The Dead of Jericho

The boy shook his head in apparent bewilderment. 'You must be joking!'

It was Lewis who spoke next, his voice flat and unconcerned. 'You didn't write it yourself-is that what you're saying?'

'Of course I didn't!'

'That's all I wanted to know, Mr. Murdoch,' said Lewis with polite finality. He whispered something into Morse's ear; and Morse, seemingly faced with a decision of some delicacy, finally nodded.

'Now, sir?' asked Lewis.

Morse nodded again, and Lewis, taking a pen from his breast pocket and picking up a sheaf of papers from the table, got up and left the anteroom.

Morse himself picked up a copy of Country Life, turned to the crossword, and had finished it in eleven minutes-minutes during which Edward Murdoch was showing increasing signs of agitation. Two or three times his mouth had opened as if he were about to speak, and when Morse wrote in the last word he could stay silent no longer.

'What is all this?'

'We're waiting.'

'Waiting for-for him to come back?'

Morse nodded. 'Sergeant Lewis-that's his name.'

'How long will he be?'

Morse shrugged his shoulders and turned over a page to survey the features of the Honourable Fiona Forbes-Smithson. 'Difficult to say. Some people are co-operative-some aren't.'

'He's gone to see Michael, hasn't he?'

'He's got his duty to do-just like the rest of us.'

'But it's not fair! Michael's ill!'

'He's a lot better. Going to see a bit, so they tell me.'

'But it's not-'

'Look, lad!' said Morse very gently and quietly. 'Sergeant Lewis and myself are trying our best to solve a murder. It takes a lot of time and patience and we have to do an awful lot of things we'd rather not do. But if we're lucky and people try to help us-well, sometimes we manage to get to the bottom of things.'

'But I've told you, Inspector, I never-'

'You lie!' thundered Morse 'Do you honestly believe it was my wish for Sergeant Lewis to go and disturb your brother? You're right. He is ill. Do you think I don't know all about him? Do you think I'd risk his chances of getting over all this trouble if I didn't have to?'

Edward Murdoch did a very strange thing then. Like some frenetic pianist banging away at the same chords, he pressed the fingers of both his hands all over the letter in front of him, and sat back breathing heavily with a look of triumph in his eyes.

'Not really very sensible,' said Morse mildly. 'You see, I'm going to have to ask you why you did that, aren't I? And, I’ll tell you something, lad, you'd better think up something pretty good!'

'You're trying to trick me!' shouted the boy. 'Why don't you just-?'

'I'm not trying to trick you, lad. I don't need to. You're making enough mistakes without needing me to do much about it.'

'I told you. I didn't-'

'Look! Sergeant Lewis'll be back any minute now, because I can't really believe your brother's as stupid as you are. And when he comes in, we'll have a statement, and then we'll take you up to Kidlington and get one from you. It's all right. You didn't write the letter, you say. That's fine. All we've got to do is to get it down in writing, then typed up, and signed. It won't take all that long, and I'll give your mum a ring and tell her-'

'What's it got to do with her?'

'Won't she be a bit worried about you, lad? You're all she's got at home now, you know, and she's had one hell of a time this last few weeks, hasn't she?'

It was the final straw, and Edward Murdoch buried his head in his hands and wept.

Morse quietly left the room and beckoned to Lewis, who had been sitting for the last quarter of an hour on a bench at the end of the corridor, making steady progress with the Coffee-Break Crossword in the Daily Mirror.

The sordid little story was soon told. It had been Edward who had seen the letter to Charles Richards underneath a pile of books in the study, unsealed but ready to post, with the envelope addressed and stamped. In it A

As best he could remember it, that was the gist of the letter that Edward had read before hastily replacing it as he heard A

Whilst Lewis was laboriously scrawling the last few sentences, Morse wandered off and walked into the ward where Michael lay, a large white dressing over his right eye, his left eye, bruised and swollen, staring up at the ceiling. 'Your brother just told me that between you you wrote a letter to Charles Richards. Is that right, Michael?'

'If Ted says so. I forget.' He seemed nonchalant and unconcerned.

'You don't forget other things, perhaps?'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'You'd always remember getting into bed with Ms. Scott, surely?'

To Morse the look that leaped into the single eye of Michael Murdoch seemed distastefully crude and triumphant but the boy made no direct reply.

'Real honey, wasn't she?'

'Phew! You can say that again.'

'She-er-she took her clothes off, you mean?'

'You kidding? Beautiful body that woman had!'

Morse shrugged his shoulders. 'I wouldn't go so far as that myself. I only saw her after she-after she was dead, but, you can't really say she had a beautiful body, can you? With that great birthmark on her side? Come off it, lad. You can't have seen many.'

'You don't notice that sort of thing too much, though, do you, when-?'

'You must have noticed it sometimes, though.'

'Well, yes, of course, but-'

'What a cheap and sordid little liar you are, Murdoch!' The anger in Morse's voice was taut and dangerous. 'She had no birthmark anywhere, that woman! She had one big fault and only one; and that was that she was kind and helpful to such a spineless specimen as you, lad-because you're so full of wind and piss there's room for nothing else!'