The Way Through the Woods

by Colin Dexter

  The fifth man was Myton, whom I’d known earlier, I’m ashamed to say, as the editor of a series of sex magazines whose particular slants ranged from bestiality to paedophilia. He was a smallish, slimly built man, with a weasel-like look about him—sharp nose and fierce little eyes. He often boasted about his time with the ITV Zodiac Production team; and however he may have exaggerated, one thing was perfectly clear: whatever he filmed for videotapes, whatever he photographed for “stills”, Myton had the magical touch of the born artist.

  The first part of the afternoon I can remember only vaguely. The room in which we were seated, the basement room, had a largish, erectile screen, and we were there (all except Myton) watching some imported hard-porn Danish videos when we were aware that the eagerly awaited Swedish star had arrived. The doorbell had been rung; McBryde had left us; and soon we were to hear voices just above us, in the garden outside—the voices of Myton and the young woman I now know to have been Karin Eriksson. I remember at that point feeling very excited. But things didn’t work out. It soon transpired that the girl had misunderstood the nature of her engagement; that she was happy enough to do a series of nude stills—but only behind a closed door, with a camera, and with one cameraman. No argument.

  It was about half an hour later that we heard the awful commotion in the room immediately above us, and we followed McBryde up the stairs. The young woman (we never knew her name until days later) lay on the bed. She lay motionless there, with blood all over the white sheets—vividly red blood, fresh blood. Yet it was not her blood—but Myton’s! He sat there crumpled up on the floor, clutching his left side and gasping desperately, his eyes widely dilated with pain—and fear. But for the moment it was the naked girl who compelled our attention. There were horridly bright-red marks around her throat, and her mouth seemed oddly swollen, with a trickle of blood slowly seeping down her cheek. Yes, her cheek. For it was the angle of her head that was so startling—craned back, as though she were trying so hard to peer over her forehead to the headboard of the bed behind her. Then, not immediately perhaps but so very soon, we knew that she was dead.

  If ever my heart sank in fear and froze in panic—it was then! Often in the past I had been in some sex cinema somewhere, and wondered what would happen if there were a sudden fire and the exits were blocked with panic-stricken men. The same sort of thoughts engulfed me now: and then, behind me—terrifying noise!—I heard a sound like a kitchen sink clearing itself, and I turned to see the vomit of dark-red blood suddenly spurting from Myton’s mouth and spilling in a great gush over the carpet. Six or seven times his body heaved in mighty spasms—before he too, like the girl on the bed, lay still.

  Of the sequence of events which had led up to this double tragedy, it is impossible to be certain. I can’t know what the others there thought; I don’t really know what I thought. I suppose I envisaged Myton filming her as she took up her various poses; then lusting after her and trying to assault her there. But she’d fought him off, with some partial success. More than partial success.

  What was clear to us all was that she’d stabbed him with a knife, the sort of multipurpose knife scouts and guides carry around with them, for she still clutched the knife even then in her right hand as if she’d thought he might make for her again. How she came to have such a weapon beside her—as I say, she was completely naked—I can’t explain.

  My next clear recollection is of sitting with the other three in the downstairs room drinking neat whisky and wondering what on earth to do, trying to devise some plan. Something! Anything! All of us—certainly three of us—had the same dread fear in mind, I’m sure of it: of being exposed to society, to our friends, families, children, everyone—exposed for what we really were—cheap, dirty-minded perverts. Scandal, shame, ruin—never had I known such panic and despair.

  I now come to the most difficult part of my statement, and I can’t vouch for the precise motives of all of us, or indeed for some specific details. But the main points of that day are fairly clear to me still—albeit they seem in retrospect to have taken place in a sort of blur of unreality. Let me put it simply. We decided to cover up the whole ghastly tragedy. It must seem almost incredible that we took such enormous trouble to cover ourselves, yet that is what we did. McBryde told us that the only others who knew of the Swedish girl’s visit were the model agency, and he said he would see to it that there was no trouble from that quarter. That left—how terrible it all now sounds!—two bodies, two dead bodies. There could be no thought of their being disposed of before the hours of darkness, and so it was agreed that the four of us should reassemble at Seckham Villa at 9:45 P.M.

  For the last few months Myton had been living out of suitcases—out of two large, battered-looking brown suitcases. And in fact had been staying with McBryde, on and off, for several of the previous weeks. But McBryde was still cursing himself for letting the two of them, Myton and the girl, go out into the back garden, since if any of the neighbours had seen Karin Eriksson they would quite certainly have remembered her clearly. His fears on this score however seem to have been groundless. As far as Myton’s suitcases and personal effects were concerned, McBryde himself would be putting them into the back of his van and carting them off to the Redbridge Waste Reception Centre early the following morning. Myton’s car was a much bigger headache but the enormous rise in the number of car-related crimes in Oxford that year suggested a reasonably simple solution. It was decided that I should drive the Honda out to the edge of Otmoor at 10:45 p.m. that same night, kick in all the panels, smash all the windows, and take a hammer to the engine. And this was done. McBryde had followed me in his van—and indeed assisted me in my vandalism before driving me back to Oxford.

  That was my rôle. But there was the other huge problem—the disposal of two bodies, and also the ditching somewhere of the girl’s rucksack. Why we didn’t decide to dump the rucksack with Myton’s suitcases, I just don’t know. And what a tragic mistake that proved! The bodies were eventually loaded into the back of McBryde’s van which drove off under the darkness of that night—this is what I understand—first to Wytham, where after Michaels had unlocked the gate leading to the woods the two foresters had transferred Myton’s body to the Land-rover, and then driven out to dispose of the body in the heart of the woods somewhere—I never knew where.

  Then the same men drove out to Blenheim where Daley, naturally, had easy access to any part of the Great Park, and where Karin Eriksson’s body, wrapped in a blanket and weighed down with stones, was pushed into the lake there—again I never knew where.

  Looking back, the whole thing seems so very crude and cruel. But some people act strangely when they are under stress—and we were all under tremendous stress that terrible day. Whether the others involved will be willing to corroborate this sequence of events, I don’t know. What is to be believed is that this statement has been made of my own free will with no coercion or promptings, and that it is true.

  The statement was dated I.viii.1992, and signed by Dr. Alan Hardinge, Fellow of Lonsdale College, Oxford, in the presence of Detective Chief Inspector Morse, Detective Sergeant Lewis, and WPC Wright—no solicitor being present, at Dr. Hardinge’s request.

  Whilst Hardinge was still only some halfway through his statement, George Daley, eager as ever to take advantage of overtime, was boxing some petunias in the walled garden at Blenheim Garden Centre. He had not heard the footsteps; but he felt the touch of a hand on his shoulder, and jerked nervously.

  “Christ! You got ’ere quick.”

  “You said it was urgent.”

  “It is bloody urgent.”

  “What is?”

  “Now look—!”

  “No, you look! The police’ll have that statement some time this morning—probably got it already. And we’ve agreed—you’ve agreed—remember that!”

  Daley took off the ever-present hat, and wiped the back of his right wrist across his sweaty forehead.

  “Not any longer I haven’t bloody agreed, mat
e. Look at this!” Daley took a letter from his pocket. “Came in the post this morning, dinnit? That’s why I rang. See what I could get done for? Me! Just for that fuckin’ twerp o’ mine. No, mate! What we agreed’s no good no longer. We double it—or else no deal. Four, that’s what I want. Not two. Four!”

  “Four? Where the hell do you reckon that’s coming from?”

  “Your problem, innit?”

  “If I could find it,” said the other slowly, “how do I know you’re not going—”

  “You don’t. Trust, innit? I shan’t ask nothin’ more never though—not if we make it four.”

  “I can’t get anything, you know that—not till the bank opens Monday.”

  There was a silence between them.

  “You won’t regret it, mate,” said Daley finally.

  “You will, though, if you ever come this sort of thing again.”

  “Don’t you threaten me!”

  “I’m not just threatening you, Daley—I’ll bloody kill you if you try it on again.” There was a menace and a power now in his quiet voice, and he turned to go. “Better if you come to me—fewer people about.”

