by Colin Dexter
“Wha’? Bloody year ago?”
“—so’s Morse’ll be able to discover which ‘and he pulled it on with.”
“We used to call ’em ‘french letters’ in my day,” said Watt, with a hint of nostalgia in his voice.
“Yeah. Things change, though.”
“Yeah! Some of us missed out a bit, don’t you reckon? The way some of these young ‘uns …”
“Yeah.”
“Who’d you wanna go in there with, though?” Watt pointed to his left, to the dense patch of forestation nearby.
Berridge rose to the challenge: “Brigitte Bardot? Liz Taylor? Joan Collins? Madonna? Me next-door neighbour’s wife—”
“In there, though?”
Berridge decided to scale down his previous decision: “Perhaps not … Perhaps only the woman next-door.”
It had been an hour earlier, at 8:30 A.M., that a member of the Wytham Trust had addressed their party, and explained why Pasticks could be a reasonably safe each-way bet for a site where a body may have lain undisturbed for a longish time. Why? Well, most people would think that the cutting-down of trees and the selling of the wood to wholesale dealers was invariably going to be a profitable undertaking. Not so! The expense of hiring men to saw down trees, to trim the fallen timber, then to transport and treat it, and finally to sell it to furniture dealers, or fencing designers, or the rest—such expense would always be considerable. And the Trust had long since agreed that it could do little better than see the whole business of thinning the woods, etc., as, well, as tit-for-tat: they would pay nothing for the cutting-back of the various copses and spinneys; and in turn the wood-cutters and carters would receive the proceeds from the tens of thousands of assorted tree-trunks that were annually removed from Wytham Woods. But occasionally there was a bit of a hiccup in the system—when, for example, a few of the areas of re-forestation were not quite ready for such biennial decimation; when the thinning of a particular area ought, for whatever reason, to be delayed for a couple of years.
Such a situation had in fact arisen the year before in the very latest plantation (1958–62)—a mixed hardwood affair of Norwegian spruce, oak, beech, red cedar—in the area called Pasticks. And that wouldn’t be a bad place to leave a body! The trees there allowed in very little light; and in the middle of it all were three or four old spinneys that had existed even before the Enclosure Acts. Dense places. Double-dense.
For Berridge and Watt the task certainly looked uninviting. From any point some two or three yards within the wood it seemed almost as if a curtain had been drawn in front of them, cutting them off from any further investigation, with the leafless horizontal and perpendicular branches of the trees there forming a sort of blurring criss-cross mesh of brown across their vision.
It was a good many hours later, at 3:55 P.M., that the deeply and progressively more pessimistic pair of constables heard a shout of triumph from somewhere to their left. A body had been found; and very soon each wing of the search-party had enfolded the scene like the wings of a mother-bird protecting her young.
The foxes had already been there—often enough by the look of it—and the badgers, and the birds of the air … for the bones of what appeared to be a single human being had been dragged apart there—in some cases seemingly removed—from their familiar configuration. Yet not so far removed as to render the pristine pattern unrecognizable. A femur still lay in its approximately normal relationship to its pelvis; a few ribs still in roughly parallel formation above it; a shoulder bone in a vaguely formal relationship with the vertebrae; and the vertebrae themselves about two or three feet separated from a comparatively small and badly savaged skull; not far from which was a faded, tasselled neck-scarf, still boasting its original colours—the twin proud colours of the Swedish national flag.
Chapter Twenty-six
Science is spectrum analysis: art is photosynthesis
(Karl Kraus, Half Truths One and a Half Truths)
Word quickly spread and the verdict in all quarters was the same: here he was—only a couple of days into the investigation, only one day into the search, and eureka! Clever bugger, Morse! A bit lucky, perhaps. Could have been another week before they’d found her if they’d started at the other, the western, side of the woods.
“Touch nothing!”, “Keep your distance!” had been the orders of the day; and it had been around an unmolested, untrodden area of four or five square yards of woodland, carpeted with a thick, darkish-brown pile, that a rather irregular cordon had been drawn.
Morse had arrived on the scene within twenty minutes, and now stood there silently, not venturing beyond the waist-high red and white tape, his eyes recording the evidence before him. He saw the dislocated pattern of the bones; the scattered, residual clothes; and especially he saw the tasselled scarf beside the horridly damaged head. It reminded him of something from a DIY manual, in which various arrows point from the outer-lying parts towards a putative centre, giving instruction for the assemblage of the purchase: “Bring this part into there; attach this part to that; connect here; it will fit, all of it, if only you take your time, read the instructions carefully, and know that you are going wrong if more than gentle force is required for the final assembly”. Occasionally Morse moved his weight slightly on the packed twigs and spindles beneath his feet; but still he said nothing. And the others standing there were silent too, like awkward mourners at a funeral.
Lewis, busily negotiating that afternoon with the University authorities, would not be with him. But neither of them, neither Morse nor Lewis, would be of much use at this stage. It was Max who was going to be the important personage, and Max had already been informed, was already on his way; Max who ten minutes later made his lumbering progress across the crackling bracken, and stood wheezing heavily beside Morse.
Silently, just as Morse had done earlier, the hump-backed surgeon surveyed the sorry sight which lay at the foot of an evergreen of some sort, the lower branches leafless, brittle, dead. If any attempt had been made to conceal the body, it was not now apparent; and disturbingly (as others had already noticed) a few of the major bones, including the whole of the lower left arm, had been carried away somewhere—to some den or earth or sett. From the look of it the clothes were slightly better preserved than the body: several strips of stained white, and substantial remnants of what looked like blue jeans, perhaps; and some yellowish, straw-coloured hair still gruesomely attached to the skull.
But Morse hadn’t kept his eyes long on the skull …
“This what you’ve been looking for, Morse?”
“Yes. I think that’s her.”
“Her?”
“I’m certain it’s a ‘her’,” said Morse with finality.
“Do you know the last words my old mother said? She’d been baking earlier in the day—the day she died. Then she was taken to her bed, but she still wanted to see how the fruit cake was doing. And it was flat. The bloody thing forgot to rise, Morse! And she said, ‘You know, life’s full of uncertainties’. Then she closed her eyes—and died.”
“It’s the girl,” repeated Morse simply.
Max made no further comment, staring guardedly on as Morse nodded to the scenes-of-crime officer and the police photographer, both of whom had been standing waiting for some while. If there was anything of any import there that Morse should have seen, he was not aware of it; but he still felt nervous about the patch of ground, and instructed both to keep as far as possible from the grisly finds.
After a few minutes of photographic flashing, Max stepped rather gingerly into the area, hooked a pair of ancient spectacles around his large ears, looked down at the scattered skeleton, and picked up a bone.
“Femur, Morse. Femur, femoris, neuter. The thigh bone.”
“So?”
Max placed the bone down carefully and turned to Morse. “Look, old friend, I don’t very often ask you for any forensic guidance, but just for once give me a little advice, will you? What the hell am I supposed to do with this
bloody lot?”
Morse shook his head. “I’m not sure.” But suddenly his eyes glowed as if some inner current had been activated. “I knew she’d be here. Max,” he said slowly. “Somehow I knew it! And I’m going to find out who murdered our Swedish Maiden. And I want you to help me, Max! Help me paint a picture of what went on in this place.”
The almost Messianic fierceness with which Morse had enunciated these words would have affected most people. But not Max.
“You’re the artist, dear boy: I’m just a humble scientist.”
“How long will you be?”
“Looking at the bones, you mean?”
“And the clothes … and the underclothes.”
“Ah, yes! I remember. You’ve always had an interest in underclothes.” He consulted his watch. “Opening time at six? I’ll see you in the upstairs bar at the White Hart—”
“No. I’ve got a meeting back at HQ at half-past six.”
“Really? I thought you were in charge of this case, Morse.”
There were the four of them again: the ACC, Strange, Johnson, and Morse; and for the latter, naturally, congratulations were generous. For Johnson, however, there were very mixed feelings: Morse had come up with the girl’s body in a couple of days, whilst he had come up with nothing in a twelve-month. That was the simple truth of the matter. It was good for the case, of course; but not much good for his own morale or his rating amongst his colleagues, or for his wife … or indeed for his newly acquired mother-in-law. But when, an hour later, the meeting broke up, he shook Morse’s hand and wished him well, and almost meant it.
After the ACC and Johnson had left, Strange in turn wished Morse continued success, observing that now Morse had come up with a body, all that remained for him was to come up with a murderer, so that he, Strange, would be able to get a nice little report and send it to the DPP. No problems! Then they’d kick the smart-alec defence lawyers up the arse, and stick the bugger who did it in the nick for the rest of his natural. Put a rope round his bloody neck, too, if Strange had his way.
“Just as well we didn’t hang the Birmingham Six,” said Morse quietly.
Chapter Twenty-seven
It was a maxim with Foxey—our revered father, gentlemen—“Always suspect everybody”
(Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop)
On the following morning, Saturday, 18 July, Morse appeared, as Lewis saw things, somewhat distanced, somewhat reserved. It was customary for the chief to start, if not always to continue, any case with a surfeit of confidence and exuberance, and doubtless that would soon be the way of things again; just not for the moment.
“Not really all that much to go on there, sir.” Lewis nodded to the two red box-files on the table.
“I’ve done my homework too, you know.”
“Where do we start?”
“Difficult. We ought really to wait till we hear from Max before we do too much.”
“All this DNA stuff, you mean?”
“DNA? He doesn’t know what it stands for!”
“When’s the report due?”
“Today some time, he said.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Tonight?” Morse shrugged. But he suddenly sat forward in the black leather chair, appeared to sharpen up, took out his silver Parker pen, and began making a few minimal notes as he spoke:
“There are several people we’ve got to see pretty soon.”
“Who are you thinking of, sir?”
“Of whom am I thinking? Well, number one, there’s the fellow who found the rucksack—Daley. We’ll go through his statement with a nit-comb. I never did like the sound of him.”
“You never met him, did you?”
“Number two. There’s the YWCA woman who spoke with Karin before she left for Oxford. She sounds nice.”
