According To The Evidence

EIGHT

In the staffroom of Garth House others were also drinking tea when the telephone rang in the passage outside. Moira, as their nominal secretary, felt obliged to be the one who answered it.

A moment later she came back in again, an excited expression on her face. ‘I think you’d better talk to them, doctor,’ she said in a stage whisper, though the phone was outside.

‘Who is it, Moira?’ asked Angela, getting out of her chair.

‘The War Office!’ she replied in hushed tones. ‘They wanted to speak to Dr Pryor, but I said he wasn’t here.’

After a puzzled Angela hurried out of the room, Moira and Siân were consumed with curiosity, once again showing their intense interest in all the doings of the Garth House Consultancy.

‘What on earth would the War Office want with Richard?’ asked Siân. Though he was ‘doctor’ when they were with him, in private they spoke of both him and Angela by name.

‘He was an army officer all through the war,’ pointed out Moira. ‘Let’s hope they don’t want to call him up again!’

Siân, who was surprisingly abreast of world events, thought this not beyond the bounds of possibility. ‘There’s so much trouble in the world these days – Russia has just formed the Warsaw Pact, Germany joining NATO, our rail and newspaper strikes! I’d not rule out them calling up reservists.’

But when Angela came back, she was able to reassure them that Richard Pryor was not being hauled off to Aldershot next day.

‘It’s another case for us, hopefully,’ she announced. ‘That was a lawyer from the War Office. I think he said it was something to do with the Adjutant-General’s Branch. I’m not well up with these military outfits.’

‘What sort of case could that be?’ asked Siân, mystified as to why the army should want her hero.

‘It seems there’s some controversy about a compensation case following a shooting death. They need a second medical opinion.’

‘Dr Pryor will be pleased at that,’ said Moira confidently.

‘I know he was quite proud of his army service. He said once that perhaps he should have stayed in the RAMC instead of taking that civilian job in Singapore.’

‘Yes, I heard him say that, too,’ chipped in Siân. ‘He reckoned if he’d stayed, he’d probably be a brigadier by now.’

Angela smiled at their enthusiasm for her partner. ‘Well, he’d better get his medals out and clean them up, because I arranged for this lawyer to come down to see us next week!’

Betsan Evans was not tearful or hysterical, just defiant.

When Arthur Crippen suggested to her that she had been economical with the truth over her relationship with Tom Littleman, the farmer’s wife made no attempt to deny it.

‘It was an awful mistake, but there it is,’ she said. ‘He was a good-looking chap, and in spite of the fact that I knew he was a bad lot there was something about him that I couldn’t resist.’

‘It was more than just a visit to the pictures, was it?’

Betsan looked down at her hands, which were rough compared with the smoothness of her face.

‘We went back to that flat of his once or twice,’ she murmured. ‘It was partly that grubby place that made me end it so soon. It made me see how sordid the whole affair was.’

The sergeant looked up from writing on his statement forms. ‘When did it finish, Mrs Evans?’

She sighed and ran a hand through her dark hair. ‘A few weeks ago. He didn’t seem all that bothered, damn the man! Shows how little it meant to him.’

‘Does your husband know about it?’

The question certainly jerked the woman out of her state of dull apathy. ‘No, of course not! For God’s sake, don’t tell him, will you?’

As he spoke again, the inspector felt as if he was walking on eggshells. He was a kindly man, but this was a murder investigation and he couldn’t see how he was going to avoid hurting a few people.

‘I’m afraid I can’t guarantee anything, Betsan. It depends on how the investigation goes.’

‘Aubrey mustn’t know,’ she said desperately. ‘It would kill him – or he’d kill me!’

She realized what she was saying and her face took on a sudden ghastly pallor. For a moment Crippen thought she might be sick.

‘What about Rhian? Does she know about your affair?’

Now on slightly less frightening ground, Betsan shook her head vehemently. ‘God, no! She’s so strait-laced. She wouldn’t understand how I was tempted.’

Crippen looked at her gravely. ‘I think she might, Mrs Evans. You’re not the only one we’ve had information about.’

The implication of what he had said took a moment to register with Betsan. Her eyes widened, and the paleness of her cheeks flushed pink.

‘You don’t mean… I can’t believe it! That bloody man! I thought he loved me – for a couple of weeks, anyway.’

‘Are you sure you never told her about him – or that she told you a similar story?’

Tears now appeared in her eyes for the first time. Arthur felt that Littleman’s infidelity troubled her more than her own. She shook her head and wiped her eyes angrily with her fingers.

‘We aren’t that close, not as if we were sisters – or even sisters-in-law,’ she sniffed. ‘Rhian lives over in the cottage, and although we see each other most days there isn’t a lot to talk about, apart from the farm. It’s not even as if either of us has kids.’

Crippen detected an underlying hint of loneliness and longing in her voice. ‘So you wouldn’t know if her husband knew about it? Nothing in a change of his manner or anything like that?’

