Colin Dexter - Last Bus To Woodstock

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Monday, 11 October

THE WEEKEND DRIFTED by, and the leaves continued to fall. Morse was feeling more cheerful; he could now put a good deal of weight on to his foot, and on Monday morning, deciding that he could exchange his crutches for a pair of sticks, he arranged for McPherson to drive him down to the Radcliffe Infirmary Outpatients' (Accident) Department.

He questioned McPherson closely as they drove. What impression had he formed of Crowther? What had been Crowther's immediate reactions? What was he like at home did he think? What had he been doing when McPherson called? Morse found the young constable surprisingly intelligent and observant, and told him so. Furthermore he found a good deal in the information he had been given that interested him and aroused his curiosity.

'What had he been reading — did you manage to see?'

'No, sir. But books on literature, I think. You know, poetry.' Morse let it pass.

'He had a writing-desk, you say?'

'Yes, sir. You know, papers all over it.'

Morse mentally resolved not to count up the "you knows' he'd had so far and the "you knows' he was surely going to get. "Was there a typewriter there?' He said it casually enough.

'Yes. You know, one of those portable things.'

Morse said no more. Waved through the narrow yards of the Infirmary, that seemed in conspiracy to prevent too many injured citizens from gaining immediate access to the Outpatients' Department, the police car parked itself, with no objections from porters, orderlies or traffic wardens, on a broad stretch of concrete marked 'Ambulances Only'. A policeman's parking lot was sometimes not an unhappy one. Morse had foreseen the swopping of crutches for sticks as a straightforward transaction; but it was not to be. There appeared to be an unbreached egalitarianism in the world of all injured brothers, and Morse was constrained to take his proper place and wait his proper time whilst the proper formalities were completed. He sat on the same bench, skipped through the same old edition of Punch , and felt the same impatience; he heard the same Chinese doctor, his sang-froid seemingly disturbed by the inability of a little boy to sit still: 'Youwannagetbetter, li'l boy, youbetter sidstill.'

Morse stared gloomily at the floor and found himself watching the nurses' legs go by. Not much to make the blood boil really. Except one pair — beautiful! Morse would like to have seen the rest of the delicious damsel, but she had walked swiftly past. Fat, so-so, thin, so-so — and then those legs again and this time they stopped miraculously in front of him.

'I hope you're being looked after all right, Inspector Morse?'

The Inspector was visibly stunned. He looked up slowly, straight and deep into the sad, come-hither face of darling Dark-eyes, co-resident of the cool Miss Jennifer Coleby. 'You remember me?' said Morse; a little illogically, thought the girl standing directly above him.

'Don't you remember me? ' she asked.

'How could I forget you?' said the Inspector, slipping at last into a smooth forward gear. How lovely she was! 'You work here?'

'If I may say so, Inspector, you must have asked a great many more intelligent questions In your time.' She wore her uniform becomingly — and Morse always thought a nurse's uniform did more for a girl than all the fine feathers of the fashion houses.

'No, not very bright, was it?' he confessed. She smiled delightfully.

'Have a seat,' said Morse, 'I'd like to have a chat with you. We didn't say much before, did we?'

'I'm sorry, Inspector. I can't do that. I'm on duty."

'Oh.' He was disappointed.

'Well. .'

'Just stay a minute,' said Morse. 'You know, I really would like to see you, some time. Can I see you when you come off duty?'

'I'm on duty until six.'

'Well, I could meet. .'

'At six I shall go home and have a quick meal, and then at seven. .'

'You've got a date.'

'Well, let's say I'm busy.'

'Lucky bugger,' mumbled Morse. 'Tomorrow?'

'Not tomorrow.'

'Wednesday?' Morse wondered mournfully if the progression through the remaining days of the week was anything more than a hollow formality; but she surprised him.

'I could see you on Wednesday evening, if you like.'

'Could you?' Morse sounded like an eager schoolboy. They arranged to meet in The Bird and Baby in St. Giles' at 7.30 p.m. Morse tried to sound more casual: 'I can take you home, of course, but perhaps it would be better not to pick you up. You can get a bus all right?'

'I'm not a child, Inspector.'

'Good. See you then.' She turned away. 'Oh, just a minute,' called Morse. She walked back to him. 'I don't know your name yet, Miss. .'

'Miss Widdowson. But you can call me Sue.'

'Is that just for special friends?'

'No,' said Miss Widdowson. 'Everyone calls me Sue.'

For the first week of the case Morse had felt confident in his own abilities, like a schoolboy with a tricky problem in mathematics to work out who had the answer book secretly beside him. From the very beginning of the case he thought he had glimpsed a Grand Design — he would have to juggle about a bit with the pieces of evidence that came to hand, but he knew the pattern of the puzzle. For this reason he had not, he realized, considered the evidence qua evidence, but only in relation to his own prejudiced reconstruction of events. And having failed to work out an answer to his problem which bore the faintest similarity to the agreed solution in the answer book, he was now beginning seriously to wonder if, after all, the answer book was wrong. Sometimes on the eve of a big horse-race he had read through the list of runners and riders, closed his eyes and tried to visualize the headlines on the sports page of the following morning's newspaper. He'd had little success with that, either. Yet he still thought he was on the right track. He was, as he saw himself, a persevering man, although he was wide awake to the possibility that to Lewis (sitting across the table now) his perseverance might well be considered stubbornness, and to his superiors sheer pig-headedness.

In fact Lewis was not at that moment considering the stubbornness of his chief at all; he was contemplating with great distaste the orders he had just received.

'But do you think it's proper to do it this way, sir?'

'I doubt it," said Morse.

'But it's not legal, surely?'

'Probably not.'

'But you want me to do it.' Morse ignored the non-question. 'When?'

'You'd have to make sure he was out first.'

'How do you suggest. .?'

Morse interrupted him. 'Christ man, you're not in apron strings. Use your nous!'

Lewis felt angry as he walked across to the canteen and ordered a cup of coffee. 'What's the matter, Sarge?' Constable Dickson was eating again.

'That bloody man Morse — that's what's the matter,' muttered Lewis, setting down his cup with such vigour that half the contents slopped messily into the saucer.

'I see you like your coffee half and half, Sarge,' said Dickson. 'Half in the cup and half in the saucer.' He was highly amused.

McPherson walked in and ordered coffee. 'Solved the murder yet, Sergeant?'

'No we bloody haven't," snapped Lewis. He got up and left the grey-looking apology untouched half in the cup and half in the saucer.

'What's eating him?' asked McPherson. 'God, he don't know how lucky he is. Damn good chap, Inspector Morse. I tell you, if he don't get to the bottom of that Woodstock business, nobody will.'

It was a nice compliment and Morse could have done with it after Lewis had left, he sat for a long time, his hands together in front of his face, fingertips to fingertips, eyes closed, as if praying to some benign divinity for light along the darkening path. But Morse had long ago, albeit unwillingly, discounted the existence of any supernatural agency. He was fishing patiently in the troubled waters of his mind.