Dishonesty?
Yes. The truth was that she probably hadn't given a sod for Mc Clure, not really. Come to think of it, he'd been get-ting something of a nuisance: wanting to monopolise her; pressuring her; phoning at inconvenient moments-- once at a very inconvenient moment. He'd become far too obses-sive, far too possessive. And what was worse, he'd lost much of his former gaiety and humour in the process. Some men were like that.
Well, hard luck!
Yes, if she were honest with herself, she was glad it was all over. And as she continued to stare at herself, she was suddenly aware that the streaks of crimson in her hair were only perhaps a physical manifestation of the incipient streaks of cruelty in her heart.
Chapter Twelve
To mn away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is tree that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill (Am STOTt, Nicomachean Ethics)
Morse had finished the previous evening with four pints of Best Bitter (under an ever-tightening waist-belt) at the King's Arms in Banbury Road; and had followed this with half a bottle of his dearly beloved Glenfiddich (in his pyja-mas) at his bachelor flat in the same North Oxford.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, he had not exactly felt as fil a Stradivarius when Lewis had called the following mc ing; and it was Lewis who now drove out to Leicester. It was Lewis who had to drive out to Leicester.
As the Jaguar reached the outskirts of that city, Mc was looking again through the items (four of them now, three) which Lewis had seen fit to salvage from Mc Clu apartment, and which---glory be!--Morse had instal agreed could well be of importance to the case. Certa they threw light upon that murky drink-drugs-sex sc which had established itself in some few parts of Ox University. First was a cutting from the Oxford Mail d: Tuesday, June 8, 1993 (fourteen months earlier): DRUG LINK WITH DREAM SON'S SUICIDE At an inquest held yesterday, the, Coroner, Mr. Art Hoskins, recorded a verdict of suicide on the deat Mr. Matthew Rodway, a third-year undergraduate teac English at Oxford.
Rodway's body had been discovered by one of the lege scouts in the early hours of Friday, May 21, al foot of his third-floor window in the Drinkwater Qua Wolsey College.
There was some discrepancy in the statements read at the inquest, with suggestions made that Mr. Rod may perhaps have fallen accidentally after a fairly drinking-party in his rooms on Staircase G.
There was also clear evidence, however, that Mr. way had been deeply depressed during the prev weeks, apparently about his prospects in his forthcor Finals examination.
What was not disputed was that Rodway had refuge among one or two groups where drugs were ularly taken in various forms.
Dr. Felix Mc Clure, one of Rodway's former was questioned about an obviously genuine but u ished letter found in Rodway's rooms, containing sentence 'I've had enough of all this.'
Whilst he stoutly maintained that the words them-selves were ambivalent in their implication, Dr. Mc Clure agreed with the Coroner that the most likely explanation of events was that Rodway had been driven to take his own life.
Pathological evidence substantiated the fact that Rodway had taken drugs, on a regular basis, yet there ap- peared no evidence to suggest that he was a suicidal type with some obsessive death-wish.
In his summing up, the Coroner stressed the evil na-ture of trafficking in drags, and pointed to the ready availability of such drugs as a major contributory factor in Rodway's death.
Taken in the fa'st place to alleviate anxiety, they had in all probability merely served to aggravate it, with the tragic consequences of which the court had heard.
Matthew's mother is reluctant to accept the Coroner's verdict. Speaking from her home in Leicester, Mrs. Mary Rodway wished only to recall a bright, caring son who had every prospect of success before him.
'He was so talented in many ways. He was very good at hockey and tennis. He had a great love of music, and played the viola in the National Youth Orchestra.
'I know I'm making him sound like a dream son. Well, that's what he was.' (See Leader, p.8)
Morse turned to the second cutting, taken from the same issue: A DEGREE TOO FAR A recently commissioned study highlights the increasing percentage of Oxford graduates who fail to find suitable employment. Dr. Clive Hornsby, Senior Reader in Social Sciences at Lonsdale College, has endorsed the implications of these findings, and suggests that many students, fully aware of employment prospects, strive for higher-class degrees than they are competent to achieve. Others, as yet mercifully few, adopt the alternative course of abandoning hope, of seeking consolation in drink and THE DAUGHTERS OF CAIN drags, and sometimes of concluding that life is not worth the living of it. It may well be that Oxford University, through its various advisory agencies and help-lines, is fully aware of these and related problems, although we are not wholly convinced of this. The latest suicide in an Oxford College (see p. I) prompts renewed concern about the pressures on our undergraduate community here, and the ways in which additional advice and help can he pro-vided.
Morse now mined again to the third cutting, taken from the Oxford Times of Friday, June 18, 1993: a shorter article, flanked by a photograph of 'Dr. F. F. Maclure,' a clean-shaven, rather mournful-looking man, pictured in full aca~ demic dress.
PASTORAL CARE DEFENDED
Following the latest in a disturbing sequence of Suicides, considerable criticism has been levelled against-the Uni-versity's counselling arrangements. But Dr. Felix Mc Lure, former Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Wolsey Col-lege, has expressed his disappointment that so many have rushed into the arena with allegations of indifference and neglect. In fact, according to Dr. Mac Clure, the Univer-sity has been instrumental over the past year in promoting several initiatives, including the formation of Oxford Uni-versity Counselling and Help (OUCH) of which he was a founder-member. 'More should be done,' he told our re-porter.
'We all agree on that score. But there should also he some recognition of the University's present concern and commimaent.'
'You'll soon know those things off by heart,' ventured a well-pleased Lewis as he stopped in a leafy lane on the eastern side of the London Road and briefly consulted his street-map, before setting off again.
