“Tell ’em to be gentle with her. Just to say her husband’s had a fatal heart attack. We can arrange transport — well, they can — if she wants to come to Oxford tomorrow. Not tonight, though. Get her local GP in. Well — you know the ropes.”
Morse drained his beer and his eyes reflected the curious sadness he clearly felt for the woman left alone that night in Shrewsbury.
“Another pint?” suggested Lewis.
But Morse shook his head and stood up to go, the pigskin wallet held tightly in his right hand.
Three-quarters of an hour later, a police car drew up outside the double-garaged property that stood at 53 Leominster Drive, Shrewsbury. Accompanying the police sergeant was a young smartly attractive WPC, who did the talking:
“Mrs. Sherwood?”
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news for you.”
Sometimes the police had the lousiest job in the whole world.
Mid-morning the following day Morse had received Dr. Hobson’s preliminary report:
Heart attack — death following almost immediately. Little or no chance of survival, even if any more sophisticated treatment had been available earlier. Massive h.a. Subject a heavily dependent insulin diabetic, with (probably) high blood-pressure. Often a risky — sometimes fatal — combination. Every indication that onset of h.a. precipitated subject’s imbalance and collapse, with head injury incurred only subsequently. Blood sugar at time of death: 26.8. Very high.
Doing one or two other little tests. Will keep you informed.
And now Lewis read through the findings.
“Things seem to have happened, er, contemporaneously, sir.”
“Clears it up, certainly, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Mrs. Sherwood’s coming down this morning. Identify the body and...”
Morse nodded. “Keep her out of The Randolph, if you can. No need for her to know anything about the room or... or anything.”
“I suppose not.”
“Look! Nobody’s going to profit from parading any dirty linen, agreed?”
“Least of all Mrs. Sherwood.”
“And her family.”
“OK.”
“Have we discovered much about her?”
Lewis consulted his note-book.
“Aged forty-five; son and daughter — both early twenties; she works part-time; bags o’ money; everybody seemed to think the marriage was fine.”
Morse nodded sombrely. “Death’s bad enough, but... Remember that Greek Archbishop, Lewis? Had a heart attack in his local knocking-shop at Athens? Poor sod!”
“At least he hadn’t got a wife.”
“How do you know?”
“Perhaps Mrs. Sherwood was having a bit on the side, too.”
But Morse appeared not to be listening. He took from the dead man’s wallet a passport-sized colour photograph of a duskily tressed and deeply tanned young beauty, wearing thinly rimmed schoolma’amish spectacles, and looking half-seriously into the camera — yet with lips beginning to curl in a sensuous smile.
“Lovely!” said Morse. “Lovely!”
“And that’s...?”
“That’s Mr. Sherwood’s ‘bit on the side,’ as you so elegantly phrase things.”
Then Morse, after glancing briefly at the back of the photo, slowly tore it into smaller and smaller pieces.
“Destroying evidence, that is. Could be valuable in the case—”
“What case?”
Lewis shrugged. “You’re in charge, sir.”
Morse was now on his feet. “Just nip me down to Oxford, will you? Railway station for a couple of minutes — then on to St. Aidâtes. What time’s Mrs. Sherwood due here?”
“Eleven-thirty. Driving down — dunno if it’s the Rolls or the BMW, though!”
Morse shot off at an odd angle: “Do you believe in any after-life, Lewis?”
“Not sure, really. What about you?”
“No, not me. I think death’s just a process of chemical disintegration.”
“Perhaps she could tell us — Mrs. Sherwood. She took a Chemistry degree at Cambridge.”
“How on earth did you find that out?”
Lewis, too, now rose. “I’m a detective, sir, remember?”
“She must have been a clever lass at school.”
“But you still don’t want to see her?”
“No.”
As he’d promised, Morse spent only a brief while inside Oxford railway station; and five minutes later Lewis was driving down St. Aidâtes, when Morse peremptorily announced a slight change of plan. It was just after 11 A.M.
“Drop me anywhere here! I’ll just nip in to see how the landlord is.”
He gestured vaguely to the Bulldog, and Lewis brought the police car to a stop opposite Christ Church.
“Just give this to Mrs. Sherwood, will you?”
Lewis took the proffered wallet. “No more photos in it?”
“Only one of the four of ’em: mum and dad and the two kids. Everything’s all right now.”
Lewis had arrived back at Kidlington HQ at 2 P.M. to find that the chief had not yet returned — from wherever.
Mrs. Sherwood had been a quarter of an hour late (in the BMW), and Lewis had looked quickly through the contents of her late husband’s wallet as he’d waited in a small ante-room in the Pathology Institute. The usual plastic cards were there, relating to monies and memberships; £110 in banknotes; the family photograph that Morse had mentioned (but no others); and something else, yes — two green-and-orange British Rail tickets, one “Out” and one “Return,” between Shrewsbury and Oxford. Neither had received the attention of any ticket-collector’s clip. Yet they looked genuine enough. Were genuine enough, except for the fact that the date printed on each of them was not yesterday’s — but today’s.
Lewis smiled wryly to himself.
Mrs. Pamela Sherwood had turned out to be a slim, well-groomed, delicately featured woman — distressed, yes, but well in control. Lewis himself never really knew what to do or what to say in times of bereavement; but that was exactly why (as Morse well knew) he performed the job so successfully, since it was not unusual on such sad occasions for roles to be reversed and for the bereaved themselves to feel an instinctively reciprocal sympathy with the good sergeant.
As now.
Over coffee, and after identifying her husband’s body, Mrs. Sherwood herself had looked quickly through the contents of the wallet, her eyes intent as she took out one item after another, including the tickets.
One item after another... except of course for the photograph of the dusky siren whose features for a little while had recently held the Chief Inspector mesmerized.
But it was the message on Morse’s Ansaphone which displaced any thoughts of Mrs. Sherwood; a message left by the manager of The Randolph; a message which Lewis, now for the third time, replayed as he waited for Morse to return.
Bamber Goodall here, Chief Inspector. I had a personal call this morning just before twelve. A woman, youngish woman by the sound of her, said she’d got to speak to me and I accepted the call. She said she was feeling guilty because she was the woman who was going to stay with Mr. Sherwood. She said she’d driven him down in her own car. She’d kept out of the way when he’d booked in, and when he’d gone up to the room with their luggage. Then he’d come down again, given her the room-key, and said he’d expect her in about ten or fifteen minutes, after she’d parked the car — which she had done, up in Norham Gardens. It seems they’d both been worried about leaving the car in the hotel garage. Then when she got back and walked up to their room she’d opened the door to find him lying there, and she’d just “panicked” — her word — and grabbed her case — still unopened — and got the hell out of things. She drove out to the Cotswolds, and then back home this morning. She was still feeling awful about it, she said. Somehow she’d known he was dead — though she didn’t say how she knew. Well, that’s it really. When I said she ought to talk to the police she said she couldn’t. I tried to keep her talking but it was no good. She just kept saying that if only Mrs. Sherwood could be kept out of it all — you know — kept in the dark about things, about her, well, she’d be extremely grateful. So that’s it, really. I’ll be in the hotel here till about eight-thirty this evening... if you want me.