Chapter 2
"Gently does it there, matey, you're alright, there now, I'm just…"
Someone was stroking Endeavour's hair. It was his mother, and he was in bed, dizzy with the flu. His bed was so cold. And hard. That couldn't be right. Endeavour opened his eyes to blackness. The voices weren't right either. People swam in front of his face. There was a strange man, gently pushing a coat under his head. Not stroking after all. And a policeman.
The body.
Endeavour shot up, blacking out in the process. He kept his balance, blinking and breathing until at last vision returned. The strange man, no more than a boy as it turned out, was holding his elbow and staring at him.
"Watch yourself, now, you've fainted and hit your head, don't want to overdo it…"
The boy was talking a lot, Endeavour thought. He wished he would stop, he needed to think, there was something wrong.
"Where did the body go?" he asked, and pain shot pulsed in the back of his skull.
An older man approached, wearing a sharp suit and holding a small notebook. He seemed not to have noticed Endeavour's fainting, or if he had, he was not going to be pandering to him.
"The paramedics have taken the body away, obviously," he began brusquely. "Now, I'd like to ask you a few questions about this discovery of yours, if you don't mind…"
Endeavour felt as if he was being interrogated by enemy forces, the policeman was so thorough (and cold). He accounted for the days movements, described the exact position of the body as he'd found it (nearly fainting again as he recalled the grisly details), explained that there had been no one else nearby and that he'd fainted immediately on seeing it, which was why he had not telephoned the police straight away. Eventually, Detective Constable Bright let him go, and he walked away, head spinning and throbbing still with pain.
The boy ran to catch up with him.
"You forgot your book, matey," he said, handing him a small, well-thumbed copy of Virgil.
"Oh, thank you. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I fainted," Endeavour replied, smiling and regretting it as pain shot through his head again. The boy looked at him for a moment, then seemed to decide something.
"What you need's a pick me up," he said, "We're going to the pub. Come on." He walked a few paces down the road then stopped, turning, to wait for Endeavour.
Endeavour hesitated. His mother had always been so against alcohol of any sort, and his father disgustingly keen. He'd never even had a drink before, despite turning 18 a few months ago. Then again, it had been a spectacularly terrible day. What have you got to lose? Endeavour decided to drown his sorrows. He smiled again, and followed the boy through the ancient city of learning to the nearest pub. Where he got utterly, utterly smashed.
Three hours later, Endeavour was having a fantastic time. Jim, as the boy turned out to be called, was friends with the landlord, and after explaining Endeavour's terrible luck in literally tripping over a dead body, had secured them free drinks for the whole night, as a first round on the house turned into the offer of a drink from everyone at the bar who wanted to hear the story first hand. For the first time in his life, Endeavour's keen eye for detail was making him popular. At school, his pedantic nature meant the other boys rather liked (to use the vernacular) to rip the shit out of him.
He started to rather enjoy describing in gruesome detail the bloody body, the small whitish grey piece of brain hanging out onto the pavement, the way the victim's eyes had rolled completely back into their skull, even the metallic tang on blood on the air, as each new detail earned a cheer from the lads at the bar. Jim hadn't mentioned Endeavour's fainting fit, for which Endeavour was eternally grateful. Instead he joined Endeavour in tearing down the small, shrewish police man with thirty thousand questions. It turned out Jim could do an excellent impression of his thin, reedy voice.
Speaking of Jim, Endeavour rather liked him. When he'd told him his name, "Endeavour Morse" he'd started to call him just "Morse" straight away, saying he didn't hold with stupid names, and Endeavour had rather liked the sound of it. He'd then changed his mind on realising Endeavour was applying to Oxford, and started calling him 'college boy'. Endeavour was worried at first that this would alienate the pub's laddy clientele, but on the contrary they seemed to like the idea that they'd taken an Oxford boy under their wing and brought him over to their side. And Endeavour suspected that with Jim as his ally, he would forever be one of the lads, no matter how large the crest on his school blazer.
At 11pm, the landlord called out "last orders!" and with a wink at Jim, set down two more pints on the bar. Endeavour was reeling. At 9, he'd realised that he'd missed dinner, and, judgement clouded slightly by Wychwood ale, had decided to fill the gap with another pint. This last one would be his eighth. The bell ringing brought him back to his senses. Slightly. 11pm. He should probably head back to college soon…
Wait. College. 11pm.
He was missing something here. If only the bar would stop spinning around, then maybe he would be able to think.
11pm college curfew. Damn.
Suddenly alert, Endeavour checked his watch. It was two minutes past eleven. The porter had told him with a wink that St John's operated on Oxford time, meaning everything actually happened at five past the hour. He had three minutes to get there, or he was locked out all night.
Endeavour lurched off his bar stool, shouted a general thank you into the pub and sprinted outside.
Endeavour would never quite be able to remember how he got back to college that night, lurching through the streets of Oxford, leaning on walls, tripping over his untied laces and scattering change, buttons, cigarettes, and even Virgil from his pockets as he went. And yet, just as the porter was coming out of his vestibule to lock the gates, Endeavour was arriving. He stared at the porter- why are there two of them?- and threw up at his feet. Ohhh dear.
