He drove out to Woodstock, past the Bear and the church on his left, then across a quadrangle and up to the gate where a keeper sat in his box, and where Johnson (to his delight) was recognized.

'You going through, sir?'

Johnson nodded. 'I thought we had one of our lads at each of the gates?'

'Right. You did, sir. But you took 'em off.'

'When was that?'

'Saturday. The fellow who was on duty here just said he wouldn't be back – that's all I know. Reckon as he thought the case was finished, like.'

'Really?'

Johnson drove on through, and there it was again, bringing back so many memories: in the middle distance the towers and finials of the Palace itself; and there, immediately to his right, the lake with the Grand Bridge and Capability Brown's beechwood landscape beyond it. Breathtaking!

Johnson accepted the fact that he was a man of somewhat limited sensitivity; yet he thought he was a competent police officer, and he was far from happy about the statement he'd just read. If this Hardinge fellow could be believed, the evidence Daley had given a year earlier had been decidedly uneconomical with the truth; and that, to Johnson, was irksome – very irksome. At the time, he'd spent a good while with Daley, going over that wretched rucksack business; and he wanted to have another word with Daley. Now!

He drove down past the Palace to the garden centre; but no one there had seen Daley that morning. He might be out at the mill, perhaps? So Johnson drove out of the estate, through Eagle Lodge, and out on to the A4095, where he turned right through Bladon and Long Hanborough, then right again and in towards the western boundary of the estate, parking beside the piles of newly cut stakes in the yard of the Blenheim Estate Saw-Mill. Only once had he been there when earlier he'd been the big white chief, and he was suddenly aware that it would have been considerably quicker for him to have driven across the park instead of round the villages. Not that it much mattered, though.

No one recognized him here. But he soon learned that Daley's van wasn't there; hadn't been there since Friday afternoon in fact, when he'd been looking after some new plantation by the lake, and when he'd called at the saw-mill for some stakes for supporting saplings. One of the workers suggested that Daley would probably have taken the van home with him for the weekend – certainly so if he'd been working overtime that weekend; and the odds were that Daley was back planting trees that morning.

Johnson thanked the man and drove to the edge of the estate, only just along the road really; then right along a lane that proclaimed 'No Thoroughfare', till he reached Combe Lodge where, Johnson had been told, the gate would probably be locked. But, well, he was a policeman, he'd said.

Johnson read the notice on the tall, wooden, green-painted gate:

ACCESS FOR KEYHOLDERS ONLY.

ALL OTHER VEHICLES MUST USE THE GATE IN WOODSTOCK. DO NOT DISTURB THE RESIDENTS IN THE LODGE.

But there was no need for him to disturb the (single) resident, since a tractor-cum-trailer was just being admitted, and in its wake the police car was waved through without challenge. A little lax perhaps, as Johnson wondered. Immediately in front of him the road divided sharply; and as a lone, overweight lady, jogging at roughly walking pace, took the fork to the right, Johnson took the fork to the left, past tall oak trees towards the northern tip of the lake. Very soon, some two or three hundred yards ahead on his left, he saw the clump of trees, and immediately realized his luck – for a Blenheim Estate van stood there, pulled in beside an old, felt-roofed hut, its wooden slats green with mildew. He drew in alongside and got out of the car to look through a small side-window of glass.

Nothing.'Well, virtually nothing: only a wooden shelf on which rested two unopened bags of food for the pheasants. Walking round to the front of the hut, he tried the top and bottom of the stable-type door: both locked. Then, as he stepped further round, something caught the right-hand edge of his vision, and he looked down at the ground just beyond and behind the hut – his mouth suddenly opening in horror, his body held momentarily in the freezing grip of fear.

chapter fifty-four

At the time that Chief Inspector Johnson had set out for Woodstock, Lewis was driving, at slightly above the national speed limit, along the A40 to Cheltenham. It appeared to have been a late, impulsive decision on Morse's part:

'You realize, Lewis, that the only person we've not bothered about in this case so far is auntie whatever-her-name-is from Llan-dovery.'

'Not an "auntie" exactly, sir. You know, it's like when little girls sometimes call women their aunties – '

'No. I don't know, Lewis.'

'Well, it seems Karin called her Auntie Dot or Doss – this Mrs Evans. "Dorothy", I seem to remember her Christian name was.'

'You've profited from your weekend's rest, Lewis!'

'Don't you think we ought to get Daley and Michaels in first though, sir? I mean, if they're prepared to back up what Dr Hardinge says-'

'No! If I'm right about this case – which I am! – we'll be in a far better position to deal with those two gentlemen once we've seen the Lady of Llandovery. Remember that sign at the Woodstock Road roundabout? Left to Wytham; right to Woodstock; straight over for the A40 to West Wales, right? So we can be there in…? How far is it?'

'Hundred and thirty? Hundred and forty miles? But don't you think we should give her a ring just in case-'

'Get the car out, Lewis. The way you drive we'll be there in three hours.'

'Try for two and a half, if you say so,' replied Lewis with a radiant smile.

it had been after Cheltenham, after Gloucester and Ross-on-Wye, after Monmouth and the stretch of beautiful countryside between Brecon and Llandovery, that Morse had come to life again. Never, in Lewis's experience, had he been any sort of conversationalist in a car; but that day's silence had broken all records. And when finally he did speak, Lewis was once again conscious of the unsuspected processes of Morse's mind. For the great man, almost always so ignorant of routes and directions and distances, suddenly jerked up in his passenger seat:

'The right turn in a couple of miles, Lewis – the A483 towards Builth Wells.'

'You don't want to stop for a quick pint, sir?'

'I most certainly do. But if you don't mind, we'll skip it, all right?'

'I still think it would've been sensible to ring her, sir. You know, she might be off for a fortnight in Tenerife or something.'

Morse sighed deeply. 'Aren't you enjoying the journey?' Then, after a pause: 'I rang her yesterday afternoon, anyway. She'll be there, Lewis. She'll be there.'

Lewis remained silent, and it was Morse who resumed the conversation:

'That statement – that statement Hardinge made. They obviously got together the four of them – Hardinge, Daley, Michaels, and McBryde – got together and cooked up a story between them. Your porter couldn't give us any names, you say; but he was pretty sure there were at least three, probably four, of 'em in Hardinge's rooms on Friday night. And if they all stick to saying the same -well, we shall have little option but to believe them.'

'Not that you will, sir.'

'Certainly not. Some of it might be true, though; some of it might be absolutely crucial. And the best way of finding that out is seeing Auntie Gladys here.'