CHAPTER 27 -Something's confrontational

Part 1

The five coppers had successfully managed to commandeer their favourite table over in the corner of the pub and were all sitting round it, sipping their drinks which DCI Thursday had bought for them, as he had promised. Normally on a Monday the popular topic of conversation would have been what everyone had got up to over the weekend, but Thursday couldn't help noticing that nobody was volunteering any information about their social activities over the past two days. Of course, he had seen Morse and Strange at Joan's party on Saturday but it seemed that neither Fancy nor Trewlove were as keen to discuss their weekend as they might normally have been, even if it had been just to have a minor whinge about the problems of living with parents who weren't sold on the idea of their offspring being in the police force.

Morse had picked up on this apparent hesitation on the part of his junior colleagues and decided to start up a harmless line of conversation on the subject of Fred and Win Thursday's forthcoming dance competition.

'It's your ballroom quarter-final this Saturday, isn't it, Sir?' he asked, glancing up at Thursday. 'Are you looking forward to it?'

'Oh wow!' said Trewlove, her eyes wide open in excitement and admiration. 'Are you nervous, Sir?'

Thursday smiled back at them all, secretly quite chuffed that they were all showing such interest and concern for his and Win's rapidly approaching big night. 'Oh, not really. I'm quietly confident we'll do alright. Win's the one who's as nervous as a kitten, if truth be told.'

'It must be really nerve-wracking having to perform on the dance floor, with so many people in the audience watching and the judges closely observing your every move,' said Trewlove. 'I'd be shaking like a leaf it was me. I'm not surprised Mrs Thursday's nervous about it.'

'Well, if your performance is half as good as the little preview you gave me and Morse at Joan's on Saturday, then I'm sure you won't have anything to worry about, Sir,' said Strange.

'What, they've danced in front of you before?' asked Fancy, looking across at Strange and Morse, his eyes betraying a surprising curiosity.

'Oh, just a thirty second burst, that's all. Nothing to get excited about,' said Thursday modesty, not wishing to make too big a thing of it.

'I wish I'd been there to see it,' said Trewlove. 'I've never seen anyone do ballroom dancing before.'

'Are there any tickets left, do you know, Sir?' Fancy had just had a brilliant idea which might help him to get back in Shirley's good books. 'Perhaps we could come and watch you and Mrs Thursday. Cheer you on, like. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Shirl?'

But before Trewlove could say a word in favour of Fancy's idea or not, Thursday was forced to disappoint them all. 'All the tickets have gone, I'm afraid. They were sold out weeks ago.'

Fancy and Trewlove let out a tiny groan of dismay while Strange and Morse exchanged meaningful glances. Both detectives had immediately seen through Fancy's all too obvious attempt to impress and charm Trewlove and they couldn't help sniggering inwardly to themselves. So predictable, George, thought Morse. Always too slow off the mark, George, thought Strange.

'Well, what about the semi-finals, Sir? If you get through on Saturday night, that is.' George was determined not to give up that easily. Trewlove was bound to appreciate a guy who was willing to go the extra mile for her, surely?

'If, George? What do you mean, if?' Strange glared at Fancy with a steely gaze, surprised at his junior colleague's lack of faith in his guvnor's abilities on the dance floor. 'When they get though to the semis, you mean, don't you?'

Thursday let out a huge belly laugh at the sight of Fancy's face which had turned bright pink with embarrassment. 'Stop teasing him, Jim. He's quite right. If we get through. There are no certainties in ballroom dancing.'

'I'm terribly sorry, Sir. I didn't mean any offence,' said Fancy in hushed, apologetic tones.

'None taken, Fancy. You're alright. As for tickets for the semis, I'll ask around. See if I can get hold of any on the QT.'

Fancy mumbled his gratitude which was echoed by Trewlove sitting next to him and he desperately prayed that somebody would change the subject, not that he had any great expectation that he would be able to avoid making a fool of himself in another topic of conversation. He felt like he possessed an unrivalled talent for putting his foot in it and making a spectacle of himself in an infinite number of situations.

