Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

'Perhaps just 1996.'

The two men walked a little way along the short road. The houses here were of a pattern: gabled, red-bricked, three-storeyed properties, with ashlared, mullioned win-

dows, the frames universally painted white; interesting and amply proportioned houses built towards the end of the nineteenth century.

'Wouldn't mind living here,' volunteered Lewis.

Morse nodded. 'Very civilized. Small large houses, these, Lewis, as opposed to large small houses.'

'What's the difference?'

'Something to do with the number of bathrooms, I think.'

'Not much to do with the number of garages!'

'No.'

Clearly nothing whatever to do with the number of garages, since the reason for the continuum of cars on either side of the road was becoming increasingly obvious: there were no garages here, nor indeed any room for such additions. To compensate for the inconvenience, the front areas of almost all the properties had been cemented, cobbled, gravelled, or paved, in order to accommodate the parking of motor cars; including the front of the Storrs' residence, where on the gravel alongside the front window stood a small, pale grey, D-registration Citroen, a thin pink stripe around its bodywork.

'Someone's in?' ventured Morse.

'Mrs Storrs, perhaps - he's got a BMW. A woman's car, that, anyway.'

'Really?'

Morse was still peering through the Citroen's front window (perhaps for some more eloquent token of femininity) when Lewis returned from his ineffectual ringing.

'No one in. No answer, anyway.'

'On another weekend break?'

'I could ring the Porters' Lodge.'

Tfou do that small thing, Lewis. I'll be ...' Morse pointed vaguely towards the hostelry at the far end of the road.

It was at the Anchor, a few minutes later, as Morse sat behind a pint of John Smith's Tadcaster bitter, that Lewis came in to report on the Storrs: away again, for the weekend, the pair of them, this time though their whereabouts not vouchsafed to the Lodge.

Morse received die news without comment, appearing preoccupied; thinking no doubt, supposed Lewis, as he paid for his orange juice. Thinking and drinking ... drinking and thinking ... die twin activities which in Morse's view were ever and necessarily concomitant.

Not wholly preoccupied, however.

'I'll have a refill while you're at die bar, Lewis. Smidi's please.'

After a period of silence, Morse asked die question:

'If somebody came to you widi a letter - a photocopied letter, say - claiming your missus was having a passionate affair widi the milkman - '

Lewis grinned. 'I'd be dead worried. We've got a woman on die milk-float.'

' - what would you do?'

'Read it, obviously. See who'd written it'

'Show it to die missus?'

'Only if it was a joke.'

'How would you know that?'

'Well, you wouldn't really, would you? Not for a start You'd try to find out if it was genuine.'

'Exactly. So when Storrs got a copy of that letter, a letter he'd pretty certainly not seen before-'

'Unless Turnbull showed it to him?'

'Doubt it. A death certificate, wasn't it? He'd want to let Storrs down a bit more gently than that.'

'You mean, if Storrs tried to find out if it was genuine, he'd probably go along to the clinic...'

Morse nodded, like some benevolent schoolmaster encouraging a promising pupil.

'And show it to ... Dawn Charles?'

'Who else? She's the sort of Practice Manager there, if anybody is. And let's be honest about things. You're not exactly an expert in the Socratic skills yourself, are you? But how long did it take you to get the truth out of her? Three or four minutes?'

'You think Storrs did it as well?'

'Pretty certainly, I'd say. He's nobody's fool; and he's not going to give in to blackmail just on somebody's vague say-so. He's an academic; and if you're an academic you're trained to check - check your sources, check your references, check your evidence.'