The Way Through The Woods

Aldate's. Whereas collectively on the East Oxford estates they had, by all accounts, appeared a most intimidating bunch, individually they now looked unremarkable. Quite quickly after their arrest had the bravado of this particular quartet disintegrated, and as Sergeant Joseph Rawlinson now looked again at one of the seventeen-year-olds, he saw only a nervous, surly, not particularly articulate lad. Gone was the bluster and aggression displayed in the back of the police car when they had picked him up from home – and now they were taking him back.

'These things all you had on you, son?'

'S'pose so, yeah.'

Rawlinson picked them up carefully, one by one, and handed them across. 'Fiver, ?1, ?1, 50p, 10p, 5p, 5p, 5p, 2p, 2p, 1p OK? Comb; Marlboro cigarettes; disposable lighter; packet of condoms, Featherlite – only one left; half a packet of Polos; two bus tickets-one blue Biro. OK?'

The youth stared sullenly, but said nothing.

'And this!' Rawlinson picked up a red-covered diary and flicked quickly through the narrow-ruled pages before putting it in his own jacket pocket. 'We're going to keep this, son. Now I want you to sign there.' He handed over a typed sheet and pointed to the bottom of it.

Ten minutes later Philip Daley was once more in the back of a police car, this time heading out to his home in Begbroke, Oxon.

*

'Makes you wonder, Sarge!' ventured one of the constables as Rawlinson ordered a coffee in the canteen.

'Mm.' Joe Rawlinson was unhappy about committing himself too strongly on the point: his own lad, aged fifteen, had become so bolshie these last six months that his mum was getting very worried about him.

'Still, with this – what's it? – Aggravated Vehicle-taking Bill. Unlimited fines! Might make 'em think a bit harder.'

'Got sod-all to start with though, some of 'em.'

'You're not going soft, Sarge?'

'Oh no! I think I'm getting harder,' said Rawlinson quietly, as he picked up his coffee, and walked over to an empty table at the far corner of the canteen.

He hadn't recognized the lad. But he'd recognized the name immediately – from that time the previous summer when he'd been working under Chief Inspector Johnson out at Blenheim. It could, of course, have just been one of those minor coincidences that were always cropping up in life – had it not been for the diary: a bit disturbing, some of the things written in that. In fact he'd almost expected to meet his old chief Johnson out on the estates at the weekend, amid the half-bricks and the broken bottles. But someone had said he was off on holiday – lucky bugger! Still, Rawlinson decided to get in touch if he could; try to ring him up tomorrow.

8.15 p.m.

Anders Fasten, a very junior official at the Swedish Embassy, had at last found what he was looking for. It had been a long search, and he realized that if only the files had been kept in a more systematized fashion he would have saved himself many, many hours. He would mention this fact to his boss; and – who knows? – the next tricky passport query might be answered in minutes. But he was pleased to have found it: it was important, he'd been informed. In any case, his boss would be pleased. And he much wanted to please his boss, for she was very beautiful.

9 pm.

Sergeant Lewis had arrived home from HQ half an hour earlier, had a meal of eggs (two), sausages (six), and chips (legion), and now sat back in his favourite chair, turned on the BBC news, and reviewed his day with considerable satisfaction…

Especially, of course, had Morse been delighted with the photograph of Alasdair McBryde; and even more delighted with the fact that, on his own initiative, Lewis had given instructions for police leaflets to be printed, and for adverts to be placed in the following day's Oxford Mail, Friday's edition of The Oxford Times – and the Evening Standard.

'Masterstroke, that is!' Morse had exclaimed. 'What made you think of the Evening Standard?

'You said you were sure he'd gone to London, sir.'

'Ah!'

'Didn't meet him by any chance?' Lewis had asked happily…

After the weather forecast – another fine sunny day, with temperatures ranging from 22 degrees Celsius in the south – Lewis put out the regular two milk-tokens, locked and bolted the front door, and decided on an early night. He heard his wife humming some Welsh melody as she washed up the plates and he went through to the kitchen and put his arms round her.

'I'm off to bed – bit weary.'

‘`appy too, by the sound of you. 'ad a good day?'

'Pretty good.'

'That because bloody Morse beggared off and left you on your own?'

'No! Not really.'

She dried her hands and turned to him. 'You enjoy workin' for 'im, don't you?'

'Sometimes,' agreed her husband. 'It's just that he sort of- lifts me a bit, if you know what I mean.'

Mrs Lewis nodded, and draped the dish-cloth over the tap. 'Yes, I do,' she replied.

10.30 pm.

It was half an hour since Dr Alan Hardinge had decided it was time to walk along to St Giles' and take a taxi out to his home on Cumnor Hill. But still he sat sipping Scotch in the White Horse, the narrow pub separating the two wings of Blackwell's bookshop in the Broad. The second of his two lectures had not been an unqualified success, and he was aware that his subject-matter had been somewhat under-rehearsed, his delivery little more than perfunctory. And only one glass of wine to accompany a mediocre menu!

Still, ?100 was ?100…

He was finding that however hard he tried, it was becoming progressively more difficult for him to get drunk. He hadn't read any decent literature for months, yet Kipling had been a hero in his youth and vaguely he recalled some words in one of the short ones: something about knowing the truth of being in hell 'where no liquor no longer takes hold, and the soul of a man is rotten within him'. He knew though that he was becoming increasingly maudlin, and he opened his wallet to look again at the young girl… He remembered the agonies of anxiety they had both experienced, he and his wife, the first time she was really late back home; and then that terrible night when she had not come back at all; and now the almost unbearable emptiness ahead of him when she would never come home again, never again…

He took out too the photograph of Claire Osborne from amongst his membership and credit cards: a small passport photograph, she staring po-faced at the wall of a kiosk somewhere – not a good photograph, but not a bad likeness. He put it away and drained his glass; it was ridiculous going on with the affair really. But how could he help himself? He was in love with the woman, and he was lately re-acquainted with all the symptoms of love; could so easily spot it in others too – or rather the lack of it. He knew perfectly well, for example, that his wife was no longer in love with him, but that she would never let him go; knew too that Claire had never been in love with him, and would end their relationship tomorrow if it suited her.

One other thing was worrying him that night – had been worrying him increasingly since the visit of Chief Inspector Morse. He wouldn't do anything immediately, but he was fairly sure that before long he would be compelled to disclose the truth about what had occurred a year ago…

10.30 p.m.

After watching the weather forecast, Claire Osborne turned off the ITN News at Ten –