The Way Through The Woods

'I wish you'd tell me exactly what you're getting at.'

'All right. Let me ask you a simple question. Would it be possible for anyone to apply for someone else's passport?'

'Almost impossible, surely? There are all sorts of checks in Sweden: Civic Registration Number – that's what we use in Sweden instead of a birth certificate – details of all the information on the passport that would have to be checked – photograph? No! I don't think it would.'

'I agree with you, I think. Almost impossible – though not quite; not for a very clever woman.'

'But I'm not a very clever woman, Inspector.'

'No! Again I agree with you.' (Lewis wondered if he'd spotted the slightest trace of disappointment in her eyes.) 'But let's agree it is impossible, right. There is another way, though, a very much easier way of acquiring a passport. A childishly easy way. Someone gives you one, Mrs Michaels. Someone sends you one through the post.'

'You are leaving me many miles behind, Inspector.'

'No, I'm not,' replied Morse, with a quiet factuality that brooked no argument. 'No one – no one – lost any passport at Barcelona, or anywhere else. But you and your elder sister are very much alike, aren't you? My sergeant here brought me a photograph of the three of you from Stockholm. You're all blonde and blue-eyed and high-cheekboned and long-legged and everything else people here expect from the Nordic type. Even your younger sister – the shortest of the three of you – she looks very much like Karin too, at least from her photograph.'

Forcibly she interrupted him: 'Listen! Just one moment, please! Have you ever felt completely confused – like I feel now?'

'Oh, yes! Quite frequently, believe me. But not now. Not now, Mrs Michaels. And you're not confused either. Because that passport there isn't yours. It belongs to your sister Katarina – Katarina Adams. Your sister who still lives in Uppsala. Your sister who told the Swedish authorities that she'd had her passport stolen, and then applied for another. Simple! You see, your name isn't Katarina Adams at all, is it, Mrs Michaels? It's Karin Eriksson.'

Her shoulders suddenly sagged, as if she felt that, in spite of any innocent protestations she might make, she was not going to be believed by anyone; as if on that score at least she would perhaps be well advised to leave her case to the testimony of others.

But Morse was pressing home his advantage; and WPC Wright (though not Lewis) found his further questioning embarrassing and tasteless.

'You've got beautiful legs – would you agree?'

'What?' Instinctively she sought to pull the her of her knee length skirt an inch or two lower over her elegant legs; but with little effect.

'You know,' continued Morse, 'when I was talking just now about the Nordic type, I was thinking of the films we used to see of all those sexy Swedish starlets. I used to go to the pictures a lot in those days-'

'Do you want me to do a streep-tease for you?'

'You see, my sergeant here and me – and I – we've got quite a big advantage really, because we've had a chance to study your passport – if it is yours – '

She was almost at the end of her tether. 'What is it?' she shrieked. 'Please! Please tell me! What are you accusing me of? All of you?'

Resignedly Morse gestured with his right hand to Lewis; and Lewis, in a flat and melancholy voice, intoned the charge:

'Mrs Karin Michaels – Miss Karin Eriksson – I have to inform you that you are under police arrest on suspicion of murdering one James Myton, on the afternoon of Sunday, July seventh, 1991. It is my duty to warn you that anything you may now say in the presence of the three police officers here may be used in evidence in any future proceedings.'

Morse got up, and now stood above her.

'There's no need for you to say anything, not for the time being.'

'You mean you are accusing me – me – of being Karin, my sister? The sister who was murdered?'

'You're still denying it?' queried Morse quietly.

'Of course! Of course, I am!'

'You can prove it, you know. The Swedish authorities tell us they don't use that "Remarks" section very much at all on the passport – only really if there's some obvious distinguishing mark that can help in establishing identity. On the passport though -the one you say is yours – that section's filled in, in Swedish. And it says, so they tell me, "Pronounced diagonal scar, inner thigh above left knee-cap, eight and a half centimetres in length, result of motoring accident".'

'Yes?' She looked up at the chief inspector as if she almost willed him, dared him, wanted him, to prove his accusation.

'So if you do have a scar there, it won't necessarily prove who you are, will it? But if you haven't… if you haven't, then you're not now, and never were, the woman described on that passport.'

Karin Eriksson, the murderer of James Myton, now sat completely still for many agonizing seconds. Then slowly, tantalizingly, as if she were some upper-class artiste in a strip-tease parlour, centimetre by centimetre her left hand lifted the hem of the beige velvet skirt above her left knee to reveal the naked flesh upon her inner thigh.

Did she rejoice in the gaze of the two detectives there? Had she secretly always thrilled to the admiration of the young boys in her high school class at Uppsala – of the tutors on her course? Even perhaps, for a short while, to the lust of the crude and ratty-faced Myton, who had sought to rape her out in Wytham Woods, and whom she had then so deliberately murdered?

And as Morse looked down at the smooth and unscarred flesh above her knee, he found himself wondering for a little while whether he too, like Myton, might not at some point on a hot and sultry summer afternoon have found this girl so very beautiful and necessary.

Lewis drove carefully down the road that led along the edge of the woods towards Wytham village. Beside him was WPG Wright; and in the back sat Karin Eriksson and Chief Inspector Morse.

Almost always, at such a stage in any case, Morse felt himself saddened – with the thrill of the chase now over, with the guilty left to face the appropriate retribution. Often had he pondered on the eternal problem of justice; and he knew as did most men of civilized values that the function of law was to provide that framework of order within which men and women could be protected as they went about their legitimate business. Yes, the criminal must be punished for his misdeeds, for that was the law. And Morse was an upholder of the law. Yet he debated now again, as he felt the body of Karin Eriksson close beside him, that fine distinction between the law and justice. Justice was one of those big words that was so often spelled with a capital 'J'; but really it was so much harder to define than Law. Karin would have to face the law; and he turned to look at her – to look at those beautiful blue eyes of hers, moistened now with the quiet film of tears. For a few seconds, at that moment, there seemed almost a bond between them – between Morse and the young woman who had murdered James Myton.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, she whispered something in his right ear.

'Did you ever have sex with a girl in the back of a car?'