Inspector Morse - Last Bus to Woodstock Part 6

His in-tray was high with reports, but he ignored them. He unlocked his cabinet, took out the file on the Sylvia Kaye murder, and extracted the letter addressed to Jennifer Coleby. He knew there had been something wrong with the whole thing. His mouth was dry and his hand trembled slightly, like a schoolboy opening his O-level results:

Dear Madam, After a.s.sessing the many applications we have received, we must regretfully inform you that our application has been unsuccessful. At the beginning of November however, further posts will become available, and I should, in all honesty, be sorry to loose the opportunity of reconsidering your position then.

We have now allotted the September quota of posts in the Psychology Department; yet it is probable that a reliably qualified a.s.sistant may be required to deal with the routine duties for the Princ.i.p.al's office.

Yours faithfully,

How wrong-headed he had been! Instead of thinking, as he had done, with such supercilious arrogance, of the illiteracy and incompetence of some poor blockhead of a typist, he should have been thinking exactly the opposite. He'd been a fool. The clues were there. The whole thing was phoney - why hadn't he spotted that before? When you boiled it down it was a nonsense letter. He had first made the mistake of concentrating upon individual mistakes and not even bothering to see the letter as a synoptic whole.

But not only that. He had compounded his mistake. For if he had read the letter as a letter, he might have considered the mistakes as mistakes - deliberate mistakes. He took a sheet of paper and started: 'asessing' 's' omitted; 'mny' - 'a' omitted; "begining* - 'n' omitted; 'loose' - 'o' inserted; 'Psycology' - 'h' omitted. SANOH - whatever that signified. Look again, 'our' - shouldn't it be 'your"?

'y' omitted; 'routnie' 'n' and 'i' transposed. What did that give him? SAYNOHNI. Hardly _ promising.

Try once more, 'alloted' - surely two 't's? 't' omitted.?; And there it was staring him in the face. The 'G' of course from the signature, the only recognizable letter therein: SAY NOTHING. Someone had been desperately anxious for Jennifer not to say a word - and Jennifer, it seemed, had got the message.

It had taken Morse two minutes, and he was glad that Jennifer had been out the previous evening.

He felt sure that faced with her lies about the visit to the library, she would have said how sorry she was and that she must have got it wrong. It must have been Thursday, she supposed; it was so difficult to think back to events of even the day before, wasn't it? She honestly couldn't remember; but she would try very hard to. Perhaps she had gone for a walk - on her own, of course.

But she would find things more awkward now. Strangely Morse felt little sense of elation. He had experienced an odd liking for Jennifer when they had met, and in retrospect he understood how difficult it must have been for her. But he must look the fact squarely in the face. She was lying. She was shielding someone - that someone who in all probability had raped and murdered Sylvia. It was not a pretty thought. Every piece of evidence now pointed unequivocally to the fact that it was Jennifer Coleby who had stood at Fare Stage 5 with Sylvia on the night of the 29th; that it was she who had been given a lift by a person or persons unknown (pretty certainly the former) as far as Woodstock; that there she had witnessed something about which she had been warned to keep her silence. In short that Jennifer Coleby knew the ident.i.ty of the man who had murdered Sylvia Kaye. Morse suddenly wondered if she was in danger, and it was this fear which prompted his immediate decision to have Jennifer held on suspicion of being an accessory to the crime of murder. He would need Lewis in.

He reached for his outside phone and rang his sergeant's home number.

'Lewis?'

'Speaking.'

'Morse here. I'm sorry to ruin your weekend, but I want you here.'

'Straight away, sir?'

'If you can.'

'I'm on my way.'

Morse looked through his in-tray. Reports, reports, reports. He crossed through his own initials immediately, barely glancing at such uncongenial t.i.tles as The Drug Problem in Britain, The Police and the Public, and The Statistics for Crimes of Violence in Oxfordshire (second quarter). At the minute he was interested only in one statistic which would doubtless, in time, appear in the statistics of violent crime in Oxfordshire (third quarter). He'd no time for reports. He suspected that about 95% of the written word was never read by anyone anyway. But there were two items which held his attention.

