Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

' 'Quickly'? Is that the word you're looking for?'

'That's the word.'

Strange appeared about to leave. And - blessedly! -Lewis (Morse realized) must have been aware of the situation, since he had put in no appearance.

But Strange was not quite finished: 'Do you ever worry how your liver's coping with all this booze?'

'We've all got to die of something, they say.'

'Do you ever diink about that - about dying?'

'Occasionally.'

'Do you believe in life after death?'

Morse smiled. 'There was a sign once that Slough Borough Council put up near one of the churches there:

NO ROAD BEYOND THE CEMETERY.'

'You don't think there is, then?' 'No,' answered Morse simply.

'Perhaps it's just as well if there isn't - you know, rewards and punishments and all that sort of thing.' 'I don't want much reward, anyway.'

'Depends on your ambition. You never had much o' that, did you?'

'Early on, I did.'

You could've got to the top, you know dial.'

'Not doing a job I enjoyed, I couldn't. I'm not a form-filler, am I? Or a committee-man. Or a clipboard- man.'

'Or a procedure-man,' added Strange slowly, as he struggled to his feet.

'Pardon?'

'Bloody piles!'

Morse persisted.'What did you mean, sir?'

'Extraordinary, you know, the sort of high-tech stuff we've got in the Force these days. We've got a machine here that even copies colour photos. You know, like die one- Oh! Didn't I mention it, Morse? I had a very pleasant little chat widi Sergeant Lewis in the photocopying room just before I came in here. By the look of tilings, you've got quite a few alternatives to go on there.'

'Quite a lot of 'choices', sir. Stricdy speaking, you only have 'alternatives' if you've just got the two options.'

'Fuck off, Morse!'

That evening Morse was in bed by 9.45 p.m., slowly reading but a few more pages of Juliet Barker's The Brontes, before stopping at one sentence, and reading it again:

Charlotte remarked, 'I am sorry you have changed your residence as I shall now again lose my way in going up and down stairs, and stand in great tribulation,

contemplating several doors, and not knowing which to open.'

It seemed as good a place to stop as any; and Morse was soon nodding off, in a semi-upright posture, the thick book dropping on to the duvet, the whisky on his bedside table (unprecedentedly) unfinished.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A time

Older than the time of chronometers, older Than time counted by anxious worried women Lying awake, calculating the future, Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel And piece togedier the past and the future

(T. S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages)

THE RESULT OF one election had already been declared, with Mr Ivan Thomas, the Labour candidate, former unsuccessful aspirant to municipal honours, now preparing to assume his dudes as councillor for the Gosforth ward at Kidlington, near Oxford.

At Lonsdale College, five miles further south, in the golden heart of Oxford, the likely outcome of another election was still very much in the balance, with the wives of the two nominees very much - and not too discreetly, perhaps - to the fore in the continued canvassing. As it happened, each of them (like Morse) was in bed - or in a bed - comparatively early that Sunday evening.

Shelly Cornford was always a long time in the bathroom, manipulating her waxed flossing-ribbon in between and up and down her beautifully healthy teeth. When finally she came into the bedroom, her husband was sitting up against the pillows reading the Sunday Times Books Section. He watched her as she took off her purple Jaeger dress, and then unfastened her black bra, her breasts bursting free. So very nearly he said something at that point; but the back of his mouth was suddenly dry, and he decided not to. Anyway, it had been only a small incident, and his wife was probably completely unaware of how she could affect some other men - with a touch, a look, a movement of her body. But he'd never been a jealous man.

Not if he could help it.

She got into bed in her Oxford blue pyjamas and briefly turned towards him.

'Why wasn't Julian at dinner tonight?'

'Up in Durham - some conference he was speaking at. He's back tonight - Angela's picking him up from the station, so she said.'