  “Don’t mind.”

  “About ten—no good any earlier. In my office, OK?”

  “Make it outside your office.”

  The other shrugged. “Makes no difference to me.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Everything comes if a man will only wait

  (Benjamin Disraeli, Tancred)

  An hour after Hardinge had left—had been allowed to leave—Lewis came back into Morse’s office with three photocopies of the document.

  Morse picked up one set of the sheets and looked fairly cursorily, it appeared, at the transcript of Hardinge’s statement. “What did you make of things?”

  “One or two things a bit odd, sir.”

  “Only one or two?”

  “Well, there’s two things, really. I mean, there’s this fellow Daley, isn’t there? He’s at Park Town that afternoon and that night he shoves the girl’s body into the lake at Blenheim.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, then he leaves the girl’s rucksack in a hedge-bottom at Begbroke. I mean—”

  “I wish you’d stop saying ‘I mean’, Lewis.”

  “Well, you’d think he’d have left it miles away, wouldn’t you? He could easily have dumped it out at Burford or Bicester or somewhere. I me—”

  “Why not put it in the blanket? With the body?”

  “Well, yes. Anywhere—except where he left it.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Why don’t we ask him then?”

  “All in good time, Lewis! You just said two things, didn’t you?”

  “Ah, well. It’s the same sort of thing, really. They decided to put Myton’s body in Wytham Woods, agreed? And they did put it there, because we’ve found it. What I can’t understand is why Michaels told you where it was. I mean—Sorry, sir!”

  “But he didn’t, did he? He didn’t exactly give us a six-figure grid-reference.”

  “He told you about Pasticks, though.”

  “Among other places, yes.” For a while Morse looked out across the tarmac yard, unseeing it seemed, though nodding gravely. “Ye-es! Very good, Lewis! You’ve put your finger—two fingers—on the parts of that statement that would worry anyone; anyone even half as intelligent as you are.”

  Lewis was unsure whether this was exactly the compliment that Morse had intended; but the master was beginning his own analysis:

  “You see—ask yourself this. Why did Daley have to dump the rucksack, and then find it himself? As you rightly say, why so close to the place they’d just dumped her body? What’s the reason? What could be the reason? Any reason? Then, again just as you say, why was Michaels prepared to be so helpful to us? Crackers, isn’t it—if he didn’t want anyone to find the body? So why? Why give us any chance of finding it? Why not give us a duff list of utterly improbable sites? God! Wytham’s as big as …” (Morse had difficulty with the simile) “as the pond out at Blenheim.”

  “ ‘Lake’, sir—about two hundred acres of it. Take a bit of dragging, that.”

  “Take a lot of dragging.”

  “Forget it, then?”

  “Yes, forget it! I think so. As I told you yesterday, Lewis …”

  “You still think you were right about that?”

  “Oh, yes! No doubt about it. All we’ve got to do is to sit back and wait. We’re going to have people come to us, Lewis. We’re losing nothing. You can take it from me there’ll be no more casualties in this case unless … unless it’s that silly young sod, Philip Daley.”

  “We might as well take a bit of a breather then, sir.”

  “Why not? Just one thing you can do on your way home, though. Look in at Lonsdale, will you? See who was on duty at the Porters’ Lodge last night, and try to find out if our friend Hardinge had any visitors in his rooms. And if so, how many, and who they were.”

  For the moment, however, Lewis seemed reluctant to leave.

  “You sure you don’t want me to go and pick up Daley and Michaels?”

  “I just told you. They’ll be coming to us. One of ’em will, anyway, unless I’m very much mistaken.”

  “Which you seldom are.”

  “Which I seldom am.”

  “You don’t want to tell me which one?”

  “Why shouldn’t I want to tell you which one?”

  “Well?”

  “All right. I’ll bet you a fiver to a cracked piss-pot that the Head Warden, the Lone Ranger, or whatever his name is, will call here—in person or on the phone—before you sit watching the six o’clock news on the telly.”

  “Earlier than that, sir—on a Saturday—the TV news.”

