More praise for
Colin Dexter, Inspector Morse, and
THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS
“Splendid … Fast moving … Another Dexter-ous performance to delight the fans of Morse.”
–Mostly Murder
“Richly dramatic.”
–Alfred Hitchcock Magazine
“[Dexter] is a magician with character, story construction, and the English langauge.… Colin Dexter and Morse are treasures of the genre.”
–Mystery News
“It is a delight to watch this brilliant, quirky man [Morse] deduce.”
–Minneapolis Star & Tribune
By Colin Dexter:
LAST BUS TO WOODSTOCK
LAST SEEN WEARING
THE SILENT WORLD OF NICHOLAS QUINN
SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD
THE DEAD OF JERICHO
THE RIDDLE OF THE THIRD MILE
THE SECRET OF ANNEXE 3
THE WENCH IS DEAD
THE JEWEL THAT WAS OURS
THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS
THE DAUGHTERS OF CAIN
MORSE’S GREATEST MYSTERY and Other Stories
DEATH IS NOW MY NEIGHBOR
THE REMORSEFUL DAY
An Ivy Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1992 by Colin Dexter
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ivy Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Macmillan London Limited in 1992. First published in the U.S. by Crown Publishers, Inc., in 1993.
Ivy and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-79742-1
This edition published by arrangement with Crown Publishers, Inc.
v3.1
To
BRIAN BEDWELL
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
Map
Prolegomenon
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-one
Chapter Sixty-two
Chapter Sixty-three
Chapter Sixty-four
Chapter Sixty-five
Chapter Sixty-six
Chapter Sixty-seven
Chapter Sixty-eight
Chapter Sixty-nine
Epilogue
THE AUTHOR WISHES TO RECORD HIS GRATITUDE
TO THE AUTHORITIES OF BOTH WYTHAM WOODS AND
BLENHEIM PARK FOR THE INFORMATION AND HELP
THEY SO READILY GAVE HIM.
ALSO TO DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JOHN HAYWARD,
OF THE THAMES VALLEY POLICE, AND TO SIMON JENKINS,
EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Acknowledgements
The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for use of copyright materials:
Extract from A Portrait of Jane Austen by David Cecil, published by Constable Publishers;
Extract from The Rehearsal by Jean Anouilh, published by Methuen London;
The Observer, for a quote by Aneurin Bevan © The Observer;
Faber & Faber Ltd for the extract from “La Figlia Che Piange” in Collected Poems 1909–1962 by T. S. Eliot. Copyright © 1936 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., copyright © 1964, 1965 by T. S. Eliot;
Oxford University Press for the extract from “AUSTIN, Alfred (1835–1913)” from the Oxford Companion to English Literature edited by Margaret Drabble (5th edition 1985);
Don Manley for the extract from the Chambers Crossword Manual (Chambers 1992);
Extract from Marriage and Morals by Bertrand Russell, published by Unwin Hyman;
Kate Champkin for the extract from The Sleeping Life of Aspern Williams by Peter Champkin;
Extract from Further Fables of Our Time, published by Hamish Hamilton, 1956, in the UK and Commonwealth and Simon and Schuster in the US. Copyright © 1956 James Thurber. Copyright © 1984 Helen Thurber;
The Observer, for a quote by Edwina Currie © The Observer.
Extract from The Road to Xanadu by John Livingston Lowes. Copyright 1927 by John Livingston Lowes. Copyright © renewed 1955 by John Wilbur Lowes. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Co. All rights reserved;
Extract from A. E. Housman: Scholar and Poet by Norman Marlow, published by Routledge;
Farrar, Straus & Giroux for the extract from “I Have Started to Say”, Collected Poems by Philip Larkin. Copyright © 1988, 1989 by the estate of Philip Larkin;
Extract from Half Truths One and a Half Truths by Karl Kraus, published by Carcanet Press;
The University of Oxford for the extract from the Wytham Woods deed.
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders but if any has been inadvertently overlooked, the author and publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.