Again she shook her head and found a crumpled handkerchief in the pocket of her apron, blowing her nose hard. ‘Rhian doesn’t know about me and Tom, does she?’ she asked haltingly.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her since this came to light. You see the different complexion it puts on Littleman’s death, don’t you?’

She shook her head fearfully. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she whispered.

‘Your husband or Rhian’s husband – or even both of them – might have wanted to pay him back, or perhaps get rid of him altogether.’

She stared at him open-mouthed.

‘That can’t be true! Neither of them would do that. It must have been someone from outside.’

John Nichols thought he would add fuel to the fire to see if anything spat out. ‘Or maybe it was you or Mrs Morton who wanted him out of the way. He wasn’t a big chap and you are both strong farmers’ wives.’

‘Or perhaps you also did it together?’ suggested Crippen provocatively. ‘That would have made it easier still.’

Betsan’s eyes were like saucers at this, and she remained speechless. It was only a few months since Ruth Ellis had been hanged for murder. Though public and political opinion probably made her the last woman ever to be executed, the prospect of being accused of murder was shocking.

‘Have you anything else that you want to tell us, Mrs Evans?’ asked Crippen, feeling instinctively that he had had all he was going to get for the moment.

Betsan seemed to pull herself together, sitting up straight and making a last dab at her nose and eyes with the handkerchief. ‘I think I’ve said more than enough. Thank God Aubrey is out of the house, so that I can settle myself before he comes home.’

Crippen stood up and opened the caravan door for her. ‘We’ll need you to come over and sign a statement after it’s finished,’ he said. ‘And we’ll need to speak to your husband and his cousin, as well as his wife later.’

When she had walked slowly back to the farmhouse, the DI sat down again and watched his sergeant finishing the transcript of the interview.

‘Shane was right, then,’ he said reflectively. ‘We’d have been right up the creek if he’d been having us on.’

‘Let’s hope Dr Pryor wasn’t having us on, too,’ replied Nichols. ‘You said the chief super was concerned that maybe the pathologist was wrong about a murder.’

Arthur Crippen sighed. ‘He’s got to be right – and the lab found those fibres. But maybe I should have a word with him over the phone, just to see if he’s still cast iron with his conclusions.’

After finishing their smoke, the constable was sent over to the cottage to fetch Mrs Morton to the caravan for another interview. Their session with her turned out to be broadly similar to that with Betsan Evans.

Confronted with the bald statement that the police knew of her affair with Tom Littleman, she capitulated straight away, but unlike Betsan she shed no tears and remained sullenly obstinate.

‘I don’t see that my private life is anything to do with the police,’ she said coldly. ‘It can’t have anything to do with this business, especially as it was all over months ago.’

‘That’s for us to judge, Mrs Morton,’ snapped Crippen, nettled by her attitude. ‘And I’d point out that you are already guilty of withholding information from us. We asked you about him when we spoke to you first and you more or less said you knew nothing about him!’

‘I didn’t consider it relevant, that’s why,’ she answered.

Crippen decided to see how she reacted to a couple more awkward questions. ‘Did your husband know about your affair with this man?’

Rhian flushed and looked down at the table. ‘Of course not! I know I was a fool, but Tom could be very persuasive and there was something about him that appealed to me, even though I knew he was no good.’

‘So you didn’t know that he was also carrying on with Betsan Evans?’

Her head jerked up as if it was being pulled by a string. ‘What? Are you trying to trick me into something?’

‘Ask her yourself, if you like. She was equally surprised to hear that you had been unfaithful as well.’

She glowered at the detective. ‘Unfaithful! It was that swine Tom who was unfaithful, blast him.’

John Nichols, as he sat busily writing, thought how similar the reactions of the two wives were to Littleman’s deceit.

As if to confirm his thoughts, Rhian snapped out a question. ‘So are you going to tell my Jeff?’

Crippen looked steadily at her, thinking that this was a much harder woman that Betsan Evans. Could she have been a killer, he wondered? But if she genuinely hadn’t known that Littleman had been having it off with Betsan as well as with her, where was a motive?

‘This is a murder investigation, Mrs Morton. Nothing that’s relevant can be concealed. I think you’d better be frank with your husband before we talk to him again – though it’s none of my business what you do.’

They watched her march off across the yard towards her own large cottage, which was a field away in the opposite direction from the distant barn.

‘We’re none the better off after all that, John,’ said Crippen morosely. ‘I could just about accept her screwing that fellow’s neck, but I don’t see a motive.’

In the absence of anyone else to interview for the time being, the two detectives sat in the caravan and had a smoke.

‘We’ll see the two husbands again this afternoon,’ said Crippen. ‘And the old man, I suppose. After all this, if we get no further towards charging someone, I’m afraid the chief will call in the Yard.’

However, the interviews at Ty Croes Farm were not going according to plan that day. Though the DI and his sergeant had managed to interview Betsan and Rhian, by noon there was no sign of the men returning from Llandovery – and half an hour later the radio in the police car recalled them urgently to Brecon to deal with an attempted hold-up at a building society.

