Inspector Morse 11 The Daughters of Cain

Certainly it hadn't sounded all that extraordinary a ca when, two hours earlier, Detective Chief Inspector Phillo son had given them an hour-long briefing on the murder Dr. Felix Mc Clure, former Student--late Student--c Wolsey College, Oxford...

Bizarre and bewildering--that's what so many cases the past had proved to be; and despite Phillotson's briefi the present case would probably be no different.

In this respect, at least, Lewis was correct in his thinkin What he could not have known--what, in fact, he never r ally came to know--was what unprecedented anguish th present case would cause to Morse's soul.

Chapter Three

Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument About it and about: but evermore Came out by the same Door as in I went (EDWAID FITZGERALD, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)

Daventry Court (Phillotson had begun), comprising eig1 "luxurious apartments" built in Daventry Avenue in 198t had been difficult to sell. House prices had tumbled dufin the ever-deepening recession of the early nineties, an Mc Clure had bought in the spring of 1993 when he'd co vinced himself (rightly) that even in the continuing buyer market Flat 6 was a bit of a snip at 99,500 pounds pence Mc Clure l-fimself was almost sixty-seven years old at fi J time of his murder, knifed (as Morse would be able to see for himself) in quite horrendous fashion. The knife, according to pathological findings, was unusually broad-bladed, and at least five inches in length. Of such a weapon, however, no trace whatsoever had been found. Blood, though? Oh, yes, Blood almost everywhere. Blood on almost everything. Blood on the murderer, too? Surely so.

Blood certainly on his shoes (trainers?), with footprints-especially of the right foot---clearly traceable from the mur-der scene to the staircase, to the main entrance; but thence virtually lost, soon completely lost, on the gravelled fore-court outside. Successive scufflings by other residents had obviously obliterated all further traces of blood. Or had the murderer left by a car parked close to the main door? Or left on a bicycle chained to the nearest drainpipe? (Or taken his shoes off, Lewis thought.) But intensive search of the forecourt area had revealed nothing. No clues from the sides of the block either. No clues from the rear. No clues at all outside. (Or perhaps just the one clue, Morse had thought: the clue that there were no clues at all?)

Inside? Well, again, Morse would be able to see for him-self.

Evidence of extraneous fingerprints? Virtually none..

Hopeless. And certainly no indication that the assailant--murderer--had entered the premises through any first-floor window.

"Very rare means of ingress, Morse, as you know. Pretty certainly came in the same way as he went out."

"Reminds me a bit of Omar Khayyam," Morse had mut-tered.

But Phillotson had merely looked puzzled, his own words clearly not reminding himself of anyone. Or any-thing.

No. Entry from the main door, surely, via the Entryphone system, with Mc Clure himself admitting whomsoever (not Phillotson's word)---be it man or woman. Someone known to Mc Clure then? Most likely.

Time? Well, certainly after 8:30 n.M. on the Sunday he was murdered, since Mc Clure had purchased two newspa-pers at about 8 a.M. that morning from the newsagents in Summertown, where he was at least a well-known face if not a well-known name; and where he (like Morse, a happened) usually catered for both the coarse and the c tured sides of his nature with the News of the World The Sunday Times. No doubts here. No hypothesis requit Each of the two news-sheets was found, unbloodied, on work-top in the "all-mod-con kitchen."

After 8:30 A.M. then. But before when? Prelim/n findings--well, not so preliminary--from the patholog fn'mly suggested that Mc Clure had been dead for ab twenty hours or so before being found, at 7:45 ^.M. the f lowing morning, by his cleaning-lady.

Hypothesis here, then, for the time of the murder? [ tween 10 ^.., say, and noon the previous day. Rougk But then everything was "roughly" with these wretched l thologists, wasn't it? (And Morse had sm/led sadly, a thought of Max; and nodded slowly, for Phillotson preaching to the converted.)

One other circumstance most probably corroborating pre-noon time for the murder was the readily observable, duly observed, fact that there was no apparent sign, such the preparation of meat and vegetables, for any potent Sunday lunch in Flat 6. Not that that was conclusive in itse since it had already become clear, from sensibly orientat enquiries, that it had not been unusual for Mc Clure to w E down the Banbury Road and order a Sunday lunch--8 Steak, French Fries, Salad---only L3.99--at the King's Am washed down with a couple of pints of Best Bitter, no swe no coffee. But there had been no sign of steak or chips lettuce or anything much else when the pathologist had st open the white-skinned belly of Dr. Felix Mc Clure. No si of any lunchtime sustenance at all.