Death Is Now My Neighbour (8 page)

Now, the reader may readily be forgiven for assuming from the preceding paragraph that Stamper had been a time-server; a dissembling self-seeker. Yet such an assumption is highly questionable, though not necessarily untrue. When, for example, in 1925, the Mastership of Lonsdale fell vacant, and nominations were sought amid the groves of Academe, Stamper had refused to let his name go forward, on the grounds that if ten years earlier he had been declared unfit to fight in defence of his country he could hardly be considered fit to undertake the governance of the College; specifically so, since the Statutes stipulated a candidat
e whose body was no less health
y than his brain.

Thereafter, in his gentl
e, scholarly, pedantic manner, Stamper had passed his years teaching the esoteric skills of Greek Prose and Verse Composition - until retiring at the age of sixty-five, two years before the statutory limit, on the grounds of ill-health. No one, certainly not Stamper himself (it is said), anticipated any significant continuation of his life, and the College Fellows unanimously backed a proposal that the dear old boy should have the privilege, during the few remaining years of his life, of living in the finest set of rooms that the College had to offer.

Thus it was that the legendary Stamper had stayed on in Lonsdale as an honorary Emeritus Fellow, with full dining rights, from the year of his retirement, 1945, to 1955; and then to 1965
...
and 1975; and almost indeed until 1985, when he had finally died at
the
age of 104 -and then not through any dysfunction of the bodily organs, but from a fall beside his rooms in the front quad after a heavy bout of drinking at a Gaudy, his last words (it is said) being a whispered request for the Madeira to be passed round once again.

The agenda which lay before Sir Clixby Bream and his colleagues that morning was short and fairly straightforward:

(i)
To receive apologies for absence

(ii)
To approve the minutes of the previous meeting
(already circulated)

(iii)
To consider the Auditors' statement on College
expenditure, Michaelmas 1995

(iv)
To recommend appropriate procedures for the
election of a new Master

(v)
AOB

Items (i)-(iii) took only three minutes, and would have taken only one, had not the Tutor for Admissions sought an explanation of why the 'Stationery etc' bill for the College Office had risen by four times the current rate of inflation. For which increase the Domestic Bursar admitted full responsibility, since instead of ordering 250 Biros he had inadverte
ntly
ordered 250
boxes
of Biros.

This confession put the meeting into good humour, as it passed on to item (iv).

The Master briefly restated the criteria to be met by potential applicants: first, that he be not in Holy Orders; second, that he be mentally competent, and particularly so in the 'Skills of the Arithmetick' (as the original Statute had it); third, that he be free from serious bodily infirmity. On the second criterion, the Master suggested that since it was now virtually impossible (a
gentle
glance here at the innumerate Professor of Arabic) to fail GCSE Mathematics, there could be
little
problem for anyone. As far as the third criterion was concerned however (the Master grew more solemn now) there was a sad announcement he had to make. One name previously put forward had been withdrawn - that of Dr Ridgeway, the brilliant micro-biologist from Balliol, who had developed serious heart trouble at the comparatively youthful age of forty-three.

Amid murmurs of commiseration round the table, the Master continued:

'Therefore, gentl
emen, we are left with two nominations only
...
unless we
...
unless anyone
...
? No?'

No.

Well, that was pleasing, the Master declared: he had always wished his successor to be appointed from within the College. And so it would be. Voting would take place in the time-honoured way: a single sheet of paper bearing the handwritten name of the preferred candidate, with the signat
ure of the Voting Fellow beneath
it, must be delivered to the Master's Lodge before noon on the nineteenth of March, one month away.

The Master proceeded to wish the two candidates well; and Julian Storrs and Denis Cornford, by chance seated next to each other, shook hands smilingly, like a couple of boxers before the weigh-in for a bruising fight.

That was not quite all.

Under AOB, the Tutor for Admissions was moved to make his second contribution of the morning.

'Perhaps it may be possible, Master, in view of the current plethora of pens in the College Office, for the Domestic Bursar to send us each a free Biro with which we can write down our considered choices for Master?'

It was a nice touch, typical of an Oxford SCR; and when at 10.20 a.m. they left the Stamper Room and moved outside into the front quad, most of the Fellows were grinning happily.

But not the Domestic Bursar.

Nor Julian Storrs.

Nor Denis Cornford.

The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking — and looking

(Brooks Atkinson,
Once Around the Sun)

Earlier that same
morning Morse and Lewis had been sitting together drinking coffee in the canteen at Kidlington Police HQ.

'Well, that's them
!' said an unwontedly ungrammat
ical Morse as he pointed to the photograph which some darkroom boy had managed to enlarge and enhance. 'Our one big clue, that; one
small
clue, anyway.'

As Lewis saw things, the enlargement appeared to have been reasonably effective as far as the clothing was concerned; yet, to be truthful, the promised 'enhancement' of the two faces, those of the murdered woman and of the man so close beside her, seemed to have blurred rather than focused any physiognomical detail.

'Well?' asked Morse.

'Worse than the original.'

