Colin Dexter - Death Is Now My Neighbor

“And Denis there — hullo, Denis! — he was no help either.”

Cornford had followed their conversation and now edged toward them, sipping his coffee.

“I sold my old Metro just before Christmas. And if you recall, Master, I only live three hundred yards away.”

The words could have sounded lighthearted, yet somehow they didn’t.

“Shelly’s got a car, though?”

Cornford nodded cautiously. “Parked a mile away.”

The Master smiled. “Ah, yes. I remember now.”

Half an hour later, as they walked across the cobbles of Radcliffe Square toward Holywell Street, Shelly Cornford put her arm through her husband’s and squeezed it. But, as before, she could feel no perceptible response.

But she went on pleading in her distraction; and perhaps said things that would have been better left to silence.

“Angel! — Angel! I was a child — a child when it happened! I knew nothing of men.”

“You were more sinned against than sinning, that I admit.”

“Then you will not forgive me?”

“I do forgive you, but forgiveness is not all.”

“And love me?”

To this question he did not answer.

“Coffee?” she suggested, as Cornford was hanging up his overcoat in the entrance hall.

“I’ve just had some.”

“I’ll put the kettle on.”

“No! Leave it a while. I want to talk to you.”

They sat together, if opposite is together, in the lounge.

“What did you do when the Chaplain invited us all to confess our manifold sins and wickedness?”

The measured, civilized tone of Cornford’s voice had shifted to a slightly higher, yet strangely quieter key; and the eyes, normally so kindly, seemed to concentrate ever narrowingly upon her, like an ornithologist focusing binoculars on an interesting species.

“Pardon?”

“ ‘In thought, word, and deed’ — wasn’t that the formula?”

She shook her head in apparent puzzlement. “I haven’t the faintest—”

But his words cut sharply across her protestation. “Why are you lying to me?”

“What—?”

“Shut up!” The voice had lost its control. “You’ve been unfaithful to me! I know that. You know that. Let’s start from there!”

“But I haven’t—”

“Don’t lie to me! I’ve put up with your infidelity, but I can’t put up with your lies !”

The last word was hissed, like a whiplash across his wife’s face.

“Only once, really,” she whispered.

“Recently?”

She nodded, in helpless misery.

“Who with?”

In great gouts, the tears were falling now. “Why do you have to know? Why do you have to torture yourself? It didn’t mean anything, Denis! It didn’t mean anything. ”

“Hah!” He laughed bitterly. “Didn’t you think it might mean something to me ?”

“He just wanted—”

“Who was it?”

She closed her eyes, cheeks curtained with mascara’d tears, unable to answer him.

“ Who was it ?”

But still she made no answer to the piercing question.

“Shall I tell you ?”

He knew — she realized he knew. And now, her eyes still firmly shut, she spoke the name of the adulterer.

“He didn’t come here? You went over to the Master’s Lodge?”

“Yes.”

“And you went to his bedroom?”

“Yes.”

“And you undressed for him?”

“Yes.”

“You stripped naked for him?”

“Yes.”

“And you got between the sheets with him?”

“Yes.”

“And you had sex? The pair of you had sex together?”

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

“Only once.”

“ And you enjoyed it! ”

Cornford got to his feet and walked back into the entrance hall. He felt stunned, like someone who has just been kicked in the teeth by a recalcitrant shire horse.

“Denis!” Shelly had followed him, standing beside him now as he pulled on his overcoat.

“You know why I did it, Denis? I did it for you. You must know that!”

He said nothing.

“How did you know?” Her voice was virtually inaudible.

“It’s not what people say, is it? It’s the way they say it. But I knew. I knew tonight... I knew before tonight.”

“How could you have known? Tell me! Please!”

Cornford turned up the catch on the Yale lock, and for a few moments stood there, the half-opened door admitting a draft of air that felt bitterly cold.

“I didn’t know! Don’t you see? I just hoped you’d deny everything — even if it meant you had to lie to me. But you hadn’t even got the guts to lie to me! You didn’t even want to spare me all this pain.”

The door banged shut behind him; and Shelly Cornford walked back into the lounge where she poured herself a vast gin with minimal tonic.

And wished that she were dead.

Virgil G. Perkins, author of international best-seller Enjoying Jogging (Crown Publications NY, 1992) collapsed and died while jogging with a group of fellow enthusiasts in St. Paul yesterday. Mr. Perkins, aged 26, leaves behind his wife, Beverley, their daughter, Alexis, and seven other children by previous marriages.

In the King’s Arms, that square, cream-painted hostelry on the corner of Parks Road and Holywell Street, Morse had been remarkably abstemious that evening. After his first pint, he had noticed on the door the pub’s recommendation in the Egon Ronay Guide (1995); and after visiting the loo to inject himself, he had ordered a spinach-and-mushroom lasagne with garlic bread and salad. The individual constituents of this particular offering had never much appealed to him; yet the hospital dietitian (as he recalled) had been particularly enthusiastic about such fare. And, let it be said, the meal had been marginally enjoyed.

It was 7:45 P.M.

A cigarette would have been a paradisal plus; and yet somehow he managed to resist. But as he looked around him, at the college crests, the colored prints, the photographs of distinguished local patrons, he was debating whether to take a few more calories in liquid form when the landlord was suddenly beside him.

“Inspector! I hadn’t seen you come in. This is for you — it’s been here a couple of weeks.”

Morse took the printed card:

Let me tell you of a moving experience — very moving! The furniture van is fetching my effects from London to Oxford at last. And on March 18th I’ll be celebrating my south-facing patio with a shower of champagne at 53 Morris Villas, Cowley. Come and join me!

RSVP (at above address)

Across the bottom was a handwritten note: “Make it, Morse! DC.”

Morse remembered her well... a slim, unmarried blonde who’d once invited him to stay overnight in her north London flat, following a comparatively sober Metropolitan Police party; when he’d said that after such a brief acquaintance such an accommodation might perhaps be inappropriate.

Yes, that was the word he’d used: “inappropriate.”

Pompous idiot!

But he’d given her his address, which she’d vowed she’d never forget.

Which clearly she had.

“She was ever so anxious for you to get it,” began the landlord — but even as he spoke the door that led to Holywell Street had opened, and he turned his attention to the newcomer.

“Denis! I didn’t expect to see you in tonight. No good us both running six miles on a Sunday morning if we’re going to put all the weight back on on a Sunday night.”