Colin Dexter - The Wench is Dead (Inspector Morse 8)

The Wench Is Dead.

Colin Dexter

Thought depends absolutely on the stomach; but,in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers

(Voltaire, in aletter to d'Alemberi)

Intermittently, on the Tuesday, he felt sick.Frequently, on the Wednesday, he was sick. On the Thursday, he felt sickfrequently, but was actually sick only intermittently. With difficulty, earlyon the Friday morning - drained, listless, and infinitely weary - he found theenergy to drag himself from his bed to the telephone, and seek to apologize tohis superiors at Kidlington Police HQ for what was going to be an odds-onnon-appearance at the office that late November day.

Whenhe awoke on the Saturday morning, he was happily aware that he was feelingconsiderably better; and, indeed, as he sat in the kitchen of his bachelor flatin North Oxford, dressed in pyjamas as gaudily striped as a lido deckchair, hewas debating whether his stomach could cope with a wafer of Weetabix - when thephone rang.

'Morse here,' he said.

'Good morning, sir.' (A pleasingvoice!) 'If you can hold the line a minute, the Superintendent would like awordwith you.'

Morse held the line. Little option,was there? No option, really; and he scanned the headlines of The Times whichhad just been pushed through the letter-box in the small entrance hall - late,as usual on Saturdays. 'I'm putting you through to the Superintendent,' saidthe same pleasing voice - 'just a moment, please!'

Morse said nothing; but he almostprayed (quite something for a low-church atheist) that Strange would get amove on and come to the phone and say whatever it was he'd got to say... Theprickles of sweat were forming on his forehead, and his left hand plucked athis pyjama top pocket for his handkerchief.

'Ah! Morse? Yes? Ah! Sorry to hearyou're a bit off-colour, old boy. Lots of it about, you know. The wife'sbrother had it - when was it now? - fortnight or so back? No! I tell a lie -must have been three weeks, at least. Still, that's neither here nor there, isit?'

In enlarged globules, the pricklesof sweat had re-formed on Morse's forehead, and he wiped his brow once more ashe mumbled a few dutifully appreciative noises into the telephone.

'Didn't get you out of bed, Ihope?'

'No - no, sir.'

'Good. Good! Thought I'd just havea quick word, that's all. Er... Look here, Morse!' (Clearly Strange'sthoughts had moved to a conclusion.) 'No need for you to come in today - noneed at all! Unless you feel suddenly very much better, that is. We can justabout cope here, I should think. The cemeteries are full of indispensable men -eh? Huh!'

'Thank you, sir. Very kind of youto ring - I much appreciate it - but I am officially off duty this weekend inany case'

'Really? Ah! That's good! That's er... very good, isn't it? Give you a chance to stay in bed.'

'Perhaps so, sir,' said Morsewearily.

'You say you're up, though?'

'Yes, sir!'

'Well you go back to bed, Morse!This'll give you a chance for a jolly good rest - this weekend, I mean - wontit? Just the thing - bit o' rest - when you're feeling a bit off-colour - eh?It's exactly what the quack told the wife's brother - when was it now... ?'

Afterwards, Morse thought he rememberedconcluding this telephone conversation in a seemly manner - with appropriateconcern expressed for Strange's convalescent brother-in-law; thought heremembered passing a hand once more over a forehead that now felt very wet andvery, very cold - and then taking two or three hugely deep breaths and thenstarting to rush for the bathroom...

It was Mrs Green, the charlady who came in onTuesday and Saturday mornings, who rang treble-nine immediately and demanded anambulance. She had found her employer sitting with his back to the wall in theentrance-hall: conscious, seemingly sober, and passably presentable, except forthe deep-maroon stains down the front of his deckchair pyjamas - stains that inboth colour and texture served vividly to remind her of the dregs in the bottomof a coffee percolator. And she knew exactly what they meant, becausethat thoughtlessly cruel doctor had made it quite plain - five years ago now,it had been - that if only she'd called him immediately, Mr Green might still ...

'Yes, that's right,' she heardherself say - surprisingly, imperiously, in command: 'just on the southern sideof the Banbury Road roundabout. Yes. I'll be looking out for you.'

At 10.15 a.m. that same morning, an onlysemi-reluctant Morse condescended to be helped into the back of the ambulance,where, bedroom-slippered and with an itchy, grey blanket draped around a cleanpair of pyjamas, he sat defensively opposite a middle-aged, uniformed woman whoappeared to have taken his refusal to lie down on the stretcher-bed as apersonal affront, and who now sullenly and silently pushed a white enamelkidney-bowl into his lap as he vomited copiously and noisily once more, whilethe ambulance climbed Headley Way, turned left into the grounds of the JohnRadcliffe Hospital complex, and finally stopped outside the Accident, Casualty,and Emergency Department.

As he lay supine (on a hospitaltrolley now) it occurred to Morse that he might already have died some half adozen times without anyone recording his departure. But he was always animpatient soul (most particularly in hotels, when awaiting his breakfast); andit might not have been quite so long as he imagined before a white-coatedancillary worker led him in leisurely fashion through a questionnaire thatranged from the names of his next of kin (in Morse's case, now non-existent) tohis denominational preferences (equally, alas, now non-existent). Yet oncethrough these initiation rites - once (as it were) he had joined the club andsigned the entry forms - Morse found himself the object of considerablyincreased attention. Dutifully, from somewhere, a young nurse appeared, flippeda watch from her stiffly laundered lapel with her left hand and took his pulsewith her right; proceeded to take his blood pressure, after tightening theblack swaddling-bands around his upper-arm with (for Morse) quite needlessferocity; and then committing her findings to a chart (headed MORSE, E.) withsuch nonchalance as to suggest that only the most dramatic of irregularitiescould ever give occasion for anxiety. The same nurse finally turned herattention to matters of temperature; and Morse found himself feeling somewhatidiotic as he lay with the thermometer sticking up from his mouth, before itsbeing extracted, its calibrations consulted, its readings apparentlyunsatisfactory, it being forcefully shaken thrice, as though for a few backhandflicks in a ping-pong match, and then being replaced, with all its earlierawkwardness, just underneath his tongue.

I'm going to survive?' venturedMorse, as the nurse added her further findings to the data on his chart.

You've got a temperature,' repliedthe uncommunicative teenager.

I thought everybody had gota temperature,' muttered .'Morse

For the moment, however, the nursehad turned her back on him to considerthe latest casualty.

A youth, his legs caked with mud,and most of the rest him encased in a red-and-black-striped Rugby jersey, hadjust been wheeled in - a ghastly looking Cyclopean slit across his forehead.Yet, to Morse, he appeared wholly at his ease as the (same) ancillary workerquizzed him comprehensively about his life-history, his religion, hisrelatives. And when, equally at his ease, the (same) nurse put him through hispaces with stethoscope, watch, and thermometer, Morse could do little but envythe familiarity that was effected forthwith between the young lad and theequally young lass. Suddenly - and almost cruelly - Morse realized that she,that same young lass, had seen him -Morse! - exactly for what he was: a manwho'd struggled through life to his early fifties, and who was about to face theslightly infra-dignitatem embarrassments of hernias and haemorrhoids, ofurinary infections and - yes! - of duodenal ulcers.