The Way Through the Woods

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The Way Through the Woods Page 10

by Colin Dexter

21 Hayward Road, Bishop Auckland.

  Around the table, “Mr. Lionel Regis” looked slightly sheepish; but not for long, and now it was all an open secret anyway. He realized that there would be little he could do for a day or so—except to re-read all the material that had accumulated from the earlier enquiries; to sit tight; to get Lewis cracking on the admin; and perhaps to try to think a bit more clearly about his own oddly irrational conviction that the young student’s body would be found—and found in Wytham Wood(s). There was that little bit of new evidence, too—the call from the O’Kanes. For if their memories served them to any degree aright, then Karin Eriksson had at some point gone down the Banbury Road from the roundabout; it was the testimony of the man who had been waiting for a bus there that Sunday noon-time which should have been given credence—not that of the man who had driven along Sunderland Avenue.

  Such and similar thoughts Morse shared with Sergeant Lewis in the early afternoon. Already arrangements were well in hand for the availability of about twenty further members of various local forces to supplement the thirty due to be switched immediately from Blenheim. One annoying little hold-up, though. The head forester at Wytham, Mr. David Michaels, was unfortunately away that day at a National Trust conference in Durham. But he was expected home later that night, his wife said, and would almost certainly be available the following morning.

  Things were moving, that afternoon. But slowly. And Morse was feeling restless and impatient. He returned home at 4 P.M., and began typing a list of gramophone records …

  Before leaving him the previous Monday, a quarter of an hour after Strange’s inopportune interruption, Claire Osborne had asked him to send her his eight Desert Island Discs and the versions he possessed of the Mozart Requiem. It was high time she started to improve her mind a bit, she’d said; and if Morse would promise to try to help her …? So Morse had promised, and reiterated his promise as he’d kissed her briefly, sweetly, fully on the lips, at her departure.

  “You do know my address, I think?” she’d shouted from the gate.

  Morse was still not quite sure of numbers seven and eight as he sat and slowly typed his list that afternoon.

  A quarter of an hour or so before Morse had begun his labour of love, Philip Daley swaggered loutishly out of his class-room in the Cherwell School, just along the Marston Ferry Road in North Oxford. Only two more days to go! Roll on! School would be finishing on the 17th and he couldn’t wait to get shot of it. Shot of it for good and all! His dad (his dad’s own words) didn’t given a fuckin’ toss, though his mum (as he knew very well) would have been glad if he could have settled down to schoolwork and stayed on in the sixth form and maybe landed up with a decent job and all that bullshit. But other thoughts were uppermost in his bitterly discontented mind as he walked up the Banbury Road that afternoon. At lunch-time he’d asked one of the girls from his class, the one with the blouseful, whether she’d go with him to the end-of-term disco; and she’d said he must be bloody jokin’ and anyway she’d already got a feller, ’adn’t she? Soddin’ cunt! As he walked up to the shops he crashed his fist against some ancient wooden fencing there: fuck it, fuck it, fuck it! Just wait till Friday, though. He’d show the fuckin’ lot of ’em.

  It was 7:15 P.M., twelve hours after reaching HQ earlier that day, that Lewis sat down at his home in Headington to his beloved eggs and chips.

  Blast him! thought Claire, as she turned first to one side and then to the other in her bed that night. She could not understand at all why he was monopolizing her thoughts—but he was. And blast that other copper—that fat slob of a man who’d stood there talking to him on the doorstep for almost a quarter of an hour. She’d have had to leave very soon anyway, she realized that. But it had meant there had been no time to develop that little passage of intimacy between them … and now, and again, and again, he was passing through her mind. Bloody nuisance, it all was! Only temporary, she trusted—this inability to sleep, this inability to thrust him from her thoughts. She just hoped she’d get a letter from him in the next post, that’s all. He said he’d write; he’d promised; and she’d been looking out eagerly for the postman.

