Inspector Morse 4 - Service Of All The Dead
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR
Colin Dexter
The Remorseful Day
‘Morse’s last case is a virtuoso piece of plotting . . . by quitting the game on the top of his form [Dexter] has set his fellow crime-writers an example they will find hard to emulate’
Sunday Times
Death Is Now My Neighbour
‘Dexter has created a giant among fictional detectives and has never short-changed his readers’
The Times
The Daughters of Cain
‘This is Colin Dexter at his most excitingly devious’
Daily Telegraph
The Way Through the Woods
‘Morse and his faithful Watson, Sergeant Lewis, in supreme form . . . Hallelujah’
Observer
The Jewel that Was Ours
‘Traditional crime writing at its best; the kind of book without which no armchair is complete’
Sunday Times
The Wench Is Dead
‘Dextrously ingenious’
Guardian
The Secret of Annexe 3
‘A plot of classic cunning and intricacy’
Times Literary Supplement
The Riddle of the Third Mile
‘Runs the gamut of brain-racking unputdownability’
Observer
The Dead of Jericho
‘The writing is highly intelligent, the atmosphere melancholy, the effect haunting’
Daily Telegraph
Service of All the Dead
‘A brilliantly plotted detective story’
Evening Standard
The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn
‘Morse’s superman status is reinforced by an ending which no ordinary mortal could have possibly unravelled’
Financial Times
Last Seen Wearing
‘Brilliant characterization in original whodunnit’
Sunday Telegraph
Last Bus to Woodstock
‘Let those who lament the decline of the English detective story reach for Colin Dexter’
Guardian
SERVICE OF
ALL THE DEAD
Colin Dexter graduated from Cambridge University in 1953 and has lived in Oxford since 1966. His first novel,
Last Bus to Woodstock,
was published in 1975. There are now thirteen novels in the series, of which
The Remorseful Day
is, sadly, the last.
Colin Dexter has won many awards for his novels, including the CWA Silver Dagger twice, and the CWA Gold Dagger for
The Wench Is Dead
and
The Way Through the Woods.
In 1997 he was presented with the CWA Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature, and in 2000 was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
The Inspector Morse novels have been adapted for the small screen with huge success by Carlton/Central Television, starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately.
THE INSPECTOR MORSE NOVELS
Last Bus to Woodstock
Last Seen Wearing
The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn
Service of All the Dead
The Dead of Jericho
The Riddle of the Third Mile
The Secret of Annexe 3
The Wench Is Dead
The Jewel that Was Ours
The Way Through the Woods
The Daughters of Cain
Death Is Now My Neighbour
The Remorseful Day
Also available in Pan Books
Morse’s Greatest Mystery and Other Stories
The First Inspector Morse Omnibus
The Second Inspector Morse Omnibus
The Third Inspector Morse Omnibus
The Fourth Inspector Morse Omnibus
First published 1979 by Macmillan
First published in paperback 1980 by Pan Books
This edition published 2007 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2008 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Rd, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-46861-9 in Adobe Reader format
ISBN 978-0-330-46860-2 in Adobe Digital Editions format
ISBN 978-0-330-46864-0 in Microsoft Reader format
ISBN 978-0-330-46863-3 in Mobipocket format
Copyright © Colin Dexter 1979
The right of Colin Dexter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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For John Poole
I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my
God: than to dwell in the tents of ungodliness
(Psalm 84:10)
The First Book
of Chronicles
CHAPTER ONE
L
IMPLY THE REVEREND
Lionel Lawson shook the last smoothly gloved hand, the slim hand of Mrs. Emily Walsh-Atkins, and he knew that the pews in the old church behind him were now empty. It was always the same: whilst the other well-laundered ladies were turning their heads to chat of fêtes and summer hats, whilst the organist played his exit voluntary, and whilst the now discassocked choirboys tucked their T-shirts into flare-line jeans, Mrs. Walsh-Atkins invariably spent a few further minutes on her knees in what had sometimes seemed to Lawson a slightly exaggerated obeisance to the Almighty. Yet, as Lawson knew full well, she had plenty to be thankful for. She was eighty-one years old, but managed still to retain an enviable agility in both mind and body, only her eyesight was at last beginning to fail. She lived in north Oxford, in a home for elderly gentlewomen, screened off from the public gaze by a high fence and a belt of fir-trees. Here, from the front window of her living-room, redolent of faded lavender and silver-polish, she could look out on to the well-tended paths and lawns where each morning the resident caretaker unobtrusively collected up the Coca Cola tins, the odd milk-bottle and the crisp-packets thrown over by those strange, unfathomably depraved young people who, in Mrs. Walsh-Atkins' view, had little right to walk the streets at all—let alone the streets of her own beloved north Oxford. The home was wildly expensive; but Mrs. W.-A. was a wealthy woman, and each Sunday morning her neatly sealed brown envelope, lightly laid on the collection-plate, contained a folded five-pound note.