'Pardon?'
'I said the pubs'll soon be open, sir.'
'Not tonight for me, Lewis. I – er – I don't feel much like it.'
He got up and walked out of the office without a further word, Lewis staring after him in some bewilderment.
'Odd bugger!' said Bell; and for the second time within a few minutes Lewis felt he had to agree with him.
Obviously Ruth had been crying, but she was now recovered, her voice dull and resigned. 'I just wanted to thank you, Inspector, that's all. You've been – you've been so kind to me, and – and I think if anyone could ever understand me it might have been you.'
'Perhaps so,' said Morse. It was not one of his more memorable utterances.
'And then- ' She sighed deeply and a film of tears enveloped her lovely eyes. 'I just wanted to say that when you asked me out that time – do you remember? – and when I said – when I- ' Her face betrayed her feelings completely now, and Morse nodded and looked away.
'Don't worry about it. I know what you're going to say. It's all right. I understand.'
She forced herself to speak through her tears. 'But I want to say it to you, Inspector. I want you to know that- 'Again, she was unable to go on; and Morse touched her shoulder lightly, just as Paul Morris had touched Brenda Josephs lightly on the shoulder on the night of Philip Lawson's murder. Then he got up and made his way quickly out along the corridor. Yes, he understood – and he forgave her, too. But, unlike the Almighty, he was unable to forget.
Mrs Emily Walsh-Atkins had been called upon to identify the battered corpse of Harry Josephs. (It was Morse's idea.) She had done so willingly, of course. What an exciting time this last year had been! And the goldfish flashed its tail almost merrily in her mind as she recalled her own part in the tragic events which had centred upon her chosen church. Her name had appeared once more in the OxfordMail - in the Oxford Times, too – and she had cut out the paragraphs carefully, just as Ruth Rawlinson before her, and kept them in her handbag with the others. One Sunday morning during the hot summer which followed these events, she prayed earnestly for forgiveness for her sins of pride, and the Reverend Keith Meiklejohn, standing benignly beside the north porch, was kept waiting even longer than usual until she finally emerged into the bright sunshine.
Mrs Alice Rawlinson had been taken to the Old People's Home in Cowley immediately after her daughter's arrest. When Ruth was freed, after serving only eleven of her eighteen months' sentence, the old lady returned to 14A Manning Terrace, still going strong and looking good for several years to come. As she was helped into the ambulance on her way home, one of the young housemen was heard to murmur that anyone who predicted how long a patient had got to live was nothing but a bloody fool.
A few books had been found in Harry Josephs' upstairs flat at 14B Manning Terrace; and after the case was over these had been given to Oxfam, and were slowly sold, at ridiculously low prices, at the second-hand chanty bookshop in north Oxford. A seventeen-year-old boy (by some curious coincidence, a boy named Peter Morris) bought one of them for five pence in the early summer. He had always been interested in crime, and the large, fat, glossy volume entitled Murder Ink had immediately attracted his attention. That same night whilst browsing through the assorted articles, he came to a piece about suicides on page 349, heavily underlined in red biro: Myopic jumpers invariably remove their eyeglasses and put them in a pocket before jumping.
Chapter Forty-four
Morse took his holidays later the following year and decided, again, to go to the Greek islands. Yet somehow his passport remained unrenewed in its drawer, and one sunny morning in mid-June the chief inspector caught a bus down from north Oxford into the city. For an hour he wandered contentedly around the Ashmolean where amongst other delights he stood for many minutes in front of the Giorgione and the Tiepolo. Just before midday he walked across to the cocktail-bar at the Randolph and bought a pint of beer, for he would never lend his lips to anything less than that measure. Then another pint. He left at half-past twelve, crossed Cornmarket, and walked into St Frideswide's, The north door creaked no longer, but inside the only sign of life was the flickering candles that burned around the statue of the Virgin. The woman he was seeking was not there. As once before, he decided to walk up to north Oxford, although this time he witnessed no accident at the Marston Ferry cross-roads. Reaching the Summertown shops, he called into the Dew Drop, drank two further pints of beer, and continued on his way. The carpet-shop, from which Brenda Josephs had once observed her husband, had now been taken over by an insurance firm, but otherwise little seemed to have changed. When he came to Manning Terrace, Morse turned into it, paused at one point for a second or two, and then continued along it. At number 14A he stopped, knocked briskly on the door, and stood there waiting.
'You!'
'I heard you'd come home.'
'Well! Come in! Come in! You're the first visitor I've had.'
'No, I won't do that. I just called by to tell you that I've been thinking a lot about you since you've been – er – away, and you'd blush if I told you what happened in my dreams.'
'Of course I wouldn't!'
'Don't take any notice of me – I've had too much beer.'
'Please come in.'
'Your mother's there.'
'Why don't you take me to bed?'
Her large eyes held his, and in that moment a sparkling mutual joy was born.
'Can I use your "gents"?'
'There's one upstairs – it's a "ladies", too.'
'Upstairs?'
'Just a minute!'
She was back almost immediately with a Yale key labelled 14B in her hand.
'Hadn't you better tell your mother-?'
'I don't think so,' she said, and a slow smile spread across her lips as she closed the door of 14A quietly behind her and inserted the key into 14B.
Morse's eyes followed her slim ankles as she climbed the carpeted stairs ahead of him.
'Bedroom or lounge?'
'Let's go into the lounge a few minutes first,' said Morse.
'There's some whisky here. Do you want a drink?'
'I want you.'
'And you can have me. You know that, don't you?'
Morse took her in his arms as they stood there, and kissed her tenderly on her sweet, full lips. Then, as if the moment were too unbearably blissful to be prolonged, he pressed her body tightly to him and laid his cheek against hers, 'I dreamed about you, too,' she whispered in his ear.
'Did I behave myself?'
'I'm afraid so. But you're not going to behave yourself now are you?'
'Certainly not.'
'What's your Christian name?' she asked.
'I'll tell you afterwards,' said Morse quietly, as his fingers lingered lightly on the zip at the back of her brightly patterned summer dress.
Colin Dexter
Colin Dexter lives in Oxford. He has won many awards for his novels and in 1997 was presented with the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature.
