Where Death Delights (9 page)

He returned and sat down in maddeningly slow motion.

‘Well, was it him?' demanded Angela.

‘Yep, we've got another job, by the looks of it. It will mean a bit of travelling.'

He gave them the gist of his conversation with Leonard Massey, whose married daughter had been found dead in the sea off a rocky part of the Gower coast over a week ago. She had been swimming alone and was presumed to have drowned, which was confirmed by a coroner's post-mortem.

‘An inquest was opened a couple of days later and a burial order issued, the full inquest to take place at a later date,' said Pryor.

‘So where do we come into it?' asked Angela.

‘Massey wants a second post-mortem, as he's not satisfied with the circumstances. He was a bit cagey about telling me more on the phone, but he's coming down to Swansea tomorrow to see the coroner and suggests I meet him there afterwards for a conference.'

‘Business is looking up!' commented Angela. ‘I had a call this morning from a solicitor in Bristol wanting two more paternity tests.'

A distant knock on the front door reverberated through the empty hall and Sian jumped up to answer it.

‘Probably your new Scottish charlady,' she said as she left the room.

‘Better see her in the office, hadn't we?' suggested Richard. By the time they reached the door opposite, Sian had let the new arrival in and led her down to the waiting pair, who took her into the office.

Richard introduced himself and the other two women and settled her on to one of the three hard chairs in the sparsely furnished room. He glanced across at Angela and a lift of his eyebrows conveyed his feelings. Far from being the fat, motherly figure she had anticipated, Moira Davison was an attractive brunette of about thirty, her slim figure neatly dressed in a cream summer suit over a pale blue blouse, the long slim skirt suggestive of the current ‘H-line' fashion. Her black hair was cut in a page-boy style with a straight fringe above her blue eyes.

‘That was a quick response to my rather amateurish advert!' began Richard, wanting to keep the interview informal.

Moira Davison smiled, lighting up her almost elfin features. ‘I happened to be in the shop soon after Mr Follet put the card in his window,' she replied. ‘It was a sudden impulse, I'm afraid, but I'm quite serious about it. It's time that I got on with my life again.'

Angela took up this rather cryptic remark.

‘I presume it's “Mrs” Davison? So why do you want to work here? I assume you're local, as you saw the advert in the post office.'

Moira nodded. ‘I'm a neighbour, really. I live in the second house down, just around the bend between here and the village. I lost my husband three years ago and I've been rather withdrawn since then. But as I say, it's time to pull myself together now and I felt this might the stimulus I've been waiting for.'

She sat primly on the hard chair, holding a cream handbag on her lap, with a pair of light gloves resting on top. Richard liked the fact that she had taken the trouble to dress and behave professionally when seeking a job, even though she lived virtually next door.

He explained the set-up at Garth House and their need for someone who would help both with the office work and with keeping the establishment afloat from the point of view of food and creature comforts.

‘Quite honestly, I'm not very domesticated,' admitted Angela. ‘We can't go on living out of tins and on fry-ups!'

‘I take it you can cook something better than that?' added Richard, almost wistfully.

Mrs Davison gave another smile. ‘I think so, my mother was a very good cook and she taught me a lot. I managed to feed my late husband for a few years without him complaining!'

They both were reluctant to ask about her married life, but she seemed to sense this.

‘Keith was an industrial chemist, working in a factory in Lydney. Three years ago there was a explosion and he was killed.'

She seemed quite composed about the tragedy and went on to volunteer some more relevant information.

‘I was brought up in Chepstow and after leaving school, did a year in a secretarial college in Newport. Then I went to work in a solicitor's office until we moved here about seven years ago, so I can type and do the usual office routines, like filing and simple accounting.'

Angela caught Richard's eye and got a slight nod in reply. ‘Sounds just what we need,' she said. ‘I know my partner is more concerned with his creature comforts, but your office skills would be welcome, especially as you used to work in a solicitor's office.'

