Colin Dexter - The Secret of Annexe 3

Lewis, however, looked rather less than full of faith. 'It's getting a bit too complicated for my brain, sir. I keep forgetting who's dressed up for what and who's planning to kill who—'

' "Whom", Lewis. Your grammar's as bad as Miss Jonstone's.'

'You're sure he is the murderer? — Wilkins?'

'My son, the case is over! There are bound to be one or two details—'

'Do you mind if we just go over one or two things again?'

'I can't spell things out much more simply, you know.'

'You say Wilkins wanted the murder to look as if it took place as late as possible. But I don't see the point of that. It doesn't give him an alibi, does it? I mean, whether Bowman's murdered at seven o'clock or after midnight — what does it matter? Wilkins and Margaret Bowman were there all the time , weren't they?'

'Yes! But who said they'd got an alibi? I didn't mention an alibi. All I'm saying is that Wilkins had a reason for wanting to mislead everyone into believing that the murder was committed after the party was over. That's obvious enough, isn't it?'

'But going back a minute, don't you think that in Bowman's original plan — Plan One, as you call it — it would have been far more sensible to have committed the murder — murder Wilkins, that is — and then to get out of the place double quick? With any luck, no one's going to suspect a married couple from Chipping Norton — even if the body's found very soon afterwards.'

Morse nodded, but with obvious frustration.

'I agree with you. But somehow or other we've got to explain how it came about that Bowman was found dressed up in identically the same sort of outfit as Wilkins was wearing at the party. Don't you see that, Lewis? We've got to explain the facts! And I refuse to believe that anyone could have dressed up Bowman in all that stuff after he'd been murdered.'

'There's one other thing, sir. You know from Max's report it says that Bowman could have been eating some of the things they had at the party?'

'What about it?'

'Well — was it just coincidence he'd been eating the same sort of meal?'

'No. Margaret Bowman must have known — she must have found out — what the menu was and then cooked her husband some of it. Then all Wilkins had to do was just eat a bit of the same stuff—'

'But how did Margaret Bowman know?'

'How the hell do I know, Lewis? But it happene d, didn't it? I'm not making up this bloody corpse you know! I'm not making up all these people in their fancy dress! You do realize that, don't you?'

'No need to get cross, sir!'

'I'm not bloody cross! If somebody decides to make some elaborate plan to rub out one side of the semi-eternal triangle — we've got to have some equally elaborate explanation! Surely you can see that?'

Lewis nodded, 'I agree. But just let me make my main point once again, sir — and then we'll forget it. It's this business of staying on after the murder that worries me: it must have been a dreadfully nerve-racking time for the two of them; it was very complicated; and it was a bit chancy. And all I say is that I can't really see the whole point of it. It just keeps the pair of them on the hotel premises the whole of the evening, and whatever time the murder was committed they haven't got any chance of an alibi—'

'There you go again, Lewis! For Christ's sake, come off it! Nobody's got a bloody alibi .'

The two men were silent for several minutes.

'Cup more coffee, sir?' asked Lewis.

'Augh! I'm sorry, Lewis. You just take the wind out of my sails, that's all.'

'We've got him, sir. That's the only thing that matters.'

Morse nodded.

'And you're absolutely sure that we've got the right man?'

'It's a big word—"absolutely" — isn't it?' said Morse.

CHAPTER FORTY

Tuesday, January 7th: P.M.

Alibi(n.) — the plea in a criminal charge of having been elsewhere at the material time.

( Chambers 20th Century Dictionary )

IT WAS, IN ALL, to be an hour or so before the interrogation of Wilkins was resumed. Morse had telephoned Max, but had learned only that if he, Morse, continued to supply the lab with corpses about twenty-four hours old, he, Max, was not going to make too many fanciful speculations: he was a forensic scientist, not a fortune teller. Lewis had contacted the Haworth Hotel to discover that one local call had in fact been made — untraceable, though — from Annexe 3 on New Year's Eve. Phillips, who had returned from Diamond Close with the not unexpected news that Margaret Bowman (if she had been there) had flown, now resumed his duties in the interview room, standing by the door, his feet aching a good deal, his eyes idly scanning the bare room once again: the wooden trestle-table, on which stood two white polystyrene cups (empty now) and an ashtray (rapidly filling); and behind the table, the fairish-haired, fresh-complexioned man accused of a terrible murder, who seemed to Phillips to look perhaps rather less dramatically perturbed than should have been expected.

'What time did you get to the Haworth Hotel on New Year's Eve?'

'Say that again?'

'What time did you get to the hotel?'

'I didn't go to any hotel that night—'

'You were at the Haworth Hotel and you got there at—'

'I've never played there.'

'Never played what?'

'Never played there!'

'I'm not quite with you, Mr. Wilkins.'

'We go round the pubs — the group — we don't often go to hotels.'

'You play in a pop group?'

'A jazz group — I play tenor sax.'

'So what?'

'Look, Sergeant. You say you're not with me : I'm not with you , either.'

'You were at the Haworth Hotel on New Year's Eve. What time did you get there?'

'I was at the Friar up in North Oxford on New Year's Eve!'

'Really?'

'Yes, really!'

'Can you prove it?'

'Not offhand, I suppose, but—'

'Would the landlord remember you there?'

'Course he would! He paid us, didn't he?'

'The group you're in — was playing there?'

'Yes.'

'And you were there all the evening? '

'Till about two o'clock the next morning.'

'How many others in the group?'

'Four.'

'And how many people were there at the Friar that night?'

'Sixty? — seventy? on and off.'

'Which bar were you in?'

'Lounge bar.'

'And you didn't leave the bar all night?'

'Well, we had steak and chips in the back room at about — half-past nine, I suppose it was.'

'With the rest of the group?'

' And the landlord— and the landlady.'

'This is New Year's Eve you're talking about?'

'Look, Sergeant, I've been here a long time already tonight, haven't I? Can you please ring up the Friar and get someone here straight away? Or ring up any of the group? I'm getting awfully tired — and it's been one hell of an evening for me — you can understand that, can't you?'

There was a silence in the room — a silence that seemed to Phillips to take on an almost palpable tautness, as the import of Wilkins's claim slowly sank into the minds of the detectives there.

'What does your group call itself, Mr. Wilkins?' It was Morse himself who quietly asked the final question.

'The "Oxford Blues",' said Wilkins, his face hard and unamused.

Charlie Freeman ('Fingers' Freeman to his musical colleagues) was surprised to find a uniformed constable standing on his Kidlington doorstep that evening. Yes, the 'Oxford Blues' had played the Friar on New Year's Eve; yes, he'd played there that night, with Ted Wilkins, for about five or six hours; yes, he'd be more than willing to go along to Police HQ immediately and make a statement to that effect. No great hardship for him, was it? After all, it was only a couple of minutes' walk away.