Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead

She had spoken in a soft Scots accent, this grimly visaged, tight-lipped sister, a silver buckle clasped around her dark-blue uniform; and Lewis, the colour tidally risen under his pale cheeks, looked wretchedly uncomfortable as she turned away – and was gone. Even Morse, for a few moments, appeared strangely cowed and silent.

'Who's that?' asked Lewis (for the second time that evening).

'You have just had an encounter with the embittered soul of our ward sister – devoted to an ideal of humourless efficiency: a sort of Calvinistic Thatcherite.'

'And what she says…?'

Morse nodded. 'She is, Lewis, in charge, as I think you probably gathered.'

'Doesn't have to be so sharp, does she?'

'Forget it, Lewis! She's probably disappointed in her love-life or something. Not surprising with a face-'

'What's her name?'

'They call her "Nessie".'

'Was she born near the Loch?'

'In it, Lewis.'

The two men laughed just a little; yet the incident had been unpleasant and Lewis in particular found it difficult to put it behind him. For a further five minutes he quizzed Morse quietly about the other patients; and Morse told him of the dawn departure of the ex-Indian-Army man. For still another five minutes, the two men exchanged words about Police HQ at Kidlington; about the Lewis family; about the less-than-sanguine prospects of Oxford United in the current soccer campaign. But nothing could quite efface the fact that 'that bloody sister' (as Morse referred to her) had cast a darkling shadow over the evening visit; had certainly cast a shadow over Lewis. And Morse himself was suddenly feeling hot and sweaty, and (yes, if he were honest) just a fraction wearied of the conversation.

'I'd better be off then, sir.'

'What else have you got in that bag?'

'Nothing-'

'Lewis! My stomach may be out of order for the minute but there's nothing wrong with my bloody ears!'

Slowly the dark clouds began to lift for Lewis, and when, after prolonged circumspection, he decided that the Customs Officer was momentarily off her guard, he withdrew a small, flattish bottle, wrapped in soft, dark-blue tissue-paper – much the colour of Nessie's uniform.

'But not until it's official like!' hissed Lewis, palming the gift surreptitiously into Morse's hand beneath the bedclothes.

'Bell's?' asked Morse.

Lewis nodded.

It was a happy moment.

For the present, however, the attention of all was diverted by another bell that sounded from somewhere, and visitors began to stand and prepare for their departure: a few, perhaps, with symptoms of reluctance; but the majority with signs of only partially concealed relief. As Lewis himself rose to take his leave, he dipped his hand once more into the carrier-bag and produced his final offering: a paperback entitled The Blue Ticket, with a provocative picture of an economically clad nymphet on the cover.

'I thought – I thought you might enjoy something: little bit lighter, sir. The missus doesn't know-'

'I hope she's never found you reading this sort of rubbish, Lewis!'

'Haven't read it yet, sir.'

'Well, the, er, title's a bit shorter than the other thing…"

Lewis nodded, and the two friends shared a happy grin.

‘Time to go, I'm afraid!' The Fair Fiona was smiling down at them, especially (it seemed) smiling down at Lewis, for whom every cloud was suddenly lifted from the weather-chart. As for Morse, he was glad to be alone again; and when the ward finally cleared of its last visitor, the hospital system smoothly, inexorably, reoriented itself once more to the care and treatment of the sick.

It was only after further testings of pulse and blood pressure, after the administration of further medicaments, that Morse had the opportunity (unobserved) of reading the blurb of the second work of literature (well, literature of a sort) which was now in his possession:

Diving into the water, young Steve Mingella had managed to pull the little girl's body on to the hired yacht and to apply to her his clumsy version of die kiss-of-life. Miraculously, the six-year-old had survived, and for a few days Steve was the toast of the boat clubs along die Florida Keys. After his return to New York he received a letter – and inside the letter a ticket – from the young girl's father, the playboy proprietor of the city's most exclusive, expensive, and exotic night-spot, a club specialising in the wildest sexual fantasies. The book opens as Steve treads diffidently across the thick carpeted entrance of dial erotic wonderland, and shows to the topless blonde seated at Reception the ticket he has received – a ticket coloured deepest blue…

Half an hour after Lewis's departure, Fiona came again Morse's bedside and asked him to unfasten his pyjama bottoms, to turn over on his left side, and to expose his right buttock. Which orders having been obeyed (as Morse used say when he studied the Classics), the unsmiling Nessie was summoned to insert a syringe of colourless liquid into flank. This insertion (he could see nothing over his his shoulder) seemed to Morse to have been effected with less than professional finesse; and he heard himself grunt ‘Christ!' when the plunger was pressed, his body twitching involuntarily as what felt like a bar of iron was implanted in his backside.

‘You'll feel a wee bit sleepy,' was the laconic comment of the Loch Ness Monster; and Fiona was left to pour some disinfectant on to a piece of gauze, which she proceeded to rub vigorously across and around the punctured area.

'She'd have landed a top job in Buchenwald, that woman!' said Morse. But from the uncomprehending look on her face, he suddenly realized that Nazi concentration camps were as far back in the young nurse's past as the relief of Mafeking was in his own; and he felt his age. It was forty-four years now since the end of the Second World War… and this young… nurse… could only be… Morse was conscious of feeling very weary, very tired. 'What I mean is… ' (Morse pulled his pyjama bottoms up with some difficulty)'… she's so… sharp!' Yes, Lewis had used that word.

'Did you realize that was my very first injection? Sorry if it hurt a bit – I'll get better.'

'I thought it was… '

'Yes, I know.' She smiled down at him and Morse's eyelids drooped heavily over his tired eyes. Nessie had said he'd feel a wee bit… weary…

His head jerked down against his chest, and Fiona settled him against the pillows, gently looking at him as he lay there, and wondering for the dozenth time in her life why all the men who attracted her had either been happily married long, long since, or else were far, far, far too old.

Morse felt a soft-fingered hand on his right wrist, and opened his eyes to find himself staring up into the face of an extraordinary-looking personage. She was a very small woman, of some seventy-five to eighty summers, wispily white-haired, her face deeply wrinkled and unbeautiful, with an old-fashioned NHS hearing-aid plugged into her left ear, its cord stretching down to a batteried appliance in the pocket of a dirty, loose, grey-woollen cardigan. She appeared naively unaware that any apology might perhaps be called for in wakening a weary patient. Who was she? Who had let her in? It was 9.45 p.m. by the ward clock and two night nurses were on duty. Go away! Go away, you stupid old crow!

'Mr Horse? Mr Horse, is it?' Her rheumy eyes squinted myopically at the Elastoplast name-tag, and her mouth distended in a dentured smile.

'Morse!' said Morse. 'M-O

'Do you know, I think they've spelt your name wrong, Mr Horse. I'll try to remember to tell-'