  On that day, however, the postman did not come.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The Grantor leaves the guardianship of the Woodlands to the kindly sympathy of the University … The University will take all reasonable steps to preserve and maintain the woodlands and will use them for the instruction of suitable students and will provide facilities for research

  (Extract from the deed under which Wytham Wood was acquired by the University of Oxford on 4 August 1942 as a gift from Col. ffennell)

  Many Oxonians know “Wytham” as the village on the way to the wood. But Morse knew the spot as the village, situated on the edge of the wood, which housed the White Hart Inn; and he pointed lovingly to the hostelry the next morning as Lewis drove the pair of them to their meeting with the head forester.

  “Did you know,” asked Morse (consulting his leaflet) “that in the parish of Wytham, a large part of it covered with woods, the ground rises from the banks of the Thames—or ‘Isis’—to a height of 539 feet at Wytham Hill, the central point of the ancient parish?”

  “No. sir,” replied Lewis, turning right just after the pub into a stretch of progressively narrowing roadway that was very soon marked by the sign “Private Property: University of Oxford”.

  “You don’t sound very interested—”

  “Look!” shouted Lewis. “See that?”

  “No!” In his youth Morse had almost invariably been the boy in the group who missed out; whilst his schoolmates were perpetually spotting birds’ eggs, the blue flash of kingfishers, or gingery foxes momentarily motionless at the edge of cornfields, the young Morse had seldom seen anything; the old Morse had seen nothing now.

  “What exactly was the cause of all the excitement, Lewis?”

  “Deer, sir. Roe-deer, I think. Two of them, just behind—”

  “Are they different from normal deer?”

  “I don’t reckon you’re going to be too much help in this neck of the woods, sir.”

  Morse made no comment on such a nicely turned phrase, as Lewis drove half a mile or so further, with an area of fairly dense woodland on his left, until he reached a semicircular parking lot, also on his left. “Cars must be left at one of the two car parks shown on the plan”, the map said; and in any case a locked barrier across the road effectively blocked further progress to motor vehicles. Lewis pulled the police car in beside an ancient, rusting Ford.

  “Good to see some people care, sir,” ventured Lewis, pointing to an RSPB sticker on one side window and a larger “Save the Whale” plea on the other.

  “Probably here for a snog under the sycamores,” Morse replied cheerfully.

  A low, stone-built cottage stood thirty yards or so back on the further side of the track. “That must be where Mr. Michaels lives, sir. Nice view—looking right across there to Eynsham.”

  “C’mon,” said Morse.

  It was just past the barrier, which they negotiated via a kissing-gate, set in its V-shaped frame, that the two detectives came, on their left, to a large clearing, some 100 yards square, with fir-saplings planted around the fenced perimeter, in which was set a whole complex of sheds and barns, built in horizontally slatted wood, with piles of spruce- and fir-logs stacked nearby, and with several tractors and pieces of tree-felling machinery standing beside or beneath the open-fronted barns.

  From the furthest shed a figure walked down the slope to greet them—a man of about fifty or so, blue-eyed, closely bearded, and little short of six foot—introducing himself as David Michaels, the head forester. They shook hands with the man, Morse being careful to keep slightly behind Lewis as a black and white dog, bounding energetically after his master, sought to introduce himself too.

  In the forester’s hut, Michaels briefly described the layout of the woods (plural!), referring repeatedly to the four Ordnance Survey maps on the inner wall, them
selves pinned together in a large oblong to give a synoptic view of the whole area under the forester’s charge. There was a University Committee, the policemen learnt, administering Wytham Woods, to whom he (Michaels) was personally responsible, with a University Land Agent acting as Executive Officer; and it was to the latter that the police would need to apply formally. Permits to walk in the woods (this in answer to Lewis) were issued, on request, to any resident teachers or administrators in the University, and of course to any other citizen, Town or Gown, who was able to provide adequate cause, and no criminal impediment, for wishing to visit the area.

  Morse himself became more interested when Michaels moved closer to the maps and expanded on the woods’ main attractions, his right forefinger tracing its way through what (to Morse) was a wonderfully attractive-sounding catalogue: Duck Pond; The Follies; Bowling Alley; Cowleaze Copse; Froghole Cottage; Hatchett Lane; Marley Wood; Pasticks; Singing Way; Sparrow Lane … almost like the music of the woods and birds themselves.

