Colin Dexter - The Remorseful Day

“It’s a possibility.”

“Where do you think it was posted?”

“Dunno. You’ll have to show me the envelope.”

“Guess!”

“You’re expecting me to say Lower Swinstead.”

“No. Just waiting for your answer.”

“Lower Swinstead.”

“Explain that , then!” Strange produced a white envelope on which, above the lurid red capitals, the pewter-gold first-class stamp was canceled with a circular franking:

“All right,” conceded Morse. “I’ll try another guess. What about Oxford?”

“Hm! What about the writing on the envelope?”

“Probably an A-level examiner using up one of his red pens. His scripts were sending him bananas and he happened to see your invitation in one of the newspapers. He just wondered why it was only the candidates who were allowed to make things up, so he decided to have a go for himself. He’s a nutter, sir. A harmless nutter. We always get them — you know that.”

“Oh, thank you, Morse!”

“No fingerprints, sir?” asked Lewis diffidently.

“Ah, no. No fingerprints. Good question, though!”

“Best forget it, then,” counseled Morse.

“Rea-lly?” Strange allowed the disyllable to linger ominously. “When I was a lad, Morse, I once wrote off an entry for a Walt Disney competition and I drew a picture of Mickey Mouse on the front of the envelope.”

“Did you win?”

“No, I didn’t. But let me just tell you one thing, matey: I’d like to bet you that somebody noticed it! That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

“You’ve lost me, sir.”

Strange leaned back expansively. “When I asked Sergeant Dixon where he thought the letter was posted, he agreed with you: Lower Swinstead. And when I showed him the postmark he said it might still have been posted there, because he knew that some of the letters from that part of the Cotswolds were brought to Oxford for franking. So he went out and did a bit of legwork, and he traced the fellow who did the collections last week; and the postman remembered the envelope! There’d only been three letters that day in the box, and he’d noticed one of ‘em in particular. Not surprising, eh? So Dixon decided to test things, just for his own satisfaction. He addressed an envelope to himself and posted it at Lower Swinstead.”

Strange now produced a white unopened envelope and passed it across the desk. It was addressed in red Biro to Sergeant Dixon at Police HQ Kidlington, the pewter-gold first-class stamp canceled with the same circular franking:

Strange paused for effect. “Perhaps you ought to start eating doughnuts, Morse.”

“They won’t let me have any sugar these days, sir.”

“There’s no sugar in beer, you’re saying?”

Lewis was expecting some semiflippant, semiprepared answer from his chief — something about balancing his intake of alcohol with his intake of insulin. But Morse said nothing, just sat there staring at the intricate design upon the carpet.

“One of these days, perhaps,” persisted Strange quietly, “you might revise your opinion of Dixon.”

“Why not put him in charge of the case? If you’re still determined—”

“Steady on, Morse! That’s enough of that. Just remember who you’re talking to. And I’ll tell you exactly why I’m not putting that idiot Dixon in charge. Because I’ve already put somebody else in charge — you and Lewis! Remember?”

“Lewis maybe, sir, but I can’t do it.”

Feeling most uncomfortable during these exchanges, Lewis watched the color rise in Strange’s cheeks as several times his mouth opened and closed like that of a stranded goldfish.

“You do realize you’ve got little say in this matter, Chief Inspector? I am not pleading with you to undertake an investigation for Thames Valley CID. What I am doing, as your superior officer, is telling you that you’ve been assigned to a particular duty. That’s all. And that’s enough.”

“No. It’s not enough.”

For several minutes the conversation continued in a similar vein before Strange delivered his diktat:

“I see... Well, in that case... you give me no option, do you? I shall have to report this interview to the Chief Constable. And you know what that’ll mean.”

Morse rose slowly to his feet, signaling Lewis to do the same. “I don’t think you’re going to report this interview to the Chief Constable or to the Assistant Chief Constable or to anyone else, for that matter, are you, Superintendent Strange?”

Until comparatively recently, Harry Repp had associated the word “porridge” chiefly with the title of the TV comedy series and not with oatmeal stirred in boiling water. For as long as he could remember, his breakfasts had consisted of Corn Flakes covered successively (as his beer gut had ballooned) with full, semiskimmed, and finally the thinly insipid fully skimmed varieties of milk. It was his common-law wife, Debbie, who’d insisted: “You keep pouring booze into your belly every night and it’s low-fat milk for breakfast! Understood?” So there’d been little choice, had there? Until almost a year ago, when he had come to realize that the TV title was wholly appropriate, with porridge (occasionally ill-stirred in lukewarm water) providing the basic breakfast diet for prison inmates.

Normally Repp would have accepted the proffered dollop of porridge; but he asked only for two sausages and a spoonful of baked beans as he and his coprisoners from A Wing stood queuing at the food counter at 8 A.M. He had read that prisoners in the condemned cell were always given the breakfast of their choice; but he felt he could himself have eaten little in such circumstances — with the twin specters of death and terror so very close behind him. And even now, back in his cell, he managed only one mouthful of beans before pushing his plate away from him. He felt agitated and apprehensive, although he found it difficult to account for such emotions. After all, he wasn’t awaiting the Governor and the flunkey from the Home Office and the Prison Chaplain... and the Hangman. Far from it. It was that day, Friday, July 24, that was set for his release from HM Prison, Bullingdon.

At 8:35 A.M., still in his prison clothing, he heard steps outside the cell, heard his name called, and was on his feet immediately, picking up the carrier bag in which he’d already placed his personal belongings: a battered-looking radio, a few letters still in their grubby envelopes, and a “sexy-western” paperback that had clearly commanded regular rereading. “Let’s hope we don’t meet again, mate!” one of the prison officers had volunteered as the double doors were unlocked and Repp was escorted for the last time from the spur of A Wing.

At 8:50 A.M., after changing into his personal civvies, he was admitted into a bench-lined holding cell, where another prisoner, a thin sallow-faced man in his forties, was already seated. Their exchange of conversation was brief and unmemorable:

“Not much more o’ this shit, mate.”

“No,” said Repp.

At 9:05 A.M. his name was again called, and he was taken along to a reception desk where one of the Principal Officers took him through the forms pertaining to his release: identity check, behavior and health records, details of destination and accommodation. It seemed to Repp somewhat reminiscent of a check-in at Heathrow or Gatwick. Except that this, as he kept reminding himself, wasn’t a check-in at all. It was a check-out.