“These readings — are they genuine?”
“Partly, yes.”
“You could lose a stone or two, you know.”
“I agree.”
“But you won’t.”
“Probably not.”
“How’s the drink going?”
“Rather too quickly.”
“It’s your liver, you know.”
“Yes.”
“Any problems with sex?”
“I’ve always had problems with sex.”
“You know what I mean — sex drive...?”
“I’m a bachelor.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Just that I lead a reasonably celibate life.”
“It is my job to ask these questions, you understand that.”
The dark-brown eyes were growing progressively less angry as she examined his feet, and then his eyes. She had in fact virtually finished with him when a nurse knocked and entered the room, explaining swiftly that an outpatient had just fainted in Reception; and since for the minute Dr. Harrison was the only consultant there...
After she had left, Morse stepped quickly over to the desk and opened his own folder. On top lay a brief handwritten note:
And underneath it, a copy of a letter (Strictly Confidential) sent to the Summertown Health Centre and dated May 18, 1998.
Re Annual Review: E. Morse.
Dear Dr. Roblin,
Hemoglobin A lc (as you’ll see) is higher than we would like at 11.5 %. I’ve instructed him to increase each of his four daily insulin doses by 2 units — up to 10, 6, 12, 36. In addition, his cholesterol level is getting rather worrying. It’s pointless to ask him to cut his intake of alcohol, so please add to his prescribed medicines Atorvastatin 10 mg tablets nocte.
Eyes are remarkably good. Blood pressure is still too high. No problems with feet.
His general condition gives me no real cause for immediate anxiety, but I shall be glad if you can insist on a regular monthly review, at least for the rest of the year. I enclose the relevant clinical data.
Regards to your family.
With best wishes,
Professor R. C. Turner
Honorary Consultant Physician
P.S. He tells me he’s stopped smoking! And he’s certainly stopped listening to me.
Morse was sitting, slowly pulling on his socks, when Sarah Harrison returned.
“I’ll tell you one thing: you’ve got quite nice feet.”
“I’m glad bits of me are OK.”
While tying his shoelaces, Morse had missed the look of quick intelligence in the large brown eyes.
“Bit sneaky, wasn’t it?” She held up the file.
Morse nodded. “Don’t worry, though. Professor Turner sent me a copy of that last letter.”
“Well, in that case, there’s not really much more...” She got to her feet.
“Please!” Morse signaled to the chair, and obediently she sat down again. “Why haven’t you mentioned the murders, Doctor? They’re all over the national papers.”
“I bought six of them yesterday, if you must know.”
“Your father? Your brother — Simon, isn’t it? Do they know?”
“I’ve not seen Simon recently.”
“You could have phoned him.”
“Simon is not the sort of person you phone. He’s deaf, very deaf — as you probably know anyway.”
“And your father?” repeated Morse.
“I... whether or not... Oddly enough I saw him last week. He came to stay with me for a couple of nights.”
“Which nights?”
“Wednesday and Thursday. He went back to London on Friday.”
“What time?”
“Is this the Inquisition?”
“It is my job to ask these questions, you understand that.”
“Touché! He caught the train — I’m not sure which one. He didn’t bring the car — nowhere to park in Oxford, is there?”
“Why didn’t you see him off?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Were you working?”
“No. I’d arranged to have Thursday and Friday off myself. Like Dad, I’d a few days’ holiday to make up.”
“So why not see him off?”
The eyes were fiery now. “I’ll tell you why. Because he took me out the previous night to Le Petit Blanc in Walton Street and we had a super meal and we had far too much booze — before, during, and after, all right? And I got as pissed as a tailed amphibian and tried to sleep things off with enough pills to frighten even you! And when I finally staggered downstairs — eleven? half-eleven? — I saw this note on the kitchen table: ‘Off back to London. Didn’t want to wake you. Love Dad’ — something like that.”
“Any time on the note?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Have you kept it?”
“Course I’ve not kept it! Hardly a specimen of purple prose, was it?”
“Don’t be cross with me,” said Morse gently as he got to his feet and left the consulting room — with two blue cards for more immediate and urgent blood tests, and with instructions to fix up a further appointment for eight weeks’ time.
After the door had closed behind him, Sarah dialed 9 for an outside line on the phone there; then called a number.
“Hullo? Hullo? Could you put me through to Simon Harrison, please?”
Chapter thirty-six
Dr. Franklin shewed me that the flames of two candles joined give a much stronger light than both of them separate; as is made very evident by a person holding the two candles near his face, first separate, and then joined in one.
As he sat awaiting his turn outside the cubicle reserved for blood testing, Morse found himself wondering whether, wondering how, if at all, Sarah Harrison could have had any role to play in the appalling events of the weekend just passed. There were possibilities, of course (there were always possibilities in Morse’s mind), and for a few minutes his brain accelerated sweetly and swiftly into that extra fifth gear. But stop a while! Strange had surely been right to remind him that the easiest answer was more often than not the correct one. What was the easiest answer, though? Lewis would know, of course; and it was at times like these that Morse needed Lewis’s cautious 30 mph approach to life, if not to any stretch of road in front of him. Two heads were better than one, even though one of them was Lewis’s. Yet what a cruel thought that was! And so unworthy...
“Mr. Morse?”
A nurse led him behind the blood-letting curtain; and as she wiped the inside of his right arm with a sterilizing swab of cotton wool before inserting a needle, Morse found himself thinking of Dr. Sarah Harrison... wondering exactly what she was thinking (doing?) at that very moment.
“Hullo? Simon Harrison here.”
“Simon? Sarah! Are you hearing OK?”
“Where else? Course I’m here in the UK.”
“Are you hearing me all right?”
“Oh, sorry! Yes. Fantastic this new phone system. You know that.”
“Are you on your own, Simon?” She was speaking softly.
“Yes. But you can never count on it, sis. You know that.”
“Now listen! I’ve only got a minute or so. I’ve just been talking to Chief Inspector Morse—”
“Who?”
“Morse! He’s with the Thames Valley Police and he’s just become one of my patients.”
“He wasn’t on Mum’s case.”
“Well, he’s on this one.”