The dead of Jericho (28 page)

Authors: Colin Dexter

Tags: #det_police

BOOK: The dead of Jericho

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'But why all the clever-clever stuff, Morse? Why didn't you just arrest him there and then and get it over with?'

'We'd have run the risk of letting the big fish get away, sir, and that was the second reason for my going that day. I had to lay the bait to get Charles Richards back in England, and so I told Conrad that we had to have a statement from him and that it was going to be
Sergeant Lewis
who would take it down. You see, Lewis
knew
the real Conrad Richards: he'd taken his fingerprints. And so any statement would have to be made by the
genuine
Charles Richards; and to do that he'd have to get back from Spain fairly quickly. As, in fact, he did, sir.'

'And he walked into our men at Gatwick — and then you walked
into him
at St Aldates.'

'Yes. Once I'd mentioned that we needed to take his prints again and that Sergeant Lewis was going to try to do a better job this time, he realized the game was finally up. Lewis had never taken
his
prints at all, you see — and, well, Charles could see no point in pretending any longer. I offered him a cigarette — and that was that!'

'How kind of you, Morse! I suppose, by the way, the prints
were
Charles Richards'?'

'Er, well, as a matter of fact they weren't, sir. I'm afraid I must have been just a little careless er myself when I examined the head-board and— '

The ACC got to his feet and his face showed pained incredulity. 'Don't — don't tell me they were— '

Morse nodded guiltily. 'I'm afraid so — yes, sir:
they were mine.'

Chapter Thirty-nine

The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale
A. E. Housman
,
Last Poems

Apart from a few small details the case of the Jericho killings was solved, but Morse knew as he sat in his office the following morning that it wasn't yet quite the time to pack away the two box files on the shelves of the Record Office. There were two things really that still nagged at his brain. The first was the realization that his Sophoclean hypothesis about Anne Scott's suicide had been largely undermined by Lewis's patient inquiries... (Where was Lewis, by the way? Not like Lewis to be late...) The second thing was that the letter Charles Richards had written to Anne Scott had still not been found. Was that important, though? Beyond much doubt it had led directly to Anne's death, but it wasn't difficult to guess at its contents: not difficult to reconstruct the events of that morning when Anne had received one letter from the clinic saying, yes, she
was
pregnant, and another from Charles Richards saying, no, he
wasn't
going to see her again.

Morse nodded to himself: it had been the post that morning that had been the final catalyst — not the previous night's talk at the bridge club of birthdays and adoptions. But why should Anne have been up so early that morning? Usually, as he'd learned, she would stay in bed until about lunch-time on a Wednesday, after getting to bed so very late after bridge. And, then again, why had she cancelled her lesson with Edward Murdoch? Had Anne Scott
really
had a morbid sense of the gods' ill-favour as they played their sport with men and women? If not, what had she done when she got home early that morning? What if—? Ye-es. He'd been assuming that she'd stayed awake that terrible night largely because the bed had not been slept in. Or so it had appeared. But surely she
could
have gone to bed? Gone to sleep, got up early, made the bed, and then... But
why
had she got up so early that morning?

Morse shook his head. It wasn't quite adding up, he knew that, and he needed to talk to Lewis. (Where the hell was Lewis?) Morse reached for another cigarette and his mind wandered back to the night when he had met Anne... the night when but for some miserable ill-luck that had taken him away... when Lewis had come in and dragged him off...

'Morning, sir!' Lewis looked as bright and cheerful as the golden sunlight outside. 'Sorry to be a bit late, but— '

'Bit
late? You're
bloody
late!' Morse's face was sour.

'But you said— '

'Got your car here?'

'Outside.' Lewis permitted himself a gentle smile and said no more.

'I want to take a last little look at Jericho, Lewis. There's that bloody letter from Richards for a start. Bell's lot looked for it;
you
looked for it; Richards himself looked for it — and nobody can find it, right? So it's about time I had a look for it! You all swear it's not there, but the trouble is you've probably all been looking in the wrong
place.
I'm not saying I know where the right place
is,
but I’ll be surprised if I don't do a bit better than the rest of you. Can't do worse, can I? You need a bit of
imagination
in these things, Lewis...'

