Grounds for Appeal (11 page)

Richard shrugged. ‘Using the old routine – temperature of the body, rigor mortis, post-mortem lividity, amount and state of the stomach contents . . . the same old mumbo-jumbo. Pick some figures from the air, then take away the number you first thought of!'

Angela smiled to herself at his forceful tone. She had heard this particular tirade several times, as time of death was one of Richard's hobby horses.

‘So you think you can challenge that for the Appeal?' asked Priscilla.

‘Damn right I can – and I will, given the chance!'

The Borth Bog investigation had run completely out of steam by the middle of the following week. There were only a few days left before the December page appeared on Detective Inspector Meirion Thomas's calender, a rather racy one from a local garage, depicting a fluffy blonde wearing more eyeshadow than clothes, sitting provocatively on the bonnet of the new Ford Zephyr Zodiac.

He looked at the dates glumly, thinking that his only murder investigation for the last five years had run into the sand and that its pathetically thin file would soon end up at the back of the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet.

Though he knew it was traditional in detective novels for senior officers and the Chief Constable to come breathing fire down the neck of the failing investigating officer, he had to admit that the two men above him in their small police force had accepted the dead-end philosophically. They had seemed relieved that the two rather supercilious men from Scotland Yard had gone home and that the Press, after a brief frenzy, seemed to have forgotten all about the case. But being a conscientious man, Meirion would have liked to have nailed someone for such a nasty crime. Failing that, it would have at least been satisfying to have identified the body.

With a sigh, he pulled a wad of papers towards him and settled down to devising night-observation rotas for the painfully few men he had available. Sheep rustling had become fashionable again and several irate farmers near Tregaron were demanding some action from the police, backed up by their insurance companies. This issue was of far greater concern to the inhabitants of Cardiganshire than one solitary, if bizarre death that probably occurred long ago.

Yet as he pulled out his Parker 51 pen, the previous year's Christmas present from his wife, the strange force of serendipity was working on someone he knew well, a hundred miles away in Birmingham.

‘Not a bad pint, this!' said Gwyn Parry, studying the amber liquid in his glass, pulled from a barrel of Atkinson's Bitter. He was sitting in the snug of the Red Lion in Moseley, a southern suburb of Birmingham. He had been taken there for a pre-lunch drink by his wife's brother-in-law, Tony Cooper. The detective sergeant from Aberystwyth was spending two days' leave in the Midlands, bringing his wife to stay with her sister, who had just come out of hospital after an operation on some obscure part of her female anatomy. He was leaving Bethan there for a couple of weeks to help look after her, as Tony had to work shifts, being a sergeant in the Birmingham City Police. He was not in the CID like Gwyn, but was a custody officer in one of the central police stations.

Their talk was the usual mix of topics always voiced by off-duty policemen – complaints about pay, pensions and conditions of service, mixed with anecdotes of unusual cases they had encountered. They had been joined in the pub by an elderly friend of Tony's who lived nearby, a chain-smoking man in his late sixties with horn-rimmed glasses with lenses like bottle bottoms. Oscar Stanton was a retired journalist from a city newspaper and had a large fund of stories, ranging from the hilarious to the horrific.

Gwyn looked at the bar clock and reckoned that they had time for another round before going back home, where Bethan was making a meal. After that, he was driving back to Wales, to join in the fight against the sheep rustlers. When the drinks were in, their conversation continued and the detective got around to telling them of the curious case of the body in the bog, which seemed to have come to a dead end.

‘So we haven't a clue who the fellow is,' he concluded. ‘All we've got is a tattoo and a vague guess that he died sometime around ten years ago.'

‘Strangled and his head taken off?' said his brother-in-law, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘So certainly not some domestic squabble. It sounds like some gangster execution, but you couldn't get one of those in peaceful West Wales, surely!'

Oscar Stanton was looking thoughtful, slowly rubbing his bristly chin. ‘Rings a bell, this does,' he said ruminatively. ‘I've got this dim recollection of some rumour going around amongst the lads on the paper, way back around the time the war ended.'