‘I know many of the lawyers in this area, from having to phone and write to them,' agreed the brunette. ‘I'd love to have the chance of a trial period, if that would suit you.'

They got down to more details of just what they wanted her to do, the hours required and the salary. Richard called Sian back in to meet Moira and he could see from her covert amusement that she felt as he did about Angela's hopelessly wrong forecast of what ‘the Scottish lady' would be like.

‘We've also got another staff member,' said Richard. ‘Mr Jenkins does the garden and odd jobs, but I expect you already know of him?'

Moira laughed. ‘Jimmy Jenkins? Everybody for miles knows Jimmy. I heard that he had attached himself to you, just as he did for your aunt. Jimmy's fine, as long as you keep him on a short lead and don't let him talk you into anything daft!'

They soon agreed on terms for a month's trial, Moira coming from nine until four o'clock, five days a week.

‘I'll make a cooked lunch every day, then put something ready for your supper,' she suggested. ‘Weekends are a bit more difficult, but we'll work something out.'

Moira saw no reason why she shouldn't start next day and they gave her a quick tour of the house to get an idea what she was letting herself in for. Richard saw her to the front door and even offered to drive her home, but she said it was barely five minutes walk away.

‘Well what do think of that?' he asked, when he came back to the others in the office.

‘Watch yourself, doctor, a pretty widow like that will wrap you round her little finger!' warned Sian, with a grin. ‘But if she can type better than me, I'm all for it!'

He turned to Angela. ‘What about you, will she do?'

The biologist tapped her chin thoughtfully with a long forefinger.

‘She seems just what we need, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating – perhaps literally here. Let's see how the first month goes.'

Privately, her instincts were rather similar to Sian's. The woman was too damned good-looking for her liking, with such an impressionable fellow like Richard around. Though Angela had no designs whatever on her partner, there was an almost primeval hint of competition when a new attractive woman came on the scene.

Her ruminations were cut short by the telephone ringing again and after answering it, Sian returned to tell Pryor that the Lydney solicitor was on the line.

‘Doctor, I've had a talk with Trevor Mitchell,' announced the dry voice of Edward Lethbridge. ‘He's been up to Ledbury to see Mrs Barnes. In fact, he said he's been back to the town to have a nose around and he thinks there's possibly some grounds for doubting her positive identification of her husband's remains.'

Richard was intrigued by Mitchell's quick results.

‘How much doubt must there be before the coroner might consider an exhumation?' he asked the lawyer. ‘Because without that, I can't really do anything for you.'

‘We will need a lot more than Mitchell's suspicions. I wanted to ask you if you think looking at Albert Barnes's medical notes would be of any possible help?'

Richard frowned at the telephone. ‘I didn't know he had any medical records. It's the first I've heard of them.'

‘No, his wife saw fit to forget to mention them. He had an accident at work a few years ago, according to one of his friends that Mitchell tracked down in a Ledbury public house. He worked as a platelayer on the railway and was knocked down by a wagon during shunting. Nothing very serious, but enough to send him to Hereford County Hospital for a night.'

Pryor considered this for a moment.

‘I'm not sure what we might learn from them, depends on what injuries he had. But unless we look, we'll never know.'

‘Exactly, but of course we'd need his wife's consent to have a view of them.'

‘Would she give it, d'you think?' asked Pryor.

‘She probably wouldn't want to, but it would look fishy if she refused. Anyway, that's my concern, I just wanted to know if you thought it worth the trouble.'

‘Yes, I'm sure it would be. But what did Trevor Mitchell find that raised these doubts?'

‘I think he'd better explain himself, Doctor. As you know, he lives not far from you and he suggested he called to talk to you about it later today.'

Things were certainly livening up, thought Richard, as he went back to the laboratory, where both women were now busy with their tasks. Angela was squatting on a stool in front of their fume cupboard, a big glass cabinet with a sliding door in the front like a sash window. An extractor fan sucked noxious fumes out through a vent into the old chimney, which was just as well, as she was carefully pouring concentrated nitric acid into a small beaker containing bits of lung from the Chepstow drowning. Evil yellow fumes were wreathing up towards the fan, which would become worse when she began heating the horrid mixture over a Bunsen burner.

