As a result of these changes, Owens himself, nominally the group's senior reporter, had become more and more desk-bound, venturing out only for the big stories. Like now. For as he stood in Bloxham Drive that mornin
g, he was never in doubt that this would be one of th
ose 'big stories' - not just for himself but also for the steadily increasing number of media colleagues who were already joining him.
All of them waiting
...
Waiting, in fact, until 11.30 a.m. - well before which time, as if by some sort of collective instinct, each was aware that something grotesque and gruesome had occurred in the house there numbered 17.
Instead of being arrested, as we stated, for kicking his wife down a flight of stairs and hurling a lighted kerosene lamp
after her, the Revd James P. We
llman died unmarried four years ago
(Correction in a US journal, quoted by Burne-Jones in a letter to Lady Horner)
At i
1.15
a.m. Lewis
suggested that someone perhaps ought to say something.
For the past hour and a half a group of police officers had been knocking on neighbourhood doors, speaking to residents, taking brief preliminary statements. But as yet nothing official had been released to the representatives of the media assembled in a street now increasingly crowded with curious onlookers.
'Go ahead!' said Morse.
'Shall I tell them all we know?'
'That won't take you long, will it?'
'No need to keep anything back?'
'For Chrissake, Lewis! You sound as if we've
got
something to hide. If we have, why don't you tell
me?
'Just wondered.'
Morse's tone softened. 'It won't matter much what you tell 'em, will it?' 'All right.'
'Just one thing, though. You can remind 'em that we'd all welcome a bit of accur
acy for a change. Tell 'em to sti
ck an "h" in the middle of Bloxham Close - that sort of thing.'
'Bloxham
Drive,
sir.'
'Thank you, Lewis.'
With which, a morose-looking Morse eased himself back in the armchair in the front sitting-room, and continued his cursory examination of the papers, letters, documents, photographs, taken from the drawers of a Queen-Anne-style escritoire - a rather tasteful piece, thought Morse. Family heirloom, perhaps.
Family
...
Oh dear!
That was always one of the worst aspects of suicides and murders: the family. This time with Mum and Dad
and younger sister already on th
eir way up from Torquay. Still, Lewis was wonderfully good at that sort of tiling. Come to think of it, Lewis was quite good at several things, really - including dealing with the Press. And as Morse flicked his way somewhat fecklessly through a few more
papers, he firmly resolved (alth
ough in fact he forgo
t) to tell his faith
ful sergeant exa
ctly
that before the day was through.
Immediately on confronting his interlocutors, Lewis was invited by the TV crew to go some way along
the
street so that he could be filmed walking before appearing in front of the camera talking. Normal TV routine, it was explained: always see a man striding along somewhere before seeing his face on the screen. So, would Sergeant Lewis please oblige with a short perambulation? No, Sergeant Lewis wouldn't.
What he would do, though, was try to tell them what they wanted to know. Which, for the next few minutes, he did.
A murder had occurred in the kitchen of Number 17 Bloxham Drive: B-L-OX-H-A-M -
One of the neighbours (unspecified) had earlier alerted the police to suspicious circumstances at that address -
A patrol
car had been on the scene promptl
y; forced open the front door; discovered the body of a young woman -
The woman had been shot dead through the rear kitchen window -
The body had not as yet been officially identified -
The property appeared to show no sign - no
other
sign - of any break-in -
That was about it, really.
Amid the subsequent chorus of questions, Lewis picked out the raucous notes of the formidable female reporter from the
Oxford Star:
'What time was all this, Sergeant
5
'
As
it
happened, Lewis knew the answer to that question very well. But he decided to be economical with the details of
the
surprisingly firm evidence already gleaned
...
The Jacobs family lived immediately opposite Number 1
7,
where
the
lady of the house, in dressing-gown and curlers, had opened her front door a few minutes after 7 a.m. in order to pick up her two pints of Co-op milk from the doorstep. Contemporaneously, exa
ctly
so, her actions had been mirrored across the street where another woman, also in a dressing-gown (though without curlers), had been picking up her own single pint. Each had looked across
at
the
other; each had nodded a matutinal greeting.
'You're quite
sure?
Lewis had insisted. 'It was still a bit dark, you know.'
'We've got some streetl
amps, haven't we, Sergeant?'
You are sure, then.'
'Unless she's got - unless she had a twin sister.'
'Sure about the
time,
too? That's very important.'
She nodded. 'I'd just wa
tched the news headlines on BBC1
- I like to do that. Then I turned the telly o
ff. I might have filled the kettl
e again
...
but, like I say,
it
was only a few minutes past seven. Five past, at the outside.'
It therefore seemed virtually certain that there was a time-span of no more than half an hour during which the murder had occurred: between 7.05 a.m., when Mrs Jacobs had seen her neighbour opposite, and 7.35 a.m. or so, when Mrs Norris had first noticed the hole in the window. It was unusual -
very
unusual - for such exactitude to be established at so early a stage in a murder enquiry; and there would be
little
need in this case for the police to be dependent upon (what Morse always called) those prevaricating pathologists
...
