The silent world of Nicholas Quinn (17 page)

Care Unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital; and when one of her old schoolfriends came

to see her at 2.30 pm. she was in a pleasant ward, two storeys below, in the company

of three other recently-delivered mothers. Conversation was babies, babies, babies,

and Joyce felt buoyant. She should be out in a few days, and she felt a strangely-

satisfying surge of maternal emotions developing deep within herself. How she loved

her darling little boy! He was going to be fine—there was no doubt of that now. But the

problem of what to call him remained unresolved. Frank had decided that he didn't

really like 'Nicholas' all that much, and Joyce wanted
him
to make the choice. She herself wasn't all that smitten with the name, anyway. It had been awfully naughty of

her to mention the name in the first place. But she'd just
had
to see if Frank had suspected anything, and despite her earlier fears she now felt convinced that he

hadn't. Not that there was
much
to suspect.

It had started just after Nicholas had come, at the beginning of September, when he'd

always seemed to be running out of matches, or sugar, or milk tokens; and he'd been

so grateful, and so attentive towards her—and she over six months gone! Then that

Saturday morning when
she
had been out of milk, with Frank on one of his

everlasting1 shifts, and she had gone down in her nightie and housecoat, and they

had sat for a long time drinking coffee together in the kitchen, and she had longed for

him to kiss her. And he had, standing beside her with his hands on her shoulders, and

then, after delicately unfastening her housecoat, putting his right hand deep inside her

nightie and gently fondling her small firm breasts. It had happened three times after

that, and she'd felt a deep tenderness towards him, for he made no other demands

upon her body than to pass the tips of his fingers silkily over her legs and over her

swollen belly. And just that once she had done more than passively lean back and

surrender herself to the exquisite thrill that his hands could bring to her. Just the once

—when so diffidently and so lightly, her outstretched fingers had caressed him. Oh

yes, so very, very lightly! She had felt an enormous inner joy as he had finally buried

his head on her shoulder, and the things she'd whispered to him then were now the

focus of her conscience-stricken thoughts. But Frank would never know, and she

promised herself that never, never again would she . . . would she . . .

She was awoken by the clatter of cups at four o'clock, and a quarter of an hour later

the trolley came round with books and newspapers. She bought the
Oxford Mail
.

Morse was a few minutes early for his appointment, but the Dean of the Syndicate was

ready for him in his oak-panelled rooms on the Old Staircase in the inner quad, and

the two men were chatting vaguely of this and that when at five past four a scout

knocked and came in with a tray.

'I thought we'd have a drop of Darjeeling. All right with you?' The voice, like the man,

was syrupy and civilized.

'Lovely,' said Morse, wondering what Darjeeling was.

The white-coated scout poured the dark-brown liquid into bone-china cups, embossed

with the crest of Lonsdale College. 'Milk, sir?'

Morse watched it all with an amused detachment. The Dean, it seemed, always had a

slice of lemon, and one half-teaspoonful of sugar, which the scout himself measured

out, almost to the grain, and stirred in with high seriousness. The old boy probably got

his scout to tie his shoe laces up for him! Cloud-cuckoo-land! Morse took a sip of the

tea, sat back, and saw the Dean smiling at him shrewdly.

'You don't really approve, I see. Not that I blame you. He's been with me almost thirty

years now, and he's almost—But, I'm sorry, I'm 'forgetting. You've come to see me

about Mr. Quinn. What can I tell you?'

The Dean was clearly a sensitive and cultured soul: he was due to retire in one year's

time, at sixty-five, and was clearly saddened that the tragedy of Quinn's murder should

have clouded a long and distinguished connection with the Syndicate. To Morse, it

seemed a curiously self-centred commiseration.

'Would you say the Syndicate is a happy sort of place, sir?'

'Oh yes. I think everybody would tell you that.'

'No hostility? No, er, personal animosities?'

The Dean looked a little uneasy, and it was clear that he might have one or two

reservations—minor ones, of course. There are always a few, er, difficulties. You find

them in every, er—'

'What difficulties?'

'Well—basically, I think, there'll always be just a little er friction, shall we say, between the older generation—my generation—and s1ome of the younger Syndics. You

always get it. It was just the same when I was their age.'

'The younger ones have their own ideas?'

'I'm glad they have.'

'Are you thinking of any particular incident?'

Again the Dean hesitated. 'You know the sort of thing as well as I do, surely? One or

two people get a bit hot under the collar now and again.'

'Has this got anything to do with Mr. Quinn?'

'Quite honestly, Chief Inspector, I think not. You see, one of the incidents I'm thinking of happened before Quinn was appointed—in fact it happened when we were

appointing him.' He gave a brief account of the interviewing committee's disagreement

over the choice of candidates, and Morse listened with deep interest.

'You mean Bartlett didn't want to appoint Quinn?'

The Dean shook his head. 'You misunderstand me. The Secretary was quite happy

about him. But, as I say, personally he would have given the job to one of the others.'

'What about you, sir? What did you feel?'

'I, er, I thought the Secretary was right.'

'So Mr. Roope was the fly in the ointment?'

