of Stoke; a multiple pile-up just after Birmingham, with all lanes closed for almost an hour on the south-bound carriageway; flood warnings flashing for the last thirty miles and the juggernaut lorries churning up spray like speedboats… And what a so-called holiday! On fine days (he had little doubt) the view from his bedroom at the Swiss Lodore would have been most beautiful; but the mist had driven down from the encircling hills, and it was as much as he could do to spot the grass on the lawn below his window, with its white chairs and tables – all deserted. Some of his fellow-guests had taken to their cars and driven (presumably) in search of some less-bedraggled scenery; but the majority had just sat around and read paperback thrillers, played cards, gone swimming in the heated indoor pool, eaten, drunk, talked intermittently, and generally managed to look rather less miserable than Morse did. He could find no passably attractive women over-anxious to escape their hovering husbands, and the few who sat unattended in the cocktail-lounge were either too plain or too old. In his bedroom Morse found a leaflet on which was printed Robert Southey's 'How the Waters Come Down at Lodore'; but he felt that even a poet laureate had seldom sunk to such banality. And anyway, after three days, Morse knew only too well how the waters came down at Lodore: they came down in bucketfuls, slanting incessantly in sharp lines from a leaden sky.
On Friday (it was 7 April) The Times was brought into his room with his early-morning tea; and after looking at the week-end weather forecast he decided to leave immediately after breakfast. It was as he was taking out his cheque-book at the reception-desk that the folded white leaflet fluttered to the floor: he had pocketed it absentmindedly from the literature set out on the table at the entrance to St Frideswide's, but it was only now that he read it.
CO
NCERT
At the Church Hall, St Aldates
Friday, April 7th, at 7.30 p.m.
tap-dance troupe (Sunday School)
GILBERT & SULLIVAN MEDLEY (Church Choir)
A VICTORIAN MELODRAMA (Drama Group)
Entrance Fee 20p. Programme Sp.
ALL WELCOME (Proceeds in aid of the Tower Restoration Fund)
It was that last line, pregnant with possibilities, that had monopolised Morse's thoughts as he drove the Jaguar south. Were the crenellations really crumbling after all? Had they crumbled, when Lawson looked his last over the familiar landmarks of the city? Whenever possible, juries were keen to steer away from 'suicide' verdicts, and if the tower had been at all unsafe the point would have been a crucial one. What Morse really needed was the coroner's report: it would all be there. And it was to the coroner's office that Morse had immediately driven when he finally reached Oxford at 4.30 p.m.
The report, apart from the detailed descriptions of Lawson's multiple mutilations, was vaguer than Morse had hoped, with no mention whatsoever of the parapet from which Lawson had plummeted to earth. Yet there was one section of the report that firmly gripped his interest, and he read it through again. 'Mrs Emily Walsh-Atkins, after giving formal evidence of identification, said that she had remained alone for some minutes in the church after the service. She then waited for about five minutes outside the church, where she had arranged to be picked up by taxi: the service had finished slightly earlier than usual. At about 8.10 a.m. she heard a terrible thud in the churchyard and had looked round to find Lawson's body spread-eagled on the railings. Fortunately two police officers had soon appeared on the scene and Mr Morris' (Morris!) 'had taken her back inside, the church to sit down and recover… ' Morse knew that he would have little mental rest until he had seen Mrs W.-A., and it was that lady who was the immediate cause of his attendance at the Church Concert. (Was she the only reason, Morse?) He had just missed her at the Home for Ageing Gentlefolk, but they knew where she had gone.
