Free Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter Page A

was Jennifer Coleby who had stood at Fare Stage 5 with Sylvia on the night of the 29th; that it was she who had been given a lift by a person or persons unknown (pretty certainly the former) as far as Woodstock; that there she had witnessed something about which she had been warned to keep her silence. In short that Jennifer Coleby knew the identity of the man who had murdered Sylvia Kaye . Morse suddenly wondered if she was in danger, and it was this fear which prompted his immediate decision to have Jennifer held on suspicion of being an accessory to the crime of murder. He would need Lewis in.
    He reached for his outside phone and rang his sergeant’s home number.
    ‘Lewis?’
    ‘Speaking.’
    ‘Morse here. I’m sorry to ruin your weekend, but I want you here.’
    ‘Straight away, sir?’
    ‘If you can.’
    ‘I’m on my way.’
    Morse looked through his in-tray. Reports, reports, reports. He crossed through his own initials immediately, barely glancing at such uncongenial titles as The Drug Problem in Britain, The Police and the Public , and The Statistics for Crimes of Violence in Oxfordshire (second quarter). At the minute he was interested only in one statistic which would doubtless, in time, appear in the statistics of violent crime in Oxfordshire (third quarter). He’d no time for reports. He suspected that about 95% of the written word was never read by anyone anyway. But there were two items which held his attention. A report from the forensic lab on the murder weapon, and a supplementary report from the pathology department on Sylvia Kaye. Neither did more than confirm what he already knew or at any rate suspected. The tyre-lever proved to be a singularly unromantic specimen. Morse read all about its shape, size, weight . . . But why bother? There was no mystery about the lever at all. The landlord of the Black Prince had spent the afternoons of Tuesday, 28th and Wednesday, 29th tinkering with an ancient Sunbeam, and had unwittingly left his tool kit outside the garage on the right at the back of the courtyard where he kept the car. There were no recognizable prints – just the ugly evidence, at one of the lever’s curving ends, that it had crashed with considerable force into the bone of a human skull. There followed a gory analysis, which Morse was glad to skip.
    It was only a few minutes before Lewis knocked and entered.
    ‘Ah, Lewis. The gods, methinks, have smiled weakly on our inquiries.’ He outlined the developments in the case. ‘I want Miss Jennifer Coleby brought in for questioning. Be careful. Take Policewoman Fuller with you if you like. Just held for questioning, you understand? There’s no question at all of any formal arrest. If she prefers to ring up her legal advisers, tell her it’s Sunday and they’re all playing golf. But I don’t think you’ll have much trouble.’ On the latter point, at least, Morse guessed correctly.
    Jennifer was sitting in interrogation room 3 by 3.45 p.m. On Morse’s instructions, Lewis spent an hour with her, making no mention whatever of the information he had been given earlier in the afternoon. Lewis mentioned quietly that, in spite of all their inquiries, they had not been able to trace the young lady, seen by two independent witnesses, who had been with Sylvia Kaye an hour or so before she was murdered.
    ‘You must be patient, Sergeant.’
    Lewis smiled weakly, like the gods. ‘Oh, we’re patient enough, miss, and I think with a little co-operation we shall get there.’
    ‘Aren’t you getting any co-operation?’
    ‘Would you like a cup of tea, miss?’
    ‘I’d prefer coffee.’
    Policewoman Fuller hurried off; Jennifer moistened her lips and swallowed; Lewis brooded quietly. In the tug-of-war silence which ensued it was Lewis who finally won.
    ‘You think I’m not co-operating, Sergeant?’
    ‘Are you?’
    ‘Look, I’ve told the Inspector what I know. Didn’t he believe me?’
    ‘Just what did you tell the Inspector,