The Jewel That Was Ours (18 page)

'But how . . . why . . . ?'

‘We don't know. We were hoping you might be able to help us. That's why I'm here.' Sheila gaped at him. 'Me?'

'I'm told you had a - well, a bit of a row with him.' ‘Who told you that?' (The voice sharp.) 'One of the group.' That Roscoe bitch!' 'Have another guess.'

'Ugh, forget it! We had a row, yes. God, if anyone was going to kill themselves after that, it was me -
me,
Inspector - not him.'

'Look! I'm sorry to have to ask you at a time like this—'

'But you want to know what went on between us -between Theo and me.'

'Yes. Yes, I do, Mrs Williams.'

'Sheila! My name's Sheila. What's yours?'

'Morse. They just call me Morse.'

'All bloody "give" on my part, this, isn't it?'

'What did pass between you and Dr Kemp, Mrs - er, Sheila?'

'Only my
life -
that's what! That's all!' 'Go on.'

'Oh, you wouldn't understand. You're married, I'm sure, with a
lovely
wife and a couple of
lovely
kids—' 'I'm a bachelor.'

'Oh, well. That's all right then, isn't it? All right for
men.'
She drained her coffee and looked, first wildly, then sadly around her.

'G and T?' suggested Morse.

'Why not?'

As Morse poured her drink (and his), he heard her speaking in a dreamy, muted sort of voice, as though dumbfounded by the news she'd heard.

'You know, I was married once, Morse. That's how I got most of this' (gesturing around the room).

'It's nice - the room,' said Morse, conscious that the shabby exterior of the property belied its rather graceful interior, and for a second or two he wondered whether a similar kind of comment might not perhaps be passed on Mrs Williams herself . . .

'Oh, yes. He had impeccable taste. That's why he left me for some other woman - one who didn't booze and do embarrassing things, or get moody, or stupid, or passionate.'

'And Dr Kemp - he'd found another woman, too?' asked Morse, cruelly insistent. Yet her answer surprised him.

'Oh, no! He'd already
found
her; found her long before he found me!'

'Who—'

'His wife - his bloody wife! He was always looking at his watch and saying he'd have to go and—'

She burst into tears and Morse walked diffidently over to the settee, where he temporarily displaced the teddy-bear, put his right arm along her shoulder, and held her to him as she sobbed away the storm.

'I don't know whether I'm in shock or just suffering from a hangover.'

'You don't get hangovers at this time of night.'

'Morning!'

'Morning.'

She nuzzled her wet cheek against his face: 'You're nice.' 'You've no idea why Dr Kemp—?' 'Might kill himself? No!'

'I didn't say "kill himself''.’

'You mean—?' For a few seconds she recoiled from him, her eyes dilated with horror. 'You can't mean that he was murdered?'

'We can't be sure, not yet. But you must be honest with me, please. Did you know anyone who might have wanted to kill him?'

'Yes!
Me,
Inspector. Kill his wife as well while I was at it!'

Morse sedately disentangled himself from Mrs Williams. 'Look, if there's anything at all you think I ought to know . . .'

'You don't really think I had anything to do with -with whatever's happened?'

'You were seen walking up St Giles' towards North Oxford, just after lunch yesterday. And it wasn't Mrs Roscoe this time, either. It was Sergeant Lewis.'

'I was going - ' replied Sheila slowly, 'I
went
- to the Bird and Baby. Would
you
like a guess, this time? A guess about what I went for?'

'You were on your own there, in the pub?'

'Ye-es.' She had hesitated sufficiently, though.

'But you saw someone in there?'

'No. But - but I saw someone cycling past; cycling up towards Banbury Road. It was Cedric - Cedric Downes. And he saw me. I know he did.'

Morse was silent.

'You do
believe
me, don't you?'

'One of the secrets of solving murders is never to believe anybody - not completely - not at the start.'

'You don't
really
see me as a suspect, surely!'

Morse smiled at her: 'I promise to take you off the list as soon as possible.'

'You know, I've never been suspected of murder before. Thank you for being so civilised about it.'

'It'll be just as well if you don't say anything to the group about it. Not till we're a bit further forward.'

'And you're not very far forward at the minute?'

'Not far.'

'Couldn't
we
make a little more progress, Morse?' The fingers of her left hand were toying with the top button of her scarlet blouse, and Morse heard the siren voice beside his ear: 'What would you say to another little drink before you go?'

'I'd say "no", my lovely girl. Because if I'm not reasonably careful, if I do have another drink, in fact if I stay a further minute even
without
another drink - then I shall probably suggest to you that we proceed - don't forget that we don't "progress" in the police force, we always "proceed" - to, er . . .' Morse waved a hand vaguely aloft, drained his glass, rose from the settee, and walked to the door.

'You'd enjoy it!'

'That's what's worrying me.'

'Why not, then?'

Sheila had not moved from the settee, and Morse stood in the doorway looking back at her: 'Don't you know?'

A few minutes later, as he turned right into the Banbury Road, now beginning to think once more with some semblance of rationality, Morse considered whether his witness had been telling him the whole truth. Just as ten minutes earlier, as he had driven back to St Aldate's, Lewis had wondered the same about Mrs Kemp; in particular recalling the curious fact that, for a woman who had so manifestly hated her husband, she had reacted to the news of his death with such terrible distress.

Going by railroad I do not consider as travelling at all; it is merely being 'sent' to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel

(John
Ruskin,
Modern Painters)

At Kidlington HQ Morse and Lewis swapped notes at 7.45 a.m.: both felt very tired, but neither confessed to it; and one of them had a headache, about which he likewise made no comment. The Jaguar had been parked outside his flat that morning, with the keys found on the door-mat; but just as of his weariness and of his hangover, Morse made no mention of his gratitude.

At least the morning plan was taking shape. Clearly the biggest problem was what to do about the tour, scheduled to leave Oxford at 9.30 a.m. bound for Stratford-upon-Avon. It would certainly be necessary to make some further enquiries among the tourists, particularly about their activities during the key period between the time Kemp had arrived back in Oxford, and the pre-dinner drinks when everyone except Eddie Stratton, it appeared, was accounted for.
One
of the tourists, quite definitely, would not be able to produce his or her copy of the Oxford stage of the programme, for the yellow sheet found in Parson's Pleasure was now safely with forensics; might even produce some new evidence. And even if no fingerprints could be found on it, even if several of the tourists had already discarded or misplaced their own sheets, there would not be too many Americans, surely, who regularly wrote their sevens with a continental bar across the down-stroke. Then there was Cedric Downes. He would have to be seen a.s.a.p., and would have to come up with a satisfactory explanation of exactly why and when he'd left The Randolph.

In addition it was to be hoped that Max could come up with some fairly definite
cause
of death; and it was even possible (if only just) that the surgeon might throw caution to the wind for once and volunteer a tentative approximation of the time it had actually happened.

An hour later, as he drove the pair of them down to Oxford, Lewis felt strangely content. He was never happier than when watching Morse come face to face with a mystery: it was like watching his chief tackle some fiendishly devised crossword (as Lewis had often done), with the virgin grid on the table in front of him, almost immediately coming up with some sort of answer to the majority of the clues - and then with Lewis himself, albeit only occasionally, supplying one blindingly obvious answer to the easiest clue in the puzzle, and the only one that Morse had failed to fathom. Whether or not he'd be of similar help in the present case, Lewis didn't know, of course. Yet he'd already solved a little 'quick' crossword, as it were, of his own, and he now communicated his findings to Morse. The first part of Kemp's day had probably been something like this: