The Secret of Annexe 3 (23 page)

‘Chipping Norton! Where else?’

Lewis saw that the fascia clock showed a quarter past twelve as the car passed through Woodstock.

‘Fancy a pint?’ asked a cheerful Lewis.

Morse looked at him curiously. ‘What’s the matter with you this morning? I hope you’re not becoming an alcoholic?’

Lewis shook his head lightly.

‘You want to be like me, Lewis. I’m a dipsomaniac.’

‘What’s the difference?’

Morse pondered for a while. ‘I think an alcoholic is always trying to
give up
drink.’

‘Whereas such a thought has never crossed your mind, sir?’

‘Well put!’ said Morse, thereafter lapsing into the silence he habitually observed when being driven in a car.

As they neared the Chipping Norton turning off the A34, a woman driving a very ancient Ford Anglia passed them on her way down from Birmingham to spend a night at the Haworth
Hotel.

‘W
ELL
, I’
LL BE
buggered!’ Morse shook his head in bewildered disappointment as he stood, once again, in
Margaret Bowman’s bedroom –
The Complete Crochet Manual
in his hands. ‘It’s gone, Lewis!’

‘
What’s
gone?’

‘The card I showed you – the card from the Lake District – the one signed “Edwina”.’

‘You never showed it to me,’ protested Lewis.

‘Of course I—. Perhaps I didn’t. But the handwriting on that postcard was the same as the handwriting on the back of your whatsitsname Indian place in Walton Street.
Exactly the same!
I can swear to it! The postcard was from Ullswater or some place like that and’ (Morse sought to bully his brain into a clearer remembrance) ‘it said
something like “It’s Paradise Regained – I wish you were here”. But, you know, it’s a bit odd, on a postcard, to say “
I
wish you were here”.
Nineteen times out of twenty, people just say “
Wish
you were here”, don’t they? Do you see what I mean? That postcard
didn’t
say “It’s Paradise
Regained” – then a dash – “I wish you were here”; it said “It’s Paradise Regained
minus one
. Wish you were here”. That card was from
Margaret Bowman’s lover, telling her there was only one thing missing from his Paradise –
her
!’

‘Not much use if it’s gone,’ said Lewis dubiously.

‘It
is
though! Don’t you see? The very fact that Margaret Bowman came back a second time shows exactly
how
important it is. And I
think
I remember the
postmark – it was August. All we’ve got to do is to find out who spent his holidays up in the Lake District last August!’

‘It might have been the August before.’

‘Don’t be so pessimistic, man!’ snapped Morse.

‘But we
ought
to be pessimistic,’ persisted Lewis, remembering his recent experience with the beauty clinics. ‘Millions of people go up to the Lakes every summer. And
who’s this “Edwina”?’

‘He’s the lover-boy. Tom Bowman would have been very suspicious, wanting to know who the fellow was if he’d signed his own name. But the man we’re dealing with, Lewis
–
the man who almost certainly murdered Bowman
– is pretty clever: he changed his name – but he didn’t change it too much! And that gives us a whacking great clue.
The fellow signs himself “T” on the Indian thing – and then signs himself “Edwina” on the postcard.
So we’ve already got his Christian name, Lewis!
The
“T” doesn’t stand for Tom – it stands for Ted. And “Ted” is an abbreviation of “Edward”; and he signs himself in the feminine form of it –
“Edwina”! QE bloody D, Lewis – as we used to say in the Lower Fourth! All right! You say there are a few millions every year who look forward to hearing the rain drumming on their
caravan roofs in Grasmere. But not all that many of them were christened “Edward”, and about half of
them
would be too old – or too young – to woo our fair
Margaret. And, what’s more, he’ll pretty certainly live in Oxford, this fellow we’re looking for – or not too far outside. And if he can afford to spend a holiday in the
Lake District, he’s probably in work, rather than on the dole, agreed?’

‘But—’

‘
And
– just let me finish! – not everybody’s all that familiar with
Paradise Regained
. Mr Milton’s not everybody’s cup of tea in these
degenerate days, and I’m going to hazard a guess that our man was a grammar-school boy!’

