The Way Through The Woods (38 page)

'False alarm!' said the policeman with the
Sun,
as he resumed his reading of various illicit liaisons among the glitterati.

At 3.25 p.m., no more than four or five yards from the spot where Chief Inspector Johnson had earlier stood, there amongst the nettles and the cow-parsley and other less readily recognizable plants and weeds, Constable Roy Wilks made his discovery: a.243 bullet – the bullet (surely!) for which the party had been searching. Never, in his life hitherto, had Wilks been the focus of such attention; and never again (as he duly recognized) would he be likely to experience such felicitous congratulations.

Most particularly from Morse.

just simply, Morse! Just simply! I don't want to know what a clever sod you are. Just a straightforward – brief! – account. If vou can manage it.'

Following the final discoveries, new statements had been taken from both David Michaels and Karin Eriksson; and now, the following morning, as he sat in Strange's office, Morse was able to confirm in nearly every respect the pattern of events he'd outlined to Lewis in the White Hart.

Daley had been to the office in Wytham Woods on more than one occasion before, and a meeting had been arranged for o 45 a.m. on Monday, 3 August. At that time there would, with any luck, be virtually no one around; but only if no one
was
around, would the deed take place. And the deed
did
take place. When Daley got out of the van, Michaels shot him dead with his.243 rifle – the latter buried later out on the Singing Way. To Michaels himself the report had sounded terrifyingly loud; but following it a strangely eerie silence had reasserted itself, and no one had come rushing into the compound there demanding explanation, seeking causes. Nothing. A newly still, clear morning in early August. And a body – which Michaels had swiftly wrapped in black plastic sheeting and lifted into the back of Daley's own van. Only two or three minutes after the murder, this same van was being driven out through Wolvercote, over to the A44 towards Woodstock, left at Bladon, and then into Long Hanborough – and finally up to Combe Lodge, on the western side of the Blenheim Estate. The keys to the lodge gate would doubtless have been somewhere on the body, but the van-driver waited a while and was very quickly rewarded when the gate was opened for a tractor and trailer; and when the van driver, pulling Daley's khaki-green hat down over her short, black hair, moved into the trailer's wake, raising a hand in acknowledgement to any anonymous observer as she drove gratefully through. A few hundred yards along she had spotted an ideal location in which to leave a van, and a body, and a hat. Daley had not been a heavy man, and she herself was a strong young woman; yet she had been unable to lift the corpse -just to pull it over the tail-board, whence it fell with a thud to the hard soil. The plastic sheet was messily sticky with blood, and she had taken it with her as she ran off, across the road, to the tip of the lake, where she washed the blood from her hands and wedged the sheet beneath some reeds. Then, following the arranged plan, she'd jogged her way back – though not, she claimed, through Combe Lodge, as Morse had suggested (and Williams could have sworn) – but down by the western side of the lake, across the small bridge that spans the River Glyme below the Grand Cascade, and out of the park via Eagle Lodge.

'Helluva long way, whichever route she took,' mumbled Strange.

'Some people are fitter than others, sir.'

'Not thinking
of yourself,
are you?'

'No!'

'Bit lucky, though – the fellow at the lodge remembering the van going through.'

'With all respect, sir, I don't think that's true. In fact, it led us all to believe that Daley was alive until after ten o'clock – when David Michaels was miles away with his RSPB pals round the bird-boxes. But Michaels could
never
have done it himself- not by himself- that morning. There was no way at all that
he
could have got out to Blenheim and somehow – somehow – got back to Wytham.'

'But his wife could. That's what you're saying.'

'His wife did.'

'She was a brave girl.'

'She
is
a brave girl, sir.'

'You know, if they'd only have played it straight up and down the wicket from the start – either of them – they'd probably have got away with justifiable homicide, self-defence, take your pick.'

'Perhaps.'

'You don't sound very convinced.'

'I think she's a rather more complex woman than that.

Perhaps… perhaps she couldn't quite persuade herself that killing Myton had been purely in self-defence.'

'You mean – you mean she might have enjoyed it?'

'I didn't say that, sir.'

Strange shook his head. 'I see what you're getting at, though. Prepared – wasn't she? – to drive Daley's body out to Blenheim and…'

'She's a complex woman, as I say, sir. I'm not sure I understand her at all really.'

'Perhaps she's a bit of a mystery even to herself.'

Morse got up to leave. 'Same thing in most cases, isn't it? We never really understand people's motives. In all these things it's as if there's a manifestation – but there's always a bit of a mystery too.'

'Now don't you start going all religious on
me,
Morse!'

'No chance of that.'

'I don't suppose anyone'll miss Daley all that much.'

'No. He was a
small
man-'

'Was he? How tall was he?'

'No. I didn't mean small in that sense. But he
was
physically small, yes. Only weighed eight stone, four pounds.'

'How do you know that?'

'They weighed him, sir
-post mortem.'

the following day, Friday, 8 August, Morse's attention was early drawn to the correspondence columns of
The Times.

Sir, Over these past years we have all become aware of the increasing influence of trial (and retrial) by TV. We have seen, for example, the collapse of cases brought against the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four; and doubtless in the years ahead we may confidently anticipate the acquittal of the Towcester Two and the Winchester One.

Are we now to become similarly conditioned to police enquiries conducted in the nation's quality daily newspapers (including, of course, your own, sir)? I learn that the Thames Valley Police has now been able to prefer charges against persons in the 'Swedish Maiden' case – and this in considerable measure thanks to the original verses published in your correspondence columns. Clearly we should be grateful for such an outcome. But am I alone in being troubled by such a precedent? Am I alone in believing that such affairs, both judicial and investigative, are better left in the hands of those men and women suitably trained in their respective specialisms?