'As you wish, sir.'

Morse was unusually talkative as they drove down the Woodstock Road and turned down the one-way Observatory Street towards Jericho. 'Beautiful morning, Lewis! Almost makes you feel glad to be alive.'

'I'm always glad to be alive.'

'Really?' Morse vaguely looked along the stuccoed fronts of the terraced houses and then, as Lewis waited to turn into Walton Street, he suddenly caught sight of the Jericho Tackle Shop, and a beautiful new idea jumped across the threshold of his mind.

'Jackson was buying his new rod from there, wasn't he?' Morse asked casually.

'That's right.'

Lewis parked the police car by the bollards at Canal Reach. 'Which key do you want first, sir?'

'Perhaps we shan't need either of them.'

The two men walked up the narrow little street, where Morse led the way through to the boat-yard before turning right and climbing over the fence into the back garden which the late George Jackson had fitfully tended. The shed door was still secured only by the rickety latch that Morse had opened once before, and now again he looked inside and surveyed the vast assortment of Jackson's fishing tackle.

'Is that the new rod?' he asked.

'Looks like it, sir.'

Morse carefully disconnected the jointed sections and examined them. 'You see, Lewis? They're hollow inside. Just the place to hide a letter, wouldn't you say? Just roll the letter up into a cylinder and then...' Morse was busily peering and feeling inside the sections, but for the moment, as Lewis stood idly by, he could find nothing.

'It's here, Lewis! It's here somewhere. I know it is.'

But a quarter of an hour later he had still found nothing. And however Morse twisted and pulled and cursed the collection of rods, it soon became clear that no letter was concealed in any of them.

'You've not been much bloody help!' he said finally.

'Never mind, sir — it was a good idea,' said Lewis cheerfully. 'Why don't we nip over the way and have a noggin? What do you say?'

Morse looked at his sergeant in a peculiar way. 'You feeling all right, Lewis?'

‘Well, we've solved another case, haven't we? It’ll be a little celebration, sort of thing.'

'I don't like these loose ends, though.'

'Forget it, sir!' Lewis led the way through the back yard and out once more into Canal Reach, where Morse stopped and looked up at the bedroom window of number 9. Still no curtains.

'I wonder... ' said Morse slowly.

'Pardon, sir?'

'You got the key, you say?' Lewis fiddled in his pocket and found it. 'I was just wondering,' said Morse, 'if she had an alarm clock in her bedroom. Can you remember?'

'Not off hand, sir. Let's go and have a look.'

Morse opened the door and suddenly stopped.
Deja vu.
There, on the inside door-mat, was another brown envelope, and he picked it up and looked at it: 'Southern Gas Board' was printed along the bottom of the cover.

'Just nip upstairs then, Lewis, and bring the alarm clock down — if there is one.' When Lewis had left him, Morse put his hand inside his breast pocket and pulled out the envelope he had previously found — and until this moment forgotten about. Slitting open the top in a ragged tear he took out a single typed sheet of paper:

SUMMERTOWN CURTAINING 8th Oct
Dear Ms Scott,
I am sorry that we were unable to contact you earlier about your esteemed order for curtaining and pelmeting. Unfortunately it proved impossible for our fitters to come as agreed on the 3rd inst., since our suppliers let us down over the yellow material for the study and the front bedroom, and we thought it more sensible to do the whole house in one day rather than doing the jobs in two bits. We regret the inconvenience caused.
I am now able to inform you that all materials are ready and we look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible about a convenient time. We confidently expect, as before, that all the work can be completed in a single day and we shall be happy to begin work at about 9 am. If this is again suitable to you.
Yours faithfully, J. Burkitt (Manager)

As Morse finished reading Lewis was standing beside him, a small, square, black alarm-clock in his hand. 'Anything interesting?'