Part 2

The clock on Ronald Fraser's mantelpiece was showing nearly eight o'clock when Vera Cooper finished the last of the tasks that she had set herself in preparation for the arrival of her visitor. She sat down with a heavy sigh and a slight groan into the armchair which was positioned in front of the fire in the living room and closed her eyes for a minute or two. Her rheumatoid arthritis was playing up a touch that evening and she was grateful to be able to sink into a comfy armchair for a little while and rest her weary legs. She also needed to rest her weary mind too. She'd had a lot to think about since receiving that telephone call in the early part of the afternoon and she had needed to be at her most alert, razor-sharp and intuitive to plan for whatever might transpire when the two of them met up in around an hour's time.

She had sat at her nephew's writing desk for a good hour or more in the afternoon, painstakingly writing a couple of important letters as part of her insurance policy in case events should take an unpleasant turn for the worse. She had taken a long time writing those letters, far more than she would have normally taken to write a letter, but these were no ordinary letters. They were dealing with matters that were far outside the readily accepted norms of current social behaviour. These letters would not be an easy read for whoever they were sent to and she had wanted to ensure that they said exactly the right things and were couched in the most appropriate terms and language. She also had thought long and hard about whom the letters should be sent to. It had seemed too obvious and simplistic to her mind to address them to the police or to some other official body or authority, but it wasn't that simple in her eyes.

She had to decide who really deserved to receive an explanation for all the things that had happened in the past and that certainly didn't necessarily include the police who were far down the list of Vera Cooper's priorities. If they should discover the truth eventually, then so be it, she reasoned. But she didn't see it as her duty to bring these matters to their attention by means of a simple confession, freely given and with no undue pressure brought to bear on her. She knew that ultimately people would point the finger at her as being the person primarily responsible for much of the misery and tragedy that had occurred, but she had always had pretty broad shoulders and was quite prepared to take the inevitable criticism on the chin. But there were one or two specific people who deserved to hear the whole truth first hand from her and not from some second or third hand account passed around indiscriminately like some perverse game of Chinese Whispers. It was to these more deserving cases that Vera had addressed her letters and had attempted to explain in the most carefully chosen words possible the reasons for the decisions made and actions taken so many years ago. When the letters had been written and placed inside their envelopes, she popped out and put them in the post box, breathing a sigh of relief that she had at least managed to accomplish that task safely.

She wasn't a hundred per cent sure whether her life would be at risk during this meeting, but she had decided to play it safe and at least attempt to give herself the means to defend herself should it prove necessary. She would have liked to have had a gun with her as the ultimate deterrent to any would-be attacker but her trusty handgun which had made her feel safe in her own home for many years was thousands of miles away back in Canada. She knew that she would have to make the best of what was readily available to her at Ronald's cottage and so she had spent a long time searching all around the house, looking into every room for a suitable weapon or two to ease her troubled mind.

There were knives aplenty, of course, in the kitchen so she carefully considered all the options open to her, laying them all down in front of her on the kitchen table before eventually selecting a fearfully dangerous looking chef's knife, with its short brown handle and a wide six-inch blade. That looked to her as if it could inflict some serious damage if required as a last resort but would be relatively easy to handle and not too difficult to conceal from her opponent.

The other weapon she had settled on after scouring around all the rooms was one of her nephew's old golf clubs. It was common knowledge amongst all his personal acquaintances and closest work colleagues that Ronald was a very keen fisherman but not many people, if any, were aware that in his early days he liked playing golf. In fact Ronald enjoyed a round or two of golf even before he had got into fishing in a big way and he had held on to his own set of golf clubs even though he hadn't played a round of golf for ten years or more. Vera came across the full set of clubs which her nephew had seemingly slung almost haphazardly into the corner of the small box room upstairs. She took out each golf club in turn, examined them closely and held each one in turn in her right hand for a few moments. She needed to judge which one felt most comfortable in her grip and which had the necessary weight and power to inflict some serious damage if push came to shove and a fight to the death were to break out at some point. Eventually she plumped for a five wood, her decision swayed by the mighty round metal head of the club which she reckoned could crack a head open in one swing if you connected sweetly with the desired target.