Yours faithfully,

REGINALD POSTILL,

6 Baker Lane,

Shanklin,

Isle of Wight.

Lewis had come into his office as Morse was reading this; and duly read it himself.

'Bit hard that, isn't it? I'd have thought it all helped us quite a bit. I can't myself really see what's wrong with getting a bit of public co-operation and interest.'

'Oh, I agree,' said Morse.

'Perhaps we shouldn't be too much worried about some retired old colonel from the Isle of Wight, sir.'

Morse smiled knowingly across at his old friend. 'What makes you think he's retired?' he asked very quietly.

That same evening, Morse's celebratory mood was undiminished; and he had walked down to Summertown immediately after
The Archers
and carried back up to his flat four bottles of champagne: not the dearest, it must be admitted – yet not the cheapest either. Strange, Johnson, Lewis – and himself. Four of them. Just for a congratulatory glass or two. Dr Laura Hobson had been invited too (how otherwise?); but she had phoned earlier in the evening to make her apologies – an emergency; sorry, she'd loved to have been there; but these things couldn't be helped, could they?

Harold Johnson was the first to leave, at 9.15 pm. One glass of bubbly, and the plea that the wife would be awaiting him. Yet of all of them it was probably Johnson who was the most grateful soul there that evening: the procedures surrounding the prosecutions of two suspected murderers – David Michaels and Mrs Michaels -would be entrusted now to him, to Johnson and his team, since Morse had announced his intention of resuming immediately his truncated furlough which had begun (so long ago it seemed) in the Bay Hotel at Lyme Regis.

Three glasses of bubbly and ten minutes later, Strange had struggled to his feet and announced his imminent departure.

‘Thanks! And enjoy your holiday!'

'If you'll let me.'

'Where are you going this time?'

'I was thinking of Salisbury, sir.',

'Why Salisbury?'

Morse hesitated. They've just tarted up the cathedral there,] and I thought – '

'You
sure
you're not going religious on me, Morse?'

Two of the champagne bottles were finished, and Morse picked up a third, starting to twist open the wire round its neck. 'No more for me,' said Lewis.

Morse put the bottle back on the sideboard. 'Would you prefer a Newcastle Brown?'

'I think I would, to be honest, sir.'

'C'mon, then!'

Morse led the way through to the cluttered kitchen.

'You trying for
my
job, sir?' Lewis pointed to the ancient portable typewriter that stood at one end of the kitchen table,

'Ah! That! I was just writing a 'brief line to
The Times.'
¹
He handed Lewis his effort: a messy, ill-typed, xxxx-infested missive.

'Would you like me to re-type it for you, sir? It's a bit…'

'Yes, please. I'd be grateful for that.'

So Lewis sat there, at the kitchen table, and retyped the brief letter. That it took him rather longer than it should have done was occasioned by two factors: first, that Lewis himself could boast only semi-competence in the keyboard-skills; second, that he had found himself looking, with increasingly puzzled interest, at the very first line he'd typed. And then at the second. And then at the third… Especially did he find himself examining the worn top segment of the lower-case V, and the slight curtailment of the cross-bar in the lower-case 't'… For the moment, however, he said nothing. Then, when his reasonably clean copy was completed, he wound it from the ancient machine and handed it to Morse.

'Much better! Good man!'

'You remember, sir, that original article in
The Times?
When they said the typewriter could pretty easily be identified if it was ever found? From the "e"s and the "t"s…?'

'Yes?'

'You wrote those verses.about the girl yourself, didn't you, sir?'

Morse nodded slowly.

'Bloody hell!' Lewis shook his head incredulously.

Morse poured himself a can of beer. 'Champagne's a lovely drink, but it makes you thirsty, doesn't it?'

Think anyone
else
suspected?' asked Lewis, grinning down at the typewriter.

'Just the one person. Someone from Salisbury.'

'Didn't you say you would be going there, though? To Salisbury?'

'Might
be, Lewis. Depends.'

Half an hour after Lewis had left, Morse was listening to Lipatti playing the slow movement of the Mozart piano concerto No. 21, when the doorbell rang.

'It's a bit late I know but…'

What had been a semi-scowl on Morse's face now suddenly burgeoned into a wholly ecstatic smile.

'Nonsense! It just so happens I've got a couple of bottles of bubbly…'

'Will that be enough, do you think?'

'Come in! I'll just turn this off-'

'Please not! I love it. K 467? Right?'

'Where've you parked?'

'I didn't come by car. I thought you'd probably try to get me drunk.'

Morse closed the door behind them. 'I
will
turn it off, if you don't mind. I've never been able to cope with two beautiful things at the same time.'

She followed Morse into the lounge where once more he picked up bottle number three.

'What time will you have to go, my love?'

'Who said anything about going, Chief Inspector?'

Morse put down the bottle and swiftly retraced his steps to the front door, where he turned the key, and shot the bolts, both top and bottom.

Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination

(Andre Gide,
The Counterfeiters)

the correspondence columns
of The Times
carried the following letter on Monday, 10 August 1992:

Sir, On behalf of the Thames Valley Police, I wish to record the gratitude of myself and of my fellow officers for the co-operation and assistance of
The Times
newspaper. As a direct result of lines of investigation suggested by some of its correspondents about the 'Swedish Maiden' verses, persons now being held in custody will be duly brought to face trial in accordance with the law's demands. I am, sir,