Inspector Morse 11 The Daughters of Cain

Brenda had almost been smiling to herself that evening, when on the pretext of getting another pint of milk from the comer-shop she'd given Mrs. S a quick ring from the nearby BT kiosk, just before nine o'clock.

But what... what about those other two things7 She was a good ten minutes early; and in leisurely, but tremulous, fashion, she crossed the Broad and walked up St. Giles's; past Balliol College; past St. John's College; past the Lamb and Flag; and then, waiting for the traffic lights just before Keble Road, she'd quickly checked (yet again) that the letter was there in her handbag.

For a few moments this letter almost assumed as much importance as that second thing--the event which had caught her up in such distress, such fear, since the previous Sunday, when her husband had returned home, the stains on the lower front of his shirt and the top of his grey flannel trousers almost adequately concealed by a beige sum cardigan (new from M&S); but only by the back of cardigan, since the front of it was saturated with m blood. And it was only later that she'd noticed the sole his trainers....

Opposite her, the Green Man flashed, and the ble bleeped; and Mrs. Brenda Brooks walked quickly ove J the Old Parsonage Hotel, at Number 1, Banbury Road, Chapter Twenty When you live next to the. cemetery, you cannot weep everyone (Russian proverb'.

The Old Parsonage Hotel, dating back to 1660, and sitm between Keble College to the east and Somerville Coll to the west, stands just north of the point where the bt plane4ree'd avenue of St. Giles's forks into the Woodst Road to the left and the Banbury Road to the right. C, pletely refurbished a few years since, and now incorp ting such splendid twentieth-century features as en st centrally heated bedrooms, the stone-built hotel has so to preserve the intimacy and charm of former times. With success, in Julia Stevens's judgement.

In the judgement, too, of Brenda Brooks, as she set herself in a wall-settee, in front of a small, highly polis mahogany table in the Parsonage Bar, lushly carpeter avocado green with a tiny pink-and-peach motif.

"Lordy me!" Brenda managed to say in her soft Oxford-shire burr, gently shaking her tightly curled grey hair.

Whether, etymologically speaking, such an expression of obvious approval was a confiation of "Lord" and "Lumme," Julia could not know. But she was gratified with the reaction, and watched as Brenda's eyes surveyed the walls around her, the lower half painted in gentle gardenia; the upper half in pale magnolia, almost totally covered with paintings, prints, cartoons.

"Lordy me!" repeated Brenda in a hushed voice, her vo-cabulary clearly inadequate to elaborate upon her earlier ex-pression of delight.

"What would you like to drink?"

"Oh, coffee, please--that'll be fine."

"No it won't. I insist on something stronger than coffee. Please!"

Minutes later, as they sipped their gins and slimline ton-ics, they read through the menu: Julia with the conviction that this was an imaginative selection of goodies; Brenda with more than a little puzzlement, since many of the im-ported words therein---Bagel, Couscous, Hummus, Lin-guini, Mozzarella--had never figured in her own cuisine.

Indeed, the sight of such exotic fare might well, a decade or so back, have prompted within her a stab of some sym-pathy with a husband constantly complaining about baked beans, about sardines, about spaghetti....

In the past, yes. But no longer.

"What's it to be, then.'?"

Brenda shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I just can't eat anything. I'm all--I'm all full up, Mrs. Stevens, if you know what I mean."

Julia was too sensible to argue; and in any case she un-derstood only too well, for she'd experienced exactly the same the day before when she'd sat on a bar-stool there, alone, feeling... well, feeling "all full up," as Brenda had so economically phrased it.

Half an hour later, as she was finishing her Poached Salmon with Lemon Butter, Salad, and New Potatoes, Julia Stevens had been put in the (latest) picture about Ted Brooks. She'd known ail about the verbai abuse which led to a broken heart; and now she learned of the phys abuse which had led to a broken hand.

"i'm so wicked--did you know that? You know wh, wished" (she whispered closely in Julia's ear) "I wis him dead! Can you believe that7"

Most people in your position would have murdered you dear old thing, said Julia, but only to herself. And denly the raiization that such a viciously cruel man sh have mined the life of such a sweet and lovable wo made her so very angry. Yet, at the same time, so much in control.

Was it perhaps that the simultaneous keeping of her secret with the hearing of anotherwas an unsuspec source of strength? But Julia had no opportunity of pm ing this interesting line of thought, for Brenda now ope her handbag and passed over the ltter she'd received previous Tuesday--not through the post, but pushed hand through her letter-box.

"Just read it, please! No need to say anything."