Colin Dexter - The Secret of Annexe 3

(LONGFELLOW)

IT HAD BEEN IN the inside breast pocket of a rather ancient sports jacket that Lewis had finally found the copied letter. And such a discovery was so obviously what Morse had been hoping for that he was unable to conceal the high note of triumph in his voice as he reported his find. Equally, for his part, Morse had been unable to conceal his own delight; and when (only some half an hour later) Lewis delivered the four closely handwritten sheets, Morse handled them with the loving care of a biblical scholar privileged to view the Codex Vaticanus .

You are a selfish thankless bitch and if you think you can just back out of things when you like you'd better realize that you've got another big thick headaching think coming because it could be that I've got some ideas about what I like. You'd better understand what I'm saying. If you can act like a bitch you'd better know I can be a bit of a sod too. You were glad enough to get what you wanted from me and just because I wanted to give it to you you think that we can just drop everything and go back to square one. Well this letter is to tell you we can't and like I say you'd better understand what I'm telling you. You can be sure I'll get my own back on you. You always say you can't really talk on the phone much but you didn't have much trouble on Monday did you. Not much doubt about where you stood then. Not free this week, and perhaps not next week either, and the week after that is a bit busy too!! I know I've not been round quite as long as you but I'm not a fool and I think you know I'm not. You say you're not going to sign on next term for night classes and that was the one really long time we did have together. Well I don't want any Dear John letter thank you very much. But I do want one thing and I'm quite serious about saying that I'm going to get it. I must see you again — at least once again. If you've got any sense of fairness to me you'll agree to that. And if you've got just any plain sense —and forget any fairness — you'll still agree to see me because if you don't I shall get my own back. Don't drive me to anything like that. Nobody knows about us and I want to leave things like that like they were. You remember how careful I always was and how none of your colleagues ever knew. Not that it matters much to me, not a quarter of what it matters to you. Don't forget that. So do as I say and meet me next Monday. Tell them you've got a dental appointment and I'll pick you up as usual outside the Summertown Library at ten to one. Please make sure you're there for your sake as much as mine. Perhaps I ought to have suspected you were cooling off a bit. When I was at school I read a thing about there's always one who kisses and one who turns the cheek. Well I don't mind it that way but I must see you again. There were lots of times when you wanted me badly enough — lots of times when you nearly set a world record for getting your clothes off, and that wasn't just because we only had forty minutes. So be there for sure on Monday or you'll have to face the consequences. I've just thought that last sentence sounds like a threat but I don't really want to be nasty about all this. I suppose I've never said too much about what I really feel but I think I was in love with you the very first time I saw the top of your golden head in the summer sunshine. Monday — ten to one — or else!

Morse read the letter through twice — each time slowly, and (much to Lewis's delight) appeared to be highly satisfied.

'What do you make of it, sir?'

Morse put the letter down and leaned back in the old black leather chair, his elbows resting on the arms, the tips of his middle fingers tapping each other lightly in front of a well-pleased mouth. 'What would you say about that letter, Lewis, eh? What do you learn from it?'

Lewis usually hated moments such as this. But he had been asking himself exactly the same question since he'd first read the letter through, and he launched into what he hoped Morse would accept as an intelligent analysis.

'It's quite clear, sir, that Margaret Bowman was unfaithful to her husband over quite a while. He talks in the letter about night classes and I think they were probably held in the autumn term — say, for about three or four months — after he first saw her, like he says, in the summer. I'd say from about July onwards. That's the first thing.' (Lewis was feeling not displeased with himself.) 'Second thing, sir, is this man's age. He says he's not been around quite as long as she has, and he's underlined the word "quite". He probably teased her a bit — like most people ' would — if she was a little bit older than he was: let's say, six months or a year, perhaps. Now, Margaret Bowman — I've found out, sir — was thirty-six last September. So let's put our prime suspect in the thirty-five age-bracket then, all right?' (Lewis could recall few occasions on which he had seemed to be speaking with such fluent authority.) 'Then there's a third point, sir. He asks her to meet him outside the library at ten minutes to one — so he must know it takes about five minutes for her to get there from the Locals — and five minutes to get back. That leaves us with fifty minutes from the hour they're given at the Locals for a lunch-break. But he mentions " forty minutes": so, as I see things' (how happy Lewis felt!) 'he must live only about five minutes' drive away from South Parade. I don't think they just went to a pub and held hands, sir. I think, too, that this fellow probably lives on the west side of Oxford — let's say off the Woodstock Road somewhere — because Summertown Library would be a bit of a roundabout place to pick her up if he lived on the east side, especially with such a little time they've got together.'

Morse had nodded agreement at several points during this exposition; and had been on the point of congratulating his sergeant when Lewis resumed — still in full spate.

'Now if we add these new facts to what we've already discovered, sir, I reckon we're not all that far off from knowing exactly who he is. We can be far more precise about where he lives — within five minutes' drive, at the outside, from Summertown; and we can be far more precise about his age — pretty certainly thirty-four or thirty-five. So if we had a computerized file on everybody, I think we could spot our man straight away. But there's something else — something perhaps much more helpful than a computer, sir: that night-school class! It won't be difficult to trace the people in Mrs. Bowman's class; and I'd like to bet we shall find somebody who had a vague sort of inkling about what Margaret Bowman was up to. Seems to me a good line of inquiry; and I can get on with it straight away if you agree.'

Morse was silent for a little while before replying. 'Yes, I think I do agree.'

Yet Lewis was conscious of a deeper undercurrent in Morse's tone: something was worrying the chief, pretty surely so.

'What's the matter, sir?'

'Matter? Nothing's the matter. It's just that — well, tell me what you make of that letter as a whole , Lewis. What sort of man is he, do you think?'

'Bit of mixture, I'd say. Sounds as if he's genuinely fond of the woman, doesn't it? At the same time it sounds as if he's got quite a cruel streak in him — bit of a coarse streak, too. As if he loved her — but always in a selfish sort of way: as if perhaps he might be prepared to do anything just to keep her.'

Morse nodded. 'I'm sure you're right. I think he was prepared to do almost anything to keep her.'

'Have you got any idea of what really happened?' asked Lewis quietly.

'Yes! — for what it's worth, I have. Clearly Bowman found this letter somewhere, and he realized that his wife was going with another fellow. I suspect he told her what he knew and gave her an ultimatum. Most men perhaps would have accepted the facts and called it a day — however much it hurt. But Bowman didn't! He loved his wife more than she could ever have known, and his first instinctive reactions mustered themselves — not against his wife— but against her lover . He probably told her all this, in his own vague way; and I think he decided that the best way to help Margaret and, at the same time, to save his own deeply injured pride, was to get rid of her lover! We've been on a lot of cases together, Lewis — with lots of people involved; but I don't reckon the motives are ever all that different — love, hate, jealousy, revenge. . Anyway, I think that Bowman got his wife to agree to collaborate with him in a plot to get rid of the man who — at least for the moment — was a threat to both of them. What exactly that plan involved, we may never know — unless Margaret Bowman decides to tell us. The only firm thing we know about it so far is that Bowman himself wrote a wholly genuine letter which would rather cleverly serve two purposes when lover-boy was found murdered — that is, if any suspicion were ever likely to fall on either of the Bowmans: first, it would put Margaret Bowman in a wholly sympathetic light; second, it would appear to put Tom Bowman some few hundreds of miles away from the scene of the immediate crime.'