Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

Morse nodded. 'But perhaps it does add up a bit,' he added quietly. 'If he wants the top job badly enough -and if she reminded him she could go and queer his pitch..."

'Kiss-and-tell sort of thing?'

'Kiss-and-wot-tell, if the price was right.'

'Blackmail?' suggested Lewis.

'She'd have letters.'

'The postcard.'

'Photographs.' '

' One photograph.'

'Hotel records. Somebody would use a credit card, and it wouldn't be her.'

'He'd probably pay by cash.'

You're not trying to help me by any chance, are you, Lewis?'

'All I'm trying to do is be honest about what we've got - which isn't much. I agree with you, though: it wouldn't have been her money. Not exactly rolling in it, that's for sure. Must have been a biggish lay-out - setting up the practice, equipment, rent, and everything. And she'd got a mortgage on her own place, and a car to run.'

Yes, a car. Morse, who never took the slightest interest

in any car except his own, visualized again the -white Mini which had been parked outside Number 17.

'Perhaps you ought to look a bit more carefully at that car, Lewis.'

'Already have. Log-book in the glove-compartment, road atlas under the passenger seat, fire-extinguisher under the back seat-'

'No drugs or pornography in the boot?'

'No. Just a wheel-brace and a Labour Party poster.'

Lewis looked at his watch: 8.35 p.m. It had been a long day, and he felt very tired. And so, by the look of him, did his chief. He got to his feet

'Oh, and two cassettes: Ella Fitzgerald and a Mozart thing.'

'Thing?

'Clarinet thing, yes.'

'Concerto or Quintet, was it?'

Blessedly, before Lewis could answer (for he had no answer), the phone rang.

Chief Superintendent Strange.

'Morse? In your office? I almost rang the Red Lion.'

'How can I help, sir?' asked Morse wearily.

'TV - that's how you can help. BBC want you for the Nine O'clock News and ITV for News at Ten. One of the crews is here now.'

'I've already told 'em all we know."

'Well, you'd better think of something else, hadn't you? This isn't just a murder, Morse. This is a PR exercise.'

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Thursday, 22 February

For example, in such enumerations as Trench, German, Italian and Spanish', the two commas take the place of 'ands'; there is no comma after 'Italian', because, with 'and', it would be otiose. There are, however, some who favour putting one there, arguing that, since it may sometimes be needed to avoid any ambiguity, it may as well be used always for the sake of uniformity

(Fowler, Modern English Usage)

JUST AFTER LUNCHTIME on Thursday, Morse found himself once again wandering aimlessly around Number 17 Bloxham Drive, a vague, niggling instinct suggesting to him that earlier he'd missed something of importance there.

But he was beginning to doubt it.

In the (now-cleared) kitchen, he switched on the wireless, finding it attuned to Radio 4. Had it been on when the police had first arrived? Had she been listening to the Today programme when just for a second, perhaps, she'd looked down at die gush of blood that had spurted over the front of her night-clothes?

So what if she had been? - Morse asked himself, conscious that he was getting nowhere.

In the front living-room, he looked again along the single shelf of paperbacks. Women novelists, mostly; Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper, Danielle Steel, Sue Town-send ... He read four or five of the authors' opening sentences, without once being instantly hooked, and was about to leave when he noticed Craig Raine's A Choice of Kipling's Prose - its white spine completely uncreased, as if it had been a very recent purchase. Or a gift? Morse withdrew the book and flicked through some of the short stories that once had meant - still meant - so very much to him. 'They' was diere, although Morse confessed to himself that he had never really understood its meaning. But genius? Christ, ah! And 'On Greenhow Hill'; and 'Love-o'-Women' - the latter (Morse was adamant about it) the greatest short story in the English language. He looked at the title page: no words to anyone; from anyone. Then, remembering a book he'd once received from a lovely, lost girl, he turned to the inside of the back cover: and there, in the bottom right-hand corner, he saw the pencilled capitals: FOR R FROM j - RML.

'Remember My Love."

It could have been anyone though - so many names beginning with 'J': Jack, James, Jason, Jasper, Jeremy, John, Joseph, Julian ...

So what?

Anyway, these days, Morse, it could have been a woman, could it not?