And Morse had smiled his second smile of the day.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The newly arrived resident in North Oxford is likely to find that although his
next-door neighbour has a first-class degree from some prestigious university this
man is not quite so clever as his wife
(Country Living, January 1992)
MORSE was on his own when finally, in mid-morning the following day, he drove down to Park Town, this time again slowly circling die two crescents on either side of the elliptical central garden, well stocked with trees and flowering shrubs. There were plenty of parking spaces, and after his second circuit he pulled in the Jaguar along the south side and walked past the fronts of the dozen Italianate properties which comprised the attractive stone-faced terrace. At the eastern end he turned down an alley-way, and then into the lane, about three yards wide, which ran behind the properties. To his right the continuous brick wall which protected the small back gardens was only about five feet in height, and he realized that it would not even be necessary to enter any of the gardens to find the one he was looking for. It was all childishly easy - no Holmesian intellect needed here; indeed a brief Watsonian reconnoitre would have established the spot almost immediately. Thus it was that after only a couple of minutes Morse found himself leaning over the curved coping-stones of the western-most property, and finding the details on his photographs so easily matchable here: the configuration of the black drain-pipes, the horizontal TV aerial, and then, crucially, the tree upon whose lower bough a child's red swing was now affixed. At the left of the garden, as Morse observed it, was a wooden garden seat, its slats disintegrating; and he felt thrillingly certain that it was from this scat, in this very garden, that someone -and most probably Karin Eriksson herself -had taken the two photographs of the fair-beaded, bracycephalic, slimly built. . . what else had Dr Hobson said? He couldn't remember. And it didn't matter. Not at all.
He walked to the imposing front door of the end property, designated 'Seckham Villa' by a small plaque on the right-hand wall of the porch; and below it, three bells: second floor Dr S. Levi; first floor Ms Jennifer Coombs; ground floor Dr Alasdair McBryde. An area clearly where D.Phils and Ph.Ds proliferated. He rang the bottom bell.
The door was opened by a tallish, heavily bearded man in his mid-thirties, who studied Morse's authorization cautiously before answering any questions. He was over from Ostrylia (he said) with his wife, to pursue some research project in micro-biology; they had been in the flat since the previous August, and would be returning home in two weeks' time; he'd learned of the property from a friend in Mansfield College who had been keeping an eye open for suitable accommodation the previous summer.
The previous August. . .
Was this to be Morse's lucky day?
'Did you know the people - did you meet the people who were here before you?'
'Fried not,' said the Australian.
'Can I - have a quick look inside?'
Rather unenthusiastically, as it seemed, McBryde led the way into the lounge, where Morse looked around the rather splendid, high-ceilinged room, and tried to attune his senses to the vaguest vibrations. Without success. It was only when he looked out through the french window at the sunlit patch of lawn that he felt a frisson of excitement: a dark-haired little girl in a pink dress was swinging idly to and fro beneath the tree, her white ankle-socked feet just reaching the ground.
'Your daughter, sir?'
'Yeah. You got any kids yourself, Inspector?'
Morse shook his head. 'Just one more thing, sir. Have you got your book, you know, your rent-book or whatever handy? It's important I get in touch with the, er, people who were here just before you last year ..."
McBryde stepped over to an escritoire beside the french window and found his Property Payment book, the legend 'Finders Keepers' on the cover.
'I'm not in arrears,' said McBryde with the suggestion of his first smile.
'So I see. And I'm not a bailiff, sir,' said Morse, handing back the book.
The two men walked back towards the entrance, and McBryde knocked very gently on the door to his right, and put his ear to the panel.
'Darling? Darling?'
But there was no reply.
At the front door Morse asked his last question.
'Finders Keepers - that's the Banbury Road office, is it?'
'Yeah. You off there now?'
'I think I'll drop in straightaway, yes.'
'Is your car parked here?'
Morse pointed to the Jaguar.
'Well, I should leave it here, if I were you. Only five minutes' walk, if that -and you'll never park in North Parade.'
