Where Death Delights (12 page)

The technician watched as the older woman took a conical-bottomed test tube from a rack, containing a clear yellow liquid with a button of brown deposit in the tip. She sucked off most of the upper fluid with a teat-ended pipette, discarded it and then tapped the tube with a fingernail to mix the deposit into what was left.

‘I don't really understand the principles of this test,' confessed Sian. ‘How can it help diagnose drowning?'

Angela carefully sucked up a single drop of the fluid with another pipette and placed it in the centre of a glass microscope slide, covering it with a wafer-thin glass cover-slip.

‘It's still not accepted by everyone, but I think it's reliable if done carefully,' she said. ‘When someone drowns in water containing these microscopic algae called diatoms, it goes down their windpipe and into the lungs, taking the diatoms with it.'

‘So if they're dead, there's no breathing, so the diatoms can't be found in the lungs!'

Angela laughed. ‘I wish it was that easy! No, even if you throw a corpse into the river, the water still percolates down into the lungs. So finding diatoms in lungs doesn't mean anything.'

‘So what's the point of looking?' demanded Sian, pointing to the tube, which had a label saying ‘Lung'.

‘To check that the water actually contains diatoms, though we always look at a water sample as well. If it doesn't, there's no point in looking further. Some waters don't, though even tap water often contains a few, especially if the pipe hasn't been used for a time.'

She pointed at the test-tube rack, where there were three other tubes. Sian looked at them and read the names written in grease-pencil . . . marrow, liver, kidney.

‘Are these what you've been boiling up in the fume cupboard?' she asked.

‘Yes, you have to dissolve little samples of internal organs taken at the post-mortem in nitric acid, which gets rid of all the organic material and leaves the diatoms.'

‘Why don't they vanish as well, then?' demanded the knowledge-hungry technician.

‘Because they've got a shell of silica, which resists the acid. Now, if the victim drowns, then these tiny things get into the lungs and some penetrate the lining, they're so small. The heart is still beating, so they get carried off in the blood stream and get filtered out in the bone marrow, liver, spleen, and kidneys.'

Light dawned in Sian's mind. ‘Ah, I see! So you can tell if it was a live body or a dead body that went into the water. That's really clever!'

Angela smiled at her enthusiasm. ‘Hang on a minute! It's not all that simple. You have to find a good number of diatoms in the target organs, not just the odd one or two, because we've all got some knocking around inside us. They are wafting around in the air, dust from all sorts of places. Filter material, toothpaste, chicken farm litter – it's everywhere.'

‘You mean I'm breathing the damned things in even now?' demanded Sian.

‘Probably . . . a researcher in a London hospital examined the air-conditioning filters on the roof and found plenty of diatoms in them. And because the sea is full of them as well, a chap from Norway found that eating shellfish produced plenty in the organs, as they can penetrate the wall of the gut!'

Sian looked dubiously at the slides that Angela was preparing from the other tubes.

‘So is it worth doing?' she asked.

‘Sure, if you can find a heavy penetration, especially in the bone marrow – and they match up with what's in the water – then it's good evidence of live entry.'

‘What d'you mean, “match up”?'

‘There are thousands of different types of diatom, which vary from place to place. If those in the organs have a similar mix to those in the lungs or the water sample, then it adds to the probability that they weren't just strays, especially if there are a lot of them.'

She began looking down the eyepieces of the microscope at the slide from the lungs. ‘There we are! Plenty in the River Wye, have a look at those.'

She leaned aside to allow Sian to look and as she twiddled the fine focus knobs, the technician gave an exclamation.

‘They're so pretty! Like little bananas or boats or pillboxes, with lace patterns on them.'

‘Now have a look at the kidney extract, see if there are any there. It might take some time.'

Sian used the stage controls to move the slide around and eventually gave a cry of triumph. ‘Got 'em! Once you get your eye in, it's easy.'

