The Dead of Jericho

and lonely queen; and she, in turn, fell in love with the young prince. And things were easy for 'em. The prince was a bachelor and he found out that the queen was a widow-her husband had recently been killed on a journey by road to one of the neighbouring cities. So they confessed their love-and then they got married. Had quite a few kids, too. And it would've been nice if they'd lived happily ever after, wouldn't it? But I'm afraid they didn't. In fact, the story of what happened to the pair of 'em after that is one of the most chilling and terrifying myths in the whole of Greek literature. You know what happened then, of course?'

Lewis looked down at his beer and reflected sadly upon his lack of any literary education. 'I'm sorry, I don't, sir. We didn't have any of that Greek and Latin stuff when I was at school.'

Morse knew again at that moment exactly why he always wanted Lewis around. The man was so wholesome, somehow: honest, unpretentious, humble, almost, in his experience of philosophy and life. A lovable man; a good man. And Morse continued in a gentler, less arrogant tone.

'It's a tragic story. The prince had plenty of time on his hands and one day he decided to find out, if he could, how the queen's former husband had died. He spent years digging out eyewitnesses of what had happened, and he finally discovered that the king hadn't died in an accident after all: he'd been murdered. And he kept working away at the case, Lewis, and d'you know what he found? He found that the murderer had been-' (the fingers of Morse's left hand which had been gesticulating haphazardly in front of him, suddenly tautened and turned dramatically to point to his own chest) '-that the murderer had been himself. And he learned something else, too. He learned that the man he'd murdered had been-his own father. And in a blinding, terrifying flash of insight, Lewis, he realised the full enormity of what he'd done. You see, not only had he murdered his own father-but he'd married his own mother, and had a family by her! And the truth had to come out-all of it. And when it did, the queen went and hanged herself. And the prince, when he heard what she'd done, he-he blinded himself. That's it. That's the myth of Oedipus.'

Morse had finished, and Lewis felt himself strangely moved by the story and the way his chief had told it. He thought that if only his own schoolteachers had been able to tell him about such top-of-the-head stuff in the way Morse had just done, he would never have felt so distanced from that intimidating crew who were listed in the index of his encyclopaedia under 'Tragedians'. He saw, too, how the legend Morse had just expounded linked up at so many points with the present case; and he would indeed have been able to work it all out for himself had not Morse anticipated his activated musings.

'You can appreciate, Lewis, how Anne Scott's intimate knowledge of this old myth was bound to affect her attitudes and actions. Just think! As a young and beautiful undergrad here, she had met a man and married him, just as in the Oedipus myth Queen Jocasta married King Laius. Then a baby arrived. And just as Jocasta couldn't keep her baby-because an oracle had told her that the baby would kill its father-so Anne Scott and her husband couldn't keep theirs, because they had no permanent home or jobs and little chance of bringing up the boy with any decent prospects. Jocasta and Laius exposed the infant Oedipus on some hillside or other; and Anne and her husband did the modern equivalent-they found a private adoption society which took the baby off their hands immediately. I don't know much about the rules and regulations of these societies, but I'd like to bet that in this case there was a provision that the mother was not to know who the future foster-parents were going to be, and that the foster-parents weren't to know who the actual mother was. Now, Lewis! What would every mother be absolutely certain to remember about her only child-even if it was taken from her almost immediately after it was born. Face and features? Certainly not! Even after a few weeks any clear-cut visual memory would be getting progressively more blurred-and after a few months, certainly after a year, the odds are that she wouldn't even recognise her own offspring. So what's that one thing that she'll never forget, Lewis? Just think back a minute. Our friend Bell-Superintendent Bell-was quite right on one point. He believed that something must have happened the night before Anne Scott died that proved to be the immediate cause of her subsequent actions. He didn't do a bad job, either, because he came up with two or three very interesting facts.'

'He learned, for instance, that the bridge evening happened to be its first anniversary, and whatsername had laid on some sherry for the occasion; and if you want to get non-boozers a bit relaxed fairly quickly, a few glasses of sherry isn't a bad bet. Doubtless tongues began to wag a bit more freely than usual, and we know a couple of the things that cropped up. Vietnam and Cambodia did, for a start, and I suspect that the only aspect of those human tragedies that directly impinges on your bourgeois North Oxford housewife is the question of adopting one or two of the poor little blighters caught up in refugee camps. All right, Lewis? I reckon adoption was a topic of conversation that night. Then Bell got to know something else-and bless his heart for sticking it down! They were talking about birthdays-and not unnaturally so, in view of the fact they were celebrating their own first birthday; and as I've just said, Lewis, there's one thing no mother's ever going to forget-and that's when her only baby was born! So this is how I reckon things were. That night at the bridge party, somebody who knew Mrs. Murdoch pretty well got a fraction indiscreet, and let it be known to a few people-including, alas, Anne Scott-that Mrs. Murdoch's elder son was an adopted boy. And then, in the changing circles of conversation, Anne must have heard Mrs. Murdoch herself volunteering the information that her elder son, Michael, was celebrating his nineteenth birthday on that very day! What a quirk of fate it all was!'

'I thought you didn't believe in fate, sir.'

But Morse was oblivious to the interjection, and continued his fantastic tale. 'When Laius, Jocasta's husband, was killed, it had been on the road between Thebes and Corinth-a road accident, Lewis! When Anne Scott's husband died, it had also been in a road accident, and I'm pretty sure that she knew all about it. After all, she'd known the elder Murdoch boy-and Mrs. Murdoch herself, of course-for more than a couple of years. But, in itself, that couldn't have been a matter of great moment. It had been an accident: the inquest had found neither party predominantly to blame. If experience in driving means anything, it means that you have to expect learner drivers-like Michael Murdoch-to do something daft occasionally; and in this case, Anne Scott's husband wasn't careful enough to cope with the other fellow's inexperience. But do you see how things are beginning to build up and develop, Lewis? Everything is beginning to assume a menacing and sinister importance. Young Michael Murdoch was visiting Anne Scott once a week for special coaching; and as they sat next to each other week after week in Canal Reach I reckon that sheer physical proximity got a bit too much for both of 'em. The young lad must have become infatuated by a comparatively mature and attractive woman-a woman with a full and eminently feelable figure; and the woman herself, who had probably only been in love once in her life-and that with a married man who'd never been willing to run off with her-must surely have felt the attraction of a young, virile lad who worshipped whatever ground she chose to tread. She must have led him on a bit, Lewis; and sure as eggs are eggs, the springs on the old charpoy in the bedroom are soon beginning to creak pretty steadily. Then? Well, then the trouble starts. She misses a period-and then another; and she goes off to the Jericho Clinic-where they tell her they'll let her know as soon as they can. It must have been then that she wrote to Charles Richards pleading for a bit of help: a bit of friendly guidance, at the very least-and perhaps for a bit of money so that she could go away and have a quiet, private abortion somewhere. But, as we know, the letter never got through to Charles Richards at all. By some freakish mischance the letter was intercepted by Celia Richards-and that, Lewis, was the source of all the trouble. As the days pass-and still no reply from her former lover-Anne Scott must have felt that the fates were conspiring against her. Michael Murdoch was the very last person in the world she was going to tell her troubles to: he'd finished his schooling, anyway, and so there was no longer any legitimate reason for them seeing each other. Perhaps they met again once or twice after that-I just don't know. What is perfectly clear is that Anne Scott was growing increasingly depressed as the days dragged on. Life hadn't been very kind to her, and looking back on things she saw evidence only of her failures: her hasty adolescent marriage that had been short-lived and disastrous; her love for Charles Richards which had blossomed for a good many years but which had always been doomed to disappointment; other lovers, no doubt, who'd given her some physical gratification, but little else; and then Michael Murdoch…'

Morse's voice trailed off, and his eyes drifted along the other tables in the lounge bar where groups of people sat exchanging the amusing ephemera of a happier, if somewhat shallower, life than Anne Scott could ever have known. His glass was empty, and Lewis, as he picked it up and walked over to the bar, decided on this occasion not to remind Morse whose turn it was.

'So,' resumed Morse, lapping his lips into the level of his pint without a word of gratitude, 'Anne Scott's making a bit of a mess of her life. She's still attractive enough to middle-aged men like you and me, Lewis; but most of those are already bespoke, like you, and the ones that are left, like me, are a load of old remaindered books-out of