A report from the forensic lab on the murder weapon, and a supplementary report from the pathology department on Sylvia Kaye. Neither did more than confirm what he already knew or at any rate suspected. The tyre-lever proved to be a singularly unromantic specimen. Morse read all about its shape, size, weight ... But why bother? There was no mystery about the lever at all. The landlord of the Black Prince had spent the afternoons of Tuesday, 28th and Wednesday, 29th tinkering with an ancient Sunbeam, and had unwittingly left his tool kit outside the garage on the right at the back of the courtyard where he kept the car. There were no recognizable prints - just the ugly evidence, at one of the lever's curving ends, that it had crashed with considerable force into the bone of a human skull.

There followed a gory a.n.a.lysis, which Morse was glad to skip.

It was only a few minutes before Lewis knocked and entered.

'Ah, Lewis. The G.o.ds, me thinks, have smiled weakly on our inquiries.' He outlined the developments in the case. 'I want Miss Jennifer Coleby brought in for questioning. Be careful. Take Policewoman Fuller with you if you like. Just held for questioning, you understand? There's no question at all of any formal arrest. If she prefers to ring up her legal advisers, tell her it's Sunday and they're all playing golf. But I don't think you'll have much trouble.' On the latter point, at least, Morse guessed correctly.

Jennifer was sitting in interrogation room 3 by 3.45 p.m. On Morse's instructions, Lewis spent an hour with her, making no mention whatever of the information he had been given earlier in the afternoon.

Lewis mentioned quietly that, in spite of all their inquiries, they had not been able to trace the young lady, seen by two independent witnesses, who had been with Sylvia Kaye an hour or so before she was murdered.

'You must be patient, Sergeant.'

Lewis smiled weakly, like the G.o.ds. 'Oh, we're patient enough, miss, and I think with a little cooperation we shall get there.'

'Aren't you getting any co-operation?'

'Would you like a cup of tea, miss?'

'I'd prefer coffee.'

Policewoman Fuller hurried off; Jennifer moistened her lips and swallowed; Lewis brooded quietly.

In the tug-of-war silence which ensued it was Lewis who finally won.

'You think I'm not co-operating, Sergeant?'

'Are you?'

'Look, I've told the Inspector what I know. Didn't he believe me?'

'Just what did you tell the Inspector, miss?'

'You want me to go over all that again?' Jennifer's face showed all the impatience of a schoolgirl asked to rewrite a tedious exercise.

'We shall have to have a signed statement in any case.'

Jennifer sighed. 'All right. You want me to account for my movements - I think that's the phrase, isn't it? - on Wednesday night.'

'That's right, miss.'

'On Wednesday night...' Laboriously Lewis began to write. 'Shall I write it out for you?' asked Jennifer.

'I think I ought to get it down myself, miss, if you don't mind. I haven't got a degree in English, but I'll do my best.' A quick flash of caution gleamed in Jennifer's eyes. It was gone immediately, but it had been there and Lewis had seen it.

Half an hour later, Jennifer's statement was ready. She read it, asked if she could make one or two amendments - 'only spelling, Sergeant' - and agreed that she could sign it.

'I'll just get it typed out, miss.'

'How long will that take?'

'Oh, only ten minutes.'

"Would you like me to do it? It'll only take me about two.'

'I think we ought to do it ourselves, miss, if you don't mind. We have our regulations, you know.'

'Just thought I might be able to help.' Jennifer felt more relaxed.

'Shall I get you another cup of coffee, miss?'

'That would be nice.' Lewis got up and left.

Policewoman Fuller seemed singularly uncommunicative, and for more than ten minutes Jennifer sat in silence. When the door finally opened it was Morse who entered carrying a neatly typed sheet of foolscap.

'Good afternoon, Miss Coleby.'

'Good afternoon.'

'We've met before.' The tide of relaxation which had reached high watermark with Lewis's departure quickly ebbed and exposed the grating shingle of her nerves. 'I walked down to the library after I left you yesterday,' continued Morse.

'You must enjoy walking.'

'They tell me walking is the secret of perpetual middle age.'

With an effort, Jennifer smiled. 'It's a pleasant walk, isn't it?'

'It depends which way you go,' said Morse.

Jennifer looked sharply at him and Morse, as Lewis earlier, noted the unexpected reaction. 'Well, I would like to stay and talk to you, but I hope you will let me sign that statement and get back home.

There are several things I have to do before tomorrow.'

