Last Bus to Woodstock.

Colin Dexter.

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'll 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 impatiintly 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 (Sat.u.r.days 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 irritatibngly 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 lift in no time, you see. Tha's wha' half these fellas are looking for - a gi' 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 pa.s.sengers? She would try so hard to recall. Yes, there had been men, she was sure of that. Several had pa.s.sed her by.

At ten minutes to seven an oblong pinkish blur gradually a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sed 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.

1.

Search for a girl

1 Wednesday, 29 September

From St Giles' in the centre of Oxford two parallel roads run due north, like the p.r.o.ngs 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 gra.s.s verges afford a pleasing sense of s.p.a.ciousness, 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.

Today Blenheim dominates the old town. Yet it was not always so. The strong grey houses which line the main street have witnessed older times and could tell their older tales, though now the majority are sprucely converted into gift, antique and souvenir shops - and inns. There was always, it appears, a goodly choice of hostelries, and several of the hotels and inns now cl.u.s.tered snugly along the streets can boast not only an ancient lineage but also a cl.u.s.ter of black AA stars on their bright yellow signs.

The Black Prince is situated half-way down a broad side-street to the left as one is journeying north.

Amidst the Woodstock peerage it can claim no ancient pedigree, and it seems highly improbable, alas, that the warrior son of King Edward III had ever laughed or cried or tippled or wenched in any of its precincts. Truth to tell, a director of the London company which bought the old house, stable-yards and all, some ten years since, had noticed in some dubiously authenticated guidebook that somewhere thereabouts the Prince was born. The director had been warmly congratulated by his Board for this felicitous piece of research, and not less for his subsequent discovery that the n.o.ble Prince did not as yet figure in the Woodstock telephone directory. The Black Prince it was then. The gifted daughter of the first manager had copied out from a children's encyclopaedia, in suitably antique script, a brief, if somewhat romantic, biography of the warrior Prince, and put the finished opus into her mother's oven for half an hour at 450. The resultant ma.n.u.script, reverently brown with age, was neatly, if cheaply, framed and now occupied a suitable position of honour on the wall of the c.o.c.ktail lounge. Together with the shields of the Oxford colleges nailed neatly along the low stained beams, it added tone and cla.s.s.

For the last two and a half years Gaye had been the resident 'hostess' of the Black Prince - 'barmaid', thought the manager, was a trifle infra dignitatem. And he had a point. 'A pint of your best bitter, luv,' was a request Gaye seldom had to meet and she now a.s.sociated it with the proletariat; here it was more often vodka and lime for the bright young things, Manhattan c.o.c.ktails for the American tourists, and gin and French - with a splash of Italian - for the Oxford dons. Such admixtures she dispensed with practised confidence from the silvery glitter and sparkle of bottles ranged invitingly behind the bar.

The lounge itself, deeply carpeted, with chairs and wall-seats covered in a pleasing orange shade, was gently bathed in half light, giving a chiaroscuro effect reminiscent, it was hoped, of a Rembrandt nativity scene. Gaye herself was an attractive, auburn-haired girl and tonight, Wednesday, she was immaculately dressed in a black trouser-suit and white-frilled blouse. A flash of gems on the second and third fingers of her left hand, betokened gentle warning to the mawkish amateur playboy, and perhaps - as some maintained - a calculated invitation to the wealthy professional philanderer. She was, in fact, married and divorced, and now lived with one young son and a mother who was not unduly chagrined at the mildly promiscuous habits of a precious daughter who had been unfortunate enough to marry such 'a lousy swine'. Gaye enjoyed her divorced status as much as she enjoyed her job, and she meant to keep them both.

Wednesday, as usual, had been a fairly busy evening, and it was with some relief when, at 10.25 p.m., she politely, but firmly, called for last drinks. A young man, seated on a high stool at the inner corner of the bar, pushed his whisky gla.s.s forward.

'Same again.'

Gaye glanced quizzically into unsteady eyes, but said nothing. She pushed her customer's gla.s.s under a priority whisky bottle and placed it on the counter, holding out her right hand and mechanically registering the tariff with her left. The young man was obviously drunk. He fumbled slowly and ineffectually through his pockets before finding the correct money, and after one mouthful of his drink he eased himself gingerly off his seat, measured the door with an uncertain eye, and made a line as decently straight as could in the circ.u.mstances be expected.

