The Jewel That Was Ours

For my wife, Dorothy

Espied the god with gloomy soul

The prize that in the casket lay

Who came with silent tread and stole

The jewel that was ours away.

(Lilian Cooper, 1904–1981)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for use of copyright materials:

Extract from Oxford by Jan Morris published by Oxford University Press, 1987, reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press;

Extract from the introduction by Lord Jenkins of Hillhead to The Oxford Story, published by Heritage Projects (Management) Ltd, reprinted by permission of the Peters Fraser & Dunlop Group Ltd;

Extract from Lanterns and Lances published by Harper & Row and by Hamish Hamilton in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, copyright © 1961 James Thurber. Copyright © 1989 Rosemary A. Thurber;

Julian Symons for the extract from Bloody Murder;

Marilyn Yurdan for the extract from Oxford: Town & Gown;

Basil Swift for the extracts from Collected Haiku;

Martin Amis for the extract from Other People, published byJonathan Cape;

Max Beerbohm for the extract from Mainly on the Air, published by William Heinemann Ltd;

A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Crystal Hale and Jocelyn Herbert for the extract from ‘Derby Day’, Comic Opera, by A. P. Herbert;

Extract from Aspects of Wagner by Bryan Magee, reprinted by permission of the Peters Fraser & Dunlop Group Ltd;

The Estate of Virginia Woolf for the extract from Mrs. Dalloway, published by the Hogarth Press

Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the author and publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

This novel is based in part on an original storyline written by Colin Dexter for Central Television’s Inspector Morse series.

Part One

CHAPTER ONE

It is not impossible to become bored in the presence of a mistress

(Stendhal)

THE RED-SEAL Brut Imperial Moët & Chandon stood empty on the top of the bedside table to her left; empty like the champagne glass next to it, and like the champagne glass on the table at the other side of the bed. Everything seemed empty. Beside her, supine and still, hands behind his head, lay a lean, light-boned man in his early forties, a few years older than herself. His eyes were closed, and remained closed as she folded back her own side of the floral-patterned duvet, rose quickly, put her feet into fur-lined slippers, drew a pink silk dressing gown around a figure in which breasts, stomach, thighs, were all a little over-ripe perhaps — and stepped over to peer through the closed curtains.

Had she consulted her Oxford University Pocket Diary, she would have noticed that the sun was due to set at 16.50 that early Wednesday evening in late October. The hour had gone back the previous week-end, and the nights, as they said, were pulling in fast. She had always found difficulty with the goings back and forth of the clock — until she had heard that simple little jingle on Radio Oxford: Spring Forward/Fall Back. That had pleased her. But already darkness had fallen outside, well before its time; and the rain still battered and rattled against the window-panes. The tarmac below was a glistening black, with a pool of orange light reflected from the street lamp opposite.

When she was in her junior school, the class had been asked one afternoon to paint a scene on the Thames, and all the boys and girls had painted the river blue. Except her. And that was when the teacher had stopped the lesson (in midstream, as it were) and asserted that young Sheila was the only one of them who had the natural eye of an artist. Why? Because the Thames might well be grey or white or brown or green or yellow — anything, in fact, except those little rectangles of Oxford blue and Cambridge blue and cobalt and ultramarine into which all the wetted brushes were dipping. So, would all of them please start again, and try to paint the colours they saw, and forget the postcards, forget the atlases? All of them, that is, except Sheila; for Sheila had painted the water black.

And below her now the street was glistening black.

Yes.

Everything seemed black.

Sheila hugged the thin dressing gown around her and knew that he was awake; watching her; thinking of his wife, probably — or of some other woman. Why didn't she just tell him to get out of her bed and out of her life? Was the truth that she needed him more than he needed her? It had not always been so.

It was so very hard to say, but she said it: 'We were happy together till recently, weren't we?'

'What?' The tongue tapped the teeth sharply at the final 't'

She turned now to look at him lying there, the moustache linking with the neatly trimmed Vandyke beard in a darkling circle around his mouth — a mouth she sometimes saw as too small, and too prim, and, yes, too bloody conceited!

'I must go!' Abruptly he sat up, swung his legs to the floor, and reached for his shirt.

'We can see each other tomorrow?' she asked softly.

'Difficult not to, won't it?' He spoke with the clipped precision of an antique pedagogue, each of the five 't's articulated with pedantic completion. With an occasional lisp, too.

'I meant — afterwards.'

'Afterwards? Impossible! Impothible! Tomorrow evening we must give our full attention to our American clients, must we not? Motht important occasion, as you know. Lucky if we all get away before ten, wouldn't you say? And then—'

'And then you must go home, of course.'

'Of course! And you know perfectly well why I must go home. Whatever your faults, you're not a fool!'

Sheila nodded bleakly. 'You could come here before we start.'

'No!'

'Wouldn't do much harm to have a drink, would it? Fortify ourselves for—'

'No!'

'I see.'

'And it's healthy for the liver and kindred organs to leave the stuff alone for a while, uh? Couple of days a week? Could you manage that, Sheila?'

He had dressed quickly, his slim fingers now fixing the maroon bow-tie into its usual decadent droop. For her part, she had nothing further to say; nothing she could say. She turned once again towards the window, soon to feel his hand on the back of her shoulders as he planted a perfunctory kiss at the nape of her neck. Then the door downstairs slammed. Miserably she watched the top of the black umbrella as it moved along the road. Then she turned off the bedside lamp, picked up the champagne bottle, and made her way down the stairs.

She needed a drink.

Dr. Theodore Kemp strode along swiftly through the heavy rain towards his own house, only a few minutes' walk away. He had already decided that there would be little, if any, furtherance of his affair with the readily devourable divorcee he had just left. She was becoming a liability. He realised it might well have been his fault that she now seemed to require a double gin before starting her daily duties; that she took him so very seriously; that she was demanding more and more of his time; that she was prepared to take ever greater risks about their meetings. Well, he wasn't. He would miss the voluptuous lady, naturally; but she was getting a little too well-padded in some of the wrong places.