Colin Dexter - The Secret of Annexe 3

Odd!

A light was on again in the annexe, and she wondered who it could be. Probably the constable, for he was no longer standing by the side door. It was almost certainly in Annexe 2 that the light was on, she thought, judging from the yellow square of snow in front of the building. Then the light was switched off; and standing there at her window, arms outspread, Sarah was just about to pull the curtains across when she saw a figure, just inside the annexe doorway, pressed against the left-hand wall. Her heart seemed to miss a beat, and she felt a constriction somewhere at the back of her throat as she stood there for a few seconds completely motionless, mesmerized by what she had seen. Then she acted. She threw open the door, scampered down the stairs, rushed through to the main entrance and then along to the side door of the main building, where the constable stood talking with Mandy over a cup of steaming tea.

'There's someone across there!' Sarah whispered hoarsely as she pointed over to the annexe block.

'Pardon, miss?'

'I just saw someone in the doorway!'

The man hurried across to the annexe, with Sarah and Mandy walking nervously a few steps behind. They saw him open the side door (it hadn't been locked, that much was clear) and then watched as the light flicked on in the corridor, and then flicked off.

There's no one there now,' said the worried-looking constable, clearly conscious of some potentially disastrous dereliction of duty.

'There was someone,' persisted Sarah quietly. 'It was in Annexe 2—I'm sure of it. I saw the light on the snow.'

'But the rooms are all locked up, miss.'

Sarah said nothing. There were only two sets of master-keys, and Binyon (Sarah knew) had given one of those sets to Sergeant Lewis. But Sergeant Lewis had gone. Had Binyon used the other set himself! Had the slim figure she had seen in the doorway been Binyon's? And if so, what on earth—?

It was Binyon himself, wearing a raincoat but no hat, who had startlingly materialized from somewhere, and who now stood behind them, insisting (once he had asked about the nature of the incident) that they should check up on the situation forthwith.

Sarah followed him and the constable into the annexe corridor, and it was immediately apparent that someone had stood — and that within the last few minutes or so — in front of the door to Annexe 2. The carpet just below the handle was muddied with the marks of slushy footwear, and little slivers of yet unmelted snow winked under the neon lighting of the corridor.

Back in her room, Sarah thought hard about what had just happened. The constable had refused to let the door of Annexe 2 be touched or opened, and had immediately tried to contact Lewis at the number he had been instructed to ring should anything untoward occur. But Lewis had not yet arrived home; and this fact tended to bolster the belief, expressed by both Binyon and the constable, that it had probably been Lewis who had called back for some unexpected though probably quite simple reason. But Sarah had kept her counsel. She knew quite certainly that the figure she had glimpsed in the annexe doorway could never have been the heavily built Sergeant Lewis. Could it have been Mr. Binyon, though? Whilst not impossible, that too, thought Sarah, was wildly improbable. And, as it happened, her view of the matter was of considerably greater value than anyone else's. Not only was she the sole witness td the furtive figure seen in the doorway; she was also the only person, at least for the present, who knew a most significant fact: the fact that although there were only two sets of master-keys to the annexe rooms, it was perfectly possible for someone else to have entered the room that evening without forcing a door or breaking a window. Two other people , in fact. On the key-board behind Reception, the hook was still empty on which should have been hanging the black-plastic oblong tab, with 'Haworth' printed over it in white, and the room key to Annexe 2 attached to it. For Mr. and Mrs. John Smith had left behind their unsettled account, but their room key they had taken with them.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Thursday, January 2nd: P.M.

Aspern Williams wanted to touch the skin of the daughter, thinking her beautiful, by which I mean separate and to be joined.

(PETER CHAMPKIN, The Waking Life of Aspern Williams )

MORSE WALKED THROUGH the carpeted lounge of the Great Western Hotel where several couples, seemingly with little any longer to say to each other, were desultorily engaged in reading paperbacks, consulting timetables or turning over the pages of the London Standard . Time, apparently, was the chief item of importance here, where a video-screen gave travellers up-to-the-minute information about arrivals and departures, and where frequent glances were thrown towards the large clock above the Porters' Desk, at which stood two slightly supercilious-looking men in gold-braided green uniforms. It was 5.45 p.m.

Immediately in front of him, through the revolving door that gave access to Praed Street, Morse could see the white lettering of PADDINGTON on the blue Underground sign as he turned right and made his way towards the Brunei Bar. At its entrance, a board announced that 5.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. encompassed 'The Happy Hour', with any drink available at half-price — a prospect doubtless accounting for the throng of dark-suited black-briefcased businessmen who stood around the bar, anxious to get in as many drinks as possible before departing homewards to Slough or Reading or Didcot or Swindon or Oxford. Wall-seats, all in a deep maroon shade of velveteen nylon, lined the rectangular bar; and after finally managing to purchase his half-priced pint of beer, Morse sat down near the main entrance behind one of the free-standing, mahogany-veneered tables. The tripartite glass dish in front of him offered nuts, crisps, and cheese biscuits, into which he found himself dipping more and more nervously as the hands of the clock crept towards 6 p.m. Almost (he knew it!) he felt as excited as if he were a callow youth once more. It was exactly 6 p.m. when Philippa Palmer walked into the bar. For purposes of recognition, it had been agreed that she should carry her handbag in her left hand and a copy of the London Standard in her right. But the fact that she had got things the wrong way round was of little consequence to Morse; he himself was quite incapable of any instant and instinctive knowledge of east and west, and he would have spotted her immediately. Or so he told himself.

He stood up, and she walked over to him.

'Chief Inspector Morse?' Her face betrayed no emotion whatsoever: no signs of nervousness, embarrassment, cooperation, affability, humour — nothing.

'Let me get you a drink,' said Morse.

She took off her raincoat, and as Morse waited his turn again at the crowded bar he watched her from the corner of his eye: five foot five or six, or thereabouts, wearing a roll-necked turquoise-blue woollen dress which gently emphasized the rounded contours of her bottom but hardly did the rest of her figure much justice, perhaps. When he set the glass of red wine in front of her, she had crossed her nyloned legs, her slim-style high-heeled shoes accentuating the slightly excessive muscularity of her calves; and across the back of her right ankle Morse noticed a piece of Elastoplast, as though her expensive shoes probably combined the ultimate in elegance with a sorry degree of discomfiture.

'I tried to run a half-marathon — for charity,' she said, following his eyes, and his thoughts.

'For the Police Welfare Fund, I trust!' said Morse lightly.

Her eyes were on the brink of the faintest smile, and Morse looked closely at her face. It was undeniably an attractive face, framed by a head of luxuriant dark-brown hair glinting overall with hints of auburn; but it was the eyes above the high cheekbones — eyes of a deep brown — that were undoubtedly the woman's most striking feature. When she had spoken (with a slight Cockney accent) she had shown rather small regular teeth behind a mouth coated with only the thinnest smear of dark-red lipstick, and a great many men (Morse knew it) would find her a very attractive woman; and more than a few would find her necessary, too.