'I hope Sergeant Lewis mentioned that we have no authority to keep you against your will?'

'Oh yes. The sergeant told me.'

'But I shall be very grateful if you can agree to stay a little longer.'

The back of Jennifer's throat was dry. 'What for?' Her voice was suddenly a little harsher.

'Because,' said Morse quietly, 'I hope you will not be foolish enough to sign a statement which you know to be false" - Morse raised his voice - 'and which I know to be false.' He gave her no chance to reply. This afternoon I gave instructions for you to be held for questioning since I suspected, and still suspect, that you are withholding information which may be of very great value in discovering the ident.i.ty of Miss Kaye's murderer. That is a most serious offence, as you know. It now seems that you are foolish enough to compound such stupidity with the equally criminal and serious offence of supplying the police with information which is not only inaccurate but demonstrably false.' Morse's voice had risen in crescendo and he ended with a mighty thump with his fist upon the table between them.

Jennifer, however, did not appear quite so abashed as he had expected.

'You don't believe what I told you?'

'No.'

'Am I allowed to ask why not?' Morse was more than a little surprised. It was clear to him that the girl had recovered whatever nerve she may have lost. He clearly and patiently told her that she could not possibly have taken out her library books on Wednesday evening, and that this could be proved without any reasonable doubt. 'I see.' Morse waited for her to speak again. If he had been mildly surprised at her previous question, he was flabbergasted by her next. "What were you doing at the time of the murder last Wednesday evening, Inspector?"

What was he doing? He wasn't quite sure, but any such admission would hardly advance his present cause. He lied. 'I was listening to some Wagner.'

'Which Wagner.'

'Das Rheingold.'

'Is there anyone who could back up your story? Did anyone see you?'

Morse surrendered. 'No.' In spite of himself, he had to admire the girl. 'No,' he repeated, 'I live on my own. I seldom have the pleasure of visitors - of either s.e.x.'

'How very sad."

Morse nodded. 'Yes. But you see, Miss Coleby, I am not as yet suspected of dressing up in women's clothes and standing at the top of the Woodstock Road hitching a lift with Sylvia Kaye.'

'And I am?'

'And you are.'

'But presumably I'm not suspected of raping and murdering Sylvia?'

'I hope you will allow me a modic.u.m of intelligence.'

'You don't understand.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Hasn't it occurred to you that Sylvia probably enjoyed being raped?' There was bitterness in her tone, and her cheeks were flushed.

'That seems to a.s.sume that she was raped before she died, doesn't it?' said Morse quietly.

'I'm sorry - that was a horrid thing to say.'

Morse followed up his advantage. 'My job is to discover what happened from the moment Sylvia and her friend - and I believe that was you - got into a red car on the other side of the Woodstock roundabout. For some reason this other girl has not come forward, and I don't think the reason's very hard to find. She knew the driver of the car, and she's protecting him. She's probably frightened stiff.

But so was Sylvia Kaye frightened stiff, Miss Coleby. More than that. She was so savagely struck on the back of the head that her skull was broken in several places and lumps of bone were found in her brain. Do you like the sound of that? It's an ugly, horrible sight is murder and the trouble with murder is that it usually tends to wipe out the only good witness of the crime - the victim. That means we've got to rely on other witnesses, normal ordinary people most of them, who accidentally get caught up at some point in the wretched business. They get scared; OK. They'd rather not get mixed up in it; OK.

They think it's none of their business, OK - but we've got to rely on some of them having enough guts and decency to come forward and tell us what they know. And that's why you're here, Miss Coleby.

I've got to know the truth.'

He took the statement that Jennifer had made and tore it into pieces. But he could not read her mind. As he had been speaking she had been gazing through the window of the little office into the outside yard, where the day before she had stood with her office colleagues.

'Well?'

'I'm sorry, Inspector. I must have caused you a lot of trouble. It was on Thursday that I went to the library.'

'And on Wednesday?'

'I did go out. And I did go on the road to Woodstock - but I didn't get as far as Woodstock. I stopped at the Golden Rose at Begbroke - that's what, about two miles this side of Woodstock. I went into the lounge and bought a drink - a lager and lime. I drank it out in the garden and then went home.'

Morse looked at her impatiently. 'In the dark, I suppose.'

'Yes. About half past seven.'