Colin Dexter: The Remorseful Day

“When you go up to bring Harrison in today—”

“Tomorrow, sir.”

“You sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“Don’t forget! I’m doing the interviewing.”

Lewis turned to find Nurse Shelick standing behind him. “Please!” her lips mouthed, as she looked down on Morse’s intermittently closing eyes.

“Shan’t be a second, nurse.”

He bent down and whispered: “Anything I can do, sir?”

Morse’s eyes were still closed, but he seemed to regain some of his earlier coherence.

“Yes. Second drawer down on the right. There’s a Carlisle number for Sister McQueen. Give her a ring. Not today though... like you say, tomorrow. Just say I’m...”

Lewis prepared to go. “Leave it to me, sir, and... keep a stout heart! Promise me that!”

Morse opened his eyes briefly. “That’s what my old father used to say.”

“So you will , won’t you, sir?”

Morse nodded slowly. “I’ll try. I’ll try ever so hard, my old friend.”

Lewis was checking back the tears as he walked away from the Coronary Care Unit, and failed to hear Nurse Shelick’s quiet “Good-bye.”

That same day was to be the longest and almost the unhappiest in Lewis’s life. At 6:30 A.M. he drove out to Police HQ and sat quietly in Morse’s office, the Harrison case the last thing that concerned him. At 7 A.M. he rang the JR2 and learned that Morse’s condition was “critical but stable,” although he had little real idea what that might signify on the Coronary Richter Scale.

Strange, early apprised of Morse’s hospitalization, came in at 8 A.M., himself immediately ringing the JR2, and impatiently asking several questions — and being given the same answer as Lewis: “Critical but stable.” As much was being done as humanly possible, Strange learned, and any visit was, at present, quite out of the question. For the minute it was all tests and further treatment. The ward had the police number of Sergeant Lewis, and would ring if... if there was any news.

Morse was fully conscious of what was going on around him. He felt fairly sure that he was dying and pretended to himself that he would face death with at least some degree of dignity, if not with equanimity. He had been seated beside his old father when he’d died and heard him reciting the Lord’s Prayer, as if it were some sort of insurance policy. And Morse wondered whether his own self-interest might possibly be served by following suit. But if by any freak of chance there was an Almighty, well, He’d understand anyway; and since, in Morse’s view, there wasn’t, he’d be wasting his really (at this time) rather precious breath. No. The long day’s task was almost done, and he knew that he must sleep...

At 1:30 P.M. the consultant looked down on the sleeping man. There had been no positive reaction from the comprehensive tests and treatments; no success from the diuretic dosages that should have cleared the fluid that was flooding the lungs; no cause for the slightest optimism from the echocardiogram.

He sat at the desk there and wrote:

“Clinical evidence that the heart is irreparably damaged; kidney failure already apparent. Without specific request from n.o.k. in my judgment inappropriate to resuscitate.”

The nurse beside him read through what he had written.

“Nothing else we can do, is there?”

The consultant shook his head. “Pray for a miracle, that’s about the only hope. So if he asks for anything, let him have it.”

“Even whiskey?”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s already asked for a drop.”

“Something we don’t stock in the pharmacy, I’m afraid.”

The nurse smiled gently to herself after the consultant had left, for someone had already slipped a couple of miniature Glenfiddichs into the top of Morse’s bedside table; and there’d only been the one visitor.

Seated outside a café on the Champs Elysées, Maxine Ridgway clinked her glass across the table. It had been a splendid lunch and she felt almost happy.

“Thank you! You’re a terrible, two-timing fellow — you know that. But you’re giving me a wonderful time. You know that, too.”

“Yes, I do know. Trouble is the time’s gone by so quickly.”

“No chance of staying another few days? Day or two? Day?”

“No. We’re back in the morning as scheduled. I’ve got a meeting I’ve agreed to attend.”

“A board meeting?”

“No, no. Much more interesting. A meeting with a chief inspector of police. I’ve met him once before, only the once, at a funeral; and then only very briefly. But he’s — well, he’s a bit like me, in a way, I suppose. He’d never run away from anyone, I reckon; and I’d never forgive myself if I ran away from him.”

Maxine looked over at Frank Harrison and realized for the first time in their relationship that she was probably in love with the man. In those early heady days it had been all Daimlers and diamonds; but she would always have chosen the wine and the roses of these last forty-eight hours...

Suddenly she sensed that she was never going to see him again, and she yearned at that moment to be alone with him, and to give herself to him.

“Let’s go back to the hotel, Frank.”

“What? On a beautiful sunny afternoon like this?”

“Yes!”

Frank Harrison leaned across and placed his right hand on her bare shoulder. “Shall I tell you a secret, my darling? I was about to suggest exactly the same thing myself.”

It was a happy moment.

But a moment only.

Harrison got to his feet.

“I’ve just got to make a phone call first.”

“You can ring from the room.”

“No, it’s a private call.”

“And you don’t want me to—?”

“No, I don’t.”

“If he asks for anything,” that’s what the consultant said. And when Morse made his second request (the first already granted) the nurse rang Police HQ immediately. Lewis and Strange — Morse wanted to see them.

Perhaps she had given the two names in alphabetical order, but Lewis hoped it had been in order of preference — a hope though that had probably been unjustified, he thought, as he stood waiting at the back of the unit, since it had clearly been Strange who had been first on Morse’s visiting list.

“Right old mess you’ve got yourself into, Morse!”

“Looks like it, I’m afraid.”

“You’re in the best of hands, you know that.”

“I’m going to need a bit more than that.”

“Look, Morse. Don’t you think it would be a good thing... don’t you think I ought—?”

But Morse was shaking his head in some agitation.

“No! Please! If you really want to help...”

“Course! Course, I do!”

“Can you ask Lewis...?”

“Course! Just you keep hold of the hooks, old mate! And that’s an order. Don’t forget I’m still your superior officer.”

“Lewis!” Morse spoke the name very quietly but quite clearly. His eyes were open, and his lips moved as if he were about to say something.

But if such were the case, he never said it; and Lewis decided to do what so many people have done beside a hospital bed; decided to speak a few comforting thoughts aloud:

“You’ve got the top load of quacks in Oxfordshire looking after you, sir. All you’ve got to do — promise me! — is to do what they say and... And what I really want to say is thank-you for...”

But Lewis could get no further.

And in any case Morse had closed his eyes and turned his head away to face the pure-white wall.

Just a little word from Morse would have been enough.