The Riddle Of The Third Mile

It was later that same afternoon that Morse, Lewis, and the police surgeon presented themselves at the Boat Inn, where the landlord, sensibly circumspect, informed the trio that it would of course be wholly improper for him to serve any alcoholic beverages at the bar; on the other hand the provision of three chairs in a back room and a bottle of personally purchased Glenfiddich might not perhaps be deemed to contravene the nation’s liquor laws.

‘How long’s he been dead?’ was Morse’s flatly spoken, predictable gambit, and the surgeon poured himself a liberal tumbler before deigning to reply.

‘Good question! I’ll have a guess at it tomorrow.’

Morse poured himself an equally liberal portion, his sour expression reflecting a chronic distrust in the surgeon’s calling.

‘A week, perhaps?’

The surgeon merely shrugged his shoulders.

‘Could be longer, you mean?’

‘Or shorter.’

‘Oh Christ! Come off it, Max!’ Morse banged the bottle on on the table, and Lewis wondered if he himself might be offered a dram. He would have refused, of course, but the gesture would have been gratifying.

The surgeon savoured a few sips with the slow dedication of a man testing a dubious tooth with a mouthwash, before turning to Morse, his ugly face beatified: ‘Nectar, old man!’

Morse, likewise, appeared temporarily more interested in the whisky than in any problems a headless, handless, legless corpse might pose to the Kidlington CID. ‘They tell me the secret’s in the water of those Scottish burns.’

‘Nonsense! It’s because they manage to get rid of the water.’

‘Could be!’ Morse nodded more happily now. ‘But while we’re talking of water, I just asked you-’

‘You know nothing about water, Morse. Listen! If you find a body immersed in fresh water, you’ve got the helluva job finding out what happened. In fact, one of the trickiest problems in forensic medicine-about which you know bugger-all, of course-is to prove whether death was due to drowning.’

‘But this fellow wasn’t drowned. He had his head-’

‘Shut up, Morse. You asked how long he’d been in the canal, right? You didn’t ask me who sawed his head off!’

Morse nodded agreement.

‘Well, listen, then! There are five questions I’m paid to ask myself when a body’s found immersed in water, and in this particular case you wouldn’t need a genius like me to answer most of them. First, was the person alive when entering the water? Answer: pretty certainly, no. Second, was death due to immersion? Answer: equally certainly, no. Third, was death rapid? Answer: the question doesn’t apply, because death took place elsewhere. Fourth, did any other factors contribute to death? Answer: almost certainly, yes; the poor fellow was likely to have been clinically dead when somebody chopped him up and chucked him in the canal. Fifth, where did the body enter the water? Answer: God knows! Probably where it was found-as most of them are. But it could have drifted a fair way, in certain conditions. With a combination of bodily gases and other internal reactions, you’ll often find a corpse floating up to the surface and then-’

‘But Morse interrupted him, turning to Lewis: ‘How did we find him?’

‘We had a call from a chap who was fishing there, sir. Said he’d seen something looking like a body half-floating under the water, just where we found him.’

‘Did you get his name-this fisherman’s?’ Morse’s question was sharp, and to Lewis his eyes seemed to glint with a frightening authority.

‘I wasn’t there myself, sir. I got the message from Constable Dickson.’

‘He took down the name and address, of course?’

‘Not quite, sir,’ gulped Lewis. ‘He got the name all right, but-’

‘ – the fellow rang off before giving his address!’

‘You can’t really blame-’

‘Who’s blaming anybody, Lewis? What was his name, by the way?’ ‘Rowbotham. Simon Rowbotham.’

‘Christ! That’s an unlikely sounding name.’ ‘But Dickson got it down all right, sir. He asked the fellow to spell it for him-he told me that.’

‘I see I shall have to congratulate Constable Dickson the next time I have the misfortune to meet him.’

‘We’re only talking about a name, sir.’ Lewis was feeling that” incipient surge of frustrated anger he’d so often experienced with Morse.

‘Only? What are you talking about? “Simon”? With a surname like “Rowbotham”? Lew-is! Now George Rowbotnam -that’s fine, that squares with your actual proletarian parentage. Or Simon Comakers, or something-that’s what you’d expect from some aristocrat from Saffron Waldon. But Simon Rowbotham’? Come off it, Lewis. The fellow who rang was making it up as he went along.’

The surgeon, who had remained sipping placidly during this oddly intemperate exchange, now decided it was time to rescue the hapless Lewis. ‘You do talk a load of nonsense, Morse. I’ve never known your first name, and I don’t give a sod what it is. For all I know, it’s “Eric” or “Ernie” or something. But so} bloody what?’

Morse, who had ever sought to surround his Christian name in the decent mists of anonymity, made no reply. Instead, he poured himself another measure of the pale yellow spirit, thereafter lapsing into silent thought.

It was Max who picked up the thread of the earlier discussion. ‘At least you’re not likely to get bogged down in any doubts about accident or suicide – unless you find some boat-propeller’s sliced his head off-and his hands-and his legs.’

‘No chance of that?’

‘I haven’t examined the body yet, have I?’ f

Morse grunted with frustration. ‘I asked you, and I ask you again. How long’s he been in the water?’

‘I just told you. I haven’t-’

‘Can’t you try a feeble bloody guess?’

‘Not all that long-in the water, that is. But he may have been dead a few days before then.’

‘Have a guess, for Christ’s sake!’

‘That’s tricky.’

‘It’s always “tricky” for you, isn’t it? You do actually think the fellow’s dead, I suppose?’

The surgeon finished his whisky, and poured himself more, his lined face creasing into something approaching geniality. ‘Time of death? That’s always going to play a prominent part in your business, Morse. But it’s never been my view that an experienced pathologist-such as myself-can ever really put too much faith in the accuracy of his observations. So many variables, you see -’

‘Forget it!’

‘Ah! But if someone actually saw this fellow being chucked in-well, we’d have a much better ideas of things, um?’

Morse nodded slowly and turned his eyes to Lewis; and Lewis, in turn, nodded his own understanding.

‘It shouldn’t take long, sir. There’s only a dozen or so houses along the towpath.’

He prepared to go. Before leaving, however, he asked one question of the surgeon. ‘Have you got the slightest idea, sir, when the body might have been put in the canal?’

‘Two, three days ago, sergeant.’

‘How the hell do you know that?’ growled Morse after Lewis had gone.

‘I don’t really. But he’s a polite fellow, your Lewis, isn’t he? Deserves a bit of help, as I see it.’

‘About two or three days, then…’