• A letter (August 1979) addressed to Owens from a firm of solicitors in Cheltenham informing the addressee that it was in possession of letters sent by him (Owens) to one of their clients (unspecified); and that some arrangement beneficial to each of the parties might possibly be considered.
• A glossy, highly defined photograph showing a paunchy elderly man fondling a frightened-looking prepubescent girl, both of them naked. Penciled on the back was an address in St. Albans.
• A stapled sheaf of papers showing the expenses of a director in a Surrey company manufacturing surgical appliances, with double exclamation points against several of the mammoth amounts claimed for foreign business trips.
• A brief, no-nonsense letter (from a woman, perhaps?) in large, curly handwriting, leaning italic-fashion to the right: “If you contact me again I shall take your letters to the police — I’ve kept them all. You’ll get no more money from me. You’re a despicable human being. I’ve got nothing more to lose, not even my money.” No signature but (again) a penciled address, this time in the margin, in Wimbledon.
• Four sets of initials written on a small page probably torn from the back of a diary:
Nothing more — except a small tick in red Biro against the first three.
• Two further newspaper cuttings, paper-clipped together. The first (The Times Diary, 2-2-96) reporting as follows:
After a nine-year tenure Sir Clixby Bream is retiring as Master of Lonsdale College, Oxford. Sir Clixby would, indeed should, have retired earlier. It is only the inability of anyone in the College (including the classicists) to understand the Latin of the original Statutes that has prolonged Sir Clixby’s term. The present Master has refused to speculate whether such an extension of his tenure has been the result of some obscurity in the language of the Statutes themselves; or the incompetence of his classical colleagues, none of whom appears to have been nominated as a possible successor.
The second, a cutting from the Oxford Mail (November 1995) of an article written by Geoffrey Owens; with a photograph alongside, the caption reading, “Mr. Julian Storrs and his wife Angela at the opening of the Polynesian Art Exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum.”
• A smudgy photocopy of a typed medical report, marked “Strictly Private and Confidential,” on the notepaper of a private health clinic in the Banbury Road:
REF.: Mr. J. C. Storrs
DIAGNOSIS: Inoperable liver cancer confirmed. For second opn. see letter Dr. O.V. Maxim (Churchill)
PROGNOSIS: Seven/eight months, or less. Possibly (??) a year. No longer.
PATIENT NOTES: Honesty best in this case. Strong personality. NEXT APPT.: See book, but ASAP.
RHT
Clipped to this was a cutting from the obituary columns of one of the national dailies — The Independent, by the look of it — announcing the death of the distinguished cancer specialist Robert H. Turnbull.
• Finally, three photographs, paper-clipped together:
(i) A newspaper photograph of a strip club, showing in turn (though indistinguishably) individual photographs of the establishment’s principal performers, posted on each side of the narrow entrance; showing also (with complete clarity) the inviting legend: SEXIEST RAUNCHIEST SHOW IN SOHO.
(ii) A full-length, black-and-white photograph of a tallish bottle-blonde in a dark figure-hugging gown, the thigh-slit on the left revealing a length of shapely leg. About the woman there seemed little that was less than genuinely attractive — except the smile perhaps.
(iii) A color photograph of the same woman seated completely naked, apart from a pair of extraordinarily thin stiletto heels, on a bar stool somewhere — her overfirm breasts suggesting that the smile in the former photograph was not the only thing about her that might be semi-artificial. The legs, now happily revealed in all their lengthy glory, were those of a young dancer — the legs of a Cyd Charisse or a Betty Grable, much better than those in the Naturist Journal…
Morse closed the file, and knew what he had read: an agenda for blackmail — and possibly for murder.
Chapter twenty-nine
Sunday, February 25
He was advised by a friend, with whom he afterward lost touch, to stay at the Wilberforce Temperance Hotel.
I hate those who intemperately denounce beer — and call it Temperance.
Socrates, on his last day on earth, avowed that death, if it be but one long and dreamless sleep, was a blessing most devoutly to be wished for. Morse, on the morning of Sunday, February 25 — without going quite so far as Socrates — could certainly look back on his own long and dreamless sleep with a rare gratitude, since the commonest features of his nights were regular visits to the loo, frequent draughts of water, occasional doses of Nurofen and Paracetamol, an intake of indigestion tablets, and finally (after rising once more from his crumpled bed linen) a tumbler of Alka-Seltzer.
The Observer was already poking thickly through the letterbox as he hurriedly prepared himself a subcontinental breakfast.
10:30 A.M.
It was 11:15 A.M. when he arrived at HQ, where Lewis had already been at work for three hours, and where he was soon regaling the chief about his visit to the newspaper offices.
A complete picture of Owens — built up from testimonials, references, records, impressions, gossip — showed a competent, hard-working, well-respected employee. That was the good news. And the bad? Well, it seemed the man was aloof, humorless, unsympathetic. In view of the latter shortcomings (Lewis had suggested) it was perhaps puzzling to understand why Owens had been sent off on a personnel management course. Yet (as the editor had suggested) some degree of aloofness, humorlessness, lack of sympathy, was perhaps precisely what was required in such a role.
Lewis pointed to the cellophane folder in which his carefully paginated photocopies were assembled.
“And one more thing. He’s obviously a bit of a hit with some of the girls there — especially the younger ones.”
“In spite of his ponytail?”
“Because of it, more likely.”
“You’re not serious?”
“And you’re never going to catch up with the twentieth century, are you?”
“One or two possible leads?”
“Could be.”
“Such as?”
“Well, for a start, the Personnel Manager who saw Owens on Monday. I’ll get a statement from him as soon as he gets back from holiday — earlier, if you’d like.”
Morse looked dubious. “Ye-es. But if somebody intended to murder Owens, not Rachel James... well, Owens’ alibi is neither here nor there really, is it? You’re right, though. Let’s stick to official procedure. I’ve always been in favor of rules and regulations.”
As Lewis eyed his superior officer with scarce disguised incredulity, he accepted the manila file handed to him across the desk; and began to read.
Morse himself now opened the “Life” section of The Observer and turned to the crossword set by Azed (for Morse, the Kasparov of cruciverbalists) and considered 1 across: “Elephant man has a mouth that’s deformed (6).” He immediately wrote in MAHOUT, but then put the crossword aside, trusting that the remaining clues might pose a more demanding challenge, and deciding to postpone his hebdomadal treat until later in the day. Otherwise, he might well have completed the puzzle before Lewis had finished with the file.