The Wench is Dead (11 page)

There was, though (as it now occurred to Morse), one possible dimension to the case that the good Colonel had never even hinted at – either through an excessive sense of propriety, or from
a lack of imagination – namely that
Joanna Franks had been a seductive tease
: a woman who over those long hours of that long journey had begun to drive the crew towards varied degrees
of insanity with her provocative overtures, and to foster the inevitable jealousies arising therefrom.

Come off it, Morse!

Yes, come off it! There was no evidence to support such a view. None! Yet the thought stayed with him, reluctant to leave. An attractive woman … boredom … drink … a tunnel …
continued boredom … more drink … another tunnel … darkness … desire … opportunity … still more drink … and more Priapic promptings in the loins … Yes, all that,
perhaps, the Colonel himself may have understood. But what if she, Joanna herself, had been the active catalyst in the matter? What if she had craved for the men just as much as they had craved for
her? What (put it simply, Morse!)
what if she’d wanted sex just as badly as they did
? What if she were the precursor of Sue Bridehead in
Jude the Obscure
, driving poor old Phillotson potty, as well as poor old Jude?

‘Men’s questions!’ he heard a voice say. ‘Just the sort of thoughts that would occur to an ageing MCP like you!’

There was a second general consideration which, from the point of view of criminal justice, struck Morse as considerably more cogent and a good deal less contentious. In the court-room itself,
the odds did seem, surely, to have been stacked pretty heavily against the crew of the
Barbara Bray
– with ‘presumption of innocence’ playing decidedly second fiddle to
‘assumption of guilt’. Even the fair-minded Colonel had let his prejudgements run away with him a little: already he’d decided that any ostensible concern on the part of the
boatmen for the missing passenger (believed drowned?) was only shown ‘with great presence of mind’ in order to establish a semi-convincing alibi for themselves; already he’d
decided that these same boatmen, ‘still obviously very drunk’ (and by implication still knocking it back at top-tipplers’ rates) had manoeuvred their ‘infamous’ craft
down the Thames to Reading without having the common decency to mention to anyone the little matter of the murder they’d committed on the way. Did (Morse asked himself) wicked men tend to get
more
drunk
– or more
sober
– after committing such callous crimes? Interesting thought …

Yes, and there was a third general point – one that seemed to Morse most curious: the charges both of Theft and of Rape had, for some reason, been dropped against the boatmen. Was this
because the Prosecution had been wholly confident, and decided to go for the graver charge of Murder – with the expectation (fully justified) that they had sufficient evidence to convict
‘Rory’ Oldfield and Co. on the capital indictment? Or was it, perhaps, because they had too
little
confidence in their ability to secure conviction on the
lesser
charges?
Obviously, as Morse seemed vaguely to remember from his schooldays, neither rape nor theft would have been considered too venial an offence in the middle of the last century, but … Or was it
just possible that these charges were dropped because there was no convincing evidence to support them? And if so, was the indictment for murder entered upon by the Prosecution for one simple
reason – that it presented the
only
hope of bringing those miserable men to justice? Certainly, as far as multiple rape was concerned, the evidence must have been decidedly dodgy
– as the Judge in the first trial had pronounced. But what about theft? The prerequisite of theft was that the aggrieved party possessed something worth the stealing. So what was it that poor
Joanna had about her person, or had in either of her two travelling-boxes, that was worth the crime? The evidence, after all, pointed to the fact that she hadn’t got a couple of pennies to
rub together. Her fare for the canal-trip had been sent up from her husband in London; and even facing the terrible risks of travelling with a drunken, lecherous crew – certainly after
Ban-bury had been reached – she had
not
taken, or not been
able
to take, any alternative means of transport to get to the husband who was awaiting her in the Edgware Road. So?
So what had she got, if anything, that was worth stealing?

There were those shoes again, too! Did Joanna deliberately leave off her shoes? Did she enjoy the feel of the mud between her toes along the tow-path – like some bare-foot hippie on a
watery walk round Stonehenge in the dawn?

