Inspector Morse - Last Bus to Woodstock Part 3

'Bit late on parade tonight, Bernard. What's it to be?'

Bernard was well liked at the Fletcher's Arms, always ready to fork out for his round - and more. All the regulars knew him for a man of some academic distinction; but he was a good listener, laughed as heartily as the next at the latest jokes, and himself occasionally waxed eloquent on the stupidity of the government and the incompetence of Oxford United. But tonight he spoke of neither. By 10.25 p.m. he had drunk three pints of best bitter with his usual practised fluency and got up to go.

'Nother one before you go, Bernard?'

'Thanks, no. I've had just about enough of that horse p.i.s.s for one night.'

'You in the dog house again?'

'I'm always in the b.l.o.o.d.y dog house.'

He walked back slowly. He knew that if the bedroom light was on, his wife, Margaret, would be reading in bed, waiting only for her errant husband to return. If there was no light, she would probably be watching TV. He came to a decision as foolish as the ones he had made as a boy when he would race a car to the nearest lamppost. If she was in bed, he would go straight in, if she was still up, he would ring the police. He turned into the road, and saw immediately that the bedroom light was on.

Mrs Jarman gave her testimony in a brisk, if excited, fashion. Her memory proved surprisingly clear, and Sergeant Lewis's notes grew fat with factual data. Morse left things to him. He wondered if Lewis had been right in thinking this was the big break, and considered, on reflection, that he was. He himself felt impatient and bored with the trained and thorough pedanticism with which his sergeant probed and queried the chronology of the bus stop encounter. But he knew it had to be done and he knew that Lewis was doing it well. For three-quarters of an hour he left them to it.

'Well, I want to thank you very much, Mrs Jarman.' Lewis closed his note-book and looked, in a mildly satisfied manner, towards his chief.

'Perhaps,' said Morse, 'I could ask you to come to see us in the morning? Sergeant Lewis will have your statement typed out, and we'd like you to have a look through it to see that he's got it all right - just a formality, you know.'

Lewis stood up to go, but Morse's veiled glance told him to sit down again.

'I wonder, Mrs Jarman,' he said, 'if you could do us one last favour. I'd just love a cup of tea. I know it's late but...'

'Why, of course, Inspector. I wish you'd said so before.' She hurried off and the policemen heard a spurt of water and a clatter of cups.

'Well, Sergeant, you've done a good job.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Now listen. That bus. Get on to it as soon as you can.'

'But you said you'd checked the buses, sir.'

'Well check 'em again.'

'All right.'

'And,' said Morse, 'there's that articulated lorry. With a bit of luck we can trace that.'

'You think we can?'

'You've got a definite time - what else do you want, man?'

'Anything else, sir?' said Lewis in a subdued voice.

'Yes. Stay and make a few more notes. I won't be long.'

The kitchen door opened and Mrs Jarman reappeared. 'I was just wondering whether you gentlemen would like a little drop of whisky, instead of tea. I've had a bottle since Christmas - I don't usually drink myself.'

'Now, now,' said Morse, 'you are a very resourceful woman, Mrs Jarman.' Lewis smiled wanly. He knew what was coming. Deja vu.

'I think a little drop of Scotch would do me the power of good. Perhaps you'll have a drop yourself?'

'Oh no, sir, I'll have a cuppa, if you don't mind.' She opened a drawer in the cupboard and brought out two gla.s.s tumblers.

'Just the one gla.s.s then, Mrs Jarman,' said Morse. 'It's a pity, I know, but Sergeant Lewis here is on duty and you will appreciate that a policeman is not allowed to consume any alcoholic drink whilst on duty. You wouldn't want him to break the law, would you?'

Lewis muttered to himself.

Morse smiled into his liberal dose of whisky whilst his a.s.sistant soberly stirred a diminutive cup of wickedly dark brown tea.

'Mrs Jarman I just want to ask you one or two more questions about what you've said to Sergeant Lewis. I hope you don't feel too tired?'

'Oh no.'

'Do you remember how this "other girl" seemed? Was she a bit cross? A bit nervous?'

'I don't think she was - well, I don't know. Perhaps she was a bit nervous.'

'A bit frightened?'

'Oh no. Not that. A bit sort of, er, excited. Yes, that's it, a bit excited.'