She decided that the kitchen knife could be hidden in the right hand pocket of her slacks where she could get to it quickly and hopefully before her visitor could prevent her from accessing it. The golf club was a different matter but after a period of careful reflection, Vera thought the best place to hide it was behind a mass of large, soft cushions which lined the three seater sofa in the living room where she was planning to sit and face her visitor while they talked. She made sure the club was completely masked by the cushions and just for good measure she plumped up the cushions so that nothing looked too suspicious or unusual to the casual observer.

Satisfied that all the precautions available to her had been taken, Vera sat down on the sofa and closed her eyes once more, exhausted by her efforts of the last few hours and desperate to relax her troubled mind which had been taxed way beyond its normal experiences. Zero hour was not far away, and she began to count down the minutes with increasing trepidation and a sixth sense of fatalism.

Part 3

Having made good on his promise to buy the first round, DCI Thursday made his excuses and got up to take his leave after finishing his pint of best, claiming he didn't want to make Win angry by being back too late for his evening meal.

'She said she was going to cook my favourite tonight, beef stew and dumplings,' he said, as he put on his hat and made to go. 'I certainly don't want to see that being thrown into the bin if I get home too late.'

'That would be tragic,' remarked Strange with an alarming look on his face at which point Trewlove and Fancy burst into laughter while Morse looked on with a typically enigmatic half smile. 'I hate seeing food go to waste.'

'I can't believe that ever happens in your house, Jim,' observed Trewlove as they all said goodbye to Thursday who departed in a hurry.

'Not if I can help it, Shirley,' Strange didn't mind admitting. He finished off the last dregs of his pint and asked who fancied another. They all nodded, and so he went off to the bar with their empty glasses to buy a fresh round of drinks.

'How do you think the canal murder case is going, Morse?' asked Trewlove who was thrilled to have been part of the meeting that afternoon and was eager to hear Morse's take on how the case was progressing.

'Slowly,' said Morse with a grimace.' We seem to be chasing our tails trying to find this letter that Fraser was so engrossed with before he was killed. We think he took a copy, but we've just turned up a blank trying to find it.'

'Do you think that holds the key to the murder?' asked Fancy. 'Find the letter, solve the crime?'

'I'm sure it will point us in the right direction, at least,' said Morse, his brow momentarily furrowed with a hint of frustration. 'Trouble is, we don't know whether his murder is to do with his private life or his professional life. There are a number of possible suspects, none of them with a watertight alibi.'

'What about the aunt? Do you think she's mixed up with it somehow?' Trewlove posed the question that had been swirling around in her mind since mention had been made of her by Thursday and Morse. 'She sounds a bit dodgy to me.'

'Well, DCI Thursday is certainly convinced she's not been telling us the whole story.'

'Don't you agree?' asked Fancy, detecting a slight note of discord between the two coppers who, as far as he had always observed, almost always sang from the same hymn sheet and supported each other to the hilt.

'No, I do agree she's holding something back. I'm just not sure she can tell us anything about the actual murder, though. She wasn't even in the country when Fraser was killed.'

'Maybe she has a good idea who murdered Fraser,' suggested Trewlove.

'Then why wouldn't she tell us, Shirley?' argued Fancy. 'If you thought you knew who murdered a close relative of yours, you'd go straight to the police with your suspicions, wouldn't you?'

Morse and Fancy both looked at the young police woman as she pursed her lips and considered Fancy's very reasonable riposte to her bold suggestion.

'I would, yes. But she's not me, is she? She might have her own reasons for not coming forward.'

