Colin Dexter - Death Is Now My Neighbor

“Not, perhaps,” added Morse, “the kind of breakfast a diabetic would normally order, is it? All that sugar? Everything else she ate here was out of the latest diabetic cookbook.”

“Do you know anything about diabetes, Chief Inspector?”

It was a new voice, sharp and rather harsh — for Angela Storrs, dressed in the inevitable trouser-suit (lime green, this time), but most unusually minus the dark glasses, had obviously caught some (most?) of the previous conversation.

“Not much,” admitted Morse as he sought to rise from his deep, low chair. “I’ve only been diagnosed a week.”

“Please don’t get up!” It sounded more an order than a request.

She took a seat next to her husband on the sofa. “I’ve had diabetes for ten years myself. But you’ll learn soon enough. You see, one of the biggest dangers for insulin-dependent diabetics is not, as you might expect, excessively high levels of blood sugar, but excessively low levels: hypoglycemia, it’s called. Are you on insulin yourself?”

“Yes, and they did try to tell me something about—”

“You’re asking about last weekend. Let me tell you. On Saturday evening my blood sugar was low — very low; and when Julian asked me about breakfast I decided to play things safe. I did have some glucose with me; but I was still low on Sunday morning. And if it’s of any interest, I thoroughly enjoyed my sugary breakfast. A rare treat!”

The drinks had arrived.

“Look!” she continued, once the waiter had asked for her husband’s signature on the bill. “Let me be honest with you. Julian has just told me why you’re here. He’d already told me about everything else anyway: about his ridiculous affair with that young Rachel woman; about that slimy specimen Owens.”

“Did you hate him enough to murder him?”

“ I did,” interrupted Storrs vehemently. “God rot his soul!”

“And about this Mastership business?” Morse looked from one to the other. “You were in that together?”

It was Julian Storrs who answered. “Yes, we were. I told Angela the truth immediately, about my illness, and we agreed to cover it all up. You see,” suddenly he was looking very tired, “I wanted it so much. I wanted it more than anything — didn’t I, Angela?”

She smiled, and gently laid her own hand over his. “And I did too, Julian.”

Morse drained his whiskey and thirsted for another.

“Mrs. Storrs, I’m going to ask you a very blunt question — and you must forgive me, because that’s my job. What would you say if I told you that you didn’t sleep with your husband last Saturday night — that you slept with another man?”

She smiled again; and for a few moments the angularity of her face had softened into the lineaments of a much younger woman.

“I’d just hope he was a good lover.”

“But you’d deny it?”

“A childish accusation like that? It’s hardly worth denying!”

Morse turned to Storrs. “And you, sir? What would you say if I told you that you didn’t sleep with your wife last Saturday night — that you slept with another woman?”

“I’d just hope she was a good lover, I suppose.”

“But you’d deny it, too?”

“Of course.”

“Anything else you want to check?” asked Angela Storrs.

“Well, just the one thing really, because I’m still not quite sure that I’ve got it right.” Morse took a deep breath, and exhaled rather noisily. “You say you came here with your husband in his BMW, latish last Saturday afternoon — stayed here together overnight — then drove straight back to Oxford together the next morning. Is that right, Mrs. Storrs?”

“Not quite, no. We drove back via Cirencester and Burford. In fact, we had a bite of lunch at a pub in Burford and we had a look in two or three antiques shops there. I nearly bought a silver toast rack, but Julian thought it was grossly overpriced.”

“I see... I see... In that case, it’s about time we told you something else,” said Morse slowly. “Don’t you think so, Sergeant Lewis?”

“Is this a question?”

“If it is, this could be an answer.”

Apart from themselves and the two men still drinking coffee, the large lounge was now empty.

“Perhaps we could all do with another drink?” It was Morse’s suggestion.

“Not for me,” said Angela Storrs.

“I’m all right, thank you,” said Julian Storrs.

“Still finishing this one,” said Lewis.

Morse felt for the cellophaned packet and almost fell. He stared for a while out of the windows: heavy rain now, through which a hotel guest occasionally scuttled across to the Dower House, head and face wholly indistinguishable beneath one of the gay umbrellas. How easy it was to hide when it was raining!

Almost reluctantly, it seemed, Morse made the penultimate revelation:

“There was someone else staying here last Saturday night, someone I think both of you know. She was staying — yes, it was a woman! — in the main part of the hotel, across there in Room fifteen. That woman was Dawn Charles, the receptionist at the Harvey Clinic on Banbury Road.”

Storrs turned to his wife. “Good heavens! Did you realize that, darling?”

“Don’t be silly! I don’t even know the woman.”

“It’s an extraordinarily odd coincidence, though,” persisted Morse. “Don’t you think so?”

“Of course it’s odd,” replied Angela Storrs. “All coincidences are odd — by definition! But life’s full of coincidences.”

Lewis smiled inwardly. How often had he heard those self-same words from Morse.

“But this wasn’t a coincidence, Mrs. Storrs.”

It was Julian Storrs who broke the awkward, ominous silence that had fallen on the group.

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. All I’m saying is that I didn’t see her. Perhaps she’s a Fauré fan herself and came for the Abbey concert like we did. You’ll have to ask her, surely?”

“If we do,” said Morse simply, confidently, “it won’t be long before we learn the truth. She’s not such a competent liar as you are, sir — as the pair of you are!”

The atmosphere had become almost dangerously tense as Storrs got to his feet. “I am not going to sit here one minute longer and listen—”

“Sit down!” said his wife, with an authority so assertive that one of the coffee drinkers turned his head briefly in her direction as Morse continued:

“You both deny seeing Miss Charles while she was here?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Sergeant? Please?”

Lewis reopened his notebook, and addressed Mrs. Storrs directly:

“So it couldn’t possibly have been you, madam, who filled a car with petrol at Burford on that Saturday afternoon?”

“Last Saturday? Certainly not!” She almost spat the words at her new interlocutor.

But Lewis appeared completely unabashed. “Have you lost your credit card recently?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because someone made a good job of signing your name, that’s all. For twelve pounds of Unleaded Premium at the Burford Garage on the A40 at about three o’clock last Saturday.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?” The voice sounded menacingly calm.

“I’m suggesting that you drove here to Bath that day in your own car, madam—”

But she had risen to her feet herself now.

“You were right, Julian. We are not going to sit here a second longer. Come along!”

But she got no further than the exit, where two men stood barring her way: two dark-suited men who had been sitting for so long beneath the portrait of the bland Lord Ellmore.