  But as he watched and listened, Morse’s heart was sinking slightly lower. The woodlands were vast; and Michaels himself, now in his fifteenth year there, admitted that there were several areas where he had never—probably would never—set foot; parts known only to the badgers and the foxes and the deer and the families of woodpeckers. Yet somehow the mention of the woodpeckers appeared to restore Morse’s confidence, and he gratefully accepted the forester’s offer of a guided tour.

  Lewis sat on the floor in the back of the rugged, powerful, ineffably uncomfortable and bouncy Land-rover, with Bobbie, the only dog allowed in the woods. Morse sat in the front with Michaels, who spent the next ninety minutes driving across the tracks and rides and narrow paths which linked the names of his earlier litany.

  For a while Morse toyed with the idea of bringing in the military perhaps—a couple of thousand men from local units, under the command of some finicky brigadier sitting in Caesar’s tent and ticking off the square yards one by one. Then he put his thought into words:

  “You know I’m beginning to think it’d take an army a couple of months to cover all this.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” replied Michaels. Surprisingly?

  “No?”

  Patiently the forester explained how during the summer months there were dozens of devotees who regularly checked the numbers of eggs and weights of fledglings in the hundreds of bird-boxes there; who laid nocturnal wait to observe the doings of the badgers; who clipped tags and bugging devices to fox-cubs; and so many others who throughout the year monitored the ecological pattern that Nature had imposed on Wytham Woods. Then there were the members of the public who were forever wandering around with their birdwatchers’ guides and their binoculars, or looking for woodland orchids, or just enjoying the peace and beauty of it all …

  Morse was nodding automatically through much of the recital, and he fully took the point that Michaels was making; he’d guessed as much anyway, but things were clearer in his mind now.

  “You mean there’s a good deal of ground we can probably forget …”

  “That’s it. And a good deal you can’t.”

  “So we need to establish some priorities,” Lewis chirped up from the rear.

  “That was the, er, general conclusion that Mr. Michaels and myself had just reached, Lewis.”

  “Eighteen months ago, all this was, you say?” asked Michaels.

  “Twelve, actually.”

  “So if … if she’d been … just left there, you know, without trying to hide her or anything …?”

  “Oh yes, there probably wouldn’t be all that much of her still around—you’ll know that better than most. But it’s more often ‘found in a shallow grave’, isn’t it? That’s the jargon. Not surprising though that murderers should want to cover up their crimes: they often dig a bit and put twigs and leaves and things over … over the top. But you need a spade for that. In the summer you’d need a sharp spade—and plenty of time, and a bit of daylight, and a bit of nerve … They tell me it takes a couple of sextons about eight hours to dig a decent grave.”

  Perhaps it was the crudity and cruelty of the scene just conjured up which cast a gloom upon them now—and they spoke no more of the murder for the rest of the bumpy journey. Just about birds. Morse asked about woodpeckers, and Michaels knew a great deal about woodpeckers: the green, the great-spotted, the lesser-spotted—all had their habitats within the woods and all were of especial interest to birdwatchers.

  “You interested in woodpeckers, Inspector?”

  “Splendid birds,” muttered Morse vaguely.

  Back in the hut, Morse explained the limitation of his likely resources and the obvious need therefore for some selective approach. “What I’d really like to know is this—please don’t feel offended, Mr. Michaels. But if you wanted to hide a body in these woods, which places would come to mind first?”

  So Michaels told them; and Lewis made his notes, feeling a little uneasy about his spelling of some of the names which Morse had earlier found so memorable.

  When twenty minutes later the trio walked down towards the police car, they heard a sharp crack of a gun.

  “One of the farmers,” explained Michaels. “Taking a pot at some pigeons, like as not.”

  “I didn’t see any guns in your office,” commented Lewis.

  “Oh, I couldn’t keep ’em there! Against the law, that is, Sergeant.”

  “But I suppose you must have one—in your job, sir?”