'Like what?' Fancy was intrigued by Trewlove's thought processes and Morse was content to stay silent and watch his two junior colleagues debate the matter. He was gratified to see Fancy take a real interest in the case and was keen to see what ideas they might come up with between the pair of them which might throw some new light on the case. Jim Strange reappeared with the new drinks on a small round tray and as he sat down at their table and handed out each drink to everyone, Trewlove was in full flow.

'I don't know. Maybe she can't believe the person she suspects is capable of murder or doesn't want to believe it.'

Strange couldn't hold back from joining in and soon added his two pennorth to the debate. 'Perhaps she knows something about Ronald Fraser's past, some dark secret that only she knows that she doesn't want anyone to find out about but…it has no bearing on his murder.'

'Could be,' said Morse, nodding cautiously. 'She hasn't seen him for years so she wouldn't know anything about his recent life, but she brought him up as a child, took the place of his mother to all intents. If Fraser does have a murky past, she's more likely to know the ins and outs of it better than anyone.'

'If you ask me, I'd concentrate on his professional life,' pronounced Fancy with an unaccustomed air of confidence. 'I mean, come on, he was a journalist, right? He was paid to sniff around the city for a good news story. A juicy bit of political gossip here, a nice bit of scandal amongst the rich and powerful there, evidence of bribery and corruption in the corridors of power in local government. That was his stock in trade, wasn't it? Surely it's more likely the answer to his murder lies there.'

Morse was quietly impressed. 'That was very well argued, Fancy. You could well be right.'

Greatly encouraged by this most unexpected lavishment of praise from Morse, Fancy was emboldened to continue with his argument. 'That chap at the Town Hall you saw…what was his name?'

'Carmichael,' replied Morse.

'Yes, him. Well, he sounded a seriously nasty piece of work

to me. And he's the only one, if I remember right, who actually issued a direct threat of violence against Fraser.'

'Not quite,' said Morse. 'Peter Barnes at the Mail also issued a threat…of sorts. He said he would make Fraser pay for taking his story away from him. Not necessarily a violent threat, I admit but nonetheless…'

Fancy stopped in his tracks for a moment, the flow of his argument temporarily derailed by Morse's correction of the facts that he had tried to present to the others.

'OK, but this Carmichael chap…well he's a bigwig, isn't he, in local government?' Fancy looked at the others with a knowing stare and raised eyebrows as if he surely didn't need to say anything more.

'What's your point, George?' asked Strange bluntly, before taking a large slug from his glass.

'Well, he knows people, doesn't he? He'll have connections, shady associates in all probability especially if there is any truth in this property development scam Fraser was trying to tie him in with. If he needed Fraser to be…well, taught a lesson, intimidated, got rid of permanently even, well he would know plenty of people who could fix it for him, wouldn't he?'

Strange and Morse exchanged knowing, impassive glances. They had both come across plenty of characters like the one Fancy had just described during their time at Thames Valley. Hit men, executive operatives, fixers, call them what you like, Oxford had had its fair share of gangsters and mobsters over the years and both coppers had been involved in putting away a number of these career criminals who would cheerfully eliminate any chosen individual, no questions asked, for the right price.

'You think Carmichael could be one of those, Morse?' Strange asked the question because he had never met the fellow, even if he didn't doubt for one second people like him existed in local government. In his experience where there was power, there was money and where there was money, there was also likely to be greed and fear that someone could try to take all that away from them.

Morse was forced to admit that it couldn't be ruled out, if their interview with Carmichael was anything to go by. 'He came across as a pretty ruthless, uncompromising, grubby man to me. DCI Thursday felt the same, I know. We'll certainly be having another good look at him, Fancy. If he's our man, whether he actually carried out the murder or paid someone to do it, we'll have him, I promise.'

'Surely a hit man would use a gun, wouldn't he? Not a knife,' ventured Trewlove who had been following the debate with the utmost fascination.

