Death Is Now My Neighbour (20 page)

Monday, 26 February

How shall I give thee up, O Ephraim? How shall I cast thee off, O Israel?

(Hose
a,
ch. II, v. 8)

At 8.45 a.m. there
were just the two of them, Morse and Lewis, exchanging somewhat random thoughts about the case, when the young blonde gi
rl (whom Strange had already noti
ced) came in with the morning post. She was a very recent addition to the typing pool, strongly recommended by the prestigious Marlborough College in the High, her secretarial skills corroborated by considerable evidence, including a Pitman Shorthand Certificate for
120
wpm.

Your mail, sir. I'm
...'
(she looked frightened) 'I'm terribly sorry about the one on top. I just didn't notice.'

But Morse had already taken the letter from its white envelope, the latter marked, in the top left-hand corner, 'Stri
ctly
Private and Personal'.

Hullo Morse

Tried you on the blower at Christmas but they said you were otherwise engaged probably in the boozer.

I'm getting spliced. No, don't worry! I'm not asking you for anything this time!! He's nice and he's got a decent job and he says he loves me and he's okay in bed so what the hell. I don't really love him and you bloody well know why that is, don't you, you miserable stupid sod. Because I fell in love with you and I'm just as stupid as you are. St Anthony told me to tell you something but I'm not going to. I want to put my arms round you and hug you tight. God help me! Why didn't you look for me a bit harder Morse?

Ellie

No address.

Of course, there was no address.

'Did you read th
is?' Morse spoke in level tones, looking up at his secretary with unblinking eyes. 'Only till
...
you know, I realized
...'
‘
You shouldn't have opened it.' 'No, sir,' she whispered.
'You
can type all right?' She nodded.

'And you can take shorthand?' She nodded, despairingly. 'But you can't read?' 'As I said, sir
...'
The tears were starting. 'I heard what
you
said. Now just you listen to what
I
'm
saying. This sort of thing will never happen again!' 'I promise, sir, it'll—'

'Listen!' Morse's eyes suddenly widened with
an almost manic gleam, his nostr
ils flaring with suppressed fury as he repeated in a slow, soft voice: 'It won't happen

again - not if you want to work for me any longer. Is that clear?
Never.
Now get out,' he hissed, 'and leave me, before I get angry with you.'

After she had left, Lewis too felt almost afraid to speak.

'What was all that about?' he asked finally.

'Don't you start poking your bloody nose—' But the sentence went no further. Instead, Morse picked up the letter and passed it over, his sadde
ned eyes focused on the wainscoti
ng.

After reading the letter, Lewis said nothing.

‘I
don't have much luck
with
the ladies, do I?'

'She's
still
obviously wearing the pendant
'

'I hope so,' said Morse; who might have said rather more, but there was a knock on the door, and DC Learoyd was invited into the sanctum.

Mors
e handed over the newspaper cutti
ngs concerning Lord Hardiman, together with the photograph, and explained Learoyd's assignment:

Your job's to find out all you can. It doesn't look all that promising, I know. Hardly blackmail stuff these days, is it? But Owens thinks it is. And that's the point. We're not really interested in how many times he's been knocking on the doors of the knocking-shops. It's finding the nature of his connection with
Owens.'

Learoyd nodded his understanding, albeit a
little
unhappily.

'Off you go, then.'

But Learoyd delayed. 'Whereabouts do you think would be a good place to start, sir?' Morse's eyeballs turned ceilingward.

'What about looking up His Lordship in
Debrett's Peerage,
mm? It might just tell you where he lives, don't you think?'

'But where can I find a copy?'

'What about that big building in the centre of Oxford - in Bonn Square. You've heard of it? It's called the Central Library.'

Item
2
in the manila file, as Lewis had discovered earlier that morning, was OBE (Overtaken By Events, in Morse's shorthand). The Cheltenham firm of solicitors had been disbanded in
1992,
its clientele dispersed, to all intents and purposes now permane
ntly
incommunicado.

Item
3
was to be entrusted into
the
huge hands of DC Elton, who now made his entrance; and almost immediately his exit, since he passed no observations, and asked no questions, as he looked down at
the
paunchy paedo
philiac from St Albans. 'Leave it to me, sir.'

'And while you're at it, see how the land lies
here.'
Morse handed over the documentation on Item
4
- the accounts-sheets from the surgical appliances company in Croydon.

'Good man, that,' commented Lewis, as
the
door closed behind the massive frame of DC Elton.

'Give me Learoyd every time!' confided Morse. 'At least he's got the intelligence to ask a few half-witted questions.'

'I don't quite follow you.'

'Wouldn't
you
need a bit of advice if you called in at some place s
elling surgical appliances? With
Elton's great beer-gut they'll probably think he's called in for a temporary truss.'

Lewis didn't argue.

He knew better.

Also OBE, as Lewis had already discovered, was Item
5.
The address Owens had written on the letter was - had been - that of a home for the mentally handicapped in Wimbledon. A Social Services inspection had uncovered gross and negligent malpractices; and
the
establishment had been closed down two years previously, its management and nursing staff redeployed or declared redundant Yet no prosecutions had ensued.

'Forlorn hope,' Lewis had ventured.