The two policemen stared at him. ‘What rumour?' asked Tony.

‘I can't remember any details. It was a long time ago. But one of the older reporters who covered crime in those days had this yarn about a pub somewhere, where the landlord claimed to have a pickled head in his beer cellar.'

Gwyn Parry looked dubious. ‘It could be a wind-up – or maybe some practical joke. I remember hearing about a shrivelled hand being found on the upper deck of a Cardiff bus. Turned out that a medical student had taken it from the college dissecting room.'

Tony was not so sceptical. Maybe after twenty years of policing a big, bad city, he was ready to believe anything. ‘Have you any idea if the chap who was telling the story is still around, Oscar?'

‘He died a couple of years ago, I'm afraid. But I still have a drink now and then with some of my old mates from the paper. I could ask around and see if anyone remembers the story.'

The Aberystwyth sergeant nodded his thanks. ‘We've got damn all to go on at present, so any lead is better than none. Could you let Tony here know if you dig up anything?'

With this appropriate plea, they moved on to Aston Villa's chances at the coming weekend.

Richard Pryor, after a few hours poring over his collection of textbooks and journals, had written a considered appreciation of the possible forensic medical avenues that might assist Millie Wilson's lawyers. He was used to calling them ‘the defence', but this was not strictly accurate in this instance, as she was ‘the appellant'. The time for defending her was in the past, at the trial held at Bristol Assizes more than a year ago.

His report was carefully typed by Moira Anderson and sent off to the suave Mr Bailey. A couple of days later, he had a phone call asking him to attend a preliminary conference with their junior counsel, Miss Penelope Forbes, in Bristol on the last day of November.

‘I think you should come with me, Angela,' he said to his partner. ‘These blood spots on the coat are more in your territory than mine.'

This was only partly true, as the interpretation of blood splashes had always been the province of a pathologist, but latterly, the rapid advance of forensic science was burrowing ever more deeply into what formerly had been medical territory. Earlier in the century, there was no separate forensic science worth mentioning, but it rapidly grew away from the grip of the medical men until the tail was wagging the dog.

The thirtieth of November was a Thursday and it saw the black Humber again crossing the river from Beachley aboard the
Severn Queen
, with Angela Bray in the front passenger seat. She had never made this journey before, always travelling eastwards on the A48 through Gloucester to reach her parent's home in Berkshire. She found the short voyage across the dangerously turbulent currents of the estuary fascinating and Richard promised to take her up river one day, to see the famous Severn Bore when there was a high spring tide.

After bumping off the ramp at Aust on the southern bank, they set off for Bristol in the unseasonable November sunshine. Angela was dressed in what she called her ‘Old Bailey outfit', a smart, rather severe grey suit with a fashionably long skirt and waist-nipping jacket over a white blouse. Richard, who had only a vague notion about A-lines and H-lines, thought she looked remarkably attractive, with her thick hair marshalled under a small saucer-shaped hat.

As he drove towards the city, his mind idly compared the four women in Garth House. There was Sian, the lively young blonde, full of bustle and energy, quite a contrast to the quiet neatness of Moira Anderson, to whom he often applied the old adage ‘still waters run deep'.

Then there was Priscilla, who was undoubtedly gorgeous in a more flamboyant way, with a racier line in clothes and make-up, compared to the restrained elegance of Angela.

He sighed to himself, feeling a little like a boy in a sweet shop without a penny in his pocket. It was just not prudent to start any romantic or ardent relationship within their little forensic family, but it was a long time since he had had any romantic or amorous outlet – in fact, none since leaving Singapore a year earlier. Though his divorce was finalized not all that long before he left, he had been separated from his wayward wife for some time and had not wanted for female company amongst the expatriate community in the Colony.

Before his wandering thoughts developed into fantasies, he found that they were already in the suburbs of Bristol and had to concentrate on navigating through the big city to reach the centre. Most barristers had their chambers in or around Short Street, an aptly named lane in the oldest part of the city, near the remnants of the medieval town wall. The Assize Courts were halfway along the street, providing lawyers with the minimum of exercise to get to their trials. Richard had no chance of parking in Short Street, but eventually found a space not too far away.