What a strange case it had been! The more he thought about it, the greater the number of questions that kept occurring to Morse’s mind. He had a good deal of experience in cases where the
forensic and pathological evidence had been vital to the outcome of a court case. But he wasn’t particularly impressed with the conclusions that (presumably) must have been drawn from Mr
Samuels’ comparatively scientific findings. For Morse (wholly, it must be admitted, without medical or scientific qualifications) the state of the dress, and the bruising described, would
have been much more consistent with Joanna being held firmly from behind, with the assailant’s (?) left hand gripping her left wrist; and his (her?) right hand being held forcibly across her
mouth, where thumb and forefinger would almost invariably produce the sort of bruising mentioned in the recorded description.

What of this Jarnell fellow? The Prosecution must have been considerably impressed, at the first hearing, with his potential testimony. Why, otherwise, would anyone be willing to postpone a
trial for six months – on the word of a gaolbird? Even the Colonel had given the fellow a good write-up! So why was it that when he duly turned up to tell his tale, at the second trial, no
one wished to listen to him? Had there been something, some knowledge, somewhere, that had caused the court to discount, or at least discredit, the disclosures his cellmate, Oldfield, had allegedly
made to him? Because whatever accusations could be levelled against Oldfield, the charge of inconsistency was
not
amongst them. On three occasions, after Joanna’s death, he had
insisted that she was “out of her mind”, “sadly deranged”, “off her head” … And there had, it appeared, been no conflict of evidence between the crewmen that
on one occasion at least (did that mean two?) they had been called upon to save Joanna from drowning herself. The one vital point Jarnell disclosed was that Oldfield had not only protested his own
innocence of the murder, but had also sought to shift all responsibility on to his fellow crewmen. Not, to be sure, a very praiseworthy piece of behaviour! Yet,
if Oldfield himself were
innocent
, where else could he have laid the blame? At the time, in any case, no one had been willing to listen seriously either to what Jarnell or to what Oldfield might have to say. But if
they were right? Or if
one
of them were right?

A curious little thought struck Morse at this point, and lodged itself in a corner of his brain – for future reference. And a rather bigger thought struck him simultaneously: that he
needed to remember he was only playing a game with himself; only trying to get through a few days’ illness with a happy little problem to amuse himself with – like a tricky cryptic
crossword from
The Listener
. It was just a little worrying, that was all … the way the dice had been loaded all the time against those drunkards who had murdered Joanna Franks.

And the niggling doubt persisted.

If they had
…

T
HE THOUGHT THAT
the crewmen may not have been guilty of Joanna Franks’s murder proved to be one of those heady notions that evaporate in the
sunrise of reason. For if the crewmen had not been responsible, who on earth had? Nevertheless, it seemed to Morse pretty much odds-on that if the case had been heard a century later, there would
have been no certain conviction. Doubtless, at the time, the jury’s verdict had looked safe and satisfactory, especially to the hostile crowds lining the streets and baying for blood. But
should
the verdict have been reached? True, there was enough circumstantial suspicion to sentence a saint; yet no really
direct
evidence, was there? No witnesses to murder; no
indication of
how
the murder had been committed; no adequately convincing motive for
why
. Just a time, and a place, and Joanna lying face-downwards in Duke’s Cut all that while
ago.

Unless, of course, there were some passages of evidence not reported – either from the first or the second trial? The Colonel had clearly been rather more interested in the lax morals of
the boatmen than in any substantiation of the evidence, and he could just have omitted the testimony of any corroborative witnesses who might have been called. Perhaps it would be of some interest
– in this harmless game he was playing – to have a quick look through those Court Registers, if they still existed; or through the relevant copies of
Jackson’s Oxford
Journal
, which certainly
did
exist, as Morse knew, filed on microfiche in the Oxford Central Library. (Doubtless in the Bodley, too!) And, in any case, he hadn’t finished the
Colonel’s book yet. Why, there might be much still to be revealed in that last exciting episode!

Which he now began to read.

Almost immediately he was conscious of Fiona standing beside him – the amply bosomed Fiona, smelling vaguely of the summer and strongly of disinfectant. Then she sat down
on the bed, and he felt the pneumatic pressure of her against him as she leaned across and looked over his shoulder.

