Tomorrow was Thursday....
And the next day was Friday....
Strange how they'd both cropped up already that day: the Man Who Was Thursday and the Girl Who Was Friday. Yet at this stage of the case, as they sat together in Daventry Court, neither Morse nor Lewis had the vaguest notion of how crucial one of the two was soon to become.
Chapter Eleven
You; my Lady, certainly don't dye your hair to deceive the others, nor even yourself; but only to cheat your own image a little before the looking-glass (Lu IGI PIRANDELLO, Henry IV)
When for a second time she had put down the phone Eleanor Smith stared at her own carpet, in this case threadbare, tastelessly floral affair that stopped, at eacl wall, about eighteen inches short of the chipped skirting boards.
The callstdn't been unexpected. No. Ever since sheh read of Mc Clure's murder in the Oxford Mail she'd half ex pected, half feared that the police would be in touch. Twice at least twice, she remembered sending him a postcard; am once a letter--a rambling, adolescent letter written just afte they'd first met when she'd felt particularly lonely on dark and cloudy day. And knowing Felix, even a bit, sh thought he'd probably have kept anything she might hav, sent him.
Their first meeting for a drink together had been in th Chapters Bar of The Randolph. Good, that had been. N, pretences then, on either side. But he'd gently refused t. consider her a 'courtesan' if only for the reason (as he' smilingly informed her) that anagrammatically, and appro priately, the word gave rise to 'a sore Yes, quite good really, that first evening--that first nighl in fact--together. Above all perhaps, from her point o view, it had marked a nascent interest in crossword puzzles, which Felix had later encouraged and patiently fostered....
They'd found her telephone number in his flat--of course they had. Not that it was any great secret. Not ex- actly an ex-directory, exclusive series of digits. A number, rather, that in the early days had been slipped into half the BT phone-boxes in East Oxford, on a card with an amateur-ishly drawn outline of a curvaceous brunette with bouncy boobs. Her! But it was there; there in that telephone-thing of his on the desk. She knew that, for she'd seen it there.
Odd, really. She'd b. ave expected someone with such a fine brain as Felix to have committed her five-figure number to a permanent place in bis memory. Seemingly not, though. Poor old Felix.
She'd never loved anyone in life really-except her mum. But among her clients, that rather endearing, kindly, caring sort of idiot, Felix, had perhaps come nearer than anyone.
He'd never mentioned any enemies. But he must have had at least one--that much was certain. Not that she could help. She knew nothing. If she had known something, she'd have volunteered the information before now.
Or would she?
The very last thing she wanted was to get involved with the police. With her job? Come off it! And in any case there was no point in it. The last time she'd been round to Felix's apartment had been three weeks ago, when he'd cooked steak for the two of them, with a bottle of vintage claret to wash it down; and two bottles of expensive cham pagne, one before... things; and one after.
Poor old Felix.
A very nice person in the very nasty world in which she'd lived these last few years.
Easy enough fooling the fuzz! Just said she wasn't there, hadn't she? Just said she was in Spain. Just said there'd been this photo of a bare-breasted tourist in Torremolinos. Been a bit of a problem if that second copper'd asked for the photo, though. But he'd sounded all right--they'd both sounded all right. Just not very bright, that's all. Would they check up on her? But what if they did? They'd soon under stand why she'd told a few fibs. It was a joke. Bit of fun. No one wanted to get involved in a murder enquiry.
And whatever happened she cou Mn't be a suspect. Felix had been murdered on Sunday August 28th, hadn't he? And on that same Sunday she'd left Oxford at 6:30 ^.M. (yes!) on a coach-trip to Boumemouth. Hadn't got back, either, until 9:45 P.M. So there! And thirty-four witnesses could testify to that. Thirty-five, if you included the driver. Nothing to worry about, then--nothing at all.
And yet she couldn't help worrying: WOTying about who, in his senses, would want to murder such an inoffen- sive fellow as Felix.
Or in her senses...
Was there some history, some incident, some background in Felix's life about which she knew nothing? Sure to be, really. Not that he'd ever hinted-- Then it struck her.
There was that one thing. Just over a year ago, late May (or was it early June?) when that undergraduate living on Felix's staircase had jumped outof his third-floor win-dow--and broken his neck.
'That undergraduate'? Who was she fooling?
Poor Matthew!
Not that she'd had anything to do with that, either. Well, she'd fervently prayed that she hadn't. After all, she'd only met him once, when Felix had become so furiously jealous. Jealousy!
At his age--forty-one years older than she was. A grand-father, almost. A father, certainly. Yet one of the very few clients who meant anything to her in that continuum of car-nality which passed for some sort of purpose in her present life.
Yes, a father-figure.
A foster-father, perhaps.
Not a bloody step-father, though! Christ, no.
She looked at herself in the mirror of the old-fashioned dressing-table. The pallor of her skin looked ghastly; and her dark hair, streaked with a reddish-orange henna dye, looked lustefiess--and cheap. But she felt cheap all over. And as she rested her oval face on her palms, the index fin ger of each hand stroking the silver rings at either side of her nostrils, her sludgy-green eyes stared back at her with an expression of dullness and dishonesty.