Maps of Wytham Woods and Blenheim Park drawn by Graeme James.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
From The Way Through the Woods
by Rudyard Kipling
Prolegomenon
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be whiter, yea whiter, than snow
(Isaiah, ch. I, v. 18)
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent
(Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations)
“I must speak to you.”
“Speak on, my child.”
“I’ve not often come to your church.”
“It is not my church—it is God’s church. We are all children of God.”
“I’ve come to confess a big sin.”
“It is proper that all sins should be confessed.”
“Can all sins be forgiven?”
“When we, sinful mortals as we are, can find it in our hearts to forgive each other, think only of our infinitely merciful Father, who understands our every weakness—who knows us all far better than we know ourselves.”
“I don’t believe in God.”
“And you consider that as of any great importance?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Would it not be of far greater importance if God did not believe in you?”
“You’re speaking like a Jesuit.”
“Forgive me.”
“It’s not you—it’s me who wants forgiveness.”
“Do you recall Pilgrim, when at last he confessed his sins to God? How the weight of the great burden was straightway lifted from his shoulders—like the pain that eases with the lancing of an abscess?”
“You sound as if you’ve said that all before.”
“Those self-same words I have said to others, yes.”
“Others?”
“I cannot talk of them. Whatever it is that men and women may confess to me, they confess—through me—to God.”
“You’re not really needed at all, then—is that what you are saying?”
“I am a servant of God. Sometimes it is granted me to help those who are truly sorry for their sins.”
“What about those who aren’t?”
“I pray that God will touch their hearts.”
“Will God forgive them—whatever they’ve done? You believe that, Father?”
“I do.”
“The scenes of the concentration camps …”
“What scenes have you in mind, my child?”
“The ‘sins’. Father.”
“Forgive me, once again. My ears are failing now—yet not my heart! My own father was tortured to death in a Japanese camp, in 1943. I was then thirteen years old. I know full well the difficulties of forgiveness. I have told this to very few.”
“Have you forgiven your father’s torturers?”
“God has forgiven them, if they ever sought His forgiveness.”
“Perhaps it’s more forgivable to commit atrocities in times of war.”
“There is no scale of better or of worse, whether in times of peace or in times of war. The laws of God are those that He has created. They are steadfast and firm as the fixed stars in the heavens—unchangeable for all eternity. Should a man hurl himself down headlong from the heights of the Temple, he will break himself upon the law of God; but never will he break the universal law that God has once ordained.”
“You are a Jesuit.”
“I am a man, too. And all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
“Father …”
“Speak on, my child.”
“Perhaps you will report what I confess …”
“Such a thing a priest could never do.”
“But what if I wanted you to report it?”
“My holy office is to absolve, in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the sins of all who show a true repentance. It is not my office to pursue the workings of the Temporal Power.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I am aware of that.”
“What if I wanted you to report me to the police?”
“I would be unsure of my duty. I would seek the advice of my bishop.”
“You’ve never been asked such a thing before?”
“Never.”
“Unlock your thoughts. Unlock those sinful thoughts to me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Would you tell me everything if I could guess the reasons for your refusal?”
“You could never do that.”
“Perhaps I have already done so.”
“You know who I am, then?”
“Oh yes, my child. I think I knew you long ago.”
Chapter One
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of Hell
(George Bernard Shaw)
Morse never took his fair share of holidays, so he told himself. So he was telling Chief Superintendent Strange that morning in early June.
“Remember you’ve also got to take into consideration the time you regularly spend in pubs, Morse!”
“A few hours here and there, perhaps, I agree. It wouldn’t be all that difficult to work out how much—”
“ ‘Quantify’, that’s the word you’re looking for.”
“I’d never look for ugly words like ‘quantify’.”
“A useful word, Morse. It means—well, it means to say how much …”
“That’s just what I said, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know why I argue with you!”
Nor did Morse.