'Excited and impatient?'

'I think so.'

'Now, I want you to think back. Just close your eyes if you like, and picture yourself at the bus stop again. Can you recall anything, anything at all, that she said. She asked you if the next bus went to Woodstock. You've told us that. Anything else?'

'I can't remember. I just can't seem to remember.'

'Now, Mrs Jarman, don't rush yourself. Just relax and picture it all again. Take your time.'

Mrs Jarman closed her eyes and Morse watched her with keen antic.i.p.ation. She said nothing. Morse at last broke the embarra.s.sing silence. 'What about the girl who was murdered? Did she say anything else? She wanted to hitch-hike, you said.'

'Yes, she kept saying something like "Come on".'

"It'll be all right"?' added Morse.

'Yes. It'll be all right. We'll have a giggle about it in the morning.'

Morse's blood froze. He remained utterly motionless. But Mrs Jarman's memory had dredged its last.

Morse relaxed. 'We've kept you up late, but you've been wonderful. And this must he a real priority brand of Scotch?' 'Oh, would you like a little drop more, sir?'

'Well, I think I wouldn't perhaps say no, Mrs Jarman. Yes, a drop of the finest Scotch I've tasted in years.'

As Mrs Jarman turned her back to refill his gla.s.s, Morse sternly motioned Lewis to stay where he was, and for the next half hour he tried with every subtlety he knew to jog the good lady's recollection of her chance encounter with the murdered girl and her companion. But to no avail.

'Just one more thing, Mrs Jarman. When you come to see us in the morning, we shall be holding an ident.i.ty parade. It won't take more than a minute or two.'

'You mean you want me to ... Oh dear!'

At 11.45 p.m. Morse and Lewis took their leave of Mrs Jarman. They were standing by their cars when the door of the house suddenly opened again and Mrs Jarman came hurriedly towards Morse.

'There's just one more thing, sir. I've just remembered. When you said close your eyes and just picture things. I've thought of something. That other girl, sir. When she ran, she ran with a sort of splay-footed run - do you know what I mean, sir?'

'Yes I do,' said Morse.

The two men returned to HQ. After enquiring whether any further calls had come through and learning there were none, Morse called Lewis to his office.

'Well, my friend?' Morse looked pleased with himself.

"You told her we're going to have an ident.i.ty parade?' asked a puzzled Lewis.

'We are. Now tell me this. What would you say was the most vital fact we learned from Mrs Jarman?'

'We learned quite a few pieces of valuable information.'

'Yes, we did. But only one fact that really made your hair stand on end, eh?' Lewis tried to look intelligent. 'We learned, did we not,' said Morse, 'that the girls would have a bit of a giggle about it all in the morning?'

'Oh, I see,' said Lewis, not seeing.

'You see what it means? They would be meeting in the morning - Thursday morning, and we know that Sylvia Kaye was in employment and we know where, do we not?'

'So the other girl works there, too.'

'The evidence would seem to point very much that way, Lewis.'

'But I was there, sir, and none of them said a word.'

'Don't you find that very interesting?'

'I don't seem to have done a very good job, do I?' Lewis looked disconsolately down at the Chief Inspector's carpet.

'But don't you see,' continued Morse, 'we now know that one of the girls - how many were there?'

'Fourteen.'

That one of those girls is at the very least withholding vital evidence and at the best telling us a heap of lies.'

'I didn't talk to them all, sir.'

'Good G.o.d, man! They knew what you were there for, didn't they? One of their colleagues is murdered. A sergeant of the murder squad comes to their office. What the h.e.l.l did they think you'd gone for? Service the b.l.o.o.d.y typewriters? No, you did well, Lewis. You didn't force our little girl to weave her tangled web for us. She thinks she's OK and that's how I want it.' Morse got up. 'I want you to get some sleep, Lewis. You've got work to do in the morning. But just before you go, find me the private address of Mr Palmer. I think a little visit is called for.'

'You're not thinking of knocking him up now, are you, sir?'

'Not only am I going to knock him up as you put it, Lewis, I am going to ask him, very nicely of course, to open up his offices for me and I am going to look through the private drawers of fourteen young ladies. It should be an exciting business.'

'Won't you need a search warrant, sir?'

'I never did understand the legal situation over search warrants,' complained Morse.