'You might think so but not necessarily,' said Strange. 'Guns have serial numbers, guns and bullets have unique features which can be traced whereas a knife, well, there are thousands of identical knives all over the country. Far harder to trace, Shirl.'

There was a brief silence during which all four coppers appeared to be thinking hard about all the theories and ideas that had been tossed around over the last few minutes before the conversation moved away from police matters and onto more light-hearted subjects. Morse, however, appeared to be still deep in thought and barely joined in the ensuing discussions during which Strange, Fancy and Trewlove took turns in commenting upon Mr Bright's new spectacles which made him seem even more like a secondary school headmaster than before and then the new Italian restaurant that had recently opened around the corner from Cowley police station.

A couple of minutes later Morse finished his pint and announced he was going. 'Already, matey?' said a surprised Jim Strange. 'But it's your round next, if I'm not mistaken!'

'Another time,' said Morse with a wry grin. I'll make good, I promise.'

'What's the big rush? I thought you didn't have anything planned for tonight.'

'I just want to pop round to Fraser's cottage and see if Ms Cooper is still there.'

'Are you worried about her, Morse?' asked Trewlove who thought she had detected a hint of concern in Morse's voice.

'No. I don't think so,' Morse replied, unconvincingly. 'But I would like to ask her a couple more questions, all the same.'

With that he stood up, said his goodbyes and left the pub, if not exactly at a run then at least at a decent trot as if he was running slightly late for an urgent appointment.

Part 4

The key was carefully inserted into the lock of the outside door to the back parlour and then turned noiselessly before the intruder gently pushed the door open and slipped into the room on tiptoe, closing the door slowly behind them. The room was traversed in seconds and the inner door handle was turned with equal stealth and the door to the kitchen opened. A heavy duty torch was held clenched in the fist of the intruder's right hand as entry into the kitchen was achieved without a sound.

The intruder crossed the kitchen, paused for a few moments to listen hard for the sound of any movement in the rest of the cottage before moving on into the hallway. The black plimsolls worn by the intruder made barely a squeak as the figure tiptoed purposefully towards the half open door of the living room. The briefest of glances around the doorframe confirmed that the old woman was sitting on the sofa, half facing the door, eyes closed but seemingly not asleep, judging by the occasional licking of her lips and twitching of her nose. She seemed relaxed and yet still alert enough to be easily disturbed if the intruder entered the room without extreme care and attention. Her right hand appeared to be dug deep into the pocket of her trousers which might suggest she was holding on to a weapon of some kind, thought the intruder. How best to approach the old woman and take her by surprise? A standard lamp in the corner of the room was switched on and the light from the lamp, in addition to the light from the hallway, would make it almost impossible to approach the old lady unseen.

She wouldn't be expecting her visitor to arrive just yet, it being still half an hour away from the pre-determined time of the meeting but of course the intruder had had no intention of arriving dead on time but rather at least half an hour in advance in order to catch the old bat off guard. Annoyingly it appeared as if she had made herself ready well in advance so some clever thinking would be required if the intruder was to take the upper hand. After a pause for some brief, considered reflection, the intruder withdrew back into the kitchen and through there into the parlour where a quick, silent search revealed what they were looking for. A few moments later and the whole cottage was suddenly plunged into darkness and the intruder quickly took up position just inside the kitchen door, awaiting the old lady's expected reaction to a fuse having blown.

'Damn!' said Vera out loud as soon as the lights all went out. That was the second time that week the lights had blown while she had been at Ronald's cottage. It was quite an old building, admittedly and the electrics were on their last legs to put it mildly. She had considered getting in an electrician to put things right but as she was intending to sell the cottage as soon as possible, she couldn't see the point of incurring the expenditure when the buyers would probably be keen to deal with that themselves. She got up and slowly made her way towards the parlour where she had already had cause to change a fuse a few days ago. She had barely set foot in the kitchen when she received a firm blow on the back of the head which knocked her to the floor, causing her to lose consciousness immediately. She went out like a light, leaving the intruder the easiest of tasks to drag Vera's limp body along the floor towards a kitchen chair, prop the frail old lady up on it and tie her wrists and ankles to the chair with some strong twine that had been brought along specifically for that purpose. Now Vera was ready to be questioned as soon as she woke up which the intruder calculated wouldn't be too long. The blow had been carefully calculated to be sufficiently heavy to knock her out just long enough for her to be easily manipulated onto a chair and tied up but not too forceful to render her unconscious for hours. The plan had worked like a dream so fat but the intruder knew there was still much more to be done.