  “Oh, and before you go, leave these on Johnson’s desk, will you? He won’t be in till Monday, I shouldn’t think, but I promised to keep him fully informed.” He handed over the third set of photocopied pages, and Lewis rose to depart.

  “Do you want me to ring you if I find anything?”

  “If it’s interesting, yes,” said Morse, with apparent indifference.

  * * *

  Earlier that day, Lewis thought he’d had a pretty clear idea of what the case was all about; or what Morse had told him the case was all about. But now on leaving Kidlington HQ his mind was far more confused, as if whatever else had been the purpose of Hardinge’s statement it had certainly muddled the waters of his, Lewis’s, mind, though apparently not that of his chief’s.

  As it happened (had he remembered it) Morse would have lost any bet that might have been made, for no one, either in person or on the telephone, was to call on him that afternoon. In fact he did nothing after Lewis left. At one point he almost decided to attend the last night of The Mikado at Wytham. But he hadn’t got a ticket, and it would probably be a sell-out; and in any case he’d bought a CD of Mozart’s Requiem.

  Cathy saw him there that final evening, ten minutes before the curtain was scheduled to rise: the bearded, thick-set, independent soul she’d been so happy to marry in spite of the difference in their ages. He was talking quite animatedly to an attractive woman on the row in front of him, doubtless flirting with her just a little, with that dry, easy, confidential tone he could so easily assume. Yet Cathy felt not the slightest spasm of jealousy—for she knew that it was she who meant almost everything to him.

  She let the drape fall back across her line of vision, and went back to the ladies’ dressing room where, over her left shoulder, she surveyed herself in the full-length mirror. The simple, short black dresses, with their white collars and red belts, and the suspender-held black stockings, had proved one of the greatest attractions of the show; and each of the three perhaps not-so-little maids, if truth were known, was enjoying the slightly titillating exhibitionism of it all. Cathy had omitted to ask David if he really approved; or if he might be just a teeny bit jealous. She hoped he was, of course; but, no, he needn’t be. Oh no, he needn’t ever be.
/>   * * *

  Like most amateur and indeed professional productions, The Mikado had been put together in disparate bits, with almost all chronological sequencing impossible until the dress rehearsal. Thus it was that David Michaels, though attending a good many practices during the previous month, had little idea of what, perhaps rather grandly, was sometimes called the opera’s “plot”. Nor had his understanding been much forwarded as a result of the first night’s performance, for his mind was dwelling then on more important matters. And now, on this final night, his mind was even further distanced, while he watched the on-stage action as if through some semi-opaque gauze; while he listened to the squeaky orchestra as if his ears were stuffed with cotton wool …

  He recalled that phone call the previous evening, after which he’d driven down to Oxford, had luckily found a parking place just beside Blackwell’s bookshop in the Broad, and then walked through Radcliffe Square and across the cobbles into Lonsdale College, where he’d followed his instructions, walked straight past the Porters’ Lodge as if on some high behest, and then into Hardinge’s rooms in the front quad, where McBryde had already arrived, and where Daley was to appear within minutes.

  Over a year it had been since they’d last met—a year in which virtually nothing had occurred; a year during which the police files had been kept open (he assumed); but a year in which he and the others, the quartet of them, would have assumed with ever-growing relief and confidence that no one would, or ever could, now discover the truth about that hot and distant sunny day.

  It was that bloody letter in the paper that had stirred it all up again—as well as that man Morse. What a shock it had been when they’d found the body—since he, Michaels, had no idea whatsoever it had been there at all. Bad luck, certainly. What a slice of good luck though that he’d found the antler-handled knife, because no one was ever going to find that again, lying deep as it was in the lake at Blenheim Park. Yes, the last vestige of evidence was at last obliterated, and the situation was beginning to right itself again; or rather had been so beginning … until he’d taken the second phone call, early that very morning; the call from that cesspit of a specimen out at Begbroke. But Daley could wait for a while; Daley would play along with them for a little longer yet. The one thing Michaels was quite unable to understand was why Morse was waiting. And that made him very uneasy. Perhaps everybody was waiting …