Angela took her place and soon agreed that all the samples had diatoms which were a similar mix to that in the lung. ‘So we can tell Richard that this chap undoubtedly drowned, though he probably knows that already. Still, it's nice to have a belt-and-braces confirmation.'

Sian went back to her own bench, happy that she had acquired a bit more forensic mystique.

That afternoon, Trevor Mitchell had again gone to see Molly Barnes in Ledbury. She was not pleased to see him and she later told her sister Emily, who lived further up the street, that if she had known who it was, she wouldn't have opened the door to him.

‘Bloody cheek of the man – and that lawyer fellow who wrote to me!' she protested.

‘What did he want this time?' asked Emily, who had a soft spot for her brother-in-law Albert. She privately wondered if he had just done a runner to get away from her difficult sister. He had once admitted to her that he had a lady friend in Hereford.

‘Want? Only Albert's medical records,' said Molly, indignantly. ‘At first I told him to get lost, but he said the coroner was in agreement and that because it had been an open verdict at the inquest, he could reopen it if he wasn't satisfied.'

Emily nodded sagely. ‘You can't beat the system, Molly. It would look bad if you refused. They'd think you had something to hide.'

Emily was inclined to think that her sister did have something to hide, but she didn't know what. Since Albert had vanished, Molly had ‘taken up' with a fellow from the other side of town and she wanted to get married, as soon as she could. The coroner had given her a paper to take to the Registrar for a death certificate, but now it looked as if someone had thrown a spanner in the works.

‘So what did you do?' she persisted.

‘I didn't have much choice, did I?' snapped her sister. ‘I can't see what medical records from years ago have got to do with this. It was only a little accident at work.'

‘Only a little accident?' squeaked Emily. ‘He was knocked out and spent a night in the County Hospital.'

‘I still don't see what they want them for,' she said sullenly. ‘That private snooper said I should have told the inquest that he had been in hospital once.'

The private snooper in question drove away with a sheet of paper in his pocket, signed by Mrs Barnes, giving consent to an inspection of her late husband's medical notes. Trevor Mitchell had been told by John Christie that if it came to the crunch, the coroner could demand that the hospital produce the records, but it would be easier if the widow agreed.

As he had to pass through Hereford on his way home, he thought he might as well call into the County on the way. It was on the eastern side of the historic city and he parked and made his way to the Records Department, tucked away at the back.

The woman at the desk looked askance at the letter he produced and went off to talk to someone higher up the bureaucratic tree.

‘I can't give you these, sir,' she said officiously, when she returned. ‘It's quite out of order. How do I know who you are?'

‘Do you know PC Christie, the coroner's officer? He must come in here now and then for records.'

She softened a little. ‘Of course I know John Christie. What's he got to do with it?'

‘If you can't give them to me, you'll have to give them to him on the coroner's order,' he said patiently. ‘Then he'll give them to me.'

Long experience of people on the other side of her counter told her that this man was – or had been – a police officer.

‘I'll have to ring him, sir,' she said half-heartedly.

‘Yes, a good idea. I'll wait,' he replied politely.

She vanished for a few moments and then came back.

‘It'll take some time, these are a few years old.'

Trevor Mitchell nodded. ‘I'll go and get a cup of tea in the canteen. Half an hour be alright?'

When he came back, there was a thin brown paper folder waiting for him.

‘The Records Officer says you can't remove it from the hospital, but you can look at it here,' she announced with a note of triumph in her voice. ‘Only the coroner can have it taken away.'

Mitchell sighed, but pulled out his notepad and leaned on the counter to copy every word. It was not difficult, as the notes were only one and half pages long. He didn't understand some of the words, but transcribed them faithfully for Doctor Pryor to see.

Thanking the clerk with exaggerated courtesy, he left, wondering if the whole afternoon had been a waste of time. He drove his Wolseley back to Monmouth and then down the valley, deciding that instead of turning off near the bridge to go up to St Brievals, he might as well call at Garth House to show the doctor what he had found.

