Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

'No. It'll take me at least five. And it's time you sat down and gave me the latest news on things here.'

Owens' body Morse had already viewed, howsoever briefly, sitting back, as it had been, against the cushions of the living-room settee, the green covers permeated with many pints of blood. His face unshaven, his long hair loose down to the shoulders, his eyes open and staring, almost (it seemed) as if in permanent disbelief; and two bullet wounds showing raggedly in his chest Dead four to six hours, that's what Dr Laura Hobson had already suggested - a margin narrower than Morse had expected, though wider than he'd hoped; death, she'd claimed, had fairly certainly been 'instant' (or 'instantaneous', as Morse would have preferred). There were no signs of any forcible entry to the house: the front door had been found still locked and bolted; the tongue of the Yale on the back door still engaged, though not clicked to the locked position from the inside. On the mantelpiece above the electric fire (not switched on) was a small oblong virtually free of the generally pervasive dust.

The body would most probably not have been discovered

that day had not John Benson, a garage mechanic from Hartwell's Motors, agreed to earn himself a little untaxed extra income by fixing a few faults on Owens' car. But Benson had been unable to get any answer when he called just after 11.15 a-m-! had finally peered through the open-curtained front window; had rapped repeatedly, and increasingly loudly, against the pane when he saw Owens lying asleep on the settee there.

But Owens was not asleep. So much had become gradually apparent to Benson, who had dialled 999 at about 11.30 a.m. from the BT phone-box at the entrance to the Drive.

Thus far no one, it appeared, had seen or heard anything untoward that morning between seven and eight o'clock, say. House-to-house enquiries would soon be under way, and might provide a clue or two. But concerning such a possibility Morse was predictably (though, as it happened, mistakenly) pessimistic. Early Sunday mom-ing was not a time when many people were about, except for dog-owners and insomniacs: the former, judging from the warnings on the lamp-posts concerning the fouling of verges and footpaths, not positively encouraged to parade dieir pets along the street; the latter, if there were any, not as yet coming forward with any sightings of strangers or hearings of gunshots.

No. On the face of it, it had seemed a .typical, sleepy Sunday morning, when the denizens of Bloxham Drive had their weekly lie-in, arose late, walked around their homes in dressing-gowns, sometimes boiled an egg, perhaps - and settled down to read in the scandal sheets about the extra-marital exploits of the great and the not-so- good.

But one person had been given no chance to read his Sunday newspaper, for the News of the Worldlay unopened on the mat inside the front door of Number 15; and few of the others in the Drive that morning were able to indulge their delight in adulterous liaisons, stunned as they were by disbelief and, as the shock itself lessened, by a growing sense of fear.

At 2.30 p.m. Morse was informed that few if any of the neighbours were likely to be helpful witnesses - except the old lady in Number 19. Morse should see her himself, perhaps?

'Want me to come along, sir?'

'No, Lewis. You get off and try to find out something about Storrs - and his missus. Bath, you say? He probably left details of where he'd be at the Porters' Lodge - that's the usual drill. And do it from HQ. Better keep the phone here free.'

Mrs Adams was a widow of some eighty summers, a small old lady who had now lost all her own teeth, much of her wispy white hair, and even more of her hearing. But her wits were sharp enough, Morse sensed that immediately; and her brief evidence was of considerable interest. She had slept poorly the previous night; got up early; made herself some tea and toast; listened to the news on the radio at seven o'clock; cleared away; and then gone out the back to empty her waste-bin. That's when she'd seen him!

'Him?'

'Pardon?'

You're sure it was a man?1

'Oh yes. About twenty - twenty-five past seven.'

The case was under way.

'You didn't hear any shots or bangs?'

'Pardon?'

Morse let it go.

But he managed to convey his thanks to her, and to explain that she would be asked to sign a short statement As he prepared to leave, he gave her his card.

'I'll leave this with you, Mrs Adams. If you remember anything else, please get in touch with me.'

He thought she'd understood; and he left her there in her kitchen, holding his card about three or four inches from her pale, rheumy eyes, squinting obliquely at the wording.

She was not, as Morse had quickly realized, ever destined to be called before an identity parade; for although she might be able to spot that all of them were men, any physiognomical differentiation would surely be wholly beyond the capacity of those tired old eyes.

Poor Mrs Adams 1

Sans teeth, sans hair, sans ears, sans eyes - and very soon, alas, sans everything.

Seldom, in any investigation, had Morse so badly mishandled a key witness as now he mishandled Mrs Arabella Adams.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Alibi (adv.y. in another place, elsewhere (Small's Latin-English Dictionary)

SOME PERSONS IN life eschew all sense of responsibility, and are never wholly at ease unless they are closely instructed as to what to do, and how and when to do it Sergeant Lewis was not such a person, willing as he was always to shoulder his share of responsibility and, not infrequently, to face some apportionment of blame. Yet, to be truthful, he was ever most at ease when given some specific task, as he had been now; and he experienced a