‘Traffic is becoming impossible in this country,' he grumbled, as he manoeuvred the bulky car into a narrow space. ‘I can't imagine what it will be like in fifty years' time!'

‘I read that Winston Churchill wanted to pave over Horse Guards Parade and The Mall for parking places,' said Angela, as they got of the car. ‘But there is some scheme to fit coin-operated parking clocks in London in the next couple of years.'

They followed the directions given by Douglas Bailey and found the chambers in a narrow alley alongside the court buildings. In the rather dingy entrance, a long hand-painted plaque on the wall gave the names of the resident barristers in pecking order of seniority. A third of the way up, they saw the name of Miss Penelope Forbes, the only woman on the list.

Inside, a stoop-shouldered clerk took them upstairs and along a corridor to a small room, where Miss Forbes had her office. She rose to meet them from behind a paper-strewn desk which filled almost half the room. Douglas Bailey was already there and he pulled forward two hard chairs for them. After introductions and hand shakes, they all sat down, giving Richard time to look at the barrister who would appear for Millie when she assisted her leader, a Queen's Counsel.

Penelope Forbes was a tall, thin woman of about forty-five, with rimless spectacles and prematurely greying hair pulled back into a severe bun on the back of her head. Angela thought she looked very tired, but had a pleasant smile and a pair of sharp blue eyes. She began by thanking Richard for his report, of which she had a copy in front of her, as did the solicitor.

‘I've discussed it over the phone to Paul Marchmont, our leading counsel, who said it sounded promising. We'll have to have another conference soon with Paul, of course, but I thought I'd just go through the main points with you today.'

Before they began, Richard explained Angela's presence, as a senior forensic biologist with years of experience at the Metropolitan Police Laboratory.

‘Doctor Bray feels that the claim that the blood present on the sleeve came from the stabbing can also be contested.'

The barrister smiled at Angela. ‘I look forward to hearing your opinion, Doctor Bray. Before that, perhaps you, Doctor Pryor, could run through a summary of what you feel about the vital time-of-death issue.'

Richard ran his finger through his hair, in a rather nervous gesture that was unusual for him. Angela suspected that he was not used to displaying his professional expertise to a woman, even though he already had a virtual harem back at Garth House.

He was given a respite by the appearance of a secretary bearing a tray of coffee in a motley collection of cups and saucers. While they drank the rather insipid brew, the conversation became more general.

‘It's the old story of doctors sticking rigidly to the rules of thumb that they have been taught since they were students,' began Richard. ‘I'm not blaming them for having poor methods to work with, for I'm in the same boat. But the problem lies in the dogmatism and stubbornness which many doctors have. I've got no better methods myself, but at least I am always willing to qualify the results with an acknowledgement that they are very approximate and prone to large errors.'

Penelope Forbes smiled again, a habit which seemed to come easily to her.

‘Do I detect an allusion to the great Sir Bernard Spilsbury there? But I agree, I often come across such witnesses. Do you feel it's a fault especially with the older experts? The one in this case is certainly getting on in years.'

Richard agreed, with reservations. ‘It's not just because they're old, in the sense of being doddery old fools. I think it's more because with years of practice behind them, they feel too sure of themselves – the “I've seen it all before” syndrome.'

Angela joined in the discussion for the first time. ‘Doctor Pryor is right, I've seen experts steamrolling their way through their evidence, stubbornly refusing to accept any sensible contrary opinion.'

Richard hid a grin, as he detected a trace of bitterness in his partner's voice. He felt that in the past, she must have had a couple of frustrating contests with other experts.

‘Yes, the harder they are challenged, the harder they dig their heels in and refuse to admit that they could be wrong,' he confirmed. ‘It's often a matter of professional pride, and I'm afraid forensic medicine tends to attract the prima donnas of the profession, those who like to see their names in the newspapers.'