'Kind? Was it fuck! Only wanted to know when I'd be back, that's all. Must be short-staffed--that's the only rea-son she rang.'
'You'd have thought people would be glad of a job like that, with all this unemployment--'
'Would be, wouldn't they, if they paid you decent bloody rates?'
'They pay you reasonably well, surely?'
He glared at her viciously. 'How do you know that? You bin lookin' at my things when I was in 'ospital? Christ, you better not 'a bin, woman!'
'I don't know what they pay you. You've never told me.'
'Exactly! So you know fuck-all about it, right? Look at you! You go out for that bloody teacher and what's 'er rates, eh? Bloody slave-labour, that's what you are. Four quid an hour? Less? Christ, if you add up what she gets an hour--all those 'olidays and everything.'
Brenda made no answer, but the flag was still flying on the small fortress. And, oddly enough, he was right. Mrs. Stevens did pay her less than an hour: 10 pounds for three hours--two mornings a week. But Brenda knew why that was, for unlike her husband her employer had told her ex-actly where she stood on the financial ladder: one rung from the bottom. In fact, Mrs. Stevens had even been talking that lunchtime of having to get rid of her B- registration Volvo, which stood in one of the run-down garages at the end of her road, rented at 15 pounds per calendar month.
As Brenda knew, the protection which that rusting, corru-gated shack could afford to any vehicle was minimal; but it did mean that the car had a space--which was more than could be said for the length of the road immediately outside Julia,'s own front door, where so often some other car or van was parked, with just as much fight to do so as she had (so the Council had informed her). It wasn't that the sale of the old Volvo ('340, pounds madam--no, let's make it 350 pounds) would materially boost her current account at Lloyds; but it would mean a huge saving on all those other wretched ex-penses: insurance, road tax, servicing, repairs, MOT, garaging... what, about 800 pounds a year?
'So why keep it?' That's what Julia had asked Brenda. She would have been more honest if she had told Brenda why she was going to sell it. But that lunchtime, at least, the telling of secrets had been all one-way traffic.
After dropping off the drooping Morse, Lewis returned to Kidlington HQ, where before doing anything else he looked at the copy of the Oxford Mail that had been left on Morse's desk. He was glad they'd managed to get the item in--at the bottom of page 1: MURDERED DON The police are appealing for help in their enquiries into the brutal murder of Dr. Felix Mc Clure, discovered knifed to death in his apartment in Daventry Court, North Oxford, last Sunday.
Det. Sergeant Lewis, of Thames Valley C. I. D, in-formed our reporter that in spite of an extensive search the murder weapon has not been discovered.
Police are asking residents in Daventry Avenue to help by searching their own properties, since it is believed the murderer may have thrown the knife away as he left the scene.
The knife may be of the sort used in the kitchen for cutting meat, probably with a blade about 2'broad and 5-6' in length. If found it should be left untouched, and the police informed immediately.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Men will pay large sums to whores For telling them they are not bores (W. H. AUEtq, New Year Letter)
Later that afternoon it was to be the B-B-B mute: Bisces-ret-Buckingham-Bedford.
Fortunately for Lewis the de-tached
Davies' residence was on the western outskirts of Bedford; and the door of 248 Northampton Road was an- swered immediately--by Ashley Davies himself.
After only a little skirmishing Davies had come up with his own version of the events which had preceded the showdown between himself and Matthew Rodway... and Dr. Felix Mc Cture: an old carcass whose bones Lewis had been commissioned to pick over yet again.
Davies had known Matthew Rodway in their first year together. They'd met in the University Conservative Asso-ciation (Lewis felt glad that Morse was abed); but apart from such political sympathy, the two young men had also found themselves fellow members of the East Oxford Mar-tial Arts Club.
'Judo, karate--that sort of thing?' Lewis, himself former boxer, was interested.
'Not so much the physical side of things--that was pa of it, of course. But it's a sort of two-way process, physic and mental; mind and body. Both of us were mom inte ested in the yoga side than anything. You know, 'union' that's what yoga means, isn't it?'
Lewis nodded sagely.
'Then you get into TM, of course.'
'TM, sir?'
'Transcendental Meditation. You know, towards spiritm well-being. You sit and repeat this word to yourself--th! 'mantra'--and you find yourself feeling good, content.. happy. Everything was OK, between Matthew and me, unt this girl, this woman, joined. I just couldn't take my ey off her. I just couldn't think of anything else.'
'The TM wasn't working properly?' suggested Lew helpfully.
'Huh! It wasn't even as if she was attractive, reall Well, no. She was attractive, that's the whole point. N beautiful or good-looking, or anything like that. But, wel she just had to look at you really, just look into your eye and your heart started melting away.'
'Sounds a bit of a dangerous woman.'
'You can say that again. I took her out twice-once t the Mitre, once to The Randolph--and she was quite ope about things. Said she'd be willing to have sex and so o fifty quid a time; hundred quid for a night together. N emotional involvement, though-she was very defini about that.'
