Colin Dexter - Death Is Now My Neighbor

“Bit o’ taste there, Lewis. Little bit o’ class. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the tie of the Old Wykehamists’ Classical Association.”

Lewis said nothing.

And Morse looked at him almost accusingly. “You don’t seem very interested in what I’m telling you.”

“Not too much, perhaps.”

“All right! Perhaps it’s not a public school tie. So what tie do you think it is?”

Again Lewis said nothing.

After a while, a semi-mollified Morse picked up the photograph, returned it to its buff-colored Do-Not-Bend envelope, and sat back in his seat.

He looked tired.

And, as Lewis knew, he was frustrated too, since necessarily the whole of the previous day had been spent on precisely those aspects of detective work that Morse disliked the most: administration, organization, procedures — with as yet little opportunity for him to indulge in the things he told himself he did the best: hypotheses, imaginings, the occasional leap into the semidarkness.

It was now 9 A.M.

“You’d better get off to the station, Lewis. And good luck!”

“What are you planning to do?”

“Going down into Oxford for a haircut.”

“We’ve got a couple of new barbers’ shops opened here. No need to—”

“I — am — going — down — into — Oxford, all right? A bit later, I’m going to meet a fellow who’s an expert on ties, all right?”

“I’ll give you a lift, if you like.”

“No. It only takes one of those shapely lasses in Shepherd and Woodward’s about ten minutes to trim my locks — and I’m not meeting this fellow till eleven.”

“King’s Arms, is it?”

“Ah! You’re prepared to guess about that. ”

“Pardon?”

“So why not have a guess about the tie? Come on!”

“I dunno.”

“Nor do I bloody know. That’s exactly why we’ve got to guess, man.”

Lewis stood by the door now. It was high time he went.

“I haven’t got a clue about all those posh ties you see in the posh shops in the High. For all I know he probably got it off the tie rack in Marks and Spencer’s.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Couldn’t we just cut a few corners? Perhaps we ought to put the photo in the Oxford Mail. We’d soon find out who he was then.”

Morse considered the possibility anew.

“Ye-es... and if we find he’s got nothing to do with the murder...”

“We can eliminate him from inquiries.”

“Ye-es. Eliminate his marriage, too—”

“—if he’s married—”

“—and ruin his children—”

“—if he’s got any.”

“You just get off to the railway station, Lewis.” Morse had had enough.

It is the very temple of discomfort.

—JOHN RUSKIN, The Seven Lamps of Architecture —

referring to the building of a railway station

At 9:45 A.M. Lewis was seated strategically at one of the small round tables in the refreshment area adjacent to Platform One. Intermittently an echoing loudspeaker announced arrivals or apologies for delays; and, at 9:58, recited a splendid litany of all the stops on the slow train to Reading: Radley, Culham, Appleford, Didcot Parkway, Cholsey, Goring and Streatley...

Cholsey, yes.

Mrs. Lewis was a big fan of Agatha Christie, and he’d often promised to take her to Cholsey churchyard where the great crime novelist was buried. But one way or another he’d never got round to it.

The complex was busy, with passengers constantly leaving the station through the two automatic doors to Lewis’s right, to walk down the steps outside to the taxi rank and buses for the city center; passengers constantly entering through those same doors, making for the ticket windows, the telephones, the Rail Information office; passengers turning left, past Lewis, in order to buy newspapers, sweets, paperbacks, from the Menzies shop — or sandwiches, cakes, coffee, from the Quick Snack counter alongside.

From where he sat, Lewis could just read one of the display screens: The 10:15 train to Paddington, it appeared, would be leaving on time — no minutes late. But he had seen no one remotely resembling the man whose photograph he’d tucked inside his copy of the Daily Mirror.

At 10:10 A.M. the train drew in to Platform One, and passengers were now getting on. But still there was no one to engage Lewis’s attention; no one standing around impatiently as if waiting for a partner; no one sitting anxiously consulting a wristwatch every few seconds, or walking back and forth to the exit doors and scanning the occupants of incoming taxis.

No one.

Lewis got to his feet and went out on to the platform, walking quickly along the four coaches which comprised the Turbo Express for Paddington, memorizing as best he could the face he’d so earnestly been studying that morning. But, again, he could find no one resembling the man who had once sat beside the murdered woman in a photographic booth.

No one.

It was then, at the last minute (quite literally so), that the idea occurred to him.

A young-looking ticket collector was leaning out of one of the rear windows while a clinking refreshment trolley was being lifted awkwardly aboard. Lewis showed him his ID; showed him the photograph.

“Have you ever seen either of these two on the Paddington train? Or any other train?”

The acne-faced youth examined the ID card as if suspecting, perchance, that it might be a faulty ticket; then, equally carefully, looked down at the photograph before looking up at Lewis.

Someone blew a whistle.

“Yes, I have. Seen him , anyway. Do you want to know his name, Sergeant? I remember it from his Railcard.”

A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.

Morse caught a No. 2A bus into the center of Oxford, alighting at Carfax, thence walking down the High and entering Shepherd and Woodward’s, where he descended the stairs to Gerrard’s hairdressing saloon.

“The usual, sir?”

Morse was glad that he was being attended to by Gerrard himself. It was not that the proprietor was gifted with trichological skills significantly superior to those of his attractive female assistants; it was just that Gerrard had always been an ardent admirer of Thomas Hardy, and during his life had acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of the great man’s works.

“Yes, please,” answered Morse, looking morosely into the mirror at hair that had thinly drifted these last few years from ironish gray to purish white.

As Morse stood up to wipe the snippets of hair from his face with a hand towel, he took out the photograph and showed it to Gerrard.

“Has he ever been in here?”

“Don’t think so. Shall I ask the girls?”

Morse considered. “No. Leave it for the present.”

“Remember the Hardy poem, Mr. Morse? ‘The Photograph’?”

Morse did. Yet only vaguely.

“Remind me.”

“I used to have it by heart but...”

“We all get older,” admitted Morse.

Gerrard now scanned the pages of his extraordinary memory.

“You remember Hardy’d just burned a photo of one of his old flames — he didn’t know if she was alive or not — she was someone from the back of beyond of his life — but he felt awfully moved — as if he was putting her to death somehow — when he burned the photo... Just a minute... just a minute, I think I’ve got it: