Colin Dexter - Last Bus To Woodstock

'Seen this, sir?" Lewis handed him the newspaper and pointed to the caption portending judgement day for the Woodstock killer.

Morse read the item with weary composure. 'They do twist things a bit, these reporters, don't they?'

Sue Widdowson's day, too, dragged drearily by. She'd wanted desperately to talk to Morse again last night. Who knows what she might have said? Was his phone out of order? But in the cold light of morning she had realized how foolish it would have been. David was coming on Saturday for the weekend, and she would be meeting him at the station at the usual time. Dear David. She had received another letter that morning. He was so nice and she liked him so very much. But. . No! She had just got to stop thinking of Morse. It had been almost impossible. Sandra had been full of questions and Doctor Eyres had patted her bottom far too intimately, and she was lousily, hopelessly miserable.

Mrs. Amy Sanders was worried about her son. He had seemed listless and off-colour for a week or so now. In the past he had taken the odd day or two off work, and more than once she had had to lay it on a bit thick in describing to Messrs Chalkley the symptoms of some fictitious malady which had temporarily stricken her dear boy. But today she was genuinely concerned. John had been sick twice during the night and was lying shivering and sweating when she had called him at 7.00 a.m. He had eaten nothing all day and, against her son's wishes, she had rung the doctor's surgery at 5.00 p.m. No, she had not thought it urgent, but would be most grateful if the doctor could call some time.

The bell rang at 7.30 p.m. and Mrs. Sanders opened the front door to find a man she had never seen before. Still, the doctors these days were always changing around.

'Does Mr. John Sanders live here?'

'Yes. Come in, doctor. I'm ever so glad you could call.'

'I'm not a doctor, I'm afraid. I'm a Police Inspector.'

The landlord of The Bell at Chipping Norton took the booking himself at 8.30 p.m. He consulted the register and picked up the phone again.

'For tomorrow night and Saturday night, you said?'

'Yes.'

'I think we can do that all right, sir. Double room. Do you want a private bathroom?'

'That would be nice. And a double bed if you've got one. We never seem to sleep well in these twin beds.'

'Yes. We can do that.'

'I'm afraid I shan't have time to confirm it in writing.'

'Oh don't worry about that, sir. If you could just let me have your name and address.'

'Mr. and Mrs. John Brown, Hill Top, Eaglesfield (all one word), Bristol.'

'I've got that.'

'Good. My wife and I look forward to seeing you. We should be there about five.'

'We hope you'll enjoy your stay, sir.'

The landlord put down the phone and wrote the names of Mr. and Mrs. J. Brown in the booking register. His wife had once added up the number of John Browns booked into The Bell : in one month alone there were seven. But it wasn't his job to worry too much about that. Anyway, the man had sounded most polite and well educated. Nice voice, too: West Country-ish — rather like his own. And there must be one or two quite genuine John Browns somewhere.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Friday, 15 October, a.m.

MORSE WOKE UP late on Friday morning. The Times was already on the floor in the hall and one letter was protruding precariously through the letter box. It was a bill from Barkers—£9.25. He stuck it, with several of its fellows, behind the clock on the mantelpiece.

The car purred into life at the first gentle touch. He had the sticks in the back of the car and decided to run down to the Radcliffe Infirmary before going to the office. As he joined the patiently crawling, never-ending line of traffic in the Woodstock Road, he debated his course of action. He could see her quite by chance, of course — as he had last time; or he could ask for her. But would she want that? He longed just to see her again and, dammit! she would be there. What could be more natural? He had dreamed about Sue the previous night, but in a vague, elusive sort of way which had left her standing in the forecourt of his mind. Had it been her on the phone on Wednesday night?

He turned off, across the traffic, into the yard of the Radcliffe, stopped on double yellow lines, collared the nearest porter, gave him the sticks and the promissory note of the bearer to return the same, and told him to see to it. Police!

The road was clear as he left Oxford and he cursed himself savagely every other minute. He should have gone in — stupid fool. He knew deep down he wasn't a stupid fool, but it didn't help much.

Lewis was waiting for him. 'Well, what's the programme, sir?'