*
'About quarter past seven,' answered the prevaricating Lewis.
'You're quite
sure}'
It was exa
ctly
the same question Lewis himself had asked.
'No, not sure at all. Next question?'
'Why didn't everybody hear the shot?' (The same young, ginger-headed reporter.)
'Silencer, perhaps?'
'There'd be the sound of breaking glass surely?' (A logically minded man from the
Oxford Star.)
A series of hand gestures and silent lip-movements from the TV crew urged Lewis not to look dire
ctly
into the camera.
Lewis nodded.
'Yes.
In fact several of the neighbours think they heard something - two of them certainly did. But it could have been lots of things, couldn't it?'
'Such as?' (The importunate ginger-knob again.)
Lewis shrugged. 'Could have been the milkman dropping a
bottle
—?'
'No broken glass here, though, Sergeant.'
'Car backfiring? We don't know.'
'Does what the neighbours heard fit in with the time all right?' (The TV interviewer
with
his fluffy cylindrical microphone.)
'Pretty well, yes.'
The senior reporter from the
Oxford Mail
had hitherto held his peace. But now he asked a curious question, if it was a question:
'Not the two
immediate
neighbours, were they?'
Lewis looked at the man with some interest.
'Why do you say th
at?'
'Well, the woman who lives there' (a finger pointed to Number
ig)
'she
was probably still asleep at the time
, and she's stone-deaf without her hearing-aid.'
'Really?'
'And the man who lives there' (a finger pointed to Number
15)
'he'd already left for work.'
Lewis frowned. 'Can you tell me how you happen to know all this, sir?'
'No problem,' replied Geoffrey Owens.
‘
You see, Sergeant, I
live at Number 15.'
Where lovers lie with ardent glow, Where fondly each forever hears The creaking of the bed below — Above, the music of the spheres (Viscount Mumbles,
1797—1821)
When Lewis returned
from his encounter with the media, Morse was almost ready to leave the murder-house. The morning had moved towards noon, and he knew that he might be thinking a
little
more clearly if he were drinking a
little
- or at least be starting to th
ink when he started to drink.
‘I
s there a real-ale pub somewhere near?'
Lewis, pleasantl
y gratified with his handling of the Press and TV, was emboldened to sound a note of caution.
'Doesn't do your liver much good - all this drinking.'
Surprisingly Morse appeared to accept the reminder with modest grace.
‘I
'm sure you're right; but my medical advisers have warned me
it
may well be unwise to give up alcohol at my age.'
Lewis was not impressed, for he had heard the same words - exa
ctly
the same words - on several previous occasions.
'You've had a good look around, sir?'
'Not really.
I
know
I
always find the important things. But
I
want
you
to have a look around. You usually manage to find the unimportant things - and often they're the things
that
really matter in the end.'
Lewis made little attempt to disguise his pleasure, and straightway relented.
'We could go up to the Boat at Thrupp?'
'Excellent'
You don't want to stay here any longer?'
'No. The SOCOs'll be another couple of hours yet'
You don't want to see
...
her
again?'
Morse shook his head.
'I
know what she looks like -
looked
like.' He picked up two coloured photographs and one postcard, and made towards the front door, handing over the keys of the maroon Jaguar to Lewis. You'd better drive - if you promise to
stick
to the orange juice.'
Once on their way, Lewis reported the extraordinarily strange coincidence of the press-man, Owens, living next-door to the murdered woman. But Morse, who always looked upon any coincidence in life as the norm rather than the exception, was more anxious to set forth the firm details he had himself now gleaned about Ms Rachel James, for there could now be no real doubt of her identity.
'Twenty-nine. Single. No offspring. Worked as a freelance physiotherapist at a place in the Banbury Road. CV says she went to school at Torquay Comprehensive; left
there
in 1984 with a clutch of competent O-levels, three A-levels - two Bs, in Biology and Geography, and an E in Media Studies.'
'Must have been fairly bright.'
'What do you mean? You need to be a moron to get an E in Media Studies,' asserted Morse, who had never seen so much as a page of any Media Studies syllabus, let alone a question paper.
He continued:
'Parents, as you know, still alive, on their way here—' "You'll want me to see them?'
'Well, you
are
good at that sort of thing, aren't you? And if the mother's like most women she'll probably smell the beer as soon as
I
open the door.'
'Good reason for you to join me on the orange juice.'
Morse ignored the suggestion. 'She bought the property there just over four years ago for £65,000 and the value's been falling ever since by the look of things, so the poor lass is one of those figuring in the negative equity statistics; took out a mortgage of £55,000 - probably Mum and Dad gave her the other £10,000; and the saleable value of Number 17 is now £40,000, at the most.'