Colin Dexter - Morse’s Greatest Mystery and other stories

“Good night, sir,” she heard herself say; and for a moment she fancied that she’d almost like to look after him herself.

John was waiting for her, sitting on his wife’s swivel-chair and turning over the papers that lay on her desk. (He always picked Carol up on Fridays.) While she was out in the cloakroom, he looked through a few more recent carbons, each neatly stapled to its originating letter. One carbon in particular caught his eye:

Dear Jack,

Glad you still remember me and — yes! — I still keep the old collection going. But anything that belonged to Monty is sure to spark off some keen bidding — all a bit too high for me. As you say, though, the reserve price seems fair enough.

How long is it since we met? Seven — eight years? Marion died six years ago — malignant tumour. Not unexpected, but all desperately sad and very upsetting for the boys. I remarried two years later, and since then I’ve had another son! — and another!! — and another!!! Do you know the odds against a penny coming down six times on the trot?

If you’re ever near Oxford, let me know. I promise not to show you round the Department.

Sincerely yours,

Carol looked at her husband as she re-entered her office. At twenty-two, he was a year younger than herself; yet in many ways since their marriage two years previously, he’d shown himself the more mature, the more dependable, of the two. There had been a few patches of squabbling — mostly her fault; and the one continuing sadness... But she was glad she’d married him.

That, at least, is what Carol Summerson was telling herself that December afternoon.

“You reading my boss’s correspondence again?”

He nodded.

“Interesting?”

“Not really.”

As she unhooked her coat from the wall-cupboard, John glanced quickly at the originating letter, stapled behind the carbon he had just been reading. A letterhead announced a “J. Wingate, Gunsmith,” with an address in Guildford, the letter itself reporting the forthcoming auction of a revolver that had belonged to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery — reserve price £3,000.

“I didn’t know he was interested in revolvers,” said John, unlocking the nearside door to the Metro.

“I’ve told you before . You shouldn’t read—”

“Didn’t mind, did you?”

“Course not!” She brushed her full lips against his cheek as she fastened her safety-belt.

“His big hobby. One of the girls went to his house once when he’d got bronchitis or something and she said he’d got all these revolvers like in cases sort of thing hanging round the walls. Not very nice really, is it? You’d think that with all those young children—”

She stopped suddenly and a silence fell between them.

At 5:20 P.M. Rawlins locked the door of his office and left the Department. Florence (at thirty-two, exactly half his age) would have the fish all ready. TGFF. Thank God For Florence!

That night, for no immediately apparent reason, Frank Rawlins dreamed of Carol Summerson.

It was just before 11 A.M. the following Monday that Smithson arrived. Carol was not introduced to him, but from her adjacent room she could hear his voice; could hear, too, the occasional gurgle of Glenfiddich and the clink of the office glasses. Just over an hour later, after the pair of them had walked past her window, she entered Rawlins’s office, took the two glasses, washed them out in the ladies’ loo, and bent down to put them back in the cupboard beside the bottle — now empty.

“Hello!”

She hadn’t heard him come back in, and she felt slightly confused as he steered her by the elbow into her own office.

“Don’t you think it’s about time I treated my confidential secretary to lunch?”

He looked — and sounded — surprisingly sober; and she felt flattered. Soon he was holding her coat ready, and she was slipping her arms into the sleeves.

Easily.

He was interesting — no doubt about that. He told her of the time he and Smithson had worked together in a VD clinic in Vienna; and as he reminisced of this and other experiences Carol felt herself enriched, and newly important.

“Another?”

“I’ve had enough, thank you.”

“Nonsense!” He picked up her glass and made his slightly unsteady way to the bar once more.

Her third gin-and-tonic tasted strong. Nice, though! Was it a double? His own drink looked very much like the orange juice he’d promised himself; and after he’d left her to visit the gents’ she took a sip of it: it tasted even more strongly of gin than hers.

“We’d better be getting back, sir.”

“Yes.”

“Thanks for a lovely lunch.”

“Carol! I’ve had a lot to chink — you know that. But I just want you to know how ver’ much I’d like to go to bed with you this afternoon.”

Carol’s heart sank.

“Don’t be silly! Come on, let’s get back!”

He was hurt, she knew that; a bit ashamed, too. And as they walked back he tried so very hard to sound his usual sober self.

That night Carol Summerson dreamed of Frank Rawlins.

Erotically.

Carol’s raise came through in mid-January, and she was thrilled.

“I’m ever so grateful, sir.”

“You deserve it.”

“Will you come out one day and have lunch with me ?”

“When?”

“Whenever you’re free.”

“Today?”

“Today!”

She saw to it that he drank almost all the wine, and she insisted on buying him a glass of brandy after their meal. They were sitting close together now, and gently she moved her right leg against the rough tweed of his trousers. And, just as gently, he responded, saying nothing, yet saying everything.

“Another brandy?” she ventured.

Rawlins looked down at his empty glass, and smiled a little sadly.

“Have you ever thought how wonderful it would be to have a quiet, civilized little place all to yourself where—”

He stopped, and there was a long silence between them before Carol spoke softly in his ear.

“But I’ve got a nice little place out at Wheatley. You see, John’s away for a few days...”

Seven weeks later, Carol’s GP told her that she was quite definitely pregnant.

On the Friday evening of that same week, John Summerson called as usual to collect his wife. It was quarter to five — exactly so — when he walked through into Rawlins’s office and sat down in the chair that his wife had just vacated.

Over his glasses, Rawlins’s eyes registered puzzlement: it was as though a new boy had just strolled into the Masters’ Common Room.

“Can I help you? John — isn’t it?”

“You had sex with my wife.” Summerson spoke quietly, firmly — defying all denial.

“Where on earth did you get such—?”

“You’re lying!”

“Look here! You can’t be serious—”

“She’s pregnant!”

“But you can’t—”

“I watched you!” hissed Summerson.

“But you—”

“Shut up! I’m not the father. I can never be a father. You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

“Yes,” answered Rawlins softly.

“Did you enjoy it?” The young man’s eyes were blazing with a terrible anguish.

“I just—”

“Shut up!”

Rawlins sank back in his chair, his shoulders sagging.

“I’m redundant now,” continued Summerson. “They gave me £3,000 for the five years I worked there. There’s not much you can do with £3,000, is there, Professor?”

Rawlins closed his eyes and thought of his sons and thought of Florence and thought of himself, too: he knew exactly what £3,000 might possibly have bought.

When he opened his eyes he saw the revolver in Summerson’s right hand — a British Enfield .380, Number 2, Mark 1, the wooden stock a dirty nicotine-brown, the gunmetal of the fluted barrel as clean and gleaming as a polished stone. Summerson swivelled the revolver round until it pointed straight at Rawlins’s heart, and his finger squeezed the trigger until the hammer lifted to the limit of the catch.