Colin Dexter - The Remorseful Day

But it wasn’t to be.

A nurse was standing beside him, testing his lipread-ing skills once more: “I’m afraid we must ask you to go...”

At 4:20 P.M. Morse seemed to rally a little and held his hand up for the nurse.

“I’m allowed a drop more Scotch?” he whispered.

She poured out the miserably small contents of the second miniature and held a jug of water over the glass.

“Yes?”

“No,” said Morse.

She put her arm around his shoulders, pulled him toward her, and held the glass to his lips. But he sipped so little that she wondered whether he’d drunk a single drop; and as he coughed and spluttered she took the glass away and for a few moments held him closely to her, and felt profoundly sad as finally she eased the white head back against the pillows.

For just a little while, Morse opened his eyes and looked up at her.

“Please thank Lewis for me...”

But so softly spoken were the words that she wasn’t quite able to catch them.

The call came through to Sergeant Lewis just after 5 P.M.

Before leaving for Heathrow, Lewis had informed Chief Superintendent Strange that it would not be at all sensible, in fact it would be wholly inappropriate, for him to continue as a protagonist, virtually the protagonist, in the Harrison case: he was exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally; and, well... he just begged for a rest. And Strange had granted his request.

“I’m going to put someone in charge who’s considerably more competent than you and Morse ever were.”

“Yourself, sir?”

“That’s it,” smiled Strange sadly. “You have two or three days off — from tomorrow. You could take the missus to South Wales.”

“I said I needed a rest, sir! And there are one of two things that Morse...”

“Make a few calls you mean — yes. And go through his diary and see what dates...”

“I don’t think there’ll be many of those.”

“You don’t?” asked Strange quietly.

“And I haven’t got much of a clue how he was going to tackle Frank Harrison.”

Strange lumbered round the table and placed a vast hand on Lewis’s shoulder. “You’ve got a key?”

Lewis nodded.

“Just bring Harrison Senior straight to me. Then...”

Lewis nodded. He was full up to the eyes; and left without a further word.

On journeys concerned with potential criminals or criminal activity, CID personnel were never advised, and were seldom permitted, to travel alone. And the following morning Lewis was not wholly unhappy to be traveling alongside a familiar colleague, albeit alongside Sergeant Dixon. After the first few obligatory words, the pair of them had lapsed into silence.

There was never likely to be any risk of missing the returning couple at the Arrivals exit. Nor was there. And it was Lewis who read from his prepared notes, as unostentatiously as he could: “Mr. Frank Harrison, it is my duty as a police officer to inform you that I am authorized to remand you into temporary custody on two counts: first, on suspicion of the murder of Mr. John Barron of Lower Swinstead on the 3rd of August, 1998; second, on suspicion of the murder of your wife, Yvonne Harrison, on the 8th July 1997. It is also my duty to tell you—”

“Forget it, Sergeant. You told me what to expect. Just a couple of favors though, if that’s all right? Won’t take long.”

“What have you got in mind?” In truth, Lewis had neither the energy nor the enthusiasm to initiate any determined pursuit had Frank Harrison and partner decided to make a dash for it and vault the exit barriers. But that was never going to happen. Nor did it.

“Well, it’s the car, first of all. I left it—”

“All taken care of, sir. Or it will be.”

“Thank you. Second thing, then. You know the one thing I really missed in Paris? A pint of real ale, preferably brewed in Burton-on-Trent. The bars are open here and...”

“OK.”

Dixon stood beside him as Harrison ordered a pint of Bass and a large gin and tonic (and, of course, nothing else) whilst Lewis sat at a nearby table, momentarily alone with Maxine Ridgway.

“You know,” she said very firmly, “you’re quite wrong about one thing. I don’t know too much about Frank’s life, but it does just so happen I was with him the night that his wife was murdered. We were together in his London flat! I was there when the phone rang and when he ordered a taxi to Paddington—”

Frank Harrison was standing by the table now: “Why don’t you learn to keep your mouth shut, woman!” But his voice was resigned rather than angered, and if he had contemplated throwing the gin and tonic in her face, it was only for a second or two.

He sat down and drank his beer.

The damage had been done.

In the back of the police car as it returned to Oxford, Lewis realized, with an added sadness, that Morse had been wholly wrong, as it now transpired, in his final analysis of the Harrison murder. Frank Harrison, if his lady friend were to be believed, just could not have murdered his wife that night; and the police must have been right, in the original inquiry, to cross him off their suspect list. It had all happened before, of course — many a time! — when Morse, after the revelation of some fatal flaw in his earlier reasoning, would find his mind leaping forward, suddenly, with inexplicable insight, toward the ultimate solution.

But those days had now gone.

It was not until the car was passing through the cutting in the Chilterns by Stokenchurch that Harrison spoke:

“Red kite country this is — now. Did you know that, Sergeant?”

“As a matter of fact I did, yes. I’m not into birds myself though. The wife puts some nuts out occasionally but...”

It may hardly be seen as a significant passage of conversation.

Harrison spoke again just after Dixon had turned off the M40 on to the A40 for Oxford.

“You know, I’m looking forward to seeing Morse again. I met him at Barron’s funeral, but I don’t think we got on very well... My daughter, Sarah, knows him though. He’s one of her patients at the Radcliffe. She tells me he’s a strange sort of fellow in some ways — interesting though, and very bright, but perhaps not taking all that good care of himself.”

Lewis remained silent.

“Why didn’t he come up to Heathrow himself? Wasn’t that the original idea?”

“Yes, I think it was.”

“Are we meeting at St. Aldate’s or Kidlington?”

“He won’t be meeting you anywhere, sir. Chief Inspector Morse is dead.”

After returning to HQ Lewis gave Strange an account of the quite extraordinary evidence so innocently (as it seemed) supplied by Maxine Ridgway.

But he could do no more.

For he had nothing more to give.

Unlike Morse, who had always professed enormous faith in pills — pills of all colors, shapes, and sizes — Lewis could hardly remember the last time he’d taken anything apart from the Vitamin C tablet he was bullied to swallow each breakfast-time. It had therefore been something of a surprise to learn that Mrs. L. kept such a copious supply of assorted medicaments; and retiring to bed unprecedentedly early that evening he had swallowed two Nurofen Plus tablets and slept like the legendary log.