Last Bus to Woodstock (17 page)

‘Yes, she is. Who shall I say is calling?’

‘Oh tell her it’s one of her old school friends,’ replied the unMorselike voice.

‘I’ll get her straight away, Inspector Morse.’

‘Sue! Su-ue!’ he heard her shouting. ‘One of your old school friends on the line!’

‘Hello. Sue Widdowson here.’

‘Hello.’ Morse didn’t know what to call himself. ‘Morse here. I just wondered if you’d like to make it the Sheridan tomorrow night instead of going for a drink. There’s a dinner-dance on and I’ve got tickets. What do you say?’

‘That’d be lovely.’ Morse thought he liked her voice. ‘Absolutely lovely. Several of my friends are going. Should be great fun.’

Oh no! thought Morse. ‘Not too many, I hope. I don’t want to have to share you with a lot of others, you know.’ He said it lightly with a heavy heart.

‘Well, quite a few,’ admitted Sue.

‘Let’s make it some other place, shall we? Do you know anywhere?’

‘Oh, we can’t do that. You’ve got the tickets anyway. We’ll enjoy it – you’ll see.’

Morse wondered if he would ever learn to tell the truth. ‘All right. Now I can pick you up, if you like. Would that suit you?’

‘Oh, yes please. Jenny was going to run me down in her car – but if you . . .’

‘All right. I’ll pick you up at 7.15.’

‘7.15 it is then. Is it long dresses?’ Morse didn’t know. ‘Never mind – I can easily find out.’

From one of your many friends, doubtless, thought Morse. ‘Good. Looking forward to it.’

‘Me, too.’ She put down the receiver and Morse’s own endearing adieu was left unspoken. Was he really looking forward to it? They were usually a bit of an anticlimax, these things. Still it would do him good. Or serve him right. He didn’t much care. He’d have a decent meal anyway, and it would be good to hold a young girl in his arms again, tripping the light fantastic . . . Oh hell! He’d forgotten all about that. He was going out of his mind, the stupid, senseless fool that he was. He could no more invite the fair Miss Widdowson to share the delights of a dreamy waltz than invite a rabbi to a plate of pork. He hobbled to the enquiry desk. ‘Get me a car, Sergeant.’

‘There’ll be one in a few minutes, sir. We’ve got to . . .’

‘Get me a car now, Sergeant. And I mean
now
.’ The last word resounded harshly through the open hall and several heads turned round. The desk Sergeant reached for the phone. ‘I’ll be waiting outside.’

‘Want some help, sir?’ The desk sergeant was a kindly man, and had known the Inspector for several years. Morse waited by the desk. He was angry with himself and he had many reasons for feeling so. But why he should think he had a right to take things out on one of his old friends he could not imagine. He cursed his own selfishness and discourtesy.

‘Yes, Sergeant, I could do with some help.’ It had not been Morse’s day.

A
FREAK STORM
struck the Oxford area in the early hours of Wednesday morning, demolishing chimneys, blowing down television aerials and lifting roof-tiles in its path. The 7.00 a.m. News reported a trail of devastation in Kidlington, Oxon, where a Mrs Winifred Fisher had a narrow escape when the roof of a garage broke its moorings and crashed through an upstairs window. ‘I just can’t describe it,’ she said. ‘Terrifying.’ The portable radio stood on the bedside table along with a telephone and an alarm clock which, at 6.50 a.m., had wakened Morse from a long, untroubled sleep.

He got out of bed when the news had finished and peered through the curtains. At least his own garage seemed intact. Funny, though, that the storm had not awakened him. Gradually the memory of yesterday’s events filtered through his consciousness and settled like a heavy sediment at the bottom of his mind. Gone were the flights of angels that had guarded him in sleep and he sat on the edge of his bed fingering the rough stubble on his chin and wondering what this day would bring. Increasingly, as the case progressed, the graph of his moods was resembling a jagged mountain range, peaks and valleys, troughs and elations.

At a quarter to eight he was shaved, washed and dressed, and feeling fresh and confident. He swilled out the dregs from his late-night cup of Horlicks, rinsed his late-night whisky glass, filled the kettle and turned his attention to a major problem.

