Colin Dexter - The Remorseful Day

Much earlier (Morse knew it) he should have paid far more attention to the thing that had puzzled him most about the Harrison murder: motive. Until now, Simon had fitted that bill pretty well, since Morse was sure that the mother-son relationship had been very close; much too close. Good thinking, that! Then, that very afternoon, a busty lusty lass sitting with Simon in the three-and-sixpennies had innocently scuppered his carefully considered scheme of things.

Once home, Morse poured himself a modestly liberal measure of Glenfiddich, and changed into a gaudily striped pair of pajamas that blossomed in white and purple and red... before continuing, indeed completing, his written record.

This evening in Lower Swinstead I spoke at quite some length with Mr. Bert Bagshaw. Why did I not follow my first instincts? Had I done so, I would have realized that any clues to that (most elusive) motivation for the murder of Yvonne Harrison would ever be likely to lie in the immediate locality itself, rather than in some external rape or alien burglary. Hardy’s yokels usually knew all about the goings-on in the Wessex villages; and their role is paralleled today by the likes of the Alfs and the Berts in the Cotswold public houses. Although I now know who murdered Yvonne Harrison, it will not be easy to prove the guilt of the accused party. I am reminded of the Greek philosopher Protagoras, who found it difficult to be dogmatic about the existence of the gods, partly because of the obscurity of the subject matter, and partly because of the brevity of human life.

But herewith I give my final thoughts on the murder of Yvonne Harrison, that crisply uniformed nurse who looked after me in hospital once (but once!) with such tempting, loving care...

He finished writing an hour later at 12:45 A.M.

Or perhaps, to be accurate, he wrote no more thereafter.

At which hour Lewis was somewhat uneasily asleep, not at all sure in his mind whether things were going well or going ill. Morse had insisted that it should be he, Lewis, who would be on hand when Frank Harrison and his lady passed through Arrivals at Heathrow. No problem there though. Still thirty-six hours to go before the scheduled British Airways flight was due to land, and Morse had been adamant that Harrison would be on that flight, and not flitting off to Katmandu or the Cayman Islands. Yet one thing was ever troublously disturbing Lewis’s thoughts: the real nature of the puzzling and secret relationship that had clearly existed between Morse and Yvonne Harrison.

Morse awoke at 2:15 A.M., his forehead wet with sweat, an excruciating ache along the whole of his left arm running up as far as his neck and jaw, a tightly constricting corselet of pain around his chest. He managed to reach the bathroom sink where he vomited copiously. Thence, in pathetically slow degrees, he negotiated the stairs, one by one — finally reaching the ground-floor telephone, where he dialed 999 , and in a remarkably steady voice selected the first of the Ambulance Fire Police options. He was seated on the lime-green carpet beside the front door, its Yale lock and bolts now opened, when the ambulance arrived six minutes later.

It all happened so quickly.

After being attached to a portable heart monitor, after a pain-killing injection, after chewing an aspirin, after having his blood pressure taken, Morse found himself lying, contentedly almost, eyes open, on a stretcher in the back of the ambulance.

Beside him a paramedic was looking down with well-disguised anxiety at the ghastly pallor of the face and the lips of a purple-blue: “We’ll just get the docs to have a look at you. We’ll soon be there. Don’t worry.”

Morse closed his eyes, conscious that life had always been a bit of a worry and seemed to have every likelihood of so continuing now...

He should perhaps have rung Lewis from upstairs — Lewis had a flat key — instead of ringing 999.

But then, he realized, Lewis wouldn’t have had all that medical equipment, now would he?

He’d been a little disappointed that he’d heard no ambulance siren.

But then, he realized, there wouldn’t be all that much traffic, even in Oxford, at such an early hour, now would there?

Soon, he knew it, they’d be asking for his “Religion.”

But then, he realized, it wouldn’t take too long for him (or them) to write down “None” in some appropriate box, now would it?

“Next of Kin,” too. Trickier that though, because the penultimate member of the Morse clan had recently died, aged ninety-two.

But then it wouldn’t take too long to write down “None” again.

And there were more cheerful things to contemplate. Perhaps Nurse Harrison would be there in the ward again to sit by his bed in the small hours...

But then, he realized, Yvonne Harrison was now dead.

Perhaps Sister McQueen would be on duty to pull him through again?

But then, he realized, she was away for a month in far Carlisle, tending a frail, demanding mother.

The kindly paramedic held him down gently as he tried to sit up on the stretcher.

“Lewis! I must see Sergeant Lewis.”

“Of course. We’ll make sure you see him as soon as they’ve had a quick look at you. We’re nearly there.”

The night nurse in the “goldfish bowl,” at the right of the Emergencies Entrance watched as the automatic double doors opened and the paramedics wheeled the latest casualty through, deciding immediately that Resuscitation Room B was the place for the newcomer. Quickly she bleeped the Senior House Officer.

The next ten minutes saw swift and methodical action: blood samples were promptly dispatched somewhither; chest X rays were taken; an electrocardiograph test had firmly established that the patient had suffered a hefty anterior myocardial infarct. But it was time for another move; and the activities of a young and kindly nurse with a clipboard, dutifully requesting details of medical history, next of kin, religion, and the like, were mercifully cut short by a specialist nurse who with all speed supervised an urgent transfer.

Morse had always delighted in sesquipedalian terminology, since his education in the Classics had given him much insight into the etymology of words more than a foot and a half long. And now, as he lay in the Coronary Care Unit, he listened with interest to the words being spoken around him: thrombolysis, tachicardia, strepto-something-something. One thing was certain: much was happening and was happening quickly again. As if there were little time to spare...

Were angels male or female? They’d started off life as male, surely? So there must have been a sort of transsexual interim when... Morse’s mind was wondering... What gender was the Angel of Death then, whom he now saw standing at the right-hand side of his bed, with a nurse holding one gently restraining hand on a softly feathered wing, and the other hand on his own shoulder.

Morse awoke to full consciousness again, opened his eyes, and found Lewis’s hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir.”

“You? What the ‘ell are you doing here?”

“One o’ the paras — knew who you were — and heard you say, you know...”

Morse nodded, and smiled.

“How you doing, sir?”

“Fine! It’s just a case of misidentity.”

“I mustn’t be long. They’ve told me just a coupla minutes, you know.”

“Why’s that?” asked Morse wearily.

“They say you need, you know, a lot of rest.”

“Lew-is! Why do you keep saying ‘you know’ all the time?”

“Not said ‘actually’ yet though, have I?”