by David Bishop
Morse and Lewis go to the White Horse in Kidlington for a pint. Morse decides the beer is drinkable. He stays in the pub, drinking continuously for two hours.
Lewis brings Morse a few cans of beer when the injured inspector is stuck at home. Everyone attributes Morse’s infirmity to gout from port drinking.
Morse invites Sue for a drink at the ‘Bird and Baby’ (an Oxford nickname for the Eagle and Child pub), but takes her to a dinner dance instead.
Morse and Lewis go for a drink after establishing the letter sent to Jennifer was not written on Crowther’s own typewriter.
Morse has a cup of Horlicks to help him sleep – accompanied by a glass of whisky.
Morse and Sue have drinks at the Sheridan before going to the dinner dance. He is disappointed they are only given one bottle of wine to share and orders a bottle of champagne. On his way home Morse stops at the White Horse for two double whiskies.
Morse and Lewis return to the Black Prince where the inspector orders two pints of best bitter.
Morse accepts a drink offered by a college colleague of Crowther.
Morse and Lewis stop at the Morris Bar in Woodstock for a pint. Morse buys the second round.
Morse has a pint of bitter at the ‘Bird and Baby’.
Morse meets with Palmer at the Bull and Stirrup in Walton Street. The inspector dislikes the pub for its shabby clientele and décor.
ONE FOR THE MORGUE: Sylvia Kaye is murdered by a blow to the skull with a heavy tyre-spanner by Sue Widdowson. Margaret Crowther commits suicide by gassing herself in the family kitchen. Bernard Crowther dies in hospital after two heart attacks.
MURDERS: one. BODY COUNT: three.
INCREASE YOUR VOCABULARY: The Black Prince is gently bathed in half-light, giving it a chiaroscuro (contrast of light and shade) effect. Morse tries to speak in an inchoate (incomplete, undeveloped) way in order to disguise his voice.
THE MANY LUSTS OF MORSE: The Black Prince’s barmaid, Gaye McFee, feels that Morse has already undressed her with his eyes. He says he would come into the pub and drool over her every night of the week if he lived nearby.
Morse notices how attractive Jennifer is. He wonders if he could fall for her and decides that, as usual, he could.
Morse thinks a nurse’s uniform does more for a woman than all the finest garments made by fashion houses.
CRYPTIC CROSSWORDS: Morse works on the Times crossword in the manager’s office of the Black Prince. He thinks the clue for 14 down is appropriate to their circumstances: ‘Take in bachelor? It could do (3)’. His answer is ‘bra’. Lewis feels out of his depth, only occasionally managing to complete the Daily Mirror coffee-time crossword.
Crosswords are a passion for Morse, but he has found few setters to please his taste since the death of the great Ximenes. He enjoys the puzzles in the Listener each week. Morse is starting a crossword when its instructions give him a clue to the code in Jennifer’s letter.
Morse ponders a new day and recalls a quote from Wordsworth recently featured in the Times crossword: ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.’
YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN, LEWIS: Lewis sets Morse’s blood tingling when he talks about car troubles. This leads Morse to discover Jennifer’s car had a flat tyre on the night of Sylvia’s murder.
MORSE DECODED: Morse knows the porter’s lodge at St John’s College well. He was an undergraduate there 20 years ago.
PORN TO BE WILD: Morse is disappointed to discover not even a single paragraph of pornography inside a pile of women’s magazines in Sylvia’s bedroom.
The Studio 2 cinema in Walton Street is showing a double bill of sexploitation films – Danish Blue and Hot Pants. Lewis visits the cinema on Morse’s behalf, but suspects his chief would have gladly taken the assignment but for his injured foot. Lewis finds the film a bit erotic, but doesn’t want to admit it – even to himself.
SOPHOCLES DID DO IT: Morse believes Jennifer was the woman at the bus stop with Sylvia and that Jennifer knows the man who murdered Sylvia. He soon decides on a Grand Design in which Crowther is the killer.
Lewis makes a rare contribution to the unlikely theories category, suggesting the second hitchhiker could have been a man.
LEWIS’ KITH AND KIN: Lewis was in the Armed Forces. He is several years older than Morse. He has a 13-year-old daughter.
The sergeant had an uncle whose toes were run over by a beer barrel. Lewis and his wife always eat fish and chips off the newspaper wrappings, because it tastes better. Mrs Lewis often cooks chips.
