Last Bus to Woodstock

by Colin Dexter

‘’Fraid I don’t, off hand,’ replied Lewis, ‘but I can soon find out for you.’

  ‘No need for that,’ said Morse. ‘According to the diary you just inspected, yesterday, 29 September, was St Michael and All Angels’ day and lighting-up time was 6.40 p.m.’

  Lewis followed his superior officer down the narrow stairs, and wondered what was coming next. Before they reached the front door, Morse half turned his head: ‘What do you think of Women’s Lib, Lewis?’

  At 11.00 a.m. Sergeant Lewis interviewed the manager of the Town and Gown Assurance Company, situated on the second and third storeys above a flourishing tobacconist’s shop in the High. Sylvia had worked there – her first job – for just over a year. She was a copy-typist, having failed to satisfy the secretarial college at which she had studied for two years after leaving school that the ungainly and frequently undecipherable scrawls in her shorthand note-book bore sufficient relationship to the missives originally dictated. But her typing was reasonably accurate and clean, and the company, the manager assured Lewis, had no complaints about its late employee. She had been punctual and unobtrusive.

  ‘Attractive?’

  ‘Well – er, yes. I suppose she was,’ replied the manager. Lewis made a note and wished Morse were there; but the Inspector said he felt thirsty and had gone into the Minster across the way.

  ‘She worked, you say, with two other girls,’ said Lewis. ‘I think I’d better have a word with them if I can.’

  ‘Certainly, officer.’ The manager, Mr Palmer, seemed a fraction relieved.

  Lewis questioned the two young ladies at considerable length. Neither was ‘a particklar friend’ of Sylvia. She had, as far as they knew, no regular beau. Yes, she had boasted occasionally of her sexual exploits – but so did most of the girls. She was friendly enough, but not really ‘one of the girls’.

  Lewis looked through her desk. The usual bric-à-brac. A bit of a broken mirror, a comb with a few blonde hairs in it, yesterday’s Sun, pencils galore, rubbers, typewriter ribbons, carbons. On the wall behind Sylvia’s desk was pinned a photograph of Omar Sharif, flanked by a typewritten holiday rota. Lewis saw that Sylvia had been on a fortnight’s holiday in the latter half of July, and he asked the two girls where she’d been to.

  ‘Stayed at home, I think,’ replied the elder of the two girls, a quiet, serious-looking girl in her early twenties.

  Lewis sighed. ‘You don’t seem to know much about her, do you?’ The girls said nothing. Lewis tried his best to elicit a little more co-operation, but met with little success. He left the office just before midday, and strolled over to the Minster.

  ‘Poor Sylvia,’ said the younger girl after he had gone.

  ‘Yes, poor Sylvia,’ replied Jennifer Coleby.

  Lewis eventually, and somewhat to his surprise, discovered Morse in the ‘gentlemen only’ bar at the back of the Minster.

  ‘Ah, Lewis.’ He rose and placed his empty glass on the bar, ‘What’s it to be?’ Lewis asked for a pint of bitter. ‘Two pints of your best bitter,’ said Morse cheerfully to the man behind the bar, ‘and have one yourself.’

  It became clear to Lewis that the topic of conversation before his arrival had been horse racing. Morse picked up a copy of Sporting Life and walked over to the corner with his assistant.

  ‘You a betting man, Lewis?’

  ‘I sometimes put a few bob on the Derby and the National, sir, but I’m not a regular gambler.’

  ‘You keep it that way,’ said Morse, with a note of seriousness in his voice. ‘But look here, what do you think of that?’ He unfolded the racing paper and pointed to one of the runners in the 3.15 at Chepstow: The Black Prince. ‘Worth a quid, would you say, sergeant?’

  ‘Certainly an odd coincidence.’

  ‘10 to 1,’ said Morse, drinking deeply on his beer.

  ‘Are you going to back it, sir?’

  ‘I already have,’ said Morse, glancing up at the old barman.

  ‘Isn’t that illegal, sir?’