Morse nodded. Good idea. And the Rose and Crown was just along in North Parade.
Before leaving Park Town however, Morse strolled across into the central oval-shaped garden separating the Crescents, where he read the only notice he could find, fixed to the trunk of a cedar tree:
THIS GARDEN, LAID OUT CIRCA 1850, IS MAINTAINED BY THE RESIDENTS FOR PLEASURE AND PEACE. PLEASE RESPECT ITS AMENITIES. NO DOGS, BICYCLES, BALL GAMES, OR TRANSISTORS.
For a few minutes Morse sat on one of the wooden seats, where someone had obviously not respected the amenities, for an oblong plate, doubtless commemorating the name of a former inhabitant, had been recently prised from the back. It was a restful spot though, and Morse now walked slowly round its periphery, his mind half on Max's death, half on the photographs taken in the :back garden of the ground-floor flat at Seckham Villa. As he turned at the western edge of the garden, he realized that this same Seckham Villa was immediately across the road from him, with -the maroon Jaguar parked just to the left of it. And as once again he admired the attractive frontages there, he suspected perhaps a heavily bearded face had suddenly pulled itself back behind rather dingy curtains in the front room of Seckham Villa, where Mrs Something McBryde lay suffering from goodness knows what. Was her husband slightly more inquisitive than he'd appeared to be? Or was it the Jaguar - which often attracted some interested glances?
Thoughtfully Morse walked out of Park Town, then left into the Banbury Road. Finders Keepers was very close. So was North Parade. So was the Rose and Crown.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does (Steuart Henderson Britt, New York Herald Tribune, 30 October 1956)
AFTER two pints of cask-conditioned ale in the Rose and Crown, Morse walked the short distance to Finders Keepers, where he was soon ushered through the outer office, past two young ladies busy with their VDUs, and into the inner sanctum of Mr Martin Buckby, the dark, smartly suited manager of Property Letting Services. It was fairly close to lunch-time, but the manager would be only too glad to help - of course he would.
Yes, his department was responsible for letting a good many of the Park Town properties, most of which had been converted from single homes into two, sometimes three, flats and were more often than not let out to graduates, occasionally to students. Naturally the accommodation varied, but some of the flats, especially those the ground floor -or first floor, as some of them called it were roomy, stylish, and well maintained. The letting year usually divided itself into two main periods: October to June, covering the academic year at Oxford University; and then June/July to the end of September, when very frequently various overseas tenants: interested in short-term leases. Advertisements for the availability of such accommodation were regularly placed in The Oxford Times, and occasionally in Property Weekly. But only advertised once, for the flats were almost invariably snapped up straightaway. Such adverts gave a brief description of the property available, and the price asked: about £200-£250 a week for a short-term let (at current and slightly less, proportionately, for a long-term let. Business in the first instance, was usually conducted by phone, often through agents; and someone -either the client himself or a representative of an agency -would go along to view the property ('Very important, Inspector!') before the paperwork was completed, either there in the firm's offices or, increasingly now, directly by fax interchange with countries overseas. A deposit would be lodged, a tenancy agreement signed, a reference given -that was how it worked. There was no guarantee of bona fides, of course, and basically one had to rely on gut-reaction; but the firm experienced very few problems, really. When the client was due to move in, a representative would go along to open the property, hand over keys, explain the workings of gas, electricity, stop-cocks, central heating, fuses, thermostats, everything, and to give the client a full inventory of the property's effects -this inventory to be checked and returned within seven days so that there could be no subsequent arguments about the complement of fish-knives or feather pillows. The system worked well. The only example of odd behaviour over the previous year, for example, had been the overnight disappearance of a South American gentleman who had taken his key with him -and absolutely nothing else. And since, as with all short-term lets, the whole of the rental was paid in advance, as well as an extra deposit of £500, no harm had been done there -apart from the need to change the lock on the front door and to get a further clutch of keys cut.