And Morse had agreed. 'Did you know that "forlorn hope" has got nothing to do with "forlorn" or "hope"? It's all Dutch: "Verloren hoop" - "lost troop".'

'Very useful to know, sir.'

Seemingly oblivious to such sarcasm, Morse contemplated once more the four sets of initials that comprised Item 6:

/ / /

AM DC JS CB

with those small ticks in r
ed Biro set against the first th
ree of them.

'Any ideas?' asked Lewis.

"Jonathan Swift", obviously, for "JS". I was only talking about him to the Super yesterday.' 'Julian Storrs?'

Morse grinned. 'Perhaps
all
of 'em are dons at Lonsdale.' 'I'll check.'

'So that leaves Items seven and eight - both of which I leave in your capable hands, Lewis. And la
stly
my own
little
assignment in Soho, Item nine.'

'Coffee, sir?'

'Glass of iced orange juice!'

After Lewis had gone, Morse re-read Ellie's letter, deeply hurt, and wondering whether people in the ancient past had found it quite so difficult to cope with disappointments deep as his. But at least things were over; and in the long run that might make things much easier. He tore the letter in two, in four, in eight, in sixteen, and then in thirty-two - would have torn it in sixty-four, had his fingers been strong enough - before dropping the
little
square pieces into his wastepaper basket.

'No ice in the canteen, sir. Machine's gone kaput.'

Morse shrugged indiffere
ntly
and Lewis, sensing that the time might be opportune, decided to say something which had been on his mind:

'Just one thing I'd like to ask .
..'

Morse looked up sharply. 'You're not going to ask me where Lonsdale is, I hope!'

'No. I'd just like to ask you not to be too hard on that new secretary of yours, that's all.'

'And what the hell's that got to do with you?'

'Nothing really, sir.'

'I
agree.
And when I want your bloody advice on how to handle my secretarial staff, I'll come and ask for it. Clear?'

Morse's eyes were blazing anew. And Lewis, his own temperature now rising rapidly, left his superior's office without a further word.

Just before noon, Jane Edwards was finalizing an angry letter, spelling out her resignation, when she heard the message over the intercom: Morse wante
d to see her in his office. 'Sit
down!'

She sat down, noticing immediately that he seemed tired, the whites of his eyes li
ghtly
veined with blood.

'I'm sorry I got so cross, Jane. That's all I wanted to say.'

She remained where she was, almost mesmerized. Very qui
etly
he continued:
‘
You
will
try to forgive me - please?'

She nodded helplessly, for she had no choice. And Morse smiled at her sadly, almost gratefully, as she left.

Back in the typin
g pool Ms Jane Edwards surrepti
tiously dabbed away the last of the slow-dropping tears, tore up her letter (so carefully composed) into sixty-four pieces; and suddenly felt, as if by some miracle of St Anthony, most inexplicably happy.

A recent survey has revealed that
80
.5%
of Oxford dons seek out the likely pornographic potential on the Internet before making use of that facility for purposes connected with their own disciplines or research. The figure for students, in the same university, is
2%
lower

(Terence Benczik,
A Possible Future for Computer Technology)

Until the age of
twelve, Morse's reading had comprised
little
beyond a weekly diet of the
Dandy
comic, and a monthly diet of the
Meccano Magazine
- the legacy of the latter proving considerably the richer, in that Morse had retained a lifelong delight in model train-sets and in the railways themselves. Thus it was that as he stood on Platform One at Oxford Station, he was much looking forward to his journey. Usually, he promised himself a decent read of a decent book on a trip like this. But such potential pleasures seldom materialized; hadn't materialized that afternoon either, when the punctual
2.15
p.m. from Oxford arrived fifty-nine minutes later at Paddington, where Morse imm
ediately took a taxi to New Scotl
and Yard.

Although matters the
re had been prearranged, it was
purely by chance that Morse happened to meet Paul Condon, the Metropolitan Commissioner, in the main entrance foyer.

'They're ready for you, Morse. Can't stay myself, I'm afraid. Press conference. It's not just the ethnic minor-ides I've upset this
time
- it's the ethnic majorities, too. All because I've published a few more official crime-statistics.'

Morse nodded. He wanted to say something to his old friend: something about never climbing in vain when you're going up the Mountain of Truth. But he only recalled the quotation after stepping out of the lift at the fourth floor,
where Sergeant Rogers of the Porn
Squad was awaiting him.

Once in Rogers' office, Morse produced the photograph of the strip-club. And immediately, with the speed of an experienced ornithologist recognizing a picture of a parrot, Rogers had identified the premises.

'Just off Brewer Street.' He unfolded a detailed map of Soho. 'Here - let me show you.'

The early evening was overcast, drizzly and dank, when like some latter-day Orpheus Morse emerged from the depths of Piccadilly Circus Underground; whence, after briefly consulting his A-Z, he proceeded by a reasonably direct route to a narrow, seedy-looking thoroughfare, where a succession of establishments promised XXXX videos and magazines (imported), sex shows (live), striptease (continuous) - and a selection of freshly made sandwiches (various).

And there it was!
he Club Sexy.
Unmistakably so, but prosaically and repetitively now rechristened
Girls Girls Girls.
It made the former proprietors appear comparatively imaginative.