Free Deadly Stuff by Joyce Cato

Inevitably, once word got around down at the station that he’d got a live one – or rather, exactly the opposite – in an Oxford college, prime Morse country if ever there was any, then every lowly constable up to the know-it-alls who ran traffic would soon be taking the Michael.
    Sergeant Trent could hear them now: and just how long would it be before the comedians started calling him Lewis?Not that he minded being thought of as Morse’s loyal sidekick, now that he’d been given his own TV series!
    ‘The first snotty-nosed little sod who mentions Morse around me is going to find himself working in Records for a month,’ Trevor Golder muttered darkly, as he drew the car to a halt on double yellow lines on the Woodstock Road.
    ‘Better park over there in the pub car-park, guv,’ Peter Trent said, helpfully pointing.
    Trevor grunted but did as he was advised. He wouldn’t put it past those twits in Traffic to have him towed; that seemed to be their level of humour in traffic these days.
    The two men crossed the busy main road and stepped into the hallowed portals of St Bede’s. There, the porter took their names and directed them to hall. No doubt, by now, the word was spreading, and Trevor wondered what officious college bigwig he’d have to placate before he could start to do his job properly.
    The porter watched them go thoughtfully.
    Trevor, despite being the senior man in rank, was nearly a decade and a half younger than Peter Trent, who was now in his early fifties, and could have retired the previous year had he wanted to. Whereas Trent was white-haired, with a neatly trimmed white beard and pronounced crows’ feet at the corner of twinkling brown eyes, Golder was heavier, taller and had thinning light-brown hair. The porter continued to watch the two police officers disappear into one of the main residential blocks, then was immediately on the telephone to the bursar.
    He knew better than to telephone the principal’s office.
    Everyone knew that the principal was hardly ever in college. In the Orient, yes. On the golf-course, yes. In a country cottage belonging to a former disgraced politician, yes. In college? No.
    ‘So what do we know so far?’ Trevor asked, as they made their way to the crime scene, more out of habit than because hehadn’t been paying due attention to his superior officer’s brief initial instructions.
    ‘A woman caller from the college logged a triple nine at eleven fifty-eight. Responding uniforms confirm a deceased male in suspicious circumstances. SOCO is already on site,’ Trent confirmed crisply.
    Trevor sighed as they stepped into a large hall, redolent with the scent of history and academic achievement.
    ‘Bloody Morse,’ he said morosely.
     
    The two men walked up a wide wooden staircase, past paintings depicting prior smug or aloof academics, and found themselves in a long landing. A stuffed owl in an alcove stared out at them as they passed and halfway down, Trevor saw a young constable in uniform straighten up a little at the sight of him.
    He was standing next to a striking-looking woman who was sitting, straightbacked, in a chair pressed against the wall. He glanced at her curiously as he stepped by her and into the hall, where white-suited technicians were already at work.
    What he saw was a tall, large-boned, beautiful, dark-haired woman with the loveliest eyes he’d seen in a long time. And she gave him an enigmatic look back that made his toenails curl.
    Trevor made no move to go further into the room until he was spotted by one of the SOCO team, who pointed down at some temporary wooden partitions and beckoned to him that it was all right to come closer. As they did so, Trevor was surprised to notice that a large, stuffed, black bear was standing in pride of place on a slightly elevated platform that housed high table. Beside it, was a porter’s trolley, and an empty case.
    Dragging his eyes from it, Trevor and Peter Trent moved in for their first view of