Inspector Morse 11 The Daughters of Cain

As they walked down the stairs, Lewis pointed to a door marked with a little floral plaque: "Susan's Pantry."

"That where you keep all your things, madam? She nodded. "Every scout has a pantry."

"Can we take a look inside?"

She unlocked the door and led the way into a fairly small, high-ceilinged room, cluttered--yet so neatly cluttered--with buckets, mops, bin-linem, black plastic bags, transparent polythene bags, light bulbs, toilet rolls, towels, sheets, two Hoovers. And inside the white-painted cupboards rows of cleaners and detergents: Jif, Flash, Ajax, Windolene... And everything so clean---so meticulously, antiseptically clean.

Morse had little doubt that Susan Ewers was the sort of housewife to polish her bath-taps daily; the sort to feel grieved at finding a stray trace of toothpaste in the wash-basin. If cleanliness were to next to saintliness, then this lady was probably on the verge of beatification.

So what?

Apart from mentally extending his lively sympathies to Mr. Ewers, Morse was aware that his thought-processes were hardly operating vivamente that morning; and he stood in the slightly claustrophobic pantry, feeling somewh, feckless.

It was Lewis who, as so frequently, was the catalyst. "What's your husband do, Mrs. Ewers?"

"He's--well, at the minute he's unemployed, actually. did work at the old RAC offices in Summertown, but th made him redundant."

"When was that?"

"Last year."

"when exactly?" (If Morse could ask such question -' why not Lewis?)

"Last, er, August."

"Good thing you getting the job then. Help fide thin, over a bit, like."

Lewis smiled sympathetically. And Morse smiled gratefully. Bless you, Lewis--bless you!

Gestalt--that's what the Germans call it. That flash of ur fled perception, that synoptic totality which is more th the sum of the parts into which it may be logicall analysable; pans, in this case, like drugs and scouts and suicide and a murder and a staircase and changing jobs u not having a job and retirement and money and times m dates... Yes, especially times and dates...

Most probably, in the circumstances, Matthew Rodway rooms would not have been re-occupied for the few r. maining weeks at the end of Trinity Term the previo year; and if (as now) only some of the rooms were in u during the Long Vac, it might well be that Mrs. Ewers h: been the very first person to look closely around the st cide's chambers. But no; that was wrong. Mc Clure had a ready gone through things, hadn't he*. Mrs. Rodway hi asked him to. But would he have been half as thorough. this newly appointed woman'?.

He'd questioned her on the point already, he knew thl But he hadn't asked the right questions, perhaps*. Not qui "Just going back a minute, Mrs. Ewers... When yt got Mr. Rodway's old rooms ready for the beginning of ti Michaelmas term, had anyone else been in there--during the summer?"

"I don't think so, no."

"But you still didn't find anything?"

"No, like I just said "

"Oh, I believe you. If there'd been anything to find, you'd have found it."

She looked relieved.

"In his rooms, that is," added Morse slowly. "Pardon?"

"All I'm saying is that you've got a very tidy mind, haven't you? Let's put it this way. I bet I know the i'trst thing you did when you took over here. I bet you gave this room the best spring-clean best auturnn-clean--it's ever had--last September--when you moved in--and the previous scout moved out."

Susan Ewers looked puzzled. "Well, I scrubbed and cleaned the place from top to bottom, yes--filthy, it was. Two whole days it took me. But I never found anything--any drugs honest to God, I didn't!"

Morse, who had been seated on the only chair the room could offer, got to his feet, moved over to the door, and put his penultimate question: "Do you have a mortgage?"

"Yes."

"Big one?"

She nodded miserably.

As they stood there, the three of them, outside Sus's Pantry, Morse's eyes glanced back at the door, now closed again, fitting flush enough with the jambs on either side, but with a two-centimetre gap of parallel regularity showing between the bottom of the turquoise-blue door and the linoed floor of the landing.

Morse asked his last question simply and quietly: "When did the envelopes first start coming, Susan?"

And Susan's eyes jumped up to his, suddenly flashing the unmistakable sign of fear.

Chapter Seventeen

Examination: trial; test of knowledge and, as also may be hoped, capacity; close inspection (especially med.)

(Srnall Enlarged English Dictionary, 1812 Edition)

On Friday, September 2, two days after Julia Stevens's re-mm to Oxford, there were already three items of impor tance on her day's agenda.

First, school.

Not as yet the dreaded restart (three whole days away, praise be!) but a visit to the Secretary's Office to look through the GCSE and A-level results, both lists having been published during her formight's absence abroad. Like every self-respecting teacher, she wanted to discover the relative success of the pupils she herself had taught.