Last Bus To Woodstock

What had happened then he didn't know. He remembered saying something and he vaguely remembered that she had said something back. He remembered his headlights swathing the yard and he remembered waiting for a gap in the traffic as he reached the main road. He remembered stopping to buy a double whisky and he remembered driving fast down the dual carriageway; and he remembered coming up behind a car and then swerving past it and flying through the night, his mind reeling. And on Thursday afternoon he had read in The Oxford Mail of the murder of Sylvia Kaye.

It had been foolish to write that letter, of course, but at least Peter would be out of trouble now. It was always asking for trouble — putting anything down on paper; but it had been a neat little arrangement until then. It was her suggestion anyway, and it seemed necessary. The post in North Oxford was really dreadful—10.00 a.m. or later now — and no one seemed to mind the girls at the office getting letters. And so often he couldn't be quite sure until the last minute. Sometimes things got into a complex tangle, but more often the arrangement had worked very smoothly. They had worked out a good system between them. Quite clever really. No one even looked at the date anyway. Sometimes he had incorporated a brief message, too — like that last time. That last time. . Morse must have had his wits about him, but he hadn't been quite clever enough to see the whole picture. . He couldn't have told Morse the whole truth, of course, but he hadn't deliberately meant to mislead him. A bit, certainly. That height business, for example. . He'd like to see Morse. Perhaps under other circumstances they could have got to know each other, become friends. .

He dozed off completely and it was dark when he awoke. The lights were dim. The silent, white figure of a nurse sat behind a small table at the far end of the ward, and he saw that most of the other patients were lying asleep. The real world rushed back at him, and Margaret was dead. Why? Why? Was it as she said in the letter? He wondered how he could ever face life again, and he thought of the children. What had they been told?

Sharp spasms of agonizing pain leaped across his chest and he knew suddenly and with certitude that he was going to die. The nurse was with him, and now the doctor. He was drenched with sweat. Margaret! Had she killed Sylvia or had he? What did it matter? The pains were dying away and he felt a strange serenity.

'Doctor,' he whispered.

'Take it gently, Mr. Crowther. You'll feel better now.' But Crowther had suffered a massive coronary thrombosis and his chances of living on were tilted against him in the balances.

'Doctor. Will you write something for me?'

'Yes. Of course.'

'To Inspector Morse. Write it down.' The doctor took his note-book out and wrote down the brief message. He looked at Crowther with worried eyes: the pulse was weakening rapidly. The machine was working, its black dials turned up to their maximum readings. Bernard felt the oxygen mask over his face and saw in a strangely lucid way the minutest details of all around him. Dying was going to be much easier than he had ever hoped. Easier than living. He knocked away the mask with surprising vigour, and spoke his last words.

'Doctor. Tell my children that I loved them.'

His eyes closed and he seemed to fall into a deep sleep. It was 2.35 a.m. He died at 6.30 the same morning before the sun had risen in the straggly grey of the eastern sky and before the early morning porters came clattering along the corridors with their hospital trolleys.

Morse looked down at him. It was 8.30 a.m. and the last mortal remains of Bernard Crowther had been unobtrusively wheeled into the hospital mortuary almost two hours ago. Morse had liked Crowther. Intelligent face; good-looking man really. He thought that Margaret must have loved him dearly once; probably always had, deep down. And not only Margaret. There had been someone else, too, hadn't there, Bernard? Morse looked down at the sheet of note-paper in his hand, and read it again. 'To Inspector Morse. I'm so sorry. I've told you so many lies. Please leave her alone. She had nothing to do with it. How could she? I killed Sylvia Kaye.'

The pronouns were puzzling, or so they had seemed to the doctor as he wrote the brief message. But Morse understood them and he knew that Bernard Crowther had guessed the truth before he died. He looked at the dead man again: the feet were as cold as stone and he would babble no more o' green fields.

Morse turned slowly on his heel and left.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Friday, 22 October, a.m.

LATER THAT SAME Friday morning Morse sat in his office bringing Lewis up to date with the morning's developments. 'You see, all along the trouble with this case has been not so much that they've told us downright lies but that they've told us such a tricky combination of lies and the truth. But we're nearly at the end of the road, thank God.'

'We're not finished yet, sir?'

'Well, what do you think? It's not a very tidy way of leaving things, is it? It's always nice to have a confession, I know, but what do you do with two of 'em?'

'Perhaps we shall never know, sir. I think that they were just trying to cover up for each other, you know — taking the blame for what the other had done.'

'Who do you think did it, Sergeant?'

Lewis had his choice ready. 'I think she did it, sir.'

'Pshaw!' Well, it had been a 50:50 chance, and he'd guessed wrong. Or at least Morse thought he was wrong. But he hadn't been on very good form recently, had he? 'Come on,' said Morse. Tell me. What makes you pick on poor Mrs. Crowther?'

'Well, I think she found out about Crowther going with this other woman and I believe what she said about following him and seeing him at Woodstock. She couldn't have known some of the things she mentioned if she hadn't been there, could she?'

'Go on,' said Morse.

'I mean, for instance, about where the car was parked in the yard. About them getting in the back of the car—we didn't know that; but it seems to fit in with the evidence we got when one of Sylvia's hairs was found on the back seat. I just feel she couldn't have made it up. She couldn't have got those things from the newspapers because they were never printed.'