According to the Evidence (18 page)

‘Got both of them, thanks to Moira. She was like a terrier with a rat – wouldn't take no for an answer until she got hold of the right people.'

‘And did you get anything useful?'

‘Yes, both had been working on this potassium in the eye fluid idea since they heard Wolfgang Braun speak at that conference in Brussels.'

‘They must have been there like us, among the hundreds who attended,' said Angela rather pensively. It was that congress that changed her life, as meeting Richard there had brought her down to Wales from London.

‘Well, like Braun, they've collected a lot of raw data but not published it yet, though Gerald Stoddart in Chicago has a draft ready to send off to a journal. He's going send a copy to us by express mail today. It should get here within a few days.'

‘What about the chap in Minnesota?' she asked.

‘That's Donald Kaufmann. He's been doing the eye as part of a much wider study of body fluids, but the general trend is the same in the vitreous as Stoddart and Braun.'

‘Are their results the same?'

Richard shrugged. ‘Not numerically, though perhaps their methods are different. But the general thrust is similar, which is all that I need. They're working towards solving a specific problem, but we only want to show that the previously accepted assumptions have been wrong.'

They discussed this until their plates were empty and they had gone on to tackle the apple tart that Moira had left for them.

Forgoing tea or coffee for a celebratory gin and tonic in Angela's sitting room, she asked what would be the next move.

‘I've got to get the solicitor to contact these two men tomorrow and get them to agree to make a sworn deposition, just like Braun.'

‘Will they come in time for the trial?'

‘I know the gist of what they will say and can write that into my advice to the lawyers. The Americans can send their statements by telegram or teleprinter, so that we'll know what they're going to say. Then if the actual signed documents are sent by express airmail, they should arrive in time for production in court.'

‘It all sounds one hell of a rush, but it seems the only chance this vet has of avoiding conviction. Anything else you have to do for him?'

Richard nodded. ‘Find an eminent physiologist to confirm the other branch of our defence. That should be easier and a lot nearer than these foreign parts!'

He sat back contentedly after topping up their glasses. Angela was in her favourite place on the settee, having kicked off her shoes and drawn up her legs elegantly on to the cushions.

‘That was a good meal tonight – beats our usual cold ham and salad. I don't know what we'd do without Moira to look after us,' he said.

Angela looked across at him with a slight smile on her face. ‘You seem to be getting quite attached to the peerless Moira, Richard! I'm beginning to think that you have designs on her.'

She spoke lightly, but he thought he detected a touch of irony in her voice.

‘Nonsense, she's years younger than me,' he protested. ‘And still grieving for her husband. It's obvious how fond she was of him.'

‘We all have to move on, Richard. You after your divorce, me after that swine jilted me – and Moira will have to do the same.'

She stopped and waved her glass at him. ‘Though, in fact, I think she already is moving on. She's got her eye on you, my lad!'

Richard scoffed at her claim but was secretly intrigued by the idea. ‘Go on, Angela! You'll be saying next that Siân has got designs on me!'

‘No, I wouldn't go that far. I think she hero-worships you a bit, but you're old enough to be her father – just about!'

He gave her one of his wry grins, finished his drink and stood up. ‘I think I'd better go before we get any sillier! A busy day again tomorrow, with these army lawyers coming to see us.'

As he went back to his office to write some notes about what he had learned from his expensive transatlantic phone calls, he pondered what Angela had said. This was the first time that she had mentioned her broken engagement to a superintendent in the ‘Met', since he had unexpectedly turned up a few months ago at a scene of crime near Gloucester. He knew she was still bruised by the experience, but it was a topic that they both avoided. She was right, though, he thought. They had to move on, and living in a house with three women, all attractive in their different ways, constantly reminded him of what he was missing.

With a sigh, he sat at his desk and pulled a writing pad towards him.

FOURTEEN

N
ext morning Moira had her first failure, for when she got through to the Forensic Institute at the University of Copenhagen she discovered that the doctor to whom Richard wished to speak had gone to Greenland for two weeks.

