Colin Dexter - The Daughters of Cain

Such a hypothesis had the merit of fitting all the known facts; and if it could be corroborated by the new facts which would doubtless emerge from the meeting arranged for that afternoon at the Pitt Rivers Museum…

Yes.

But there was the ‘one potential fly in the ointment’, as Lewis had expressed himself half an hour earlier.

And Morse had winced at the phrase. ‘The cliché’s bad enough in itself, Lewis — but what’s a “potential fly” look like when it’s on the window-pane?’

‘Dunno, sir. But if Brooks was ambulanced off that Sunday with a heart attack—’

‘Wouldn’t you be likely to have a heart attack if you’d just killed somebody?’

‘We can check up straightaway at the hospital.’

‘All in good time,’ Morse had said. ‘You’ll have me in hospital if you don’t get me down to the Health Centre…’

Still thinking and still waiting, Lewis looked again at the brief supplementary report from the police pathologist, which had been left on Morse’s desk that morning.

Attn. Det. C.I. Morse.

No more re time of McClure’s death — but confirmation re probable ‘within which’: 8 a.m.–12 a.m. 28 Aug. Little more on knife/ knife-thrust: blade unusually (?) broad, 4–5 cms and about 14–15 cms in length/penetration. Straight through everything with massive internal and external bleeding (as reported). Blade not really sharp, judging by ugly lacerations round immediate entry-area. Forceful thrust. Man rather than woman? Perhaps woman with good wrist/arm (or angry heart?). Certainly one or two of our weaker (!) sex I met a year ago on a martial arts course.

Full details available if required.

All very technical — but possibly helpful?

‘At least she understands the full-stop,’ Morse had said.

Never having really mastered the full-stop himself, Lewis had refrained from any comment.

Yet they both realized the importance of finding the knife. Few murder prosecutions were likely to get off on the right foot without the finding of a weapon. But they hadn’t found a weapon. A fairly perfunctory search had earlier been made by Phillotson and his team; and Lewis himself had instigated a very detailed search of the area surrounding Daventry Court and the gardens of the adjacent properties. But still without success.

Anyway, Morse was never the man to hunt through a haystack for a needle. Much rather he’d always seek to intensify (as he saw it) the magnetic field of his mind and trust that the missing needle would suddenly appear under his nose. Not much intensification as yet, though; the only thing under Morse’s nose lately — and that under a towel — had been a bowl of steaming Friar’s Balsam.

But here came Morse at last (10.40 a.m.), cum prescription. And Lewis could predict the imminent conversation:

‘Chemist just around the corner, Lewis. If you’d just nip along and… I’d be grateful. Only problem’ — searching pockets — ‘I seem…’

Lewis was half right anyway.

‘There’s a chemist’s just round the corner. If you’d be so good? I don’t know how much these wretched Tories charge these days but’ — searching pockets — ‘here’s a tenner.’

Lewis left him there on the reserved parking lot, just starting The Times crossword; and walked happily up to Boots in Lower Summertown.

What was happening to Morse?

The third item appearing on Julia Stevens’ agenda the previous day had been postponed. On her arrival at the Old Parsonage Hotel, a telephone message was handed to her: Mrs Brooks would not be able to make the lunch; she was sorry; she would ring later if she could, and explain; please not to ring her.

Understandably, perhaps, Julia had not felt unduly disappointed, for her mind was full of other thoughts, especially of herself. And she enjoyed the solitude of her glass of Bruno Paillard Brut Premier Cru (daring!) seated on a high stool at the Parsonage Bar, before walking down to the taxi-rank by the Martyrs’ Memorial and thence being driven home in style and in a taxi gaudily advertising the Old Orleans Restaurant and Cocktail Bar.

It was not until later that evening that her brain began to weave its curious fancies about what exactly could have caused the problem…

Brenda Brooks rang (in a hurry, she’d said) just before the Nine O’Clock News on BBC1. Could they make it the next day, Saturday? A bit earlier? Twelve — twelve noon, say?

After she had put down the phone, Julia sat silently for a while, staring at nothing. A little bit odd, that — Brenda ringing (almost certainly) from a telephone-box when she had a phone of her own in the house. It would be something — everything — to do with that utterly despicable husband of hers. For from the very earliest days of their marriage, Ted Brooks had been a repulsive fly in the nuptial ointment; an ointment which had, over the thirteen increasingly unhappy and sometimes desperate years (as Julia had learned), regularly sent forth its stinking savour.

As Brenda Brooks waited at the bus-stop that Saturday morning, then again as she made her bus journey down to Carfax, a series of videos, as it were, flashed in a nightmare of repeats across her mind; and her mood was an amalgam of anticipation and anxiety.

It had been three days earlier, Wednesday, 31 August, that she’d been seen at the Orthopaedic Clinic…

‘At least it’s not made your fracture.’

‘Pardon, doctor?’ So nervous had she been that so many of his words made little or no sense to her.

‘I said, it’s not a major fracture, Mrs Brooks. But it is a fracture.’

‘Oh deary me.’

But she’d finally realized it was something more than a sprain — that’s why she’d eventually gone to her GP, who in turn had referred her to a specialist. And now she was hearing all about it: about the meta-something between the wrist and the fingers. She’d try to look it up in that big dark-blue Gray’s Anatomy she’d often dusted on one of Mrs Stevens’ bookshelves. Not too difficult to remember: she’d just have to think of ‘met a couple’ — that’s what it sounded like.

‘And you’ll be very sensible, if you can, to stop using your right hand completely. No housework. Rest! That’s what it needs. The big thing for the time being is to give it a bit of support. So before you leave, the nurse here’ll let you have one of those “Tubigrips” — fits over your hand like a glove. And, as I say, we’ll get you in just as soon as, er… are you a member of BUPA, by the way?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Doesn’t matter. We’ll get you in just as soon as we can. Only twenty-four hours, with a bit of luck. Just a little op to set the bone and plaster you up for a week or two.’

‘It’s not quite so easy as that, Doctor. My husband’s been in hospital for a few days. He’s had a bit of a heart attack, and he’s only just home this morning, so…’

‘We can put you in touch with a home-help.’

‘I can do a little bit of housework, can’t I?’

‘Not if you’re sensible. Can’t you get a cleaning-lady in for a couple of days a week?’

‘I am a cleaning-lady,’ she replied, at last feeling that she’d rediscovered her bearings; re-established her identity in life.

She’d hurried home that morning, inserting and turning the Yale key with her left hand, since it was becoming too painful to perform such an operation with her right.

‘I’m back, Ted!’

Walking straight through into the living-room, she found her husband, fully dressed, lounging in front of the TV, his fingers on the black control-panel.