Colin Dexter - The Daughters of Cain

Later that afternoon it was to be the B — B — B route: Bicester — Buckingham — Bedford. Fortunately for Lewis the detached Davies’ residence was on the western outskirts of Bedford; and the door of 248 Northampton Road was answered immediately — by Ashley Davies himself.

After only a little skirmishing Davies had come up with his own version of the events which had preceded the showdown between himself and Matthew Rodway… and Dr Felix McClure: an old carcass whose bones Lewis had been commissioned to pick over yet again.

Davies had known Matthew Rodway in their first year together. They’d met in the University Conservative Association (Lewis felt glad that Morse was abed); but apart from such political sympathy, the two young men had also found themselves fellow members of the East Oxford Martial Arts Club.

‘Judo, karate — that sort of thing?’ Lewis, himself a former boxer, was interested.

‘Not so much the physical side of things — that was part of it, of course. But it’s a sort of two-way process, physical and mental; mind and body. Both of us were more interested in the yoga side than anything. You know, “union” — that’s what yoga means, isn’t it?’

Lewis nodded sagely.

‘Then you get into TM, of course.’

‘TM, sir?’

‘Transcendental Meditation. You know, towards spiritual well-being. You sit and repeat this word to yourself — this “mantra” — and you find yourself feeling good, content… happy. Everything was OK, between Matthew and me, until this girl, this woman, joined. I just couldn’t take my eyes off her. I just couldn’t think of anything else.’

‘The TM wasn’t working properly?’ suggested Lewis helpfully.

‘Huh! It wasn’t even as if she was attractive, really. Well, no. She was attractive, that’s the whole point. Not beautiful or good-looking, or anything like that. But, well, she just had to look at you really, just look into your eyes, and your heart started melting away.’

‘Sounds a bit of a dangerous woman.’

‘You can say that again. I took her out twice — once to the Mitre, once to The Randolph — and she was quite open about things. Said she’d be willing to have sex and so on: fifty quid a time; hundred quid for a night together. No emotional involvement, though — she was very definite about that.’

‘You agreed?’

‘Well, I couldn’t afford that sort of money. Hundred? Plus a B&B somewhere? But I did ask her about coming up to my room one evening — that was just after I’d started sharing with Matthew — when he had to go home for a family funeral. But it was a Tuesday, I

remember, and she said she had to be very careful which day of the week it was. She could only do Saturday or perhaps Sunday because she knew somebody on the staircase and she wasn’t prepared to take any risks.’

‘What risks?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘One of the other students — undergraduates there?’

For the first time the casually dressed, easy-mannered Davies hesitated. ‘She didn’t say.’

‘Who else could it have been?’

Davies shrugged, but made no reply.

‘There were two dons on the staircase, I understand — “Students” don’t you call them?’

‘Only a bloody pedant would call ’em Students these days.’

‘I see. And, er, Dr McClure was one of those dons.’

‘You’ve done your homework.’

‘Go on please, sir.’

‘Well, I had to go up for a Civil Service Selection thing on November the fifth, Bonfire Night, in Whitehall. Whole weekend of it — Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Anyway, I got so pissed off with all the palaver that I didn’t stay for the Sunday session. I caught the ten-something from Paddington back to Oxford on Saturday night and when I got back to the staircase — well, there they were. We had two single beds in the one room, you see; and she was in his bed, and he was in mine. I don’t quite know why, but it just made me see red and…’

‘You’d tried to do the same yourself, though, so you said?’

‘I know, yes.’

‘You were just jealous, I suppose?’

‘It was more than that. It’s difficult to explain.’

‘You mean, perhaps, if she’d been in your bed…?’

‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask Freud. Anyway, I went berserk. I just went for him, that’s all. He’d got nothing on — neither of ’em had — and soon we were wrestling and punching each other and knocking everything all over the bloody place, and there must have been one helluva racket because there was this great banging on the door and, well, we quietened down and I opened the door and there — there he was: that stuffed prick McClure. Well, that’s about it, really. Matthew’d got a cut on his mouth and one of his eyes was badly bruised; I’d got a gash on my left arm but… no great damage, not considering. McClure wanted to know all about it, of course: who the girl was—’

‘Who was she?’

‘She called herself Ellie — Ellie Smith.’

‘Then?’

‘Well, they put me in one of the guest rooms in Great Quad, and Ellie went off — I think McClure put her in a taxi — and that was that. The Senior Tutor sent for me the next morning, and you know the rest.’

‘Why didn’t Mr Rodway get rusticated too?’

‘Well, I’d started it. My fault, wasn’t it?’

‘Wasn’t he disciplined at all?’

‘Warned, yes. You get a warning in things like that. Then, if it happens again…’

Lewis thought he was beginning to get the picture. ‘And perhaps you’d already had a warning yourself, sir?’ he asked quietly.

Unblinking, the thickset Davies looked for several seconds into Lewis’s eyes before nodding. ‘I’d had a fight in a pub in my first year.’

‘Much damage done then?’

‘He broke his jaw.’

‘Don’t you mean you broke his jaw, sir?’

It was a pleasant little rejoinder, and perhaps Davies should have smiled. But Lewis saw no humour, only what he thought may have been a hint of cruelty, in the young man’s eyes.

‘You’ve got it, Sergeant.’

‘Was that over a woman as well?’

‘Yeah, ’fraid so. There was this other guy and he kept, you know, messing around a bit with this girl of mine.’

‘Which pub was that?’

‘The Grapes — in George Street. I think this guy thought it was called The Gropes.’

‘And you hit him.’

‘Yeah. I’d told him to fuck off.’

‘And he hadn’t.’

‘Not straightaway, no.’

‘But later he wished he had.’

‘You could say that.’

‘How did it get reported?’

‘The landlord called the police. Bit unlucky, really. Wasn’t all that much of a fight at all.’

Lewis consulted his notes. ‘You wouldn’t say you “went berserk” on that occasion?’

‘No.’

‘Why do you reckon you got so violent with Mr Rodway, then?’

Davies stared awhile at the carpet, then answered, though without looking up. ‘It’s simple, really. I was in love with her.’

‘And so was Mr Rodway?’

Davies nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Have you seen her since?’

‘A few times.’

‘Recently?’

‘No.’

‘Can you tell me why you didn’t go back to Oxford — to finish your degree? You were only rusticated for a term, weren’t you?’

‘Rest of the Michaelmas and all the Hilary. And by the time I was back, what with Finals and everything… I just couldn’t face it.’

‘How did your parents feel about that?’