The Remorseful Day

Chapter twenty-eight

It was just after 4 P.M. that same Saturday afternoon when Morse and Lewis finally sat down together in the requisitioned office of the site manager.

“Straightaway I knew it wasn’t him, sir, when I saw his arms. Harry Repp had this tattoo: all twisted chains and anchors, you know — a sort of...” Lewis undulated his hands vertically, as if tracing a woman’s willowy figure.

“Convoluted involvement,” suggested Morse gently.

“Well, this fellow’s not got any, has he? Anyway he’s much smaller, only — what? — five-four, five-five. Doesn’t weigh much either — eight, nine stone? No more.”

Morse nodded. “And he’s got different colored hair, and he’s got a port-wine stain on his neck, and he’s not wearing Repp’s clothes, and his shoes are three sizes smaller—”

“All right. I wasn’t expecting the Queen’s Medal!”

At which Eddie Andrews, the 2i/c senior SOCO, knocked on the door and entered the office, at once uncertain whether to address himself to Morse or to Lewis. He decided on the former:

“Safe, I reckon, to move him now? Dr. Hobson says there’s not much else she can do here.”

Morse shrugged. “You’d better ask Sergeant Lewis. He’s in charge.”

And Lewis rose to the occasion. “Yes, move him. Thank you.”

As he was about to leave, Andrews noticed the TV set.

“Mind if I just see how Northants are getting on in the cricket?”

“Important to you, is it?” queried Morse mildly.

Andrews was digitally discovering Sport (Cricket) on Ceefax when the office door burst open to admit a florid-faced Chief Superintendent Strange, an officer resolutely determined to retain the appellation “Chief,” whatever most of his collateral colleagues in the Force were doing.

“You’ve ruined my afternoon’s golf, Lewis! You know that?”

Surprisingly, the words were spoken with little sign of animus. But before Lewis could respond in any way, Strange was addressing Morse in considerably sharper tones:

“And how exactly do you come to be here?”

“Same as you really, sir. Ruined my day, too. I was just indulging in a little Egyptian PT—”

“After indulging in a lot of Scottish whiskey by the smell of it!”

“—when Lewis here rang and asked me to come along. Well, he’s been a faithful soul most of the time, so...”

“So you just came along as a sort of personal favor?”

“That’s about it.” (Andrews sidled silently from the room.)

“Well let me tell you one thing, matey. You won’t be staying on as a personal favor — is that clear? You’ll be staying on because you’re in charge of this case — because that’s an order. You may have had some excuse as far as the Harrison case was concerned: I could just about understand that.” (Strange’s voice had momentarily dropped to a semisympathetic register.) “But you’ve no bloody excuse now. And if you decide to get on your high horse again and start arguing the toss with me, you’ll be up before the Chief Constable first thing Monday morning!”

“The Chief’s on furlough,” interposed a brave Lewis.

“Shut up, Lewis! And he’ll have your guts for garters, Morse. So that’s settled. All you’ve got to do is sober up and put your thinking cap on.”

“I usually think better when—” But Morse’s disquisition on his personal style of ratiocination was cut short by a further knock, with Dr. Hobson’s pretty head appearing round the door.

“Oh, sorry! It’s just—”

“Come in!” growled Strange, his jowls still wobbling.

“Just thought I’d check. We’ve got him outside and Andrews says it’s OK if—”

“Who is he?” asked Strange.

“Don’t know. I had a tentative feel round his pockets. No wallet, though, no cards—”

“He’s pretty easily recognizable though?”

“Oh, yes. His face is fine. It’s his stomach that’s all a gory mess where the knife or whatever it was went in.”

“At least we’ve got a good mug shot of him then.”

“Probably identify him straightaway. I got this from his trouser pocket.”

Strange looked down at a white “Cardholder’s Copy” receipt from Oddbins of Banbury Road, itemizing the purchase of a crate of Guinness, the number of the Visa credit card printed below in a faded indigo.

“There we are, Lewis! Shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?” He handed over the receipt with an unconvincing smile. “Unless you manage to lose that, of course.”

It was a hurtful dig. But the patient Lewis briefly examined the evidence himself and sought to put a finger on the fairly obvious:

“Not much chance this afternoon, sir. Saturday? The banks’ll all be shut.”

“What? For Christ’s sake, man! We’ve put someone on the moon, remember? And you say we can’t trace a credit-card number because it’s a bloody Saturday! Is that what you’re telling me?”

Morse had remained silent during these exchanges; and remained so now, his brain already galloping several furlongs ahead of the field. And Lewis, after such a withering rebuke, also remained silent, holding the receipt tightly, like a punter clutching a winning betting slip. Only Strange, it appeared, was willing to break the awkward silence as he turned again to Dr. Hobson.

“They’re just carting him off, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let us know — let Chief Inspector Morse know — what you come up with. Sooner the quicker. Understood?”

“Of course.”

The assembled personages rose to their feet; and matters at Sutton Courtenay were seemingly now at an end.

But not so; not quite.

It was Morse, at last, who made his brief though extraordinarily significant contribution to the afternoon’s developments.

“Sir, I think you ought to have a look at him.”

“I don’t like dead bodies any more than you do, Morse.”

“I know that, but...”

“But what?”

“... but you ought to have a look at him.” Morse spoke his words slowly and quietly. “You see, I think it’s quite possible that you’ll recognize him.”

Frequently afterward, in the post-Morse years, would Sergeant Lewis recall that afternoon at the fill-in site in Oxfordshire: when Chief Superintendent Strange had looked at the bloodless face of a murdered man; and when his erstwhile ruddy cheeks had paled to chalky white.

“Bloody ‘ell! I knew him, Morse. I interviewed him twice in the Harrison murder inquiry.”

When the top brass had finally dispersed, Eddie Andrews let himself back into the now deserted office, turned on the TV, found Sport (Cricket) on Ceefax and noted with quiet satisfaction that Northamptonshire were really doing rather well that day.