The Wench is Dead Read online

  CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR

  Colin Dexter

  The Remorseful Day

  ‘Morse’s last case is a virtuoso piece of plotting … by quitting the game on the top of his form [Dexter] has set his fellow crime-writers an example they will find hard to emulate’

  Sunday Times

  Death Is Now My Neighbour

  ‘Dexter has created a giant among fictional detectives and has never short-changed his readers’

  The Times

  The Daughters of Cain

  ‘This is Colin Dexter at his most excitingly devious’

  Daily Telegraph

  The Way Through the Woods

  ‘Morse and his faithful Watson, Sergeant Lewis, in supreme form … Hallelujah’

  Observer

  The Jewel that Was Ours

  ‘Traditional crime writing at its best; the kind of book without which no armchair is complete’

  Sunday Times

  The Wench Is Dead

  ‘Dextrously ingenious’

  Guardian

  The Secret of Annexe 3

  ‘A plot of classic cunning and intricacy’

  Times Literary Supplement

  The Riddle of the Third Mile

  ‘Runs the gamut of brain-racking unputdownability’

  Observer

  The Dead of Jericho

  ‘The writing is highly intelligent, the atmosphere melancholy, the effect haunting’

  Daily Telegraph

  Service of All the Dead

  ‘A brilliantly plotted detective story’

  Evening Standard

  The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn

  ‘Morse’s superman status is reinforced by an ending which no ordinary mortal could have possibly unravelled’

  Financial Times

  Last Seen Wearing

  ‘Brilliant characterization in original whodunnit’

  Sunday Telegraph

  Last Bus to Woodstock

  ‘Let those who lament the decline of the English detective story reach for Colin Dexter’

  Guardian

  THE WENCH IS DEAD

  Colin Dexter graduated from Cambridge University in 1953 and has lived in Oxford since 1966. His first novel, Last Bus to Woodstock, was published in 1975. There are now thirteen novels in the series, of which The Remorseful Day is, sadly, the last.

  Colin Dexter has won many awards for his novels, including the CWA Silver Dagger twice, and the CWA Gold Dagger for The Wench Is Dead and The Way Through the Woods. In 1997 he was presented with the CWA Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature, and in 2000 was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

  The Inspector Morse novels have been adapted for the small screen with huge success by Carlton/Central Television, starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately.

  THE INSPECTOR MORSE NOVELS

  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

  Death Is Now My Neighbour

  The Remorseful Day

  Also available in Pan Books

  Morse’s Greatest Mystery and Other Stories

  The First Inspector Morse Omnibus

  The Second Inspector Morse Omnibus

  The Third Inspector Morse Omnibus

  The Fourth Inspector Morse Omnibus

  * * *

  COLIN DEXTER

  * * *

  THE WENCH

  IS DEAD

  PAN BOOKS

  First published 1989 by Macmillan

  First published in paperback 1990 by Pan Books

  This edition published 2007 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2008 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Rd, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www. panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-46891-6 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46890-9 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46893-0 in Microsoft Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46892-3 in Mobipocket format

  Copyright © Colin Dexter 1989

  The right of Colin Dexter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www. panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you're always first to hear about our new releases.

  For

  Harry Judge,

  lover of canals, who introduced me to

  The Murder of Christine Collins,

  a fascinating account of an

  early Victorian murder,

  by

  John Godwin.

  To both I am deeply indebted.

  (Copies of John Godwin’s publication are obtainable

  through the divisional Librarian, Stafford

  Borough Library.)

  Thou hast committed –

  Fornication; but that was in another country,

  And besides, the wench is dead

  (Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta)

  * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  * * *

  The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for use of copyright materials:

  Map of Oxford Canal reproduced by permission of Oxfordshire Museum Services;

  Century Hutchinson Limited for extracts from Adventures in Wonderland by David Grayson;

  Faber and Faber Ltd for extracts from ‘Little Gidding’ from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot;

  David Higham Associates Limited on behalf of Dorothy L. Sayers for extracts from The Murder of Julia Wallace, published by Gollancz;

  Methuen London Limited for extracts from A Man’s a Man by Bertolt Brecht;

  Oxfordshire Health Authority for extracts from Handbook for Patients and Visitors;

  Oxford Illustrated Press for extracts from The Erosion of Oxford by James Stevens Curl;

  E. O. Parrott for extracts;

  Routledge, Chapman and Hall for extracts from Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan;

  The Society of Authors on behalf of the Bernard Shaw Estate for extracts from Back to Methuselah, published by Longman.

  Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the author and publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part One

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

&n
bsp; Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Endnotes

  * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  Thought depends absolutely on the stomach; but, in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers

  (Voltaire, in a letter to d’Alembert)

  INTERMITTENTLY, ON THE Tuesday, he felt sick. Frequently, on the Wednesday, he was sick. On the Thursday, he felt sick frequently, but was actually sick only intermittently. With difficulty, early on the Friday morning – drained, listless, and infinitely weary – he found the energy to drag himself from his bed to the telephone, and seek to apologize to his superiors at Kidlington Police HQ for what was going to be an odds-on non-appearance at the office that late November day.

  When he awoke on the Saturday morning, he was happily aware that he was feeling considerably better; and, indeed, as he sat in the kitchen of his bachelor flat in North Oxford, dressed in pyjamas as gaudily striped as a Lido deckchair, he was debating whether his stomach could cope with a wafer of Weetabix – when the phone rang.

  ‘Morse here,’ he said.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’ (A pleasing voice!) ‘If you can hold the line a minute, the Superintendent would like a word with you.’

  Morse held the line. Little option, was there? No option, really; and he scanned the headlines of The Times which had just been pushed through the letter-box in the small entrance hall – late, as usual on Saturdays.

  ‘I’m putting you through to the Superintendent,’ said the same pleasing voice – ‘just a moment, please!’

  Morse said nothing; but he almost prayed (quite something for a low-church atheist) that Strange would get a move on and come to the phone and say whatever it was he’d got to say … The prickles of sweat were forming on his forehead, and his left hand plucked at his pyjama-top pocket for his handkerchief.

  ‘Ah! Morse? Yes? Ah! Sorry to hear you’re a bit off-colour, old boy. Lots of it about, you know. The wife’s brother had it – when was it now? – fortnight or so back? No! I tell a lie – must have been three weeks, at least. Still, that’s neither here nor there, is it?’

  In enlarged globules, the prickles of sweat had reformed on Morse’s forehead, and he wiped his brow once more as he mumbled a few dutifully appreciative noises into the telephone.

  ‘Didn’t get you out of bed, I hope?’

  ‘No – no, sir.’

  ‘Good. Good! Thought I’d just have a quick word, that’s all. Er … Look here, Morse!’ (Clearly Strange’s thoughts had moved to a conclusion.) ‘No need for you to come in today – no need at all! Unless you feel suddenly very much better, that is. We can just about cope here, I should think. The cemeteries are full of indispensable men – eh? Huh!’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Very kind of you to ring – I much appreciate it – but I am officially off duty this weekend in any case—’

  ‘Really? Ah! That’s good! That’s er … very good, isn’t it? Give you a chance to stay in bed.’

  ‘Perhaps so, sir,’ said Morse wearily.

  ‘You say you’re up, though?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Well you go back to bed, Morse! This’ll give you a chance for a jolly good rest – this weekend, I mean – won’t it? Just the thing – bit o’ rest – when you’re feeling a bit off-colour – eh? It’s exactly what the quack told the wife’s brother – when was it now …?’

  Afterwards, Morse thought he remembered concluding this telephone conversation in a seemly manner – with appropriate concern expressed for Strange’s convalescent brother-in-law; thought he remembered passing a hand once more over a forehead that now felt very wet and very, very cold – and then taking two or three hugely deep breaths – and then starting to rush for the bathroom …

  It was Mrs Green, the charlady who came in on Tuesday and Saturday mornings, who rang treble-nine immediately and demanded an ambulance. She had found her employer sitting with his back to the wall in the entrance-hall: conscious, seemingly sober, and passably presentable, except for the deep-maroon stains down the front of his deckchair pyjamas – stains that in both colour and texture served vividly to remind her of the dregs in the bottom of a coffee percolator. And she knew exactly what they meant, because that thoughtlessly cruel doctor had made it quite plain – five years ago now, it had been – that if only she’d called him immediately, Mr Green might still …

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she heard herself say – surprisingly, imperiously, in command: ‘just on the southern side of the Banbury Road roundabout. Yes. I’ll be looking out for you.’

