Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

expenditure, Michaelmas 1995 (iv) To recommend appropriate procedures for the

election of a new Master (v) AOB

Items (i)-(iii) took only three minutes, and would have taken only one, had not die Tutor for Admissions sought an explanation of why die 'Stationery etc' bill for the College Office had risen by four times die current rate of inflation. For which increase the Domestic Bursar admitted full responsibility, since instead of ordering 250 Biros he had inadvertendy ordered 250 boxes of Biros.

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This confession put the meeting into good humour, as it passed on to item (iv).

The Master briefly restated the criteria to be met by potential applicants: first, that he be not in Holy Orders; second, that he be mentally competent, and particularly so in the 'Skills of the Arithmetick' (as the original Statute had it); third, that he be free from serious bodily infirmity. On the second criterion, the Master suggested that since it was now virtually impossible (a gentle glance here at the innumerate Professor of Arabic) to fail GCSE Mathematics, there could be litde problem for anyone. As far as the third criterion was concerned however (the Master grew more solemn now) there was a sad announcement he had to make. One name previously put forward had been withdrawn - that of Dr Ridgeway, the brilliant micro-biologist from Balliol, who had developed serious heart trouble at the comparatively youthful age of forty-three.

Amid murmurs of commiseration round the table, the Master continued:

'Therefore, gendemen, we are left with two nominations only... unless we ... unless anyone ... ? No?'

No.

Well, that was pleasing, the Master declared: he had always wished his successor to be appointed from within the College. And so it would be. Voting would take place in the time-honoured way: a single sheet of paper bearing the handwritten name of the preferred candidate, with the signature of the Voting Fellow beneath it, must be delivered to the Master's Lodge before noon on the nineteenth of March, one month away.

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The Master proceeded to wish the two candidates well; and Julian Storrs and Denis Cornford, by chance seated next to each other, shook hands smilingly, like a couple of boxers before the weigh-in for a bruising fight

That was not quite all.

Under AOB, the Tutor for Admissions was moved to make his second contribution of the morning.

'Perhaps it may be possible, Master, in view of the current plethora of pens in the College Office, for the Domestic Bursar to send us each a free Biro with which we can write down our considered choices for Master?'

It was a nice touch, typical of an Oxford SCR; and when at 10.20 a.m. they left the Stamper Room and moved outside into the front quad, most of the Fellows were grinning happily.

But not the Domestic Bursar.

Nor Julian Storrs.

Nor Denis Cornford.

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CHAPTER TWELVE

The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking - and looking

(Brooks Atkinson, Once Around the Sun)

EARLIER THAT SAME morning Morse and Lewis had been sitting together drinking coffee in the canteen at Kidlington Police HQ.

'Well, that's them!' said an unwontedly ungrammat-ical Morse as he pointed to the photograph which some darkroom boy had managed to enlarge and enhance. 'Our one big clue, that; one smaUdue, anyway.'

As Lewis saw things, the enlargement appeared to have been reasonably effective as far as the clothing was concerned; yet, to be truthful, the promised 'enhancement' of the two faces, those of the murdered woman and of the man so close beside her, seemed to have blurred rather than focused any physiognomical detail.

'Well?' asked Morse.

'Worse than the original.'

'Nonsense! Look at that.' Morse pointed to the tight

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triangular knot of the man's tie, which appeared -just -above a high-necked grey sweater.

Yes. Lewis acknowledged that the colour and pattern of the tie were perhaps a little clearer.

'I think I almost recognize that tie,' continued Morse slowly. 'That deepish maroon colour. And that' (he pointed again) 'that narrow white stripe ...'

'We never had ties at school,' ventured Lewis.

But Morse was too deeply engrossed to bother about his sergeant's former school uniform, or lack of it, as with a magnifying glass he sought further to enhance (?) the texture of the small relevant area of the photograph.

'Bit o' taste there, Lewis. Little bit o' class. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the tie of the Old Wykehamists' Classical Association.'

Lewis said nothing.

And Morse looked at him almost accusingly. "You don't seem very interested in what I'm telling you.'

'Not too much, perhaps.'

'All right! Perhaps it's not a public-school tie. So what tie do you think it is?'

Again Lewis said nothing.

After a while, a semi-mollified Morse picked up the photograph, returned it to its buff-coloured Do-Not-Bend envelope, and sat back in his seat