Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

pleasing sense of purpose as he drove up to Police HQ that same afternoon.

One thing only disturbed him more than a little. For almost a week now Morse had forgone, been forced to forgo, both beer and cigarettes. And what foolishness it was to capitulate, as Morse had done, to both, within die space of only a couple of hours! But that's what life was all about - personal decisions; and Morse had clearly decided that the long-term disintegration of his liver and his lungs was a price well worth paying, even with diabetes, for the short-term pleasures of alcohol and nicotine.

Yet Morse was still on the ball. As he had guessed, Storrs had left details of his weekend whereabouts at the Porters' Lodge. And very soon Lewis was speaking to the Manager of Bath's Royal Crescent Hotel - an appropriately cautious man, but one who was fully co-operative once Lewis had explained the unusual and delicate nature of his enquiries. The Manager would ring back, he promised, within half an hour.

Lewis picked up the previous day's copy of the Daily Mirror, and sat puzzling for a few minutes over whether the answer to i across - 'River (3)' - was CAM, DEE, EXE, FAL, and so on through the alphabet; finally deciding on CAM, when he saw that it would fit neady enough with COD, the fairly obvious answer to i down -'Fish (3)'. He had made a firm start. But thereafter he had proceeded little, since the combination which had found favour widi the setter of the crossword (EXE/ EEL) had wholly eluded him. His minor hypodiesis, like Morse's earlier major one, was sadly undone.

But he had no time to return (quite literally) to square one, since the phone rang. It had taken the Manager only fifteen minutes to assemble his fairly comprehensive information ...

Mr and Mrs J. Storrs had checked into the hotel at 4 p.m. the previous afternoon, Saturday, 2 March: just the one night, at the special weekend-break tariff of ?125 for a double room. The purpose of the Storrs' visit (almost certainly) had been to hear the Bath Festival Choir, since one of the reception staff had ordered a taxi for them at

7 p.m. to go along to the Abbey, where the Faure Requiem was the centrepiece of the evening conceit. The couple had been back in the hotel by about half past nine, when they had immediately gone into the restaurant for a late, pre-booked dinner, the only extra being a bottle of the house red wine.

If the sergeant would like to see the itemized bill... ?

No one, it appeared, had seen the couple after about 11 p.m., when they had been the last to leave the restaurant. Before retiring, however, Mr Storrs had rung through to room service to order breakfast for the two of them, in their room, at 7.45 a.m.: a full English for himself, a Continental one for his wife.

Again, the itemized order was available if the sergeant...

Latest check-out from the hotel (as officially specified in the brochure) was noon. But the Storrs had left a good while before then. As with the other details (the Manager explained) some of the times given were just a little vague, since service personnel had changed. But things could very soon be checked. The account had been settled by Mr Storrs himself on a Lloyds Bank Gold Card (the receptionist recalled this clearly), and one of the porters had driven the Storrs' BMW round to the front of the hotel from the rear garage - being tipped (it appeared) quite liberally for his services.

So that was that.

Or almost so - since Lewis was very much aware that Morse would hardly be overjoyed with such findings; and he now asked a few further key questions.

'I know it's an odd thing to ask, sir, but are you

completely sure that these people were Mr and Mrs Storrs?'

'Well, I ...' The Manager hesitated long enough for Lewis to jam a metaphoric foot inside the door.

'You knew them - know them - personally?'

'I've only been Manager here for a couple of years. But, yes - they were here twelve months or so ago.'

'People change, though, don't they? He might have changed quite a bit, Mr Storrs, if he'd been ill or ... or something?'

'Oh, it was him all right I'm sure of that. Well, almost sure. And he signed the credit-card bill, didn't he? It should be quite easy to check up on that.'

'And you're quite sure it was her, sir? Mrs Storrs? Is there any possibility at all that he was spending the night with someone else?'

The laugh at the other end of the line was full of relief and conviction.

'Not - a - chance! You can be one hundred per cent certain of that I think everybody here remembers her. She's, you know, she's a bit sharp, if you follow my meaning. Nothing unpleasant - don't get me wrong! But a little bit, well, severe. She dressed that way, too: white trouser-suit, hair drawn back high over the ears, beauty-parlour face. Quite the lady, really.'

Lewis drew on his salient reminiscence of Angela Storrs:

'It's not always easy to recognize someone who's wearing sunglasses, though.'

'But she wasn't wearing sunglasses. Not when I saw her, anyway. I just happened to be in reception when

she booked in. And it was sft/recognized mA You see, the last time they'd been with us, she did the signing in, while Mr Storrs was sorting out the luggage and the parking. And I noticed the registration number of their BMW and I mentioned the coincidence that we were both 'i88J'. She reminded me of it yesterday. She said they'd still got the same car.'

You can swear to all this?'

'Certainly. We had quite a litde chat She told me they'd spent dieir honeymoon in the hotel - in the Sarah Siddons suite.'

Oh.

So that was that