  ‘I never studied that side of the law.’ Doesn’t he want to solve this murder, thought Lewis, and as if Morse read his unspoken words he was promptly asked for a report on the deceased’s position with Town and Gown. Lewis did his best, and Morse did not interrupt. He seemed rather more interested in his pint of beer. When he finished, Morse told him to get back to headquarters, type his reports, then get home and have some sleep. Lewis didn’t argue. He felt dog-tired, and sleep was fast becoming a barely remembered luxury.

  ‘Nothing else, sir?’

  ‘Not until tomorrow when you’ll report to me at 7.30 a.m. sharp – unless you want to put a few bob on The Black Prince.’ Lewis felt in his pocket and pulled out 50p.

  ‘Each way, do you think?’

  ‘You’ll kick yourself if it wins,’ said Morse.

  ‘All right. 50p to win.’

  Morse took the 50p, and as Lewis left he saw the barman pocket the coin, and pull a further pint for the enigmatic Chief Inspector.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  Friday, 1 October

  PROMPT AT 7.30 next morning, Lewis tapped on the inspector’s door. Receiving no answer, he cautiously tried the knob and peered round the door. No sign of life. He walked back to the front vestibule and asked the desk-sergeant if Inspector Morse was in yet.

  ‘Not seen ’im.’

  ‘He said he’d be here at half-seven.’

  ‘Well, you know the Inspector.’

  I wish I did, thought Lewis. He walked along to pick up the reports he had wearily typed out the previous afternoon, and read them through carefully. He’d done his best, but there was little to go on. He walked on to the canteen and ordered a cup of coffee. Constable Dickson, an officer whom Lewis knew fairly well, was enthusiastically assaulting a plate of bacon and tomatoes.

  ‘How’s the murder job going, Sarge?’

  ‘Early days yet.’

  ‘Old Morse in charge, eh?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Funny bugger, isn’t he?’ Lewis didn’t disagree. ‘I know one thing,’ said Dickson. ‘He was here till way gone midnight. Got virtually everyone in the building jumping about for him. I reckon every phone on the premises was red hot. God, he can work, that chap, when he wants to.’

  Lewis felt a little shame-faced. He himself had slept sweetly and soundly from six the previous evening until six that morning. He reckoned that Morse deserved his sleep, and sat down to drink a cup of coffee.

  Ten minutes later a freshly shaven Morse walked brightly into the canteen. ‘Ah, there you are Lewis. Sorry to be late.’ He ordered a coffee and sat opposite. ‘Bad news for you, I’m afraid.’ Lewis looked up sharply. ‘You lost your money. The constipated camel came in second.’

  Lewis smiled. ‘Never mind, sir. I just hope you didn’t lose too much yourself.’

  Morse shook his head. ‘Oh no, I didn’t lose anything; in fact I made a few quid. I backed it each way.’

  ‘But . . .’ began Lewis.

  ‘C’mon,’ said Morse. ‘Drink up. We’ve got work to do.’

  For the next four hours the two of them were busy sorting the reports flowing in from the wide-flung inquiries Morse had initiated the previous day. At twelve noon, Lewis felt he knew more about Sylvia Kaye than he did about his wife. He read each report with great care – Morse’s orders – and felt that many of the facts were beginning to fix themselves firmly in his mind. Morse, he noticed, devoured the reports with an amazing rapidity, reminiscent of someone skipping through a tedious novel; yet occasionally he would re-read the odd report with a fascinated concentration.

  ‘Well?’ said Morse finally.

  ‘I think I’ve got most things pretty straight, sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You seemed to find one or two of the reports very interesting, sir.’

  ‘Did I?’ Morse sounded surprised.

  ‘You spent about ten minutes on that one from the secretarial college, and it’s only half a page

.’

  ‘You’re very observant, Lewis, but I’m sorry to disappoint you. It was the most ill-written report I’ve seen in years, with twelve – no less – grammatical monstrosities in ten lines! What’s the force coming to?’

  Lewis didn’t know what the force was coming to and hadn’t the courage to inquire into the Inspector’s statistical findings on his own erratic style. He asked instead, ‘Do you think we’re getting anywhere, sir?’

  ‘Doubt it,’ replied Morse.

