The dead of Jericho (12 page)

'Why didn't you give it to Mrs Murdoch?'

‘I’m not sure, really. I think, yes, I think she left just a bit before the others. Perhaps her table had finished and if she wasn't in line for any of the prizes... I forget. Anyway, Anne wrote— '

'She wrote it
there!'

'Yes, she wrote it on the sideboard. I remember that. She had a silver Parker— '

'Did she seem worried?'

'I don't
think so,
no. A bit flushed, perhaps-but we'd all had a few drinks and— '

‘What were you all talking about? Try to remember, please!'

Catharine shook her pretty head. 'I can't. I'm sorry, Inspector, but— '

'Think,' pleaded Morse.

And so she tried to think: think what people normally spoke about — the weather, work, inflation, gossip, children... And slowly she began to form a hazy recollection about an interlude. It was about children, surely... Yes, they were talking at one stage about children: something to do with the Oxfam appeal for the Cambodian refugees, was it? Or Korean? Somewhere in that part of the world, anyway.

Morse groaned inwardly as she tried to give some sort of coherence to thoughts so inchoate and so confused, but she'd told him about the note, and that was something.

Unfortunately, the item of far greater importance she'd just imparted was completely lost on Morse. At least for the moment.

Over breakfast on Tuesday morning, Morse read his one item of mail with mild, half-engaged interest. It was the Oxford Book Association's monthly newsletter, giving a full account of Dame Helen's memorable speech, discussing the possibility of a Christmas Book Fair, reporting the latest deliberations of the committee, and then — Morse stopped and stared very hard.
It was with deep regret that we heard of the death of Anne Scott. Anne had served on the committee only since the beginning of this year, but her good humour, constructive suggestions, and invariable willingness to help even in the most routine and humdrum chores — all these will be sadly missed. The chairman represented the Association at Anne's funeral.
Well, that was news to Morse. Perhaps — no, almost certainly — he would have seen Anne at that last meeting if things had turned out differently. And if only he'd been a regular member, he would have seen her often. If only! He sighed and knew that life was full of 'if only's' for everyone. Then he turned the page and the capital letters of the corrigendum jumped out at him. 'The next meeting NOTE THE CHANGE PLEASE will be on Friday, 19th October, when the speaker (this as previously advertised) will be MR CHARLES RICHARDS. His subject
Triumphs and Tribulations of the Small Publisher
will be of particular interest to many of our members and we look forward to a large attendance. Mr Richards apologizes for the late notification of the change which is necessitated because of business commitments.' Morse made a brief note in his diary: there was nothing else doing that evening. He might go. On the whole, he thought not, though.

When the phone rang at 10.30 a.m. the same morning, Charles Richards was in his office. Normally the call would have filtered from the outer office through his secretary, but she was now sitting opposite him taking down short-hand (interspersed, Richards noticed, with rather too many pieces of long-hand to give him much real confidence in her stenographic skills). He picked up the phone himself.

'Richards here. Can I help you?'

A rather faint, working-class voice replied that he (it was a 'he', surely?) was sure as 'ow Mister Charles Richards
could
'elp: and at the first mention of his wife, Richards clamped his hand over the mouthpiece, told his secretary to leave him for a few minutes, waited for the door to close, and then spoke slowly and firmly into the phone.

'I don't know who you are and I don't
want
to know, you blackmailing rat ! But I believe what you said in your letter and I've made arrangements to get the money — exactly
one quarter
of what you asked for, do you understand me?'

There was no reply.

There's no chance of my agreeing to the arrangements you made — absolutely none. So listen carefully. Tomorrow night — got that? — tomorrow night I shall be driving slowly down the Woodstock Road — from the roundabout at the top — at half past eight. Exactly half past eight. I shall be driving a light blue Rolls Royce, and I shall stop just inside a road called Field House Drive — two words: "Field House". It's just above Squitchey Lane. I shall get out there and I shall be carrying a brown carrier bag. Then I shall walk up to the telephone kiosk about fifty yards north of Field House Drive, go into the kiosk, and then come out again and put the carrier bag behind the kiosk, just inside the ivy there.
Behind
the kiosk — got that? — not inside it. It will be absolutely safe, you can take my word on that. I shall then walk straight back to the car and drive back up the Woodstock Road. Do you understand all that?' Still no reply.