Lewis goes home early as the investigation draws to a close – his wife has a touch of the flu and their kids are a bit of a handful.
PEOPLE JUST CALL ME MORSE: After his unhappy date with Sue, Morse realises she didn’t even ask his first name. Only when he has arrested her for murder does she put the inevitable question. The answer goes unrecorded.
SOUNDTRACK: Morse delights in Wagnerian opera. He listens to the Prelude to Das Rheingold at home while contemplating a puzzle in the Listener. He later lies to Jennifer about listening to the same piece the night Sylvia was murdered.
QUOTE-UNQUOTE: Morse displays his casual ignorance of proper police procedure: ‘I never did understand the legal situation over search warrants.’
The inspector shows Lewis his gift for understatement: ‘I know you’d never believe it, but I can be an officious bastard when I want to be.’
Morse and his sergeant have a blazing row, which ends badly: ‘Oh, bugger off, Lewis. You’re boring me.’
The chief inspector reveals his callous side when contemplating the written confession of Margaret Crowther after her suicide. ‘I don’t think much of her English style. She uses far too many dashes for my liking.’
SURVEILLANCE REPORT: The book is divided into three parts – ‘Search for a girl’, ‘Search for a man’ and ‘Search for a killer’. Events take place over 27 days between Wednesday 29 September and Monday 25 October.
When Morse first appears he is described as a lightly built, dark-haired man. He later grooms his thinning hair, carefully drawing a few strands across a broad bald patch at the back of his skull. He has no problems examining the corpse of Sylvia, unlike his behaviour in later novels.
Marks and Spencer is Morse’s favourite store. He keeps bills behind the clock on the mantelpiece. He reads reports with amazing rapidity. He smokes haphazardly but without being addicted, at one point getting through a packet of 20 king-size within a few hours. Morse says he seldom has any visitors.
His car is a faithful old Jaguar – powerful, reliable and capable of covering 300 miles on a full tank. But its reliability fails after several days sat in the garage while Morse’s injury heals. He has to get a new battery fitted.
Inspector Bell of the Oxford City Police makes his first, brief appearance. He is the senior officer called to attend Margaret Crowther’s suicide.
Morse knows Sergeant Lewis only slightly at the start of the novel, but soon finds himself impressed by Lewis’ level-headed competence and honesty. He thinks they will get on well together. He’s right!
In a poll of Inspector Morse Society members, Last Bus to Woodstock tied with two other novels as the third best book in the series.
BEHIND THE CRIME SCENES: Dexter famously began writing this novel while on a rain-soaked holiday in Wales, having run out of things to read. The manuscript was rejected by the first publisher he approached but accepted by the next, Macmillan. Dexter originally called his novel Ten Miles to Woodstock, but Macmillan objected because the distance involved was only six miles. The author objected to the publisher’s suggestion for a replacement title, Last Bus to Woodstock, because the bus involved clearly wasn’t the last. Dexter eventually relented and agreed to the published title.
THE VERDICT: Last Bus to Woodstock establishes many of the key motifs of the novels – Morse’s love of beer, his car and classical music, his unorthodox methods and his sometimes fractious relationship with Lewis. Other touchstones of the books and the subsequent
TV series, such as Morse’s efforts to avoid buying a round and his dislike of corpses, are conspicuous by their absence. These will come...
Dexter keeps readers guessing with a multitude of red herrings, lies and mistaken confessions. The murderer proves to be the least likely candidate, a woman who never produces an alibi because she is never a suspect. Trust Morse to fall in love with the killer!
LAST SEEN WEARING
‘It’s just not my sort of case, Lewis... I just get on better when we’ve got a body – a body that died of unnatural causes.’ Morse turns a missing persons case into a murder inquiry, only to discover the missing person is actually a murderer!
FIRST PUBLISHED: 1976
STORYLINE: Donald Phillipson visits Oxford for an interview to become head of Roger Bacon Comprehensive School. He meets a teenage girl at a bus stop.
Three and a half years later, Chief Superintendent Strange gives Morse a missing persons case. Valerie Taylor disappeared two years ago. The case is revived when Valerie sends her parents a letter saying she is all right. It was posted from London EC4.
Morse visits Eileen Ainley, the widow of the detective chief inspector who had been investigating Valerie’s disappearance before he was killed in a car crash. She gives him a diary in which her husband has written 42 Southampton Terrace. Ainley visited the address the day before Valerie posted her letter.
Morse and Lewis question the headmaster of Roger Bacon School, Mr Phillipson. He is unable to identify Valerie’s handwriting but shows them to a storeroom where Lewis finds her exercise books. The second master, Baines, gives the detectives Valerie’s timetable, homework schedule and a list of her teachers. Morse studies all this and discovers that the French teacher, David Acum, was the last person to see Valerie. Acum now lives and works in Caernarfon.
The detectives go to Southampton Terrace and learn that Ainley questioned one of the tenants, John Maguire. He works at the Penthouse strip club in Soho. Morse questions Maguire, who says Valerie was pregnant when she disappeared. Morse correctly guesses that the missing girl slept with Phillipson.
A forensic report says the letter bears Valerie’s handwriting. Morse dismisses this. Another letter from Valerie is received, this time sent directly to the police. Mrs Taylor, meanwhile, tells Morse her husband is not Valerie’s natural father.
The chief inspector phones Acum in Wales. The French teacher says Valerie left him to go to see the headmaster on the day she vanished.
Forensics report that the second letter is most likely in Valerie’s handwriting. Morse later admits writing the letter himself.
Baines ponders the past. He saw Phillipson with Valerie on the day of the job interviews for the post of head. Baines didn’t get the job, but he acquired a valuable piece of information that day. Morse suspects Baines of blackmailing Phillipson.
Acum returns to Oxford for a conference. Phillipson warns Baines to keep his mouth shut, after which Baines gets an unexpected visitor at home, who murders him with a carving knife.
Lewis finds one of Valerie’s exercise books among Baines’ possessions. Inside are what look like drafts of the letter from Valerie. Morse believes Baines wrote the first letter. Lewis then falls ill with pharyngitis, requiring three or four days in bed.
A neighbour recalls seeing a woman wearing a cerise pink coat visiting Baines on the night of the murder. Morse remembers Mrs Phillipson has such a coat. She admits going to the house but got no reply. She saw Acum nearby.
Morse drives to Wales. He meets Mrs Acum at home then goes to the school where her husband teaches. Acum admits visiting Baines; he also got no reply. Morse concludes that both Mrs Phillipson and Acum are telling the truth – Baines was murdered before either of them arrived. Financial reports show Baines had large savings, with no obvious source of extra income.
A police report from London proves Valerie had an abortion soon after leaving Oxford. Morse traces Yvonne Baker, a high-class prostitute who met Valerie at an abortion clinic. She says the father of the unwanted baby was Valerie’s French teacher – Acum.
Lewis returns to work. He and Morse drive to Caernarfon, where the police have detained Acum. But Morse goes to the teacher’s house first and accuses Mrs Acum of being Valerie. He believes she murdered Baines. But Mrs Acum convinces Morse he is wrong.
Mrs Phillipson voluntarily confesses to murdering Baines, but Morse doesn’t believe her. He wants to be taken off the case. He sorts through the reports one last time and comes to a startling realisation.
Valerie sheds her pretence of being Mrs Acum and vanishes from Caernarfon, bound for London. Morse’s call to the local police comes too late and she gets away, disappearing for the second time...
UNLUCKY IN LOVE: High-class prostitute Yvonne takes a fancy to Morse. He gives her a lift to a pyjama party and she is sad that he doesn’t respond to her allure. She calls to ensure that he has her address and number, should he wish to contact her.
Morse eventually decides to revisit Yvonne but then accuses her of actually being Valerie. She proves her true identity and asks Morse if he wants to sleep with her. He declines the invitation.
DRINK UP, LEWIS: Morse downs three whiskies at the New Theatre. He would have more but the bar is closed. Morse likes the pubs at Wolvercote, which have beer drawn straight from the wood. The inspector has a pint at the King Charles. He visits Mrs Ainley and drinks two gin and tonics.
After a week on the case, Morse resolves on a day of total abstinence. By lunchtime he is drinking three pints of flat beer in a pub.
Morse and Lewis visit a pub near the Taylors’ home. Morse finishes his first pint and impatiently has a second while Lewis is still drinking his first. Morse buys them both another pint.
