Death Is Now My Neighbour (14 page)

Morse handed the report back. 'I'm not at all sure I know what "calibre" means. Is it the diameter of the bullet or the diameter of the barrel?'

'Wouldn't they be the same, sir?'

Morse got up and walked wearily to the door once more.

'
Perhaps so, Lewis. Perhaps so.'

A Conservative is one who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others

(Ambrose Bierce,
The Devil's Dictionary)

Morse did not
go straight home to his North Oxford flat that evening; nor,
mirabile dictu,
did he make for the nearest hostelry - at least not immediately. Instead, he drove to Bloxham Drive, pulling in behind the single police car parked outside Number
17,
in which a uniformed officer sat reading the
Oxford Mail.

'Constable Brogan, sir,' was the
reply in answer to Morse's questi
on.

'Happen to know if Number
1
's at home?'

'The one with the N-reg Rover, you mean?'

Morse nodded.

'No. But she keeps coming backwards and forwards all the time. She seems a very busy woman, that one.' 'Anything to report?'

'Not really, sir. We keep getting a few gawpers, but I just ask them to move along.' 'Ge
ntly
, I trust'

'Very gently, sir.'

'How long are you on duty for?'

'Finish at midnight.'

Morse pointed to the front window. 'Why don't you nip in and watch the telly?' 'Bit cold in there.' You can put the gas-fire on.' 'It's electric, sir.' 'Please yourself!' 'Would that be official, sir?'
'Anything
I
say's official, lad.' 'My lucky night, then.'

Mine, too, thought Morse as he looked over his shou
lder to see an ash-blonde alighti
ng from her car outside Number
1.

He hastened along the pavement in what could be described as an arrested jog, or perhaps more accurately as an animated walk.

'Good
evening.'

She turned towards him as she inserted her latchkey. Yes?'

'A brief word - if it's possible
...
er
...'
Morse fumbled for his ID card. But she forestalled the need.

'Another police sergeant, are you?' 'Police, yes.'

'I can't spare much
time
- not tonight. I've got a busy few hours ahead.'

'I shan't keep you long.'

She led the way through into a tastefully furbished and furnished front room, taking off her ankle-length white mackintosh, placing it over
the
back of the red-leather settee, and bidding Morse sit opposite her as she smoothed
the
pale blue dress over her hips and crossed her elegant, nylon-clad legs.

'Do you mind?' she asked, lifti
ng a cigarette in the air.

'No, no,' muttered Morse, wishing only that she'd offered one to him.

'What can I do for you?' She had a sli
ghtly
husky, upper-class voice, and Morse guessed she'd probably attended one of the nation's more prestigious public schools.

'Just one or two questions.'

She smiled attractively: 'Go ahead.'

'I understand that my colleague, Sergeant Lewis, has spoken to you already.'

'Nice man - in a
gentle
, shy sort of way.'

'Really? I'd never quite thought of him

'Well, you're a bit older, aren't you?'

'What
job do you do?'

She opened her handbag and gave Morse her card. 'I'm
the
local agent for
the
Conservative Party.' 'Oh dear! I
am
sorry,' said Morse, looking down at
the
small oblong card:

Adele Beatrice Cecil

Conservative Party Agent

1 Bloxham Drive Kidlington, Oxon, OX5 2NY

For information please ring 01865 794768

'Was that supposed to be a sick joke?' There was an edge to her voice now.

'Not really. It's just that I've never had a friend who's a Tory, that's all.'

'You mean you didn't vote for us today?'

‘I
don't live in this ward.'

'If you give me your address, I'll make sure you get some literature, Sergeant'

'Chief Inspector, actually,' corrected Morse, oblivious of the redundant adverb.

She tugged her dress a centimetre down her thighs. 'How can I help?'

'Do you know Mr Owens well?'

'Well enough.'

'Well enough to hand him a newspaper scoop?' Yes.'

'Have you ever slept with him?'

'Not much finesse about you, is there?'

'Just a minute,' said Morse so
ftly
. 'I've got a terrible job to do - just up the street here. And part of it's to ask some awkward questions about what's going on in the Close—'

'Drive.'

'To find out who knows who -
whom,
if you prefer it' 'They did teach us English grammar at Roedean, yes.' You haven't answered my question.' Adele breathed deeply, and her grey eyes stared across almost fiercely. 'Once, yes.'

'But you didn't repeat the experience?'

'I said "once" - didn't you hear me?'
‘
You
still
see him?'

'Occasionally. He's all right: intelligent, pretty
well read, quite good fun, someti
mes - and he promised he'd vote Conservative today.'

'He sounds quite compatible.'

'Are you married, Inspector?'

'Chief
Inspector.'

'Are you?'

'No.'

'Do you wish you were?'

Perhaps Morse didn't hear
the
question.

'Did you know Rachel James fairly well?'

'We had a heart-to-heart once in a while.'

You weren't aware of any one particular boyfriend?'

She shook her head.

'Would you say she was attractive to men?'

'Wouldn't you?'

'I only saw her
the
once.'

