Colin Dexter
The Jewel That Was Ours
For my wife, Dorothy
Espied the god with gloomy soul
The prize that in the casket lay
Who came with silent tread and stole
The jewel that was ours away.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for use of copyright materials:
Extract from Oxford by Jan Morris published by Oxford University Press, 1987, reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press;
Extract from the introduction by Lord Jenkins of Hillhead to
Extract from
Julian Symons for the extract from
Marilyn Yurdan for the extract from
Basil Swift for the extracts from
Martin Amis for the extract from
Max Beerbohm for the extract from
A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Crystal Hale and Jocelyn Herbert for the extract from ‘Derby Day’, Comic Opera, by A. P. Herbert;
Extract from
The Estate of Virginia Woolf for the extract from
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the author and publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.
This novel is based in part on an original storyline written by Colin Dexter for Central Television’s
Part One
CHAPTER ONE
It is not impossible to become bored in the presence of a mistress
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THE RED-SEAL Brut Imperial Moet & Chandon stood empty on the top of the bedside table to her left; empty like the champagne glass next to it, and like the champagne glass on the table at the other side of the bed. Everything seemed empty. Beside her, supine and still, hands behind his head, lay a lean, light-boned man in his early forties, a few years older than herself. His eyes were closed, and remained closed as she folded back her own side of the floral-patterned duvet, rose quickly, put her feet into fur-lined slippers, drew a pink silk dressing gown around a figure in which breasts, stomach, thighs, were all a little over-ripe perhaps — and stepped over to peer through the closed curtains.
Had she consulted her Oxford University Pocket Diary, she would have noticed that the sun was due to set at 16.50 that early Wednesday evening in late October. The hour had gone back the previous week-end, and the nights, as they said, were pulling in fast. She had always found difficulty with the goings back and forth of the clock — until she had heard that simple little jingle on Radio Oxford: Spring Forward/Fall Back. That had pleased her. But already darkness had fallen outside, well before its time; and the rain still battered and rattled against the window-panes. The tarmac below was a glistening black, with a pool of orange light reflected from the street lamp opposite.
When she was in her junior school, the class had been asked one afternoon to paint a scene on the Thames, and all the boys and girls had painted the river blue. Except her. And that was when the teacher had stopped the lesson (in midstream, as it were) and asserted that young Sheila was the only one of them who had the natural eye of an artist. Why? Because the Thames might well be grey or white or brown or green or yellow — anything, in fact, except those little rectangles of Oxford blue and Cambridge blue and cobalt and ultramarine into which all the wetted brushes were dipping. So, would all of them please start again, and try to paint the colours they saw, and forget the postcards, forget the atlases? All of them, that is, except Sheila; for Sheila had painted the water black.
And below her now the street was glistening black.
Yes.
Everything seemed black.
Sheila hugged the thin dressing gown around her and knew that he was awake; watching her; thinking of his wife, probably — or of some other woman. Why didn't she just tell him to get out of her bed and out of her life? Was
