Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

Lewis shook his head in mild bewilderment

'You chose, what, the Requiem?'

'Well?'

'But you've never believed in all that religious stuff.'

'It's important if it's true, though, isn't it' Let's just say it's a bit like an insurance policy. A beautiful work, anyway.'

'Says here: 'Score four marks for (b). Sufficient recommendation that it was chosen by three of the last four Popes for their funerals.''

Morse lifted his eyebrows. *You didn't know that''

COLIN DEXTER

Lewis ignored the question and continued:

'Then you chose the sex video!'

'Well, it was either that or the kingfisher. I've already seen Casablanca a couple of times - and no one's ever going to make me watch a football match again.'

'But I mean, a sex video ...'

Morse, however, was clearly unimpressed by such obvious disapprobation. 'It'd be the choice of those three Popes as well, like as not'

'But it all gets - well, it gets so plain boring after a while.'

'So you keep telling me, Lewis. And all I'm asking is the chance to get as bored as everybody else. I've only got a week, remember.'

'I like your next choice, though. Beautiful girl, Kim Basinger. Beautiful'

'Something of a toss-up, that - between her and Mother Teresa. But I'd already played the God-card.'

'Then' (Lewis considered the next answer) 'Arrghh, come off it, sir! You didn't even go for the beer! You're supposed to answer these questions honestly.'

'I've already got plenty of booze in,' said Morse. 'Certainly enough to see me through to Judgment Day. And I don't fancy facing the Great Beyond with a blinding hangover. It'll be a new experience for me -tranquillizers...'

Lewis looked down again, and proceeded to read out the reasons for Morse's greatest triumph. 'It says here, on Question Five, 'Those choosing any of the suggested titles are clearly unfit for high honours. If any choice

DEATH IS NOW MY NEIGHBOUR

whatsoever is made, four marks will therefore be deducted from the final score. If the answer is a timid dash - or similar - no marks will be awarded, but no marks will be deducted. A more positively negative answer - e.g. 'Come off it!' - will be rewarded with a bonus of four marks.'' Again Lewis shook his head. 'Nonsense, isn't it? 'Positively negative', I mean.'

'Rather nicely put, I'd've thought,' said Morse.

'Anyway,' conceded Lewis, 'you score twenty out of twenty according to this fellow who seems to have all the answers.' Lewis looked again at the name printed below the article.' 'Rhadamanthus' - whoever he is.'

'Lord Chief Justice of Appeal in the Underworld.'

Lewis frowned, then grinned. 'You've been cheating! You've got a copy-'

'No!' Morse's blue eyes gazed fiercely across at his sergeant. 'The first I saw of that Gazette was when you brought it in just now.'

'If you say so.' But Lewis sounded less than convinced.

'Not surprised, are you, to find me perched up there on the topmost twig amongst the intelligentsia?'

''The wise and the cultured', actually.'

'And that's another thing. I think I shall go crackers if I hear three things in my life much more: 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'; Eine Kleine Nachtmusik; and that wretched bloody word 'actually'.'

'Sony, sir.'

Suddenly Morse grinned. 'No need to be, old friend. And at least you're right about one thing. I did cheat -in a way.'

COLIN DEXTER

'You don't mean you... ?' Morse nodded.

It had been a playful, pleasant interlude. Yet it would have warranted no inclusion in this chronicle had it not been that one or two of the details recorded herein were to linger significandy in the memory of Chief Inspector E. Morse, of the Thames Valley Police HQ.

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

In hypothetical sentences introduced by 'if' and referring to past time, where conditions are deemed to be 'unfulfilled', the verb will regularly be found in the pluperfect subjunctive, in both protasis and apodosis

(Donet, Principles of Elementary Latin Syntax)