The Way Through The Woods

No problem. For the first time Lewis thought he saw the underlying grief behind the saddened eyes, as she explained that Sweden did not belong to the EC; that all Swedish nationals needed to apply for work-permits in the UK if they proposed to stay for any length of time; that even for au pair work it was wholly prudent to do. But Karin had not applied for such a permit; she gave herself only three weeks in the UK; and for this, her Swedish passport, valid for a ten-year period, would have been sufficient.

Lewis was suddenly aware that if there had been anything mildly flirtatious in the woman's manner, the situation had now changed.

'You kept Karin's passport, didn't you?' she continued quietly.

Lewis nodded, and his slight frown prompted her quick explanation:

'You see, I suppose we hoped she might – if she were still alive – she might apply for a new passport – if she'd lost it. Do you see…?'

Lewis nodded again.

'And she hasn't, has she, Mr Lewis? So!' She got up briskly, and put her feet into a pair of black, semi-heeled shoes. 'So!'

‘I’m afraid we can't bring you any hopeful news – not really,' said Lewis, himself now rising to his feet.

'It's all right. I knew from the start, really. It's just…'

'I know. And thank you. You've been very helpful. Just one more thing – if I could just borrow a photo of the three girls…?'

As they stood in the hallway, Lewis ventured a genuine compliment:

'You know, I always envy people like you, Mrs – Irma – you know, people who can speak other languages.'

'We start learning English early though. In the fourth grade -ten years of age. Well, I was twelve myself, but my daughters all learn from ten.'

They shook hands, and Lewis walked down to the ground floor, where he stood for several minutes beside a play area surrounded by a low palisade of dark-brown wooden slats – not a potato-crisp packet in sight. It was early afternoon now on a beautiful summer's day, with a cloudless blue sky and a yellow sun – like the colours of the flag on the rucksack found at Begbroke, Oxfordshire.

Standing on her high balcony, Irma Eriksson watched him go. As soon as he had disappeared into the main thoroughfare, she stepped back into her flat and let herself into the rear bedroom, where the ensuing conversation was held in Swedish:

'Was he intelligent?'

'Not particularly. Very nice though – very nice.'

'Did you ask him to bed with you?'

'I might have done if you hadn't been here.'

'Do you think he suspected anything?'

'No.'

'But you're glad he's gone?'

Irma Eriksson nodded. 'Shall I get you coffee?'

'Please!'

When her mother had left, the young lady looked at herself in the long wall-mirror in the shaded room, deciding that she was looking tired and dark around the eyes. Yet had Lewis seen her there that afternoon he would have been impressed by her pale and elegant beauty; would have been struck immediately too by a very close likeness to the photograph of the student found in the rucksack at Begbroke, Oxfordshire.

chapter thirty-nine

In a world in which duty and self-discipline have lost out to hedonism and self-satisfaction, there is nothing like closing your eyes and going with the flow. At least in a fantasy, it all ends happily ever after

(Edwina Currie, The Observer, 23 February 1992)

alan hardinge had gained a first in both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge; had stayed on in that university for a Ph.D.; then done two years' research at Harvard before being elected in 1970 to a fellowship at the 'other place'. A year later he had courted a librarian from the Bodleian, had married her six months later, subsequently siring two offspring, both girls: the one now in her second year at Durham reading Psychology; the other dead – killed nineteen days earlier as she cycled down Cumnor Hill into Oxford.

He had not been wholly surprised to receive the phone call from Chief Inspector Morse that morning of Tuesday, 21 July, and a meeting was arranged for 2 p.m. the same day, in Hardinge's rooms, overlooking the front quad of Lonsdale College.

'What does your wife know about your interests in Seckham Villa?'

'Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So please can we keep Lynne – my wife – out of this? She's still terribly upset and nervy – God knows what…'

Dr Hardinge spoke in disjunct bursts, punctuated by the equivalent of verbal dashes. He was a smallish, neat man, with crinkly grey hair, darkly suited still in high summer, when many of his colleagues were walking along the High in T-shirts and trainers.

'I can't promise that, of course-'

'Don't you see? I'd do anything – anything at all – to see that Lynne's not hurt. I know it sounds weak – it if weak – it's what we all say – I know – but it's true.' From his hunched shoulders Hardinge's face craned forward like that of an earnest tortoise.

'Know this man?' Morse handed across one of the photographs taken in the garden of Seckham Villa.

Hardinge took a pair of half-lensed spectacles from their case; but appeared not to need them, glancing for only a second or two at the photograph before handing it back.

'James – or Jamie? – Myton. Yes, I know him – knew him -sort of jack-of-all-trades really.'

'How did you get to know him?'

'Look – it'll be better if I tell you – about myself – I think it will.'

Morse listened with interest, and with no moral reproof, as Hardinge stated his apologia for a lifetime of sexual adventurism. As a boy a series of older women had regularly intruded themselves into his dreams, and he had readily surrendered himself, almost without guilt, into the sexual fantasies he found he could so easily conjure up for himself – fantasies in which there were no consequences, no disappointments. In his twenties he would willingly have preferred – did prefer – to watch the pornographic films and videos that were then so readily available. Then he'd met Lynne – dear, honest, trusting Lynne – who would be utterly flabbergasted and so hurt and ashamed if she even began to suspect a fraction of the truth. After his marriage, though, his fantasies persisted; grew even. He was experiencing a yearning for ever greater variety in his sexual gratification, and this had gradually resulted in a string of rather sordid associations: with private film clubs; imported videos and magazines; live sex-shows; 'hostess' parties – for all of which he'd become a regular and eager client. The anticipation of such occasions! The extraordinarily arousing words that became the open sesame to such erotic entertainments: 'Is everybody known?'

'And that's what happened regularly at Seckham Villa?'

'Fairly regularly – seldom more than five or six of us – usually people we'd met once or twice before.'

Morse watched the middle-aged, dapper deceiver, leaning forward all the time, with his aquiline cast of feature, his pale complexion, his slightly pernickety enunciation. He felt he should have despised the man a little; but he couldn't do that. If Hardinge were a bit of a pervert, he was an extraordinarily honest one; and with his faded, watery eyes he looked rather tired and rather lost; weak, and not pretending to be strong.

'You're not a 'medical' doctor, sir?' asked Morse when the carnal confessions were complete.

'No. I just wrote a Ph.D. thesis – you know how these things are.'

'On?'