For the last few days he had worn, around his wounded foot, an outsize white plimsoll, loosely laced, and slit down the heel. It was time to get back to something normal. He was loath to appear in the court in such eccentric footwear and he could hardly believe that Miss Widdowson would be overjoyed with a semiplimsolled escort at the dance. He had two pairs of shoes only and a dangerously low supply of suitable socks; and with such limited permutations of possibilities, the prospect of being presentably shod that day was somewhat remote. He slipped his faithful battered plimsoll back on, and decided to buy a large pair of shoes from M and S, his favourite store. It was going to be an expensive day. He drank a cup of tea, and looked out of the window. His dustbin lid was leaning against the front gate, with litter everywhere. He must remember to have a look at the roof-tiles . . .

In retrospect he thought he had got yesterday’s events out of all perspective; he had been standing too close to the trees, and now he thought he saw again the same familiar wood, labyrinthine, certainly, as before – but still the same. He was feeling his old resilient self, or almost so. But the drastic course of action he had contemplated – what about that? He would have to consider things again; he had a more immediate problem on his mind. Where were his pen, his comb and his wallet? Amazingly, and with deep relief, he found them all in the same heap on the bedroom mantelpiece.

The faithful old Lancia was still there. It had been a good buy. Powerful, reliable, and 300 miles on a full tank. He had often thought of changing it but never had the heart. He eased himself into the narrow gap between the door of the driver’s seat and the whitewashed wall of the garage. It was always a tricky manoeuvre and he was getting no thinner. But it felt good to sit at the wheel again. He gave the old girl a bit more choke than usual – after all she had been standing idle for a week – and pressed the starter. Chutter . . . chutter . . . chutter . . . chutter. No. Bit more choke? But he mustn’t flood her. Again. Chutter . . . chutter . . . chutter . . . chutter . . . chutter . . . Odd. He’d never had much difficulty before. Third time lucky, though. Chutter . . . chutter . . . chutter. Battery must be getting a bit low. Oh dear. Give her a minute or two’s rest. Let her get her breath back. This time, then! Chutter . . . chutter . . . Bugger! Once more. Chutt . . . ‘Just my bloody luck,’ he said to himself. ‘How the hell am I supposed to get about without . . .’ He stopped and shivered involuntarily. A grey dawn was breaking in his mind and the purple mysteries of the morning were shot with the rays of the rising sun. ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.’ Wordsworth, wasn’t it? It had been in
The Times
crossword last week. The waves were at last receding from the beach. The white crests of the breakers rolled ceaselessly and tirelessly towards the shore, but their strength was gone. He saw the Grand Design before him and the last little sand-castle had survived the mighty sea.

The manager of Barker’s garage in Oxford was so impressed by Inspector Morse’s courteous call upon his services that a new battery was on its way in ten minutes, and installed in fifteen. The clouds were high and white and the sun shone brightly. Open weather, as Jane Austen would have called it. Morse retrieved the dustbin lid, and meticulously gathered up all the litter from his garden.

The university city of Oxford was busy this morning, the third full day of the Michaelmas term. First-year undergraduates, with spankingly new college scarves tossed over their shoulders, eagerly explored the bookshops of the Broad, and a trifle self-consciously strode down the High into the crowded Cornmarket, into Woolworths and Marks and Spencer and thence, according to taste, into the nearest pubs and the coffee shops. At 1.00 p.m. Morse was sitting on a chair in the self-service men’s shoe department in the basement of M and S. He normally took size 8, but was now experimenting with patience and determination. Size 9 seemed of little use, and after considerable trafficking in stockinged feet between the show counter and his chosen chair, he plumped for size-10 black leather slipons. They seemed huge and were, of course, potentially useless in the long run. But who cared? He could wear two pairs of socks on his left foot. Which reminded him. He paid for the shoes, adjusted his plimsoll, much to the bewilderment of a large, morose-looking cashier, who looked as if she might wear size 10 herself, and proceeded to the hosiery counter where he purchased half a dozen gaudy pairs of lightweight socks. If he had been able, he would have walked out into Cornmarket with a light step. The car was functioning, the courts were finished, the case was flourishing.

Others, too, were making their purchases. Trade was thriving this morning, and not only in the large stores in the main streets in Oxford city centre. At about the same time that Morse, the megapode, tucked his purchases beneath his arm, one further swift, uncomplicated transaction was being effected in the rundown back street behind the Botley Road, and it could be argued that this time, at least, John Sanders had struck the better bargain.

A
T
L
ONSDALE
C
OLLEGE
Wednesday, 13th was the first full guest-night of the Michaelmas term and Bernard Crowther left home a little earlier than usual. At 6.15 p.m. he knocked on Peter Newlove’s rooms and walked in, not waiting for a reply.

