Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

Orangeade, like water, had never played any significant role in Morse's dietary, but he suddenly realized that at that moment he would have willingly drunk a pint of anything, so long as it was ice-cold.

Even lager.

'It was a hot day, you say?'

'Boiling.'

'What was she wearing?'

'Not much.'

'She was an attractive girl, wasn't she?'

'To me? I'm always going to be attracted to a woman with not much on. And, as I remember, most of what she'd got on that day was mostly off, if you follow me.'

'So she'd have a lot of boyfriends?'

'She was the sort of woman men would lust after, yes.'

'Did you?'

'Let's put it this way, Inspector. If she'd invited me to bed that afternoon, I'd've sprinted up the stairs.'

'But she didn't invite you?'

'No.'

'Did she invite other men?'

'I doubt it. Not in Bloxham Drive, anyway. We don't just have Neighbourhood Watch here; we've got a continuous Nosey-Parker Surveillance Scheme.'

'Even in the early morning?'

'As I told you, somebody saw me go to work on Monday morning.'

'You think others may have done?'

'Bloody sure diey did!'

Morse switched tack again. 'You wouldn't remember - recognize - any of her occasional boyfriends?'

'No.'

'Have you heard of a man called Julian Storrs?'

Yes.'

'You know him?'

'Not really, no. But he's from Lonsdale, and I interviewed him for the Oxford Mail last year - December, I think it was - when he gave the annual Pitt Rivers Lecture. On Captain Cook, as I recall. I'd never realized how much the natives hated that fellow's guts - you know, in the Sandwich Islands or somewhere.'

'I forget,' said Morse, as if at some point in his life he had known ...

At his local grammar school, the young Morse had been presented widi a choice of the 3 Gs: Greek, Geography, or German. And since Morse had joined the Greek option, his knowledge of geography had ever been fatally flawed. Indeed, it was only in his late twenties that he had discovered that the Balkan States and the Baltic States were not synonymous. Yet about Captain Cook's voyages Morse should (as we shall see) have known at least a little - did know a little - since his father had adopted that renowned British navigator, explorer, and cartographer as his greatest hero in Me - unlike (it seemed) the natives of those 'Sandwich Islands or somewhere'...

Tou never saw Mr Storrs in Bloxham Drive?'

In their sockets, Owens' eyes shot from bottom left to top right, like those of a deer that has suddenly sniffed a predator.

'Never. Why?'

'Because' (Morse leaned forward a few inches as he summoned up all his powers of creative ingenuity) 'because someone in the Drive - this is absolutely confidential, sir! - says that he was seen, fairly recendy, going into, er, another house there.'

' Which house?' Owens' voice was suddenly sharp.

Morse held up his right hand and got to his feet. 'Just a piece of gossip, like as not But we've got to check out every lead, you know dial.'

Owens remained silent

'You've always been a journalist?'

·Yes.'

'Which papers...?'

'I started in London.'

'Whereabouts?'

'Soho - around there.'