Colin Dexter - The Secret of Annexe 3

At lunchtime on Friday, January 3rd, Gladys had invited Margaret for a meal at the Chinese restaurant just across the Banbury Road from the Delegacy; and over the sweet-and-sour pork and the Lotus House Special chop suey, Margaret had confided to Gladys that her husband was away on a course over the New Year and that she herself had been feeling a bit low. And how enormously it had pleased Gladys when Margaret had accepted the invitation to spend the weekend with her — in Glady's home on the Cutteslowe housing estate in North Oxford.

Mrs. Mary Webster, the senior administrative assistant who kept a very firm (if not unfriendly) eye upon the forty or so women who sat each day in the large first-storey room overlooking the playing fields of Summerfields Preparatory School, had not returned to her accustomed chair after the coffee-break on the morning of January 6th. Most unusual! But it was the intelligence gleaned by Mrs. Bannister (a woman somewhat handicapped in life by a bladder of minimal capacity, but whose regular trips to the downstairs toilet afforded, by way of compensation, a fascinating window on the world) that set the whole room a-buzzing.

'A police car!' she whispered (audibly) to half the assembled ladies.

'Two men! They're in the Secretary's room!'

'You mean the police are down there talking to Mrs. Webster?' asked one of Mrs. Bannister's incredulous colleagues.

But further commentary and interpretation was immediately forestalled by Mrs. Webster herself, who now suddenly entered the door at the top of the long room, and who began to walk down the central gangway between the desks and tables. The whole room was immediately still, and silent as a Trappist's cell. It was not until she reached Gladys's table, almost at the very bottom of the room, that she stopped.

'Mrs. Bowman, can you come with me for a few minutes, please?'

Margaret Bowman said nothing as she walked down the wooden stairs, one step behind Mrs. Webster, and then into the main corridor downstairs and directly to the room whose door of Swedish oak bore the formidable nameplate of 'The Secretary'.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Monday, January 6th: A.M.

The cruellest lies are often told in silence.

(ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON)

'THE SECRETARY' WAS one of those endearingly archaic titles, in which the University of Oxford abounded. On the face of it, such a title seemed to point to a personage with Supreme (upper-case, as it were) Stenographic Skills. In fact, however, the Secretary of the Locals, Miss Gibson, was a poor typist, her distinction arising from her outstanding academic and administrative abilities which had led, ten years previously, to her appointment as the boss of the whole outfit. Grey-haired, tight-lipped, pale-faced, Miss Gibson sat behind her desk, in an upright red leather chair, awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Margaret Bowman. Arranged in front of her desk were three further red leather chairs, of the same design: in the one to the Secretary's left sat a man of somewhat melancholy mien, the well-manicured fingers of his left hand occasionally stroking his thinning hair and who was at that moment (although Miss Gibson would never have guessed the fact) thinking what a very attractive woman the Secretary must have been in her earlier years; in the middle sat a slightly younger man — another policeman, and one also in plain clothes — but a man both thicker set, and kindlier faced. Miss Gibson introduced the two police officers after Margaret Bowman had knocked and entered and been bidden to the empty chair.

'You live in Chipping Norton?' asked Lewis.

'Yes.'

'At 6 Charlbury Drive, I think?'

'Yes.' Even with the two monosyllabic answers, Margaret knew that her tremulous upper lip was betraying signs of her nervousness, and she felt uncomfortably aware of the fierce blue-grey eyes of the other man upon her.

'And you work here?' continued Lewis.

'I've been here seven months.'

'You had quite a bit of time off over Christmas, I understand?'

'We had from Christmas Eve to last Thursday.'

'Last Thursday, let's see — that was January the second?'

'Yes.'

"The day after New Year's Day.'

Margaret Bowman said nothing, although clearly the man had expected — hoped? — that she would make some comment.

'You had plenty of things to occupy you, I suppose,' continued Lewis. 'Christmas shopping, cooking the mince pies, all that sort of thing?'

'Plenty of shopping, yes.'

'Summertown's getting a very good shopping centre. I hear.'

'Very good; yes.'

'And the Westgate down in the centre — they say that's very good, too.'

'Yes. it is.'

'Did you shop in Summertown here — or down in Oxford?'

'I did all my shopping at home.'

'You didn't come into Oxford at all, then?'

Why was she hesitating? Was she lying? Or was she just thinking back over things to make sure?

'No — I didn't.'

'You didn't go to the hairdressers'?'

Margaret Bowman's right hand went up to the top of her head, gently lifting a few strands of her not-so-recently-dyed-blonde hair, and she permitted herself a vague and tired-looking smile: 'Does it look like it?'

No, it doesn't, thought Lewis. 'Do you go to any beauty salons, beauty clinics, you know the sort of thing I mean?'

'No. Do you think I ought to?' Miraculously almost, she was feeling very much more at ease now, and she took a paper handkerchief from her black leather handbag and held it under her nose as she snuffled away some of the residual phlegm from a recent cold.

For his own part, Lewis was conscious that his questioning was not yet making much progress. 'Does your husband work in Oxford?'

'Look! Can you please give me some idea of why you're asking me all these things? Am I supposed to have done something wrong?'

'We'll explain later, Mrs. Bowman. We're trying to make all sorts of important inquiries all over the place, and we're very glad of your co-operation. So, please, if you don't mind, just answer the questions for the minute, will you?'

'He works in Chipping Norton.'

'What work does he do?'

'He's a postman.'

'Did he have the same time off as you over Christmas?'

'No. He was back at work on Boxing Day.'

'You spent Christmas Day together?'

'Yes.'

'And you celebrated the New Year together?'

The question had been put, and there was silence in the Secretary's office. Even Morse who had been watching a spider up in the far corner of the ceiling stopped tapping his lower teeth with a yellow pencil he had picked up, its point needle-sharp. How long was the well nigh unbearable silence going to last?

It was the Secretary herself who suddenly spoke, in a quiet but firm voice: 'You must tell the police the truth, Margaret — it's far better that way. You didn't tell the truth just now — about being in Oxford, did you? We saw each other in the Westgate Car Park on New Year's Eve, you'll remember. We wished each other a Happy New Year.'

Margaret Bowman nodded. 'Oh yes! Yes, I do remember now.' She turned to Lewis. 'I'm sorry, I'd forgotten. I did come in that Tuesday — I went to Sainsbury's.'

'And then you went back and you spent the New Year at home with your husband?'

'No!'

Morse, whose eyes had still been following the little spider as it seemed to practise its eight-finger exercises, suddenly shifted in his chair and turned round fully to face the woman.

'Where is your husband, Mrs. Bowman?' They were the first six words he had spoken to her, and (as events were to work themselves out) they were to be the last six. But Margaret Bowman made no direct answer. Instead, she unfastened her bag, drew out a folded sheet of paper and handed it over to Lewis. It read as follows: