The Dead of Jericho

reached out for the coffee pot; but the woman's fingertips were detouring tantalisingly towards his pyjama trousers, and he turned himself towards her. 'Can't you even wait till after breakfast?'

'No-o! I want you now.'

'You're a sexy bitch, aren't you?'

'Mm. Specially in the mornings. You know that…'

When the Spanish chambermaid came in to clean up at 10.30 a.m., she found the toast untouched, as it had been the previous morning; and smiling knowingly to herself she turned her attention to smoothing out the rumpled mauve-striped sheets.

***

Conrad Richards ate little breakfast, either, for he was a deeply worried man. He'd suspected the previous day that Charles had been most displeased to see him, and now he wished he'd never come. But he needed some advice and reassurance, and for those he had depended on his brother all his life. He walked across to the Tourist Office at nine o'clock and found that if he wanted to he could fly back to Gatwick that same afternoon. Yes, that would probably be the best thing: get back, and see Celia again, and face things…

But when, at 11 a.m., the brothers met in the cocktail bar of the Palace Hotel, Charles seemed his bright, ebullient self once more.

'Go back today? Nonsense! You've not even had a chance to look round. Look at that!' He pointed out across the plaza to the fountains playing beside the statue of Neptune. 'Beautiful, isn't it? We'll do a bit of sightseeing together, Conrad. What do you say?'

'What about er-?'

'Don't worry about her. She's flying back to Gatwick this afternoon-on my instructions.'

***

Celia, too, had been up early that morning, deciding as she had done to follow Charles's practice of putting some time in at the office on Saturday. The previous day, a measure of greatness had been thrust upon her, for she had found herself making decisions about contracts and payments without the slightest hesitation-and she'd enjoyed it all. Seated in Charles's chair, she'd dictated letters and memorandums, answered the telephone, greeted two prospective clients and one ineffectual salesman-all with a newfound confidence that had surprised her. Action! That's what she told herself she needed-and plenty of it; and she just said 'No, no, no!' whenever the waves of worry threatened to wash all other thoughts away. Indeed, for some brief periods of time she found herself almost succeeding in her self-imposed discipline. But the currents of anxiety were often too strong, and like her brother-in- law she felt the urgent need of having Charles beside her. Charles, who was so strong and confident; Charles whom, in spite of everything that had happened, she knew was the only man she could ever fully love.

She was still in the office when she took the call at ten-past twelve. It was from Madrid. From Charles.

***

She was at home two hours later when she received another call, this time from Detective Chief Inspector Morse, to whom she was able to report that her husband would be returning home on Monday morning, his flight scheduled to land at Gatwick at 10.40 a.m., and that she herself was driving up to meet him. If it was really necessary, yes, they could probably be back by about two o'clock-if the plane was on time, of course. Make it two-thirty then? Better still, three o'clock, just to be on the safe side. At the Richards' house? All right. Fine!

'Have you any idea where your husband's brother is?'

'Conrad? No, I haven't, I'm afraid. He's off on business somewhere, but no one seems to know where he's gone.'

'Oh, I see.'

Celia could hear the disappointment in the inspector's voice and was clearly anxious to appear co-operative. 'Can I give him a message-when he gets back?'

'No-o.' Morse sounded indecisive. 'Perhaps not, Mrs. Richards. It was just- No, it doesn't matter. It's not important.'

***

Lewis had come into the office during the last part of the telephone conversation, and Morse winked at him broadly as he replaced the receiver. 'Monday, then! That's the big showdown, Lewis. Three o'clock. And you know something? I reckon I'm looking forward to it.'

Lewis, however, was looking unimpressed, and something in his face spelled trouble.

'Aren't you, Lewis?'

'I'm afraid I've got some rather odd news for you.'

Morse looked up sharply.

'It was very irregular, they said, and Saturday morning's hardly the best time to make inquiries, is it?'

'But you found out?'

Lewis nodded. 'You're not going to like this much, sir, but the Scotts' baby was adopted by a couple in North London: a Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins. They christened the boy 'Joseph', and the poor little fellow died just before his third birthday-meningitis.'

Morse looked utterly blank and his eyes seemed to stare down into some vast abyss. 'You're quite sure about this?'

'Quite sure, sir. You were right about Michael Murdoch being adopted, though. Same society. But his parents were both killed in a road accident just outside-'

But Morse was no longer listening, for if what Lewis had just told him was true…

Yet Morse had not been so very far from the truth, and if only he had known it, the final clue in the Anne Scott case lay even now inside his jacket pocket, in the shape of the unopened letter he had so recently picked up from the front-door mat of 9 Canal Reach.

'Does this mean that we're back to the drawing-board, sir?'

'Certainly not!' said Morse.

'Will you want me tomorrow?'

'Sunday? Sunday's a day of rest, Lewis-and I've got to catch up with the omnibus edition of The Archers.'

Chapter Thirty-Five

Sir: (n.) a word of respect (or disapprobation) used in addressing a man.

– Chambers's Twentieth-Century Dictionary

The up-swung door of the wide double garage revealed the incongruous collocation of the Rolls and the Mini as Morse walked across the crunching gravel and rang the bell. Clearly number 261 was in a different class from Conrad's house. It was Celia who answered the door.

'Come in, Inspector.'

'Plane on time, Mrs. Richards?'

'A few minutes early, in fact. You know my husband, of course.'

Morse watched them carefully as they stood there, fingers intertwined as though some dramatic reconciliation