‘They said that the Danes cover it for forensic cases and he's had to go back there for a court case in a murder,' she announced despondently.

‘Never mind. I think we've got enough with the German and the two Yanks,' Richard told her reassuringly. ‘Now I'll have to get the solicitor in Stow to get his sworn statements from the States. That should keep him busy for a few hours.'

With no post-mortems to do that day, he felt at a loose end until the War Office wallahs came in the afternoon. He recalled that he was having trouble with the Humber's handbrake, which came to the top of its ratchet before the brakes gripped. Though Jimmy had offered to fix it for him, he preferred to have it looked at by a competent mechanic. Jimmy was adept at farm-style lash-ups, but Richard decided that though a plough might be mended by the use of binder twine and a few blows from a hammer, a brake problem was too serious to be dealt with in that fashion.

He drove down to Tintern and called at a small garage behind one of the pubs, which he had patronized before. It was little more than an oily shed, but the grizzled man who ran it, with the help of a teenager, offered to look at it straight away. As he vanished under the Humber, Richard was strongly reminded of another dungareed mechanic with a young assistant, who so recently had been under a vehicle fixing the brakes. However, this one soon emerged unscathed and, wiping his hands on a rag, announced his diagnosis.

‘Your cable needs tightening, that's all, doctor. Leave it for half an hour and it'll be ready.'

There was an hour before Moira would have their lunch ready, so he decided to have a pint at the Royal George, almost opposite the abbey. The majestic ruin set against a backdrop of autumn-tinted woods was a calming sight, as he sat outside with a tankard of best bitter. Though he had enjoyed his years in the Far East, this beat sitting in the stifling heat of the bar in the Singapore Swimming Club, with the condensation running down the outside of a glass of Tiger.

As he sipped, he looked at the tall, roofless edifice opposite and wondered what it had been like in its prime, before King Henry had destroyed it because of his desire to change wives. This triggered another flashback, this time to his conversation with Angela the previous evening. They were both healthy, virile people with no outlet for their emotional or physical appetites, a state of affairs which was unsatisfactory, to put it mildly. True, both of them had been fully occupied for the past six months in setting up their new venture, but now that a regular pattern had been established for their work, it was surely time for some social life. As the level in his glass dropped, he went over the options – joining a golf club, perhaps. He was not an enthusiastic sportsman, apart from yelling for Wales at a few internationals at Cardiff Arms Park, but a club might be somewhere where he could meet people outside the tight medical-police-lawyer circle that now dominated his acquaintances. But the thought of seeking a new wife among the sturdy tweed-clad golfing fraternity was not all that attractive.

Was Angela just teasing him about Moira having a crush on him? He thought he had sensed a slightly caustic undercurrent in her voice, but it would be ridiculous to think that she felt that Moira was in any way a competitor. What nonsense! He chastised himself for even considering it and irritably swallowed the rest of his ale and stalked back to the garage.

‘All done, sir! And I've topped up your brake fluid, radiator and engine oil as well.'

Impressed by the man's speed and efficiency, he happily paid the thirty shillings he was asked for and drove back to Garth House and his ‘monstrous regiment of women'. Over a tasty casserole for Angela and himself, the conversation centred on why the War Office wanted them to look into a case.

‘Don't they have any pathologists of their own?' asked Siân between bites at her Cox's Orange Pippin.

‘Yes, I was one of them!' retorted Richard. ‘But it sounds as if they want someone who's now outside the service, to appear independent if there's some sort of claim against the army.'

He was proved right when the visitors arrived soon after lunch.

They came not in a sleek staff car nor a green Land Rover, but in a private hire taxi which had met them at Newport railway station. The driver hesitantly slowed near the bottom gates, then drove up and stopped on the drive level with the front door.