'I thought we'd take a gentle bus ride a little later, Lewis.' Ah well. His not to reason why. 'Yes. I thought we'd go to Woodstock on the bus together. What about that?'

'Has the car conked out again?'

'No. Going like a dream. So it should. Had a bill for the bloody battery this morning. Guess how much.'

'Six, seven pounds.'

'Nine pounds twenty-five!'

Lewis screwed up his nose. 'Cheaper if you'd gone to the tire and battery people up in Headington. They don't charge for any labour. I've always found them very good.'

'You sound as if you're always haying car trouble.'

'Not really. Had a few punctures lately, though.'

'Can't you change a tire yourself?'

'Well yes. Course I can. I'm not an old woman you know, but you've got to have a spare.'

Morse wasn't listening. He felt the familiar tingle of the blood freezing in his arms. 'You're a genius, Sergeant. Pass me the telephone directory. Consult the yellow pages. Here we are — only two numbers. Which shall we try first?'

'What about the first one, sir?'

A few seconds later Morse was speaking to Cowley Tire and Battery Services. 'I want to speak to the boss of the place. It's urgent. Police here.' He winked at Lewis. 'Ah, hullo. Chief Inspector Morse here. Thames Valley. . No, no. Nothing like that. . Now, I want you to look up your records for the week beginning 27 September. . Yes. I want to know if you supplied a battery or mended a puncture for a Miss Jennifer Coleby. C-O-L-E-B-Y. Yes. It might have been any day — probably Tuesday or Wednesday. You'll ring me back? Get on with it straight away, please. It's most urgent. Good. You've got my number? Good. Cheers.' He rang the second number and repeated the patter. Lewis was turning over the Sylvia Kaye file that lay open on Morse's desk. He studied the photographs — large, glossy, black and white photographs with amazingly clear delineation. He looked again at the shots of Sylvia Kaye as she lay that night in the yard of The Black Prince. She'd been really something, he thought The white blouse had been torn sharply on the left-hand side, and only the bottom of the four buttons remained fastened. The left breast was fully revealed and Lewis was strongly reminded of the provocative poses of the models in the girlie magazines. It could almost have been an erotic experience — looking through those pictures; but Lewis remembered the back of die blonde head and the cruelly shattered skull. He thought of his own darling daughter — thirteen now; she was getting a nice little figure. . God, what a world to bring up children in. He hoped and prayed that she would be all right, and he felt a deep and burning need to find the man who did all that to Sylvia Kaye.

Morse had finished.

'Can you put me in the picture, sir?' asked Lewis.

Morse sat back and thought for a few minutes. 'I suppose I ought to have told you before, Lewis. But I couldn't be sure — well, can't be sure now — about one or two things. Pretty well from the beginning I thought I had a good idea of the general picture. I thought it was like this. Two girls want a lift to Woodstock and we've got some fairly substantial evidence that they were picked up— both of them.' Lewis nodded. 'Now neither the driver nor the other girl came forward. The question I asked myself was "why" Why were both these people anxious to keep quiet? There were pretty obvious reasons why one of them should keep his mouth shut. But why both? It seemed most improbable to me that the pair of them could be partners in crime. So. What are we left with? One very strong possibility, as I saw it, was that they knew each other. But that didn't seem quite good enough, somehow. Most people don't withhold evidence, certainly don't tell complicated lies, just because they know each other. But what if they have, between them, some guilty reason for wanting to keep things very quiet indeed? And what if such a guilty reason is the fact that they know each other rather too well? What if they are — not to put too fine a point on things — having an affair with each other? The situation's not so good for them, is it? With a murder in the background — not so good at all.' Lewis wished he'd get on with it. 'But let's go back a bit. On the face of it our evidence suggested from the word go that the encounter between the two girls and the driver of the car was pure chance: Mrs. Jarman's evidence is perfectly clear on that point. Now we have discovered, after a good deal of unnecessary trouble, who the driver of the red car was: Crowther. In his evidence he admits that he is having an affair with another woman and that the venue for these extramarital excursions is Blenheim Park. Furthermore, again on his own evidence, he was going to see his lady-love on the night of Wednesday, 29 September. Now at this point I took a leap in the dark. What if the lady-love was one of the girls he picked up?'