Chapter Thirteen

He'd been rather vague, and it had been somewhat difficult precisely to assess what he wanted: some specific details about any assurance or insurance companies in the: mid-nineteenth century – especially, if it were possible about companies in the Midlands. Off and on, during the morning, it had taken her an hour or more to hunt down the appropriate catalogues; and another hour to locate pertinent literature. But by lunch-time (praise be!) she had completed her research, experiencing, as she assumed, elation similar to that of the scholars who daily dug into treasury of her Great Library to extract their small nugget of gold. She had found a work of reference which told exactly what Morse (the man responsible for ruffling her wonted calm) had wanted her to find.

Just after twelve noon, with one of her female colleagues, she walked over to the King's Arms, on the corner of Holywell Street – in which hostelry she was accustomed to enjoy her fifty-five minute lunch-break, with a single glass of white wine and a salmon-and-cucumber sandwich. It was when Christine got to her feet and offered to get in a second round of drinks, that her colleague eyed her curiously.

'You always said two glasses sent you to sleep.'

'So?'

'So I'll go to sleep as well, all right?'

They were good friends; and doubtless Christine would i fcave given some castrated account of her visit to the JR2 &e previous evening, had not another colleague joined them. Whereafter the three were soon engaged in happily animated conversation about interior decorating and the iniquity of current mortgage repayments.

Or two of them were, to be more accurate. And the who had been the least lively of the trio found herself doing rather less work than usual that same afternoon. After carefully photocopying her finds, she wished the p.m. hours away, for she was impatient to parade the fruits of her research; and she just, simply – well, she just wanted to see the man again. That was all.

At 6.30 p.m. at her home in the village of Bletchington, some few miles out of Oxford, towards Otmoor, she slowly stroked red polish on to her smoothly manicured oval nails, and at 7 p.m. started out for the JR2.

Equally, from his own vantage point, Morse was looking forward to seeing Christine Greenaway once again. The previous evening he'd quickly appreciated her professionalism as she'd listened to his request, as she'd calculated how it might be implemented. In a more personal way he'd noted, too, the candour and intelligence of her eyes – eyes almost as blue as his own – and the quiet determination around her small mouth. So it was that at 7.25 p.m. he was sitting in his neatly re-made bed, newly washed, erect against his pillows, his thinning hair so recently re-combed – when his stomach suddenly felt as though it was being put through a mangle; and for two or three minutes the pain refused to relax its grinding, agonizing grip. Morse closed his eyes and squeezed his fists with such force that the sweat stood out on his forehead; and with eyes still shut he prayed to Someone, in spite of his recent conversion from agnosticism to outright atheism.

Two years earlier, at the Oxford Book Association, he had listened to a mournful Muggeridge propounding the disturbing philosophy of The Fearful Symmetry, in which the debits and the credits on the ledgers are balanced inexorably and eternally, and where the man who tries to steal a secret pleasure will pretty soon find himself queuing up to pay the bill – and more often than not with some hefty service-charges added in. What a preposterous belief it was (the sage had asserted) that the hedonist could be a happy man!

Oh dear!

Why had Morse ever considered the pleasure of a little glass? The wages of sin was death, and the night before was seldom worth the morning after (some people said). All mortals, Morse knew, were ever treading that narrow way by Tophet flare to Judgement Day, but he now prayed that the last few steps in his own case might be deferred at least a week or two.

Then, suddenly as it had come, the pain was gone, and Morse opened his eyes once more.

The clock behind Sister's desk (as earlier and darkly rumoured, Nessie was going to be on the night-shift) was showing 7.30 when the visitors began to filter through with their offerings stashed away in Sainsbury or St Michael carriers, and, some few of them, with bunches of blooms for the newly hospitalised.

Life is, alas, so full of disappointments; and it was to be an unexpected visitor who was to monopolize Morse's time that evening. Bearing a wilting collection of white chrysanthemums, a sombre-looking woman of late-middle age proceeded to commandeer the sole chair set at his bedside.

'Mrs Green! How very nice of you to come!'

Morse's heart sank deeply, and took an even deeper, plunge when the dutiful charlady mounted a sustained challenge against Morse's present competence to deal, single-handedly, with such crucial matters as towels, toothpaste, talcum-powder, and clean pyjamas (especially the latter). It was wonderfully good of her (who could deny to take such trouble to come to see him (three buses, as he knew full well); but he found himself consciously willing her to get up and go. At five minutes past eight, after half a dozen 'I-really-must-go's, Mrs G. rose to her poorly feet in preparation her departure, with instructions for the care of the chrysanthemums. At last (at last!), after a mercifully brief account of her latest visit to her 'sheeropodist' in Banbury road, Mrs G. dragged her long-suffering feet away from,Ward 7C.

On several occasions, from her father's bedside, Christine Greenaway had half-turned in the course of her filial obligations; and two or three times her eyes had locked with Morse's: hers with the half-masked smile of understanding; his with all the impotence of some stranded whale.

Just as Mrs Green was on her way, a white-coated consultant, accompanied by the Charge Nurse, decided -considerately) to give ten minutes of his time to Greenaway Senior, and then in some sotto voce asides, confide his prognosis to Greenaway Junior. And for Morse, this hiatus in the evening's ordering was getting just about as infuriating as waiting for breakfast in some Fawlty Towers' hotel.

Then Lewis came.

Never had Morse been less glad to see his sergeant; yet he had instructed Lewis to pick up his post from the flat, and he now took possession of several envelopes and a couple of cards: Morse's shoes (his other pair) were now ready for collection from Grove Street; his car licence was due to be renewed within the next twenty days; a ridiculously expensive book on The Transmission of Classical Manuscripts now awaited him at OUP; a bill from the plumber for the repair of a malfunctioning stop-cock was still unpaid; the Wagner Society asked if he wanted to enter his name in a raffle for Bayreuth Ring tickets; and Peter Imbert invited him to talk in the new year at a weekend symposium, in Hendon, on inner-city crime. It was rather like a cross-section of life, his usual correspondence: half of it was fine, and half of it he wanted to forget.

At twenty-three minutes past eight, by the ward clock, Lewis asked if there was anything else he could do.

'Yes, Lewis. Please go, will you? I want to have five minutes with – ' Morse nodded vaguely over to Greenaway's bed.

'Well, if that's what you want, sir.' He rose slowly to his feet.

'It is what I bloody want, Lewis! I've just told you, haven't I?'