  “Oh yeah! Couldn’t do without. In a steel cabinet in there”—Michaels pointed to the low cottage—“well and truly locked away, believe me! In fact, I’m off to do a bit of shooting now.”

  “Off to preserve and maintain some of the local species, Mr. Michaels?”

  But the degree of sarcasm behind Morse’s question was clearly ill-appreciated by the bearded woodsman, who replied with a decided coolness: “Sometimes—quite often—it’s essential to keep some sort of stability within any eco-system, and if you like I’ll tell you a few things about the multiplication-factor of one or two of our randier species of deer. If I had my way, Inspector, I’d issue ’em all with free condoms from that white machine in the gents at the White Hart. But they wouldn’t take much notice of me, would they?” For a few seconds Michaels’ eyes glinted with the repressed anger of a professional man being told his job by some ignorant amateur.

  Morse jumped in quickly. “Sorry! I really am. It’s just that as I get older I can’t really think of killing things. Few years ago I’d have trodden on a spider without a thought, but these days—I don’t know why—I almost feel guilty about swatting a daddy-long-legs.”

  “You wouldn’t find me killing a daddy-long-legs!” said Michaels, his eyes still hard as they stared unblinkingly back at Morse’s. Blue versus blue; and for a few seconds Morse wondered what exactly Michaels would kill … and would be killing now.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together

  (St. Luke, ch. 24, v. 28)

  Regis’s (Morse’s) cracking of the Swedish Maiden verses had sparked off a whole series of letters about the Great Wood at Wytham. But only one of these letters was to be published by The Times that week—the latest in a correspondence which was gripping the interest of that daily’s readers:

  From Stephen Wallhead, RA

  Sir, It was with interest that I read what must surely be the final analysis of the Swedish Maiden affair. I had not myself, of course, come within a mile of the extraordinarily subtle interpretation (Letters, July 13) in which Wytham Woods are suggested—surely more than suggested—as the likeliest resting-place of that unfortunate girl. My letter can make only one small addendum; but I trust an interesting one, since the injunction “Find the Woodman’s daughter” (1. 6 of the verses) may now possibly be of some vital significance.

  An oil-on-canvas painting, The Woodman’s Daughter, was worked on by John Everett Millais in 1850–1. It depicts the young son of
a squire offering a handful of strawberries to the young daughter of a woodman. Millais (as always) was meticulous about his work, and the whole picture is minutely accurate in its research: for example, we know from the artist Arthur Hughes that the strawberries in the boy’s hands were bought at Covent Garden in March 1851!

  The background to this picture shows a woodland area with a clear perspective and a distinctive alignment of trees, and in my view it is at least a possibility that even allowing for decades of cutting-down and replantation the original site could be established. But here is the point, sir! From the diary of one of the artist’s friends, Mrs. Joanna Matthews, RA, we learn as follows: “Millais is hard at work painting the background of his picture from nature in Wytham Wood” (my italics). Could not such a background point the place where the body is to be found? And may we not further infer that our murderer has not only an intimate knowledge of the woods themselves but also of the Pre-Raphaelite painters?

  Yours faithfully,

  STEPHEN WALLHEAD,

  Wymondham Cottage, Helpston, Lincs.

  Early on the morning of Friday, 17 July, this letter had been seen by Strange, Morse, Lewis, and most of the personnel on duty at Thames Valley HQ. But not by everyone.

  * * *

  “Just tell me exactly what the ’ell we’re supposed to be looking for!” Constable Jimmy Watt complained to his colleague, Constable Sid Berridge, as the two of them halted for a while, side by side, in the riding between Marley Wood on their right and Pasticks on their left.

  Seventeen of them, there were, working reasonably scientifically through this particular stretch. Watt had been seconded only that day, taken (quite willingly) off traffic duties, while Berridge had already spent the earlier part of his week in Blenheim. And, in truth, their present duties were unwelcome to neither of them, for the temperature was already warm that morning, the sky an almost cloudless Cambridge blue.

  “We’re looking for a condom, Jimmy—preferably one with a handful of fingerprints on it—”

 

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