  Lewis wasn’t so sure. Sylvia’s movements on the previous Wednesday seemed established. She had left the office in the High at 5.00 p.m., and almost certainly walked the hundred yards or so to the No 2 bus stop outside University College. She had arrived home at 5.35 p.m. and had a good meal. She told her mother she might be late home, left the house at roughly 6.30 p.m. wearing – as far as could be established – the clothes in which she was found. Somehow she had got to Woodstock. It all seemed to Lewis a promising enough starting-point for a few preliminary inquiries.

  ‘Would you like me to get on to the bus company, sir, and see the drivers on the Woodstock run?’

  ‘Done it,’ said Morse.

  ‘No good?’ Disappointment showed in the sergeant’s voice.

  ‘I don’t think she went by bus.’

  ‘Taxi, sir?’

  ‘Improbable wouldn’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. It might not be all that expensive.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but it seems most improbable to me. If she’d wanted a taxi, she’d have rung up from home – there’s a phone there.’

  ‘She may have done just that, sir.’

  ‘She didn’t. No phone call was made by any member of the Kaye household yesterday.’

  Lewis was experiencing a dangerous failure of confidence. ‘I don’t seem to be much help,’ he said. But Morse ignored the comment.

  ‘Lewis, how would you go from Oxford to Woodstock?’

  ‘By car, sir.’

  ‘She hadn’t got a car.’

  ‘Get a lift with one of her friends?’

  ‘You wrote the report. She doesn’t seem to have had many girl friends.’

  ‘A boy friend, you think, sir?’

  ‘Do you?’

  Lewis thought a minute. ‘Bit odd if she was going with a boy friend. Why didn’t he pick her up at her house?’

  ‘Why not, indeed?’

  ‘She wasn’t picked up at home?’

  ‘No. Her mother saw her walking away.’

  ‘You’ve interviewed her mother then, sir.’

  ‘Yes. I spoke to her last night.’

  ‘Is she very upset?’

  ‘She’s got broad shoulders, Lewis, and I rather like her. Of course she’s terribly upset and shocked. But not quite so heart-broken as I thought she’d be. In fact I got the idea her beautiful daughter was something of a trial to her.’

  Morse walked over to a large mirror, took out a comb and began to groom his thinning hair. He carefully drew a few strands across a broad area of nakedness at the back of his skull, returned the comb to his pocket and asked a perplexed Sergeant Lewis what he thought of the effect.

  ‘You see, Lewis, if Sylvia didn’t go by bus, taxi or boy friend, how on earth did she ever get to Woodstock? And remember that get to Woodstock somehow she assuredly did.’

  ‘She must have hitched it, sir.’

  Morse was still surveying himself in the mirror. ‘Yes, Lewis, I think she did. And that is why,’ he took out the comb again and made some further passes at his straggling hair, ‘that is why I think I must put in a little TV appearance tonight.’ He picked up the phone and put through a call to the Chief Superintendent. ‘Go and get some lunch, Lewis, I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Can I order anything for you, sir?’

  ‘No. I’ve got to watch my figure,’ said Morse.

  The death of Sylvia Kaye had figured dramatically in Thursday afternoon’s edition of the Oxford Mail, and prominently in the national press on Friday morning. On Friday evening the news bulletins on both BBC and ITV carried an interview with Chief Inspector Morse, who appealed for help from anyone who had been on the Woodstock Road between 6.40 p.m. and 7.15 p.m. on the evening of Wednesday, 29 September. Morse informed the nation that the police were looking for a very dangerous man who might attack again at any time; for the killer of Sylvia Kaye, when brought to justice, would face not only the charge of wilful murder, but also the charge of sexual assault and rape.

  Lewis had stood in the background as Morse faced the camera crews and joined him after his performance was over.

  ‘That damned wind!’ said Morse, his hair blown into a tufted wilderness.

  ‘Do you really think he might kill someone else, sir?’

  ‘Doubt it very much,’ said Morse.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  Friday, 1 October

  EACH EVENING OF the week, with rare exceptions, Mr Bernard Crowther left his small detached house in Southdown Road, North Oxford, at approximately 9.40 p.m. Each evening his route was identical. Methodically closing behind him the white gate which enclosed a small, patchy strip of lawn, he would turn right, walk to the end of the road, turn right again, and make his way, with perceptible purposefulness in his stride, towards the lounge bar of the Fletcher’s Arms. Though an articulate man, indeed an English don at Lonsdale College, he found it difficult to explain either to his disapproving wife or indeed to himself exactly what it was that attracted him to this unexceptionable pub, with its ill-assorted, yet regular and amiable clientele.

