Colin Dexter - Death Is Now My Neighbor

Morse looked up, his face puzzled.

“You mean — you went jogging — together — this morning? What time was that?”

“Far too early, wasn’t it, David!”

The landlord smiled. “Stupid, really. On a Sunday morning, too.”

“What time?” repeated Morse.

“Quarter to seven. We met outside the pub here.”

“And where did the pair of you run?”

“ Five of us actually, wasn’t it, Denis? We ran up to Plain, up Iffley Road, across Donnington Bridge, along Abingdon Road up to Carfax, then through Cornmarket and St. Giles’ up to Woodstock Road as far as North Parade, then across to Banbury, South Parks, and we got back here...”

“Just before eight,” added Cornford, pointing to Morse’s empty glass.

“What’s it to be?”

“No, it’s my round—”

“Nonsense!”

“Well, if you insist.”

In fact, however, it was the landlord who insisted, and who now walked to the bar as Cornford seated himself.

“You told me earlier,” Morse was anxious to get things straight, “you’d been on your own when you went out jogging.”

“No. If I did, you misunderstood me. You said, I think, ‘Just you?’ And when I said yes, I’d assumed that you were asking if both of us had gone — Shelly and me.”

“And she didn’t go?”

“No. She never does.”

“She just stayed in bed?”

“Where else?”

Morse made no suggestion.

“Do you ever go jogging, Inspector?” The question was wearily mechanical.

“Me? No. I walk a bit, though. I sometimes walk down to Summertown for a newspaper. Just to keep fit.”

Cornford almost grinned. “If you’re going to be Master of Lonsdale, you’re supposed to be fit. It’s in the Statutes somewhere.”

“Makes you wonder how Sir Clixby ever managed it!”

Cornford’s answer was unexpected.

“You know, as you get older it’s difficult for young people to imagine you were ever young yourself — good at games, that sort of thing. Don’t you agree?”

“Fair point, yes.”

“And the Master was a very fine hockey player — had an England trial, I understand.”

The landlord came back with two pints of bitter; then returned to his bartending duties.

Cornford was uneasy, Morse felt sure of that. Something regarding his wife, perhaps? Had she had anything to do with the murder of Geoffrey Owens? Unlikely, surely. One thing looked an odds-on certainty, though: If Denis Cornford had ever figured on the suspect list, he figured there no longer.

Very soon, after a few desultory passages of conversation, Morse had finished his beer, and was taking his leave, putting Deborah’s card into the inside pocket of his jacket, and forgetting it.

Forgetting it only temporarily, though; for later that same evening he was to look at it again — more carefully. And with a sudden, strange enlightenment.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

Feeling a wonderful sense of relief, Shelly Cornford heard the scratch of the key in the front door at twenty-five past eleven. For over two hours she had been sitting upright against the pillows, a white bed jacket over her pajamas, her mind tormented with the terrifying fear that her husband had disappeared into the dark night, never to return: to throw himself over Magdalen Bridge, perhaps; to lay himself across the railway lines; to slash his wrists; to leap from some high tower. And it was to little avail that she’d listened to any logic that her tortured mind could muster: that the water was hardly deep enough, perhaps; that the railway lines were inaccessible; that he had no razor in his pocket; that Carfax Tower, St. Mary’s, St. Michael’s — all were now long shut...

Come back to me, Denis! I don’t care what happens to me ; but come back tonight! Oh, God — please , God — let him come back safely. Oh, God, put an end to this, my overwhelming misery!

His words before he’d slammed the door had pierced their way into her heart. “You hadn’t even got the guts to lie to me... You didn’t even want to spare me all this pain.”

Yet how wrong he’d been, with both his accusations!

Her mother had never ceased recalling that Junior High School report: “She’s such a gutsy little girl.” And the simple, desperately simple, truth was that she loved her husband far more than anything or anyone she’d ever loved before. And yet... and yet she remembered so painfully clearly her assertion earlier that same evening: that more than anything in the world she wanted Denis to be Master.

And now? The center of her life had fallen apart. Her heart was broken. There was no one to whom she could turn.

Except, perhaps...

And again and again she recalled that terrible conversation:

“Clixby?”

“Shelly!”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. What a lovely surprise. Come over!”

“Denis knows all about us!”

“What?”

“Denis knows all about us!”

“ ‘All’ about us? What d’ you mean? There’s nothing for him to know — not really.”

“ Nothing? Was it nothing to you?”

“You sound like the book of Proverbs — or is it Ecclesiastes ?”

“It didn’t mean anything to you, did it?”

“It was only the once , properly, my dear. For heaven’s sake!”

“You just don’t understand, do you?”

“How did he find out?”

“He didn’t.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“He just guessed. He was talking to you tonight—”

“After Hall, you mean? Of course he was. You were there.”

“Did you say anything? Please, tell me!”

“What? Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“Why did he say he knew , then?”

“He was just guessing — you just said so yourself.”

“He must have had some reason.”

“Didn’t you deny it?”

“But it was true!”

“What the hell’s that got to do with it? Don’t you see? All you’d got to do was to deny it.”

“That’s exactly what Denis said.”

“Bloody intelligent man, Denis. I just hope you appreciate him. He was right, wasn’t he? All you’d got to do was to deny it.”

“And that’s what you wanted me to do?”

“ You’re not really being very intelligent, are you?”

“I just can’t believe what you’re saying.”

“It would have been far kinder.”

“Kinder to you, you mean?”

“To me, to you, to Denis — to everybody.”

“God! You’re a shit, aren’t you?”

“Just hold your horses, girl!”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“What do you mean — ‘do’ about it? What d’you expect me to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve no one to talk to. That’s why I rang you.”

“Well, if there’s anything—”

“But there is! I want help. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“But don’t you see, Shelly? This is something you and Denis have got to work out for yourselves. Nobody else—”

“God! You are a shit, aren’t you! Shit with a capital ‘S.’ ”

“Look! Is Denis there?”

“Of course he’s not, you fool.”

“Please don’t call me a fool, Shelly! Get a hold on yourself and put things in perspective — and just remember who you’re talking to!”

“Denis!”

“You get back to bed. I’ll sleep in the spare room.”

“No. I’ll sleep in there—”