Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Is this a question?' (from an Oxford entrance examination)

If it is, this could be an answer.' (one candidate's reply)

APART FROM themselves and the two men still drinking coffee, the large lounge was now empty.

'Perhaps we could all do with another drink?' It was Morse's suggestion.

'Not for me,' said Angela Storrs.

'I'm all right, thank you,' said Julian Storrs.

'Still finishing this one,' said Lewis.

Morse felt for the cellophaned packet; and almost fell. He stared for a while out of the windows: heavy rain now, through which a hotel guest occasionally scuttled across to the Dower House, head and face wholly indistinguishable beneath one of die gay umbrellas. How easy it was to hide when it was raining!

Almost reluctantly, it seemed, Morse made the penultimate revelation:

'There was someone else staying here last Saturday

night, someone I think both of you know. She was staying - yes, it was a woman! - in the main part of the hotel, across there in Room fifteen. That woman was Dawn Charles, the receptionist at the Harvey Clinic in Banbury Road.'

Storrs turned to his wife. 'Good heavensl Did you realize that, darling?'

'Don't be silly! I don't even know the woman.'

'It's an extraordinarily odd coincidence, though,' persisted Morse. 'Don't you think so?'

'Of course it's odd,' replied Angela Storrs. 'All coincidences are odd - by definition! But life's full of coincidences.'

(Lewis smiled inwardly. How often had he heard those selfsame words from Morse.)

'But this wasn't a coincidence, Mrs Storrs.'

It was Julian Storrs who broke the awkward, ominous silence that had fallen on die group.

'I don't know what that's supposed to mean. All I'm saying is that /didn't see her. Perhaps she's a Faure fan herself and came for the Abbey concert like we did. You'll have to ask her, surely?'

'If we do,' said Morse simply, confidently, 'it won't be long before we learn the trudi. She's not such a competent liar as you are, sir - as the pair of you are!'

The atmosphere had become almost dangerously tense as Storrs got to his feet 'I am not going to sit here one minute longer and listen-'

'Sit down!' said his wife, with an authority so assertive that one of die cofFee-drinkers turned his head briefly in her direction as Morse continued:

'You both deny seeing Miss Charles whilst she was here?'

Tes.'

'Yes.'

'Thank you. Sergeant? Please?'

Lewis re-opened his notebook, and addressed Mrs Storrs directly:

'So it couldn't possibly have been you, madam, who filled a car with petrol at Burford on that Saturday afternoon?'

'Last Saturday? Certainly not!' She almost spat the words at her new interlocutor.

But Lewis appeared completely unabashed. 'Have you lost your credit card recently?'

'Why do you ask that?'

'Because someone made a good job of signing your name, that's all. For twelve pounds of Unleaded Premium at the Burford Garage on the A4O at about three o'clock last Saturday.'

'What exactly are you suggesting?' The voice sounded menacingly calm.

'I'm suggesting that you drove here to Bath that day in your own car, madam-'

But she had risen to her feet herself now.

'You were right, Julian. We are not going to sit here a second longer. Come along!'

But she got no further than the exit, where two men stood barring her way: two dark-suited men who had been sitting for so long beneath the portrait of the bland Lord Ellmore.

She turned round, her nostrils flaring, her wide naked

eyes now blazing with fury, and perhaps (as Morse saw them) with hatred, too, and despair.

But she said nothing further, as Lewis walked quietly towards her.

'Angela Miriam Storrs, it is my duty as a police officer to arrest you on the charge of murder. The murder of Geoffrey Gordon Owens, on Sunday, the third of March 1996. It is also my duty to warn you that anything you now