Colin Dexter - Morse’s Greatest Mystery and other stories

The phone rang again. The Magistrates’ Court. They needed a prison van and a couple of prison officers. Remand case. And within two minutes the Governor was wondering whether that could be a hoax. He told himself not to be so silly. His imagination was beginning to run riot.

Evans!

For the first quarter of an hour Stephens had dutifully peered through the peep-hole at intervals of one minute or so; and after that, every two minutes. At 10:45 A.M. he nipped off to the gents’, and was in such a hurry to get back that he found he’d dribbled down his trousers. But everything was still all right as he looked through the peep-hole once more. It took four or five seconds — no more. What was the point? It was always more or less the same. Evans, his pen between his lips, sat staring straight in front of him towards the door, seeking — it seemed — some sorely needed inspiration from somewhere. And opposite him McLeery, seated slightly askew from the table now: his face in semi-profile; his hair (as Stephens had noticed earlier) amateurishly clipped pretty closely to the scalp; his eyes behind the pebble lenses peering short-sightedly at The Church Times; his right index finger hooked beneath the narrow clerical collar; and the fingers of the left hand, the nails meticulously manicured, slowly stroking the short black beard.

At 10:50 A.M. the receiver crackled to life and the Governor realized he’d almost forgotten Evans for a few minutes.

Evans: “Please, sir!” (A whisper)

Evans: “Please, sir!” (Louder)

Evans: “Would you mind if I put a blanket round me shoulders, sir? It’s a bit parky in ’ere, isn’t it?”

Silence.

Evans: “There’s one on me bunk ’ere, sir.”

McLeery: “Be quick about it.”

Silence.

At 10:51 A.M. Stephens was more than a little surprised to see a grey regulation blanket draped round Evans’s shoulders, and he frowned slightly and looked at the examinee more closely. But Evans, the pen still between his teeth, was staring just as vacamtly as before. Blankly beneath a blanket... Should Stephens report the slight irregularity? Anything at all fishy, hadn’t Jackson said? Mm. He looked through the peephole once again, and even as he did so Evans pulled the dirty blanket more closely to himself. Was he planning a sudden batman leap to suffocate McLeery in the blanket? Don’t be daft! There was never any sun on this side of the prison; no heating, either, during the summer months, and it could be quite chilly in some of the cells. Mm. Stephens decided to revert to his earlier every-minute observation.

At 11:20 A.M. the receiver once more crackled across the silence of the Governor’s office, and McLeery informed Evans that only five minutes remained. The examination was almost over now, but something still gnawed away quietly in the Governor’s mind. He reached for the phone once more.

At 11:22 A.M. Jackson shouted along the corridor to Stephens. The Governor wanted to speak with him — “ Hurry , man!” Stephens picked up the phone apprehensively and listened to the rapidly spoken orders. Stephens himself was to accompany McLeery to the main prison gates. Understood? Stephens personally was to make absolutely sure that the door was locked on Evans after McLeery had left the cell. Understood?

Understood.

At 11:25 A.M. the Governor heard the final exchanges.

McLeery: “Stop writing, please.”

Silence.

McLeery: “Put your sheets in order and see they’re correctly numbered.”

Silence.

Scraping of chairs and tables.

Evans: “Thank you very much, sir.”

McLeery: “A’ right, was it?”

Evans: “Not too bad.”

McLeery: “Good... Mr. Stephens!” (Very loud)

The Governor heard the door clang to for the last time. The examination was over.

“How did he get on, do you think?” asked Stephen as he walked beside McLeery to the main gates.

“Och. I canna think he’s distinguished hissel, I’m afraid.” His Scots accent seemed broader than ever, and his long black overcoat, reaching almost to his knees, fostered the illusion that he had suddenly grown slimmer.

Stephens felt pleased that the Governor had asked him , and not Jackson, to see McLeery off the premises, and all in all the morning had gone pretty well. But something stopped him from making his way directly to the canteen for a belated cup of coffee. He wanted to take just one last look at Evans. It was like a programme he’d seen on TV — about a woman who could never really convince herself that she’d locked the front door when she’d gone to bed: often she’d got up twelve, fifteen, sometimes twenty times to check the bolts.

He re-entered D Wing, made his way along to Evans’s cell, and opened the peep-hole once more. Oh no! CHRIST, NO! There, sprawled back in Evans’s chair was a man (for a semi-second Stephens thought it must be Evans), a grey regulation blanket slipping from his shoulders, the front of his closely cropped, irregularly tufted hair awash with fierce red blood which had dripped already through the small black beard, and was even now spreading horribly over the white clerical collar and down into the black clerical front.

Stephens shouted wildly for Jackson: and the words appeared to penetrate the curtain of blood that veiled McLeery’s ears, for the minister’s hand felt feebly for a handkerchief from his pocket, and held it to his bleeding head, the blood seeping slowly through the white linen. He gave a long low moan, and tried to speak. But his voice trailed away, and by the time Jackson had arrived and despatched Stephens to ring the police and the ambulance, the handkerchief was a sticky, squelchy wodge of cloth.

McLeery slowly raised himself, his face twisted tightly with pain. “Dinna worry about the ambulance, man! I’m a’ right... I’m a’ right... Get the police! I know... I know where... he...” He closed his eyes and another dip of blood splashed like a huge red raindrop on the wooden floor. His hand felt along the table, found the German question paper, and grasped it tightly in his bloodstained hand. “Get the Governor! I know... I know where Evans...”

Almost immediately sirens were sounding, prison officers barked orders, puzzled prisoners pushed their way along the corridors, doors were banged and bolted, and phones were ringing everywhere. And within a minute McLeery, with Jackson and Stephens supporting him on either side, his face now streaked and caked with drying blood, was greeted in the prison yard by the Governor, perplexed and grim.

“We must get you to hospital immediately. I just don’t—”

“Ye’ve called the police?”

“Yes, yes. They’re on their way. But—”

“I’m a’ right. I’m a’ right. Look! Look here!” Awkwardly he opened the German question paper and thrust it before the Governor’s face. “It’s there! D’ye see what I mean ?”

The Governor looked down and realized what McLeery was trying to tell him. A photocopied sheet had been carefully and cleverly superimposed over the last (originally blank) page of the question paper.

“Ye see what they’ve done, Governor. Ye see...” His voice trailed off again, as the Governor, dredging the layers of long-neglected learning, willed himself to translate the German text before him:

Sie sollen dem schon verabredeten Plan genau folgen. Der wichtige Zeitpunkt ist drei Minuten vor Ende des Examens ... “You must follow the plan already some-thinged. The vital point in time is three minutes before the end of the examination but something something — something something... Don’t hit him too hard — remember, he’s a minister! And don’t overdo the Scots accent when...”