Colin Dexter - The Dead of Jericho

Throughout Celia's story, Richards himself had sat silently; and after she had finished, Celia herself lapsed into a similar, almost abject, silence. How the pair would react-how they did react-after his departure, Morse could only guess. They had refused his offer of a drink at the White Swan, and Morse himself stoically decided that he would wait for a pint until he got back to Kidlington. For a couple of minutes he was held up along Oxford Avenue by temporary traffic lights along a short stretch of road repairs, and by chance he found himself noticing the number of the house on the gate-post to his left: 204. He remembered that it must be very close indeed to the Richards' residence, and as he passed he looked carefully at number 216-set back some thirty yards, with a gravelled path leading up to the garage. Not all that palatial? Certainly there were other properties aplenty near by that could more appropriately have housed a successful businessman and his wife; and it suddenly occurred to Morse that perhaps Charles Richards was not quite so affluent as he might wish others to believe. It was a thought, certainly, but Morse could see little point in pursuing it. In fact, however, it would have repaid him handsomely at that point to have turned the Lancia round immediately and visited the Abingdon Branch of Lloyds Bank to try to seek some confidential insight into the accounts of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Richards, although not (it must be said) for the reason he had just considered. For the moment a mystery had been cleared up, and that, for a morning's work, seemed fair enough. He drove steadily on, passing a turning on his right which was sign-posted 'Radley'. Wasn't that where Jennifer Something, Charles Richards' latest bedfellow, was dispensing her grace and favours? It was; but even that little loose end was now safely tucked away-if Celia Richards was telling the truth…

At that point a cloud of doubt no bigger than a man's hand was forming on Morse's mental horizon; but again he kept straight ahead.

Back in Charles Richards' office, Celia stood by the window staring down at the parking area for many minutes after Morse had left-just as she had stood staring down when he had arrived and parked the Lancia in the carefully guarded space. Finally she turned round and broke the prolonged silence between them.

'He's a clever man-you realise that, don't you?'

'I'm not sure.'

'Do you think-?'

'Forget it!' He stood up. 'Feel like a drink?'

'Yes.' She turned round again and stared down at the street. She'd told only one big lie, but she'd felt almost sure that Morse had spotted it. Perhaps she was mistaken, though. Perhaps he wasn't quite as clever as she'd thought.

In the light of a bright October morning the streets assumed a different aspect, and the terraced houses seemed less squeezed and mean. Along the pavements the women talked and polished the door fixtures, visited the corner shops and in general reasserted, with the men-folk now at work, their quiet and natural birthright. A sense of community was evident once more and the sunlight had brought back the colour of things.

Yes, Sergeant Lewis had spent an enjoyable and reasonably profitable morning in Jericho, and after lunch he reported to Morse's office in the Thames Valley Police HQ buildings in Kidlington. Discreet inquiries had produced a few further items of information about Jackson. Odd jobs had brought him a considerable supplement to his pension, and such jobs had hardly been fitful and minor. Indeed, it was quite clear that the man was far from being a pauper. The house had been his own, he had almost £1,500 in the Post Office Savings Bank, a very recent acquisition of £250 in Retirement Bonds, and (as Lewis guessed) perhaps some £1,000 of fishing equipment. Yet his business dealings with the Jericho traders had been marked by a grudging frugality, and the occasional granting of credit. But it seemed that he always met his debts in the end, and he was up to date with the Walton Tackle Shop on his instalments of £7.50 for a carbon-fibre fishing rod. He had no immediate relatives, and the assumption had to be that Jackson was the last of an inglorious line. But Lewis had met no real ill-feeling against the man: just plain indifference. And somehow it seemed almost sadder that way.

Morse listened with interest, and in turn recounted his own rather more dramatic news.

'Did you get a statement from her?' asked Lewis.

'Statement?'

'Well, we shall need one, shan't we?'

So it was that Lewis rang the number Morse gave him, discovered that Mrs. Celia Richards was at home, and arranged to meet her that same afternoon. It seemed to Lewis an unnecessary duplication of mileage, but he forbore to make the point. As for Morse, his interest in the Richards' clan appeared to be waning, and at 3.40 p.m. he found himself entering 10 Canal Reach-though he couldn't have told anyone exactly why.

The bloodstained sheets had been removed from the bedroom in which Jackson had died, but the blankets were still there, neatly folded at the foot of the bare, striped mattress. On the floor the magazines had been stacked in their two categories, and Morse sat down on the bed and picked up some of the pornographic ones once more, flipping through the lewd and lurid photographs. One or two pages had an accompanying text in what looked to him like Swedish or Danish, but most of the magazines had abdicated the requirement of venturing into the suburbs of literature to enhance their visual impact. The angling magazines remained untouched.

Downstairs, the kitchen boasted few of the latest gadgets, and the tiny larder was ill-stocked. Some copies of the Sun lay under the grimy sink, and the crockery and cutlery used by Jackson for his last meagre meal on earth still stood on the dingy, yellow rack on the draining-board. Nothing, really. In the front room, similarly, there seemed little of interest. A small brass model of a cannon from the Boer War era was the only object on the dusty mantelpiece, and the sole adornment to the faded green wallpaper was a calendar from one of the Angling Associations, still turned to the month of September. A small transistor radio stood on a pile of oddments on the cupboard, and Morse turned on the switch. But the batteries appeared to have run out. There were one or two things in the pile which Morse had vaguely noted on his previous visit, but now he looked at them again: an out-of-date mail-order catalogue; a current pension book; an unopened gas bill; an old copy of The Oxford Journal ; an illustrated guide to 'Fish of the British Isles'; two leaflets entitled On The Move ; a slim box containing two white handkerchiefs; a circular- Suddenly Morse stopped and turned back to the leaflets. Yes. He remembered reading about the successful TV series On The Move , catering, as it did, for those viewers who were illiterate-or virtually so. Would illiteracy account for the lack of reading material in the Jackson household? Many a pornographic pose, but hardly a line of pornographic prose? What a different set-up across the way at number 9, where Anne Scott had surrounded herself with books galore! That long line of Penguin Classics, for example-many of them showing the telltale white furrows down their black spines: Homer, Plato, Thucydides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Horace, Livy, Virgil… If poor old Jackson could only have seen… He had seen though: he'd almost certainly seen more than he should have done, both of the house itself and of the woman who regularly unbuttoned her blouse at the bedroom window.

Morse went upstairs to the front bedroom once more, took the binoculars that hung behind the door, and focused them upon the boudoir opposite. Phew! It was almost like being inside the actual room! He walked into the tiny back bedroom and looked out in the fading light along the narrow strip of garden to the shed at the far end, about thirty yards away. He focused the binoculars again, but finding the dirty panes hardly conducive to adequate delineation he took the catch off the window and pushed up the stiff, squeaky frame. Then he saw something, and his blood raced. He put the binoculars to his eyes once more-and he was sure of it: someone was looking around in Jackson's shed . Morse hurriedly made his way downstairs, put the key quietly into the kitchen door, took a deep breath, flicked open the lock, and rushed out.