Colin Dexter - Death Is Now My Neighbor

“Cleesháy,” she’d said; but however she’d pronounced it, the barb had found its mark; and Sir Clixby’s voice was softer, more serious as he answered her.

“I need you, Shelly. Please come out with me. I’ll get a taxi round to you in ten minutes’ time, if that’s all right?”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Shelly?”

“Yes?”

“Will that be all right?”

“No,” she replied quietly. “No it won’t. I’m sorry.”

The line was dead.

Just before nine o’clock, Cornford rang home from St. Peter’s:

“Shelly? Denis. Look, darling, I’ve just noticed in my diary... You’ve not had a call tonight, have you?”

Shelly’s heart registered a sudden, sharp stab of panic.

“No, why?”

“It’s just that the New York publishers said they might be ringing. So, if they do, please make a note of the number and tell ’em I’ll ring them back. All right?”

“Fine. Yes.”

“You having a nice evening?”

“Mm. It’s lovely to sit and watch TV for a change. No engagements. No problems.”

“See you soon.”

“I hope so.”

Shelly put down the phone slowly. “I’ve just noticed in my diary,” he’d said. But he hadn’t, she knew that. She’d looked in his diary earlier that day, to make sure of the time of the St. Peter’s do. That had been the only entry on the page for 2–26–96.

Just before ten o’clock, Julian Storrs rang his wife from Reading; rang three times.

The number was engaged.

He rang five minutes later.

The number was still engaged.

He rang again, after a further five minutes.

She answered.

“Angie? I’ve been trying to get you these last twenty minutes.”

“I’ve only been talking to Mom, for Christ’s sake!”

“It’s just that I shan’t be home till after midnight, that’s all. So I’ll get a taxi. Don’t worry about meeting me.”

“Okay.”

After she had hung up, Angela Storrs took a Thames Trains timetable from her handbag and saw that Julian could easily be catching an earlier train: the 22:40 from Reading, arriving Oxford 23:20. Not that it mattered. Perhaps he was having a few drinks with his hosts? Or perhaps — the chilling thought struck her — he was checking up on her?

Hurriedly she rang her mother in South Kensington. And kept on talking. The call would be duly registered on the itemized BT lists and suddenly she felt considerably easier in her mind.

Morse had caught the 23:48 from Paddington that night, and at 01:00 sat unhearing as the Senior Conductor made his lugubrious pronouncement: “Oxford, Oxford. This train has now terminated. Please be sure to take all your personal possessions with you. Thank you.”

From a deeply delicious cataleptic state, Morse was finally prodded into consciousness by no less a personage than the Senior Conductor himself.

“All right, sir?”

“Thank you, yes.”

But in truth things were not all right, since Morse had been deeply disappointed by his evening’s sojourn in London. And as he walked down the station steps to the taxi rank, he reminded himself of what he’d always known — that life was full of disappointments: of which the most immediate was that not a single taxi was in sight.

Initium est dimidium facti

(Once you’ve started, you’re halfway there).

An unshaven Morse was still dressed in his mauve and Cambridge blue pajamas when Lewis arrived at 10 o’clock the following morning. Over the phone half an hour earlier he had learned that Morse was feeling “rough as a bear’s arse” — whatever that was supposed to mean.

For some time the two detectives exchanged information about their previous day’s activities; and fairly soon the obvious truth could be simply stated: Owens was a blackmailer. Specifically, as far as investigations had thus far progressed, with the Storrs’ household being the principal victims: he, for his current infidelity; she, for her past as a shop-soiled Soho tart. One thing seemed certain: that any disclosure was likely to be damaging, probably fatally damaging, to Julian Storrs’ chances of election to the Mastership of Lonsdale.

Morse considered for a while.

“It still gives us a wonderful motive for one of them murdering Owens — not much of a one for murdering Rachel.”

“Unless Mrs. Storrs was just plain jealous, sir?”

“Doubt it.”

“Or perhaps Rachel got to know something, and was doing a bit of blackmailing herself? She needed the money all right.”

“Yes.” Morse stroked his bristly jaw and sighed wearily. “There’s such a lot we’ve still got to check on, isn’t there? Perhaps you ought to get round to Rachel’s bank manager this morning.”

“Not this morning, sir — or this afternoon. I’m seeing his lordship, Sir Clixby Bream, at a quarter to twelve; then I’m going to find out who’s got access to the photocopier and whatever at the Harvey Clinic.”

“Waste o’ time,” mumbled Morse.

“I dunno, sir. I’ve got a feeling it may all tie in together somehow.”

“What with?”

“I’ll know more after I’ve been to Lonsdale. You see, I’ve already learned one or two things about the situation there. The present Master’s going to retire soon, as you know, and the new man’s going to be taking up the reins at the start of the summer term—”

“ Trinity term.”

“—and they’ve narrowed it down to two candidates: Julian Storrs and a fellow called Cornford, Denis Cornford — he’s a Lonsdale man, too. And they say the odds are fairly even.”

“Who’s this ‘they’ you keep talking about?”

“One of the porters there. We used to play cricket together.”

“Ridiculous game!”

“What’s your program today, sir?”

Put Morse appeared not to hear his sergeant’s question.

“Cup o’ tea, Lewis?”

“Wouldn’t say no.”

Morse returned a couple of minutes later, with a cup of tea for Lewis and a pint glass of iced water for himself. He sat down and looked at his wristwatch: twenty-five past ten.

“What’s your program today?” repeated Lewis.

“I’ve got a meeting at eleven-thirty this morning. Nothing else much. Perhaps I’ll do a bit of thinking — it’s high time I caught up with you.”

As Lewis drank his tea, talking of this and that, he was aware that Morse seemed distanced — seemed almost in a world of his own. Was he listening at all?

“Am I boring you, sir?”

“What? No, no! Keep talking! That’s always the secret, you know, if you want to start anything — start thinking , say. All you’ve got to do is listen to somebody talking a load of nonsense, and somehow, suddenly, something emerges.”

“I wasn’t talking nonsense, sir. And if I was, you wouldn’t have known. You weren’t listening.”

Nor did it appear that Morse was listening even now — as he continued: “I wonder what time the postman comes to Polstead Road. Storrs usually caught the ten-fifteen train from Oxford, you say?... So he’d leave the house about a quarter to ten — bit earlier, perhaps? He’s got to get to the station, park his car, buy a ticket — buy two tickets... So if the postman called about then... perhaps Storrs met him as he left the house and took his letters with him, and read them as he waited for Rachel, then stuffed ’em in his jacket pocket.”

“So?”

“So if... What do most couples do after they’ve had sex together?”

“Depends, I suppose.” Lewis looked uneasily at his superior. “Go to sleep?”

Morse smiled waywardly. “It’s as tiring as that, is it?”