The old courtyard where once the horses had clattered over the cobbled stones had access from the street through a narrow archway, and had proved an invaluable a.s.set to the Black Prince. A rash of fines for trespa.s.sing on the single and double yellow lines which bordered even the most inhospitable and inaccessible stretches of road was breeding a reluctant respect for the law; and any establishment offering 'PATRONS ONLY, cars left at owners' risk' was quite definitely in business. Tonight, as usual, the courtyard was tightly packed with the inevitable Volvos and Rovers. A light over the archway threw a patch of inadequate illumination over the entrance to the yard; the rest lay in dark shadow. It was to the far corner of this courtyard, that the young man stumbled his way; and almost there he dimly saw something behind the furthest car. He looked and groped silently. Then horror crept up to the nape of his neck and against a padlocked stable door he was suddenly and violently sick.

2 Wednesday, 29 September

The manager of the Black Prince, Mr Stephen Westbrook contacted the police immediately after the body was found, and his call was acted upon with commendable prompt.i.tude. Sergeant Lewis of the Thames Valley Police gave him quick and clear instructions. A police car would be at the Black Prince within ten minutes; Westbrook was to ensure that no one left the premises and that no one entered the courtyard; if anyone insisted on leaving, he was to take the full name and address of the person concerned; he should be honest if asked what all the trouble was about.

The evening's merriness wilted like a sad balloon and voices gradually hushed as the whispered rumour spread: their had been a murder. None seemed anxious to leave; two or three asked if they could phone. All felt suddenly sober, including a pale-faced young man who stood in the manager's office and whose scarcely touched whisky still stood on the counter of the c.o.c.ktail lounge.

With the arrival of Sergeant Lewis and two uniformed constables, a small knot of people gathered curiously on the pavement opposite. It did not escape their notice that the police car had parked immediately across the access to the courtyard, effectively sealing the exit. Five minutes later a second police car arrived, and eyes turned to the lightly built, dark haired man who alighted. He conversed briefly with the constable who stood guard outside, nodded his head approvingly several times and walked into the Black Prince.

He knew Sergeant Lewis only slightly, but soon found himself pleasurably impressed by the man's level-headed competence. The two men conferred in brisk tones and very quickly a preliminary procedure was agreed. Lewis, with the help of the second constable, was to list the names, home addresses and car registrations of all persons on the premises, and to take brief statements of their evening's whereabouts, and immediate destinations. There were over fifty people to see, and Morse realized that it would take some time.

'Shall I try to get you some more help, Sergeant?"

'I think the two of us can manage, sir."

'Good. Let's get started.'

A door, forming the side entrance to the Black Prince, led out into the courtyard and from here Morse stepped gingerly out and looked around. He counted thirteen cars jammed tight into the limited s.p.a.ce, but he could have missed one or two, for the cars furthest away were little more than dark hulks against the high back wall, and he wondered by what feats of advanced-motoring skill and precision their inebriated owners could ever negotiate the vehicles unscathed through the narrow exit from the yard. Carefully he shone his torch around and slowly perambulated the yard. The driver of the last car parked on the left-hand side of the yard had presciently backed into the narrow lot and left himself a yard or so of room between his nearside and the wall; and stretched along this s.p.a.ce was the sprawling figure of a young girl. She lay on her right side, her head almost up against the corner of the walls, her long blonde hair now cruelly streaked with blood. It was immediately clear that she had been killed by a heavy blow across the back of the skull, and behind the body lay a flat heavy tyre-spanner, about one and a half inches across and some eighteen inches in length - the type of spanner with its undulating ends so common in the days before the inauguration of instant tyre repairs. Morse stood for a few minutes, gazing down at the ugly scene at his feet. The murdered girl wore a minimum of clothing - a pair of wedge-heeled shoes, a very brief dark-blue mini-skirt and a white blouse. Nothing else. Morse shone his torch on the upper part of the body. The left-hand side of the blouse was ripped across; the top two b.u.t.tons were unfastened and the third had been wrenched away, leaving the full b.r.e.a.s.t.s almost totally exposed. Morse flashed his torch around and immediately spotted the missing b.u.t.ton - a small, white, mother-of-pearl disc winking up at him from the cobbled ground. How he hated s.e.x murders! He shouted to the constable standing at the entrance to the yard.