Richard returned from Cardiff at the end of that afternoon in time for Moira to give him various messages.

‘A few phone calls, doctor,’ she announced. ‘The lawyers in Stow rang to see if you were able to tell them anything yet. I said you’d been working on it for the last two days and would get back to them.’

She looked at her notepad. ‘And Detective Inspector Crippen rang from Brecon. He’d like to talk to you. The coroner’s officer in Monmouth said there’ll be two post-mortems there tomorrow and one in Chepstow. Hereford County Hospital phoned to ask if you could do a fortnight’s locum for their pathologist next month.’

She kept the juiciest message until last. ‘And I think Dr Bray will want to tell you about a call she had this morning from the War Office.’

Like Siân, for a moment Richard thought that he was being ‘called back to the flag’, as they used to say, but Angela put his mind at rest when he hurried into the laboratory to see her.

‘It was someone from the army legal branch or whatever they call it now,’ she explained. ‘It’s a civil claim for death, though there’s some possibility of a manslaughter charge. Apart from the fact that it’s a shooting, he didn’t give any details, but they want a pathology opinion. I told them they can come down to see you next Tuesday afternoon – that’ll give you time to do any local post-mortems in the morning.’

He grinned at her, pleased at the growth of their venture.

‘It’s all happening, Angela! At this rate, in another year we’ll be able to get some better equipment for you and Siân.’ He waved a hand expansively around the laboratory.

‘I’ll have a UV spectrophotometer!’ called Siân from across the room.

‘In the queue, girl. I need some new golf clubs first,’ chaffed Richard, feeling euphoric with the prospects of expansion of the Garth House partnership.

The phone rang in the office and Moira called out for Pryor. ‘It’s Brecon again, doctor,’ she said, handing the receiver to him when he came through the connecting door.

‘This is Arthur Crippen, doctor. I thought I’d keep you up to date with what’s going on here.’ This was hardly true, as the DI really wanted reassurance once again that he was undoubtedly dealing with a murder.

‘Any progress, inspector? It’s a very odd case.’

‘You can say that again,’ said Crippen. ‘To be honest, we still haven’t a clue who did it, though it has to be someone at the farm.’

He paused. ‘Er, doc, any more confirmation from your end about what happened?’

Richard knew very well what he was getting at and had himself had a few worrying hours, concerned that he was right about Littleman’s death.

‘There’s not really anything more we can do from the pathology side,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve looked at those neck marks under the microscope and there’s no doubt at all that they are very recent bruises. The hanging mark showed no vital signs, so it was made after death.’

Crippen was at least reassured that nothing had been found to throw any doubt on the original findings and, after telling Richard what they had gleaned so far from the family, he rang off.

‘Anything new from deepest Breconshire?’ asked Angela as he came back into the lab.

‘Dirty work behind the cowsheds, it seems,’ he replied. ‘That Tom Littleman might have been an unsavoury drunkard, but he seems to have had a way with women.’

He repeated what the DI had told him about both wives now admitting that they had had affairs with the victim. Moira, who tended to be a little strait-laced, was primly disapproving.

‘I can’t understand how decent women get taken in by these rogues,’ she said. ‘But what could that have to do with his death?’

‘They have jungle law up in those parts of Wales!’ said Angela, whose very English origins surfaced occasionally.

‘Cuckolded husbands might have organized a lynching.’

Richard took this more seriously. ‘The guy wasn’t lynched, but you might be near the truth otherwise.’

‘You think the murderer must be one of the family?’ asked Siân, revelling in the drama.

‘The police certainly think so, mainly from lack of anyone else to suspect.’

As he moved off to take his papers to his room, Angela asked him if he had found anything useful in the libraries in Cardiff.

‘Nothing new, but confirmation of what I found in Bristol. I think I may have to make some enquiries in Germany next week.’

Siân’s eyes opened wide in surprise. ‘You’re going to Germany, doctor? Can I come with you to carry your bag?’

Richard grinned at her enthusiasm. ‘Not much point. I can’t speak a word of the language. But maybe some telephoning through an interpreter might help. We’ll see what the lawyers have to say about it.’

He remembered promising to ask if Siân knew anything about potassium in body fluids, so he did so now.

‘I know how to estimate the levels in plasma,’ she replied, pleased to be consulted by the great man. ‘I used to do a lot at the hospital, but you need a flame photometer for that. I was never asked to test an eye fluid sample – it would be hardly likely on a live patient!’

‘You never did any samples from the post-mortem room?’

She shook her head, and it reassured him that he had not missed out on some new technique that had been developed while he was away in the Far East for so long.

After a ham and salad supper, followed by one of Moira’s cream sponges, Richard talked to Angela over coffee, going again over the ideas he had gleaned from his library researches.

Then he left her to go up to her room upstairs and listen to her radio, while he put together a draft report for George Lovesey, the solicitor in Stow-on-the-Wold.