‘Intereeeesting?’

Morse nodded. ‘It’s the book the old girl brought round – you know, the Colonel’s wife.’

Fiona stayed where she was, and Morse found himself reading the same short sentence for the third, fourth, fifth time – without the slightest degree of comprehension – as her
softness gently pressed against him. Was she conscious, herself, of taking the initiative in such memorable intimacy, however mild?

Then she ruined everything.

‘I don’t go in much for reading these days. Last book I read was
Jane Eyre
– for GCSE, that was.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’ (Poor, dear Charlotte had long had a special place in Morse’s heart.)

‘Pretty boring stuff. We just had to do it, you know, for the exam.’

Oh dear!

Crossing her black-stockinged legs, she took off one of her flat-heeled black shoes, and shook out some invisible irritant on to the ward floor.

‘When do people take their shoes off?’ asked Morse. ‘Normally, I mean?’

‘Funny question, isn’t it?’

‘When they’ve a stone in them – like you?’

Fiona nodded. ‘And when they go to bed.’

‘And?’

‘Well – when they go paddling at Blackpool.’

‘Yes?’

‘When they sit watching the telly with their feet on the sofa – if they’ve got a mum as fussy as mine.’

‘Anything else?’

‘What do you want to know all this for?’

‘If they’ve got corns or something,’ persisted Morse, ‘and go to the chiropodist.’ (‘Kyropodist’, in Morse’s book.)

‘Yes. Or if their feet get sore or tired. Or if they have to take their tights off for some reason—’

‘Such as?’

Morse saw the flash of sensuous amusement in her eyes, as she suddenly stood up, pulled his sheets straight, and shook out his pillows. ‘Well, if you don’t know at your
age—’

Oh dear!

Age.

Morse felt as young as he’d ever done; but suddenly, and so clearly, he could see himself as he
was
seen by this young girl.

Old!

But his mood was soon to be brightened by the totally unexpected re-appearance of Sergeant Lewis, who explained that the purpose of his unofficial visit (it was 2.15 p.m.) was to interview a
woman, still in intensive care, in connection with yet another horrendous crash on the A34.

‘Feeling OK this morning, sir?’

‘I shall feel a jolly sight better once I’ve had the chance of apologizing to you – for being so bloody ungrateful!’

‘Oh yes? When was that, sir? I thought you were always ungrateful to me.’

‘I’m just sorry, that’s all,’ said Morse simply and quietly.

Lewis, whose anger had been simmering and spitting like soup inadvertently left on the stove, had come into the ward with considerable reluctance. Yet when some ten minutes later he walked out,
he felt the same degree of delight he invariably experienced when he knew that Morse needed
him
– even if it were only, as in this case, to do a bit of mundane research (Morse had
briefly explained the case) and to try to discover if the Court Registers of the Oxford Assizes, 1859–60, were still available; and if so to see if any records of the trials were still
extant.

After Lewis had gone, Morse felt very much more in tune with the universe. Lewis had forgiven him, readily; and he felt a contentment which he, just as much as Lewis, could ill define and only
partly comprehend. And with Lewis looking into the Court Registers, there was another researcher in the field: a qualified librarian, who could very quickly sort out
Jackson’s Oxford
Journals
. Not that she was coming in that evening, alas!

Patience, Morse!

At 3 p.m. he turned once again to the beginning of the fourth and final episode in the late Colonel Deniston’s book.

PART FOUR
A Pronounced Sentence

A
BAILIFF WAS
sworn in to attend the Jury, who immediately retired to the Clerk of Indictments’ Room. After an absence of three-quarters of an
hour, they returned to the Court; and, their names having been read over, every person appeared to wait with breathless anxiety for their verdict. In reply to the usual questions from Mr Benham,
the foreman replied that the Jury was all agreed and that they were unanimous in finding each of the three prisoners at the bar GUILTY of the murder of Joanna Franks. It is said that no visible
alteration marked the countenances of the crew on the verdict being given, except that Oldfield for the moment became somewhat paler.