‘That you, Bernard?’

‘It’s me.’

‘Pour yourself a drink. Shan’t be a minute.’

Bernard had passed the Lodge as he came in and had picked up three letters from his pigeon-hole. Two he opened raggedly and relegated cursorily to his jacket pocket. The third was marked ‘confidential’, and contained a card ‘From the Principal’:

‘The police, in the course of their investigations into the recent murder at Woodstock, are anxious to trace the provenance of a typed letter which has come into their possession and which they think may be material evidence in their inquiries. I have been asked by the police to see that every typewriter in the college is checked and I am asking all my colleagues to comply with this request. The Bursar has agreed to undertake this duty and it is my view, and also that of the Vice-Principal, that we must readily accede to this proper request. I have therefore informed Chief Inspector Morse, who is heading the murder inquiries, that we as a collegiate body are most anxious to co-operate in any way possible. The Bursar has an inventory of all college typewriters; but there may be private typewriters in the rooms of several fellows, and I ask that information concerning them should be given to the Bursar immediately. Thank you for your help.’

‘What’s up, Bernard? Don’t you want a drink?’ Peter had come in from the bathroom and stood combing his thinning hair with a thinning comb.

‘Have you had one of these?’

‘I have indeed received a communication from our revered and reverend Principal, if that’s what you mean.’

‘What’s it all about?’

‘Don’t know, dear boy. Mysterious though, isn’t it?’

‘When’s the great investigation due?’

‘Due? It’s done. At least mine is. Little girl came in this afternoon – with the Bursar, of course. Typed out some cryptic message and then she was gone. Pity really. Lovely little thing. I must try to spend a bit more time in the Bursary.’

‘I shan’t be able to help much myself, I’m afraid. That bloody thing of mine was manufactured in the Middle Ages and hasn’t had a ribbon in it for six months. I think it’s what they call “seized-up”, anyway.’

‘Well, that’s one suspect less, Bernard. Now are you going to have a drink or not?’

‘Don’t you think we shall have enough booze tonight?’

‘No, dear boy, I don’t.’ Peter sat down and pulled on an expensive pair of heavy, brown brogues: size 10s, but not purchased from the self-service shoe department at Marks and Spencer.

‘We’ve just got time for a quick one, I think.’ It was almost 7.30 p.m. ‘What would you like?’

‘Dry sherry for me, please. I shan’t be a minute. Must powder my nose.’ She went off to the cloakroom. There were only a few people in the lounge bar and Morse, served without delay, took the drinks over to the corner of the room and sat down.

The Sheridan was the most fashionable of the Oxford hotels and most visiting stars of stage, screen, sport and television found themselves booked in at this well-appointed, large, stone building just off the bottom of St Giles’. A striped canopy stretched out over the pavement and a flunkey stood his station beside the gleaming name-plate on the shallow steps leading down to the street from the revolving doors. Morse suspected that the management kept a red carpet rolled up somewhere on the premises. Not that it had been rolled out this evening; in fact he had been unable to find any parking space at all in the hotel’s narrow yard and had been forced to park his car along St Giles’. It wasn’t perhaps the best of starts, and they had said little to each other.

He watched her as she came back. She had parted with her coat and walked with enviable elegance towards him, her long deep-red velvet dress gently affirming the lines of her graceful body. And suddenly, sweetly his heart beat stronger, and their eyes met and she smiled. She sat beside him and he was aware again, as he had been as she sat beside him in the car, of the strange and subtle promise of her perfume.

‘Cheers, Sue.’

‘Cheers, Inspector.’

He didn’t know what to do about this name trouble. He felt like an ageing schoolmaster meeting one of his old pupils and being rather embarrassed by the ‘sirs’ in every other sentence, and yet feeling it phoney to have it otherwise. He let the ‘Inspectors’ pass. Things could change, of course. Morse offered her a cigarette but she declined. As she sipped her sherry Morse noticed the long and delicately manicured fingers: no rings, no nail-polish. He asked her about her day’s work and she told him. It was all a little strained. They finished their drinks and walked out of the lounge and up the stairs to the Evans Room, Sue lifting her dress slightly as she negotiated the stairs, and Morse trying to forget the tightness in his right shoe and frenziedly arching the left foot to prevent the shoe from falling off completely.