The Jewel That Was Ours (27 page)

Back home in California, he'd met Shirley; and married her. OK, there mightn't perhaps be all that much left over now from the early joys of their marriage; yet, in an odd sort of way, the longer they'd abjured the divorce-courts, the stronger had grown the ties that bound them together: home, children, friends, memories, insurance policies; and above all, perhaps, the sheer length - the ever-increasing length - of the time they'd spent together as man and wife. Forty-three whole years of it now.

Before marrying Shirley, he'd written an honourable and honest letter to Betty Fowler, but he'd received no reply. Whatever the actual reasons for this, in his own mind he'd singled out the fact that she must have got married. She was an extraordinarily attractive girl, with a pale complexion, a freckled face, and ginger hair: a girl for whom most of the other GIs would willingly have given a monthly pay-packet. Or an annual one.

Then, only six months since, he had received a letter ('Private and Strictly Confidential'). Although sent to his 1947 address in Los Angeles, it had finally, almost flukily, caught up with him - and thereby opened a floodgate of memories upon which the years had added their sentimental compound-interest. She had (Betty confessed) received his letter all that while ago; still had it, in fact. But by that time she had married a car-worker from Cowley, was four months' pregnant, and was eventually to become the mother of four lovely children - three girls and one boy. Her husband had retired in 1988 and then, so sadly, died only seven months later. She was all right, herself. No worries - certainly no financial worries. And eight (eight!) grandchildren, though she had not herself been tempted to enter the local 'Glamorous Grandmother' contest. So, the only reason for her writing was to say that if he ever
did
get the chance to come over to the UK again, well, she'd like - well, it would be nice . . .

From America, how earnestly he'd longed to reach her on the telephone! But she had given him neither an address nor a telephone number; and the complexities of finding either had posed rather too much of a problem on a transatlantic line. Yet here he was now - so near to her! And with his wife gone out for long enough with one of her admirers
...
So, he'd watched her go from the hotel, and then contacted Directory Enquiries from the phone-booth in the foyer. Miraculously, within a couple of minutes, he'd found himself speaking to a woman he'd kissed goodbye in the early May of 1944 - over forty-six years ago! Could she meet him? Would she
like
to meet him? The answer was yes, yes, yes. And so they
had
met (it had been
so
easy, as it happened, for him to sneak away the previous afternoon) nervously and excitedly outside the main entrance to the University Parks at 2.30 p.m.

'And
she
turned up, did she?' asked Morse.

'Yes.' Brown appeared a fraction puzzled by the question. 'Oh, yes! I'd walked up St Giles' about two o'clock, and then down Keble Road to the Parks. And, well, there she was waiting for me.'

'Then you went to Parson's Pleasure and sat in one of the cubicles.'

'But you won't get me wrong, will you, Inspector? I want to set the record straight. We just had a quiet little kiss and cuddle together and - well, that was that, really.'

'My only wish,' said Morse, looking now with somewhat irrational distaste at the remarkably well-preserved Lothario from Los Angeles, 'is to set, as you say, the record straight. So thank you for your honesty!'

Brown stood up and prepared to leave. He looked, little doubt of it, considerably relieved, but clearly there was something on his mind, for he stood hesitantly beside the table, his eyes scouting around for some object upon which to focus.

'There
is
one thing, Inspector.'

'And that is?'

'When I was walking up to Keble Road yesterday I saw someone standing at the bus-stop outside St Giles' Church, waiting to get up to Summertown. Well, I suppose it was Summertown.'

'And who was that, sir?'

'It was Mr Ashenden.'

* * *

'I just don't believe all this,' said Morse after Brown had gone. 'You mean you wonder who
Ashenden
saw, sir?' 'Exactly.'

'He sounded as if he was telling the truth.'

'They all do! But
somebody
isn't telling the truth, Lewis. Somebody stole the Wolvercote Tongue, and somebody murdered Kemp! If only I could find the connection!'

'Perhaps there isn't a connection,' said Lewis.

But he might just as well have been talking to himself.

Sic, ne perdiderit, rum cessat perdere lusor
(To recoup his losses, the gambler keeps on backing the losers)

(Ovid,
Ars Amatoria)

Ashenden, buttonholed as he was once again in the coffee-lounge by the diminutive dynamo from Sacramento, appeared only too glad to be given the opportunity of escaping, albeit to an interview with Chief Inspector Morse.