  At 10.15 a.m. that same morning, an only semi-reluctant Morse condescended to be helped into the back of the ambulance, where, bedroom-slippered and with an itchy, grey blanket draped around a clean pair of pyjamas, he sat defensively opposite a middle-aged, uniformed woman who appeared to have taken his refusal to lie down on the stretcher-bed as a personal affront, and who now sullenly and silently pushed a white enamel kidney-bowl into his lap as he vomited copiously and noisily once more, while the ambulance climbed Headley Way, turned left into the grounds of the John Radcliffe Hospital complex, and finally stopped outside the Accident, Casualty, and Emergency Department.

  As he lay supine (on a hospital trolley now) it occurred to Morse that he might already have died some half a dozen times without anyone recording his departure. But he was always an impatient soul (most particularly in hotels, when awaiting his breakfast); and it might not have been quite so long as he imagined before a white-coated ancillary worker led him in leisurely fashion through a questionnaire that ranged from the names of his next of kin (in Morse’s case, now non-existent) to his denominational preferences (equally, alas, now non-existent). Yet once through these initiation rites – once (as it were) he had joined the club and signed the entry forms – Morse found himself the object of considerably increased attention. Dutifully, from somewhere, a young nurse appeared, flipped a watch from her stiffly laundered lapel with her left hand and took his pulse with her right; proceeded to take his blood-pressure, after tightening the black swaddling-bands around his upper-arm with (for Morse) quite needless ferocity; and then committing her findings to a chart (headed MORSE, E.) with such nonchalance as to suggest that only the most dramatic of irregularities could ever give occasion for anxiety. The same nurse finally turned her attention to matters of temperature; and Morse found himself feeling somewhat idiotic as he lay with the thermometer sticking up from his mouth, before its being extracted, its calibrations consulted, its readings apparently unsatisfactory, it being forcefully shaken thrice, as though for a few backhand flicks in a ping-pong match, and then being replaced, with all its earlier awkwardness, just underneath his tongue.

  ‘I’m going to survive?’ ventured Morse, as the nurse added her further findings to the data on his chart.

  ‘You’ve got a temperature,’ replied the uncommunicative teenager.

  ‘I thought everybody had got a temperature,’ muttered Morse.

  For the moment, however, the nurse had turned her back on him to consider the latest casualty.

  A youth, his legs caked with mud, and most of the rest of him encased in a red-and-black-striped Rugby jersey, had j
ust been wheeled in – a ghastly-looking Cyclopean slit across his forehead. Yet, to Morse, he appeared wholly at his ease as the (same) ancillary worker quizzed him comprehensively about his life-history, his religion, his relatives. And when, equally at his ease, the (same) nurse put him through his paces with stethoscope, watch, and thermometer, Morse could do little but envy the familiarity that was effected forthwith between the young lad and the equally young lass. Suddenly – and almost cruelly – Morse realized that she, that same young lass, had seen him – Morse! – exactly for what he was: a man who’d struggled through life to his early fifties, and who was about to face the slightly infra-dignitatem embarrassments of hernias and haemorrhoids, of urinary infections and – yes! – of duodenal ulcers.

  The kidney-bowl had been left within easy reach, and Morse was retching violently, if unproductively, when a young houseman (of Morse’s age, no more than half) came to stand beside him and to scan the reports of ambulance, administrative staff, and medical personnel.

  ‘You’ve got a bit of nasty tummy trouble – you realize that?’

  Morse shrugged vaguely: ‘Nobody’s really told me anything yet.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to suspect you’ve got something pretty radically wrong with your innards, would you?’

  Morse was about to reply when the houseman continued. ‘And you’ve only just come in, I think? If you could give us – Mr, er, Morse, is it? – if you give us a chance, we’ll try to tell you more about things as soon as we can, OK?’

  ‘I’m all right, really,’ said the duly chastened Chief Inspector of Police, as he lay back and tried to unloose the knot that had tied itself tight inside his shoulder muscles.

  ‘You’re not all right, I’m afraid! At best you’ve got a stomach ulcer that’s suddenly decided to burst out bleeding’ – Morse experienced a sharp little jerk of alarm somewhere in his diaphragm – ‘and at worst you’ve got what we call a “perforated ulcer”; and if that is the case …’