Colin Dexter - The Daughters of Cain

Just after noon on Wednesday, 31 August 1994, Chief Inspector Morse was seated at his desk in the Thames Valley Police HQ building at Kidlington, Oxon — when the phone rang.

‘Morse? You’re there, are you? I thought you’d probably be in the pub by now.’

Morse forbore the sarcasm, and assured Chief Superintendent Strange — he had recognized the voice — that indeed he was there.

‘Two things, Morse — but I’ll come along to your office.’

‘You wouldn’t prefer me—?’

‘I need the exercise, so the wife says.’

Not only the wife, mumbled Morse, as he cradled the phone, beginning now to clear the cluttered papers from the immediate desk-space in front of him.

Strange lumbered in five minutes later and sat down heavily on the chair opposite the desk.

‘You may have to get that name-plate changed.’

Strange and Morse had never really been friends, but never really been enemies either; and some good-natured bantering had been the order of the day following the recommendation of the Sheehy Report six months earlier that the rank of Chief Inspector should be abolished. Mutual bantering, since Chief Superintendents too were also likely to descend a rung on the ladder.

It was a disgruntled Strange who now sat wheezing methodically and shaking his head slowly. ‘It’s like losing your stripes in the Army, isn’t it? It’s… it’s…’

‘Belittling,’ suggested Morse.

Strange looked up keenly. ‘“Demeaning” — that’s what I was going to say. Much better word, eh? So don’t start trying to teach me the bloody English language.’

Fair point, thought Morse, as he reminded himself (as he’d often done before) that he and his fellow police-officers should never underestimate the formidable Chief Superintendent Strange.

‘How can I help, sir? Two things, you said.’

‘Ah! Well, yes. That’s one , isn’t it? What we’ve just been talking about. You see, I’m jacking the job in next year, as you’ve probably heard?’

Morse nodded cautiously.

‘Well, that’s it. It’s the, er, pension I’m thinking about.’

‘It won’t affect the pension.’

‘You think not?’

‘Sure it won’t. It’s just a question of getting all the paperwork right. That’s why they’re sending all these forms around—’

‘How do you know?’ Strange’s eyes shot up again, sharply focused, and it was Morse’s turn to hesitate.

‘I–I’m thinking of, er, jacking in the job myself, sir.’

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid, man! This place can’t afford to lose me and you.’

‘I shall only be going on for a couple of years, whatever happens.’

‘And… and you’ve had the forms, you say?’

Morse nodded.

‘And… and you’ve actually filled ’em in ?’ Strange’s voice sounded incredulous.

‘Not yet, no. Forms always give me a terrible headache. I’ve got a phobia about form-filling.’

No words from Morse could have been more pleasing, and Strange’s moon-face positively beamed. ‘You know, that’s exactly what I said to the wife — about headaches and all that.’

‘Why doesn’t she help you?’

‘Says it gives her a headache, too.’

The two men chuckled amiably.

‘You’d like me to help?’ asked Morse tentatively.

‘Would you? Be a huge relief all round, I can tell you. We could go for a pint together next week, couldn’t we? And if I go and buy a bottle of aspirin—’

‘Make it two pints.’

‘I’ll make it two bottles, then.’

‘You’re on, sir.’

‘Good. That’s settled then.’

Strange was silent awhile, as if considering some matter of great moment. Then he spoke.

‘Now, let’s come to the second thing I want to talk about — far more important.’

Morse raised his eyebrows. ‘Far more important than pensions ?’

‘Well, a bit more important perhaps.’

‘Murder?’

‘Murder.’

‘Not another one?’

‘Same one. The one near you. The McClure murder.’

‘Phillotson’s on it.’

‘Phillotson’s off it.’

‘But—’

‘His wife’s ill. Very ill. I want you to take over.’

‘But—’

‘You see, you haven’t got a wife who’s very ill, have you? You haven’t got a wife at all.’

‘No,’ replied Morse quietly. No good arguing with that.

‘Happy to take over?’

‘Is Lewis—?’

‘I’ve just had a quick word with him in the canteen. Once he’s finished his egg and chips…’

‘Oh!’

‘ And ’ — Strange lifted his large frame laboriously from the chair — ‘I’ve got this gut-feeling that Phillotson wouldn’t have got very far with it anyway.’

‘ Gut -feeling?’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ snapped Strange. ‘Don’t you ever get a gut-feeling?’

‘Occasionally…’

‘After too much booze!’

‘Or mixing things, sir. You know what I mean: few pints of beer and a bottle of wine.’

‘Yes…’ Strange nodded. ‘We’ll probably both have a gut-feeling soon, eh? After a few pints of beer and a bottle of aspirin.’

He opened the door and looked at the name-plate again. ‘Perhaps we shan’t need to change them after all, Morse.’

It was to be only the second time that Morse had ever taken over a murder enquiry after the preliminary — invariably dramatic — trappings were done with: the discovery of the deed, the importunate attention of the media, the immediate scene-of-crime investigation, and the final removal of the body.

Lewis, perceptively, had commented that it was all a bit like getting into a football match twenty-five minutes late, and asking a fellow spectator what the score was. But Morse had been unimpressed by the simile, since his life would not have been significantly impoverished had the game of football never been invented.

Indeed, there was a sense in which Morse was happier to have avoided any in situ inspection of the corpse, since the liquid contents of his stomach almost inevitably curdled at the sight of violent death. And he knew that the death there had been violent — very violent indeed. Much blood had been spilt, albeit now caked and dirty-brown — blood that would still (he supposed) be much in evidence around the chalk-lined contours of the spot on the saturated beige carpet where a man had been found with an horrific knife-wound in his lower belly.

‘What’s wrong with Phillotson?’ Lewis had asked as they’d driven down to North Oxford.

‘Nothing wrong with him — except incompetence. It’s his wife. She’s had something go wrong with an operation, so they say. Some, you know, some internal trouble… woman’s trouble.’

‘The womb, you mean, sir?’

‘I don’t know , do I, Lewis? I didn’t ask. I’m not even quite sure exactly where the womb is. And, come to think of it, I don’t even like the word.’

‘I only asked.’

‘And I only answered! His wife’ll be fine, you’ll see. It’s him. He’s just chickening out.’