'Nonsense! Look at that.' Morse pointe
d to the tight
triangular knot of the man's tie, which appeared - just -above a high-necked grey sweater.

Yes. Lewis acknowledged that the colour and pattern of the
tie
were perhaps a little clearer.

‘I
think
I
almost recognize
that
tie
,' continued Morse slowly. 'That deepish maroon colour. And
that
' (he pointed again) 'that narrow white stripe
...'

'We never had ties at school,' ventured Lewis.

But Morse
was too deeply engrossed to both
er about his sergeant's former school uniform, or lack of it, as
with
a magnifying glass he sought further to enhance (?) the texture of the small relevant area of
the
photograph.

'Bit o' taste there, Lewis. Littl
e bit o' class.
I
wouldn't be surprised if it's the tie of the Old Wykehamists' Classical Association.'

Lewis said nothing.

And Morse looked at him almost accusingly. You don't seem very interested in what
I
'm telling you.' 'Not too much, perhaps.'

'All right! Perhaps it's not a public-school tie. So what tie do
you
think it is?'

Again Lewis said nothing.

After a while, a semi-mollified Morse picked up the photograph, returned it to its buff-coloured Do-Not-Bend envelope, and sat back in his seat

He looked tired.

And, as Lewis knew, he was frustrated too, since necessarily the whole of the previous day had been spent on precisely those aspects of detective work that Morse disliked the most: admin, organization, procedures with as yet little opportunity for him to indulge in
the
things he told himself he did the best: hypotheses, imaginings, the occasional leap into
the
semi-darkness. It was now 9 a.m.

You'd better get off to the station, Lewis. And good luck!'

'What are
you
planning to do?'

'Going down into Oxford for a haircut.'

'We've got a couple of new barbers' shops opened here. No need to—'

'I - am - going - down - into - Oxford, all right? A bit later, I'm going to meet a fellow who's an expert on ties, all right?'

'I'll give you a lift, if you like.'

'No. It only takes one of those shapely lasses in Shepherd and Woodward's about ten minutes to trim my locks - and I'm not meeting
this
fellow till eleven.'

'King's Arms, is it?'

'Ah! You're prepared to guess about
that'
'Pardon?'

'So why not have a guess about the tie? Come on!' 'I dunno.'

'Nor do I
bloody know. That's exa
ctly
why we've got to guess, man.'

Lewis stood by the door now. It was high time he went.

'I haven't got a clue about all those posh ties you see in
the
posh shops in the High. For all I know he probably got
it
off the tie-rack in Marks and Spencer's.'

'No. I don't
think
so.'

'Couldn't we just cut a few corners? Perhaps we ought to put the photo in the
Oxford Mail
We'd soon find out who he was then.'

Morse considered the possibility anew.

Ye-es
...
and if we find he's got nothing to do with the murder

'We can eliminate him from enquiries.'

Ye-es. Eliminate his marriage, too - '

' - if he's married - '

' - and ruin his children
-'

' - if he's got any.'

You just get off to
the
railway station
, Lewis.' Morse had had enough.

It is the very temple of discomfort (John Ruskin,
The Seven Lamps of Architecture —
referring to the building of a railway station)

At
9.45
a.m. Lewis
was seated strategically at one of the small round tables in the refreshment area adjacent to Platform One. Intermitte
ntly
an echoing loudspeaker announced arrivals or apologies for delays; and, at 9.58, recited a splendid litany of all the stops on the slow train to Reading: Radley, Culham, Appleford, Didcot Parkway, Cholsey, Goring and Streadey
...
Cholsey, yes.

Mrs Lewis was a big fan of Agatha Christie, and he'd often promised to take her to Cholsey churchyard where the great crime novelist was buried. But one way or another he'd never got round to it.

The complex was busy, with passengers consta
ntly
leaving the station through the two automatic doors to Lewis's right, to walk down the steps outside to the taxi-rank and buses for the city centre; passengers consta
ntly
entering through those same doors, making for the ticket-windows, the telephones, the Rail Information office; passengers turning left, past Lewis, in order to buy newspapers, sweets, paperbacks, from
the
Menzies shop - or sandwiches, cakes, coffee, from the Quick Snack counter alongside.

From where he sat, Lewis could just read one of the display screens: the 10.15
tr
ain to Paddington, it appeared, would be leaving on
time
- no minutes late. But he had seen no one remotely resembling
the
man whose photograph he'd tucked inside his copy of the
Daily Mirror.

At 10.10 a.m.
the
tr
ain drew in to Platform O
ne, and passengers were now getti
ng on. But still there was no one to engage Lewis's attention; no one standing around impatie
ntly
as if waiting for a partner; no one sitting anxiously consulting a wristwatch every few seconds, or walking back and forth to
the
exit doors and scanning the occupants of incoming taxis.

No one.

Lewis got to his feet and went out on to
the
platform, walking quickly along
the
four coaches which comprised the Turbo Express for Paddington, memorizing as best he could
the
face he'd so earne
stly
been studying
that
morning. But, again, he could find no one resembling the man who had once sat beside the murdered woman in a photographic booth.