“But you never—”
“I spoke to her on the phone, Lewis, if you must know. She sounds nice—that’s all I said. You don’t mind, do you?”
Lewis smiled to himself. It was good to be back in harness.
“Number three,” resumed Morse. “We must have a long session with that Wytham fellow—the Lone Ranger, or whatever he’s called.”
“Head forester, sir.”
“Exactly.”
“Did you like him?”
Morse turned over the palm of his right hand, and considered his inky fingers. “He virtually told us where she was, didn’t he? Told us where he would hide a body if he had to …”
“Not likely to have told us if he’d put it there himself though, surely? Self-incrimination, that!”
Morse said nothing.
“The witnesses who said they saw her, sir—any good going back over them?”
“Doubt it, but … Anyway, let’s put ’em down, number four. And number five, the parents—”
“Just the mother, sir.”
“—in Uppsala—”
“Stockholm, now.”
“Yes. We shall have to see her again.”
“We shall have to tell her first, surely.”
“If it is Karin, you mean?”
“You don’t really have much doubt, do you, sir?”
“No!”
“I suppose you’ll be going there yourself? To Stockholm, I mean.”
Morse looked up, apparently with some surprise. “Or you, Lewis. Or you!”
“Very kind of you, sir.”
“Not kind at all. Just that I’m scared stiff of flying—you know that.” But the voice was a little sad again.
“You all right?” Lewis asked quietly.
“Shall be soon—don’t worry! Now, I just wonder whether Mr. George Daley’s still working on the Blenheim Estate.”
“Saturday, though. More likely to be off today.”
“Yes … And his son—Philip, was it?—the lad who had a short-term birthday present of a camera, Karin Eriksson’s camera. He was still at school last year.”
“Probably still is.”
“No—not precisely so, Lewis. The state schools in Oxfordshire broke up yesterday, the seventeenth.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I rang up and found out. That’s how.”
“You’ve been having a fair old time on the phone!” said Lewis happily, as he got to his feet—and went for the car.
As he drove out along the A44 to Begbroke, Lewis’s eyes drifted briefly if incuriously to his left as Morse opened an envelope, took out a single handwritten sheet of A4, and read it; not (in fact) for the first, or even the fourth, time:
Dear Chief Inspector,
V m t f y l and for your interesting choice of records.
It would make a good debate in the Oxford Union—
“This house believes that openness in matters of infidelity is preferrable to deception.” But let me tell you what you want to know. I was married in ’76, divorced in ’82, remarried in ’84, separated in ’88. One child, a daughter now aged 20. Work that out, clever-clogs! As you know I consort fairly regularly with a married man from Oxford, and at less frequent intervals with others. So there! And now—Christ!—you come along and I hate you for it because you’re monopolizing my thoughts just when I’d told myself I was beyond all that nonsense.
I write for two reasons. First to say I reckon I’ve got some idea how that young girl who monopolizes your thoughts may have come by a bit of cash. (Same way I did!) Second to say you’re an arrogant sod! You write to me as if you think I’m an ignorant little schoolgirl. Well let me tell you you’re not the only sensitive little flower in the whole bloody universe. You quote these poets as if you think you’re connected on some direct personal line with them all. Well you’re wrong. There’s hundreds of extensions, just like in the office I used to work. So there!
Please write again.
Dare I send you a little of my love? C.
Morse hadn’t noticed the misspelling before; and as he put the letter away he promised himself not to mention it … when he wrote back.
&nb
sp; “I’m still not quite sure why we’re interviewing Mr. Daley, sir.”
“He’s hiding something, that’s why.”
“But you can’t say that—”
“Look, Lewis, if he’s not hiding something, there’s not much reason for us interviewing him, is there?”
Lewis, not unaccustomedly, was bewildered by such zany logic; and he let it go.
Anyway, Morse was suddenly sounding surprisingly cheerful.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home for sending one slowly crackers
(Diogenes Small, Obiter Dicta)
George Daley, on overtime, was planting out flowers in the Blenheim Garden Centre when he looked up and saw the two men, the shorter of them flashing a warrant card briefly in front of his face. He knew what it was all about, of course. The Oxford Mail had been taking a keen interest in the resurrected case; and it would be only a matter of time, Daley had known, before the police would be round again.
“Mr. Daley? Chief Inspector Morse. And this is Sergeant Lewis.”
Daley nodded, prodded his splayed fingers round a marigold, and got to his feet. He was a man in his mid-forties, of slim build, wearing a shabby khaki-green pork-pie hat. This he pushed back slightly, revealing a red line on his sweaty forehead.
“It’s that thing I found, I suppose?”
“Those things—yes,” said Morse carefully.
“I can only tell you the same as I told ’em at the time. I made a statement and I signed it. Nothin’ else as I can do.”
Morse took a folded sheet of A4 from his inside pocket, opened it out, and handed it to Daley. “I’d just like you to read this through and make sure it’s—well, you know, see if there’s anything else you can add.”
“I’ve told you. There’s nothin’ else.” Daley rubbed a hand across an unshaven cheek with the sound of sandpaper on wood.
“I’d just like you to read it through again,” said Morse simply. “That’s all.”