Colin Dexter - The Way Through The Woods

`'Lewis! You're listening, aren't you?'

'Sorry, sir?'

'You do remember Morse belly-aching about transferring the search from Blenheim to Wytham?'

'Yes, sir. But he wasn't on the case more than a day or so.'

'I know that,' snapped Strange. 'But he must have had some reason, surely?'

'I've never quite been able to follow some of his reasons.'

'Do you know how much some of these bloody searches cost?

'No, sir.'

Nor perhaps did Strange himself, for he immediately changed tack: 'Do you think Morse was right?'

'I dunno, sir. I mean, I think he's a great man, but he sometimes gets things awfully wrong, doesn't he?'

'And he more often gets things bloody right' said Strange with vehemence.

It was an odd reversal of roles, and Lewis hastened to put the record straight. 'I think myself, sir, that-'

'I don't give a sod what you think, Sergeant! If I want to search Wytham Woods I'll bloody well search 'em till a year next Friday if I – If I think it's worth the candle. All right?'

Lewis nodded wordlessly across the table, watching the rising florid exasperation in the Super's face.

'I'm not sure where I come into all this – ' he began.

'Well, I'll tell you! There's only one thing you can do and I can't, Sergeant, and that's to get the morose old bugger back to work here – smartish. I'm under all sorts of bloody pressure…'

'But he's on holiday, sir.'

'I know he's on bloody holiday. I saw him yesterday, drinkin shampers and listening to Schubert – with some tart or other.'

'Sure it was champagne, sir?'

But quietly now, rather movingly, Strange was making his plea 'Christ knows why, Lewis, but he'll always put himself out a for you. Did you realize that?'

He rang from Morse's own (empty) office.

'Me, sir. Lewis.'

'I'm on holiday.'

'Super's just had a word with me-'

'Friday – that's what I told him.'

'You've seen the letter about Wytham, sir?'

'Unlike you and your philistine cronies, Lewis, my daily reading includes the royal circulars in The Times, the editorials – '

‘What do I tell the Super, sir? He wants us – you and me – to take over straightaway.'

‘Tell him I'll be in touch – tomorrow.'

'Tell him you'll ring, you mean?'

'No. Tell him I'll be back on duty tomorrow morning. Tell him be in my office any time after seven a.m.'

'He won't be awake then, sir.'

'Don't be too hard on him, Lewis. He's getting old – and I think he's got high blood pressure.'

As he put down the phone, with supreme contentment, Lewis knew that Strange had been right – about Morse and himself; realized that in the case of the Swedish Maiden, the pair of them were in business again – w.e.f. the following morning.

In his office, Strange picked up the cutting from The Times and read the letter yet again. Quite extraordinary!

From Mr Lionel Regis

Sir, Like most of your other correspondents I must assume that the 'Swedish Maiden' verses were composed by the person responsible for the murder of that unfortunate young lady. It is of course possible they were sent as a hoax, but such is not my view. In my opinion it is far more probable that the writer is exasperated by the inability of the police to come anywhere near the discovery of a body, let alone the arrest of a murderer. The verses, as I read them, are a cry from the murderer – not the victim – a cry for some discovery, some absolution, some relief from sleepless, haunted nights. But I would not have written to you, sir, merely to air such vague and dubious generalities. I write because I am a setter of crossword puzzles, and when I first studied the verses I had just completed a puzzle in which the answer to every clue was indicated by a definition of the word to be entered, and also by a sequenced anagram of the same word. It was with considerable interest therefore – and a good measure of incredulity – that I gradually spotted the fact that the word wytham crops up, in anagrammatized form, in each of the five stanzas. Thus: thaw my (stanza 1); [stre]AM why T[ell’st] (stanza 2); what my (stanza 3); [s]aw thym[e] (stanza 4); and [no]w thy MA[iden] (stanza 5).

The occurrence of five such instances is surely way beyond the bounds of coincidence. (I have consulted my mathematical friends on this matter.) 'Wytham', I learn (I am not an Oxford man), is the name of some woods situated to the west of Oxford. If the verse tells us anything then, it is surely that the body sought is to be found in Wytham Woods, and it is my humble suggestion that any further searches undertaken should be conducted in that quarter.

Yours,

LIONEL REGIS,

16 Cathedral Mews,

Salisbury.

Like Lewis, Strange remembered exactly what Morse had on his postcard: 'I reckon I know what the poem means!', and pushed the newspaper aside, and looked out across the car park.

'Lionel Regis, my arse!' he said quietly to himself.

Wednesday, 15 July, was never going to be a particularly memorable day. No fire-faced prophet was to bring news of the Message or the name of the One True God. Just a fairly ordinary transitional sort of day in which events appeared discrete and only semi-sequential; when some of the protagonists in the Swedish Maiden case were moved to their new positions on the chessboard, but before the game was yet begun.

At a slightly frosty meeting held in the Assistant Chief Constable’s office at 10.30 a.m., the Swedish Maiden case was reviewed in considerable detail by the ACC himself, Chief Superintendent Strange and Detective Chief Inspectors Johnson and Morse. General agreement was reached (only one dissident voice) that perhaps there was little now to be gained from any prolongation of the extensive and expensive search-programme on the Blenheim Palace Estate. The decision was reported too, emanating from ‘Higher authority', that Morse was now i/c and that Johnson would therefore be enabled to take his midsummer furlough as scheduled, official verbiage would fool no one, of course – but it was possibly better than nothing at all.

Amongst the items reviewed was yet another letter, printed that morning in The Times:

From Mr John C. Chavasse

Sir, The Wood (singular not plural please) at Wytham is a place most familiar to me and I suspect to almost all generations of young men who have taken their degrees at Oxford University. Well do I remember the summer weekends in the late 40’s when together with many of my fellow undergraduates I cycled up through Lower Wolvercote to Wytham.

In lines 14 and 15 of the (now notorious!) verses, we find 'A creature white' (sic) Trapped in a gin' (sic), 'Panting like a hunted deer' (sic). Now if this is not a cryptic reference to a gin-and-whatnot in that splendid old hostelry in Wytham, the White Hart – then I'm a Dutchman, sir! But I am convinced (as an Englishman) that such a reference can only serve to corroborate the brilliant analysis of the verses made by Mr Lionel Regis (Letters, July 13).

Yours faithfully,

JOHN C. CHAVASSE,

21 Hayward Road,

Bishop Auckland.

Around the table, 'Mr Lionel Regis' looked slightly sheepish but not for long, and now it was all an open secret anyway. He realized that there would be little he could do for a day or so – except to re-read all the material that had accumulated from the earlier enquiries; to sit tight; to get Lewis cracking on the admin and perhaps to try to think a bit more clearly about his own odd/-irrational conviction that the young student's body would be found – and found in Wytham Wood(s). There was that little bit of new evidence, too – the call from the O'Kanes. For if their memories! served them to any degree aright, then Karin Eriksson had some point gone down the Banbury Road from the roundabout; was the testimony of the man who had been waiting for a bus then that Sunday noon-time which should have been given credence not that of the man who had driven along Sunderland Avenue.