‘Shut up, Morse. You asked how long he’d been in the canal, right? You didn’t ask me who sawed his head off!’
Morse nodded agreement.
‘Well, listen, then! There are five questions I’m paid to ask myself when a body’s found immersed in water, and in this particular case you wouldn’t need a genius like me to answer most of them. First, was the person alive when entering the water? Answer: pretty certainly, no. Second, was death due to immersion? Answer: equally certainly, no. Third, was death rapid? Answer: the question doesn’t apply, because death took place elsewhere. Fourth, did any other factors contribute to death? Answer: almost certainly, yes; the poor fellow was likely to have been clinically dead when somebody chopped him up and chucked him in the canal. Fifth, where did the body enter the water? Answer: God knows! Probably where it was found-as most of them are. But it could have drifted a fair way, in certain conditions. With a combination of bodily gases and other internal reactions, you’ll often find a corpse floating up to the surface and then-’
‘But Morse interrupted him, turning to Lewis: ‘How did we find him?’
‘We had a call from a chap who was fishing there, sir. Said he’d seen something looking like a body half-floating under the water, just where we found him.’
‘Did you get his name-this fisherman’s?’ Morse’s question was sharp, and to Lewis his eyes seemed to glint with a frightening authority.
‘I wasn’t there myself, sir. I got the message from Constable Dickson.’
‘He took down the name and address, of course?’
‘Not quite, sir,’ gulped Lewis. ‘He got the name all right, but-’
‘ – the fellow rang off before giving his address!’
‘You can’t really blame-’
‘Who’s blaming anybody, Lewis? What was his name, by the way?’ ‘Rowbotham. Simon Rowbotham.’
‘Christ! That’s an unlikely sounding name.’ ‘But Dickson got it down all right, sir. He asked the fellow to spell it for him-he told me that.’
‘I see I shall have to congratulate Constable Dickson the next time I have the misfortune to meet him.’
‘We’re only talking about a name, sir.’ Lewis was feeling that” incipient surge of frustrated anger he’d so often experienced with Morse.
‘Only? What are you talking about? “Simon”? With a surname like “Rowbotham”? Lew-is! Now George Rowbotnam -that’s fine, that squares with your actual proletarian parentage. Or Simon Comakers, or something-that’s what you’d expect from some aristocrat from Saffron Waldon. But Simon Rowbotham’? Come off it, Lewis. The fellow who rang was making it up as he went along.’
The surgeon, who had remained sipping placidly during this oddly intemperate exchange, now decided it was time to rescue the hapless Lewis. ‘You do talk a load of nonsense, Morse. I’ve never known your first name, and I don’t give a sod what it is. For all I know, it’s “Eric” or “Ernie” or something. But so} bloody what?’
Morse, who had ever sought to surround his Christian name in the decent mists of anonymity, made no reply. Instead, he poured himself another measure of the pale yellow spirit, thereafter lapsing into silent thought.
It was Max who picked up the thread of the earlier discussion. ‘At least you’re not likely to get bogged down in any doubts about accident or suicide – unless you find some boat-propeller’s sliced his head off-and his hands-and his legs.’
‘No chance of that?’
‘I haven’t examined the body yet, have I?’ f
Morse grunted with frustration. ‘I asked you, and I ask you again. How long’s he been in the water?’
‘I just told you. I haven’t-’
‘Can’t you try a feeble bloody guess?’
‘Not all that long-in the water, that is. But he may have been dead a few days before then.’
‘Have a guess, for Christ’s sake!’
‘That’s tricky.’
‘It’s always “tricky” for you, isn’t it? You do actually think the fellow’s dead, I suppose?’
The surgeon finished his whisky, and poured himself more, his lined face creasing into something approaching geniality. ‘Time of death? That’s always going to play a prominent part in your business, Morse. But it’s never been my view that an experienced pathologist-such as myself-can ever really put too much faith in the accuracy of his observations. So many variables, you see -’
‘Forget it!’
‘Ah! But if someone actually saw this fellow being chucked in-well, we’d have a much better ideas of things, um?’
Morse nodded slowly and turned his eyes to Lewis; and Lewis, in turn, nodded his own understanding.
‘It shouldn’t take long, sir. There’s only a dozen or so houses along the towpath.’
He prepared to go. Before leaving, however, he asked one question of the surgeon. ‘Have you got the slightest idea, sir, when the body might have been put in the canal?’
‘Two, three days ago, sergeant.’
‘How the hell do you know that?’ growled Morse after Lewis had gone.
‘I don’t really. But he’s a polite fellow, your Lewis, isn’t he? Deserves a bit of help, as I see it.’
‘About two or three days, then…’
‘Not much more-and probably been dead about a day longer. His skin’s gone past the “washerwoman” effect, and that suggests he’s certainly been in the water more than twenty-four hours. And I’d guess -guess, mind! -that we’re past the “sodden” stage and almost up to the time when the skin gets blanched. Let’s say about two, two-and-a-half days.’
‘And nobody would be fool enough to dump him in during the hours of daylight, so-’
‘Yep. Sunday night- that’s about the time I’d suggest, Morse. But if I find a few live fleas on him, it’ll mean I’m talking a load of balls; they’d usually be dead after twenty-four hours in the water.’
‘He doesn’t look much like a fellow who had fleas, does he?’
‘Depends where he was before they pushed him in. For all we know, he could have been lying in the boot of a car next to a dead dog.’ He looked across and saw the Chief Inspector looking less than happily into his glass.
‘I can understand somebody chopping his head off, Max -even his hands. But why in the name of Sweeney Todd should anyone want to slice his legs?’
‘Same thing. Identification.’
‘You mean… there was something below his knees -couple of wooden legs, or something?’
‘ “Artificial prostheses”, that’s what they call ‘em now.’
‘Or he might have had no toes?’
‘Not many of that sort around…’
But Morse’s mind was far awayr the image of the gruesome corpse producing a further spasm in some section of his gut.
‘You’re right, you know, Morse!’ The surgeon happily poured himself another drink. ‘He probably wouldn’t have recognized a flea! Good cut of cloth, that suit. Pretty classy shirt, too. Sort of chap who had a very-nice-job-thank-you: good salary, pleasant conditions of work, carpet all round the office, decent pension…’ Suddenly the surgeon broke off, and seemed to arrive at one of his few firm conclusions. ‘You know what, Morse? I reckon he was probably a bank manager!’
‘Or an Oxford don,’ added Morse quietly.
CHAPTER TEN
In spite of his toothache, Morse begins his investigations with the reconstruction of a letter.
In spite of his unorthodox, intuitive, and seemingly lazy approach to the solving of crime, Morse was an extremely competent administrator; and when he sat down again at his office desk that same evening, all the procedures called for in a case of murder (and this was murder) had been, or were about to be, put into effect. Superintendent Strange, to whom Morse had reported on his return to HQ, knew his chief inspector only too well.