Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

and when soon the fat was set a-sizzling in the chip-pan, with the two eggs standing ready to be broken in the frying pan.

'On the mend.'

'They always say that'

'No. He's genuinely on the mend.'

'Why can't 'e 'ave visitors then? Not contagious, is it, this diabetes?'

Lewis smiled at her. Brought up as she had been in the Rhondda Valley, the gende Welsh lilt in her voice was an abiding delight with him - diough not, to be quite truthful, with everyone.

'He'll probably be out this weekend.'

'And back to work?'

Lewis put his hands on his wife's shoulders as she stood watching the pale chips gradually turning brown.

'This weekend, I should think.'

'You've always enjoyed working with 'im, 'aven't you?'

'Well

'I've often wondered why. It's not as if 'e's ever treated you all that well, is it?'

'I'm the only one he's ever treated well,' said Lewis quietly.

She turned towards him, laterally shaking the chips with a practised right hand.

'And 'ow are you today, then? The case going OK?'

Lewis sat down at the red Formica-topped kitchen table and surveyed the old familiar scene: lacy white doily, knife and fork, bottle of tomato ketchup, bread and butter on one side, and a glass of milk on the other. He should have felt contented; and as he looked back over another long day, perhaps he did.

Temporarily, Chief Superintendent David Blair from the Oxford City Force had been given overall responsibility for the Rachel James murder enquiry, and he had spent an hour at Kidlington Police HQ earlier that afternoon, where Lewis had brought him up to date with the latest developments.

Not that they had amounted to much ...

The reports from DCs Learoyd and Elton were not destined significandy to further die course of the investigation. Lord Hardiman, aged eighty-seven, a sad victim of Alzheimer's disease, and now confined to his baronial hall in Bedfordshire, was unlikely, it seemed, to squander any more of his considerable substance in riotous living along die Reeperbahn. Whilst die child-fondler, recognized immediately by his erstwhile neighbours, was likewise unlikely to disturb die peace for die immediate future, confined as he was at Her Majesty's Pleasure in Reading for die illegal publication and propagation of material deemed likely to deprave and corrupt.

More interestingly, Lewis had been able to report on his own enquiries, particularly on his second interview with Julian Storrs, who had been more willing now to divulge details of dates, times, and hotels for his last diree visits to Paddington with Rachel James.

And after dial, to report on his interview widi Sir Clixby Bream, who had informed Lewis of die imminent election of a new Master, and who had given him a copy of die College Statutes (fortunately, rendered Anglice) widi dieir emphasis upon die need for any candidate for die Mastership to be in good physical health (in corpore sand).

'Nobody can guarantee good healtii,' Blair had observed.

'No, but sometimes you can almost guarantee bad health, perhaps, sir?'

'We're still no nearer to finding how Owens got a copy of tiiat letter?'

'No. I went round to the Harvey Clinic again yesterday. No luck, though. The doc who wrote the letter got himself killed, as you know, and all his records have been distributed around... reallocated, sort of thing.'

'They're all in a mess, you mean?'

Lewis nodded. 'Somehow Owens got to know that he hadn't got much time left, didn't he? So he's got three things on him: he knows a good deal about Angela Storrs' past; he knows he was having an affair with Rachel James; and he knows he's pretty certainly hiding his medical reports from his colleagues in College - from everybody, perhaps.'

Quite certainly Morse would have complained about the confusing profusion of third-person pronouns in the previous sentence. But Blair seemed to follow the account with no difficulty.

'From his wife, too?' he asked.

'I wouldn't be surprised.'

'You know, Morse once told me that any quack who tells you when you're going to die is a bloody fool.'

Lewis grinned. 'He's told me the same thing about a dozen times.'

'He's getting better, you say?'

'Out by the weekend, they think.'

'You hope so, don't you?'

Lewis nodded, and Blair continued quietly:

'You're peculiar companions, you know, you and Morse. Don't you think? He can be an ungrateful, ungracious sod at times.'

'Almost always, sir,' admitted Lewis, smiling to himself as if recalling mildly happy memories.