The silent world of Nicholas Quinn (7 page)

doors served merely to re-emphasize. He went into his own room and rang a number.

'Morning, Secretary. Hope I didn't get you out of bed? No? Ah, good. Look, I know it

sounds a bit silly, but can you remind me when the alarm's turned off on Saturday

mornings? I've got to . . . 8.30? Yes, I thought so, but I just wanted to make sure. I didn't want . . . No. Funny, really. I'd somehow got it into my head that there'd been some

change . . . No, I see. Well, sorry to trouble you. By the way, did the Banbury meeting

go off all right? . . . Good. Well, I'll be off.'

Ogleby walked into Bartlett's room. He looked around quickly and then took out his

keys. Botley was at least twenty minutes' drive away: he could probably allow himself

at least half an hour. But Ogleby was a cautious soul, and he allowed himself only

twenty minutes.

Twenty-five minutes later, as he was sitting at his own desk, he heard someone enter

the building, and almost immediately, it seemed, his door was opened.

'You got in all right then, Philip?'

'Yes thanks. No bells ringing in the police station this morning.'

'Good.' Bartlett blinked behind his spectacles. 'I've er got a few things I want to clear up myself.' He closed the door and walked into his own office. He knew what had

been happening, of course. For a clever man, Ogleby's excuse about the burglar

alarm had been desperately thin. But what had he been looking for? Bartlett opened

his cabinets and opened his drawers; but everything was in order. Nothing seemed to

have been taken. What
was
there to take? He sat back and frowned deeply: the whole thing was strangely disturbing. He walked up the corridor to Ogleby's room, but

Ogleby had gone.

MORSE LOOKED DIRECTLY into the large mirror in front of him, and there surveyed the

reflection of the smaller hand mirror held behind him, in which, in turn, he considered

the occipital regions of what he liked to think of as a distinguished skull. He nodded

impassively as the hand mirror was held behind the left side of his neck, nodded again

as it was switched to the right, declined the suggested application of a white, greasy-

looking hair oil which stood on the surface before him, arose, like a statue unveiled,

from the chair, took the proffered tissue, rubbed his face and ears vigorously, and

reached for his wallet. That felt much better! He was never happy when his hair began

to grow in untidy, curly profusion just above his collar, and he wondered sadly why it

now failed to sustain such luxuriance upon the top 1of his head. He tipped the barber

generously and walked out into Summertown. Although not so cold as in recent days,

it was drizzling slightly, and he decided to wait for a bus up to his bachelor flat at the top of North Oxford. It was 10.15 on Tuesday, 25th November.

It would be unlikely that anything of importance would require his immediate attention

at HQ, and he had to call in home anyway. It was a ritual with Morse. As a young

recruit in the army he had been driven almost mad by the service issue of prickly

vests, prickly shirts, and prickly trousers. His mother had told him that he had an

extremely sensitive skin; and he believed her. It was always the same after a haircut.

He would take off his shirt and vest, and dip his head into a basin full of hot water.

Bliss! He would shampoo his hair twice, and then flannel his face and ears thoroughly.

He would then rub his back with a towel, dry his hair, wash down the short, black hairs

from the sides of the basin, select a clean vest and shirt, and finally comb his hair with loving care in front of the bathroom mirror.

But this morning it
wasn't
quite the same. He was just about to rinse off the second application of medicated shampoo when the phone rang. He swore savagely. Who the

hell?

'Hoped I might find you at home, sir. I couldn't find anyone who'd seen you at the

office.'

'So what? I've had a haircut. Not a crime, is it?'

'Can you get here straightaway, sir?' Lewis's tone was suddenly grave.

'Give me five minutes. What's up?'

'We've got a body, sir.'

'Whereabouts are you?'

'I'm phoning from the station. Do you know Pinewood Close?'

'No.'

'Well, I think you'd be best to call here first anyway, sir.'

'OK. Wait for me there.'

Chief Superintendent Strange was waiting for him, too. He stood impatiently on the

steps outside the Thames Valley Police HQ in Kidlington, as Morse hurriedly parked

the Lancia and jumped out.

'Where have you been, Morse?'

'Sorry, sir. I've had a haircut.'

'You
what?
'

Morse said nothing, not the slightest flicker of guilt or annoyance betraying itself in the light-grey eyes.

'A fine advertisement, eh? Citizens under police care and protection getting

themselves bumped off, and the only Chief Inspector I've got on duty is having his

bloody hair cut!'

Morse said nothing.

'Look, Morse. You're in charge of this case—is that clear? You can have Lewis here if

you want him.' Strange turned away, but suddenly remembered something else. 'And

you won't get another haircut until you've sorted this little lot out—that's an order!'

'Perhaps I shan't need one, sir.' Morse winked happily at Lewis and led the way into

his office. 'What's it look like from behind?'

'Very nice, sir. They've cut it very nicely.'

Morse sat back in his black-leather armchair and beamed at Lewis. 'Well? What have

you got to tell me?'

'Chap called Quinn, sir. Lives on the ground floor of a semi-detached in Pinewood Close. He's been dead for a good while by the look of him. Poisoned, I shouldn't wonder. He works' ('worked', muttered Morse) 'at the Foreign Examinations Syndicate down the Woodstock Road somewhere; and one of his colleagues got worried about him and came out and found him. I got the call about a quarter to ten, and I went along straightaway with Dickson and had a quick look round. I left him there, and came back to call you.'

'Well, here I am, Lewis. What do you want me to do?'

'Knowing you, sir, I thought you might want me to arrest the chap who found him.'

Morse grinned. 'Is he here?'

'In the Interview Room. I've got a rough statement from him, but it'll need a bit of

brushing up before he signs it. You'll want to see him, I suppose?'

'Yes, but that can wait. Got a car ready?'

'Waiting outside, sir.'

'You've not called the path, boys in yet, I hope?'

'No. I thought I ought to wait for you.'

'Good. Go and get your statement tarted up and I'll see you outside in ten minutes or

so.'

Morse made two phone calls, combed his hair again, and felt inordinately happy.

Several faces peeped from behind ground-floor lace-curtained windows as the police

car drove into Pinewood Close, a small, undistinguished crescent wherein eight semi-

detached houses, erected some fifty years previously, stood gently fading into a semi-

dignified senescence. Most of the wooden fences that bordered the properties

managed to sustain only a precarious pretence to any upright posture, the slats

uncreosoted and insecure, the crossrails mildewed, sodden with rain, and rotten. Only

at each end of the crescent had the original builder left sufficient sideroom for the

erection of any garage, and it was at the house at the extreme left that the bulky figure of Constable Dickson stood, stamping his feet on the damp concrete in front of a

prefabricated unpainted garage, and talking to a woman in her early fifties, the owner

of the property and rentier of some half a dozen other houses in the neighbourhood.

But whatever other benefits her various incomes conferred upon her, her affluence

appeared not to be reflected in her wardrobe: she wore no stockings and was pulling a

shabby old coat more closely over a grubby white blouse as Morse and Lewis stepped

out of the car.

' 'Ere come the brains, missus,' muttered Dickson, and stepped forward to greet the

Chief Inspector. 'This is Mrs. Jardine, sir. She owns the property and she's the one

who let us in.'

Morse nodded a friendly greeting, took the Yale key from Dickson, and instructed him

to take Mrs. Jardine to the police car and get a statement from her. He himself stood for a while in silence with his back to the house, and looked around him. In a kerbed oval

plot, a thick cluster of small trees and variagated bushes sheltered the houses from the

main road and gave to the crescent the semblance of partial privacy. But the small

curved stretch of road itself was poorly maintained and unevenly surfaced, with a long,

irregular black scar, running parallel to the pavement, where the water mains had

recently been dug up again. The gutter was full of sopping brown leaves, and the

lamp-post immediately outside No 1 had been vandalized. The front door of the next

house opened a few inches and a middle-aged woman 1directed inquisitive eyes

towards the centre of activity.

'Good morning,' said Morse brightly.

The door was closed in a flash, and Morse turned round to survey the garage.

Although the claw of the lock which secured the doors was not pushed home, he

touched nothing, contenting himself with a quick glance through the glass panels at

the top. Inside he saw a dark-blue Morris 1300 which allowed little more than a foot of

space between the wall and the driver's door. He walked over to the front porch and

inserted the key. 'Good job he doesn't drive a Cadillac, Lewis.'

'Didn't,' corrected Lewis quietly.

The front door of No 1 Pinewood Close opened on to a narrow hallway, with a row of

clothes pegs at the foot of the staircase which climbed the wall to the left. Morse stood inside and pointed to the door immediately to his right. 'This the one?'

'Next one, sir.'

The door was closed and Morse took out his pen and depressed the handle carefully.

'I hope you haven't left your prints all over the place, Lewis?'

'I opened it the same way as you, sir.'

Inside the room the electric light was still turned on; the dull-orange curtains were

drawn; the gas fire was burning low; and lying in a foetal posture on the carpet was the

body of a young man. The fire was flanked by two old, but comfortable-looking

armchairs; and beside the one to the right, on a low french-polished coffee table, stood

a bottle of dry sherry, almost full, and a cheap-looking sherry glass, almost empty.

Morse bent forward and sniffed the pale, clear liquid. 'Did you know, Lewis, that about

eighteen per cent of men and about four per cent of women can't smell cyanide?'

'It is poison, then?'

'Smells like it. Peach blossom, bitter almonds—take your pick.'

The dead man's face was turned towards them, away from the fire, and Morse knelt

down and looked at it. A small quantity of dry froth crusted the twisted mouth, and the

bearded jaw was tightly clenched in death; the pupils of the open eyes appeared

widely dilated, and the skin of the face was a morbid, blotchy blue. 'All the classic

symptoms, Lewis. We hardly need a postmortem on this one. Hydrocyanic acid.

Anyway the path boys should be here any minute.' He stood up and walked over to

the curtains, which had obviously shrunk in a not particularly recent wash, and which

gaped open slightly towards the top. Outside Morse could see the narrow garden, with

its patchy, poor-quality grass, a small vegetable plot at the far end, and a section of

fencing missing on the left. But the view appeared to convey little of significance to his mind, and he turned his attention back to the room itself. Along the wall opposite the