Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

Educated (if that be the word) in a run-down comprehensive school, he had avoided the three Bs peculiar to many public-school establishments: beating, bullying, and buggery. Instead, he had left school at the age of sixteen with a delight in a different triad: betting, boozing, and bonking - strictly in that order. And to fund such expensive hobbies he had come to rely on one source of income, one line of business only: burglary.

He now lived with his long-suffering, faithful, strangely influential, common-law wife in a council house on the Cutteslowe Estate that was crowded with crates of lager

and vodka and gin, with all the latest computer games, and with row upon row of tasteless seaside souvenirs. And home, after two years in jail, was where he wanted to stay.

No! JJ didn't want to go back inside. And that's why Morse's call had worried him so. So much, indeed, that he had turned the video to 'Pause' even as the eager young stud was slipping between the sheets.

What did Morse want?

'Hello, Malcolm!'

Johnson had been 'Malcolm' until the age of ten, when the wayward, ill-disciplined young lad had drunk from a bottle of Jeyes Fluid under the misapprehension that the lavatory cleaner was lemonade. Two stomach-pumpings and a week in hospital later, he had emerged to face the world once more; but now with the sobriquet 'Jeyes' - an embarrassment which he sought to deflect, five years on, by the rather subtle expedient of having the legend 'JJ - all the Js' tattooed longitudinally on each of his lower arms.

Morse drained his glass and pushed it over the table.

'Coke, is it, Mr Morse?'

'Bit early for the hard stuff, Malcolm.'

'Half a pint, was it?'

'Just tell the landlord "same again".'

A Brakspear it was - and a still mineral water for JJ.

'One or two of those gormless idiots you call your pals seem anxious to upset the police,' began Morse.

'Look. I didn't 'ave nothin' to do with that - 'onest!

You know me.' Looking deeply unhappy, JJ dragged deeply on a king-sized cigarette.

'I'm not really interested in that I'm interested in your doing me a favour.'

JJ visibly relaxed, becoming almost his regular, perky self once more. He leaned over the table, and spoke quietly:

Til tell you what I got a red-'ot video on up at the country mansion, if you, er...'

'Not this morning,' said Morse reluctantly, conscious of a considerable sacrifice. And it was now his turn to lean over the table and speak the quiet words:

'I want you to break into a property for me.'

'Ah!'

The balance of power had shifted, and JJ grinned broadly to reveal two rows of irregular and blackened teeth. He pushed his empty glass across the table.

'Double vodka and lime for me, Mr Morse. I suddenly feel a bit thirsty, like.'

For the next few minutes Morse explained the mission; and JJ listened carefully, nodding occasionally, and once making a pencilled note of an address on the back of a pink betting-slip.

'OK,' he said finally, 'so long as you promise, you know, to see me OK if..."

'I can't promise anything.'

'But you will?'

'Yes.'

'OK, then. Gimme a chance to do a bit o' recce, OK?

Then gimme another buzz on the ol' blower, like, OK? When had you got in mind?'

'I'm not quite sure.'

'OK-that's it then.'

Morse drained his glass and stood up, wondering whether communication in the English language could ever again cope without the word 'OK'.

'Before you go ...' JJ looked down at his empty glass.

'Mineral water, was it?' asked Morse.

'Just tell the landlord "same again".'

Almost contented with life once more, JJ sat back and relaxed after Morse had gone. Huh! Just the one bleedin' door, by the sound of it. Easy. Piece o' cake!

Morse, too, was pleased with the way the morning had gone. Johnson, as the police were well aware, was one of the finest locksmen in the Midlands. As a teenager he'd held the reputation of being the quickest car-thief in the county. But his incredible skills had only really begun to burgeon in the eighties, when all manner of house-locks, burglar-alarms, and safety-devices had surrendered meekly to his unparalleled knowledge of locks and keys and electrical circuits.

In fact 'JJ' Johnson knew almost as much about burglary as J. J. Bradley knew about the aorist subjunctive.

Perhaps more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier (Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara)

IN FACT, MORSE'S campaign was destined to be launched that very day.

Lewis had called back at HQ at 2 p.m. with a slim folder of photocopied documents - in which Morse seemed little interested; and with the news that Geoffrey Owens had left his home the previous evening to attend a weekend conference on Personnel Management, in Bournemouth, not in all likelihood to be back until late p.m. the following day, Sunday. In this latter news Morse seemed more interested.

'Well done, Lewis! But you've done quite enough for one day. You look weary and I want you to go home. Nobody can keep up the hours you've been setting yourself.'