The body of Joanna Franks was found in the Oxford Canal on Wednesday the twenty-second of June 1859. Inspector Morse's body - still very much alive, however - was taken to the John Redcliffe Hospital for treatment of an ulcer on a Saturday morning in 1989. The investigator and the crime are separated by more than a century of time, but Morse is mortally bored lying on his bed all day, so he gets down to business.