Colin Dexter - The Remorseful Day

“Why him , though?”

“Put yourself in his position. You pick up your fare outside the station and drive him out to Lower Swin-stead; and there you’re asked if you want to earn a bit — a lot — of extra money. You don’t really have to do much at all. Fellow says he’s going into the house — his house, anyway — and the burglar alarm is going to ring. All you’ve got to do is to say, if you’re questioned about things, that you heard the alarm ringing while you were parked outside. Not too difficult? The alarm was ringing by then. And you’re offered — what? I dunno — twenty or thirty quid, two or three hundred quid? But the key point is that Flynn never fully realized how vital his testimony was going to be.”

“Are you making it all up?”

“Yes! So allow me to continue making it all up. Flynn’s got little idea of why he’s getting such a bonus for doing virtually bugger-all. But then he starts to read a few press reports; and unlike our boys he puts two and two together, and he smiles to himself because he knows the answer. And pretty soon he realizes he’s sold himself stupidly cheap, and he decides he’ll balance the books a bit better.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying? He’s been trying to blackmail Frank Harrison?”

Morse drained his pint. “Not sure. But I’d like to bet that someone that night was more than ready to pay his way out of trouble.”

“Or her way.”

“Could be, yes.” Morse contemplated an empty glass. “Is it your round or mine, by the way?”

“Yours.”

Morse consulted his wristwatch. “Good gracious me! Time you drove me home. I need a shot of insulin, Lewis. You should’ve reminded me.”

“You still haven’t told me why you thought it was Flynn,” complained Lewis as he drove north through the Summertown shopping area.

“Small man — that’s why.”

“So’s the landlord of the Maiden’s Arms.”

“Ah, but Flynn was very fond of Guinness.”

“What the hell’s that got to do with anything?”

“I forget. I’m, er, I’m getting muddled.”

Lewis pulled up outside Morse’s flat.

“Anything... anything I can do for you, sir?”

“Certainly not. It’s just that I’m beginning to feel exquisitely sleepy, that’s all. The day’s still comparatively young, I grant you. But don’t ring me — not tonight — not unless anything dramatic happens.”

“You mean” (Lewis’s heart rose within him) “you mean you are going to take on the case?”

“Different ball game, isn’t it? As they say in Chicago or somewhere.”

“Shall I let the Super know?”

“I’ve already told him — when we were at the rubbish tip.”

Lewis shook his head in benign bewilderment as Morse made to get out of the car.

“And I’ll take possession of this — just temporarily, of course. And if you can find out whose it is...”

He pocketed the Parsifal cassette and was walking toward his front door when Lewis wound down the car window.

“You can keep it as long as you like, sir. But let me have it back when you’ve finished with it. They said at Blackwell’s it’s the top recording — by a fellow called Napperbush.”

“You mean...?”

Lewis nodded happily.

“Thou art a man of taste.”

“I thought you’d be pleased, sir.”

“By the way, Lewis, we pronounce him ‘K-napper-t-s-busch’,” amended the Chief Inspector, pedantically separating the consonantal clusters.

As Lewis drove up to HQ, one particular thought was troubling him — as it often had: the marked inferiority of his own mental processes compared with those of the man he had just left; the man who was doubtless now sleeping off the effects of what had been (even for Morse) a hyper-alcoholic afternoon. It wasn’t that his own processes were necessarily all that much slower; just that they seemed always to leave the starting blocks way after Morse had sprinted on ahead. Obviously (Lewis knew it!) innate intelligence was a big factor in everything: the speed of perception and understanding, the analysis of data, the linkage of things. But there was something else: the knack of prospective thinking, of looking ahead and asking oneself the right questions, as well as the wrong questions, about what was likely to happen in the future; and then of coming up with some answers, be they right or wrong.

So frequently in previous cases had Morse led him along, and by prompting the right questions evinced the right sort of answers. “Socratic dialectic,” Morse had called it, recounting how Socrates had managed to elicit from a totally untutored slave boy the basic principles of plane geometry — just by asking the right questions.

So.

So, in his office that early evening, Lewis visualized himself seated opposite Morse — opposite Socrates, rather.

You’ve got to find the car, haven’t you? The car that dumped the body? Where will you find it?

I don’t know.

Where would you have driven that car?

I don’t know. Anywhere, I suppose.

Isn’t there blood everywhere? Blood all over your clothes?

Yes.

Haven’t you got to change your clothes then?

Yes.

So you couldn’t just leave the car anywhere, could you? You couldn’t walk too far all covered in blood?

No.

So where would you go?

I’d go home, like as not.

Before, or after, you’d ditched the car?

Before, probably, although...

Go on!

Might be a bit risky. Neighbors would probably notice the strange car. Might even notice the bloodstained clothes.

What’s the alternative for you?

Well, get someone to meet me somewhere and bring me a full change of clothes.

Where would you meet?

Anywhere. How do I know. Except...

Go on!

If we met in a lay-by, say, I’d have to leave the car there, wouldn’t I? I couldn’t get back in and get the new clothes almost as bloodstained as the old. And the car would pretty certainly get reported almost immediately. So...

So?

So I’d have somebody to meet me. Friend? Wife, perhaps?

Where do you meet?

I don’t know.

You do know. You know the Chesterton story — I’ve often mentioned it.

Remind me.

Where do you hide a leaf?

Ah, yes. In the forest.

Where do you hide a pebble?

On the shore.

Where do you hide a corpse?

On the battlefield.

And where do you hide a car?

In a car park.

Which car park?

I don’t know.

The bigger the better?

Yes.

In Oxford?

Probably.

How many car parks are there in Oxford?

Dozens.

If you’d committed a murder near Oxford, what would you want to do above all?

Get the hell out of the place.

How?

Drive away.

You haven’t got a car now, have you?

Bus?

Where’s the bus station?

Gloucester Green.

Isn’t there a car park opposite?

Yes.

And you could catch a train?

Yes.

Isn’t there a station car park opposite?

Yes...

As he drove down toward Oxford, Lewis felt pleased with himself, and just after he’d negotiated the Cutteslowe roundabout he was tempted to call in on Morse. But he put the temptation behind him. He felt fairly certain that the great man would be asleep.