The Wench is Dead

by Colin Dexter

  ‘Surprisingly, it had not been the hanging itself which had been the focal-point of Towns’ tortured thoughts that night. Rather it had been the knowledge of the public interest aroused in the case – the notoriety, the infamy, the horror, the abomination, the grisly spectacle, the fame; a fame which might bring those hapless men to walk the last few, fatal yards with a degree of fortitude which even the most pitiless spectators could admire.

  ‘Of the crime itself, Towns protested his complete innocence – a protestation not without precedent in criminal archives! But his recollection of the canal journey – and especially of the victim herself, Joanna Franks – was vivid and most poignant. The woman had been, in Towns’ eyes, quite wondrously attractive, and it may cause no surprise that she became, almost immediately, the object of the men’s craving, and the cause of open jealousies. Indeed, Towns recalled an occasion when two of the crew (the two who were eventually hanged) had come to blows over that provocative and desirable woman. And one of them with a knife! Even the young boy, Harold Wootton, had come under her spell, and the older woman had without much doubt taken advantage of his infatuation. At the same time, from what Towns asserted, and from the manner of his assertion, I am of the view that he himself did not have sexual dealings with the woman.

  ‘There is one interesting addendum to be made. In the first indictment (as I have subsequently read) the charge of either rape or theft would possibly have been prosecuted with more success than that of murder. Yet it was to be the charge of murder that was brought in the second trial. In similar instances, we may observe that the minor charge will frequently be suppressed when the major charge appears the more likely to be sustained. Was this, then, the reason why Towns seemed comparatively loquacious about the suggestion of theft? I know not. But it was his belief, as recounted to me, that Wootton had rather more interest in theft than in rape. After all, the availability of sexual dealings in 1860 was hardly, as now, a rarity along the English canals.’

  ‘Well, that’s it! I’ll put it in the post tonight, so you should—’

  ‘Can’t you call round, and bring it?’

  ‘Life’s, well, it’s just a bit hectic at the minute,’ she replied, after a little, awkward silence.

  ‘All right!’ Morse needed no further excuses. Having dipped the thermometer into the water, he’d found the reading a little too cold for any prospect of mixed bathing.

  ‘You see,’ said Christine, ‘I – I’m living with someone—’

  ‘And he doesn’t think you should go spending all your time helping me.’

  ‘I kept talking about you, too,’ she said quietly.

  Morse said nothing.

  ‘Is your address the same as in the telephone directory? E. Morse?’

  ‘That’s me! That is I, if you prefer it.’

  ‘What does the “E” stand for? I never knew what to call you.’

  ‘They just call me “Morse”.’

  ‘You won’t forget me?’ she asked, after a little pause.

  ‘I’ll try to, I suppose.’

  Morse thought of her for many minutes after he had cradled the phone. Then he recalled the testimony of Samuel Carter, and marvelled that a researcher of Carter’s undoubted experience and integrity could make so many factual errors in the course of three or four pages: the date of the murder; Towns’ accent; Towns’ age; Wootton’s Christian name; the dropping of the rape charge … Very interesting, though. Why, Morse had even guessed right about that dust-up with the knife! Well, almost right: he’d got the wrong man, but …

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  * * *

  The second coastline is turned towards Spain and the west, and off it lies the island of Hibernia, which according to estimates is only half the size of Britain

  (Julius Caesar, de Bello Gallico – on the geography of Ireland)

  TEN MINUTES LATER the phone rang again, and Morse knew in his bones that it was Christine Greenaway.

  It was Strange.

  ‘You’re out then, Morse – yes? That’s good. You’ve had a bit of a rough ride, they tell me.’

  ‘On the mend now, sir. Kind of you to ring.’

  ‘No great rush, you know – about getting back, I mean. We’re a bit understaffed at the minute, but give yourself a few days – to get over things. Delicate thing, the stomach, you know. Why don’t you try to get away somewhere for a couple of days – new surroundings – four-star hotel? You can afford it, Morse.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. By the way, they’ve signed me off for a fortnight – at the hospital.’

  ‘Fortnight? A fort-night?’

  ‘It’s, er, a delicate thing, the stomach, sir.’

  ‘Yes, well …’

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can, sir. And perhaps it wouldn’t do me any harm to take your advice – about getting away for a little while.’

  ‘Do you a world of good! The wife’s brother’ (Morse groaned inwardly) ‘he’s just back from a wonderful holiday. Ireland – Southern Ireland – took the car – Fishguard–Dun Laoghaire – then the west coast – you know, Cork, Kerry, Killarney, Connemara – marvellous, he said. Said you couldn’t have spotted a terrorist with a telescope!’

  It had been kind of Strange to ring; and as he sat in his armchair Morse reached idly for the World Atlas from his ‘large-book’ shelf, in which Ireland was a lozenge shape of green and yellow on page 10 – a country which Morse had never really contemplated before. Although spelling errors would invariably provoke his wrath, he confessed to himself that he could never have managed ‘Dun Laoghaire’, even with a score of attempts. And where was Kerry? Ah yes! Over there, west of Tralee – he was on the right bit of the map – and he moved his finger up the coast to Galway Bay. Then he saw it: Bertnaghboy Bay! And suddenly the thought of going over to Connemara seemed overwhelmingly attractive. By himself? Yes, it probably had to be by himself; and he didn’t mind that, really. He was somewhat of a loner by temperament – because though never wholly happy when alone he was usually slightly more miserable when with other people. It would have been good to have taken Christine, but … and for a few minutes Morse’s thoughts travelled back to Ward 7C. He would send a card to Eileen and Fiona; and one to ‘Waggie’ Greenaway, perhaps? Yes, that would be a nice gesture: Waggie had been out in the wash-room when Morse had left, and he’d been a pleasant old—

  Suddenly Morse was conscious of the tingling excitement in the nape of his neck, and then in his shoulders. His eyes dilated and sparkled as if some inner current had been activated; and he sat back in the armchair and smiled slowly to himself.

  What, he wondered, was the routine in the Irish Republic for exhumation?

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  * * *

  Oh what a tangled web we weave

  When first we practise to deceive!

  (Sir Walter Scott, Marmion)

  ‘YOU WHAT?’ asked a flabbergasted Lewis, who had called round at 7.30 p.m. (‘Not till The Archers has finished’ had been his strict instruction.) He himself had made an interesting little discovery – well, the WPC in St Aldates’ had made it, really – and he was hoping that it might amuse Morse in his wholly inconsequential game of ‘Find Joanna Franks’. But to witness Morse galloping ahead of the Hunt, chasing (as Lewis was fairly certain) after some imaginary fox of his own, was, if not particularly unusual, just a little disconcerting.

  ‘You see, Lewis’ (Morse was straightway in full swing) ‘this is one of the most beautiful little deceptions we’ve ever come across. The problems inherent in the case – almost all of them – are resolved immediately once we take one further step into imaginative improbability.’

  ‘You’ve lost me already, sir,’ protested Lewis.

  ‘No, I haven’t! Just take one more step yourself. You think you’re in the dark? Right? But the dark is where we all are. The dark is where I was, until I took one more step into the dark. And then, when I’d taken it, I found myself in the su
nshine.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ mumbled Lewis.

  ‘It’s like this. Once I read that story, I was uneasy about it – doubtful, uncomfortable. It was the identification bit that worried me – and it would have worried any officer in the Force today, you know that! But, more significantly, if we consider the psychology of the whole—’

  ‘Sir!’ (It was almost unprecedented for Lewis to interrupt the Chief in such peremptory fashion.) ‘Could we – could you – please forget all this psychological referencing? I just about get my fill of it all from some of these Social Services people. Could you just tell me, simply and—’

  ‘I’m boring you – is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Exactly what I’m saying, sir.’

