The body would most probably not have been discovered
that day had not John Benson, a garage mechanic from Hartwell's Motors, agreed to earn himself a little untaxed extra income by fixing a few faults on Owens' car. But Benson had been unable to get any answer when he called just after 11.15 a-m-! had finally peered through the open-curtained front window; had rapped repeatedly, and increasingly loudly, against the pane when he saw Owens lying asleep on the settee there.
But Owens was not asleep. So much had become gradually apparent to Benson, who had dialled 999 at about 11.30 a.m. from the BT phone-box at the entrance to the Drive.
Thus far no one, it appeared, had seen or heard anything untoward that morning between seven and eight o'clock, say. House-to-house enquiries would soon be under way, and might provide a clue or two. But concerning such a possibility Morse was predictably (though, as it happened, mistakenly) pessimistic. Early Sunday mom-ing was not a time when many people were about, except for dog-owners and insomniacs: the former, judging from the warnings on the lamp-posts concerning the fouling of verges and footpaths, not positively encouraged to parade dieir pets along the street; the latter, if there were any, not as yet coming forward with any sightings of strangers or hearings of gunshots.
No. On the face of it, it had seemed a .typical, sleepy Sunday morning, when the denizens of Bloxham Drive had their weekly lie-in, arose late, walked around their homes in dressing-gowns, sometimes boiled an egg, perhaps - and settled down to read in the scandal sheets about the extra-marital exploits of the great and the not-so-good.
But one person had been given no chance to read his Sunday newspaper, for the News of the Worldlay unopened on the mat inside the front door of Number 15; and few of the others in the Drive that morning were able to indulge their delight in adulterous liaisons, stunned as they were by disbelief and, as the shock itself lessened, by a growing sense of fear.
At 2.30 p.m. Morse was informed that few if any of the neighbours were likely to be helpful witnesses - except the old lady in Number 19. Morse should see her himself, perhaps?
'Want me to come along, sir?'
'No, Lewis. You get off and try to find out something about Storrs - and his missus. Bath, you say? He probably left details of where he'd be at the Porters' Lodge - that's the usual drill. And do it from HQ. Better keep the phone here free.'
Mrs Adams was a widow of some eighty summers, a small old lady who had now lost all her own teeth, much of her wispy white hair, and even more of her hearing. But her wits were sharp enough, Morse sensed that immediately; and her brief evidence was of considerable interest. She had slept poorly the previous night; got up early; made herself some tea and toast; listened to the news on the radio at seven o'clock; cleared away; and then gone out the back to empty her waste-bin. That's when she'd seen him!
'Him?'
'Pardon?'
You're sure it was a man?1
'Oh yes. About twenty - twenty-five past seven.'
The case was under way.
"You didn't hear any shots or bangs?'
'Pardon?'
Morse let it go.
But he managed to convey his thanks to her, and to explain that she would be asked to sign a short statement As he prepared to leave, he gave her his card.
'I'll leave this with you, Mrs Adams. If you remember anything else, please get in touch with me.'
He thought she'd understood; and he left her there in her kitchen, holding his card about three or four inches from her pale, rheumy eyes, squinting obliquely at the wording.
She was not, as Morse had quickly realized, ever destined to be called before an identity parade; for although she might be able to spot that all of them were men, any physiognomical differentiation would surely be wholly beyond the capacity of those tired old eyes.
Poor Mrs Adams 1
Sans teeth, sans hair, sans ears, sans eyes - and very soon, alas, sans everything.
Seldom, in any investigation, had Morse so badly mishandled a key witness as now he mishandled Mrs Arabella Adams.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Alibi (adv.y. in another place, elsewhere (Small's Latin-English Dictionary)
SOME PERSONS IN life eschew all sense of responsibility, and are never wholly at ease unless they are closely instructed as to what to do, and how and when to do it Sergeant Lewis was not such a person, willing as he was always to shoulder his share of responsibility and, not infrequently, to face some apportionment of blame. Yet, to be truthful, he was ever most at ease when given some specific task, as he had been now; and he experienced a pleasing sense of purpose as he drove up to Police HQ that same afternoon.
One thing only disturbed him more than a little. For almost a week now Morse had forgone, been forced to forgo, both beer and cigarettes. And what foolishness it was to capitulate, as Morse had done, to both, within die space of only a couple of hours! But that's what life was all about - personal decisions; and Morse had clearly decided that the long-term disintegration of his liver and his lungs was a price well worth paying, even with diabetes, for the short-term pleasures of alcohol and nicotine.
Yet Morse was still on the ball. As he had guessed, Storrs had left details of his weekend whereabouts at the Porters' Lodge. And very soon Lewis was speaking to the Manager of Bath's Royal Crescent Hotel - an appropriately cautious man, but one who was fully co-operative once Lewis had explained the unusual and delicate nature of his enquiries. The Manager would ring back, he promised, within half an hour.
Lewis picked up the previous day's copy of the Daily Mirror, and sat puzzling for a few minutes over whether the answer to i across - 'River (3)' - was CAM, DEE, EXE, FAL, and so on through the alphabet; finally deciding on CAM, when he saw that it would fit neady enough with COD, the fairly obvious answer to i down -'Fish (3)'. He had made a firm start. But thereafter he had proceeded little, since the combination which had found favour widi the setter of the crossword (EXE/ EEL) had wholly eluded him. His minor hypodiesis, like Morse's earlier major one, was sadly undone.
But he had no time to return (quite literally) to square one, since the phone rang. It had taken the Manager only fifteen minutes to assemble his fairly comprehensive information ...
Mr and Mrs J. Storrs had checked into the hotel at 4 p.m. the previous afternoon, Saturday, 2 March: just the one night, at the special weekend-break tariff of £125 for a double room. The purpose of the Storrs' visit (almost certainly) had been to hear the Bath Festival Choir, since one of the reception staff had ordered a taxi for them at
7 p.m. to go along to the Abbey, where the Faure Requiem was the centrepiece of the evening conceit. The couple had been back in the hotel by about half past nine, when they had immediately gone into the restaurant for a late, pre-booked dinner, the only extra being a bottle of the house red wine.
If the sergeant would like to see the itemized bill... ?
No one, it appeared, had seen the couple after about 11 p.m., when they had been the last to leave the restaurant. Before retiring, however, Mr Storrs had rung through to room service to order breakfast for the two of them, in their room, at 7.45 a.m.: a full English for himself, a Continental one for his wife.
Again, the itemized order was available if the sergeant...
Latest check-out from the hotel (as officially specified in the brochure) was noon. But the Storrs had left a good while before then. As with the other details (the Manager explained) some of the times given were just a little vague, since service personnel had changed. But things could very soon be checked. The account had been settled by Mr Storrs himself on a Lloyds Bank Gold Card (the receptionist recalled this clearly), and one of the porters had driven the Storrs' BMW round to the front of the hotel from the rear garage - being tipped (it appeared) quite liberally for his services.