  On the night of Friday, 1 October, however, Crowther would have been observed to remain quite still for several seconds after closing the garden gate behind him, his eyes downcast and disturbed as if he were pondering deep and troublous thoughts; and then to turn, against his habit and his inclination, to his left. He walked slowly to the end of the road, where, on the left beside a row of dilapidated garages, stood a public telephone-box. Impatient at the best of times, and this was not the best of times, he waited restlessly and awkwardly, pacing to and fro, consulting his watch and throwing wicked glances at the portly woman inside the kiosk who appeared ill-equipped to face the triangular threat of the gadgeted apparatus before her, an uncooperative telephone exchange and her own one-handed negotiations with the assorted coinage in her purse. But she was fighting on and Crowther, in a generous moment, wondered if one of her children had been taken suddenly and seriously ill with dad on the night-shift and no one else to help. But he doubted whether her call was as important as the one he was about to make. News bulletins had always gripped his attention, however trivial the items reported; and the item he had watched on the BBC news at 9.00 p.m. had been far from trivial. He could remember verbatim the words the police inspector had used: ‘We shall be very glad if any motorist . . .’ Yes, he could tell them something, for he had played his part in the terrifying and tragic train of events. But what was he going to say? He couldn’t tell them the truth. Nor even half the truth. His fragile resolution began to crumble. He’d give that wretched woman another minute – one minute and no longer.

  At 9.50 p.m. that same evening an excited Sergeant Lewis put through a call to Chief Inspector Morse. ‘A break, sir. I think we’ve got a break.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. A witness, sir. A Mrs Mabel Jarman. She saw the murdered girl . . .’

  ‘You mean,’ interrupted Morse, ‘she saw the girl who was later murdered, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s it. We can get a full statement as soon as we like.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t got one yet?’

  ‘She only rang five minutes ago, sir. I’m going over straight away. She’s local. I wondered if you wanted to come.’

  ‘No,’ said Morse.

  ‘All right, sir. I’ll have the whole thing typed up and ready for you in the morning.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Bit of luck, though, isn’t it? We’ll soon get on to this other girl.’

  ‘What other girl?’ said Morse quietly.

  ‘Well, you see, sir . . .’

  ‘What’s Mrs Jarman’s address?’ Morse reluctantly took off his bedroom slippers, and reached for his shoes.

  ‘Bit late on parade tonight, Bernard. What’s it to be?’

  Bernard was well liked at the Fletcher’s Arms, always ready to fork out for his round – and more. All the regulars knew him for a man of some academic distinction; but he was a good listener, laughed as heartily as the next at the latest jokes, and himself occasionally waxed eloquent on the stupidity of the government and the incompetence of Oxford United. But tonight he spoke of neither. By 10.25 p.m. he had drunk three pints of best bitter with his usual practised fluency and got up to go.

  ‘’Nother one before you go, Bernard?’

  ‘Thanks, no. I’ve had just about enough of that horse piss for one night.’

  ‘You in the dog house again.’

  ‘I’m always in the bloody dog house.’

  He walked back slowly. He knew that if the bedroom light was on, his wife, Margaret, would be reading in bed, waiting only for her errant husband to return. If there was no light, she would probably be watching TV. He came to a decision as foolish as the ones he had made as a boy when he would race a car to the nearest lamppost. If she was in bed, he would go straight in, if she was still up, he would ring the police. He turned into the road, and saw immediately that the bedroom light was on.

  Mrs Jarman gave her testimony in a brisk, if excited, fashion. Her memory proved surprisingly clear, and Sergeant Lewis’s notes grew fat with factual data. Morse left things to him. He wondered if Lewis had been right in thinking this was the big break, and considered, on reflection, that he was. He himself felt impatient and bored with the trained and thorough pedanticism with which his sergeant probed and queried the chronology of the bus stop encounter. But he knew it had to be done and he knew that Lewis was doing it well. For three-quarters of an hour he left them to it.

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