'I'm sorry.' She said it qui
etly
. 'Please, forgive me.'

'Do you know a man called Storrs? Julian Storrs?'

'Good gracious, yes! Julian? He's one of our Vice-Presidents. We often meet at do's. In fact, I'm seeing him next week at a fund-raising dinner at The Randolph. Would you like a complimentary ticket?'

'No, perhaps not,'

'Shouldn't have asked, should I? Anyway,' she got to her feet, 'I'll have to be off. They'll be starting the count fairly soon.'

They walked to
the
front door.

'Er
...
when you rang Mr Owens on Monday morning, just after eight o'clock you say, you did
speak
to him, didn't you?'

'Of course.'

Morse nodded. 'And one final th
ing, please. My sergeant found some French letters—'

'French letters? How old
are
you, Chief Inspector? Condoms, for heaven's sake.'

'As I say, we found two packets of, er, condoms in one of her bedroom drawers.'

'Big deal!'

'You don't know if she ever invited anyone home to sleep with her?' 'No, I don't.'

'I thought,' said Morse hesita
ntly
, 'most women were on the pill these days?'

'A lot of them
off
it, too - after that thrombosis scare.'

‘I
suppose so, yes. I'm
...
I'm not really an expert in
that
sort of thing.'

'And don't forget safe sex.'

'No. I'll
...
I'll try not to.'

'Did she keep th
em under her nighties?'

Morse nodded sadly, and bade goodnight to Adele Beatrice Cecil.

ABC.

As he walked slowly along to the Jaguar, he felt a slight tingling behind
the
eyes at the thought of Rachel James, and the nightdress she'd been wearing when she was murdered; and the condoms so carefully concealed in her lingerie drawer - along with
the
hopes and fears
she'd had, like everyone. And he thought of Auden's immortal line on A. E. Housman:

Kept tears like dirty postcards in a drawer.

As he started the Jaguar, Morse noticed the semi-stroboscopic light inside the lounge; and trusted that PC Brogan had managed to activate the heating system in Number 17 Bloxham Drive.

O Beer! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsopp, Bass! Names that should be on every infant's tongue!

(Charles Stuart Calve
rly)

Morse headed south
along the Banbury Road, turning left just after the Cutteslowe Roundabout, and through the adjoining Carlton and Wolsey Roads (why hadn't the former been christened 'Cardinal'?); then, at
the
bottom of the Cutteslowe Estate, down the steeply sloping entry to the Cherwell, a qui
etly
civilized public house where the qui
etly
civilized landlord kept an ever-watchful eye on the Brakspear and the Bass. The car-phone rang as he unfastened his safety belt. Lewis.

Speaking from HQ.

'I thought I'd told you to go home! The eggs and chips are getting cold.'

Lewis, as Morse earlier, showed himself perfe
ctly
competent at ignoring a question.

'I've had a session on the phone with Ox and Cow Newspapers, sir - still at work there, quite a few of them. Owens' car-park card is number
14922
and it was registered by the barrier contraption there at
7.04
on Monday morning. Seems he's been in fairly early these last couple of months. Last week, for example, Monday to Friday,
7.37, 7.06, 7.11, 7.00, 7.18.'

'So what? Shows he can't get up that early on Monday mornings.'

"That's not all, though.'

'It
is,
Lewis! It's still the
card
you're on about - not the
car!
Can't you see that?'

'Please listen to me for a change, sir. The personnel fellow who looked out the car-park things for me, he just happened to be in earlyish last Monday morning himself:
7.22.
There weren't many others around then, but one of the ones who was
...
Guess who, sir?'

'Oh dear!' said Morse for the second time that evening.

Yep. Owens! Pony-tail 'n' all.'

'Oh.'

In that quiet monosyllable Lewis caught the depth of Morse's disappointment Yet he felt far from dismayed himself, knowing full well as he did, after so many murder investigations with the pair of them in harness, that Morse's mind was almost invariably at its imaginative peak when one of his ill-considered, top-of-the-head hypotheses had been razed to the ground - in this case by some lumbering bulldozer like himself. And so he understood the silence at the other end of the line: a long silence, like that at the Cenotaph in commemoration of the fallen.

Lewis seldom expected (seldom received) any thanks. And in truth such lack of recognition concerned him little, since only rarely did Morse show the slightest sign of graciousness or gratitude to anyone.

Yet he did so now.

"Thank you, my old friend.'

At the bar Morse ordered a pint of Bass and proceeded to drink it speedily.

At the bar Morse ordered a second pint of Bass and proceeded to drink it even more speedily - before leaving and driving out once more to Bloxham Drive, where no one was abroad and where the evening's TV programmes appeared to be absorbing the majority of the households.

Including Number
17.

The Jaguar door closed behind him with its accustomed aristocratic click, and he walked slowly through the drizzle along the street. Still the same count: six for Labour; two for the Tories; and two appare
ntly
unprepared to parade their political allegiances.

Yes! YES!

Almost everything (he saw it now so clearly) had been pushing his mind towards that crucial clue - towards the breakthrough in the case.