The Secret of Annexe 3

Downstairs once more, Lewis collected up the pile of documents he'd already selected from the mass of letters and bills that appeared to have been stuffed haphazardly into the two drawers of the corner cabinet in the lounge - water, electricity, mortgage, HP, bank statements, car insurance. Morse, for his part, sat down in one of the two armchairs and lit a cigarette.

'They kept their accounts and things in one hell of a mess, sir!'

Morse nodded. 'Mm!'

'Looks almost as if someone has been looking through all this stuff pretty recently.'

Morse shot up in the armchair as if a silken-smooth car driver had suddenly, without warning, decided to practise an emergency stop. 'Lewis! You're a genius, my son! The paper! There's a pile of newspapers in the kitchen, and I glanced at them while you were in here. Do you know something? ‘I think today's copy's there?

Lewis felt the blood tingling in his own veins as he followed Morse into the kitchen once more, where beneath a copy of the previous week's Oxford Times was the Sun, dated January 6th.

'She must have been here some time today, sir.'

Morse nodded. ‘I think she came back here after we saw her this morning. She must have picked up the paper automatically from the doormat—'

'But surely somebody would have seen her?'

'Go and see if you can find out, Lewis.'

Two minutes later, whilst Morse had progressed no further than page three of the Bowmans' daily, Lewis came back: the woman still peeping at events from the window immediately opposite had seen Margaret Bowman get out of a taxi.

'A tea?'

'That's what she said - and go into the house, about half-past one.'

'When we were on the way back to Oxford.. 'I wonder what she wanted, sir?'

'She probably wanted her building society book or something

get a bit of ready cash. I should think that's why those drawers are in such a mess.'

'We can check easily enough - at the building societies.'

'Like the beauty clinics, you mean?' Morse smiled. 'No! Let Phillips and his lads do that - tedious business, Lewis! I'm really more interested to know why she came in a taxi.'

'Shall we get Sergeant Phillips to check on the taxis, too?' grinned Lewis, as for the present the two men left 6 Charlbury Drive. The house had been icily cold, and they were glad to get away.

Margaret Bowman's Metro was located, parking ticket and all, in St Giles' at 4.45 p.m. that same day, and the news was immediately rung through to Kidlington. But a folding umbrella, a can of de-icing spray, and eight 'Scrabble' tokens from Esso garages did not appear to Morse to be of the slightest help in the murder inquiry.

It was not until ten thirty the following morning that Sergeant Vickers rang Kidlington from St Aldates with the quite extraordinary news that Margaret Bowman's handbag had been found. Morse himself, Vickers learnt (not without a steady sinking of his heart), would be coming down immediately to view the prize exhibit.

Chapter Thirty-three

Tuesday, 7th January: a.m.

JACK (gravely): In a handbag.

LADY BRACKNELL: A handbag?

(OSCAR WILDE)

'Whaa—?'

Morse's inarticulate utterance sounded like the death agonies of a wounded banshee, and Lewis felt his sympathy going out to whichever of the officers in St Aldates had been responsible the previous day for the Lost Property inventory. 'We get a whole lot of lost property in every day, sir—’ '— and not all of it' (Morse completed the sentence with withering scorn) 'I would humbly suggest, Sergeant, a prime item of evidence in a murder inquiry - and if I may say so, not an inquiry of which this particular station is wholly ignorant. In feet, only yesterday afternoon your colleague Sergeant Phillips and two of your own detective constables were specifically seconded from their duties here to assist in that very inquiry. Remember? And do you know who asked for them - me! And do you know why I'm so anxious to show some interest in this inquiry? Because this bloody station asked me to!' Palely, Sergeant Vickers nodded, and Morse continued. 'You! - and you'll do it straight away. Sergeant - you'll get hold of the bloody nincompoop who sat in that chair of yours yesterday and you'll tell him I want to see him immediately. Christ! I've never known anything like it. There are rules in this profession of ours, Sergeant - didn't you know that? - and they tell us to get names and addresses and occupations and times and details and all the rest of it - and here we are without a bloody clue who brought it in, where it was found, when it was found-nothing!'

A constable had come through in the midst of this shrill tirade, waiting until the peroration before quietly informing Morse there was a telephone call for him.

After Morse had gone, Lewis looked across at his old pal. Sergeant Vickers.

‘Was it you, Sam?'

Vickers nodded.

'Don't worry! He's always flying off the handle.'