Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

bought two large boxes of Alka-Seltzer (sixty tablets in all) and two packets

of extra-strength BiSoDoL (sixty tablets in all), reckoning that such

additional medicaments might keep him comparatively fit for a further

fortnight.  But in truth his acid-indigestion and heartburn were getting even

worse.  All right, it was a family affliction; but it gave little comfort to

know that father and paternal grandfather had both endured agonies from

hiatus hernia a condition not desperately serious perhaps, but certainly far

more painful than it sounded.  The cure so simple!  had been repeatedly

advocated by his GP: "Just pack up the booze!"  And indeed Morse had

occasionally followed such advice for a couple of days or so; only to assume,

upon the temporary disappearance of the symptoms, that a permanent cure had

been effected; and that a resumption of his erstwhile modus vi vendi was

thenceforth justified.

He would try again soon.

Not today, though.

He walked down South Parade to the Woodstock Road, turned right, and soon

found himself at the Woodstock Arms, where the landlord rightly prided

himself on a particularly fine pint of Morrell's Bitter of which Morse took

liberal advantage that early Saturday lunchtime.  The printed menu and the

chalked-up specials on the board were strong temptations to many a man.  But

not to Morse.  These past two decades he had almost invariably taken his

lunchtime calories in liquid form; and he did so now.  Most of the habitues

he knew by sight, if not by name; but after a few perfunctory nods he settled

himself in a corner of the wall-seating, and thought of many things .  .  .

Instinctively (or so he told himself) he'd known that Harry Repp was doomed

to die from the moment he'd left Bulling- don.  Harry had known too much.

Harry had been a bit-player - a bit more than a bit-player in the drama that

had been enacted on the evening Yvonne Harrison was murdered.  But Harry had

decided to remain silent.  And the reason for such silence was probably the

reason for many a silence money.

Someone had ensured that Harry's discreet silence had been profitably

rewarded.  On his release Harry had probably decided that the goose could

soon be persuaded to change the golden eggs from medium to large.  But he'd

miscalculated: something had happened probably there'd been some

communication during the last few weeks of his imprisonment that had cast a

cloud of fear over his impending release; justifiable fear, since he now lay

stiff and cold amidst the trash and the filth of Sutton Courtenay.

It seemed a predictable outcome though far from an in- evitable one, and

Morse felt no real cause for any self- recrimination.  Lewis would go along

there was probably there already; would join the SO COs and supervise the

necessary procedures; would draw a few tentative, temporary 123

conclusions; would report to Strange; and all in all would probably do as

good a job as any other member of the Thames Valley CID in seeking the motive

for Repp's murder.

He ordered himself a third pint, conscious that the world seemed a

considerably kindlier place than heretofore.  He even found himself listening

to the topics of conversation around him: darts, bar-billiards, Aunt Sally,

push-penny .  .  and perhaps (he thought) his own life might have been

marginally enriched by such innocent divertissements.

Perhaps not, though.

Leaving the Woodstock Arms, he slowly walked the few hundred yards north to

Squitchey Lane, where he turned right towards his bachelor flat.

No messages on the Ansafone; no letters or notes pushed through the

letter-box.  A free afternoon!  - for which, in his believing days, he would

have given thanks to the Almighty.  His dark-blue Oxford University diary was

beside the phone, and he looked through the following week's engagements.

Not much there either, really: just that diabetes review at the Radcliffe

Infirmary at 9 a.  m.  on Monday morning.  Only an hour or so that; but the

imminent appointment disturbed him slightly.  He had promised his consultant,

and promised him- self, that he would present a faithful record of his

blood-sugar measurements over the previous fortnight.  But he had failed to

do so, and there was little he could now do to remedy the situation except to

take half a dozen such measurements in the remaining interval of thirty-six

hours and to extrapolate backwards therefrom, in order to present a neatly

tabulated series of satisfactory readings.  He'd done it before and he would

do it again.

Kem Problem.

He half-filled a tumbler with Glenfiddich, then topped it up with

commensurate tap-water.  Such dilution (a recent innovation) would, as Morse

knew, mark him out in the eyes of many

a Scot as a sacrilegious Sassenach.  But according to his GP, the liver

preferred things that way; and Morse's liver (according to the same source)

was in need of a bit of tender loving care, along with his heart, kidneys,

stomach, pancreas, lungs.

Lungs.  Well, at least he'd finally managed to pack up smoking, a filthy