Colin Dexter - The Remorseful Day

“Which nights?”

“Wednesday and Thursday. He went back to London on Friday.”

“What time?”

“Is this the Inquisition?”

“It is my job to ask these questions, you understand that.”

“Touché! He caught the train — I’m not sure which one. He didn’t bring the car — nowhere to park in Oxford, is there?”

“Why didn’t you see him off?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Were you working?”

“No. I’d arranged to have Thursday and Friday off myself. Like Dad, I’d a few days’ holiday to make up.”

“So why not see him off?”

The eyes were fiery now. “I’ll tell you why. Because he took me out the previous night to Le Petit Blanc in Walton Street and we had a super meal and we had far too much booze — before, during, and after, all right? And I got as pissed as a tailed amphibian and tried to sleep things off with enough pills to frighten even you! And when I finally staggered downstairs — eleven? half-eleven? — I saw this note on the kitchen table: ‘Off back to London. Didn’t want to wake you. Love Dad’ — something like that.”

“Any time on the note?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Have you kept it?”

“Course I’ve not kept it! Hardly a specimen of purple prose, was it?”

“Don’t be cross with me,” said Morse gently as he got to his feet and left the consulting room — with two blue cards for more immediate and urgent blood tests, and with instructions to fix up a further appointment for eight weeks’ time.

After the door had closed behind him, Sarah dialed 9 for an outside line on the phone there; then called a number.

“Hullo? Hullo? Could you put me through to Simon Harrison, please?”

As he sat awaiting his turn outside the cubicle reserved for blood testing, Morse found himself wondering whether, wondering how , if at all, Sarah Harrison could have had any role to play in the appalling events of the weekend just passed. There were possibilities, of course (there were always possibilities in Morse’s mind), and for a few minutes his brain accelerated sweetly and swiftly into that extra fifth gear. But stop a while! Strange had surely been right to remind him that the easiest answer was more often than not the correct one. What was the easiest answer, though? Lewis would know, of course; and it was at times like these that Morse needed Lewis’s cautious 30 mph approach to life, if not to any stretch of road in front of him. Two heads were better than one, even though one of them was Lewis’s. Yet what a cruel thought that was! And so unworthy...

“Mr. Morse?”

A nurse led him behind the blood-letting curtain; and as she wiped the inside of his right arm with a sterilizing swab of cotton wool before inserting a needle, Morse found himself thinking of Dr. Sarah Harrison... wondering exactly what she was thinking (doing?) at that very moment.

“Hullo? Simon Harrison here.”

“Simon? Sarah! Are you hearing OK?”

“Where else? Course I’m here in the UK.”

“Are you hearing me all right?”

“Oh, sorry! Yes. Fantastic this new phone system. You know that.”

“Are you on your own, Simon?” She was speaking softly.

“Yes. But you can never count on it, sis. You know that.”

“Now listen! I’ve only got a minute or so. I’ve just been talking to Chief Inspector Morse—”

“Who?”

“Morse! He’s with the Thames Valley Police and he’s just become one of my patients.”

“He wasn’t on Mum’s case.”

“Well, he’s on this one.”

“So?”

“So we’ve got to be careful, Simon.”

“You told him Dad was here?”

“Had to! He’d have soon found out.”

“What’s wrong , sis?”

“Nothing’s wrong. But I’m a bit frightened of him, and when he sees you—”

“Seizure? What? Say it again.”

“If he sees you, Simon, you did not come round last Wednesday. You did not come —”

“I heard you! I stayed at home and watched the telly. What was on, by the way?”

“Look it up in the Radio Times! And stop being—!”

A knock on the consulting-room door caused Sarah to replace the receiver hurriedly, almost hoping that another outpatient had passed out in Reception. But the knock was only a polite reminder that Dr. Harrison’s A.M. schedule was now running over half an hour late.

Yet even as the next outpatient was ushered in, Dr. Sarah Harrison found herself wondering exactly what Chief Inspector Morse was thinking (doing?) at that very moment.

Turning right from the front entrance of the Radcliffe Infirmary, Morse began walking slowly down toward St. Giles, noting that the time was 10:40 — twenty minutes before the pubs were due to open. Yet since drink was now definitely out for the duration, such an observation was of little moment.

The Oratory was on his right, a building he’d seldom paid attention to before, although he must have walked past it so many, many times. But apart from that wonderful line of cathedrals down the eastern side of England — Durham, York, Lincoln, Peterborough, Ely — the architecture of ecclesiastical edifices had never meant as much as they should have to Morse; and the reason why he now checked his step remains inexplicable.

He entered and looked around him: all surprisingly large and imposing, with a faint, seductive smell of incense, and statues of assorted saints around him, with tiers of candles lit beside their sandaled, holy feet.

A youngish woman had come in behind him, a Marks & Spencer carrier bag in her left hand. She dipped her right hand into the little font of blessed water there, then crossed herself and knelt in one of the rear pews. Morse envied her, for she looked so much at home there: looked as if she knew herself and her Lord so well, and was wholly familiar with all the trappings of prayer and the promises of forgiveness. She didn’t stay long, and Morse guessed that the cause of her brief sojourn was probably the paucity of any sins worthy of confession. As she left, Morse could see some of the contents of the carrier bag: a Hovis loaf and a bottle of red plonk.

Bread and wine.

The door clicked to behind her, and Morse stepped over to meet St. Anthony, wondering whence had sprung that oddly intrusive “h.” According to the textual blurb at the base of the statue, this great and good man was clearly capable of performing quite incredible miracles for those who almost had sufficient faith. Morse picked up a candle from the box there and stuck it in an empty socket on the top row. At which point (it appeared) most worshipers would have prayed fervently for a miracle. But Morse wasn’t at all sure what miracle he wanted. Nevertheless the elegant, elongated candle was of importance to him; and on some semi-irrational impulse he took a second candle and placed it beside the first. Together, side by side, they seemed to give a much stronger light than both of them separate.

A notice suggested an appropriate donation per candle, and Morse pushed a £1 coin into the slot in the wall behind St. Anthony. Half of bitter. Then, remembering that he’d doubled his investment, the reluctant hagio-later pushed in a second £1 coin. A whole pint.

As he walked down to St. Giles, the man who had virtually no faith in the Almighty and even less in miracles noted that the past few minutes had slipped by quickly. It was now just after 11 A.M.; and when he came in sight of the Bird and Baby on his right, he saw that the front door was open.