  Morse nodded to himself happily. ‘Let’s put it simply, then, all right? I read a story in hospital. I get interested. I think – think – the wrong people got arrested, and some of ’em hanged, for the murder of that little tart from Liverpool. As I say, I thought the identification of that lady was a bit questionable; and when I read the words the boatmen were alleged to have used about her – well, I knew there must be something fundamentally wrong. You see—’

  ‘You said you’d get to the point, sir.’

  ‘I thought that Joanna’s father – No! Let’s start again! Joanna’s father gets a job as an insurance rep. Like most people in that position he gets a few of his own family, if they’re daft enough, to take out a policy with him. He gets a bit of commission, and he’s not selling a phoney product, anyway, is he? I think that both Joanna and her first husband, our conjurer friend, were soon enlisted in the ranks of the policy-holders. Then times get tough; and to crown all the misfortunes, Mr Donavan, the greatest man in all the world, goes and dies. And when Joanna’s natural grief has abated – or evaporated, rather – she finds she’s done very-nicely-thank-you out of the insurance taken on his life. She receives £100, with profits, on what had been a policy taken out only two or three years previously. Now, £100 plus in 1850-whenever was a very considerable sum of money; and Joanna perhaps began, at that point, to appreciate the potential for malpractice in the system. She began to see the insurance business not only as a potential future benefit, but as an actual, present source of profit. So, after Donavan’s death, when she met and married Franks, one of the first things she insisted on was his taking out a policy – not on his life – but on hers. Her father could, and did, effect such a transaction without any trouble, although it was probably soon after this that the Notts and Midlands Friendly Society got a little suspicious about Joanna’s father, Carrick – Daniel Carrick – and told him his services were no longer—’

  ‘Sir!’

  Morse held up his right hand. ‘Joanna Franks was never murdered, Lewis! She was the mastermind – mistressmind – behind a deception that was going to rake in some considerable, and desperately needed, profit. It was another woman, roughly the same age and the same height, who was found in the Oxford Canal; a woman provided by Joanna’s second husband, the ostler from the Edgware Road, who had already made his journey – not difficult for him! – with horse and carriage from London, to join his wife at Oxford. Or, to be more accurate, Lewis, at some few points north of Oxford. You remember in the Colonel’s book?’ (Morse turned to the passage he had in mind.) ‘He – here it is! – “he explained how in consequence of some information he had come into Oxfordshire” – Bloody liar!’

  Lewis, now interested despite himself, nodded a vague concurrence of thought. ‘So what you’re saying, sir, is that Joanna worked this insurance fiddle and probably made quite a nice little packet for herself and for her father as well?’

  ‘Yes! But not only that. Listen! I may just be wrong, Lewis, but I think that not only was Joanna wrongly identified as the lawful wife of Charles Franks – by Charles Franks – but that Charles Franks was the only husband of the woman supposedly murdered on the Barbara Bray. In short, the “Charles Franks” who broke down in tears at the second trial was none other than Donavan.’

  ‘Phew!’

  ‘A man of many parts: he was an actor, he was a conjurer, he was an impersonator, he was a swindler, he was a cunning schemer, he was a callous murderer, he was a loving husband, he was a tearful witness, he was the first and only husband of Joanna Franks: F. T. Donavan! We all thought – you thought – even I thought – that there were three principal characters playing their roles in our little drama; and now I’m telling you, Lewis, that in all probability we’ve only got two. Joanna; and her husband – the greatest man in all the world; the man buried out on the west coast of Ireland, where the breakers come rolling in from the Atlantic … so they tell me …’

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  * * *

  Stet Difficilior Lectio

  (Let the more difficult of the readings stand)

  (The principle applied commonly by editors faced with

  variant readings in ancient manuscripts)

  LEWIS WAS SILENT. How else? He had a precious little piece of evidence in his pocket, but while Morse’s mind was still coursing through the upper atmosphere, there was little point in interrupting again for the minute. He put the envelope containing the single photocopied sheet on the coffee-table – and listened further.

