charge these days but'--searching pockets 'here's a ten-ner.'
Lewis left him there on the reserved parking lot, just starting The Times crossword; and walked happily up to Boots in Lower Summertown.
What was happening to Morse?
The third item appearing on Julia Stevens's agenda the pre-vious day had been postponed. On her arrival at the Old Parsonage Hotel, a telephone message was handed to her: Mrs. Brooks would not be able to make the lunch; she was sorry; she would ring later if she could, and explain; please not to ring her.
Understandably, perhaps, Julia had not felt unduly disap-pointed, for her mind was full of other thoughts, especially of herself. And she enjoyed the solitude of her glass of Bruno Paillard Brat Premier Cm (dating!) seated on a high stool at the Parsonage Bar, before walking down to the taxi-rank by the Martyrs' Memorial and thence being driven home in style and in a taxi gaudily advertising the Old Or-leans Restaurant and Cocktail Bar.
It was not until later that evening that her brain began to weave its curious fancies about what exactly could have caused the problem....
Brenda Brooks rang (in a hurry, she'd said) just before the Nine O'Clock News on BBC1. Could they make it the next day, Saturday? A bit earlier? Twelvetwelve noon, say?
After she had put down the phone, Julia sat siiently for a while, stating at nothing. A little bit odd, that--Brenda ringing (almost certainly) from a telephone-box when she had a phone of her own in the house. It would be something--everything--to do with that utterly despicable husband of hers. For from the very earliest days of their marriage, Ted Brooks had been a repulsive fly in the nup-tial ointment; an ointment which had, over the thirteen in-creasingly unhappy and sometimes desperate years (as Julia had learned), regularly sent forth its stinldng savour.
Chapter Nineteen
The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife (Cyme. Coto..?)
As Brenda Brooks waited at the bus-stop that Saturday morning, then again as she made her bus-journey down to Carfax, a series of videos, as it were, flashed in a nightmare of repeats across her mind; and her mood was an amalgam of anticipation and anxiety.
It had been three days earlier, Wednesday, August 31, that she'd been seen at the Orthopaedic Clinic....
'At least it's not made your fracture.'
'Pardon, Doctor?' So nervous had she been that so many of his words made little or no sense to her.
'I said, it's not a major fracture, Mrs. Brooks. But it is a fracture.'
'Oh deary me.'
Coll. n Dexter
But she'd finally realised it was something more than a sprain--that's why she'd eventually gone to her GP, who in mm had referred her to a specialist. And now she was hearing all about it: about the meta-something between the wrist and the fingers. She'd u'y to look it up in that big dark-blue Grey Ly Atmtomy she'd often dusted on one of Mrs. Stevens's bookshelves. Not too difficult to remember: she'd just have to think of 'inet a couple'--that's what it sounded like.
'And you'll be very. sensible, if you can, to stop using your fight hand completely. No housework. Rest! That's what it needs. The big thing for the time being is to give it a bit of support. So before you leave, the nurse here'll let you have one of those 'Tubigrips'--fits over your hand like a glove. And, as I say, we'll get you in just as soon as, er... are you a member of BUPA, by the wa),?'
'Pardon?'
'Doesn't matter. We'll get you in just as soon as we can. Only twenty-four hours, with a bit of luck. Just a little op to set the bone and plaster you up for a week or two.'
'It's not quite so easy as that, Doctor. My husband's been in hospital for a few days. He's had a bit of a heart attack and he's only just home this morning, so...'
'We can put you in touch with a home-help.'
'I can do a little bit of housework, can't I?'
'Not if you're sensible. Can't you get a cleaning-lady in for a couple of days a week?'
'I am a cleaning-lady,' she replied, at last feeling that she'd rediscovered her bearings; reestablished her identity in life.
She'd hurried home that morning, inserting and turning the Yale key with her left hand, since it was becoming too painful to perform such an operation with her fight.
'I'm back, Ted!'
Walking straight through into the living-room, she found her husband, fully dressed, lounging in front of the TV, his fingers on the black control-panel.
'Christ! Where the 'ell a' you bin, woman?'
Brenda bit her lip. 'There was an emergency--just be-fore my turn. It held everything up.'
'I thought you were the bloody emergency from all the fuss you've bin making.'
'Baked beans all right for lunch?'
'Baked beans?'
'I've got something nice in for tea.'
A few minutes later she took a tin of baked beans from a pantry shelf; and holding it in her right hand beneath a tin-opener fixed beside the kitchen door, she slowly turned the handle with her left. Slowly--yes, very slowly, like