This was hardly ever used, as everyone else went around to the back yard. Richard hurriedly found the key in his office and went to admit two men in sombre double-breasted suits and a middle-aged woman wearing businesslike spectacles.

He shepherded them into Angela's sitting room, the most comfortable place, with its superb view from the large bay window. She had suggested it, and, when they had settled, Moira came in to ask if they would all like tea or coffee. The niceties finished, the elder of the two men introduced themselves. He was a large man with a grey walrus moustache and pale, watery eyes. In true Whitehall style, he clutched a bowler hat.

‘I'm Paul Bannerman, from the Army Legal Branch,' he announced in a deep, resonant voice. ‘This is Gordon Lane, one of our Crown solicitors – and our lady colleague is Mrs Edith Wright, who will take any notes that are required.'

Gordon Lane was about forty, a slightly hunched man of slight physique but with an amiable, round face.

Bannerman hauled up his briefcase from the floor, a black leather one with a crown embossed on the flap. Taking a file from it, he launched into an explanation.

‘I'm the only serving officer here, a half-colonel, though I rarely put on my uniform,' he said with an unexpected smile. ‘We know that you were one of our pathologists during the war, leaving with the rank of major.'

Richard was surprised to learn that the army had kept tabs on him for so long, as it was almost a decade since he had returned to civilian status.

‘That's partly why we sought your help, as you are familiar with service life and must have had considerable experience of gunshot wounds,' said Lane, the solicitor. His voice sounded shrill compared with Bannerman's base tones.

‘The other reason is that you are now an independent expert, not beholden to any official institution,' added Bannerman. ‘So no one can accuse you of any bias or partisan opinions.'

Mrs Wright sat stiffly on one of the harder chairs, her notebook open on her lap, but so far she had nothing to write.

Angela, whom Richard had already introduced as his forensic science partner, was anxious to know what this was all about.

‘We wondered why you came to us, as there are quite a few experienced people in London,' she said.

Bannerman nodded. ‘It was certainly the fact that Dr Pryor was a former army pathologist that attracted us. I'll tell you the problem, shall I?'

It had to wait a few moments, as Moira came in with a large tray and served coffee all around. ‘Have you had lunch?' she asked solicitously, but was relieved to hear that they had eaten on the train from Paddington – no doubt all travelling First Class, thought Richard.

‘This all stems from the death three months ago of a British soldier in one of the Gulf States,' began Bannerman. ‘Herbert Bulmer, originally from the Duke of Hereford's Light Infantry, was a Warrant Officer, Class Two, in a Special Forces Training Unit. He was forty-four and had an excellent record in the war, serving in the Western Desert and Italy.'

He paused and looked at a paper in his file.

‘Last year the War Office accepted a contract from the small Gulf state of Al Tallah to train a unit of their forces in counterinsurgency techniques. WO2 Bulmer was one of those sent out there for six months from our own training facility on Salisbury Plain.'

Richard and Angela looked at each other covertly, being still none the wiser as to the reason behind this visit, but clarification was on the way as Gordon Lane took up the story.

‘We sent seven men out there on quite a lucrative contract, as Al Tallah is an oil-rich state. The instructors were all senior NCOs, apart from a former Black Watch major who was in administrative charge. They were to train six batches of men from the Al Tallah Defence Force, giving each of them one month's instruction. Unfortunately, four months into the programme, Bulmer died in an accidental shooting incident.'

‘We say it was accidental,' cut in Bannerman. ‘But his widow is not only suing the War Office for negligence but is trying to get the man who shot him charged with murder!'

There was a heavy silence as Richard and Angela digested this unexpected twist.

‘So what were the circumstances and why is it so contentious?' asked the pathologist.

‘The shooting occurred during a mock assault on an aircraft that was supposed to have been taken over by hijackers,' explained Paul Bannerman. ‘It was a standard training exercise that had been carried out many times before with different groups. They used the grounded fuselage of an old Dakota that was dumped out on the perimeter of Al Tallah airport.'