Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

THE SENIOR COMMON Room at Lonsdale is comparatively small, and for this reason has a rather more intimate air about it than some of the spacious SCRs in the larger Oxford Colleges. Light-coloured, beautifully grained oak-panelling encloses the room on all sides, its colouring complemented by the light-brown leather sofas and armchairs there. Copies of almost all the national dailies, including the Sun and the Mirror, are to be found on the glass-topped coffee-tables; and indeed it is usually these tabloids which are flipped through first - sometimes intently studied - by the majority of the dons.

Forgathered here on the evening of Friday, 23 February (7.00 for 7.30) was a rather overcrowded throng of dons, accompanied by wives, partners, friends, to enjoy a Guest Night - an occasion celebrated by the College four times per term. A white-coated scout stood by the door with a silver tray holding thinly fluted glasses of sherry: either the pale-amber 'dry' variety or the darker brown 'medium', for it was a basic assumption in such a setting

that no one could ever wish for the deeply umbered 'sweet'.

A begowned Jasper Bradley took a glass of dry, drained it at a swallow, put the glass back on to the tray, and took another. He was particularly pleased with himself that day; and with the Classical Quarterly, whose review of Greek Moods and Tenses (J. J. Bradley, 204 pp, £45.50, Classical Press) contained the wonderful lines which Bradley had now by heart:

A small volume, but one which plumbs the unfathomed mysteries of the aorist subjunctive with imaginative insights into the very origins of language.

Yes. He felt decidedly chuffed.

'How's tricks?' he asked, looking up at Donald Franks, a very tall astrophysicist, recendy head-hunted from Cambridge, whose dark, lugubrious features suggested that for his part he'd managed few imaginative insights that week into the origins of the universe.

'So-so.'

'Who d'you fancy then?'

'What - of the women here?'

'For the Master's job.'

'Dunno.'

'Who'll you vote for?'

'Secret ballot, innit?'

Mr and Mrs Denis Cornford now came in, each taking a glass of die medium sherry. Shelly looked extremely attractive and perhaps a little skimpily dressed for such a chilly evening. She wore a lightweight white two-piece

suit; and as she bent down to pick up a cheese-nibble her low-cut, bottle-green blouse gaped open to reveal a splendid glimpse of her beautiful breasts.

'Je-sus!'muttered Bradley.

'She certainly flouts her tits a bit,' mumbled the melancholy Franks.

You mean "flaunts" 'em, I think.'

'If you say so,' said Franks, slightly wounded.

Bradley moved to die far end of the room where Angela Storrs stood talking to a small priest, clothed all in black, with buckled shoes and leggings.

'Ah, Jasper! Come and meet Father Dooley from Sligo.'

Clearly Angela Storrs had decided she had now done her duty; for soon she drifted away - tall, long-legged, wearing a dark-grey trouser-suit with a white high-necked jumper. There was about her an almost patrician mien, her face high-cheekboned and pale, with the hair swept back above her ears and fastened in a bun behind. It was obvious to all that she had been a very attractive woman. But she was aging a litde too quickly perhaps; and the fact that over the last two or three years she had almost invariably worn trousers did litde to discourage the belief that her legs had succumbed to an unsighdy cordage of varicose veins. If she were on sale in an Arab wife-market (in die cruel words of one of die younger dons) she would have passed her best-before date several years earlier.

'I knew die Master many years ago - and his poor wife. Yes ... diat was long ago,' mused die litde priest

Bradley was ready with the appropriate response of scholarly compassion.

'Times change, yes. Tempora mutantur: et nos mutamur inittis.'

'I think,' said the priest, 'that the line should read: Tempora mutantur: nos et mutamur in Mis. Otherwise the hexameter won't scan, will it?'

'Of course it won't, sorry.'

The scout now politely requested dons - wives - partners - guests - to proceed to the Hall. And Jasper Bradley, eminent authority on the aorist subjunctive in Classical Greek, walked out of the SCR more than slightly wounded.

Sir Clixby Bream brought up the rear as the room emptied, and lighdy touched the bottom of Angela Storrs standing just in front of him.

Sotto voce he lied into her ear: "You're looking ravishing tonight. And I'll tell you something else - I'd far rather be in bed with you now than face another bloody Guest Night'

'So would I!' she lied, in a whisper. 'And I've got a big favour to ask of you, too.'

'We'll have a word about it after the port.'

'Before the port, Clixby! You're usually blotto after it'

Sir Clixby banged his gavel, mumbled Benedictus benedicat, and die assembled company seated themselves, the table-