Colin Dexter - Last Bus To Woodstock

'Raped, too, was she?'

Tompsett drained his glass. 'So they say. But I've always been a bit dubious myself about this rape business.'

'Confucius, he say girl with skirt up, she run faster than man with trousers down, eh?'

The two older men smiled politely at the tired old joke, but Melhuish wished he hadn't repeated it: off-key, over-familiar. Gaye heard the clear voice of Tompsett rescuing the conversation. He was no fool, she thought.

'Yes, I agree with you, Melhuish. We mustn't get too serious about rape. God, no. Happens every day. I remember a couple of years back there was a young gal here — you'd remember her, Peter — quick, clear mind, good worker, marvellous kid. She was taking Finals and had eight three-hour papers. She'd done her seventh paper on the Thursday morning — no it was the Friday, or was it. . but that's beside the point. She took her last but one paper in the morning with just one more fence to jump in the afternoon. Well, she went off to her digs out at Headington for lunch and — begger me! — she got raped on her way back. Just think of the shock for the poor lass. You remember, Peter? Anyway, she insisted on taking the last paper and do you know, Melhuish — she did better on the last paper than she'd done on all the others!'

Melhuish laughed heartily and took the empty glasses.

'You make it up as you go along,' muttered Peter.

'Well, it was a good story, wasn't it?' said Tompsett.

Gaye lost the thread of their talk for a few minutes, and when she picked it up again, it was clear that the conversation had taken a slightly more serious turn. They always said that gin was a depressant.

'. . not necessarily raped before being murdered, you know.'

'Oh, shut up, Felix.'

'Bit revolting, I know. But we all read the Christie business, didn't we? Wicked old bugger, he was!'

'Do they think that's what happened here?' asked Melhuish.

'Do you know, I might have been able to tell you that,' said Tompsett. 'Old Morse — good chap! — he's in charge of the case, and we've had him at the college guest-evenings. He was invited tonight, but he had to cry off. Had a minor accident.' Tompsett laughed. 'Fell off a ladder! Christ, who'd ever believe it? Here's a chap in charge of a murder inquiry and he falls off a bloody ladder!' Tompsett was highly amused.

The Americans had renounced all hope and the bar had emptied now. The three men walked across to the table by the window.

'Well, we'd better see what they can offer us for lunch,' said Peter. 'I'll get the menu.'

Gaye held out a large expensive-looking folder and presented it, already opened, like a neophyte offering the collect for the day to an awesome priest.

Peter looked through quickly, a gentle cynicism showing on his face. He looked up at Gaye and found her watching him. 'Do you recommend "Don's Delight" or "Proctor's Pleasure"?' He asked it in an undertone.

'I shouldn't have the steak if I were you,' her voice as quiet as his.

'Are you free this afternoon?'

She weighed up the situation for several seconds before nodding her head, almost imperceptibly.

'What time shall I pick you up?'

'Three o'clock?'

'Where?'

'I'll be just outside.'

At four o'clock the two lay side by side in the ample double-bed in Peter's rooms in Lonsdale College. His left arm was around her neck, his right hand gently caressing her breasts.

'Do you believe a young girl can get raped?' he asked.

Gaye considered the problem. Contented in mind and in body, she lay for a while contemplating the ornate veiling, 'It must be jolly difficult for the man.'

'Mm.'

'Have you ever raped a woman?'

'I could rape you, any day of the week.'

'But I wouldn't let you. I wouldn't put up any resistance.'

He kissed her full lips again, she turned eagerly towards him.

'Peter,' she whispered in his ear, 'rape me again!'

The phone blared suddenly, shrill and urgent in the quiet room. Blast!

'Oh, hullo Bernard. What? No. Sitting idling, you know. What? Oh, tonight. Yes. Well, about seven, I think. Why not call in for me? We can have a quick drink together. Yes. Felix? Oh, he's well tanked-up already. Yes. Yes. Well, look forward to it. Yes. Bye.'

