Last Bus to Woodstock Read Online Free PDF Page B

would turn right, walk to the end of the road, turn right again, and make his way, with perceptible purposefulness in his stride, towards the lounge bar of the Fletcher’s Arms. Though an articulate man, indeed an English don at Lonsdale College, he found it difficult to explain either to his disapproving wife or indeed to himself exactly what it was that attracted him to this unexceptionable pub, with its ill-assorted, yet regular and amiable clientele.
    On the night of Friday, 1 October, however, Crowther would have been observed to remain quite still for several seconds after closing the garden gate behind him, his eyes downcast and disturbed as if he were pondering deep and troublous thoughts; and then to turn, against his habit and his inclination, to his left. He walked slowly to the end of the road, where, on the left beside a row of dilapidated garages, stood a public telephone-box. Impatient at the best of times, and this was not the best of times, he waited restlessly and awkwardly, pacing to and fro, consulting his watch and throwing wicked glances at the portly woman inside the kiosk who appeared ill-equipped to face the triangular threat of the gadgeted apparatus before her, an uncooperative telephone exchange and her own one-handed negotiations with the assorted coinage in her purse. But she was fighting on and Crowther, in a generous moment, wondered if one of her children had been taken suddenly and seriously ill with dad on the night-shift and no one else to help. But he doubted whether her call was as important as the one he was about to make. News bulletins had always gripped his attention, however trivial the items reported; and the item he had watched on the BBC news at 9.00 p.m. had been far from trivial. He could remember verbatim the words the police inspector had used: ‘We shall be very glad if any motorist . . .’ Yes, he could tell them something, for he had played his part in the terrifying and tragic train of events. But what was he going to say? He couldn’t tell them the truth. Nor even half the truth. His fragile resolution began to crumble. He’d give that wretched woman another minute – one minute and no longer.
    At 9.50 p.m. that same evening an excited Sergeant Lewis put through a call to Chief Inspector Morse. ‘A break, sir. I think we’ve got a break.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Yes. A witness, sir. A Mrs Mabel Jarman. She saw the murdered girl . . .’
    ‘You mean,’ interrupted Morse, ‘she saw the girl who was later murdered, I suppose.’
    ‘That’s it. We can get a full statement as soon as we like.’
    ‘You mean you haven’t got one yet?’
    ‘She only rang five minutes ago, sir. I’m going over straight away. She’s local. I wondered if you wanted to come.’
    ‘No,’ said Morse.
    ‘All right, sir. I’ll have the whole thing typed up and ready for you in the morning.’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘Bit of luck, though, isn’t it? We’ll soon get on to this other girl.’
    ‘What other girl?’ said Morse quietly.
    ‘Well, you see, sir . . .’
    ‘What’s Mrs Jarman’s address?’ Morse reluctantly took off his bedroom slippers, and reached for his shoes.
    ‘Bit late on parade tonight, Bernard. What’s it to be?’
    Bernard was well liked at the Fletcher’s Arms, always ready to fork out for his round – and more. All the regulars knew him for a man of some academic distinction; but he was a good listener, laughed as heartily as the next at the latest jokes, and himself occasionally waxed eloquent on the stupidity of the government and the incompetence of Oxford United. But tonight he spoke of neither. By 10.25 p.m. he had drunk three pints of best bitter with his usual practised fluency and got up to go.
    ‘’Nother one before you go, Bernard?’
    ‘Thanks, no. I’ve had just about enough of that horse piss for one night.’
    ‘You in the dog house again.’
    ‘I’m always in the bloody dog house.’
    He walked back slowly. He knew that if the bedroom light was