As he drove into the back yard, he saw that the Humber had also just arrived and Richard Pryor was hauling his black case into the house. Invited into the kitchen for a cup of tea, Trevor saw a new face, a neat woman with dark hair, who was just hanging up her pinafore.

‘This is our new recruit,' said Richard heartily. ‘Mrs Davison is our housekeeper, cook, secretary and general factotum! Moira, meet Trevor Mitchell, the Wye Valley's answer to Sherlock Holmes!'

Mitchell grinned as he shook hands. ‘Is the doctor always like this?' he asked.

Moira gave him a lovely smile. ‘It looks that way, but I've only been here a couple of days!' She turned to her employer. ‘I've left the rest of the cottage pie in the fridge for your supper, Doctor. Just heat it up in the oven – and there's a new tin of Campbell's oxtail in the cupboard if you fancy soup to start.'

She took a light jacket from a hanger on the back of the door and slipped it on. ‘Nice to have met you, Mr Mitchell. I'm sure we'll see you often.'

Trevor hoped so too, as she smiled again and went out into the yard.

‘Nice woman, that,' he said appreciatively, then waved his notebook at Pryor. ‘I've managed to copy Albert Barnes's hospital record, what there is of it.'

Richard wet the tea and set cups and saucers on the kitchen table. ‘Angela's in the lab, I'll give her a call, she might want to hear this.'

A few minutes later the three heads were bent over the notebook, studying two pages of Trevor's neat handwriting.

‘Not much help is it?' commented Angela, when they had read to the end.

Richard summarized what it said. ‘He was admitted to Casualty after being struck in the railway siding by an empty truck that was rolling down an incline. Thrown to the ground, bruised chest and arm, two fractured ribs and a laceration of his scalp needing six stitches. Mild concussion, admitted overnight for observation. Discharged himself late next day, ribs strapped up, dressings on head wound, told to go to GP if any problems and to come back in ten days for the sutures to be removed.'

‘What did you expect to find from hospital records that would help in identifying him?' asked the ever-critical Angela.

Richard shrugged, his lean face scowling at Mitchell's handwriting in the book. ‘Well, say he'd had a fractured leg – that could have left a deformity on the bone that the pathologist might have noticed – some callus, for instance.'

‘What's callus?' asked the detective.

‘It's a lump of calcified stuff that forms around a break to join the two parts of the broken bone together. It gradually absorbs over months or years, but usually leaves some permanent sign, especially on X-ray.'

‘Nothing here like that,' said Angela. ‘Neither did the Hereford pathologist mention any old injuries.'

‘So we're no further forward,' growled Mitchell, obviously disappointed that his efforts had been in vain.

‘What's this you've written here, in the clinical examination?' asked Pryor, jabbing a finger at the notebook.

Trevor peered over Richard's shoulder. ‘It says ‘
pec.rec
', that's all. I don't know what it means, I just copied what was in the original notes.'

‘
Pec.rec
?' asked Angela. ‘What's that mean, for heaven's sake?'

The pathologist shrugged. ‘Search me, it's no medical term I've ever heard of. The doctor who examined him, whoever he was, has just written it down at the end of his external examination, before he goes on to say that the heart and lungs seem normal.'

‘Could it be of any use to us?' asked Mitchell.

‘Until we know what it means, there's no way of telling. It might be worth asking the chap who wrote this, what he meant by it.'

Angela looked at the date on the notes. ‘It's seven years ago. That doctor might have drained his brain to Canada or Australia by now.'

‘Was his name on the original notes?' asked Richard.

Trevor shook his head. ‘No, only the name of the consultant who he was admitted under that day.'

Pryor slapped his fingers on the edge of the table. ‘That's good enough! The hospital staff records will show who worked for that consultant at that time. It would have been a house officer or a senior house officer admitting patients on surgical intake. We could track him down through the
Medical Directory
.'