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later that same afternoon that Morse, Lewis, and the police surgeon presented themselves at the Boat Inn, where the landlord, sensibly circumspect, informed the trio that it would of course be wholly improper for him to serve any alcoholic beverages at the bar; on the other hand the provision of three chairs in a back room and a bottle of personally purchased Glenfiddich might not perhaps be deemed to contravene the nation’s liquor laws.
    ‘How long’s he been dead?’ was Morse’s flatly spoken, predictable gambit, and the surgeon poured himself a liberal tumbler before deigning to reply.
    ‘Good question! I’ll have a guess at it tomorrow.’
    Morse poured himself an equally liberal portion, his sour expression reflecting a chronic distrust in the surgeon’s calling.
    ‘A week, perhaps?’
    The surgeon merely shrugged his shoulders.
    ‘Could be longer, you mean?’
    ‘Or shorter.’
    ‘Oh Christ! Come off it, Max!’ Morse banged the bottle onon the table, and Lewis wondered if he himself might be offered a dram. He would have refused, of course, but the gesturewould have been gratifying.
    The surgeon savoured a few sips with the slow dedication of a man testing a dubious tooth with a mouthwash, before turning to Morse, his ugly face beatified: ‘Nectar, old man!’
    Morse, likewise, appeared temporarily more interested in the whisky than in any problems a headless, handless, legless corpse might pose to the Kidlington CID. ‘They tell me the secret’s in the water of those Scottish burns.’
    ‘Nonsense! It’s because they manage to get rid of the water.’
    ‘Could be!’ Morse nodded more happily now. ‘But while we’re talking of water, I just asked you-’
    ‘You know nothing about water, Morse. Listen! If you find a body immersed in fresh water, you’ve got the helluva job finding out what happened. In fact, one of the trickiest problems in forensic medicine-about which you know bugger-all, of course-is to prove whether death was due to drowning.’
    ‘But this fellow wasn’t drowned. He had his head-’
    ‘Shut up, Morse. You asked how long he’d been in the canal, right? You didn’t ask me who sawed his head off!’
    Morse nodded agreement.
    ‘Well, listen, then! There are five questions I’m paid to ask myself when a body’s found immersed in water, and in this particular case you wouldn’t need a genius like me to answer most of them. First, was the person alive when entering the water? Answer: pretty certainly, no. Second, was death due to immersion? Answer: equally certainly, no. Third, was death rapid? Answer: the question doesn’t apply, because death took place elsewhere. Fourth, did any other factors contribute to death? Answer: almost certainly, yes; the poor fellow was likely to have been clinically dead when somebody chopped him up and chucked him in the canal. Fifth, where did the body enter the water? Answer: God knows! Probably where it was found-as most of them are. But it could have drifted a fair way, in certain conditions. With a combination of bodily gases and other internal reactions, you’ll often find a corpse floating up to the surface and then-’
    ‘But Morse interrupted him, turning to Lewis: ‘How did we find him?’
    ‘We had a call from a chap who was fishing there, sir. Said he’d seen something looking like a body half-floating under the water, just where we found him.’
    ‘Did you get his name-this fisherman’s?’ Morse’s question was sharp, and to Lewis his eyes seemed to glint with a frightening authority.
    ‘I wasn’t there myself, sir. I got the message from Constable Dickson.’
    ‘He took down the name and address, of course?’
    ‘Not quite, sir,’ gulped Lewis. ‘He got the name all right, but-’
    ‘ – the fellow rang off before giving his address!’
    ‘You can’t really blame-’
    ‘Who’s blaming anybody, Lewis? What was his name, by the way?’ ‘Rowbotham. Simon Rowbotham.’
    ‘Christ! That’s an unlikely