The Way Through the Woods Read online

  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.”

  “What if I repeat my sin?”

  “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)