Colin Dexter - The Daughters of Cain

‘No! We’d have found it by now, surely.’

‘We’re still trying,’ said Lewis, quietly.

‘You know’ — Morse sounded weary — ‘it’s not quite so easy as you think — getting rid of things. You get a guilt-complex about being seen. I remember a few weeks ago trying to get rid of an old soldier in a rubbish-bin in Banbury Road. And just after I’d dropped it in, somebody I knew drove past in a car, and waved…’

‘He’d seen you?’

‘What makes you think it was a “he”?’

‘You felt a bit guilty?’

Morse nodded. ‘So it’s vitally important that we find the knife. I just can’t see how we’re going to make a case out against Brooks unless we can find the murder weapon.’

‘Have you thought of the other possibility, sir?’

‘What’s that?’ Morse looked up with the air of a Professor of Mathematics being challenged by an innumerate pupil.

‘He took the knife home with him.’

‘No chance. We’re talking about instinctive behaviour here. You don’t stab somebody — and then just go back home and wash your knife up in Co-op detergent with the rest of the cutlery — and put it back in the kitchen drawer.’

‘There’d be a knife missing, though — from a set, perhaps.’

‘So what? Knives get lost, broken…’

‘So Mrs Brooks would probably know?’

‘But she’s not going to tell us, is she?’

Morse seemed to relax as he leaned back against the wall-seat, and looked around him.

‘You sure it was Brooks?’ asked Lewis quietly.

‘Too many coincidences, Lewis. All right, they play a far bigger part in life than most of us are prepared to admit. But not in this case. Just think! Brooks left Wolsey, for good, on exactly the same day as the man who was murdered — McClure. Not only that, the pair of them had been on the same staircase together — exactly the same staircase — for several years. Then, a year later, Brooks has a heart attack on exactly the same day as McClure gets murdered. Just add all that up — go on, Lewis!’

‘Like I say, though, you’ve always believed in coincidences.’

‘Look! I could stomach two, perhaps — but not three .’

Lewis, who’d believed that Morse could easily stomach at least four, was not particularly impressed; and now, looking around him, he saw that he and Morse were the only clients left in the Marsh Harrier.

It was 3.10 p.m.

‘We’d better be off, sir.’

‘Nonsense! My turn, isn’t it?’

‘It’s way past closing time.’

‘Nonsense!’

But the landlord, after explaining that serving further drinks after 3 p.m. on Sundays was wholly against the law, was distinctly unimpressed by Morse’s assertion that he, the latter, was the law. And a minute or so later it was a slightly embarrassed Lewis who was unlocking the passenger door of the Jaguar — before making his way back to North Oxford.

Perpetually, on the drive back to North Oxford, Morse had been wiping the perspiration from his forehead; and Lewis was growing increasingly worried, especially when, once back home, Morse immediately poured himself a can of beer.

‘Just to replace the moisture,’ Morse had averred.

‘You ought to get the doc in, you know that. And you ought not to be drinking any more, with all those pills.’

‘Lewis!’ Morse’s voice was vicious. ‘I appreciate your concern for my health. But never again — never! — lecture me about what I drink. Or if I drink. Or when I drink. Is — that — clear? ’

In a flush of anger, Lewis rose to his feet. ‘I’ll be getting back—’

‘Siddown!’

Morse took out a cigarette, and then looked up at the still-standing Lewis. ‘You don’t think I ought to smoke, either?’

‘It’s your life, sir. If you’re determined to dig yourself an early grave…’

‘I don’t want to die, not just yet,’ said Morse quietly.

And suddenly, as if by some strange alchemy, Lewis felt his anger evaporating; and, as bidden, he sat down.

Morse put the cigarette back in its packet. ‘I’m sorry — sorry I got so cross. Forgive me. It’s just that I’ve always valued my independence so much — too much, perhaps. I just don’t like being told what to do, all right?’

‘All right.’

‘Well, talk to me. Tell me what you thought about Brooks.’

‘No, sir. You’re the thinker — that’s why you get a bigger pay-packet than me. You tell me .’

‘Well, I think exactly the same as I did before. After young Rodway’s suicide, McClure found out about the availability of drugs on the staircase there — cannabis, amphetamines, cocaine, crack, ecstasy, LSD, heroin, whatever — and he also found out that it was Brooks who was supplying them, and making a pretty penny for himself in the process. Then, at some point, McClure told Brooks he’d got two options: either he packed up his job as a scout and left; or else he’d be reported to the University authorities — and probably the police — and faced with criminal proceedings. So Brooks had just about enough nous to read the writing on the wall: he resigned, and got another job, with a reluctant McClure providing a luke-warm testimonial to the Pitt Rivers Museum. But there were too many links with his former clients — and not just on the old staircase; and he kept up his lucrative little sideline after he’d left Wolsey — until McClure somehow got wind of the situation — and confronted him — and told him that this time it wasn’t just an empty threat. I suspect Brooks must have had some sort of hold on McClure, I don’t know. But Brooks said he was ready to step into line, and do whatever McClure wanted. And he arranged a meeting with McClure — at McClure’s place in Daventry Court, a week ago today. That’s the way I see it.’

‘So you don’t believe a word of his alibi?’

‘No. And it isn’t his alibi at all — it’s hers. Mrs Brooks’s alibi for him.’

‘And you think he biked up to see McClure?’

‘He biked, yes. Whether he’d already decided to murder McClure then, I don’t know. But he took a murder weapon with him, a knife from his wife’s kitchen drawer; and I’ve not the slightest doubt he took as many precautions as he could to keep himself from being recognized — probably wrapped a scarf round his face as if he’d got the toothache. And with his cycling helmet—’

‘You’re making it all up, sir.’

Morse wiped his brow once more. ‘Of course I am! In a case like this you’ve got to put up some… some scaffolding. You’ve got to sort of take a few leaps in the dark, Lewis. You’ve got to hypothesize…’

‘Hypothesize about the knife then, sir.’

‘He threw it in the canal.’

‘So we’re not going to find it?’

‘I’m sure we’re not. We’d have found it by now.’

‘Unless, as I say, he took it home with him — and washed it up and wiped it dry and then put it back in the kitchen drawer.’

‘Ye-es.’

‘Probably he did mean to throw it in the canal, or somewhere. But something could have stopped him, couldn’t it?’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as a heart attack,’ suggested Lewis gently.

Morse nodded. ‘If he suddenly realized he hadn’t got any time to… if he suddenly felt a terrible pain…’

‘“T’rific”, that’s what he said.’

‘Mm.’