‘There'll be no funny business on my part, and there'd better be none on yours! You can pick up your money — it's yours. But there'll not be a penny more — you can take that as final. Absolutely final. And if you
do
try anything else like this again, I'll kill you, do you hear that? I'll kill you with my own hands, you snivelling swine!'

Throughout this monologue, Richards had been continuously aware of the harsh, wheezy breathing of the man on the other end of the line, and now he waited for whatever reply might be forthcoming. But there was none. 'Have you got it all straight?'

Finally, he heard the tight voice again. 'You'll be glad you done this, Mister Richards. So will Missis Richards.' With that, the line was dead.

Charles Richards put away the sheet of paper from which he had been reading, and immediately called in his secretary once more.

'Sorry about that. Where were we... ?' He sounded completely at ease, but his heart was banging hard against his rib-cage as he dictated the next letter.

Mr Parkes was old, and would soon die. For the last few years he had been drinking heavily, but he had no regrets about that. Looking back over his life, however, he felt it had been largely wasted. Even his twenty years as headmaster of a primary school in Essex seemed to him now a period of little real achievement. A great addict from his early boyhood of all types of puzzles-mathematical problems, crosswords, chess, bridge — he had never found his proper niche. And as he sat drinking another bottle of Diet lager he regretted for the millionth time that no academic body had ever offered him a grant to set his mind to Etruscan or Linear C. He could have cracked those stubborn codes, by now! Oh yes!

He had stopped thinking about Anne Scott several days ago.

Mrs Raven was discussing with her husband the final stages of their long-drawn-out (but now at last successful) campaign to adopt a baby. Both of them had been much surprised at the countless provisos and caveats surrounding such an innocent and benevolent sounding process: the forms in duplicate and triplicate; the statements of incomes, job prospects, religious persuasions, and family history; oaths and solemn undertakings that the prospective parents would 'make no attempt whatsoever to discover the names, dwellings, situations, or any other relevant details of the former parent(s), neither to seek to ascertain' — etc., etc., etc. Oh dear! Mrs Raven had felt almost guilty about everything, especially since it was she herself, according to the gynaecologist, who was thwarting her husband's frequent and frenetic attempts to propagate the Raven species. Still, things were nearly ready now, and she was so looking forward to getting the baby. She'd have to stay at home much more, of course. No more badminton evenings for a while; no more bridge parties. She had stopped thinking about Anne Scott several days ago.

Catharine Edgeley was busy writing an essay on the irony to be found in Jane Austen's novels, and she was enjoying her work. There was little room in her mind for a dead woman whom she had met only twice, and of whom she could form only the vaguest visual recollection. She'd rather liked the policeman, though. Quite dishy, really — well, he
would
have been when he was fifteen or twenty years younger.

Gwendola Briggs sat reading
Bridge Monthly:
one or two pretty problems, she thought. She re-read an article on a new American bidding system, and felt happy. Only just over half an hour and the bridge players would be arriving. She'd almost forgotten Anne Scott now, though not that 'cocky and conceited officer' as she'd described Morse to her new and rather nice neighbour — a neighbour whom she'd promptly enrolled in the bridge club's membership. So
fortunate
Otherwise, they might have been one short.

Mrs Murdoch was another person that evening for whom Anne Scott was little more than a tragic but bearable memory. At a quarter to seven she received a telephone call from the J.R.2, and heard from a junior and inexperienced houseman (the young doctor had tried so hard to find some euphemistic guise for 'nearly poked his eyes out') that her son Michael had attempted to do... to do some damage to his sight. The houseman heard the poor woman's moan of anguish, heard the strangled 'No' — and wondered what else he could bring himself to say.

