Colin Dexter - The Remorseful Day

“What?”

“ Yeah, pretty certain of it. But he didn’t come to the door. Odd sort of chap, isn’t he?”

But the introductory “Well”s and the inquisitorial clausulae, (hallmarks of every Dixon sentence) had become too tiresome; and Lewis was glad when the canteen intercom cut across the conversation:

“Message for Chief Inspector Morse or Sergeant Lewis: Please ring Northampton SOCOs immediately. I repeat. Message for...”

Where are you, Dixon, in the hierarchy here? I’ll tell you, mate. Nowhere — no bloody where — that’s where!

Yet Lewis left such ungracious thoughts unspoken, jumping to his feet and leaving Dixon where he was, cheeks now jammed once more with a doughnut.

Two minutes later Lewis was through to an exultant Andrews, who wasted no time in breaking the dramatic news: there was a “hit” — yippee! — a match of fingerprints! In the car. Two sets — definite, distinct. The prints of J. Barron, Builder, of Lower Swinstead!

As he walked back to the canteen (Morse’s phone still engaged), Lewis reflected on his brief exchange of views with Andrews. Morse had asked for any news to be communicated to him direct, and if necessary at his home number, though as both men knew there’d been little chance of that. Yet the situation was now perfectly clear; and Lewis freely conceded that Morse’s early conviction that Barron had been involved in the murders seemed wholly vindicated. No room for more than three people in the cluttered stolen car, surely? And since neither Flynn nor Repp had stepped out of that car alive, the discovery of that third set of prints, Barron’s, was of momentous significance: Barron himself had been in the car. The logic sounded pretty childish when it was put like that but...

Andrews’s guess had been that Morse had suddenly fallen into some deep slumber after — well, after whatever; and Dixon’s guess that he’d been watching TV with the volume too high. But the latter explanation seemed unlikely. Morse could (Lewis succumbed to his second unworthy thought that day) could have purchased some pornographic video; but would he have been able to master the operating instructions? Doubtful — especially having no children (better still, grandchildren) to explain things to him. Morse seldom watched TV anyway, or so he claimed. Just the news. Just occasionally.

Lewis finished his coffee, slowly coming to terms with the extraordinary news he’d just received: that Barron was a murderer — the second thing in the whole tragic business that now seemed wholly incontrovertible.

He rang Morse once again. If the call wasn’t answered, he would drive down and see the situation for himself because he was getting a little worried.

The phone was ringing.

The call was answered.

Morse opened the front door. “And there’s me hoping for a rest day, like they tell me they have in the middle of test matches.”

But, in truth, he had not tried overhard to have much of a rest day...

Early that morning (as we have seen), he had rung Sergeant Dixon and given him a list of duties.

At 10 A.M. he had received a middle-aged, palely intelligent gentleman from Lloyds Bank, a guru on (inter alia) wills, dispositions, codicils, and covenants.

“From what you tell me, Mr. Morse, you’re not exactly going to bequeath a large fortune, are you? And with no relatives, no immediate dependents, no unmanageable debts — well, you might just as well write down a few things on half a page of A4. Save yourself money that way. Do it now, if you like. Just write a few simple sentences — ‘I leave the house to blank, the bank balance to blank, the books and records to blank, the residual estate to blank.’ That’ll cover things for now — and you say you do want things covered? Just sign it, I’ll witness it, and I’ll see it’s carried through, in case, you know... Then we can flesh it out a bit later.”

“No problems really then?”

“No. We shall, as a bank, charge a small commission of course. But you expected that.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Daniel. I’d expected that,” said Morse.

At 11:15 A.M. he had taken the 2A bus down the Banbury Road as far as Keble Road, where he alighted and walked across the Woodstock Road to the Radcliffe Infirmary, where he was directed up to an office on the first floor.

“Yes? How can I help you?” The woman behind the desk seemed to be a fairly important personage with carefully coiffured grey hair and carefully clipped diction.

“I’m thinking of leaving my body to the hospital.”

“You’ve come to the right place.”

“What’s the drill?”

She took a form from a drawer. “Just fill this in.”

“Is that all?”

“Make sure you tell your wife and your children and your GP. You’ll avoid quite a few problems that way.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, I ought to tell you we may not want your body. The situation does, er, fluctuate. But you’d expected that.”

“Oh yes, I’d expected that,” said Morse.

“And you must make sure you die somewhere fairly locally. We can’t come and collect you from Canada, you know.”

Perhaps it was a bleak joke.

“No, of course not.”

It had been a joyless experience for Morse, who now walked slowly down St. Giles toward The Randolph. He’d thought at the very least they’d have shown a little gratitude. Instead, he felt as though they were doing him a favor by agreeing (provisionally!) to accept a corpse that would surely be presenting apprentice anatomists and pathologists with some appreciably interesting items: liver, kidneys, lungs, pancreas, heart...

In the Chapters’ Bar, Ailish Hurley, his favorite barmaid, greeted him in her delightful Irish brogue; and two pints of bitter later, as he walked round into Magdalen Street and almost immediately caught a bus back up to the top of the Banbury Road, he felt that the world was a happier place than it had been half an hour earlier.

Once home, he treated himself to a small(ish) Glenfiddich, deciding that his liquid intake of calories that lunchtime would nicely balance his dosage of insulin. Yes, things were looking up, and particularly so since the phone hadn’t rung all day. What a wonderful thing it would be to go back to the days pre telephone (mobile and immobile alike), pre FAX, pre e-mail!

And, to cap it all, he’d bought himself a video — in front of which, in midafternoon, he’d fallen fairly soundly asleep, though at some point half-hearing, as he thought, a slippery flop through the letter-box.

It was an hour later when he opened the envelope and read Dixon’s notes on Simon Harrison; on Paddy Flynn; on Mrs. Holmes.

Interesting!

Interesting!

Interesting!

And very much as he’d thought...

Only one thing was worrying him slightly. Why hadn’t Lewis been in touch? He didn’t want Lewis to get in touch but... perhaps he did want Lewis to get in touch. So he rang Lewis himself only to discover that the phone was out of order. Or was it? He banged the palm of his right hand against his forehead. He’d rung Dixon early that morning from the bedroom; then he’d had to go downstairs to check an address in the phone book, finishing the call there, and forgetting to replace the receiver in the bedroom. He’d done it before. And he’d do it again. It was not a matter of any great moment. He’d ring Lewis himself — not that he had anything much to say to him; not for the minute anyway.