Part 5

Morse swung his car into the road where Fraser's cottage was situated and seconds later parked up directly outside, got out of the car and locked the doors. He walked up the garden path and was disappointed to see that all of the lights were out. He presumed that he had arrived too late to catch Vera Cooper before she had left to return to her hotel in Oxford but he would be thorough and ring the bell anyway just in case she had fallen asleep with the lights off as some old ladies were prone to do, he reminded himself.

He went up to the front door and reached out for the doorbell and rang it a couple of times. There was no answer after a while, so he rang the bell twice more and waited patiently on the doorstep. When there was still no sign of movement from inside he was about to give up and return to his car when he suddenly recalled Vera Cooper having mentioned earlier that day that she would probably stay the night in the cottage so as to allow herself as much time as possible to go through all of Ronald's things. He stopped dead in his tracks and went back to the house, this time moving over to the front window and peering through it. The room was pitch black which he thought odd. Vera had seemed to have taken quite a liking to Ronald's small but cosy living room and he would have imagined she would have taken root in there for the whole evening rather than sit anywhere else in the cottage.

He rang the doorbell a third time and this time called out Vera's name but yet again to no avail. As a last resort Morse bent down and lifted up the lid of the letter box and peered through into the cottage. It took him a little while to adjust his eyes to the fuzzy, dim light inside but what he thought he could see ahead of him, as he looked straight through the hall down towards the kitchen into a vague half-light, had him jumping to his feet In a momentary panic. He made an immediate assault on the front door with all the physical machinery available to him. He used his shoulders and especially his right foot to literally kick the door down. Fortunately for him, the front door, like much of the rest of the cottage, was a bit on the old and frail side and didn't need a great deal of violent kicking and thumping to give way eventually. With his shoulders throbbing with pain, Morse finally succeeded in removing the door from its hinges and he burst into the cottage, making a beeline for the kitchen straight ahead of him. Once he got there he saw Vera Cooper, tied to a chair in the middle of the room, her body seemingly limp and lifeless, her head dangling to one side at a most unnatural angle, looking for all the world to Morse like she was dead.

He knelt down beside her and felt for a pulse, hardly daring to find one but to his utmost surprise he was able to feel one, incredibly faint admittedly but it was undeniably there, nonetheless. There was no time to lose. Vera Cooper might still be alive but who knew for how long. He rushed back to his car and put a call through to Cowley station, appraising them rapidly of the situation and telling them to get an ambulance over to Fraser's cottage in double-quick time. He then returned to the cottage and did what he could to help save Vera Cooper's life while he waited anxiously for the ambulance and the paramedics to arrive. If only he hadn't had that second pint at the pub, he agonised pointlessly to himself. He might have been able to prevent her from being attacked if he had got there half an hour earlier. But what was the point of such petty recriminations, he reminded himself sharply. He and Thursday should have been far harder on her and forced the information out of her which, in all probability, their collective failure to obtain might have cost Vera Cooper her life.

Author's Message

As you can see, the mood has changed, and the action has picked up as I start to wind the story down to a hopefully dramatic conclusion. Who do you think the intruder might be and what did they do when Vera regained consciousness? Did Vera leave any clues for the police to find or did the intruder find them and remove them in time? All these and many more questions will be answered in the coming chapters. Let me know what you think is going on or will happen by leaving a brief review if you have the time and the inclination. I would love to hear any theories you may have!