Charles Richards was not thinking of Anne Scott when he rang the secretary of the Oxford Book Association at nine o'clock to say that unfortunately he wouldn't be able to get to the pre-talk dinner which had been arranged for him in the Ruskin Room at the Clarendon Institute on Friday. He was very sorry, but he hoped it might save the Association a few pennies? He'd arrive at ten minutes to eight — if that was all right? The secretary said it was, and mumbled 'Bloody chap!' to himself as he replaced the phone.

It was only as he sat in a lonely corner of his local that evening that Morse's mind reverted to the death of Anne Scott. Again and again he came so near to cornering that single piece of information — something seen? something heard? — that was still so tantalizingly eluding him. After his fourth pint, he wondered if he ever
would
remember it, for he knew from long and loving addiction that his brain was never so keen as after beer.

Only Mrs Scott, now back in her semi-detached house in Burnley, grieved ever for her daughter and could not be comforted, her eyes once more brimming with tears as she struggled to understand what could have happened and — most bitter thought of all — how she herself could surely have helped if only she had known. If only... if only...

After declining the Master of Lonsdale's invitation to lunch, Morse walked from the Mitre along the graceful curve of the High up to Carfax. He had turned right into Cornmarket and was crossing over the road towards Woolworths when he thought he recognized someone walking about fifteen yards ahead of him — someone carrying a brown brief-case, and dressed in grey flannels and a check-patterned sports coat, who joined the bus queue for Banbury Road; and as the boy turned Morse could see the black tie, with its diagonal red stripes, of Magdalen College School. Games afternoon, perhaps? Morse immediately stopped outside the nearest shop, and divided his attention between watching the boy and examining the brown shoes (left foot only) that rested on the 'Reduced' racks. Edward Murdoch himself seemed restless. He consulted his wrist-watch every thirty seconds or so, punctuating this impatience with a craning-forward to read the numbers on the buses as they wheeled round Carfax into Cornmarket. Five minutes later, he felt inside his sports jacket for his wallet, picked up his brief-case, left the queue, and disappeared into a tiny side street between a jeweller's shop and Woolworths. There, pulling off his tie and sticking it in his pocket, he walked down the steps of the entrance to the Corn Dolly. It was just after ten minutes to one.

The bar to his right was crowded with about forty or fifty men, most of them appearing to be in their early twenties and almost all of them dressed in denims and dark-coloured anoraks. But clearly Edward was no stranger here. He walked through a wide porch-way into the rear bar — a more sedate area with upholstered wall-seats and low tables where a few older men sat eating sausages and chips.

'A pint of bitter, please.'

Whether it was his upper class accent, or the politeness of his request, or his somewhat youthful features, that caused the barmaid to glance at him — it made no difference. She pulled his pint, and the boy sauntered back to the main bar. Here, to his left, was a small dais, about one foot high and measuring some three yards by five, its dullish brawn linoleum looking as if a group of Alpine mountaineers had walked across it in their crampons. Only a few chairs were set about the room, and clearly the clientele here was not the kind of sit quietly and discuss the
Nicomachean Ethics
of Aristotle. And even had any wished to do so, such conversation would have been drowned instantly by the deafening blare of the juke-box. Edward sat on the edge of the dais, sipped his Worthington 'E', stared down at the red-and-black patterned carpet-and waited. Most of the other men pulled fitfully and heavily upon their cigarettes, the smoke curling slowly to a ceiling already stained a deep tobacco-brown. These men were waiting, too.

Suddenly the blue and yellow spotlights were switched on, the juke-box switched off, and a buxom girl in a black cloak, who had hitherto been seated sipping gin in some dim alcove, stepped out on to the miniature stage. Like iron filings drawn towards a powerful magnet, fifty young men who a moment before had been lounging at the bar were now formed into a solid phalanx around the three sides of the dais.