The Secret of Annexe 3

It was ten minutes later that the Muzak was switched off and a pleasantly clear female voice made the announcement to everyone in the Great Western Hotel, in the lounge, in the restaurant, and in the bar: 'Would Chief Inspector Morse please come to Reception immediately. Chief Inspector Morse, to Reception, please.'

He helped her on with her mackintosh, an off-white expensive creation that would have made almost any woman look adequately glamorous; and he watched her as she pulled the belt tight and evened out the folds around her slim waist.

'Been nice meeting you, Inspector.'

Morse nodded. 'We shall probably need some sort of statement.'

'I'd rather not — if you can arrange it.'

'I'll see.'

As she turned to leave, Morse noticed the grubby brown stain on the left shoulder of her otherwise immaculate raincoat: 'Were you wearing that when you left the party?' he asked.

'Yes.' She squinted down at the offending mark. 'You can't walk around semi-nude in the snow, can you?'

'I suppose not.'

'Pity, though. Cost a fiver at least to get it cleaned, that will.' You'd 'a'thought, wouldn't you, if you dress up as a wog you might keep your 'ands off. .'

The voice had slipped, and the mask had slipped; and Morse felt a saddened man. She could have been a lovely girl, but somehow, somewhere, she was flawed. A man had been savagely murdered — a man (who knows? with maybe just a little gentleness in his heart) who after a party one night had put his left hand, sweatily stained with dark-brown stage make-up, on to a woman's shoulder; and she was angry because it would possibly cost a few pounds to get rid of a stain that might detract from her appearance. They said farewell, and Morse sought to hide his two-fold disappointment behind the mask that he, too, invariably wore for most occasions before his fellow men. Perhaps — the thought suddenly struck him — it was the masks that were the reality, and the faces beneath them that were the pretence. So many of the people in the Haworth that fatal evening had been wearing some sort of disguise — a change of dress, a change of make-up, a change of attitude, a change of partner, a change of life almost; and the man who had died had been the most consummate artist of them all.

After she had left, Morse walked back through the lounge to Reception (it must be Lewis who had rung for him — Lewis was the only person who had any idea where he was) and prayed that it would be a different young girl on duty. But it wasn't. Furthermore she was a girl who obviously possessed a fairly retentive memory.

'I'm afraid we haven't had any cancellations yet, Mr. Palmer.'

'Oh, Christ!' muttered Morse under his breath.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Thursday, January 2nd: P.M.

Men seldom make passes

At girls who wear glasses.

(DOROTHY PARKER)

MR. JOHN SMITH returned home that evening, unexpectedly early, to find his wife Helen in a state of tear- stained distraction; and once he had persuaded her to start talking, it was impossible to stop her. .

Helen had caught the 3.45 train from Reading that afternoon, and arrived in Oxford at 4.20. Apart from the key to Annexe 2 which she clasped tight in the pocket of her duffel coat, she carried little else: no handbag, no wallet, no umbrella — only the return ticket to Reading, two pound coins, and a few shillings in smaller change. A taxi from Oxford station might have been sensible, but it certainly wasn't necessary; and in any case she knew that the twenty-minute walk would do her no harm. As she began to make her way to the Haworth Hotel her heart was beating as nervously as when she had opened the front passenger door of the BMW, and had frantically felt all over the floor of the car, splayed her hands across and under and down and round the sides of seats and everywhere— everywhere! And found nothing: nothing except a two-pence piece, a white indigestion tablet, and a button from a lady's coat (not one of her own)

She walked quickly past the vast glass-fronted Blackwells' building in Hythe Bridge Street, through Gloucester Green, and then along Beaumont Street into St. Giles', where at the Martyrs' Memorial she crossed over to the right-hand side of the thoroughfare and, now more slowly, made her way northwards along the Banbury Road.

Opposite the Haworth Hotel she could see the two front windows of the annexe clearly — and so very near! There seemed to be some sort of light on at the back of the building somewhere; but each of the two rooms facing the street — and especially one of them, the one on the left as she watched and waited — was dark and almost certainly empty. A glass-sided bus shelter almost directly opposite the annexe protected her from the drizzle, if not from the wind, and gave her an ideal vantage point from which to keep watch without arousing suspicion. A bus came and picked up the two people waiting there, a very fat West Indian woman and a wiry little English woman, both about sixty, both (as Helen gathered) cleaners in a nearby hospice, who chatted together on such easy and intimate terms that it was tempting to be optimistic about future prospects for racial harmony. Helen stood aside — and continued to watch. Soon another bus was coming towards her, its headlights illuminating the silvery sleet; but she stood back inside the shelter, and the bus passed on without stopping. Then she saw something — something which seemed to make her heart lurch towards her mouth. A light had been turned on in the room on the right, Annexe 1: the window, its curtains undrawn, glared brightly in the darkness, and a figure was moving around inside. Then the light was switched off, and the light in the next room—her room — was switched on. A bus had stopped, the doors, folding inwards, inviting her to climb aboard; and she found herself apologizing and seeing the look on the driver's face as he tossed his head in contempt before leaning forward over the great steering-wheel and driving away. The light was still on in Annexe 2, and she saw a figure silhouetted against the window for a few seconds; and then that light too was switched off. A man came out of the side door, walked round to the front of the annexe, immediately opposite to her, and disappeared inside; and the two rooms facing the street were dark and empty once more. But the policeman was still there at the side entrance. He had been there all along, his black-and-white checkered cap conspicuous under the light that illuminated the path between the Haworth Hotel and the cordoned area of the annexe — the red, yellow, and white tabs on the ropes tilting back and forth in the keen wind.

If Helen Smith had ever been likely to despair, she would have done so at this point. And yet somehow she knew that she would not despair. It may have been the cold, the hopelessness, the