Death is Now My Neighbour

'Last time you parked on the pavement in front of the Clarendon Building.'

'Ah, yes. Thank you, Lewis. I'd almost forgotten that'

'Not forgotten your injection, I hope?'

'Oh no. That's now become an automatic part of my lifestyle,' said Morse, who had forgotten all about his lunchtimejab.

The phone was ringing when Morse opened the door of his office.

'Saw you coming in,' explained Strange.

·Yes, sir?'

'It's all these forms I've got to fill in - retirement forms. They give me a headache.'

'They give me a headache.'

'At least you know how to fill 'em in.'

'Can we leave it just a litde while, sir? I don't seem able to cope with two things at once these days, and I've got to get down to Oxford.'

'Let it wait! Just don't forget you'Vi be filling in die same forms pretty soon."

Bloxham Drive was still cordoned off, the police presence still pervasively evident But Adele Beatrice Cecil -alias Ann Berkeley Cox, author of Topless in Torremolinos - was waved dirough by a sentinel PC, just as Geoffrey Owens had been waved through over a fortnight earlier, on die morning diat Rachel James had been murdered.

As she let herself into Number i, she was immediately aware dial the house was (literally) almost freezing. Why

hadn't she left the heating on? How good to have been able to jump straight into a hot bath; or into an electric-blanketed bed; or into a lover's arms ...

For several minutes she thought of Morse, and of what he had asked her. What on earth had he suspected? And suddenly, alone again now, in her cold house, she found herself shivering.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

To an outsider it may appear that the average Oxbridge don works but twenty-four weeks out of the annual fifty-two. If therefore at any point in the academic year it is difficult to locate the whereabouts of such an individual, most assuredly this circumstance may not constitute any adequate cause for universal alarm

(A Workload Analysis of University Teachers, ed. HARRY JUDGE)

JUST AFTER 4 P.M. that same day, Morse rang the bell beside the red-painted front door of an elegant, ashlared house just across from the Holywell Music Room. It was the right house, he knew that, with the Lonsdale Crest fixed halfway between the neatly paned windows of the middle and upper storeys.

There was no answer.

There were no answers.

Morse retraced his steps up to Broad Street and crossed die cobbles of Radcliffe Square to the Porters' Lodge at Lonsdale.

'Do you know if Dr Cornfbrd's in College?'

The duty porter rang a number; then shook his head.

'Doesn't seem to be in his rooms, sir.*

'Has he been in today?'

'He was in this morning. Called for his mail - what, ten? Quarter past?'

"You've no idea where he is?'

The porter shook his head. 'Doesn't come in much of a Wednesday, Dr Cornford. Usually has his Faculty Meeting Wednesdays.'

'Can you try him for me there? It's important'

The porter rang a second number; spoke for a while; put down the phone.

'They've not seen him today, sir. Seems he didn't turn up for the two o'clock meeting.'

'Have you got his home number?'

'He's ex-directory, sir. I can't-'

'So am /ex-directory. You know who I am, don't you?'

The young porter looked as hopefully as he could into Morse's face.

'No, sir.'

'Forget it!' snapped Morse.

He walked back up to Holywell Street, along to the red door, and rang the bell.

There was no answer.

There were no answers.

An over-lipsticked middle-aged traffic-warden stood beside the Jaguar.

'Is this your vehicle, sir?'

"Yes, madam. I'm just waiting for the Chief Constable. He's' (Morse pointed vaguely towards the Sheldonian)

'nearly finished in there. At any rate, I hope he bloody has! And if he hasn't, put the bill to 'im, love - not to me!'

'Sorry!'

Morse wandered across to the green-shuttered Black-well's, and browsed awhile; finally purchasing the first volume of Sir Steven Runciman's History of the Crusades.

He wasn't quite sure why.

Then, for the third time, he walked up to the red door in Holywell Street and rang the bell.

Morse heard the news back in HQi

From Lewis.

A body had been found in a car, in a narrow lane off New Road, in a garage rented under the name of Dr Comford.

For a while Morse sat silent.

'I only met him the once you know, Lewis. Well, the twice, really. He was a good man, I think. I liked him.'

'It isn't Dr Cornford though, sir. It's his wife.'

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Thursday, 7 March

Is it sin

To rush into the secret house of death Ere death dare come to us?

(Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra)

'TELL ME ABOUT it,' said Morse.

Seated opposite him, in the first-floor office in St Aldates Police Station, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Warner told the story sadly and economically.

Mrs Shelly Cornford had been found in the driving-seat of her own car, reclining back, with a hosepipe through the window. The garage had been bolted on the inside. There could be litde doubt that the immediate cause of death was carbon-monoxide poisoning from exhaust fumes. A brief handwritten note had been left on the passenger seat: Tm so sorry, Denis, I can't forgive myself for what I did. I never loved anyone else but you, my darling - S.' No marks of violence; 97 mg blood alcohol - die equivalent (Warner suggested) of two or three stiffish gins. Still a few unanswered questions, of course: about her previous whereabouts that day; about the purchase of the green

hosepipe and the connector, both new. But suspicion of foul play? None.

'I wonder where she had a drink?' asked Morse.

'Well, if she'd walked up from Holywell Street, diere'd be die King's Arms, the White Horse, The Randolph ... But you're the expert'

Morse asked no more questions; but sat thinking of the questionnaire he had set for the Police Gazette (it seemed so long ago): 'If you could gladden your final days widi one of the following...' Yes, without a doubt, if he'd been honest, Morse would have applauded Shelly Comford's choice. And what the hell did it matter where she'd had those few last glasses of alcohol - few last 'units' rather -the measurements into which the dietitian had advised him to convert his old familiar gills and pints and quarts.

'Do you want to see her?'

Morse shook his head.

"You'd better see him, though.'

Morse nodded wearily. 'Is he all right?'

'We-ell. His GP's been in - but he refuses to take any medication. He's in the canteen with one of the sergeants. We've finished widi him, really.'

'Tell me about it,' urged Morse.

Denis Cornford's voice was flat, almost mechanical, as he replied:

'On Sunday just before I met you in the pub she told me she'd been to bed widi another man that morning. I hardly spoke to her after that. I slept in die spare room the last diree nights.'

"The note?' asked Morse gently. 'Is that what she was referring to?'

Yes.'

'Nothing to do with anything else?'

'No.'

'She was there, in your rooms, just before Chapel on Sunday, wasn't she?'

Cornford evinced no surprise.

'We'd had a few harsh words. She didn't want to see you.'

'Do you know who the other man was?"

Yes. Clixby Bream.'

'She told you dial, sir?'

Yes.'

'So - so she couldn't have had anything to do with the Owens murder?'

'No. Nor could the Master."

'Did you have anything to do with it?'

'No.'

'Why did you go to see Owens last Thursday?'

'I knew Owens a bit through various things I did for his newspaper. That night I had to go to Kidlington - I went on the bus - the Kidlington History Society - held at the school - "Effects of the Enclosure Acts in Oxfordshire" - seven o'clock to eight. He lived fairly near - five minutes' walk away. I'd done a three-part article for him on Mediaeval Oxford - Owens said it needed shortening a bit - we discussed some changes - no problems. I got a bus back to Oxford - about nine.'