The Way Through The Woods

little while whether he too, like Myton, might not at some point on a hot and sultry summer afternoon have found this girl so very beautiful and necessary.

Lewis drove carefully down the road that led along the edge of the woods towards Wytham village. Beside him was WPG Wright; and in the back sat Karin Eriksson and Chief Inspector Morse.

Almost always, at such a stage in any case, Morse felt himself saddened – with the thrill of the chase now over, with the guilty left to face the appropriate retribution. Often had he pondered on the eternal problem of justice; and he knew as did most men of civilized values that the function of law was to provide that framework of order within which men and women could be protected as they went about their legitimate business. Yes, the criminal must be punished for his misdeeds, for that was the law. And Morse was an upholder of the law. Yet he debated now again, as he felt the body of Karin Eriksson close beside him, that fine distinction between the law and justice. Justice was one of those big words that was so often spelled with a capital 'J'; but really it was so much harder to define than Law. Karin would have to face the law; and he turned to look at her – to look at those beautiful blue eyes of hers, moistened now with the quiet film of tears. For a few seconds, at that moment, there seemed almost a bond between them – between Morse and the young woman who had murdered James Myton.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, she whispered something in his right ear.

'Did you ever have sex with a girl in the back of a car?'

'Not in the back,' whispered Morse. 'In the front, of course. Often!'

'Are you telling me the truth?'

'No,' said Morse.

He was conscious of a brimming reservoir of tears somewhere behind his own eyes as the police car came up to the main road and turned left, down past Wytham towards the police HQ. And for a second or two he thought he felt Karin's left leg pressing gently against him, and so very much he hoped that this was so.

chapter sixty-three

All that's left to happen

Is some deaths (my own included).

Their order, and their manner,

Remain to be learnt

(Philip Larkin, Collected Poems)

the statement made by Karin Eriksson added little to Lewis's knowledge of the case. Unprecedentedly, Morse had kept him informed, in key respects, from fairly early on of his suspicions surrounding the Swedish Maiden and, eventually, of his virtual certainties. There were one or two significant discrepancies – particularly concerning the amount of money Karin had with her on her arrival in Oxford, and concerning the number of voyeurs who witnessed her photographic session in Seckham Villa. But from the combined statements of Karin herself and of her (wholly legitimate) husband David, it was a straightforward matter to stitch together the sequence of events that occurred on Sunday, 7 July

Out on the M40 Karin had almost immediately been picked up by a van en route for the Rover Car Plant at Cowley, in Oxford. Dropped off at the Headington roundabout, she had been picked up, again almost immediately, by a BMW and dropped at the Banbury Road roundabout on the Northern Ring Road. Walking a few hundred yards down the Banbury Road (buses on Sunday seemed infrequent) she had noticed the Cotswold House, and on impulse felt how wonderful it would be to spend at least one night in such attractive-looking B & B accommodation. She had knocked and enquired the rates; had been told that there was one single room vacancy; but on learning the tariff had decided to find something a little cheaper, a little later. From a phone-box in Wentworth Road, just opposite the Cotswold House, she had phoned the model agency, and fairly soon been collected and driven down to Abingdon Road, where a telephone arrangement was made with McBryde for Karin to present herself at Seckham Villa, at about 2 p.m., for an hour or so's photographic session – the fee suggested, ?8o-?120, causing her eyebrows to lift in pleasurable surprise. She had declined further help from the agency, and walked up to St Giles', where she had a ham sandwich and half a glass of lager in the Eagle and Child.

At Seckham Villa she had been admitted by McBryde, and soon introduced to Mytpn. No hard pornography! – she'd immediately made her position clear on that; but, yes, she was willing to pose for a series of nude and semi- nude studies. And for an extra ?20 she'd agreed that two other men there could sit in the 'studio' and watch her. Myton, she learned, was a freelance cinematographer in the sex-video world, and almost straightaway she had felt his eyes stripping off her skimpy summer clothing. But he'd seemed all right. Whilst he was preparing his paraphernalia of tripods, umbrellas, backcloths, reflectors, light-meters, and the rest, she had wandered out briefly into the back garden; and when he had come out a little while later she had found him amusing and good fun. He was a smallish, slim man, with a day's growth of darkish beard, but with much lighter-coloured hair, worn quite long with an absurd short pony-tail held in an elastic band. She had teased him a little about this, and indeed asked him to stand by the wall there while she could take a couple of snaps. Soon though McBryde had hurriedly ushered them inside, where she was introduced, perfunctorily, to a man in a lightweight summer-suit, and another man in grey slacks and sports jacket, incongruously (as she remembered on that hot day) holding a green pork-pie hat.

Then the 'session'. She had, she confessed, experienced some flush of excitement as the two silent men (McBryde had only come in later) ogled her as she stripped and posed and donned the see-through lingerie provided, and lay there on the bed in gaping gowns and skimpy negligees. Myton had punctuated her posturings with crude encouragements as gradually she'd felt herself relaxing: 'Christ, that's marvellous! Yeah! Ye-eah! Just hold it there, baby! Keep that hand under your tits and sort of, yes, sort of push 'em at me!' Such manner of talk had excited her and, if she were honest with herself, she'd felt a sort of orgasm of sexual vanity.

Afterwards, when she and Myton were alone, she had asked him to take one or two snaps of her with her own camera – just as a reminder really – and he'd readily done so. He'd still not so much as touched her physically, not yet; but he'd asked her where she was going and said he had his car outside if she wanted a lift anywhere. Before leaving McBryde had given her ?100, all in ten-pound notes, which she had placed in her money-wallet; and then Myton had driven her back up to the top of the Banbury Road. She told him that she was thinking of going to the charity pop concert at Blenheim the next evening, 8 July, and then – suddenly – as they were passing the Cotswold House she asked him to stop: she would stay there now. But a white notice – no vacancies – was across the door, and the lady of the house confirmed sadly that the remaining room had just been taken. As she was getting back into the car, she thought she saw a sparrow-hawk flying over towards the huge trees behind her, and she stopped and sought to focus her binoculars upon it. Fatal moment! Myton asked her if she was interested in birdwatching; and she had shown him her list of hoped-for spottings. Well, he knew exactly where she could see the woodpecker – probably see all the woodpeckers. In Wytham! He was interested himself in birds: was a member of the RSPB (this later proving untrue) and had a permit for walking in Wytham Woods (also proving to be untrue).

That was the beginning of all her woe.

Setting off from the semi-circular parking area just before the Great Wood, they had walked diagonally across a field and then along some leafy woodland pathway into a thickly forested area, where she remembered the brittle crackling of dead twigs and branches beneath her feet; and then Myton's hands upon her body. At first perhaps she might have been prepared for some limited petting; but very soon he had grown rough and insistent, and told her that he needed her – urgently. Would have her! He'd stripped off her thin blouse and pulled her to the floor; but she was herself strong and determined in fighting him off. The pocket of the rucksack in which she kept her binoculars – and her knife – was still open; and she managed to struggle away from him and open the blade of the knife – and plunge it into him… It had entered his flesh so easily, like pushing a knife through