Inspector Morse 11 The Daughters of Cain

"Lewis!" Morse's voice was vicious. "I appreciate your concern for my health. But never again---never!--lecture me about what I drink. Or if I drink. Or when I drink. that--clear?"

In a flush of anger, Lewis rose to his feet. 'Tll be getting back--"

"Siddown!"

Morse took out a cigarette, and then looked up at the still-standing Lewis. "You don't think I ought to smoke, ei-ther?"

"It's your life, sir. If you're determined to dig yourself an early grave..."

"I don't want to die, not just yet," said Morse quietly.

And suddenly, as if by some strange alchemy, Lewis felt his anger evaporating; and, as bidden, he sat down.

Morse put the cigarette back in its packet. "I'm sorry--sorry I got so cross. Forgive me. It's just that I've always valued my independence so much--too much, perhaps. I just don't like being told what to do, all right?"

"All right."

"Well, talk to me. Tell me what you thought about Brooks."

"No, sir. You're the thinker--that's why you get a bigger pay-packet than me. You tell me."

"Well, I think exacdy the same as I did before. After young Rodway's suicide, Mc Clure found out about the availability of drags on the staircase there---cannabis, am-phetamines, cocaine, crack, ecstasy, LSD, heroin, what-ever--and he also found out that it was Brooks who was supplying them, and making a pretty penny for himself in the process. Then, at some point, Mc Clure told Brooks he'd got two options: either he packed up his job as a scout and left; or else he'd be reported to the University authorities--and probably the police--and faced with criminal proceedings.

So Brooks had just about enough nous to read the writing on the wall: he resigned, and got another job, with a reluctant Mc Clure providing a luke-warm testimonial to the Pitt Rivers Museum. But there were too many links with his former clients--and not just on the old staircase; and he kept up his lucrative little sideline after he'd left Wolsey--until Mc Clure somehow got wind of the situation--and confronted him--and told him that this time it wasn't just an empty threat. I suspect Brooks must have had some sort of hold on Mc Clure, I don't know. But Brooks said he was ready to step into line, and do what-ever Mc Clure wanted. And he arranged a meeting with Mc Clure--at Mc Clure's place in Daventry Court, a week ago today. That's the way I see it."

"So you don't believe a word of his alibi?"

"No. And it isn't his alibi at all--it's hers. Mrs. Brooks's alibi for him."

"And you think he biked up to see Mc Clure T'

"He biked, yes. Whether he'd already decided to murder Mc Clure then, I don't know. But he took a murder weapon with him, a knife from his wife's kitchen drawer; and I've not the slightest doubt he took as many precautions as he could to keep himself from being recognised--probably wrapped a scarf round his face as if he'd got the toothache.

And with his cycling helmet "

"You're making it all up, sir."

Morse wiped his brow once more. "Of course I am! In a case like this you've got to put up some... some scaf folding.

You've got to sort of take a few leaps in the dark, Lewis. You've got to hypothesise "

"Hypothesise about the knife then, sir."

"He threw it in the canal."

"So we're not going to fred it?"

'Tm sure we're not. We'd have found it by now."

"Unless, as I say, he took it home with him--and Washed it up and wiped it dry and then put it back in the kitchen drawer."

"Yees."

"Probably he did mean to throw it in the canal, or some-where.

But something could have stopped him, couldn't it?"

"Such as T'

"Such as a heart attack," suggested Lewis gently.

Morse nodded. "If he suddenly realised he hadn't got any time to... if he suddenly felt a terrible pain..."

"'T'rific,' that's what he said."

"Mm."

"What about the bike, though? He must have ridden it up to Daventry Court, mustn't he? So if he'd felt the pain starting, you'd have thought he'd get back home as fast as he could."

Morse shook his head. "It doesn't add up, does it? He must have ditched his bike somewhere on the way back."

"Where, though?"

Morse pondered the problem awhile. Then, remembering Brooks's contempt for anyone taking the trouble to report a bicycle-theft in Oxford, he suddenly saw that it had ceased to be a problem at all.

"Do you know a poem called 'Five Ways to Kill a Man'?"

"No."

Wearily Morse rose to his feet, fetched an anthology of modem verse from his shelves, looked up Brock in the in-dex, turned to the poem--and read the last stanza aloud.

But Lewis, though not unaccustomed to heating Morse make some apposite quotation from the poets between draughts of real ale, could see no possible connexion in logic here.

"I'm not with you."

Morse looked down at the stanza again; then slowly re-cited his own parody of the lines: "There are several cumbersome ways of losing a bike---like pushing it in the canal. Neater and simpler, though, is to take it somewhere like Commarket in Oxford--and just leave it them."

"You ought to have a been a poet, sir."

"I am a poet, Lewis."