Colin Dexter - The Daughters of Cain

Phone-call for Morse. Sergeant Lewis. In her office.

Lewis was ringing from the Head’s office of the Proctor Memorial School. Mrs Julia Stevens had been granted temporary leave from her duties. Well, indefinite leave really — but the terminological inexactitude had avoided any difficult embarrassment all round. She would not be returning to school, ever; she had only a few months to live; and a supply teacher had already taken over her classes. Soon everyone would have to know, of course; but not yet. She wasn’t at home, though; she’d gone away on a brief holiday, abroad — the Head had known that, too. Gone off with a friend, destination unknown.

‘Do we know who the friend is?’ asked Morse.

‘Well, you do, don’t you?’

‘I could make a guess.’

‘Makes you wonder if they’re guilty after all, doesn’t it?’

‘Or innocent,’ suggested Morse slowly.

The condition of Kevin Costyn was markedly improved. With no surgery now deemed necessary, he had been removed from the ICU the previous lunchtime; and already the police had been given permission to interview him — at least about the accident.

Very soon he would be interviewed about other matters, too. But although he was reluctantly willing to talk about ram-raiding and stolen vehicles, he would say nothing whatsoever about the murder of Edward Brooks. He may have lied and cheated his way through life, but there was one promise, now, that he was never going to break.

Seated in the sunshine outside a small but fairly expensive hotel overlooking La Place de la Concorde, Julia reached out and clinked her friend’s glass with her own; and both women smiled.

‘How would you like to live here, Brenda?’

‘Lordy me! Lovely. Lovely, isn’t it, Mrs Stevens?’

‘Anywhere you’d rather be?’

‘Oh no. This is the very best place in the whole world — apart from Oxford, of course.’

Since she’d arrived, Julia had felt so very tired; but so very happy, too.

At 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday, 27 September, Morse walked down the High from Carfax. There were several esteemed jewellers’ shops there, he knew that; and he looked in their windows. He was somewhat uncertain, however, of what exactly to purchase — and wholly uncertain about whether his present errand was being made easier, or more difficult, by his strong suspicion now that it had been Eleanor Smith who had murdered her step-father (the same Eleanor who had formally identified the body the previous day). Perhaps in a sense it was going to be easier, though, since in all probability he wasn’t looking for a wedding present any longer, the prospect of an imminent marriage now seeming increasingly remote. Yet for some reason he still wanted to buy the girl a present: a personal present.

Something like Lewis had suggested.

‘How much is that?’ he asked a young female assistant in the shop just across from the Covered Market.

‘Nice little pendant, isn’t it, sir? Delicate, tasteful, and quite inexpensive, really.’

‘How much is it?’ repeated Morse.

‘Only £35, sir.’

Only!

Morse looked down at the representation on the tiny oval pendant of — of somebody? ‘St Christopher, is it?’

‘St Anthony, sir. A well-known Christian saint.’

‘I thought he was the patron saint of Lost Property.’

‘Perhaps you’re thinking of a later St Anthony?’

But Morse wasn’t. He thought there’d only been one St Anthony.

‘If… if I bought this, I’d need a chain as well, wouldn’t I?’

‘It would be difficult to wear without a chain, yes.’

She was laughing at him, Morse knew that; but it hadn’t been a very bright question. And very soon he was surveying a large selection of chains: chains with varied silver- or gold-content; chains of slightly larger or slightly smaller links; chains of different lengths; chains of differing prices.

So Morse made his purchase: pendant plus chain (the cheapest).

Then, after only a few steps outside the jeweller’s up towards Carfax Tower, he performed a sudden U-turn, returning to the shop and asking if he could please exchange the chain (not the pendant) for something a little more expensive. The assistant (still smiling at him?) was happily co-operative; and five minutes later Morse started walking once again up towards Carfax. With a different chain.

With the most expensive chain there.

He was ready for the interview.

When earlier he had rung Eleanor Smith, she had sounded in no way surprised that the police should wish to take her fingerprints — for ‘elimination purposes’, as Morse had emphasized. And when he’d explained that it was against the rule-book for anyone who had been at the scene of the river-side discovery (as he had been) to go anywhere near the homes of those who might possibly be involved with the, er, the investigation, she’d agreed to go along to Thames Valley HQ. A car would pick her up. At 11.15 a.m.

Morse just had time to call in at Sainsbury’s supermarket, on the Kidlington roundabout, where he made his few purchases swiftly, and found himself the only person at the ‘small-basket’ check-out. Just the four items, in fact: two small tins of baked beans; one small brown loaf; and a bottle of Glenfiddich.

‘What line are you going to take with her, sir?’

‘I’m not at all sure. All I know is that if any of our three ladies actually murdered Brooks — and pretty certainly one of them did — we can forget the other two, wherever they’re sunning themselves at the minute. It’s odds on that one of them, or both of them, had some part to play in the plot; but I’m sure that neither of them could have murdered Brooks. It’s a physical impossibility, knowing what we do about dates and times. But she could have done. Ellie Smith could have done — if only just. She went to Birmingham that Wednesday — you’ve checked on that. But we can’t be sure when she came back, can we? You see, if she’d come back an hour, even half an hour earlier…’

‘ She could have stolen the knife, you mean?’

‘Or she could have got someone to steal it for her.’

‘Ashley Davies.’

‘Yes. Could well have been. Then he gets his reward: he gets the hand of the increasingly desirable Miss Smith — a young woman he’s had his lecherous eyes on even when she was a sleep-around-with-anybody girl.’

‘What about the attendant at the Pitt Rivers, though? He says he probably saw this young fellow Costyn there.’

‘It’s always dodgy though — this identification business. We can’t rely on that.’

Lewis nodded. ‘He doesn’t seem to have any real link with the case, anyway.’

‘Except with Mrs Stevens. She taught him, remember. And I suppose if he’s on drugs or something — got a regular habit to feed — short of cash — and if she was prepared to pay—’