'No, no. You still misunderstand me. Quinn was appointed by the
committee
—not by

Roope.'

'Look, sir. Please be quite frank with me. Would I be right in saying that there's not

much love lost between Bartlett and Roope?'

'Aren't you enjoying your tea, Chief Inspector? You've hardly touched a drop yet.'

'You're not going to answer my question, sir?'

'I really do think it would be fairer if you asked
them
, don't you?'

Morse nodded, and drained the lukewarm liquid. 'What about the permanent staff?

Any er friction there?'

'Amongst the graduates, you mean? N-o, I don't think so.'

'You sound a bit dubious.'

The Dean sat back and slowly finished his own tea, and Morse realized he would

have to push his luck a bit.

'Miss Height, for instance?'

'A lovely girl.'

'You mean we can't blame the others too much if . . .'

'If there's any of, er, of that sort of thing going on, I can only say that I know nothing about it.'

'Rumours, though?'

'We've all got more sense than to listen to rumours.'

'Have we?' But it was clear that the Dean was not to be drawn, and Morse switched

the line of his questioning once more. 'What about Bartlett? Is he well liked?'

The Dean looked at Morse keenly, and carefully poured out more tea. 'What do you

mean?'

'I just wondered if any of the other graduates had any cause to—to, you know—' Morse

didn't know what he wondered; but the Dean, it seemed, did.

'I suppose y1ou're thinking of Ogleby?'

Morse nodded sagely, and tried to ooze omniscience. 'Yes, it was Mr. Ogleby I was

wondering about.'

'That's ancient history, though, isn't it? It's a long time ago, now. Huh! I remember at

the time thinking that Ogleby was potentially the better man. In fact, I voted for him. But with hindsight I'm sure that Bartlett was the wiser choice, and we were all very glad

that Ogleby was willing to accept the post of Deputy Secretary. Very able man. I'm

quite sure that if he'd wanted to, he . . .' The Dean talked freely now, and Morse felt his own attention drifting further and further away. So. Bartlett and Qgleby had applied for

the Secretaryship together, and Ogleby had been turned down; and perhaps the slight

had rankled on and on over the years—might still be rankling on. But what on earth

could that have to do with the murder of Quinn? If Bartlett had been murdered—or

even Ogleby—yes! But . . .

The Dean stood at the window and watched Morse walk briskly around the quad. He

knew that for the last ten minutes his words had fallen on deaf ears, and for the life of him he was completely unable to fathom the look of quiet contentment which had so

suddenly appeared on the Chief Inspector's face.

Lewis finished his own cup of tea and was leaving the police canteen as Dickson

walked in.

'I see you're appealing for help, Sarg. Old Morse stuck, is he?'

He handed Lewis the Oxford Mail and pointed to a paragraph at the bottom of the front

page:

MURDER INQUIRY

Police investigating the murder of Mr. N. Quinn, 1 Pinewood Close,

Kidlington, whose body was found on Tuesday morning by a colleague

from the Foreign Examinations Syndicate, are appealing to anyone who

may have seen the murdered man on either the evening of Friday, 21st

November, or on Saturday, 22nd November, to come forward. Chief

Inspector Morse, who is heading the inquiry, said today that any such

information could be vital in establishing the time of Mr. Quinn's death. An

inquest will be held next Monday.

Lewis looked at the photograph beside the article, and handed the paper back to

Dickson. In his inside pocket was the original which Morse had asked the Quinns to

bring with them from Huddersfield. Sometimes, he had to agree, Morse
did
take on the dirty work; compared to which his present little assignment was a doddle.

He soon found the young manager and learned that the flimsy short roll of paper he

had brought with him was a richly-seamed mine of information: the date at the top; the

'customer-reading' number on the right; the items purchased each classified according

to the various departments, and designated by one of the Roman numerals I-IV; the

number of the till at the bottom. 'Customer flow' (Lewis learned) was fairly constant on

Fridays, with high takings for most of the day, and (though the manager refused to be

precise) the items listed had doubtless been purchased in the late afternoon or early

evening. If he had to guess? Well, between 5 and 6.30 p.m. Unfortunately, however,

the plump waddling little woman who was summoned in her capacity as i/c Till 3 could

remember nothing, and failed to register even the vaguest recollection of ever having

seen the face on the photograph she was shown. It was the goods she always

watched, you see; seldom the faces.

Ah well!

Lewis thanked the manager and left the1 Kidlington premises of the Quality

supermarket. Morse wouldn't be too pleased, perhaps, but all the clues seemed to be

fitting into a firm, clear pattern.

'But why why
why
didn't you tell me? You must have realized—'

'Come off it, Joyce! You
know
why. It would have upset you, and we've—'

It wouldn't have been half such a shock as reading about it in the paper!'

He shook his head sadly. 'I just thought I was doing right, luv. That's all. Sometimes

you just can't win, can you?'

'No, I suppose not.' She understood all right, but she knew that
he
didn't. How could he?

'As I say, there's no need to worry about
anything
. When you're better again, we can talk about things. But not now. It'll soon all blow over—you see; and we're all fixed up