acquiescence. 'There are just one or two little things - ' But the phone went on Strange's desk: 'Ah! Ah! Yes! Want to speak to him?' He handed the phone over to Morse: Dr Hobson. Quite certainly, she said, Michaels' rifle hadn't
been fired for weeks. That was all. Strange had heard the pathologist, just. 'Looks as if you're right about that, anyway. We'll give
the Met a call. Certain to have scarpered to the capital, don't you reckon, the lad?' 'Ninety per cent sure, sir - and we've already given the Met his description.' 'Oh!' Morse rose to go, but Strange was not quite finished: 'What first put you on to it?' For a few moments Morse paused dubiously. 'Several things, I suppose. For example, I once heard
someone claim that all three types of British woodpeckers could be found in Wytham Woods. I think I
heard it in a pub. Or perhaps I just read it on a beer mat.' 'Useful things, pubs!' 'Then' -Morse ignored the sarcasm -'I thought if Johnson had opted for Blenheim, it'd pretty
certainly turn out to be Wytham.' 'That's grossly unfair.' 'I agree.' Morse got up and walked to the door. 'You know, it's a bit surprising no one ever
noticed her accent, isn't it? She must have a bit of an accent. I bet you I'll notice it!' 'You're a lucky bugger to hear as well as you do. The wife says I'm getting deafer all the time.' 'Get a hearing aid, sir. They probably wouldn't let you stay in the force, and they'd have to give
you a few years' enhancement on the pension.' 'You think so? Really?' 'Ninety per cent sure,' said Morse, closing the door behind him and walking thoughtfully back
through the maze of corridors to his office.
He'd omitted to acquaint Strange with the biggest clue of all, but it would have taken a little while to explain and it was all a bit nebulous -especially for a man of such matter-of-fact hardheadedness as Strange. But it had formed, for him, Morse, the focal point of all the mystery. The normal murderer (if such a person may be posited) would seek to cover up all traces of his victim. And if his victim were someone like Karin Eriksson, he would burn the clothes, chuck her jewellery and trinkets into the canal, dispose of the body - sink it in some bottomless ocean or cut it up in little bits and take it to the nearest waste-disposal site; even pack it up in those black plastic bags for the dustmen to cart off, since in Morse's experience the only things they wouldn't take were bags containing garden waste. So! So if our murderer wanted to rid the earth of every trace of his victim, why, why, had he been so anxious for the rucksack and associated possessions to be found? All right, it hadn't worked out all that well, with accidental factors, as almost always, playing their part. But the rucksack was found, very soon; the police were informed, very soon; the hunt for Karin's murderer was under way, very soon. Now if a young Swedish student goes missing sans everything, then there is always less than certitude that she is dead: thousands of young persons from all parts of Europe, all parts of the world, disappear regularly: get listed as 'missing persons'. But if a young girl goes missing, and at the same time her possessions are discovered in a hedgerow somewhere nearby, then the implications are all too painfully obvious, the conclusions all too.readily drawn: the conclusions that Johnson and almost every other policeman in the Thames Valley had drawn a year ago.
Though not Morse.
Perhaps he could, on reflexion, have explained his thinking to Strange without too much difficulty? After all, the key question could be posed very simply, really: why was the murderer so anxious for the police to pursue a murder enquiry? To that strange question Morse now knew the answer; of that he was quite sure. Well, ninety-nine per cent sure: because the police would be looking for a body, not for someone who was still alive.
Ten minutes later, Lewis was ready for him, and together the two detectives drove out to Wytham Woods once more.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)
THERE WERE four of them in the living room of the low-ceilinged cottage: Morse and Lewis seated side by side on the leather settee, Mrs Michaels opposite them in an armchair, and the small attractive figure of the uniformed WPG Wright standing by the door.
'Why haven't you brought David?' asked Mrs Michaels.
'Isn't he still making a statement, Sergeant?' Morse's eyebrows rose quizzically as if the matter were of minor import.
'What are you here for then?' She lifted her eyes and cocked her head slightly to Morse as if she were owed some immediate and convincing explanation.
'We're here about your marriage. There's something slightly, ah, irregular about it.'
'Really? You'll have to check that up with the Registry Office, not me.'
'Register Office, Mrs Michaels. It's important to be accurate about things. So let me be accurate. David Michaels discovered that the District Office for anyone living in Wytham was at Abingdon, and he went there and answered all the usual questions about when and where you wanted to marry, how old you both were, where you were both born, whether either of you had been married before, whether you were related. And that was that. Two days later you were married.'
'So?'
'Well, everything is really based on trust in things like that. If you want to, you can tell a pack of lies. There's one Registrar in Oxford who married the same fellow three times in the same year one in Reading who managed to marry a couple of sailors!'
Morse looked across at her as if expecting a dutiful smile, but Mrs Michaels sat perfectly still, her mouth tight, her hair framing the clear-skinned features in a semi-circle of the darkest black, the blonde roots so very recently re-dyed.
'Take any reasonably fluent liar - even a fairly clumsy liar,' continued Morse, 'and he'll get away with murder -if you see what I mean, Mrs Michaels. For example, some proof of age is required for anyone under twenty-three, did you know that? But if your fiance says you're twenty-four ? Well, he'll almost certainly get away with it. And if you've been married before? Well, if you say you haven't, it's going to be virtually impossible to prove, then and there, that you have. Oh yes! It's easy to get married by licence if you're willing to abuse the system.'
'You are saying that I - that we, David and I - we abused the system?'
'You know most English people would have settled for "me and David", Mrs Michaels.' (WPC Wright was aware of that nuance of stress on the word 'English'.)
'I asked you - '
But Morse interrupted her brusquely: 'There was only one thing that couldn't be fiddled in your case: date of birth. You see, some documentation is statutory in that respect -if the person concerned is a foreign national?
A silence now hung over the small room; a palpably tense silence, during which a strange, indefinable look flitted across Mrs Michaels' features as she crossed one leg over the other and clasped her hands round her left knee.
'What's that got to do with me?' she asked.
'You're a foreign national,' said Morse simply, looking across unblinkingly at the lovely girl seated opposite him.
'Do you realize how absurd all this is, Inspector?'
'Did you have to show your passport to the Registrar at Abingdon?'
'There was no need for that: I'm not a foreign national!'
'No?'
'No! My name is -was Catharine Adams. I was born in, Uppingham, in Rutland -what used to be Rutland; I'm twenty-four years old-'
'Can I see your passport?' asked Morse quietly.
'As a matter of fact you can't. It's in the post to Swansea -it needs renewing. We are going - me and David! -to Italy in September.' (Lewis could pick up the hint of the accent now, in that word 'Eetaly'.)