'Who's Bernard?'

'Oh, he's an English don here. Good chap. Pretty bad sense of timing, though.'

'Does he have a set of rooms like this?'

"No, no. He's a family man is Bernard. Lives up in North Oxford. Quiet chap.'

' He doesn't rape young girls then?'

'What, Bernard? Good lord no. Well, I don't think so. .'

'You're a quiet man, Peter.'

'Me?' She fondled him lovingly, and abruptly terminated all further discussion of Mr. Bernard Crowther, quiet family man of North Oxford.

PART TWO

Search for a man

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Wednesday, 6 October

BEGINNING ITS LIFE under a low (Head Room 12 ft) railway bridge, and proceeding its cramped and narrow way for several hundred yards past shabby rows of terraced houses that line the thoroughfare in tight and mean confinement, the Botley Road gradually broadens into a spacious stretch of dual carriageway that carries all west-bound traffic towards Faringdon, Swindon and the sundry hamlets in between. Here the houses no longer shoulder their neighbours in such grudging proximity, and hither several of the Oxford businessmen have brought their premises.

Chalkley and Sons is a sprawling, two-storied building, specializing in household fittings, tiling, wallpaper, paint and furniture. It is a well-established store, patronized by many of the carpenters (discount), the interior decorators (discount), and almost all the do-it-yourselfers from Oxford. At the furthest end of the ground floor show rooms there is a notice informing the few customers who have not yet discovered the fact that the Formica Shop is outside, over the yard, second on the left.

In this shop a young man is laying a large sheet of formica upon a wooden table, a table which has a deep, square groove cut longitudinally through its centre. He pulls towards him, along its smoothly running gliders, a small automatic saw, and carefully lines up its wickedly polished teeth against his pencilled mark. Deftly he flicks out a steel ruler and checks his measurement. He appears content with a rapid mental calculation, snaps a switch and, amid a grating whirr, slices through the tough fabric with a clean and deadly swiftness. He enjoys that swiftness! Several times he repeats the process: lengthways, side-ways, narrowly, broadly, and stacks the measured strips neatly against the wall. He looks at his watch; it is almost 12.45 p.m. An hour and a quarter. He locks the sliding doors behind him, repairs to the staff wash-room, soaps his hands, combs his hair and, with little regret, temporarily turns his back upon the premises of Mr. Chalkley and his sons. He pats a little package which bulges slightly in the right-hand pocket of his overcoat. Still there.

Although his immediate destination is no more than ten minutes' walk away, he decides to take a bus. He crosses the road and traverses in the process as many lines, continuous, broken, broad, narrow, yellow, white, as one may find in the key to an Ordnance Survey map; for the Oxford City Council has escalated its long war of attrition against the private motorist and has instituted a system of bus lanes along the Botley Road. A bus arrives almost immediately, and the dour Pakistani one-man crew silently discharges his manifold duties. The young man always hopes that the bus is fairly full so that he may sit beside one of the mini-skirted, knee-booted young girls returning to the city; but today it is almost empty. He sits down and looks mechanically around him.

He alights at the stop before the railway bridge (where the bus must make a right-hand detour to avoid a scalping from the iron girders), threads his way to a dingy street behind the shabby rows of houses, and enters a small shop. The legend above the door of Mr. Baines's grimy, peeling shop-front reads 'Newsagent and Tobacconist'. But such is the nature of Mr. Baines's establishment that he employs no cohorts of cheeky boys and girls to deliver his morning and evening newspapers, nor does his stock of tobacco run to more than half a dozen of the more popular brands of cigarettes. He sells neither birthday cards nor ice-cream nor confectionery. Mr. Baines — yes, he is a shrewd man — calculates that he can make as much profit from one swift, uncomplicated transaction as from the proceeds of one day's paper rounds, or from the sale of a thousand cigarettes. For Mr. Baines is a dealer in hard pornography.