Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

As she started on her eggs, bacon, mushrooms, and sausages, she accepted the good-natured twitting of her three breakfast companions, all male:

'Boyfriend?'

'Couldn't he wait?'

'What's he got...?'

During her comparatively young life, Adele had been companionably attached to a couple of dozen or so men, of varying ages, with many of whom she had slept -though seldom more than once or twice, and never without some satisfactory reassurance about the availability and reliability of condoms, and a relatively recent check-up for AIDS.

They were all the same, men. Well, most of them. Fingers fumbling for hooks at the backs of bras, or at the front these days. So why was she looking forward just a little to her lunchtime rendezvous? She wasn't really, she told herself, as she parked the Rover, crossed the narrow readjust below the bridge, and entered the bar.

'What'll you have?'

'Orange juice and lemonade, please.'

They sat facing each other at a low wooden table, and Morse was immediately (and again) aware of her attrac-

tiveness. She wore a slimly tailored dark-grey outfit, with a high-necked Oxford blue blouse, her ash-blonde hair palely gleaming.

Morse looked down at his replenished pint of London Pride.

'Good time at the Conference?'

'I had a lovely time,' she lied.

'I'm glad it went well,' he lied.

'Do you mind?' She waved an unlit cigarette in the air.

'Go ahead, please.'

She offered the packet across.

'Er, not for the minute, thank you.'

'Well?'

'Just one or two questions.'

She smiled attractively: 'Go ahead.'

Morse experienced a sense of paramnesia. Dejd vu. 'You've already signed a statement - about the morning Rachel was murdered?'

You know that, surely?'

'And it was the truth?' asked Morse, starkly. 'You couldn't have been wrong?'

'Of course not!'

'You told me you 'had a heart-to-heart' with Rachel once in a while. I think those were your words?'

'So?'

'Does that mean you spoke about boyfriends - men-friends?'

'And clothes, and money, and work-'

'Did you know she was having an affair with Julian Storrs?'

She nodded slowly.

'Did you mention this to Mr Owens?' Morse's eyes, blue and unblinking, looked fiercely into hers.

And her eyes were suddenly fierce, too, as they held his. 'What the hell do you think I'd do that for?'

Morse made no direct answer as he looked down at the old flagstones there. And when he resumed, his voice was very quiet.

'Did you ever have an affair with Julian Storrs?'

She thought he looked sad, as if he hadn't really wanted to ask the question at all; and suddenly she knew why she'd been looking forward to seeing him. So many hours of her life had she spent seeking to discover what lay beneath the physical looks, the sexual prowess, the masculine charms of some of her lovers; and so often had she discovered the selfsame answer - virtually nothing.

She looked long into the blazing log-fire before finally answering:

'I spent one night with him - in Blackpool - at one of the Party Conferences.'

She spoke so softly that Morse could hardly hear the words, or perhaps it was he didn't wish to hear the words. For a while he said nothing. Then he resumed his questioning:

'You told me that when you were at Roedean there were quite a few daughters of service personnel there, apart from yourself?'

'Quite a few, yes.'

'Your own father served in the Army in India?'