Death Is Now My Neighbour (35 page)

'If somebody came to you with a letter - a photocopied letter, say - claiming your missus was having a passionate affair with the milkman - '

Lewis grinned. 'I'd be dead worried. We've got a woman on the milk-float'

' - what would you do?'

'Read it, obviously. See who'd written it'

'Show it to the missus?'

'Only if it was a joke.' 'How would you know that?'

'Well, you wouldn't really, would you? Not for a start. You'd try to find out if it was genuine.'

'Exa
ctly
. So when Storrs got a copy of that letter, a letter he'd pretty certainly not seen before—'

'Unless Turnbull showed it to him?'

'Doubt it A death
certificate, wasn't it? He'd want to let Storrs down a bit more ge
ntly
than that'

"You mean, if Storrs tried to find out if it
was
genuine, he'd probably go along to the clinic
...'

Morse nodded, like some benevolent schoolmaster encouraging a promising pupil.

'And show it to
...
Dawn Charles?'

'Who else? She's the sort of Practice Manager there, if anybody is. And let's be honest about things. You're not exa
ctly
an expert in the Socratic skills yourself, are you? But how long did it take
you
to get the truth out of her? Three or four minutes?'

'You
think
Storrs did it as well?'

'Pretty certainly, I'd say. He's nobody's fool; and he's not going to give in to blackmail just on somebody's vague say-so. He's an academic; and if you're an academic you're trained to
check-
check your sources, check your references, check your evidence.'

'So perhaps Storrs has been a few steps in front of us all the time.'

Morse nodded. 'He probably rumbled our receptionist straightaway. Not
many
suspects there at the clinic'

Slowly Lewis sipped his customary orange juice, his earlier euphoria fading.

'We're not exactly galloping towards the finishing-post, are we?'

Morse looked up, his blue eyes betraying some considerable surprise.

'Why do you say that, Lewis? That's exa
ctly
what we
are
doing.'

Saturday, 9 March

Hombre apercebido medio c
ombatido

(A man well prepared has already half fought the battle)

(Cervantes,
Don Quixote)

Somewhat concerned
about the adequacy of the Jaguar's petrol allowance, Morse had requisitioned an unmarked police car, which just before
10
a.m. was heading south
along the
A34,
with Sergeant Lewis at the wheel. As they approached Abingdon, Morse asked Lewis to turn on Classic FM; and almost immediately asked him to turn it off, as he recognized the Brandenburg Concerto No.
2.

'Somebody once said, Lewis, that it was not impossible to get bored even in the presence of a mistress, and I'm sorry to say I sometimes get a
little
bored even in the company of Johann Sebastian Bach.'

'Really. I thought it was rather nice.'

'Lew-is! He may be terrific; he may be terrible - but he's never
nice.
Not Bach!'

Lewis concentrated on the busy road ahead as Morse sank back into his seat and, as was ever his wont in a car, said virtually nothing for the rest of the journey.

And yet Mor
se had said so many things - th
ings upon which Lewis's mind intermitte
ntly
focused again, as far too quickly he drove down to the Chieveley
juncti
on with the
M4
...

Once back from Polstead Road, Friday afternoon had been very busy and, for Lewis, very interesting. It had begun with Morse asking about their present journey.

'If you had a posh car, which way would you go to Bath?'

'A34, M4, A46
- probably the best; the quickest, certainly.'

'What if you had an old banger?'

'Still go the same way, I think.'

'What's wrong with
the
Burford-Cirencester way?'

'Nothing at all, if you like a bit of scenery. Or if you don't like motorway-driving.'

Then another question:

'How do we find out which bank the Storrs use?'

'Could be they have different banks, sir. Shouldn't be too difficult, though: Lloyds, Barclays, NatWest, Midland
...
Shall I ring around?'

Morse nodded. 'And try to find out how they've been spending their money rece
ntly
- if it's possible.'

'May take a bit of time, but I don't see why not. Let me find out anyway.'

Lewis turned to go, but Morse had a further request

'Before you do, bring me the notes you made about
the
Storrs' stay in Bath last weekend. I'm assuming you've typed 'em up by now?'

'All done. Maybe a few spelling mistakes - a few grammatical lapses - beautifully typed, though.'

It had taken Lewis only ten minutes to discover that Mr Julian Storrs and Mrs Angela Storrs both banked at Lloyds. But there had been far greater difficulty in dealing with Morse's supplementary request.

The Manager of Lloyds (Headington Branch) had been fully co-operative but of only limited assistance. It was very unusual of course, but not in cases
such as thi
s
unethical,
for confidential material concerning clients to be disclosed. But Lewis would have to contact Lloyds Inspection Department in Bristol.

Which Lewis had promptl
y done, again receiving every co-operation; also, however, receiving the disappointing news that the information required was unlikely as yet to be fully ready. With credit-card facilities now almost universally available, the volume of transactions was ever growing; and with receipt-items sometimes irregularly forwarded from re
tail outl
ets, and with a few inevitable checks and delays in processing and clearance - well, it would take a
little
time.