For many years now, holidays for Chief Inspector Morse of Thames Valley CID had been periods of continuous and virtually intolerable stress. And what they must normally be like for men with the extra handicaps of wives and children, even Morse for all his extravagant imagination could scarcely conceive. But for this year, for the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-two, he was resolutely determined that things would be different: he would have a holiday away from Oxford. Not abroad, though. He had no wanderlust for Xanadu or Isfahan; indeed he very seldom travelled abroad at all—although it should be recorded that several of his colleagues attributed such insularity more than anything to Morse’s faint-hearted fear of aeroplanes. Yet as it happened it had been one of those same colleagues who had first set things in motion.
“Lime, mate! Lime’s marvellous!”
Lime?
Only several months later had the word finally registered in Morse’s mind, when he had read the advertisement in The Observer:
THE BAY HOTEL
Lyme Regis
Surely one of the finest settings of any hotel in the West Country! We are the only hotel on the Marine Parade and we enjoy panoramic views from Portland Bill to the east, to the historic Cobb Harbour to the west. The hotel provides a high standard of comfort and cuisine, and a friendly relaxed atmosphere. There are level walks to the shops and harbour, and traffic-free access to the beach, which is immediately in front of the hotel.
For full details please write to The Bay Hotel, Lyme Regis, Dorset; or just telephone (0297) 442059.
“It gets tricky,” resumed Strange, “when a senior man takes more than a fortnight’s furlough—you realize that, of course.”
“I’m not taking more than what’s due to me.”
“Where are you thinking of?”
“Lyme Regis.”
“Ah. Glorious Devon.”
“Dorset, sir.”
“Next door, surely?”
“Persuasion—it’s where some of the scenes in Persuasion are set.”
“Ah.” Strange looked suitably blank.
“And The French Lieutenant’s Woman.”
“Ah. I’m with you. Saw that at the pictures with the wife … Or was it on the box?”
“Well, there we are then,” said Morse lamely.
For a while there was a silence. Then Strange shook his head.
“You couldn’t stick being away that long! Building sand-castles? For over a fortnight?”
“Coleridge country too, sir. I’ll probably drive around a bit—have a look at Ottery St. Mary … some of the old haunts.”
A low chuckle emanated from somewhere deep in Strange’s belly. “He’s been dead for ages, man—more Max’s cup o’ tea than yours.”
Morse smiled wanly. “But you wouldn’t mind me seeing his birth-place?”
“It’s gone. The rectory’s gone. Bulldozed years ago.”
“Really?”
Strange puckered his lips, and nodded his head. “You think I’m an ignorant sod, don’t you, Morse? But let me tell you something. There was none of this child-centred nonsense when I was at school. In those days we all had to learn things off by heart—things like yer actual Ancient Bloody Mariner.”
“My days too, sir.” It irked Morse that Strange, only a year his senior, would always treat him like a representative of some much younger generation.
But Strange was in full flow.
“You don’t forget it, Morse. It sticks.” He peered briefly but earnestly around the lumber room of some olden memories; then found what he was seeking, and with high seriousness intoned a stanza learned long since:
“All in a hot and copper sky
The bloody sun at noon
Right up above the mast did stand
No bigger than the bloody moon!”
“Very good, sir,” said Morse, uncertain whether the monstrous misquotation were deliberate or not, for he found the chief superintendent watching him shrewdly.
“No. You won’t last the distance. You’ll be back in Oxford within the week. You’ll see!”
“So what? There’s plenty for me to do here.”
“Oh?”
“For a start there’s a drain-pipe outside the flat that’s leaking—”
Strange’s eyebrows shot up. “And you’re telling me you’re going to fix that?”
“I’ll get it fixed,” said Morse ambiguously. “I’ve already got a bit of extra piping but the, er, diameter of the cross-section is … rather too narrow.”
“It’s too bloody small, you mean? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Morse nodded, a little sheepishly.
The score was one-all.
Chapter Two
Mrs. Austen was well enough in 1804 to go with her husband and Jane for a holiday to Lyme Regis. Here we hear Jane’s voice speaking once again in cheerful tones. She gives the news about lodgings and servants, about new acquaintances and walks on the Cobb, about some enjoyable sea bathing, about a ball at the local Assembly Rooms
(David Cecil, A Portrait of Jane Austen)