Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

'Seeing the woman this morning. She's just back from a few day's holiday.'

'Who's she again? Remind me.'

'I told you about her: Dawn Charles.'

'Mrs or Miss or Ms?'

'Not sure. But she's the main receptionist there. They say if anybody's likely to know what's going on, she is.'

'What time are you seeing her?'

'Ten o'clock. She's got a little flat out at Bicester on the Charles Church Estate. You joining me?'

'No, I don't think so. Something tells me I ought to see Storrs again.'

Lovingly Morse put the 'Girl Reading' (Perugini,

1878) back into her envelope, then looked through Sir Peter's letter once again.

Don Carlos.

The two words stood out and stared at him, at the beginning of a line as they were, at the end of a paragraph. Not an opera Morse knew well, Don Carlos. Another 'DC', though. It was amazing how many DCs had cropped up in their enquiries - and still another one just now in the District of Columbia. And suddenly in Morse's mind the name of the Verdi opera merged with a name he'd just heard: the 'Don' chiming in with the 'Dawn', and the 'Carlos' with the 'Charles'.

Was it Dawn Charles (Mrs or Miss or Ms) who held the key to the mystery? Did they belong to her, that pair of initials in the manila file?

Morse's eyes gleamed with excitement.

'I think,' he said slowly, 'Mr Julian Storrs will have to wait a little while. I shall be coming with you, Lewis - to Bicester.'

PART SIX

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way

(Samuel Butler, Truth and Convenience)

DAWN CHARLES looked nervous when she opened the door of her flat in Woodpecker Way and let the two detectives through into the grey-carpeted lounge, where the elder of the two, the white-haired one, was already complimenting her on such an attractive residence.

'Bit unlucky though, really. I bought it at the top of the property boom for fifty-eight thousand. Only worth thirty-four now.'

'Oh dear!'

The man made her feel uneasy. And her mind went back to the previous summer when on returning from France she'd put the Green Channel sticker on the windscreen - only to be diverted into the Red Channel; where pleasantly, far too pleasantly, she'd been questioned about her time abroad, about the weather, about anything and everything - except those extra thousand cigarettes in the back of the boot. It had been as if they were just stringing her along; knowing the truth all the time.

But these men couldn't possibly know the truth, that's what she was telling herself now; and she thought she could handle things. On Radio Oxford just before Christmas she'd heard P. D. James's advice to criminal suspects: 'Keep it short! Keep it simple! Don't change a single word unless you have to!'

'Please sit down. Coffee? I've only got instant, I'm afraid.'

'We both prefer instant, don't we, Sergeant?'

'Lovely,' said Lewis, who would much have preferred tea.

Two minutes later, Dawn held a jug suspended over the steaming cups.

'Milk?'

'Please,' from Lewis.

'Thank you,'from Morse.

'Sugar?'

'Just the one teaspoonful,' from Lewis.

But a shake of the head from Morse; a slight raising of the eyebrows as she stirred two heaped teaspoonfuls into her own coffee; and an obsequious comment which caused Lewis to squirm inwardly: 'How on earth do you manage to keep such a beautiful figure - with all diat sugar?'

She coloured slighdy. 'Something to do with die metabolic rate, so they tell me at die clinic.'

'Ah, yes! The clinic. I'd almost forgotten.'

Again he was sounding too much like die Customs man, and Dawn was glad it was die sergeant who now took over die questioning.

A little awkwardly, a litde ineptly (certainly as Morse saw things) Lewis asked about her training, her past experience, her present position, her relationships with employers, colleagues, clients ...

The scene was almost set.