Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

A semi-mollified Lewis elaborated: 'Then, if anything sticks out as important ... just follow it up ... and let you know?'

'Except for one thing, Lewis. Owens told me he worked for quite a while in Soho when he started. And if diere's anydiing suspicious or interesting about that period of his life ...'

'You'd like to do that bit of research yourself.'

'Exacdy. I'm better at that sort of thing dian you are.'

'What's your programme for today, dien?'

'Quite a few tilings, really.'

'Such as?' Lewis looked up quizzically.

'Well, there's one helluva lot of paperwork, for a start

And filing. So you'd better stay and give me a hand for a while - after you've fetched me another orange juice. And please tell the girl not to dilute it quite so much this time. And just a cube or two more ice perhaps.'

'And then?' persisted Lewis.

'And then I'm repairing to the local in Cutteslowe, where I shall be trying to thread a few further thoughts together over a pint, perhaps. And where I've arranged to meet an old friend of mine who may possibly be able to help us a little.'

'Who's that, sir?'

'It doesn't matter.' -

'Not-?'

'Where's my orange juice, Lewis?'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

MARIA: No, I've just got the two O-levels - and the tortoise, of course. But I'm fairly well known for some other accomplishments.

JUDGE: Known to whom, may I ask?

MARIA: Well, to the police for a start.

(Diana Doherty, The Re-trial of Maria Macmillan)

AT TEN MINUTES to noon Morse was enjoying his pint of Brakspear's bitter. The Chief Inspector had many faults, but unpunctuality had never been one of them. He was ten minutes early.

JJ, a sparely built, nondescript-looking man in his mid-forties, walked into die Cherwell five minutes later.

When Morse had rung at 8.30 a.m., Malcolm 'JJ'Johnson had been seated on the floor, on a black cushion, only two feet away from die television screen, watching a hard-core porn video and drinking his regular breakfast of two cans of Beamish stout -just after the lady of die household had left for her job (mornings only) in one of die fruiterers' shops in Summertown.

Accepted wisdom has it that in such enlightened times as these most self-respecting burglars pursue their trade by day; but JJ had always been a night-man, relying firmly on local knowledge and reconnaissance. And often in the daylight hours, as now, he wondered why he didn't spend his leisure time in some more purposeful pursuits. But in truth he just couldn't think of any. At the same time, he did realize, yes, that sometimes he was getting a bit bored. Over the past two years or so, the snooker table had lost its former magnetism; infidelities and fornication were posing too many practical problems, as he grew older; and even darts and dominoes were beginning to pall. Only gambling, usually in Ladbrokes' premises in Summertown, had managed to retain his undivided attention over the years: for the one thing that never bored him was acquiring money.

Yet JJ had never been a miser. It was just that the acquisition of money was a necessary prerequisite to the spending of money; and the spending of money had always been, and still was, the greatest purpose of his life.

Educated (if that be the word) in a run-down comprehensive school, he had avoided the three Bs peculiar to many public-school establishments: beating, bullying, and buggery. Instead, he had left school at the age of sixteen with a delight in a different triad: betting, boozing, and bonking - strictly in that order. And to fund such expensive hobbies he had come to rely on one source of income, one line of business only: burglary.

He now lived with his long-suffering, faithful, strangely influential, common-law wife in a council house on the Cutteslowe Estate that was crowded with crates of lager

and vodka and gin, with all the latest computer games, and with row upon row of tasteless seaside souvenirs. And home, after two years in jail, was where he wanted to stay.

No! JJ didn't want to go back inside. And that's why Morse's call had worried him so. So much, indeed, that he had turned the video to 'Pause' even as the eager young stud was slipping between the sheets.

What did Morse want?

'Hello, Malcolm!'

Johnson had been 'Malcolm' until the age of ten, when the wayward, ill-disciplined young lad had drunk from a bottle of Jeyes Fluid under the misapprehension that the lavatory cleaner was lemonade. Two stomach-pumpings and a week in hospital later, he had emerged to face the world once more; but now with the sobriquet 'Jeyes' - an embarrassment which he sought to deflect, five years on, by the rather subtle expedient of having the legend 'JJ - all the Js' tattooed longitudinally on each of his lower arms.

Morse drained his glass and pushed it over the table.

'Coke, is it, Mr Morse?'