Death is Now My Neighbour

'I would have joined you normally - without the waterl - but I'm reading die Second Lesson in Chapel tonight' (it was Cornford's turn to consult his wristwatch) 'so we mustn't be all that long. It's diat bit from the Episde to the Romans, Chapter thirteen - the bit about drunkenness. Do you know it?'

'Er, just remind me, sir.'

Clearly Cornford needed no copy of die text in front of him, for he immediately recited the key verse, widi appropriately ecclesiastical intonation:

Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying...

You'll be reading from die Kingjames version, dien?' 'Absolutely! I'm an agnostic myself; but what a tragedy diat so many of our Christian brethren have opted for

these new-fongled versions! "Boozing and Bonking", I should think they translate it'

Morse sat sipping his Scotch contentedly. He could have suggested 'Fux and Sux'; but decided against it

Cornford smiled. 'What do you want to see me about?'

'Well, in a way it's about that last bit of your text: the "strife and envying" bit. You see, I know you're standing for the Mastership here ...'

Tes?'

Morse took a deep breath, took a further deepish draught, and then told Cornford of the murder that morning of Geoffrey Owens; told him that various documents from the Owens household pointed to a systematic campaign of blackmail on Owens' part; informed him that there was reason to believe that he, Cornford, might have been - almost certainly would have been - one of the potential victims.

Cornford nodded quietly. 'Are you sure of this?'

'No, not sure at all, sir. But-'

'But you've got your job to do."

"You haven't received any blackmail letters yourself?'

'No.'

. Til be quite blunt, if I may, sir. Is there anything you can think of in the recent past, or distant past, that could have been used to compromise you in some way? Compromise your candidature, say?'

Cornford considered the question. 'I've done a few things I'm not very proud of - haven't we all? - but I'm fairly sure I got away with them. That was in another country, anyway...'

Morse finished the quotation for him: '... and, besides, the wench is dead.'

Cornford's pale grey eyes looked across at Morse with almost childlike innocence.

Yes.'

'Do you want to tell me about them?'

'No. But only because it would be an embarrassment for me and a waste of time for you.'

"You're a married man, I understand.'

"Yes. And before someone else tells you, my wife is American, about half my age, and extremely attractive.' The voice was still pleasantly relaxed, yet Morse sensed a tone of quiet, underlying strength.

'She hasn't been troubled by letters, anonymous letters, anything like that?'

'She hasn't told me of anydiing.'

'Would she tell you?'

Did Morse sense a hint of uneasy hesitation in Corn-ford's reply?

'She would, I think, yes. But you'd have to ask her.'

Morse nodded. 'I know it's a bit of a bodier - but I shall have to do that, I'm afraid. She's, er, she's not around?'

Cornford again looked at his wristwatch.

'She'll be coming over to Chapel very shortly.'

'Has there been much feeling - much tension -between you and the, er, other candidate?'

"The atmosphere on High Table has been a little, let's say, uncomfortable once or twice, yes. To be expected, though, isn't it?'

'But you don't throw insults at each other like those boxers before a big fight?'

'No, we just think them.'

'No whispers? No rumours?'

'Not as far as I'm aware, no.'

'And you get on reasonably well with Mr Storrs?'

Cornford got to his feet and smiled again, his head slightly to one side.

'I've never got to know Julian all that well, really.'

The Chapel bell had begun to ring - a series of monotonous notes, melancholy, ominous almost, like a curfew.

Ten minutes to go.

'Come ye to church, good people, Good people, come and pray,'

quoted Cornford.

Morse nodded, as he ventured one final question:

'Do you mind me asking you when you got up this morning, sir?'

'Early. I went out jogging -just before seven."

'Just you?'

Cornford nodded vaguely.

You didn't go out after that - for a paper? In the car, perhaps?'

'I don't have a car, myself. My wife does, but it's garaged out in New Road.'

'Quite away away.' ,

"Yes,' repeated Cornford slowly, 'quite a way away.'

As Morse walked down the stairs, he diought he'd

recognized Cornford for exactly what he was: a civilized, courteous, clever man; a man of quiet yet unmistakable resolve, who would probably make a splendid new Master of Lonsdale.

Just two things worried him, the first of them only slightly: if Cornford was going to quote Housman, he jolly well ought to do it accurately.

And he might be wholly wrong about the second ...

The bedroom door opened a few moments after Morse had reached the bottom of the creaking wooden staircase.

'And what do you think all that was about5'

'Couldn't you hear?'

'Most of it,' she admitted.

She wore a high-necked, low-skirted black dress, with an oval amethyst pinned to the bodice - suitably ensemb-led for a seat next to her husband in the Fellows' pews.

'His hair is whiter than yours, Denis. I saw him when he walked out.'

The bell still tolled.

Five minutes to go.

Cornford pulled on his gown and threw his hood back over his shoulders with practised precision; then repeated Housman (again inaccurately) as he put his arms around his wife and looked unblinkingly into her eyes.

'Have you got anything to pray for? Anything that's worrying you?'

Shelly Cornford smiled sweetly, trusting that such

deep dissimulation would mask her1 growing, now almost desperate, sense of guilt.

'I'm going to pray for you, Denis - for you to become Master of Lonsdale. That's what I want more than anything else in the world' (her voice very quiet now) 'and that's not for me, my darling - it's for you.'

'Nothing else to pray for?'

She moved away from him, smoothing the dress over her energetic hips.

'Such as what?"

'Some people pray for forgiveness, that sort of thing, sometimes,' said Denis Cornford softly.

Morse had walked to the Lodge, where he stood in the shadows for a couple of minutes, reading the various notices about the College's sporting fifteens, and elevens, and eights; and hoping that his presence there was unobserved - when he saw them. An academically accoutred Cornford, accompanied by a woman in black, had emerged from the foot of the Old Staircase, and now turned away from him towards the Chapel in the inner quad.

The bell had stopped ringing.

And Morse walked out into Radcliffe Square; thence across into the King's Arms in Broad Street, where he ordered a pint of bitter, and sat down in the back bar, considering so many things - including a wholly unprecedented sense of gratitude to the Tory Government for its reform of the Sunday licensing laws.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

I'd seen myself a don, Reading old poets in the library, Attending chapel in an MA gown And sipping vintage port by candlelight (John Betjeman, Summoned by Bells)

IN THE HILARY Term, in Lonsdale College, on Sunday evenings only, it had become a tradition for the electric lighting to be switched off, and for candles in their sconces to provide the only means of illumination in the Great Hall. Such a procedure was popular with the students, almost all of whom had never experienced the romance of candlelight except during power-cuts, and particularly enjoyable for those on the dais whereon the High Table stood, constandy aware as they were of flickering candles reflected in die polished silver of saltcellars and tureens, and the glitter of die cudery laid out with geometrical precision at every place.