Morse pondered the letter once more, then pointed to the clock. 'I think we've probably got another loose end tied up, yes — if that thing's set for about half-past seven.'

'Quarter-to-eight, actually, sir.'

'Mm.' Morse stood still just inside the door, his mind reconstructing the scene that must have taken place in that very room. He seemed sadly satisfied.

'You know that letter from Charles Richards, sir? Don't you think she probably burnt it with the one from the clinic? Perhaps if we get the path boys to have a look at those ashes in the grate— '

Morse shook his head. 'No. I buggered that up when I started poking around, Lewis. It's no good now.'

'You think he
did
write a letter to her, sir?'

'Well,' not in direct answer to hers, no. Celia Richards intercepted that, as we know. But I think she must have got in touch with him somehow, after she'd heard nothing; and I think he wrote to her — yes, I do.'

'He says he
didn't,
though.'

'Pretty understandable, isn't it?'

'You mean he's got one death on his conscience already?'

Morse nodded. 'Not the one you're thinking of, though, Lewis. I don't believe he gives a sod about what he did to Jackson: it's the death of Anne Scott that he'll have on his conscience for ever.'

'I'll get them, sir,' said Lewis as they walked into the Printer's Devil. 'You just sit down and read that.' He handed Morse an envelope which had quite clearly been rolled into a tight cylindrical shape. 'I came here this morning, and I found it inside the new rod, sir. I hope you’ll forgive me for not telling you before, but it's not the letter
you
were looking for.

Lewis walked over to the bar, and Morse sat down and immediately saw the name on the grimy envelope: it was his own.

For Chief Inspector (?) Morse
Thames Valley Police
Absolutley Private, and for the
attention of no one else.

Inside the envelope was a single sheet of writing together with a further envelope, itself already addressed 'Charles Richards'. Morse took the single sheet and slowly read it:

Dear Inspector Morse,
Perhaps you will have forgotten me. We met once at a party when you had too much to drink and were very nice to me I'd hoped you'd get in touch with me — but you didn't. Please, I beg you, be kind to me again and deliver the enclosed letter personally and in the strictest confidence. And please, please don't read it. What I am going to do is cowardly and selfish, but somehow I just can't go on any more — and I don't want to go on any more.
Anne Scott

Lewis had brought the beer over and was sitting quietly opposite.

'Have you read this, Lewis?'

'No, sir. It wasn't addressed to me.'

'But you saw who it was addressed to?’

Lewis nodded, and Morse passed it over. 'You didn't read this one, either?' asked Morse, taking out the envelope addressed to Charles Richards.

'No, sir. But I should think we know roughly what's in it, don't we?'

'Yes,' said Morse slowly. 'And I think — I think I ought to do what she asked me, don't you?' He passed the envelope across. 'Seal it up, Lewis — and see that he gets it straight away, please.'

Was he doing the right thing? Charles Richards would find the letter terribly hurtful to read — there could be little doubt of that. But, then, life was hurtful. Morse had just been deeply hurt himself... 'I'd hoped you'd get in touch with me', she'd said, 'but you didn't.' Oh! If she'd known... if only she'd known.

He felt Lewis's hand on his shoulder and heard his kindly words. 'Don't forget your beer, sir!'

Epilogue

Jericho has altered little since the events described in these chapters, although the curious visitor will no longer find Canal Reach marked upon the street map, for the site of the narrow little lane in which Ms Scott and Mr Jackson met their deaths is now straddled by a new block of flats, in which Mrs Purvis (together with Graymalkin) is happily resettled, and where one of her neighbours is the polymath who once regaled Morse on the history of Jericho and who is now a mature student reading Environmental Studies at London University. Some others, too, who played their brief parts in the case have moved — or died; but many remain in the area. Mrs Beavers, for example, continues to run the corner post office, and Mr Grimes to sit amongst his locks and burglar alarms. And the Italianate campanile of St Barnabas still towers above the terraced streets below.

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