Colin Dexter - Last Bus To Woodstock

'It's for you, you know, sir; it's addressed to you — not to me,' said Morse quietly.

'I know. But you read it. I can't.' He put his head in his hands again, and sobbed quietly.

Morse looked enquiringly at his fellow-Inspector. Bell nodded and Morse carefully opened the letter.

Dear Bernard,

When you read this I shall be dead. I know what this will mean to you and the children and it's only this that has kept me from doing it before — but I just can't cope with life any longer. I am finding it so difficult to know what to say — but I want you to know that it's not your fault. I have not been all that a wife should be to you and I have been a miserable failure with the children, and everything has built up and I long for rest and peace away from it all. I just can't go on any longer. I realize how selfish I am and I know that I'm just running away from everything. But I shall go mad if I don't run away. I must run away — I haven't the courage to stand up to things any longer.

On your desk you will find all the accounts. All the bills are paid except Mr. Andersen's for pruning the apple trees. We owe him £5 but I couldn't find his address.

I am thinking of the earlier times when we were so happy. Nothing can take them from us. Look after the children. It's my fault — not theirs. I pray that you won't think too badly of me and that you can forgive me.

Margaret.

It wasn't going to be much comfort, but Crowther had got to face it some time.

'Please read it, sir.'

Bernard read it, but he showed no emotion. His despair could plumb no lower depths. "What about the children?' he said at last.

'Don't worry yourself about that, sir. We'll look after everything.' The police doctor's voice was brisk. He was no stranger to such situations, and he knew the procedure from this point on. It wasn't much that he could do — but it was something.

'Look, sir, I want you to take. .'

'What about the children?' He was a shattered, broken man, and Morse left him to the ministrations of the doctor. He retired with Bell to the front room, and noticed the list of the accounts, insurances, mortgage repayments, and stock-exchange holdings which Margaret had left so neatly ordered under a paper-weight on the desk. But he didn't touch them. They were something between a husband and his wife, a wife who had been alive when he had interviewed Crowther earlier that day.

'You know him, then?' asked Bell.

'I saw him this morning,' said Morse. 'I saw him about the Woodstock murder.'

'Really?' Bell looked surprised.

'He was the man who picked up the girls.'

'You think he was involved?'

'I don't know,' said Morse.

'Has this business got anything to do with it?'

'I don't know.'

The ambulance was still waiting outside and curious eyes were peeping from all the curtains along the road. In the kitchen Morse looked down at Margaret Crowther. He had never seen her before, and he was surprised to realize how attractive she must have been. Fortyish? Hair greying a little, but a good, firm figure and a finely featured face, twisted now and blue.

'No point in keeping her here,' said Bell.

Morse shook his head. 'No point at all.'

'It takes a long time, you know, this North Sea gas.'

The two men talked in a desultory way for several minutes, and Morse prepared to leave. But as he walked out to his car, he was called back by the police doctor.

'Can you come back a minute, Inspector?' Morse re-entered the house.

'He says he must talk to you.'

Crowther sat with his head against the back of the chair. He was breathing heavily and the sweat stood out upon his brow. He was in a state of deep shock, and was already under sedation.

'Inspector,' he opened his eyes wearily. 'Inspector, I've got to talk to you.' He had great difficulty in getting this far, and Morse looked to the doctor, who slowly shook his head.

'Tomorrow, sir,' said Morse. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'

'Inspector, I've got to talk to you.'

'Yes, I know. But not now. We'll talk tomorrow. It'll be all right then.' Morse put his hand to Crowther's forehead and felt the clammy wetness there.

'Inspector!' But the top corner of the walls where Crowther was trying to focus was slowly disintegrating before his eyes; the angles melted and spiralled and faded away.

Morse drove slowly out of Southdown Road and realized just how close Crowther lived to Jennifer Coleby. It was a black night and the moon was hidden away deep behind the lowering clouds. Rectangles of light, shaded by curtains, showed from most of the front-room windows, and in many Morse could see the light-blue phosphorescent glow of television screens. He looked at one house in particular and looked up at one window in it, the window directly above the door. But it was dark, and he drove on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Tuesday, 19 October, a.m.

MORSE HAD SLEPT very badly and woke with a throbbing head. He hated suicides. Why had she done it? Was suicide just the coward's refuge from some black despair? Or was it in its way an act of courage that revealed a perverted sort of valour? Not that, though. So many other lives were intertwined; no burdens were shed — they were merely passed from the shoulders of one to those of another. Morse's mind would give itself no rest but twirled around on some interminable fun-fair ride.

It was past nine o'clock before he was sitting in his leather chair, and his sombre mood draped itself over his sagging shoulders. He summoned Lewis, who knocked apprehensively on the door before going in; but Morse had seemingly lost all recollection of the nasty little episode the day before. He told Lewis the facts of Margaret Crowther's suicide.

'Do you think he's got something important to tell us, sir?'

There was a knock on the door before Lewis could learn the answer to his question, and a young girl brought in the post, said a bright 'Good morning' and was off. Morse fingered through the dozen or so letters and his eye fell on an unopened envelope marked 'strictly private' and addressed to himself. The envelope was exactly similar to the one he had seen the previous evening.

'I don't know whether Crowther's got anything to tell us or not; but it looks as if his late wife has.' He opened the envelope neatly with a letter-knife and read its typewritten contents aloud to Lewis.

Dear Inspector,

I have never met you, but I have seen from the newspapers that you are in charge of the inquiry into the death of Sylvia Kaye. I should have told you this a long time ago, but I hope it's not too late even now. You see, Inspector, I killed Sylvia Kaye. (The words were doubly underlined.)

I must try to explain myself. Please forgive me if I get a little muddled, but it all seems very long ago.

I have known for about six months — well, certainly for six months — perhaps I've known for much longer — that my husband has been having an affair with another woman. I had no proof and have none now. But it is so difficult for a man to hide this sort of thing from his wife. We have been married for fifteen years and I know him so well. It was written all over what he said and what he did and how he looked — he must have been terribly unhappy, I think.

On Wednesday, 22nd September, I left the house at 6.30 p.m. to go to my evening class at Headington — but I didn't go immediately. Instead, I waited in my car just oft the Banbury Road. I seemed to wait such a long time and I didn't really know what I was going to do. Then at about a quarter to seven Bernard — my husband — drove up to the junction at Charlton Road and turned right towards the northern roundabout. I followed him as best I could — I say that because I'm not a good driver — and anyway it was getting darker all the time. There wasn't much traffic and I could see him clearly two or three cars ahead. At the Woodstock Road roundabout he turned along the A34. He was driving too fast for me, though, and I kept dropping further and further behind. I thought I had lost him — but there were road-works ahead and the traffic had to filter into single line for about a mile. There was a slow, heavy lorry in the front and I soon caught up again — Bernard was only about six or seven cars ahead of me. The lorry turned off towards Bladon at the next round about and I managed to keep Bernard in sight and saw him take the first turning on the left in Woodstock itself. I panicked a bit and didn't know what to do — I turned into the next street, and stopped the car and walked back. But it was hopeless. I drove back to Headington and was only twenty minutes late for my evening class.