Colin Dexter - Death Is Now My Neighbor

“And what the hell’s that got to do with you?”

“Nothing really, sir.”

“I agree. And when I want your bloody advice on how to handle my secretarial staff, I’ll come and ask for it. Clear?”

Morse’s eyes were blazing anew. And Lewis, his own temperature now rising rapidly, left his superior’s office without a further word.

Just before noon, Jane Edwards was finalizing an angry letter, spelling out her resignation, when she heard the message over the intercom: Morse wanted to see her in his office.

“Si’ down!”

She sat down, noticing immediately that he seemed tired, the whites of his eyes lightly veined with blood.

“I’m sorry I got so cross, Jane. That’s all I wanted to say.”

She remained where she was, almost mesmerized.

Very quietly he continued: “You will try to forgive me— please?”

She nodded helplessly, for she had no choice.

And Morse smiled at her sadly, almost gratefully, as she left.

Back in the typing pool Ms. Jane Edwards surreptitiously dabbed away the last of the slow-dropping tears, tore up her letter (so carefully composed) into sixty-four pieces; and suddenly felt, as if by some miracle of St. Anthony, most inexplicably happy.

A recent survey has revealed that 80.5 percent of Oxford dons seek out the likely pornographic potential on the Internet before making use of that facility for purposes connected with their own disciplines or research. The figure for students, in the same university, is 2 percent lower.

Until the age of twelve, Morse’s reading had comprised little beyond a weekly diet of the Dandy comic, and a monthly diet of the Meccano Magazine — the legacy of the latter proving considerably the richer, in that Morse had retained a lifelong delight in model train sets and in the railways themselves. Thus it was that as he stood on Platform One at Oxford Station, he was much looking forward to his journey. Usually, he promised himself a decent read of a decent book on a trip like this. But such potential pleasures seldom materialized; hadn’t materialized that afternoon either, when the punctual 2:15 P.M. from Oxford arrived fifty-nine minutes later at Paddington, where Morse immediately took a taxi to New Scotland Yard.

Although matters there had been prearranged, it was purely by chance that Morse happened to meet Paul Condon, the Metropolitan Commissioner, in the main entrance foyer.

“They’re ready for you, Morse. Can’t stay myself, I’m afraid. Press conference. It’s not just the ethnic minorities I’ve upset this time — it’s the ethnic majorities, too. All because I’ve published a few more official crime statistics.”

Morse nodded. He wanted to say something to his old friend: something about never climbing in vain when you’re going up the Mountain of Truth. But he only recalled the quotation after stepping out of the lift at the fourth floor, where Sergeant Rogers of the Porn Squad was awaiting him.

Once in Rogers’ office, Morse produced the photograph of the strip club. And immediately, with the speed of an experienced ornithologist recognizing a picture of a parrot, Rogers had identified the premises.

“Just off Brewer Street.” He unfolded a detailed map of Soho. “Here— let me show you.”

The early evening was overcast, drizzly and dank, when like some latter-day Orpheus Morse emerged from the depths of Piccadilly Circus Underground; when, after briefly consulting his A-Z, he proceeded by a reasonably direct route to a narrow, seedy-looking thoroughfare, where a succession of establishments promised XXXX videos and magazines (imported), sex shows (live), striptease (continuous) — and a selection of freshly made sandwiches (various).

And there it was! Le Club Sexy. Unmistakably so, but prosaically and repetitively now rechristened Girls Girls Girls. It made the former proprietors appear comparatively imaginative.

Something — some aspiration to the higher things in life, perhaps — prompted Morse to raise his eyes from the ground-floor level of the gaudily lurid fronts there to the architecture, some of it rather splendid, above.

Yet not for long.

“Come in out of the drizzle, sir! Lovely girls here.”

Morse showed his ID card, and moved into the shelter of the tiny entrance foyer.

“Do you know her ?”

The young woman, black stockings and black miniskirt meeting at the top of her thighs, barely glanced at the photograph thrust under her eyes.

“No.”

“Who runs this place? I want to see him.”

“ Her. But she ain’t ’ere now, is she? Why don’t you call back later, handsome?”

A helmeted policeman was ambling along the opposite pavement, and Morse called him over.

“Okay,” the girl said quickly. “You bin ’ere before, right?”

“Er— one of my officers, yes.”

“Me mum used to know her, like I told the other fellah. Just a minute.”

She disappeared down the dingy stairs.

“How can I help you, sir?”

Morse showed his ID to the constable.

“Just keep your eyes on me for a few minutes.”

But there was no need.

Three minutes later, Morse had an address in Praed Street, no more than a hundred yards from Paddington Station where earlier, at the entrance to the Underground, he had admired the bronze statue of one of his heroes, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

So Morse now took the Tube back. It had been a roundabout sort of journey.

She was in.

She asked him in.

And Morse, from a moth-eaten settee, agreed to sample a cup of Nescafé.

“Yeah, Angie Martin! Toffee-nosed little tart, if you know wo’ I mean.”

“Tell me about her.”

“You’re the second one, encha?”

“Er— one of my officers, yes.”

“Nah! He wasn’t from the fuzz. Couldna bin! Giv me a couple o’ twennies ’e did.”

“What did he want to know?”

“Same as you, like as not.”

“She was quite a girl, they say.”

“Lovely on ’er legs, she was, if you know wo’ I mean. Most of ’em, these days, couldn’t manage the bleedin’ Barn Dance.”

“But she was good?”

“Yeah. The men used to love ’er. Stick fivers down ’er boobs and up ’er suspenders, if you know wo’ I mean.”

“She packed ’em in?”

“Yeah.”

“And then?”

“Then there was this fellah, see, and he got to know ’er and see ’er after the shows, like, and ’e got starry-eyed, the silly sod. Took ’er away. Posh sort o’ fellah, if you know wo’ I mean. Dresses, money, ’otels — all that sort o’ thing.”

“Would you remember his name?”

“Yeah. The other fellah—’e showed me his photo, see?”

“His name?”

“Julius Caesar, I fink it was.”

Morse showed her the photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Julian Storrs.

“Yeah. That’s ’im an’ ’er. That’s Angie.”

“Do you know why I’m asking about her?”

She looked at him shrewdly, an inch or so of gray roots merging into a yellow mop of wiry hair.

“Yeah, I got a good idea.”

“My, er, colleague told you?”

“Nah! Worked it out for meself, dint I? She was tryin’ to forget wo’ she was, see? She dint want to say she were a cheap tart who’d open ’er legs for a fiver, if you know wo’ I mean. Bi’ o’ class, tho’, Angie. Yeah. Real bi’ o’ class.”

“Will you be prepared to come up to Oxford — we’ll pay your expenses, of course — to sign a statement?”

“Oxford? Yeah. Why not? Bi’ o’ class, Oxford, innit?”

“I suppose so, yes.”