The Wench Is Dead by Colin Dexter

of the men with whom she was driven to associate". It would, he agreed, have been proper for him to have logged the complaint (the Barbara Bray was, after all, a Pickford Co. transport); but he had not done so, confining his advice to the suggestion that the woman should report forthwith to the Company offices in Oxford, where it should be possible for her to switch to another boat on the last leg of her journey. Stevens had witnessed some shouted altercations between Joanna and a member of the crew, and remembered hearing-Joanna speak the words: "Leave me alone – I'll have nothing to do with you!" Two of the men (Oldfield and Musson, he thought) had used some utterly disgraceful language, although he agreed with Counsel for the defence that the language of almost all boatmen at these times was equally deplorable. What seemed quite obvious to Stevens was that the crew were beginning to get very much the worse for drink, and he gave it as his opinion that they were "making very free with the spirit which was the cargo". Before setting off, the woman had complained yet again about the behaviour of the men, and Stevens had repeated his advice to her to reconsider her position once the boat reached the terminus of the Oxford Canal – where a partial off-loading of the cargo was officially scheduled.
    It appears, in fact, that Stevens's advice did not go unheeded. At Banbury, some twelve miles further down the canal, Joanna made a determined effort to seek alternative transport for the remainder of her journey. Matthew Laurenson, wharfinger at Tooley's Yard, remembered most clearly Joanna's "urgent enquiries" about the times of "immediate coaches to London – and coaches from Oxford to Banbury". But nothing was convenient, and again Joanna was advised to wait until she got to Oxford – now only some 20 miles away. Laurenson put the time of this meeting as approximately 6.30-7 p.m (it is hardly surprising that times do not always coincide exactly in the court evidence – let us recall that we are almost ten months after the actual murder), and was able to give as his general impression of the unfortunate woman that she was "somewhat flushed and afeared".
    As it happened, Joanna was now to have a fellow passenger, at least for a brief period, since Agnes Laurenson, the wharfinger's wife, herself travelled south on the Barbara Bray down to King's Sutton Lock (five miles distant); she, too, was called to give evidence at the trial. Recalling that there was "a fellow passenger aboard who looked very agitated", Mrs Laurenson stated that Joanna may have had a drink, but that she seemed completely sober, as far as could be judged – unlike Oldfield and Musson – and that she was clearly most concerned about her personal safety.
    The tale now gathers apace towards its tragic conclusion; and it was the landlord of The Crown & Castle at Aynho (just below Banbury) who was able to provide some of the most telling and damning testimony of all. When Mrs Laurenson had left the boat three miles upstream at King's Sutton, it would appear that Joanna could trust herself with the drunken boatmen no longer, according to the landlord, who had encountered her at about 10 p.m. that night. She had arrived, on foot, a little earlier and confessed that she was so frightened of the lecherous drunkards on the Barbara Bray that she had determined to walk along the tow-path, even at that late hour, and to take her chances with the considerably lesser evils of foot-pads and cut-purses. She hoped (she'd said) that it would be safely possible for her to rejoin the boat later when its crew might be a few degrees the more sober. Whilst she waited for the boat to come up, the landlord offered her a glass of stout, but Joanna declined. He had kept an eye on her, however, and noticed that as she sat by the edge of the canal she appeared to be secretly sharpening a knife on the side of the lock (Musson was later found to have a cut on his left cheek, and this