  ‘In the account of Joanna’s last few days, we’ve got some evidence that she could have been a bit deranged; and part of the evidence for such a possibility is the fact that at some point she kept calling out her husband’s name – “Franks! Franks! Franks!” Agreed? But she wasn’t calling out that at all – she was calling her first husband, Lewis! I was sitting here thinking of “Waggie” Greenaway—’

  ‘And his daughter,’ mumbled Lewis, inaudibly.

  ‘—and I thought of “Hefty” Donavan. F. T. Donavan. And I’ll put my next month’s salary on that “F” standing for “Frank”! Huh! Who’s ever heard of a wife calling her husband by his surname?’

  ‘I have, sir.’

  ‘Nonsense! Not these days.’

  ‘But it’s not these days. It was—’

  ‘She was calling Frank Donavan – believe me!’

  ‘But she could have been queer in the head, and if so—’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘Well, we shan’t ever know for sure, shall we, sir?’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  Morse sat back with the self-satisfied, authoritative air of a man who believes that what he has called ‘nonsense’ three times must, by the laws of the universe, be necessarily untrue. ‘If only we knew how tall they were – Joanna and … and whoever the other woman was. But there is just a chance, isn’t there? That cemetery, Lewis—’

  ‘Which do you want first, sir? The good news or the bad news?’

  Morse frowned at him. ‘That’s …?’ pointing to the envelope.

  ‘That’s the good news.’

  Morse slowly withdrew and studied the photocopied sheet.

  ‘Not the Coroner’s Report, sir, but the next best thing. This fellow must have seen her before the post-mortem. Interesting, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very interesting.’

  The report was set out on an unruled sheet of paper, dated, and subscribed by what appeared as a ‘Dr Willis’, for the writing was not only fairly typical of the semi-legibility forever associated with the medical profession, but was also beset by a confusion with ‘m’s, ‘w’s, ‘n’s, and ‘u’s – all these letters appearing to be incised with a series of what looked like semi-circular fish-hooks. Clearly the notes of an orderly-minded local doctor called upon to certify death and to take the necessary action – in this case, almost certainly, to pass the whole business over to some higher authority. Yet there were one or two real nuggets of gold here: the good Willis had made an exact measurement of height, and had written one or two most pertinent (and, apparently, correct) observations. Sad, however, from Morse’s point of view, was the unequivocal assertion made here that the body was still warm. It must have been this documen
t which had been incorporated into the subsequent post-mortem findings, thenceforth duly reiterated both in Court and in the Colonel’s history. And it was a pity; for if Morse had been correct in believing that another body had been substituted for that of Joanna Franks, that woman must surely have been killed in the early hours of the morning, and could not therefore have been drowned some three or four hours later. Far too risky. It was odd, certainly, that the dead woman’s face had turned black so very quickly; but there was no escaping the plain fact that the first medical man who had examined the corpse had found it still warm.

  Is that what the report had said, though – ‘still warm’? No! No, it hadn’t! It just said ‘warm’ … Or did it?

  Carefully Morse looked again at the report – and sensed the old familiar tingling around his shoulders. Could it be? Had everyone else read the report wrongly? In every case the various notes were separated from each other by some form of punctuation – either dashes (eight of them) or full stops (four) or question-marks (only one). All the notes except one, that is: the exception being that ‘body warm/full clothes …’ etc. There was neither a dash nor a stop between these two, clearly disparate, items – unless the photocopier had borne unfaithful witness. No! The solution was far simpler. There had been no break requiring any punctuation! Morse looked again at line 10 of the report,

  and considered three further facts. Throughout, the ‘s’s were written almost as straight vertical lines; of the fifteen or so ‘i’ dots, no fewer than six had remained un-dotted; and on this showing Willis seemed particularly fond of the word ‘was’. So the line should perhaps – should certainly! – read as follows: ‘on mouth (rt side) – body was in’. The body ‘was in full clothes’! The body was not ‘warm’; not in Morse’s book. There, suddenly, the body was very, very cold.