Inspector Morse 11 The Daughters of Cain

Strange waddled over to the door and stood there, offering a final piece of advice to his senior Chief Inspector: "Just let's get cracking, mate. Find that body---or get Lewis here to find it for you. And when you do--you mark my words, Morse!--you'll find that thingummy knife o' yours stuck right up his rectum."

After he was gone, Lewis looked across at a subdued and silent Morse.

"You know that 'all the bloody time,' sir? That's what they call--what the literati call--'hyperbole.'"

Morse nodded, grinning weakly.

"And he wasn't just pissed off on his holiday, was be T' "He wasn't?"

"No, sir. He was pissed on as well!"

Morse nodded again, grinning happily now, and looki at his watch.

"What about going for a Burton, Lewis?"

Chapter Fifty-three

"Jo, my poor fellow!"

"I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin-- a-gropin--let me catch hold of your hand."

"Jo, can you say what I say?"

'Tll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good."

"OUR FATHER."

"Our Father!--yes, that's wery good, sir."

(CHAr, LES DICKENS, Bleak House)

We must now briefly record several apparently dispan events which occurred between September 21 and 24.

On Wednesday, September 21, Julia Stevens was one four people who rang the JR2 to ask for the latest bulle on Kevin Costyn, who the previous day had been rrm ferred to the Intensive Care Unit. His doctors had becox increasingly concerned about a blood-clot in the brain, a a decision would very shortly be taken about possible s I ger:q. For each of the four (including Kevin's mother) t message, couched in its conventionally cautious terms, g the same: "Critical but stable."

Not very promising, Julia realised that. Considerably b ter, though, than the prognosis on her own condition.

As she lay in bed that night, she would gladly h prayed for herself, as well as for Kevin, had she managed to retain any residual faith in a personal deity. But she had not so managed. And as she lay staring up at the ceiling, knowing that she could never again look forward to any good nights, quite certainly not to any cheerful awakenings, she pondered how very much more easy such things must he for people with some comfortable belief in a future life.

And for just a little while her resolution wavered suffi-ciently for her to find herself kneeling on the Golden Floor and quietly reciting the opening lines of the Lord's Prayer.

Photographs of the three young men involved in the Eastern Ring Road accident had appeared on page 2 of The Star (September 22), a free newspaper distributed throughout Oxford each Thursday. Below these photographs, a brief ar-ticle had made no mention whatsoever of the concomitant circumstances of the "accident." But it was the dolichoce-phalic face of Kevin Costyn, appropriately positioned be-tween his dead parmer-in-crime, to the left, and his amputee partner-in-crime, to the right, that had caught the attention of one of the attendants at the Pitt Rivers Museum. In par-ticular it had been the sight of the small crucifix earring that had jerked his jaded memory into sudden overdrive.

Earlier the police had questioned all of them about whether they could remember anything unusual, or anyone unusual, on that Wednesday afternoon when Cabinet 52 had been forced. Like each of his colleagues, he'd had to admit that he couldn't.

But now he could.

Just before the museum closed, on Thursday, September 22, he walked along the passage, up the stone steps, and diffidently knocked on the door of the Administrator (cap-ital "A").

Late that same afternoon Morse asked Lewis an unusual question.

"If you had to get a wedding present, what sort of thing would you have in mind--for the bride.9"

"You don't do it that way, sir. You buy a present for boff: of them. They'll have a list, like as not--you know, dinner service, saucepans, set of knives--"

"Very funny!"

"Well, if you don't want to lash out too much you can always get her a tin-opener or an orange-squeezer."

"Not exactly much help in times of trouble, are you?"

"Ellie Smith, is it T'

"Yes." Morse hesitated. "It's just that I'd like to buy her something... for herself."

"Well, there's nothing to stop you giving her a personal present--just forget the wedding bit. Perfume, say? Scarf?.

Gloves? Jewellery, perhaps? Brooch? Pendant?"

"Yees. A nice little pendant, perhaps..."

"So long as her husband's not going to mind somebody else's present hanging round her neck all the time."

"Do people still get jealous these days, Lewis?"

"I don't think the world'lt get rid of jealousy in a hurry, sir."

"No. I suppose not," said Morse slowly. Five minutes later the phone rang. It was the Administrator.

In the Vaults Bar at The Randolph at lunchfime on Friday, September 23, Ellie Smith pushed her half-finished plate of lasagne away from her and lit a cigarette.

"Like I say, though, it's nice of him to agree, isn't it?"

"Oh, give it a rest, Ellie! Don't start talking about him again."

"You jealous or something? Ashley Davies smiled sadly. "Yeah, I suppose I am."