Colin Dexter - The Riddle Of The Third Mile

For the moment he lay down on top of the coverlet, with that curious amalgam of elation that springs from defiance of danger and knowledge of accomplishment. As a boy, he’d known it when climbing Snowdon with a Scout troup: for all the other boys, the route alongside one precipitous face had seemed a commonplace occurrence-yet for himself a source of great and secret pride… It was strange that he should only have experienced that marvellous elation again so very late in life, and then so often in such a short period of time… He closed his eyes, and almost moved his mind towards some neutral gear, untroubled, disengaged…

But only a minute later his body was jarred into panic-stricken dread. Someone was standing over him; someone who said ‘Good afternoon’-and nothing more.

‘You! You!’

His eyeballs bulged in fear and incredulous surprise, and if either of these emotions could be said to have been in the ascendant, perhaps it was that of surprise. But even as he cowered upon the coverlet, the packing twine was cutting deep into his neck; and soon his frantic spluttering and croaking grew quieter and quieter-until it was completely stilled. So died George Westerby, late Scholar and Senior Fellow of Lonsdale College in the University of Oxford.

It is a characteristic of the British people that they complain about their railways. In this case, however, there appears little justification for such complaint,

It was 9.50 a.m. the following morning when the winsome receptionist looked up from her desk and took the room-key.

‘Nice morning again, Mr Smith?’

He nodded and smiled-that distinctively lop-sided smile of his. Since he’d been there, she’d almost always been on duty in the mornings; often, too, in the evenings, when she’d taken his order for an early-morning pot of tea-and also for The Times.

‘I’ve got to leave this morning; so if you’ll make out my bill, please? ’

He sat down in one of the armchairs just opposite the reception desk, and breathed in very deeply. He’d spent another deeply troubled night, fitfully falling into semi-slumber, then waking up to find his blue pyjamas soaked in chilling sweat. Throughout these hours his head had thumped away as though some alien fiend were hammering inside his skull; and it was only after early tea that finally he’d slept a little while. He woke just after 9a.m., his head still aching, yet now with a dulled and

torrable pain. For a few minutes he had lain there almost happily, upon the creased and tumbled pillow. But soon the same old host of thoughts was streaming through the portals of his brain, his eyeballs rolling round beneath the shuttered lids. And one thought fought a leading way through all the crowd- and one decision was made.

‘Mr Smith? Mr Smith?’

He heard her, and rose to pay the bill. Sometimes (as well he knew) his brain could play him false; but this particular contingency he had anticipated, and he paid his dues with ready cash, in notes of high denomination.

He left the Station Hotel (as Westerby had done before him) and walked to the ticket-office. Then, for many minutes, he stood in front of the high departures-board. But he could read nothing. His eyes no sooner focused on the times of trains for Oxford than the letters (white) upon their background (black) had leap-frogged astigmatically across his retina, leaving him in dizzied indecision.

He stepped to the nearest ticket-barrier. ‘Can you tell me my best bet for Oxford, please?’

‘Platform 9. Half-past ten. But you’ll have to-’

‘Thank you.’

The train was already in the platform and he pulled himself up into an empty first-class compartment, putting his ticket carefully into his wallet and leaning back against the head-rest…

Half an hour later he jerked forward as the train halted with something less than silken braking-power, and he looked out of the window: Reading. Still the solitary occupant of the compartment, he leant back again and closed his wearied eyes. Not long… and he’d be there!

Thirty-five minutes later he was jerked to a second awakening.

‘Tickets, please!’

He was gratified that he could find his ticket so easily,but his head was throbbing wildly.

‘This your ticket, sir?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘I’m afraid you’ve missed your connection. We’ve just gone past Didcot. You’re on your way to Swindon.’

‘What? I don’t understand-’

‘You should have changed at Didcot for the Oxford train. You must have nodded off.’

‘But I’ve got to get to Oxford. I’ve – I’ve just got to get there. ’

‘Nothing we can do, sir. You’ll have to get the next train back from Swindon-’

‘But it’s urgent!’

‘As I say, you’ll just have to wait till we get to Swindon.’ The collector punched the ticket and handed it back. ‘We won’t worry about any excess fare, sir. Genuine mistake, I’m sure.”

The next few minutes registered themselves in his mind as at aeon of frenzied agony. Sitting forward in his seat, he bit deep into the nails of his little fingers, fighting with all his power to keep control of a brain that stood unsurely on a precipice.

Then the train stopped-more gently this time.

He was glad to find his legs steady as he got to his feet, and he felt much calmer now. He put the sweat-soaked handkerchief away inside his trouser pocket, took his case from the luggage rack, opened the left-hand door of the carriage-and stepped down into nothing. He fell on to the sharp stones of a slight embankment on the south side of the line, and lay there hurt and wholly puzzled. Yet, strangely, he felt profoundly comfortable there: it seemed so easy now to sleep. The sun was blazing down from the clear-blue sky, and his head-at last! -was free from pain.

‘You all right, sir?’

The ticket collector was crouching beside him, and he heard some faintly sounding voices from afar.

‘I’m sorry…I’m sorry…’

‘Let me just help you up, sir. You’ll be all right.’

‘No! Please don’t bother. I’m just sorry, that’s all…’

He closed his eyes. But the sun was blazing still beneath his eyelids, glowing like some fiery orange, whirring and -ever larger-spinning down towards him.

But still there was no pain.

‘I’ll go and get some help, sir. Shan’t be a minute.’

The ticket collector vaulted nimbly up the shallow embankment, but already it was too late.

‘Before you do that, please do one thing for me. I want to get a message to a Chief Inspector Morse-at the Thames Valley Police Headquarters. Please tell him I was-I was on my way to see him. Please tell him that I did it-do you understand me? Please tell him… that…’

But the man beside the track was speaking to himself; and even the curious heads that poked through nearby carriage-windows could make no sense of all the mumbled words.

Suddenly the sun exploded in a yellow flash and a jagged, agonizing pain careered across his skull. With a supreme effort of will he opened his eyes once more; but all was dark now, and the sweat was pouring down his face and seeping inside his gaping mouth. He had a handkerchief, he knew: it was in his trouser pocket. But he wanted a clean one. Yes, he had plenty clean ones. Why, he’d only bought a box of Irish linen ones very recently… from the shop in the Tun… only hundred yards away from Lonsdale College…

Another man now knelt beside the body-a young neuro-surgeon who was travelling up to Swindon General Hospital But he could do nothing; and after a little while he looked up at the ticket collector – then slowly shook his head.