do so, and there was little he could now do to remedy the situation except to
take half a dozen such measurements in the remaining interval of thirty-six
hours and to extrapolate backwards therefrom, in order to present a neatly
tabulated series of satisfactory readings. He'd done it before and he would
do it again.
Kem Problem.
He half-filled a tumbler with Glenfiddich, then topped it up with
commensurate tap-water. Such dilution (a recent innovation) would, as Morse
knew, mark him out in the eyes of many
a Scot as a sacrilegious Sassenach. But according to his GP, the liver
preferred things that way; and Morse's liver (according to the same source)
was in need of a bit of tender loving care, along with his heart, kidneys,
stomach, pancreas, lungs.
Lungs. Well, at least he'd finally managed to pack up smoking, a filthy
habit, as he now recognized; but one which had given him almost as much
pleasure as any other vice in life. And he knew that were he privy to the
date and time of an early Judgement Day (the following Monday, say) he would
set off immediately to the nearest news agent to buy in a store of
cigarettes. And he almost did so now, as if he could already hear the
trumpets sounding on the other side.
In the living room, he selected Bruno Walter's early recording of the
Walkiire, with Lauritz Melchior and Lotte Lehmann singing the roles of
Siegmund and Sieglinde. Wonderful! So Morse turned the volume-control to
maximum as he listened to the anagnorisis at the end of Act I, and heard
neither of the telephone calls made to his ex-directory number that
afternoon, conscious only that he was falling deliciously asleep as the
benighted brother and sister rushed off into the forest to beget Siegfried .
It was coming up to 2. 45 p. m. when Morse jerked abruptly awake,
disappointed that his semi-erotic dream was prematurely terminated: a dream
of a woman seated intimately close to him a dream of Debbie Richardson, with
legs provocatively crossed, the texture of the cheap black stockings tautly
stretched along her upper thighs.
Wonderful!
But even as she'd leaned towards him, he'd voiced his deep anxiety: 'Aren't
you frightened someone will come in?'
'No one'll come in. Harry won't be comin' back. Ever. I'll get you another
drink. Just stay where you are.'
So Morse had stayed where he was, awaiting her return with
^S
impatience, and with an empty glass beside him. And when he awoke, he was
still sitting there alone, awaiting her return with impatience, and with an
empty glass beside him.
Wagner had long since run his course, and finally Morse got to his feet and
turned off the CD player. He felt tired, hot, thirsty and a sharp pain in
his chest betokened another bout of indigestion. In the bathroom, he cleaned
his teeth and dropped three Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water; then
he filled up the wash-basin and thrice dipped his head into the cold water.
The tablets had fizzed and dissolved and he downed the dosage at a single
draught. Thence to his bed- room, where he took his blood-sugar level: 24.
8 - almost off the scale. His own fault, since he'd forgotten to inject
himself at lunchtime ~ making up for it now, though, with an extra four units
ofActrapid insulin. Just to be on the safe side. Back in the bathroom, he
drank two further glasses of cold water, acknowledging how surprisingly
pleasing was its taste, since water had seldom figured prominently in his
drinking habits. Finally he decided that a couple of Paracetamol would be
appropriate. So he shook out the tablets on to his palm; shook out three in
fact and decided to take the three. Just to be on the safe side.
Suddenly he was feeling much better, his faith in this curious combination of