Pryor stood behind her and told her of the call from Lethbridge.

‘Trevor Mitchell's coming over sometime today. It'll be good for you to meet him, he might well bring more trade our way.'

He wandered over towards Sian's side of the room, where she had her chemical and analytical equipment.

Though what she was being asked to do in a forensic context was different to the hospital routines to which she had been accustomed, the techniques of handling materials and instruments were similar. With Angela's help and a good selection of technical manuals on the shelf, they could get by for now, though anything complex would have to be sent away, down to the nearest Home Office Forensic Science laboratory in Cardiff or off to some specialist commercial outfit.

‘I'm running that blood and urine you brought in, for alcohol,' she explained. ‘Angela said she had a call from a defence lawyer wanting a urine sample tested in a road traffic case, so maybe we can work up some business in that direction?'

He nodded, wishing that the government would get on with bringing in a fixed maximum blood level for drivers, rather than relying on clinical testing by police surgeons of ability to drive. Apart from issues of road safety, it would be healthy for his bank balance, as many arrested drivers would want a second analysis as a check.

Feeling at a loose end – and rather redundant with the two women working away at something to which he couldn't contribute – he went to his room and started to read the most recent issue of the
British Medical Journal
.

It was four o'clock before Mitchell arrived and this coincided nicely with a tea break. After introducing him to his colleagues and showing him the laboratory, they sat in the staff room over Typhoo Tips and Peek Freans, while the former detective superintendent told them about his findings in Ledbury.

‘The story was bit “iffy” from the start,' he said.

‘Molly Barnes said her husband was a keen fisherman, but the chaps I spoke to in the pub said they'd never heard of him going fishing.'

‘There was no fishing rod found near the body?' asked Angela.

‘No, and what's more, there's no fishing allowed in that reservoir. So if Albert went there, it was for something else.'

‘How is he supposed to have got there?' asked Sian, determined not to be left out of the team.

‘On his pushbike, that's something his pals in the Red Lion confirmed,' said Trevor. ‘He was a keen cyclist, apparently. Often at weekends, he used to go off on his own into the country, probably to get away from his wife!'

‘But the bike has never been found?' asked Angela.

‘No, but it's not easy to identify cycles, maybe a long way from home – and they get pinched all the time.'

‘Perhaps he had a lady friend somewhere and he's done a runner with her,' suggested Richard.

‘With a sharp-mouthed wife like Molly, I wouldn't be surprised – though he didn't take any of his clothes or possessions, according to her.'

‘If you can believe anything she says,' muttered Sian, darkly. She had already decided the wife was guilty.

‘What else has raised your suspicions?' asked Pryor.

‘I had a quick look at that wedding ring that she showed me so reluctantly. When I got home, I checked the hall marks, it was assayed in Birmingham in 1931, which is a bit odd, as they weren't married until 1941.'

‘I'll bet she'll have an answer for that,' said Sian.

‘She'll say it was second-hand, they couldn't afford a new one.'

Mitchell nodded. ‘Or say they had to get wed quickly when he was on leave during the war. But it's still odd, like the wristwatch.'

‘What about it?' asked Angela.

‘It was an expensive one, an Omega. His missus spun me some tale about him getting it during the war in Germany for a packet of Woodbines.'

‘Is there a problem about that?' asked Angela.

Trevor emptied his cup and Sian poured him another.

‘I called in at a jeweller's when I was in Gloucester this morning. I showed him a photo of the watch that was taken for the coroner's inquest. The jeweller said that model wasn't made until 1950, so the story about getting it in the war was phoney. It's worth a fair bit of money, too, though I don't think Mrs B realizes that. Albert was only a railway worker, so where did he get a valuable Omega?'