Colin Dexter: Last Bus To Woodstock

PRELUDE

'LET'S WAIT JUST a bit longer, please,' said the girl in dark-blue trousers and the light summer coat. 'I'm sure there's one due pretty soon.'

She wasn't quite sure though, and for the third time she turned to study the time-table affixed in its rectangular frame to Fare Stage 5. But her mind had never journeyed with any confidence in the world of columns and figures, and the finger tracing its tentatively horizontal course from the left of the frame had little chance of meeting, at the correct coordinate, the finger descending in a vaguely vertical line from the top. The girl standing beside her transferred her weight impatiently from one foot to the other and said, 'I don' know abou' you.'

'Just a minute. Just a minute .' She focused yet again on the relevant columns: 4, 4A (not after 18.00 hours), 4E, 4X (Saturdays only). Today was Wednesday. That meant. . If 2 o'clock was 14.00 hours, that meant. .

'Look, sweethear', you please yourself bu' I'm going to hitch i'.' Sylvia's habit of omitting all final 't's seemed irritatingly slack. 'It' in Sylvia's diction was little more than the most, indeterminate of vowel sounds, articulated without the slightest hint of a consonantal finale. If they ever became better friends, it was something that ought to be mentioned.

What time was it now? 6.45 p.m. That would be 18:45. Yes. She was getting somewhere at last.

'Come on. We'll get a lif' in no time, you see. Tha's wha' half these fellas are looking for — a bi' of skir'.'

And, in truth, there appeared no reason whatsoever to question Sylvia's brisk optimism. No accommodating motorist could fail to be impressed by her minimal skirting and the lovely invitation of the legs below.

For a brief while the two girls stood silently, in uneasy, static truce.

A middle-aged woman was strolling towards them, occasionally stopping and turning her head to gaze down the darkening length of the road that led to the heart of Oxford. She came to a halt a few yards away from the girls and put down her shopping bag.

'Excuse me' said the first girl. 'Do you know when the next bus is?'

'There should be one in a few minutes, love.' She peered again into the grey distance.

'Does it go to Woodstock?'

'No, I don't think so — it's just for Yarnton. It goes to the village, and then turns round and comes back.'

'Oh.' She stepped out towards the middle of the road, craned her neck, and stepped back as a little convoy of cars approached. Already, as the evening shaded into dusk, a few drivers had switched on their side-lights. No bus was in sight, and she felt anxious.

'We'll be all righ' ,' said Sylvia, a note of impatience in her voice. 'You see. We'll be 'avin' a giggle abou' i' in the morning.'

Another car. And another. Then again the stillness of the warm autumn evening.

'Well, you can stay if you like — I'm off.' Her companion watched as Sylvia made her way towards the Woodstock roundabout, some two hundred yards up the road. It wasn't a bad spot for the hitch-hiker, for there the cars slowed down before negotiating the busy ring-road junction.

And then she decided. 'Sylvia, wait!'; and holding one gloved hand to the collar of her lightweight summer coat, she ran with awkward, splay-footed gait in pursuit.

The middle-aged woman kept her watch at Fare Stage 5. She thought how many things had changed since she was young.

But Mrs. Mabel Jarman was not to wait for long. Vaguely her mind toyed with a few idle, random thoughts — nothing of any moment. Soon she would be home. As she was to remember later on, she could describe Sylvia fairly well: her long, blonde hair, her careless and provocative sensuality. Of the other girl she could recall little: a light coat, dark slacks — what colour, though? Hair — lightish brown?

'Please try as hard as you can, Mrs. Jarman. It's absolutely vital for us that you remember as much as you can. .' She noticed a few cars, and a heavy, bouncing articulated lorry, burdened with an improbably large number of wheel-less car-bodies. Men? Men with no other passengers? She would try so hard to recall. Yes, there had been men, she was sure of that. Several had passed her by.

At ten minutes to seven an oblong pinkish blur gradually assumed its firmer delineation. She picked up her bag as the red Corporation bus slowly threaded its way along the stops in the grey mid-distance. Soon she could almost read the bold white lettering above the driver's cab. What was it? She squinted to see it more clearly: WOODSTOCK. Oh dear! She had been wrong then, when that nicely spoken young girl had asked about the next bus. Still, never mind! They hadn't gone far. They would either get a lift or see the bus and manage to get to the next stop, or even the stop after that. 'How long had they been gone, Mrs. Jarman?'

She stood back a little from the bus stop, and the Woodstock driver gratefully passed her by. Almost as soon as the bus was out of sight, she saw another, only a few hundred yards behind. This must be hers. The double-decker drew into the stop as Mrs. Jarman raised her hand. At two minutes past seven she was home.

Though a widow now, with her two children grown up and married, her pride-and-poverty semi-detached was still her real home, and her loneliness was not without its compensations. She cooked herself a generous supper, washed up, and turned on the television. She could never understand why there was so much criticism of the programmes. She herself enjoyed virtually everything and often wished she could view two channels simultaneously. At 10 o'clock she watched the main items on the News, switched off, and went to bed. At 10.30 she was sound asleep.

It was at 10.30 p.m., too, that a young girl was found lying in a Woodstock courtyard. She had been brutally murdered.

PART ONE

Search for a girl

CHAPTER ONE

Wednesday, 29 September

FROM ST. GILES' in the centre of Oxford two parallel roads run due north, like the prongs of a tuning fork. On the northern perimeter of Oxford, each must first cross the busy northern ring-road, along which streams of frenetic motorists speed by, gladly avoiding the delights of the old university city. The eastern branch eventually leads to the town of Banbury, and thence continues its rather unremarkable course towards the heart of the industrial midlands; the western branch soon brings the motorist to the small town of Woodstock, some eight miles north of Oxford, and thence to Stratford-upon-Avon.

The journey from Oxford to Woodstock is quietly attractive. Broad grass verges afford a pleasing sense of spaciousness, and at the village of Yarnton, after only a couple of miles, a dual carriageway, with a tree-lined central reservation, finally sweeps the accelerating traffic past the airport and away from its earlier paralysis. For half a mile immediately before Woodstock, on the left-hand side, a grey stone wall marks the eastern boundary of the extensive and beautiful grounds of Blenheim Palace, the mighty mansion built by good Queen Anne for her brilliant general, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. High and imposing wrought-iron gates mark the main entrance to the Palace drive, and hither flock the tourists in the summer season to walk amidst the dignified splendour of the great rooms, to stand before the vast Flemish tapestries of Malplaquet and Oudenarde, and to see the room in which was born that later scion of the Churchill line, the great Sir Winston himself, now lying in the once-peaceful churchyard of nearby Bladon village.