Last Bus To Woodstock

'But do you think it's proper to do it this way, sir?'

'I doubt it,' said Morse.

'But it's not legal, surely?'

'Probably not.'

'But you want me to do it.' Morse ignored the non-question. 'When?'

'You'd have to make sure he was out first.'

'How do you suggest. .?'

Morse interrupted him. 'Christ man, you're not in apron strings. Use your nous!'

Lewis felt angry as he walked across to the canteen and ordered a cup of coffee. 'What's the matter, Sarge?' Constable Dickson was eating again.

'That bloody man Morse — that's what's the matter,' muttered Lewis, setting down his cup with such vigour that half the contents slopped messily into the saucer.

'I see you like your coffee half and half, Sarge,' said Dickson. 'Half in the cup and half in the saucer.' He was highly amused.

McPherson walked in and ordered coffee. 'Solved the murder yet, Sergeant?'

'No we bloody haven't,' snapped Lewis. He got up and left the grey-looking apology untouched half in the cup and half in the saucer.

'What's eating him?' asked McPherson. 'God, he don't know how lucky he is. Damn good chap, Inspector Morse. I tell you, if he don't get to the bottom of that Woodstock business, nobody will.'

It was a nice compliment and Morse could have done with it after Lewis had left, he sat for a long time, his hands together in front of his face, fingertips to fingertips, eyes closed, as if praying to some benign divinity for light along the darkening path. But Morse had long ago, albeit unwillingly, discounted the existence of any supernatural agency. He was fishing patiently in the troubled waters of his mind.

He got his bite about 4.30 p.m., and limped across to the file on the Woodstock murder. Yes, they were both there. He took them out and read them again — for the umpteenth time, it seemed. He must be right. He had to be. But still he wondered if he was.

The first thing (but it was a minnow, not a shark) that arrested his attention was that in both the letter from the (pretty certainly) bogus employer, and in the statement made by Crowther, the writer had used the form 'I should'. Morse, not as conversant as he should have been with some of the niceties of English grammar, more often than not — almost always now he thought of it — used the form 'would'. He could hear himself dictating: 'Dear Sir, I would be very glad to. .' Ought he to have said 'I should?' He reached for Fowler's Modern English Usage. There it was: 'The verbs like, prefer, care, be glad, be inclined, etc., are very common in first-person conditional statements (I should like to know etc.). In these should, not would, is the correct form in the English idiom.' Well, thought Morse, we learn something new every day. But somebody knew all about it already. So he should, though; he was an English don, wasn't he? What about Mr. G — undecipherable who had something to do with misspelt Psychology Department? (Blast — he'd not even checked that yet.) But Mr. G was a university man, too, wasn't he? said a still small Voice at the back of Morse's mind. A very little minnow! Interesting though.

He read the documents yet again. Just a minute. Hold on. Yes. This wasn't a minnow. Surely not! Yet it is not improbable. .' The phrase appeared in each document. A mannered phrase. 'Yet' standing at the beginning of its clause; not the commonest of syntactical structures. And what about 'not improbable'. That was a figure of speech Morse had learned at school. 'St Paul was a citizen of no mean city.' He consulted Fowler again. That was it. Litotes. Parallel expressions raced through his mind. 'Yet it is probable. .'; 'But it is probable/likely. .'; 'But it may be. .'; 'Maybe. .'; 'I think. .'; 'But I think. .' Odd. Very odd. A very mannered phrase.

And there was another coincidence. The phrase 'in all honesty' also appeared in each letter. What would he himself have written? 'Frankly', 'honestly', 'to be frank', 'truthfully'? Come to think of it, it didn't mean very much at all. Three little weasel words. The letter really was most odd. Had his first appraisal of its significance been over- sophisticated, too clever-clever? But people did do that sort of thing. Wives and husbands did it in war-time, communicating to each other a wealth of factual data unsuspected by the army censors. 'I'm sorry to hear little Archie's got the croup. Will write again soon,' might well have concealed the military intelligence that Trooper Smith was to be posted from Aldershot to Cairo next Saturday. Fanciful? No! Morse believed that he had been right.

The evening shadows fell across his desk, and he replaced the Woodstock file and locked the cabinet. The answer was slowly coming, and it seemed to be the answer in the answer book.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tuesday, 12 October

ON TUESDAY MORNING at 11.00 a.m., half an hour after Crowther had boarded a bus to the city centre, a small business van, bearing the legend 'Kimmons Typewriters' drew up outside the Crowther residence in Southdown Road. A man, wearing a lightweight grey jacket with 'Kimmons' embroidered across the pocket, alighted from the van and walked through the white gate, past the scraggy lawn, and knocked. Margaret Crowther, wiping her hands on her apron, opened the door.

'Yes?'

'Mr. Crowther live here, please?'

'Yes'

'Is he in?'

'No, not at the minute.'

'Oh. You Mrs. Crowther?'

'Yes'