Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

doing himself the previous evening, he found it difficult to give much

credence to people who claimed to recall anything from a week last Wednesday

unless, of course, it was watching Coronation Street or listening to The

Archers, or some similar regularly time tabled ritual.

No, Morse seldom worked that way.

The opposite, more often than not.

With most prime suspects, if female, youngish, and even moderately

attractive.  Morse normally managed to fall in love, sometimes only for a

brief term, yet sometimes throughout Michaelmas and Hilary and Trinity.

Towards some other prime suspects, if men.  Morse occasionally appeared

surprisingly sympathetic, especially if he suspected that the quality of

their lives had hardly been enhanced by getting hitched to some potential

tart who had temporarily managed to camouflage her basic bitchiness .  .  .

Lewis had a quick look at the Mirror, drained his coffee, and looked at his

watch: 8.  25 a.  m.  Time he got moving.

As he walked out of the canteen, he (literally) bumped into the stout figure

of Sergeant Dixon "Dixon-delighting-in- doughnuts' as Homer would have dubbed

him.

"You see the thing on the Lower Swinstead thing?"  (Variety was not a feature

of Dixon's vocabulary.  )

Lewis nodded, and Dixon continued: "I was with him on that for a while.  Poor

of' Strange.  He thought he knew who done it, but he couldn't prove it, could

he?  Poor of' Strange.  Like I say, I was with him on that thing."

Lewis nodded again; then climbed the stairs, wondering how that Monday

morning would turn out knowing how Morse hated holidays; how little he

normally enjoyed the company of others; how very much he enjoyed a very

regular allotment of alcohol; how he avoided almost all forms of physical

exercise.  And knowing such things, Lewis realized that in all probability he

would fairly soon be driving Morse out to the Muzac-free pub at Thrupp where

a couple of pints of real ale would leave the Chief marginally mellower and

where a couple of orange juices would leave the chauffeur (him!  )

un excitedly unintoxicated.

59

chapter fourteen The man who says to one, go, and he goeth, and to

another, come, and he come th has, in most cases, more sense of restraint and

difficulty than the man who obeys him (John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice)

lewis knocked deferentially on Morse's door before entering.

"Welcome home, sir!  Nice break?"

No!  "

"You don't sound very ' Sh!"

So Lewis sat down obediently in the chair opposite, as his chief contemplated

the last clue: "Stiff examination (7)' A T P Y; then immediately wrote in the

answer, and consulted his wristwatch.

"Not bad, Lewis.  Ten and a half minutes.  Still it's usually a bit easier on

Mondays."

"Well done."

"Have you done it, by the way?"

"Pardon?"

"That is a copy of today's Times you've got with you?"

"They showed it to me in the canteen ' " Does Mrs Lewis know that the first

place you head for after breakfast is the canteen?  "

"Only for a coffee."

"Not a crime, I suppose."

"It's this article, sir- about the Harrison case."

"So?"

"So you're not interested?"

"No!"

"But we're supposed to be re-opening the case, sir you and me."

"You and I, Lewis.  And we are not."

"But the Super said you'd agreed."

' When am I supposed to have agreed?  "

"Last week Tuesday."

"Last week Wednesday!  He came to see me on Wednesday."

"You mean ... he hadn't seen you before he saw me?"

"You're bright as a button this morning, Lewis."

"But you must have agreed, surely?"

"In a way."

"So what's biting you?"

Morse's blue eyes flashed across the desk.

"I'd had too much Scotch, that's what!  I'd been trying to enjoy myself.  I

was on a week's furlough, remember?"

"But why start the week off in such a foul mood?"

"Why not, pray?"

"I don't know.  It's just that, you know another case for us to solve

perhaps?  Gives you a good feeling, that."

Morse nodded reluctantly.

"So why agree to it, if you've no stomach for it?"

Morse looked down at the threadbare carpet a carpet stop- ping regularly six

inches from the skirting boards.

"I'll tell you why.

Strange's carpet goes right up to the wall you've noticed that?  So if you

ever get up to Super status, which I very much doubt, you just make sure you

get a carpet that covers the whole floor and a personal parking space while

you're at it!  "

"At least you've got your name on the door."

"Remember that fellow in Holy Writ, Lewis?

"I also am a man set under authority."  I'm just like him under authority.

Strange doesn't ask me to do something: he tells me.  "

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 "You could always have said no."

"Stop sermonizing me!  That case stinks of duplicity and corruption: the

family, the locals, the police shifty and thrifty with the truth, the whole

bloody lot of them."

"You sound as if you know quite a bit about it already."

"Why shouldn't I?  About a local murder like that?  I do occasionally pick up

a few things from my fellow officers, all right?  And if you remember I was

on the case right at the beginning, if only for a very short while.  And why

was that?  Because we were on another case.  Were we not?"

Lewis nodded.