Last Bus To Woodstock

the phone on Wednesday night?

He turned off, across the traffic, into the yard of the Radcliffe, stopped on double yellow lines, collared the nearest porter, gave him the sticks and the promissory note of the bearer to return the same, and told him to see to it. Police!

The road was clear as he left Oxford and he cursed himself savagely every other minute. He should have gone in — stupid fool. He knew deep down he wasn't a stupid fool, but it didn't help much.

Lewis was waiting for him. 'Well, what's the programme, sir?'

'I thought we'd take a gentle bus ride a little later, Lewis.' Ah well. His not to reason why. 'Yes. I thought we'd go to Woodstock on the bus together. What about that?'

'Has the car conked out again?'

'No. Going like a dream. So it should. Had a bill for the bloody battery this morning. Guess how much.'

'Six, seven pounds.'

'Nine pounds twenty-five!'

Lewis screwed up his nose. 'Cheaper if you'd gone to the tire and battery people up in Headington. They don't charge for any labour. I've always found them very good.'

'You sound as if you're always haying car trouble.'

'Not really. Had a few punctures lately, though.'

'Can't you change a tire yourself?'

'Well yes. Course I can. I'm not an old woman you know, but you've got to have a spare.'

Morse wasn't listening. He felt the familiar tingle of the blood freezing in his arms. 'You're a genius, Sergeant. Pass me the telephone directory. Consult the yellow pages. Here we are — only two numbers. Which shall we try first?'

'What about the first one, sir?'

A few seconds later Morse was speaking to Cowley Tire and Battery Services. 'I want to speak to the boss of the place. It's urgent. Police here.' He winked at Lewis. 'Ah, hullo. Chief Inspector Morse here. Thames Valley. . No, no. Nothing like that. . Now, I want you to look up your records for the week beginning 27 September. . Yes. I want to know if you supplied a battery or mended a puncture for a Miss Jennifer Coleby. C-O-L-E-B-Y. Yes. It might have been any day — probably Tuesday or Wednesday. You'll ring me back? Get on with it straight away, please. It's most urgent. Good. You've got my number? Good. Cheers.' He rang the second number and repeated the patter. Lewis was turning over the Sylvia Kaye file that lay open on Morse's desk. He studied the photographs — large, glossy, black and white photographs with amazingly clear delineation. He looked again at the shots of Sylvia Kaye as she lay that night in the yard of The Black Prince. She'd been really something, he thought The white blouse had been torn sharply on the left-hand side, and only the bottom of the four buttons remained fastened. The left breast was fully revealed and Lewis was strongly reminded of the provocative poses of the models in the girlie magazines. It could almost have been an erotic experience — looking through those pictures; but Lewis remembered the back of die blonde head and the cruelly shattered skull. He thought of his own darling daughter — thirteen now; she was getting a nice little figure. . God, what a world to bring up children in. He hoped and prayed that she would be all right, and he felt a deep and burning need to find the man who did all that to Sylvia Kaye.

Morse had finished.

'Can you put me in the picture, sir?' asked Lewis.

Morse sat back and thought for a few minutes. 'I suppose I ought to have told you before, Lewis. But I couldn't be sure — well, can't be sure now — about one or two things. Pretty well from the beginning I thought I had a good idea of the general picture. I thought it was like this. Two girls want a lift to Woodstock and we've got some fairly substantial evidence that they were picked up—both of them.' Lewis nodded. 'Now neither the driver nor the other girl came forward. The question I asked myself was 'why' Why were both these people anxious to keep quiet? There were pretty obvious reasons why one of them should keep his mouth shut. But why both? It seemed most improbable to me that the pair of them could be partners in crime. So. What are we left with? One very strong possibility, as I saw it, was that they knew each other. But that didn't seem quite good enough, somehow. Most people don't withhold evidence, certainly don't tell complicated lies, just because they know each other. But what if they have, between them, some guilty reason for wanting to keep things very quiet indeed? And what if such a guilty reason is the fact that they know each other rather too well? What if they are — not to put too fine a point on things — having an affair with each other? The situation's not so good for them, is it? With a murder in the background — not so good at all.' Lewis wished he'd get on with it. 'But let's go back a bit. On the face of it our evidence suggested from the word go that the encounter between the two girls and the driver of the car was pure chance: Mrs. Jarman's evidence is perfectly clear on that point. Now we have discovered, after a good deal of unnecessary trouble, who the driver of the red car was: Crowther. In his evidence he admits that he is having an affair with another woman and that the venue for these extramarital excursions is Blenheim Park. Furthermore, again on his own evidence, he was going to see his lady-love on the night of Wednesday, 29 September. Now at this point I took a leap in the dark. What if the lady-love was one of the girls he picked up?'

'But. .' began Lewis.

'Don't interrupt, Lewis. Now, was the lady-love Sylvia Kaye? I don't think so. We know that Mr. John Sanders had a date, however vague, with Sylvia on the 29th. It doesn't prove things one way or the other, but Sylvia is the less likely choice of the two. So. We're left with our other passenger — Miss, or Mrs. X. It is clear from Mrs. Jarman's evidence that Miss X seemed anxious and excited, and I think no one gets too anxious and excited about going to Woodstock unless that person has a date, and an important date at that, and not very much time to spare. Crowther said an hour or so at the most, remember?'

'But. .' He thought better of it.

'We also learned from what Mrs. Jarman said that Sylvia knew the other girl. There was that business of having a giggle about it in the morning. So, we try the place where Sylvia works and we find an extraordinary, quite inexplicable letter written to Miss Jennifer Coleby, who has become my odds-on favourite for the Miss X title. I agree that the evidence of the letter is not conclusive; worth following up though. She's a clever girl, our Jennifer. She has two spanners to throw in the works. First, she seems to have been at a pub this side of Woodstock instead of in Blenheim Park; second — and this really worried me and still does — why does she have to bus to Woodstock, or hitch-hike, if she's got a car? Which, as we know, she has. It seemed a fatal objection. But is it? My car wouldn't start on Wednesday morning because the battery was flat. You said that