'Do you always get one like that?' sympathised Lewis.

'Well, she'd probably take the prize,' conceded Ashenden with a weary grin. 'But Janet's not such a bad old stick sometimes - not when you get to know her.'

'Makes you wonder how anyone ever married her, though.'

Ashenden nodded as he walked through into the Bar-Annexe: 'Poor chap!'

With this next hand (Ashenden), Morse took no finesses at all. Just played off his aces and sat back. Question: Why had Ashenden lied about his visit to Magdalen? Answer: It wasn't a lie really. He
had
gone up to Magdalen College, asked at the Porters' Lodge, discovered the grounds were closed; then just carried on walking over the bridge, around the Plain, and back again down the High. Silly to lie, really. But it was only to avoid any tedious and wholly inconsequential explanation. Question: What about the previous afternoon, at about 2 p.m.? (Morse admitted his willingness to listen to a little more 'tedious and wholly inconsequential explanation'.)

'No secret, Inspector. In fact I'd told a couple of the group - Mr and Mrs Rronquist, I think it was - that I was going up to Summertown.'

'Why bother? Why explain? You're a free agent, aren't you, sir?'

Ashenden pondered the question awhile. 'I did realise, yesterday, that you perhaps weren't completely satisfied with the account of my whereabouts when, er—'

'The Wolvercote Tongue was stolen,' supplied Morse.

'Yes. That's why it seemed no bad idea for somebody to know where I was yesterday afternoon.'

'And where was that?'

Ashenden, looking decidedly uncomfortable, drew a deep breath: 'I spent the afternoon in the betting-shop in Summertown.'

Lewis looked up: 'Not a crime, that, is it?'

Morse seemed to appreciate the interjection: 'Surely Sergeant Lewis is right, sir? Certainly it's not a criminal offence to line a bookie's pockets.'

Ashenden suddenly seemed more relaxed: 'I had a tip. I met this fellow from Newmarket when we were at The University Arms in Cambridge. He said be sure to back this horse - over the sticks at Fontwell Park.'

'Go on.'

'Well, that's it, really. I picked another horse, in the race before - I'd got to the bookie's at about half-past two, I suppose. I put three pounds to win on a horse in the two-fifty, and then five pounds to win on the "dead cert" this fellow had told me about in the three-fifteen or three-twenty - something like that.'

'How much did you win?'

Ashenden shook his head sadly: 'I don't think you can be a racing man, Inspector.'

'Would they have records at the bookie's to show you'd been there, sir?'

It was Lewis who had asked the question, and Ashenden turned in his chair to face him: 'Are you suggesting I
wasn't
there?'

'No, sir. Certainly not. But it was the key sort
of
time,

wasn't it? Three o'clock time? Just the time when Dr Kemp was getting back to Oxford.'

'Yes,' replied Ashenden slowly. 'I take the point.'

'Would anyone recognise you,' continued Lewis, 'if you went there again?'

T don't know. There were quite a few there during the afternoon - eight, ten - more, perhaps, for some of the time, some of the races. But whether anyone would recognise me ...'

'They'd have your betting-slips, surely?' suggested Morse.

'Oh yes - they'd keep those - if the horses had won.'

'Bit of bad luck you didn't pick a winner, then. You could have collected your winnings and proved your alibi both at the same time.'

'Life's full of disappointments, Inspector, as I'm sure—' Suddenly he stopped; and his eyes lit up as he withdrew a black-leather wallet from the breast-pocket of his sports jacket. 'With a bit of luck . . . Yes! Thank goodness! I thought I might have torn them up.'

'They tell me betting-shops are littered with torn-up betting-slips,' said Morse, as he looked down at the two pink slips that Ashenden had handed to him.

'You might just as well tear those up as well, Inspector, I'm afraid.'

'Oh, no, sir. We mustn't destroy any evidence, must we, Lewis?'

Ashenden shrugged, and seemed for the moment somewhat less at ease. 'Anything else?'

'I think not,' said Morse. 'But it's a mug's game, betting, you know. A dirty game, too.'

'Perhaps you should go into a betting-shop yourself one day. It's quite a civilised business, these days—'