‘But they’re all comprehensives now, sir.’

‘You know what I mean! He’s in the top 25 per cent of the IQ range.’

‘The case seems to be closed, then, sir!’

‘Don’t be so bloody sarcastic, Lewis!’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but—’

‘I’ve not finished! What was the colour of Bowman’s hair?’

‘Well – blondish, sort of.’

‘Correct! And what have Robert Redford, Steve Cram and Ian Botham got in common?’

‘All the girls go for them.’

‘No! Physical appearance, Lewis.’

‘You mean, they’ve all got blond hair?’

‘Yes! And if Margaret Bowman’s running to form, this new beau of hers has got fair hair, too! And if only about a quarter of Englishmen have got fair hair—’

‘He could be a Swede, sir.’

‘What? A Swede who’s read
Paradise Regained
?’

For Lewis, the whole thing was becoming progressively more improbable; yet he found himself following Morse’s deductive logic with reluctant admiration. If Morse were right there
couldn’t be all that many employed, fair-haired people christened Edward, in the twenty-five to forty-five age range, living in or just outside Oxford, who had spent their most recent summer
holidays in the Lake District, could there? And Lewis appreciated the force of one point Morse had just made: Margaret Bowman had been willing to make
two
extraordinarily risky visits to
her house in Charlbury Drive over the last twenty-four hours. If the
first
had been to fetch her building society book (or whatever) and to get some ready cash out, it couldn’t
really be seen as all that incriminating. But if the overriding purpose of the
second
, as Morse was now suggesting, had been to remove from the house any pieces of vital evidence that
might have been hidden in the most improbable places . . .

Lewis was conscious, as he sat there in the Bowmans’ bedroom that afternoon, that he had not yet even dared to mention to Morse the thought that had so obstinately lodged itself at the
back of his mind. At the time, he had dismissed the idea as utterly fanciful – and yet it would not wholly go away.

‘I know it’s ridiculous, sir, but – but I can’t help worrying about that crane at the back of the hotel.’

‘Go on!’ said Morse, not without a hint of interest in his voice.

‘Those cranes can land the end of a girder on a sixpence: they
have
to – match up with the bolts and everything. So if you wanted to, you could pick up a box, let’s
say, and you could move it wherever you wanted –
outside a window, perhaps
? It’s only a thought, sir, but could it just be that Bowman was murdered
in the main part of the
hotel
? If the murderer wraps up the body, say, and hooks it on to the crane, he can pinpoint it to just outside Annexe 3, where he can get an accomplice in the room to pull the box gently in.
The murderer himself wouldn’t be under any suspicion at all, because he’s never been
near
the annexe. And if it had been snowing – like the forecast said – there
wouldn’t be any footprints
going in
, would there? There’s so much mess and mud outside the back of the hotel, though, that nobody’s going to notice anything out of the
ordinary there; and nobody’s going to hear anything, either – not with all the racket of a disco going on. I know it may be a lot of nonsense, but it does bring all those people staying
in the hotel back into the reckoning, doesn’t it? And I think you’ll agree, sir, we
are
getting a bit short of suspects.’

Morse, who had been listening with quiet attention, now shook his head with perplexed amusement. ‘What you’re suggesting, Lewis, is that
the murderer’s a crane-driver
,
is that it?’

‘It was only a thought, sir.’

‘Narrows things down, though. A fair-haired crane-driver called Ted who spent a week in Windermere or somewhere . . .’ Morse laughed. ‘You’re getting worse than I am,
Lewis!’

Morse rang HQ from the Bowmans’ house, and two men, Lewis learned, would immediately be on their way to help him undertake an exhaustive search of the whole premises at 6 Charlbury
Drive.

Morse himself took the car keys and drove back thoughtfully into Oxford.

I
NSTEAD OF GOING
straight back to Kidlington HQ, Morse drove down once more into Summertown and turned into Ewert Place where he drove up to the front
steps and parked the police car. The Secretary, he learned, was in and would be able to see him almost immediately.

As he sat waiting on the long wall-seat in the foyer, Morse was favourably struck (as he had been on his previous visit) by the design and the furnishings of the Delegacy. The building was
surely one of the (few) high spots of post-1950 architecture in Oxford, and he found himself trying to give it a date: 1960? 1970? But before he reached a verdict, he learned that the Secretary
awaited him.

Morse leaned back in the red leather armchair once again. ‘Lovely building, this!’

‘We’re very lucky, I agree.’

‘When was it built?’

‘Finished in 1965.’

‘I was just comparing it to some of the hideous structures they’ve put up in Oxford since the war.’

‘You mustn’t think we don’t have a few problems, though.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes. We get floods in the basement fairly regularly. And then, of course, there’s the flat roof: anyone who designs a building as big as this with a flat roof – in
England! – hardly deserves the Queen’s medal for architecture. Not in my book, anyway.’

The Secretary had spoken forcefully, and Morse found himself interested in her reaction. ‘You’ve had trouble?’

‘
Had?
Yes, we’ve had trouble, and we’ve got trouble now, and it’ll be a great surprise if we don’t have more trouble in the future. We’ve only just
finished paying for a complete re-roofing repair – the
third
we’ve had!’

Morse nodded in half-hearted sympathy as she elaborated the point; but his interest in the Delegacy’s roofing problems soon dissipated, and he moved to the reason for his visit. He told
the Secretary, in the strictest confidence, almost everything he had discovered about the Bowmans, and he hinted at his deep concern for Margaret Bowman’s life. He asked whether Margaret had
any particular women friends in the Delegacy; whether she had any
men
friends; whether there might have been any gossip about her; whether there was anything at all that might be learned
from interviewing any of Margaret’s colleagues.

The result of this request was the summoning to the Secretary’s office of Mrs Gladys Taylor, who disclaimed all knowledge of Margaret Bowman’s married life, of any possible
extramarital infidelity, and of her present whereabouts. After only a few minutes Morse realized he was getting nowhere with the woman; and he dismissed her. He was not at all surprised that she
knew so little; and he was aware that his own abrupt interlocutory style had made the poor woman hopelessly nervous. What Morse was not aware of – and what, with a little less conceit, he
might perhaps have divined – was that Gladys Taylor’s nervousness had very little at all to do with the tone of Morse’s questioning, but everything to do with the fact that, after
spending the weekend at Gladys’s council house on the Cutteslowe Estate in North Oxford, Margaret Bowman had turned up
again
– dramatically! – late the previous evening,
begging Gladys to take her in and making her promise to say nothing to anyone about her whereabouts.

The former prison officer at Reception deferred his daily perusal of the Court Circular and saluted the Chief Inspector as Morse handed in the temporary badge he had been given
– a plastic folder, with a metal clip, containing a buff-coloured card on which was printed VISITOR, in black capitals, and under which, in black felt tip pen, was written ‘Insp.
Morse’. A row of mailbags stood beside the front door, waiting for the post office van, and Morse was on the point of leaving the building when he turned back – struck by the
appropriate juxtaposition of things – and spoke to the Security Officer.

‘You must feel almost at home with all these mailbags around!’

‘Yes! You don’t forget things like that, sir. And I could still tell you where most of ’em were made – from the marks, I mean.’

‘You can?’ Morse fingered one of the grey bags and the Security Officer walked round to inspect it.

‘From the Scrubs, that one.’

‘Full of criminals, they tell me, the Scrubs.’

‘Used to be – in my day.’

‘You don’t get many criminals here, though?’

‘There’s a lot of things here they’d
like
to get their hands on – especially all the question papers, of course.’

‘And that’s why you’re here.’

‘Can’t be too careful, these days. We get so many people coming in – I’m not talking about the permanent staff – I’m talking about the tradesmen, builders,
electricians, caterers—’

‘And you give them all a pass – like the one you gave me?’

‘Unless they’re pretty regular. Then we give ’em a semi-permanent pass with a photograph and all that. Saves a lot of time and trouble.’