'Later this afternoon?' Lewis had queried hopefully.

'No chance of that, I'm afraid.'

'Tomorrow morning?'

Lewis heard a deep sigh at the other end of the line. 'We don't usually
...
It is very urgent, you say?'

*

The phone had been ringing in Morse's office (an office minus Morse) and Lewis had taken the brief call. The post-mortem on Shelly Cornford confirmed death from carbon-monoxide poisoning, and completely ruled out any suspicion of foul play.

A note on yellow paper was Sellotaped to the desk:

Lewis!

-Just off to the Diab. Centre
(3.45)

Yr notes on Bath most helpful, but try to get Sarah Siddons right - two d's, please.

Good job we're getting a few facts straight before jumping too far ahead. Reculer pour mieux sauter!

We'll be jumping tomorrow a.m. tho' - to Bath. Royal Crescent informs me the Storrs - Herr und Frau - are staying there again!

-I
need yr notes on Julian Storrs.

-
Ring me at home - after the Archers.

M

And on the side of the desk, a letter from the Thame and District Diabetic Association addressed to Det. Chief Inspector Morse:

Dear sir,

Welcome to the Club! Sorry to be so quick off the mark but news travels fast in diabetic circles.

We meet on the first Thursday of each month 7.30-9 p.m. in the Town Hall in Thame and we shall be delighted if you
can come to speak to us. We can
offer no fee but we can offer a warm-hearted and grateful audience.

During this last year we have been fortunate to welcome several very well-known people. For example our last six speakers have been Dr David Matthews
, Lesley Hallett, Professor Harry
Keane, Angela Storrs, Dr Robert Turner, and Willie Rushton.

Please try to support us if you can. For our 1996/7 programme we are still looking for speakers for October '96 and February '97. Any hope of you filling one of these slots?

I
enclose SAE and th
ank you for your kind consideration.
..

But Lewis read only
the
first few lines, for never, except in the course of a criminal investigation, had he wittingly read a letter meant for the eyes of another person
...

From the passenger seat Morse had still said nothing until Lewis, after turning off the
M4
at Junction
1
8
on to the
A46,
was within a few miles of Bath.

'Lewis! If you had a mistress - '

'Not the milk-lady, sir. She's far too fat for me.'

' - and, say, you were having a weekend away together and you told your mis
sus that you were catching the t
rain but in fact
this
woman was going to pick you up in her car somewhere - The Randolph, say

Yes
, sir?' (Was Morse getting lost
)

'Would you still
go
to the railway station? Would you make sure she picked you up
at
the railway station - not The Randolph?'

'Dunno, sir. I've never—'

‘I
know you haven't,' snapped Morse. 'Just
think,
man!' So Lewis thought. And
thought
he saw what Morse was getting at.

You mean it might make you feel a bit better in your own mind - feel a bit less guilty, like - if you did what you
said
you'd be doing - before you went?' (Was Lewis getting lost?)

'Somethi
ng like that,' said Morse unenth
usiastically as a sign welcomed the two detectives to the Roman City of Bath.

As soon as Lewis had stopped outside the Roy
al Crescent Hotel, Morse rang th
rough on
the
mobile phone to the Deputy Manager, as had been agreed. No problem, it appeared. The Storrs had gone off somewhere an hour or so earlier in the BMW. The coast was clear; and Morse got out of the car and walked round to the driver's window.

'Good luck in Bristol!'

Lewis raised two crossed fingers of his right hand, like the logo of the National Lottery, as Morse continued:

'If you find what I
hope
you're going to find, the battl
e's half won. And it's mo
stly
thanks to you.'

'No! It was you who figured it all out'

'Wouldn't have done, though, without all those visits of yours to Soho.'

'Pardon, sir?'

To see the chorus line, Lewis! The chorus line at the Windmill.'

'But I've never—'

'"Legs right up to her armpits," you said, right? And that was the
second
time you'd used those words, Lewis. Remember?'

Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged and well-provisioned breakfast table

(Nathaniel Hawthorne,
The House of the Seven G
ables)

Morse stood for
some while on the huge slabs that form the wide pavement stretching along the whole extent of the great
500
-foot curve of cinnamon-coloured stone,
with
its identi
cal facades of double Ionic columns, which comprise Bath's Royal Crescent. It seemed to him a breathtaking architectural masterpiece, with
the
four-star hotel exa
ctly
at its centre: Number
16.

He walked between the black spiked railings, through the white double-doors, into the black-and-white floor-tiled, high-ceilinged entrance hall, and
then
to reception, where he was immediately ushered into the beige-carpeted, pine-furnished office of the Deputy Manager, just beyond.

Sara Hickman was from Leicestershire, a tall, slimly attractive woman in her mid-thirties, with green eyes (just like Sister McQueen) and dark curly hair. She was dressed in a business-like suit; she spoke in a business
-
like manner; and so very clearly was she part of an extremely business-like hotel, since manifold awards -RAC Blue Ribbons, AA Rosettes, Egon Ronay Stars - vied with each other for space around the walls.