Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

"Sat'day night."

"He was with you then?"

"Yes."

"Did he often call round?"

"Quite often."

"He'd been taking his time with your building alterations?"  He drank the

rest of the only glass of champagne he'd allowed himself drank it swiftly,

like a man in a pub who knows that if he stays any longer the next round will

surely be his, and who therefore decides to depart.

"And you went to bed quite often with Barren?"

What the hell!  If this fellow just so happened to be more gentle , more

interesting, more articulate than some of her occasional partners so bloody

what!

"Yes!"  She said it defiantly.

"Pretty good in bed he was, too!"

"I'm sorry," he said slowly, 'but Mr Barren's dead.  "

"You thought I didn't know?"

"How did you know?"

"Come off it!  I wasn't born yesterday."

He got to his feet and stepped over to sit beside her.  For a while he held

her right hand lightly in his; then, with his own right hand he refastened

the top three buttons of the dress he'd specifically requested her to wear

above no underwear.

Then he left the room and she heard his voice on the

telephone: "Radio Taxis?  ... One of your drivers, as soon as you can to

Burford ... on my account, please .  .  .  Morse."

The two recently re-filled glasses of champagne the one for her, and the one

for him remained untasted on the top of the coffee-table that had been

polished so carefully before the arrival of Miss Debbie Richardson.

chapter forty-six For the clash between the Classical and the Gothic

revivals, visitors might go to the top end of Beaumont Street and compare the

Greek glory of the Ashmolean on the left with the Gothic push of the Randolph

Hotel on the right (Jan Morris, Oxford) the spires restaurant in the Randolph

Hotel is an impressively elegant affair.  A full complement of Oxford Col-

lege crests is mounted in a frieze around the room, the regal ambience of the

place relieved by the soft lighting of flambeaux on the brown-papered walls,

and by two central chandeliers, holding similar flambeaux, that hang from the

high-beamed ceiling.  Twenty or so tables are spaciously arranged there,

cross draped with maroon tablecloths, and laid with gleaming silver- ware,

sparkling wine glasses, and linen serviettes of a pale-ochre colour.  The

chairs, of uniform style, are upholstered in a material of bottle-green; and

the colour combination of the room in toto has appealed to many (if not to

all) as an unusually happy one.  Two large windows on the room's northern

side overlook Beaumont Street, with the Ashmolean Museum and the Taylorian

Institute just across the way; whilst those seated beside three equally large

windows on the eastern side look out on to the Martyrs' Memorial, with St

John's and Balliol Colleges beyond it, sharing with their fellow diners a

vista of St Giles', the widest street in Oxford and visually one of the most

attractive avenues in England.

At 7.  15 that same evening, a man in the company of a much younger woman

appeared to have eschewed either of these splendid views, for they had chosen

a table (set for three) on the restaurant's west and windowless side, and now

sat with their backs partly turned on the sprinkling of other early diners

like people who had no real objections to being seen, perhaps, but equally

had no wish to draw attention to themselves.

At 7.  25 p.  m.  " the man was again consulting his wristwatch when a

black-tied waiter asked if they would like a further drink while they waited.

Though expensive, the cocktail they had each been drinking was, in the young

woman's judgement, 'absolutely yummy' - Cognac, Kummel, Fraise Liqueur,

topped with chilled champagne - and she nodded.

Might just as well be happy about something.

"Same again," said Frank Harrison.

"Ailish cocktails."  And when the waiter was gone: "Where the hell's he got

to?  I've not got all bloody evening."

"You've got to get back tonight.  Dad?"

"That's got nothing to do with it.  Seven-fifteen is seven- fifteen!"

"His hearing's not getting any better, you know.  He probably thought you

said seven-fifty."

"Who's ever ordered a dinner for seven-fifty, for Christ's sake?"

For the moment Sarah said nothing further, looking around her and enjoying

the regal dignity of the restaurant.  And in truth her father's tetchy

impatience with Simon was not wholly displeasing to her.  There had ever been

a closer bond between herself and her father than with her mother; and, in

turn, a very much closer bond between Simon and his mother than with his

father.  But such things were not spoken of freely in families; and it was

better that way.  Quite why she had always felt possessive about her father,

she could not explain well

 even to herself.  But she remembered clearly

when she'd first been conscious of it: when she had crept silently downstairs

late one night with a party in full swing below; and when, unseen herself,

she'd watched her father kissing a young woman in the kitchen.  She had cried

herself to sleep that night.  Only six, she'd been, but she could have