Colin Dexter - The Daughters of Cain

Most people in your position would have murdered him, you dear old thing, said Julia, but only to herself. And suddenly the realization that such a viciously cruel man should have ruined the life of such a sweet and lovable woman made her so very angry. Yet, at the same time, so very much in control.

Was it perhaps that the simultaneous keeping of her own secret with the hearing of another’s was an unsuspected source of strength? But Julia had no opportunity of pursuing this interesting line of thought, for Brenda now opened her handbag and passed over the letter she’d received the previous Tuesday — not through the post, but pushed by hand through her letter-box.

‘Just read it, please! No need to say anything.’

As Julia put on her school-ma’amish spectacles, she was aware that the woman seated beside her was now in tears.

The silent weeping had subsided into intermittent snuffling as Julia finished reading the agonized and agonizing pages.

‘My God,’ she whispered.

‘But that’s not all. There’s something else — something even worse. I shall just have to tell somebody, Mrs Stevens — if you can bear it.’

Dear mum — dearest mum!

Its been a long time hasn’t it and I didn’t really want to write but I can’t talk about it, I just can’t. I was never much good with words but I’m going to try. Its about why I left home and how I couldn’t really ever tell you about it. I’m writing now because my friend at the hospital told me about him and she said he’s a lot better and going home soon — and all I want you to do is let him get very much worse again and don’t look after him — just let him die that’s what I want because he bloody deserves it! You thought I left because I hated school and dreamt of boys and sex and got mixed up with drugs and all the punk scene and all that, and you were right in a way because I did. But you got upset about the wrong things, that’s what I’m saying. Why did I leave you mum — tell me that. You can’t think it was much fun for me with sod all to pay for anything and nowhere to bloody go, I’d just got one thing going for me and that was what you and dear old dad gave me, a good pair of thighs and a good pair of tits all the randy buggers wanted to get their hands on and believe me they paid good money for it. All I’m saying mum is I never really had to slum it after those first few weeks in London anyway. I never had the guts to tell you why but I’ve got to tell you now so here goes. Don’t get too upset about it all, well not about me anyway, just about that horny bastard you married thirteen years ago.

I was thirteen when it started and we had the flu together him and me and so you remember we were both in bed when you went off cleaning one Thursday morning, you see I even remember the day of the week, and he came into my bedroom about eleven and brought me a cup of bovril and he said how nice looking I was getting and what a nice little figure I was getting and all that bullshit and how proud he was to have a daughter like me, well a step-daughter. Then he put his arm round me and started rubbing my neck and back a bit through my pajamas and told me to relax because that would do me good and soon I was lying down again with my back to him, and then I’m not sure how it happened but he was lying down and I could feel his hand inside my pajama top and he was feeling me, and I didn’t know what to do because for a start I just thought he was being affectionate and I didn’t want to upset him because we’d both be embarassed if I tried to push him away. Please mum try to understand! Perhaps its difficult to know where the line comes between affection and sex but I knew because I felt something hard against me and I knew what it was. I just felt scared then like that first day in school when I was in a room I shouldn’t have been in and when I just got kept in for what wasn’t my fault at all, but I thought it was my fault. Oh mum I’m not explaining things very well. And then he grabbed my hand and pulled it back behind him and pushed it inside his pajamas and told me to rub him, and I just didn’t know what I was doing. It was the first time I’d ever felt a man like that and he was sort of silky and warm and I felt afraid and fascinated at the same time. All I know is I’d done what he wanted before I had the chance of thinking about what I was doing and suddenly there was all that sticky stuff all over my pajama bottoms, and you won’t remember but when you came home I told you I’d put them in the washing machine because I’d been sweating. Afterwards he kept on saying that it was me who’d agreed to do it, me who’d started it all not him. Mum! He was a wicked liar, but even if it was just one per cent me you’ve got to forgive me. He made the most of everything, my God he did. He said if I told you about what he’d done he’d tell you about what I done, and I got scared stiff you’d find out, and it was like blackmail all the time those next three awful years when he made me do everything he wanted. You could never believe how I loathed him, even the sight of him, I hated him more than I’ve ever hated anybody since. Well that’s it mum, I wonder what your thinking. He’s a shit and I never never never want to see him again unless its to stick a bloody great big knife in his great fat gut and watch him squirm and hear him squeal like the great fat pig he is. And if you want any help with sticking the fucking pig you just let me know because I’ll only be too glad to help. There’s only one other thing to tell you and perhaps its why I’ve written to you now. I’ve always kept in touch with Auntie Beryl, its been a secret but she’s always let me know how you are and she wrote a fortnight ago and told me how he’s been treating you mum — you must have let her know. Your mad to stick it, your a matyr that’s what you are. I’ve just read through all this and I know one thing I said you can do but you can’t — not yet — and that’s get in touch with me, but its better that way though don’t be surprised if you see me. Not just yet though, its been such a long long time and I can’t quite face it, not yet. I love you mum, I shall always love you better than anybody. One last thing and its odd really but I read in the Oxford—

Julia turned over the page but that was the finish: the last part of the letter was missing.

Lewis, on his way for an appointment with the House Matron of Wolsey, had dropped Morse in the Broad, where the Chief Inspector had swilled down a double dosage of penicillin pills with a pint of Hook Norton in the White Horse, before making his way to the Pitt Rivers Museum of Ethnology and Pre-History — for his own appointment.

Sooner or later, inevitably, a golden afternoon will captivate the visitor to Oxford; and as he walked leisurely up Parks Road, past the front of Wadham on his right, past the blue wrought-iron gates at the back of Trinity on his left, Morse felt deeply grateful that he had been privileged to spend so much of his lifetime there.

And one of those captivated visitors might have noticed a smile of quiet satisfaction around Morse’s lips that early afternoon as he turned right, just opposite Keble, into the grounds of the Oxford University Museum — that monument to the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival, and the home of the Dodo and the Dinosaur. Some clouds there were in the pale blue sky that September day: some white, some grey; but not many.