Morse and Lewis drink beer at The Angel pub in Soho.
Baines buys Morse a beer at the White Horse. The inspector gets the next round, while Baines buys the third.
Morse says the beer at Oxford’s Station Hotel is bloody awful.
The inspector drinks two pints of best bitter at a pub near the police station.
When Morse drives to Caernarfon he samples two pints of the local brew at a pub called the Prince of Wales. The beer is good.
Morse considers beer the cheapest drug on the market and wishes his doctor would prescribe it on the National Health Service.
The inspector sips a liberal helping of whisky while the recovering Lewis dunks bread in his Bovril. Later Morse visits the pub near the police station but leaves after a single pint.
Morse gets a letter from Chief Inspector Rogers of New Scotland Yard with a postscript describing the beer at the Westminster pub as drinkable.
When Morse says Mrs Taylor drinks at lunchtime, Lewis points out that Morse does too. The inspector protests he only drinks in moderation. Later in the novel Morse goes to the Fletchers’ Arms and consumes four pints of bitter in an hour on an empty stomach before 1.00 pm.
Morse has several whiskies when he revisits Yvonne.
ONE FOR THE MORGUE: Reginald Baines, stabbed in the back with a carving knife by Valerie Taylor.
MURDERS: one. BODY COUNT: one.
INCREASE YOUR VOCABULARY: The inspector has a hebdomadal (weekly) debate about which Sunday newspaper to buy. Morse describes the police handwriting expert as pettifogging (quibbling). Morse’s brain roams restlessly around his skull, ceaselessly circumambulating (going round about).
THE MANY LUSTS OF MORSE: Lewis and Morse visit the Penthouse strip club in Soho, where the inspector enjoys the show. Morse returns for another viewing while Lewis is occupied elsewhere.
The inspector finds Mrs Taylor attractive. Her figure is still good and her clothes hang well on her. Morse realises he needs a woman.
He is attracted to the ward sister at a rest home, but cannot pluck up the courage to express his feelings.
The inspector feels lecherous as a billy-goat when greeted by Valerie, who pretends to be Mrs Acum. She is clad only in a meagre white towel. It droops to reveal the beautifully moulded out
line of her breasts and for a brief moment falls away from one breast completely. Morse feels an almost irresistible urge to hold the erect nipple between his fingers. But he lacks the courage of his own depravity.
Morse phones the speaking clock and decides the female voice is nice and probably belongs to a blonde. He has not eaten for over 24 hours, but his lust outweighs his hunger.
The inspector imagines undressing Yvonne.
CRYPTIC CROSSWORDS: The quotation beginning chapter two uses a clue from a Ximenes crossword: We’ll get excited with Ring seat (10).
Morse has a precise method for the Times crossword. He marks his exact start time in the paper’s margin and allows himself only ten minutes, almost always completing it. Early in the novel one clue remains unsolved after ten minutes: ‘Eyes had I – and saw not (6)’. Lewis feebly suggests parson. Morse finally hits upon the answer: Watson.
The inspector does a Daily Telegraph crossword to kill time. It takes less than eight minutes, but is easier than the Times. Morse likens the Valerie Taylor case to a crossword in his mind.
Later in the novel Morse takes a preliminary look at a clue in the Times crossword: ‘Code name for a walrus (5)’. He thinks this is like a megaphone shouting the answer at him, and considers it a good omen.
When Lewis falls ill, Morse finishes the Times crossword in nine and a half minutes.
YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN, LEWIS: Lewis helps Morse solve a perplexing crossword clue (see above), and is praised as a genius.
MORSE DECODED: Morse played cricket and still keeps his batting averages. There have been women in his life. One or two still haunt his dreams.
PORN TO BE WILD: Morse has a copy of Extracts from Victorian Pornography in his bookcase. He decides he must store it somewhere less conspicuous.
Morse believes there is nothing so unsatisfactory as the kind of ‘halfway house’ pornography featured in the titillating columns of the News of the World.
When the police visit Maguire’s flat, they find half a dozen supremely pornographic magazines, imported from Denmark. Morse contentedly samples their contents while Lewis investigates the rest of the flat. The inspector even contemplates pocketing one of the magazines, but thinks better of it. The two men travel on to Soho, which Lewis is surprised to find Morse knows well.