The Way Through The Woods

As he sat down again in the black leather settee, Morse's face was betraying a high degree of self-gratification – when the phone rang. It was now a quarter to midnight, and the voice was a woman's – husky, slightly timid, north-country.

She identified herself as Dr Laura Hobson, one of the new girls in the path labs; one of Max's protegees. She had been working late with Max – on Morse's bones – when just before 9 p.m. she'd found him lying there on the floor of the lab. Heart attack – severe heart attack. He'd been unconscious most of the time since they'd got him to hospital… but the sister had rung her (Dr Hobson) and the possibility was that he (Max) had been trying to ask for him (Morse) – if he (Morse) knew what she (Dr Hobson) was trying to say…

Oh dear!

‘Which ward's he in?'

'Coronary Care Unit-'

'Yes! But where?’

'The JRa. But it's no good trying to see him now. Sister says – '

'You want to bloody bet?' snapped Morse.

'Please! There's something else, Inspector. He'd been working on the bones all day and-'

'Bugger the bones!'

'But-'

'Look. I'm most grateful to you, Dr, er…'

'Hobson.'

'… but please forgive me if I hang up. You see,' suddenly Morse's voice was more controlled, more gentle, 'Max and I -well, we… let's say we don't either of us have too many friends and… I want to see the old sod again if he's going to die.'

But Morse had already put down the phone, and Dr Hobson heard nothing of the last five words. She too felt very sad. She had known Max for only six weeks. Yet there was something basically kindly about the man; and only a week before she'd had a mildly erotic dream about that ugly, brusque, and arrogant pathologist.

At least for the present, however, the pathologist appeared to have rallied quite remarkably, for he was talking to Nurse Shelick rationally, albeit slowly and quietly, when he learned of his visitor; and threatened to strike the houseman off the medical register unless Morse (for such it was) were admitted forthwith.

But one patient newly admitted to the JR2 had not rallied that night. Marion Bridewell, an eight-year-old little West Indian girl, had been knocked down by a stolen car on the Broadmoor Lea estate at seven o'clock that evening. She had been terribly badly injured.

She died just after midnight.

chapter thirty-two

And Apollo gave Sarpedon dead to be borne by swift companions, to Death and Sleep, twin brethren, who bore him through the air to Lycia, that broad and pleasant land

(Homer, Iliad, xvi)

‘How are you, old friend?' asked Morse with spurious cheerfulness.

‘Dying.'

'You once told me that we're all moving towards death – at the standard rate of twenty-four hours per diem.'

‘I was always accurate, Morse. Not very imaginative, agreed; at always accurate.'

‘You've still not told me how-'

'Somebody said… somebody said, 'Nothing matters very much… and in the end nothing really matters at all’

‘Lord Balfour.'

'You always were a knowledgeable sod.' 'Dr Hobson rang-'

'Ah! The fair Laura. Don't know how men ever keep their hands off her.'

'Perhaps they don't.'

‘I was just thinnking of her just now… Still have any erotic day-dreams yourself, Morse?' 'Most of the time.'

‘Be nice – be nice if she was thinking of me…’

‘You never know.'

Max smiled his awkward, melancholy smile, but his face looked and ashen-grey. 'You're right. Life's full of uncertainties, have I ever told you that before?'

'Many a time.'

‘I’ve always… I've always been interested in death, you know, of hobby of mine, really. Even when I was a lad…'

'I know. Look, Max, they said they'd only let me in to see you if-'

'No knickers – you know that?'

'Pardon? Pardon, Max?'

‘The bones, Morse!'

'What about the bones?'

'Do you believe in God?'

'Huh! Most of the bishops don't believe in God.'

'And you used to accuse me of never answering questions!'

Morse hesitated. Then he looked down at his old friend and answered him: 'No.'

Paradoxically perhaps, the police surgeon appeared comforted by the sincerity of the firm monosyllable; but his thoughts were now stuttering their way around a discontinuous circuit.

'You surprised, Morse?'

‘Pardon?'

'You were, weren't you? Admit it!'

'Surprised?'

'The bones! Not a woman's bones, were they?'

Morse felt his heart pounding insistently somewhere – everywhere – in his body; felt the blood sinking down from his shoulders, past his heart, past his loins. Not a woman's bones – is that what Max had just said?

It had taken the hump-backed surgeon some considerable time to say his say; and feeling a tap on his shoulder, Morse turned to find Nurse Shelick standing behind him. 'Please!' her lips mouthed, as she looked anxiously down at the tired and intermittently closing eyes.

But before he left Morse leaned forward and whispered in the dying man's ear: 'I'll bring us a bottle of malt in the morning, Max, and we'll have a wee drop together, my old friend. So keep a hold on things – please keep a hold on things!… Just for me!'

It would have been a joy for Morse had he seen the transient gleam in Max's eyes. But the surgeon's face had turned away from him, towards the recently painted, pale-green wall of the GCU. And he seemed to be asleep.

Maximilian Theodore Siegfried de Bryn (his middle names a surprise even to his few friends) surrendered to an almost totally welcome weariness two hours after Chief Inspector Morse had left; and finally loosed his grip on the hooks just after three o'clock that morning. He had bequeathed his mortal remains to the Medical Research Foundation at the JRa. He had earnestly wished it so. And it would be done.