Colin Dexter - Death Is Now My Neighbor

“Go on!”

“I’m talking about Owens’ car, all right? That was parked on Bloxham Drive — ‘Drive’ please , sir — when Owens was there that morning. The street was cordoned off, but the lads let him in — because he told them he lived there. And I saw the car myself.”

“So? He could have left it — or she could have left it — on a nearby street. Anywhere. Up on the main road behind the terrace, say. That’s where JJ—”

But Morse broke off.

“It still couldn’t have happened like you say, sir!”

“No?”

“No! He was seen in his office, Owens was, remember? Just at the time when Rachel was being murdered! Seen by the Personnel Manager there.”

“We haven’t got a statement from him yet, though.”

“He’s been away, you know that.”

“Yes, I do know that, Lewis. But you spoke to him.”

Lewis nodded.

“On the phone?”

“On the phone.”

“You did it through the operator, I suppose?”

Lewis nodded again.

“Do you know who she probably put you through to?” asked Morse slowly.

The light dawned in Lewis’s eyes. “You mean... she could have put me through to Owens himself?”

Morse shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what we’ve got to find out, isn’t it? Owens was deputy Personnel Manager, we know that. He was on a management course only last weekend.”

“Do you really think that’s what happened?”

“I dunno. I know one thing, though: It could have happened that way.”

“But it’s all so — so airy-fairy, isn’t it? And you said we were going to get some facts straight first.”

“Exactly.”

Lewis gave up the struggle. “I’ll tell you something that would be useful: some idea where the gun is.”

“The ‘pistol,’ do you mean?”

“Sorry. But if only we knew where that was...”

“Oh, I think I know where we’re likely to find the pistol, Lewis.”

A good working definition of Hell on Earth is a forced attendance for a couple of days or even a couple of hours at a Young Conservatives’ Convention.

Miss Adèle Cecil (she much preferred “Miss” to “Ms.” and “Adèle” to “Della”) had spent the previous evening and night in London, where she had attended, and addressed, a meeting of the chairmen, chairwomen, and chairpersons of the Essex Young Conservative Association. Thirty-eight such personages had assembled at Durrants, in George Street, a traditional English hotel just behind Oxford Street, with good facilities, tasteful cuisine, and comfortable beds. Proceedings had been businesslike, and the majority of delegates (it appeared) had ended up in the rooms originally allocated to them.

It was at a comparatively early breakfast in the restaurant that over her fresh grapefruit, with Full English to follow, the headwaiter had informed Adèle of the telephone message, which she had taken in one of the hooded booths just outside the breakfast room.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Don’t you remember me? I’m a detective.”

Yes, she remembered him — the white-haired, supercilious, sarcastic police officer she didn’t want to meet again.

“I shan’t be back in Oxford till lunchtime.”

“The Trout? Half past twelve?”

As she started on her eggs, bacon, mushrooms, and sausages, “she accepted the good-natured twitting of her three breakfast companions, all male:

“Boyfriend?”

“Couldn’t he wait?”

“What’s he got...?”

During her comparatively young life, Adèle had been companionably attached to a couple of dozen or so men, of varying ages, with many of whom she had slept — though seldom more than once or twice, and never without some satisfactory reassurance about the availability and reliability of condoms, and a relatively recent checkup for AIDS.

They were all the same, men. Well, most of them. Fingers fumbling for hooks at the backs of bras, or at the front these days. So why was she looking forward just a little to her lunchtime rendezvous? She wasn’t really, she told herself, as she parked the Rover, crossed the narrow road just below the bridge, and entered the bar.

“What’ll you have?”

“Orange juice and lemonade, please.”

They sat facing each other at a low wooden table, and Morse was immediately (and again) aware of her attractiveness. She wore a slimly tailored dark-gray outfit, with a high-necked Oxford blue blouse, her ash-blonde hair palely gleaming.

Morse looked down at his replenished pint of London Pride.

“Good time at the Conference?”

“I had a lovely time,” she lied.

“I’m glad it went well,” he lied.

“Do you mind?” She waved an unlit cigarette in the air.

“Go ahead, please.”

She offered the packet across.

“Er, not for the minute, thank you.”

“Well?”

“Just one or two questions.”

She smiled attractively: “Go ahead.”

Morse experienced a sense of paramnesia. Déjà vu . “You’ve already signed a statement — about the morning Rachel was murdered?”

“You know that, surely?”

“And it was the truth?” asked Morse, starkly. “You couldn’t have been wrong?”

“Of course not!”

“You told me you ‘had a heart-to-heart’ with Rachel once in a while. I think those were your words?”

“So?”

“Does that mean you spoke about boyfriends — men friends?”

“And clothes, and money, and work—”

“Did you know she was having an affair with Julian Storrs?”

She nodded slowly.

“Did you mention this to Mr. Owens?” Morse’s eyes, blue and unblinking, looked fiercely into hers.

And her eyes were suddenly fierce, too, as they held his.

“What the hell do you think I’d do that for?”

Morse made no direct answer as he looked down at the old flagstones there. And when he resumed, his voice was very quiet.

“Did you ever have an affair with Julian Storrs?”

She thought he looked sad, as if he hadn’t really wanted to ask the question at all; and suddenly she knew why she’d been looking forward to seeing him. So many hours of her life had she spent seeking to discover what lay beneath the physical looks, the sexual prowess, the masculine charms of some of her lovers; and so often had she discovered the selfsame answer — virtually nothing.

She looked long into the blazing log fire before finally answering:

“I spent one night with him — in Blackpool — at one of the Party Conferences.”

She spoke so softly that Morse could hardly hear the words, or perhaps it was he didn’t wish to hear the words. For a while he said nothing. Then he resumed his questioning:

“You told me that when you were at Roedean there were quite a few daughters of service personnel there, apart from yourself?”

“Quite a few, yes.”

“Your own father served in the Army in India?”

“How did you know that?”

“He’s in Who’s Who . Or he was. He died two years ago. Your mother died of cancer twelve years ago. You were the only child of the marriage.”

“Orphan Annie, yeah!” The sophisticated, upper-crust veneer was beginning to crack.

“You inherited his estate?”

“ Estate? Hah!” She laughed bitterly. “He left all his money to the bookmakers.”

“No heirlooms, no mementos — that sort of thing?”

She appeared puzzled. “ What sort of thing?”

“A pistol, possibly? A service pistol?”