Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

clarinet, Schubert was one of the select composers who could occasionally

transport him to the from- tier of tears.  And it was Schubert's turn in the

early evening of Wednesday, 15 July 1998, when - The Archers over a bedroom-

slippered Chief Inspector Morse was to be found in his North Oxford bachelor

flat, sitting at his ease in Zion and listening to a Lieder recital on Radio

3, an amply filled tumbler of pale Glenfiddich beside him.  And why not?  He

was on a few days' furlough that had so far proved quite unexpectedly

pleasurable.

Morse had never enrolled in the itchy-footed regiment of truly adventurous

souls, feeling (as he did) little temptation to explore the remoter corners

even of his native land; and this, principally, because he could now imagine

few if any places closer to his heart than Oxford the city which, though not

his natural mother, had for so many years performed the duties of a loving

foster-parent.  As for foreign travel, long

 faded were his boyhood dreams

that roamed the sands round Samarkand; and a lifelong pterophobia still

precluded any airline bookings to Bayreuth, Salzburg, Vienna the trio of

cities he sometimes thought he ought to see.

Vienna .  .  .

The city Schubert had so rarely left; the city in which he'd gained so little

recognition; where he'd died of typhoid fever - only thirty-one.

Not much of an innings, was it thirty-one?

Morse leaned back, listened, and looked semi-contentedly through the french

window.  In The Ballad of Heading Gaol, Oscar Wilde had spoken of that little

patch of blue that prisoners call the sky; and Morse now contemplated that

little patch of green that owners of North Oxford flats are wont to call the

garden.  Flowers had always meant something to Morse, even from his school

days Yet in truth it was more the nomenclature of the several species, and

their context in the works of the great poets, that had compelled his

imagination: fast- fading violets, the globed peonies, the fields of asphodel

.  .

Indeed Morse was fully aware of the etymology and the mythological

associations of the asphodel, although quite certainly he would never have

recognized one of its kind had it flashed across a Technicolor screen.

It was still true though: as men grew older (so Morse told himself) the

delights of the natural world grew ever more important.  Not just the

flowers, either.  What about the birds?

Morse had reached the conclusion that if he were to be reincarnated (a

prospect which seemed to him most blessedly remote) he would register as a

part-time Quaker, and devote a sizeable quota of his leisure hours to

ornithology.  This latter decision was consequent upon his realization,

however late in the day, that life would be significantly impoverished should

the birds no longer sing.  And it was for this reason that, the previous

week, he had taken out a year's subscription to Birdwatching; taken out a

copy of the RSPB's Birdwatchers'Guide

from the Summertown Library; and purchased a second-hand pair of 152/lOOOm

binoculars ( 9.  90) that he'd spotted in the window of the Oxfam Shop just

down the Banbury Road.  And to complete his programme he had called in at the

Summer- town Pet Store and taken home a small wired cylinder packed with

peanuts a cylinder now suspended from a branch overhanging his garden.  From

the branch overhanging his garden.

He reached for the binoculars now and focused on an interesting specimen

pecking away at the grass below the peanuts: a small bird, with a greyish

crown, dark-brown bars across the dingy russet of its back, and paler

underparts.  As he watched, he sought earnestly to memorize this remarkable

bird's characteristics, so as to be able to match its variegated plumage

against the appropriate illustration in the Guide.

Plenty of time for that though.

He leaned back once more and rejoiced in the radiant warmth of Schwarzkopf's

voice, following the English text that lay open on his lap: "You holy Art,

when all my hope is shaken..."

When, too, a few moments later, his mood of pleasurable melancholy was shaken

by three confident bursts on a front- door bell that to several of his

neighbours sounded consider- ably over-decibel led even for the

hard-of-hearing.

chapter Two When Napoleon's eagle eye flashed down the list of officers

proposed for promotion, he was wont to scribble in the margin against any

particular name: "Is he lucky, though?"

(Felix Kirkmarkham, The Genius of Napokon) 'not DISTURBING YOU?  "

Morse made no direct reply, but his resigned look would have been

sufficiently eloquent for most people.

Most people.

He opened the door widely perforce needed so to do in order to accommodate

his unexpected visitor within the comparatively narrow entrance.

"I am disturbing you."

"No, no!  It's just that..  ."

"Look, matey!"  (Chief Superintendent Strange cocked an ear towards the

lounge.  ) "I don't give a dam if I'm disturbing you; pity about disturbing

old Schubert, though."

For the dozenth time in their acquaintance.  Morse found himself quietly