You could dispose of a corpse like this
Without giving the least offence.
(D. J. Enright,
IT OCCURED TO Morse as he drove down the Woodstock Road into Oxford that although he had done most things in life he had never before had occasion to visit a rubbish tip. In fact, as he turned into Walton Street and slowed to negotiate the narrowing streets that led down to Jericho, he could not quite account for the fact that he knew exactly where to go. He passed Aristotle Lane and turned right into Walton Well Road, over the hump-backed bridge that spanned the canal, and stopped the Lancia beside an open gate, where a notice informed him that unauthorized vehicles were not allowed to drive further and that offenders would be prosecuted by an official with (it seemed to Morse) the portentous title of Conservator and Sheriff of Port Meadow. He slipped the car into first gear and drove on, deciding that he would probably qualify in the 'authorized' category, and rather hoping that someone would stop him. But no one did. He made his way slowly along the concreted pathway, a thin belt of trees on his right and the open green expanse of Port Meadow on his left. Twice when corporation lorries came towards him he was forced off the track on to the grass, before coming finally to the edge of the site, where a high wooden gate over a deep cattle-grid effectively barred all further progress. He left the car and proceeded on foot, noting, as he passed another sign, that members of the public would be ill-advised to touch any materials deposited on the tip, treated as they were with harmful insecticides. He had gone more than 200 yards before he caught his first sight of genuine rubbish. The compacted surface over which he walked was flat and clear, scored by the caterpillar tracks of bulldozers and levellers, with only the occasional partially submerged piece of sacking to betray the burial of the thousands of tons of rubbish beneath. Doubtless grass and shrubs would soon be burgeoning there, and the animals would return to their old territories and scurry once more in the hedgerows amid the bracken and the wild flowers. And people would come and scatter their picnic litter around and the whole process would begin again. Sometimes
He made his way towards the only observable sign of life — a corrugated-iron shack, once painted green but ramshackle now and rusty, where an indescribably grimy labourer directed him deeper into the network of filth. Two magpies and an ominous-looking crow reluctantly took to flight as he walked by, and flapped their slow way across the blighted wilderness. At last Morse came to the main area of the tip: Pepsi and Coca-Cola tins, perished household gloves, lengths of rusting wire, empty cartons of washing-up liquid, and a disintegrating dart-board; biscuit tins, worn-out shoes, a hot-water bottle, ancient car seats and a comprehensive collection of cardboard boxes. Morse swatted away the ugly flies that circled his head, and was glad to find he had one last cigarette left. He threw the empty packet away; it didn't seem to matter much here.
George Taylor was standing beside a yellow bulldozer, shouting to its driver above the deep-throated growl of the engine, and pointing towards a great mound of earth and stones piled like a rampart along the side of the shallow tip. Morse idly conjured up the image of some archaeologist who, some thousand years hence, might seek to discover the life-style of twentieth-century man, and Morse commiserated with him on the dismal debris he would find.
George was a heavily built, broad-shouldered man, not too intelligent, perhaps, but, as Morse saw him, honest and likeable enough. He sat down upon a ten-gallon paraffin tin, Morse himself having declined the offer of similar accommodation, supposing that by this time George's trousers were probably immune from the harmful effects of all insecticides. And so they talked, and Morse tried to picture the scene as it must have been each night in the Taylor household: George arriving home, dirty and tired, at 6.15 or thereabouts; Mrs. Taylor cooking the evening meal and washing up the pots; and Valerie — but what did he know of Valerie? Occasionally condescending to do a modicum of homework? He didn't know. Three isolated personalities, under the same roof, somehow brought and kept together by that statistical unit beloved by the sociologists — the family. Morse asked about Valerie — her life at home, her life at school, her friends, her likes and her dislikes; but he learned little that was new.
'Have you ever thought that Valerie may have run away because she was expecting a baby?'
George slowly lit a Woodbine and contemplated the broken glass that littered the ground at his feet. 'You think of most things, don't you, when summat like that happens. I remembered when she were a young gal she were a bit late sometimes — and I used to think all sorts of things had happened.' Morse nodded. 'You got a family, Inspector?'
Morse shook his head and, like George, contemplated the ground about his feet.
' 'S funny, really. You think of the most terrible things. And then she'd come back and you'd feel all sort of happy and cross at the same time, if you know what I mean.'
Morse thought he knew; and for the first time in the case he saw something of the heartache and the sorrow of it all, and he began to hope that Valerie Taylor was still alive.
'Was she often late coming home?'
George hesitated. 'Not really. Well, not till she were about sixteen, anyway.'
'And then she was?'
'Well, not too late. Anyway, I allus used to wait up for her.'
Morse put it more bluntly. 'Did she ever stay out all night?'
'Never.' It was a firm and categorical answer, but Morse wondered if it were true.
'When was the latest she came in? After midnight?' George nodded rather sadly. 'Much after?'
'Sometimes.'
'Rows, were there?'
'The wife got cross, of course. Well, so did I, really.'
'She often stayed out late, then?'
'Well, no. Not often. Just once every few weeks, like, she'd say she was going to a party with her friends, or summat like that.' He rubbed his hand across his stubbled chin and shook his head. 'These days it's not like it was when we was boys. I don't know.'
They brooded silently and George kicked a flattened Coca-Cola tin a few yards further away.
'Did you give her much pocket money?' asked Morse.