'Yes, sir?'

"We need some arc-lamps.'

'It would help, I suppose, sir.'

'Get some.'

'Me, sir?'

'Yes, you!'

'Where shall I get...?'

'How the h.e.l.l do I know,' bellowed Morse.

By a quarter to midnight Lewis had finished his task and he reported to Morse, who was sitting with The Times in the manager's office, drinking what looked very much like whisky.

'Ah Lewis.' He thrust the paper across. 'Have a look at 14 down. Appropriate eh?' Lewis looked at 14 down: Take in bachelor? It could do (3). He saw what Morse had written into the completed diagram: BRA. What was he supposed to say? He had never worked with Morse before.

'Good clue, don't you think?'

Lewis, who had occasionally managed the Daily Mirror coffee-time crossword was out of his depth, and felt much puzzled.

'I'm afraid I'm not very hot on crosswords, sir.'

'"Bachelor" - that's BA and "take" is the letter "r"; recipe in Latin. Did you never do any Latin?'

"No, sir.'

'Do you think I'm wasting your time, Lewis?'

Lewis was n.o.body's fool and was a man of some honesty and integrity. 'Yes, sir.'

An engaging smile crept across Morse's mouth. He thought they would get on well together.

'Lewis, I want you to work with me on this case.' The sergeant looked straight at Morse and into the hard, grey eyes. He heard himself say he would be delighted.

'This calls for a celebration,' said Morse. 'Landlord!' West-brook had been hovering outside and came in smartly. 'A double whisky.' Morse pushed his gla.s.s forward.

'Would you like a drink, sir?' The manager turned hesitantly to Lewis.

'Sergeant Lewis is on duty, Mr Westbrook.'

When the manager returned, Morse asked him to a.s.semble everyone on the premises, including staff, in the largest room available, and drinking his whisky in complete silence, skimmed through the remaining pages of the newspaper.

'Do you read The Times, Lewis?'

"No, sir; we take the Mirror.' It seemed a rather sad admission.

'So do I sometimes,' said Morse.

At a quarter past midnight Morse came into the restaurant-room where everyone was now gathered.

Gaye's eyes met and held his briefly as he entered, and she felt a strong compulsion about the man. It was not so much that he seemed mentally to be undressing her, as most of the men she knew, but as if he had already done so. She listened to him with interest as he spoke.

He thanked them all for their patience and co-operation. It was getting very late and he didn't intend to keep them there any longer. They would now know why the police were there. There had been a murder in the courtyard - a young girl with blonde hair. They would appreciate that all the cars in the courtyard must stay where they were until the morning. He knew this meant that some of them would have difficulty getting home, but taxis had been ordered. If anyone wished to report to him or to Sergeant Lewis anything at all which might be of interest or value to the inquiry, however unimportant it might seem, would such a person please stay behind. The rest could go.

To Gaye it seemed an uninspired performance. Happening to be on the scene of a murder ought surely to be a bit more exciting than this? She would go home now, where her mother and her young son would be fast asleep. And even if they weren't, she couldn't tell them much, could she? Already the police had been there over an hour and a half. It wasn't exactly what she'd come to expect from her reading of Holmes or Poirot, who by this time would doubtless have interviewed the chief suspects, and made some startling deductions from the most trivial phenomena.

The murmuring which followed the end of Morse's brief address died away as most of the customers collected their coats and moved off. Gaye rose, too. Had she seen anything of interest or value? She thought back on the evening. There was, of course, the young man who had found the girl...

She had seen him before, but she couldn't quite remember who it was he'd been with, or when. And then she had it - blonde hair! She'd been in the lounge with him only last week. But a lot of girls these days peroxided their hair. Perhaps it was worth mentioning? She decided it was and walked up to Morse.

'You said the girl who has been murdered had blonde hair.' Morse looked at her and slowly nodded. 'I think she was here last week - she was with the man who found her body tonight. I saw them here. I work in the lounge.'

'That's very interesting, Miss - er?

'Mrs. Mrs McFee.'