The Way Through The Woods

expand on contact.'

'The sort they kill deer with,' added Morse quietly.

'It's' – she fingered the corpse – 'er, sometimes difficult to find the entry-hole. Not in this case, though. Look!'

She pointed a slim finger to a small, blood-encrusted hole, of little more than the diameter of a pencil, just below the left shoulder blade of the man who lay prone on the ground between them. 'But you'll see there's never much of a problem with the exit hole.' Gently she eased the body over and away from her, pushing it on to its right side, and pointing to a larger hole that had been blasted just below the heart, a hole almost the size of a mandarin orange.

This time, however, Morse was not looking. He was used to death of course; but accident, and terrible injury, and the sight of much blood – such things he could never stomach. So he turned his eyes away, and for a few moments stood staring around him in that quiet woodland glade, where so very recently someone had shot George Daley in the back, and no doubt watched him fall and lie quite still beneath the giant oak tree there. And the owners of seven-millimetre rifles? Morse knew two of them: David Michaels and George Daley. And whatever else might be in doubt, George Daley would have found it utterly impossible to have shot himself with the rifle that was his.

'Any ideas how long?' asked Morse.

Dr Hobson smiled. 'That's the very first question you always asked Max.'

'He told you?'

'Yes.'

'Well, he never told me the answer – never told me how long, I mean.'

'Shall I tell you?'

'Please do!' Morse smiled back at her, and for a moment or two he found her very attractive.

'Ten, twelve hours. No longer than twelve, I don't think. I'll plump for ten.'

Morse, oblivious of the time for most of the day, now looked at his wrist-watch: 8.25 p.m. That would put the murder at about 10 a.m., say? 10.30 a.m.? Yes… that sort of time would figure reasonably well if Morse's thinking was correct. Perhaps he wasn't right, though! He'd been so bloody certain in his own mind that the case was drawing gently if sombrely towards a conclusion: no more murder, no more deaths. Huh! That's exactly what he'd told Lewis, wasn't it? Just wait! – that's what he'd said. Things'll work out if only we're prepared to wait. Why, only that day he'd waited, before driving off to Wales, without the slightest premonition of impending tragedy.

And he'd been wrong.

There would be greater tragedies in life, of course, than the murder of the mean and unattractive Daley. No one was going to miss the man dramatically much… except of course for Mrs Daley, Margaret Daley – of whom for some reason Morse had so recently dreamed. But perhaps even she might not miss him all that much, as time gradually cured her heart of any residual tenderness. After a decent burial. After a few months. After a few years.

Yet there was always the possibility that Morse was wrong again.

Lewis was suddenly at his side, bending down and picking up the khaki-green pork-pie hat Daley invariably wore on freezing winter mornings and sweltering summer days alike.

'There's not much shooting here, it seems, sir – not like Wytham – not at this time of year, anyway. Some of the tenants have got shot-gun rights – for a bit of pigeon-shooting, or rabbits, and pheasants a bit later on. Not much, though. That's why Mr Williams, the keeper there' – Lewis pointed back in the direction of Combe Lodge – 'says he thinks he may remember a bit of a pop some time this morning. ‘He can't pin it down much closer than that.'

'Bloody marvellous!' said Morse.

'He says there were quite a lot he let through the gate – there's always quite a lot on Mondays. He thinks he remembers Daley going through, some time in the morning, but there's always quite a few estate vans.'

'He thinks a lot, your keeper, doesn't he?'

'And one or two joggers, he says.'

'Literally one or two?'

'Dunno.'

'Promise me you'll never take up jogging, Lewis!'

'Can we move him?' asked Dr Hobson.

'As far as I'm concerned,' said Morse.

'Anything else, Inspector?'

'Yes. I'd like to ask you along to the Bear and have a few quiet drinks together – a few noisy drinks, if you'd prefer it. But we shall have to go and look round Daley's house, I'm afraid. Shan't we, Lewis?'

Behind the spectacles her eyes twinkled with humour and potential interest: 'Anuther tame, mebby?'

She left.

'Anuther tame, please, Dr Hobson!' said Chief Inspector Morse, but to himself.

chapter fifty-six

The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day: Now spurs the lated traveller apace To gain the timely inn

(Shakespeare, Macbeth)

the house in which the Daleys had lived for the past eighteen years was deserted. Margaret Daley, so the neighbours said, had been away since the previous Thursday, visiting her sister in Beaconsfield; whilst the boy, Philip, had scarcely been seen since being brought back home by the St Aldate's police. But no forcible entry was needed, for the immediate neighbour held a spare frontdoor key, and a preliminary search of the murdered man's house was begun at 9.15 p.m.

Two important pieces of evidence were found immediately, both on the red formica-topped kitchen table. The first was a letter from the Oxford Magistrates' Court dated 31 July – most probably received on Saturday, 1 August? – informing Mr G. Daley of the charges to be preferred against his son, Philip, and of the various legal liabilities which he, the father, would now incur under the new Aggravated Vehicle Theft Act. The letter went on to specify the provisions of legal aid, and to request Daley senior's attendance at the Oxford Crown Court on the following Thursday when the hearing of his son's case would be held. The second piece of evidence was half a page of writing from a temporarily departed son (as it appeared) to a now permanently departed father, conveying only the simple message that he was 'off to try and sort something out': a curiously flat, impersonal note, except for the one post-scriptum plea: 'Tell Mum she needn't wurry'.

A copy of The Oxford Mail for Friday, 31 July, lay on top of the microwave, and a preoccupied Morse scanned its front page briefly:

JOY-RIDERS GET NEW WARNING

The driver and co-passenger of a stolen car which had rammed a newsagent's shop on the Broad-moor Lea estate were both jailed for six months and each fined ?1,500 at Oxford Crown Court yesterday. Sentencing father- of-three Paul Curtis, 25, and John Terence Bowden, 19, Judge Geoffrey Stephens warned: Those who drive recklessly and dangerously and criminally around estates in Oxford can now normally expect custodial sentences – and not short ones. Heavier fines too will be imposed as everything in our power is done to end this spate of criminal vandalism.'

(Continued: page 3)