'I think you ought to have one, sir.'

'And perhaps you'll let me know where the h.e.l.l I find anyone to sign a warrant at this time of the night - or morning, whatever it is.'

'But if Mr Palmer insists on his legal rights...' began Lewis.

'I shall tell him we're trying to find out who raped and murdered one of his girls,' snapped Morse, 'not looking for dirty postcards from Pwllheli!'

'Wouldn't you like me to come with you, sir?'

'No. Do as I say and go to bed.'

'Well, good luck, sir.'

'I shan't need it,' said Morse. 'I know you'd never believe it, but I can be an officious b.a.s.t.a.r.d when I want to be. Mr Palmer will be out of bed as if he'd got a flea in his pyjama bottoms.'

But the manager of the Town and Gown a.s.surance Co., though condescending to get out of bed, flatly refused to get out of his pyjamas - top or bottom. He asked Morse for his authority to search his offices, and once having established that Morse had none, he proved adamant to all the cajolings and threats that Morse could muster. The Inspector reflected that he had badly underestimated the little manager.

After prolonged negotiation, however, a policy was finally agreed. All the staff of the Town and Gown would be a.s.sembled in the manager's office at 8.45 a.m. the following morning, where they would all be asked if they had any objection to the police opening any incoming private correspondence. If there were no objection (Palmer a.s.sured Morse), the Inspector could open all correspondence, and, if need be, make confidential copies of any letter which might be of value. Furthermore all the female employees would be asked to attend an ident.i.ty parade at the Thames Valley HQ some time later the same morning. Palmer would need some time to arrange a skeleton servicing of the telephone exchange and other vital matters. It was a good job it was Sat.u.r.days the office closed at midday.

Perhaps, thought Morse in retrospect, things hadn't worked out too badly. He wearily drove to HQ and wondered why, with all his experience, he had rushed so wildly into such an ill-considered and probably futile scheme as he had contemplated. Yet, for all that, he thought that he had in some strange way been right. He felt in his bones that there was an urgency about this stage of the investigation. He felt he was poised for a big breakthrough, though he did not at this stage realize how many breaks- throughs would be required before the case was solved. Nor did he realize that in an oddly perverse way Palmer's refusal to allow him unauthorized entry to his premises had presented him with one gigantic piece of luck. For a letter, addressed to one of the young ladies in Palmer's employ, was already on its way, and no power on earth, except the inefficiency of some unsuspecting sorting clerk, could - or indeed did - prevent its prompt delivery.

Morse returned to HQ and spent the next hour at his desk. He finished at 4.15 a.m. and sat back in his black leather chair. Little point in going home now. He pondered the case, at first with a slow, methodical a.n.a.lysis of the facts known hitherto and then with what, if he had been wider awake, he would wish to have called a series of swift, intuitive leaps, all of which landed him in areas of twilight and darkness. But he knew that whatever had taken place on Wednesday evening had its causation in the activities of certain persons, and that these persons had been motivated by the ordinary pa.s.sions of love and hate and greed and jealousy. That wasn't the puzzle at all. It was the interlocking of the jigsaw pieces, those pieces that would now be coming into his hands. He dozed off. He fitfully dreamed of an attractive red-headed barmaid and a blonde beauty with blood all over her hair. He always seemed to dream of women. He sometimes wondered what he would dream about if he got himself married.

Women probably, he thought.

6 Sat.u.r.day 2 October, a.m.

'What next'?' said Judith, Mr Palmer's confidential secretary. 'Opening our letters, he said!'

'You could have said no,' replied Sandra, an amiable, f.e.c.kless girl, who had, on merit, made no advance either in status or in salary since joining the office three years ago.

'I almost did,' chimed in Ruth, a flutter-lashed girl with the brains of a b.u.t.terfly. 'If Bob sent me one of his real pa.s.sionate ones, coo ! ' She giggled nervously.

Most of the girls were young and unmarried and lived with their parents, and because of late morning postal deliveries and a fear that parents might pry into matters not concerning them, several of them had invited their correspondents to address mail to the office. Indeed, so many incoming letters were marked 'Private and Confidential', "Personal" and the like, that an unsuspecting observer might have surmised that the Town and Gown was the headquarters of a cla.s.sified intelligence department.