Colin Dexter: The Daughters of Cain

The only thing that sometimes worried her was the possibility of her mother finding out that she was earning her living as a cheap tart. Well, no, that wasn’t true. An expensive tart, as her current client would soon be discovering yet again. Yes, fairly expensive; but that didn’t stop her feeling very cheap.

At the second knock, she rose from the bed, straightened her left stocking, and was now opening the door. Within only a couple of minutes opening her legs, too, as she lay back on the constricted width of the bed, her mascara’ed eyes focusing on a discoloured patch of damp almost immediately above her head.

Almost immediately above his head, too.

It was all pretty simple, really. The trouble was it had never been satisfying, for she had rarely felt more than a minimal physical attraction towards any of her clients. In a curious way she wished she could so feel. But no. Not so far. There was occasionally a sort of wayward fondness, yes. And in fact she was fonder of this particular fellow than any of the others. Indeed, she had once surprised herself by wondering if when he died — well, he was nearly sixty-seven — she might manage to squeeze out a dutiful tear.

It had not occurred to her at the time that there are other ways of departing this earthly life; had not occurred to her, for example, that her present client, Dr Felix McClure, former Ancient History don of Wolsey College, Oxford, might fairly soon be murdered.

Only one communication, it appeared, was awaiting Julia Stevens that same day when she returned home just after 5 p.m.: a brown envelope (containing a gas bill) propped up against the table-lamp just inside her small entrance-hall.

The white envelope, unsealed, lay on the table in the living-room; and beside it was a glacé-iced cake, the legend ‘Happy Birthday, Mrs Stevens’ piped in purple on a white background, with an iced floral arrangement in violet and green, the leaves intricately, painstakingly crafted, and clearly the work of an expert in the skill.

Although Brenda Brooks had been Julia’s cleaning-lady for almost four years now, she had never addressed her employer as anything but ‘Mrs Stevens’; addressed her so again now, just as on the cake, in the letter folded inside the (NSPCC) birthday card.

Dear Mrs S,

Just a short note to wish you a very happy birthday & I hope you will enjoy your surprise. Don’t look at it too closely as I had a little ‘accident’ & the icing isn’t perfect. When I’d made the flowers & when they were drying a basin fell out of the cupboard & smashed the lot. After saying something like ‘oh bother’ I had to start again. Never mind I got there in the end.

Regarding my ‘accident’ I will tell you what really happened. My husband decided to pick a fight a few weeks ago & my doctor thinks he could have broken a bone in my hand & so I can’t squeeze the bag very well. I was due to start another icing course next week but he has saved me £38.00!

Have a lovely day & I will see you in the morning — can’t wait.

Love & best wishes,

After re-reading the letter, Julia looked down lovingly at the cake again, and suddenly felt very moved — and very angry. Brenda (she knew) had hugely enjoyed the cake-decorating classes at the Tech. and had become proudly proficient in the icer’s art. All right, the injury was hardly of cosmic proportions, Julia realized that; yet in its own little-world way the whole thing was so terribly sad. And as she looked at the cake again, Julia could now see what Brenda had meant. On closer inspection, the ‘Mrs’ was really a bit of a mess; and the loops in each of the ‘y’s in ‘Happy Birthday’ were rather uncertain — decidedly wobbly, in fact — as if formulated with tremulous fingers. ‘Lacks her usual Daedalian deftness’ was Julia the Pedagogue’s cool appraisal; yet something warmer, something deeper inside herself, prompted her to immediate action. She fetched her broadest, sharpest kitchen knife and carefully cut a substantial segment of the cake, in such a way as to include most of the mis-handled ‘Mrs’; and ate it all, straightaway.

The sponge-cake was in four layers, striated with cream, strawberry jam, and lemon-butter icing. Absolutely delicious; and she found herself wishing she could share it with someone.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang.

‘I didn’t say nuffin’ in class, Miss, but I want to say ’appy birfday.’

‘Where are you phoning from, Kevin?’

‘Jus’ down the road — near the bus-shelter.’

‘Would you like to come along and have a piece of birthday cake with me? I mean, it’s your birthday too, isn’t it?’

‘Jus’ try stoppin’ me, Miss!’

The phone went dead. And thoughtfully, a slight smile around her full lips, Julia retraced her steps to the living-room, where she cut two more segments of cake, the second of which sliced through the middle of the more obviously malformed ‘y’; cut them with the same knife — the broadest, sharpest knife she had in all her kitchen armoury.

Much earlier that same day, Detective Sergeant Lewis had found his chief sitting well forward in the black-leather chair, shaking his head sadly over The Times crossword puzzle.

‘Not finished it yet, sir?’

Morse looked up briefly with ill-disguised disdain. ‘There is, as doubtless you observe, Lewis, one clue and one clue only remaining to be entered in the grid. The rest I finished in six minutes flat; and, if you must know, without your untimely interruption—’

‘Sorry!’

Morse shook his head slowly. ‘No. I’ve been sitting here looking at the bloody thing for ten minutes.’

‘Can I help?’

‘Extremely improbable!’

‘Don’t you want to try me?’

Reluctantly Morse handed over the crossword, and Lewis contemplated the troublesome clue: ‘Kick in the pants?’ (3–5). Three of the eight letters were entered: — I — L— S —.

A short while later Lewis handed the crossword back across the desk. He’d tried so hard, so very hard, to make some intelligent suggestion; to score some Brownie points. But nothing had come to mind.

‘If it’s OK with you, sir, I’d like to spend some time down at St Aldate’s this morning — see if we can find some link between all these burglaries in North Oxford.’

‘Why not? And good luck. Don’t give ’em my address though, will you?’

After Lewis had gone, Morse stared down at the crossword again. Seldom was it that he failed to finish things off, and that within a pretty smartish time, too. All he needed was a large Scotch… and the answer (he knew) would hit him straight between the eyes. But it was only 8.35 a.m. and—

It hit him.

Scotch!

As he swiftly filled in the five remaining blank squares, he was smiling beatifically, wishing only that Lewis had been there to appreciate the coup de grâce.

But Lewis wasn’t.

And it was only many months later that Lewis was to learn — and then purely by accident — the answer to that clue in The Times crossword for 25 May 1994, a day (as would appear in retrospect) on which so many things of fateful consequence were destined to occur.