According To The Evidence

TEN

After Angela left for Berkshire in the late afternoon, Richard found himself alone in Garth House. He spent a hour in his study, looking at some of the microscope sections that Siân had prepared for him from post-mortems during the past week, then went outside to ‘walk his broad acres’, as he liked to think of it. He had never owned any land before or even a house, having spent his life either in hospital accommodation, an officers’ mess or, in Singapore, in a rented apartment. Though the house and four acres was technically the property of the partnership, he still had a proprietorial feeling towards it and enjoyed ‘potching about’ on the sloping ground behind the house. At the end of September, though the evenings were starting to draw in, there was still broad daylight for him to examine the two long rows that Jimmy Jenkins had prepared for those elusive vines, which still had not arrived from the nursery in Sussex.

Jimmy had hacked off the coarse turf with a spade, then turned the soil with a small motor cultivator, a gadget like a lawnmower with rotating blades on either side. As he walked the length of the two rows of churned soil, he heard the roar of a motorcycle coming up the steep drive. A few moments later Jimmy appeared lugging a sprayer which he kept in a shed alongside the coach house.

As usual, half a cigarette dangled from his lip as he approached.

‘You’re working late, Jimmy. What are you going to do?’

The gardener-handyman put down the yellow tank and started pumping the handle on top to raise the pressure.

‘Got an hour before the darts match down at the Swan, doctor,’ he informed Richard. ‘Thought I’d give that patch a dose of weedkiller before you puts in them vine plants – if they ever come.’

They talked for a few minutes about the weeds and couch grass that were already appearing in the tilled soil. ‘They’ll choke your bleeding grapes unless you keep them down,’ he warned.

Richard was pleased that Jimmy was at last reconciled to a vineyard and had given up his campaign for strawberries.

‘Where did you learn that about vines?’ he asked curiously.

The other man looked a little sheepish. ‘I saw that book you had in the kitchen, when I was in having a cup of tea with Moira the other day. Quite a few good tips, there was!’

Pryor suspected that this was the first time Jimmy had ever read a word about horticulture of any sort, having learned all his lore from half a century as a countryman – but he was pleased that he was now taking an interest in Richard’s pet project.

He watched as Jimmy slung the spray tank on his shoulder and began walking alongside the long ribbon of bare earth, spraying it from the nozzle on the end of the hose. He stopped at intervals to pump up the pressure, needing a couple of passes to cover the width, before taking the device back to the shed.

‘There’s a bottle of beer in the pantry, if you want to wet your whistle,’ offered Richard. There was an old bench outside the back door, and the pair of them sat comfortably in the evening light to empty a flagon of Rhymney bitter between them.

‘Must be a bit different here to Singapore,’ said Jimmy.

‘Damned sight cooler, though you get used to the heat,’ replied the pathologist. ‘I had three years in Ceylon and that was much the same, hot and damp.’

The gardener reached across to top up Richard’s glass. ‘In the army, was you? See any action out there?’

Pryor grinned. ‘Not the military sort, no. I was in an army hospital there, and when we took back Singapore I was posted there to help get theirs up and running again. The Japs had played hell with it, including a massacre of patients and staff.’

He took a long satisfying drink. ‘Were you ever in the forces, Jimmy?’

‘Nah, protected occupation, me! Farming up the valley, I was. Damned hard graft it was then. Mind you, I had perforated eardrums and flat feet, so they wouldn’t take me anyway, ’cause I tried to join.’

After a companionable silence, Jimmy began to probe again, with the insatiable curiosity of people in a small village.

‘Was you ever married, doctor?’

‘Yes, I was married all right! It didn’t work out, I’m afraid. We were divorced last year.’

Jimmy downed the last of his ale and stood up.

‘I reckon you’ll soon be married again, doctor, living in there with three great-looking ladies!’ He picked up Richard’s empty glass and made for the kitchen to put them in the sink.

‘Point is, doctor, which one of them will it be?’

He tapped the side of his nose knowingly and vanished through the back door.

A little later Richard decided he had better see what Moira had left for his supper but was surprised to find nothing obvious in the Aga or in the refrigerator. This was odd – though she knew that Angela would be away, she was also aware that he was staying that night.

He was just thinking of opening a tin of corned beef when there was a tap on the back door and Moira came in, bearing a tray covered with a cloth.

‘You thought I’d forgotten you, no doubt,’ she said apologetically. ‘It took longer than I expected.’

She set the tray down and pulled off the cloth to reveal a large domed dish cover. Removing this with a flourish, she exposed a pie dish with a golden crust rising above it. Alongside was a Pyrex dish under whose lid could be seen potatoes, peas and carrots. An elegant trifle with a cherry on top sat alongside.

‘I’ll just put the dishes in the oven to keep warm and the trifle in the fridge, while I lay the table for you.’

The efficient woman busied herself with her culinary operations, and soon she had him seated at the table with a large plate carrying the steak pie and vegetables.

‘It’s not my birthday, Moira!’ he protested. ‘Why are you spoiling me tonight?’

She placed pepper and salt before him. ‘I knew you would be on your own, so I thought I’d make something special for you. It’s easier for me to cook things at home, as I’ve got all my gadgets to hand. It’s no distance to carry it up.’

He looked down at the substantial pie, which gave off a mouth-watering aroma. ‘Won’t you sit down and help me eat this? It looks marvellous!’

She shook her head. ‘I ate earlier, thanks. You just enjoy it, then I’ll make coffee, clear up and leave you in peace.’

‘Only if you stay and have a drink with me afterwards, then!’ he demanded. ‘There’s a nice bottle of Mateus Rosé in the cupboard – or gin and tonic if you prefer it.’

‘Would you like a glass of wine with your meal?’ she asked and without waiting for a reply she jumped up and got the familiar round, flat bottle and two glasses. Pouring one for Richard, she half filled another and sat quietly on the other side of the table, watching him devour her cooking with satisfaction.

Between mouthfuls and sips of wine, he told her of the latest developments in the Brecon case. Then, as he finished the last morsels of pie, he toasted her with a raised glass.

‘That was great, Moira. You’re very kind to me!’

She blushed slightly. ‘You’ve been so kind to me, you and Dr Bray. Taking me on has made such a difference to me. I feel alive again after losing my husband.’

She got up to fetch his trifle and then put the kettle on the Aga to make coffee. When she sat down again, he had refilled both their glasses with the pink wine.

‘I don’t drink much. I’ll be giggling after this,’ she said archly as they again raised their glasses to each other.

They talked about matters other than the business as they waited for the kettle to boil. Moira told him of the factory explosion that had taken her husband from her and the several years of numb despair that followed. Thankfully, her parents were still alive and living in Chepstow, where she was brought up.

‘I don’t think I could have survived without their support,’ she said sadly. ‘But I feel much more alive now that I have Garth House and you nice people to look after every day.’

As she went to make coffee, Richard wondered if one glass of wine was making her open up like this, as normally she was very reticent about her own affairs.

‘Let’s sit in comfort in the staffroom,’ he suggested, picking up the glasses and half-empty bottle. ‘The springs are gone in some of the chairs, but they’re softer than these in the kitchen.’

Moira brought the coffee on a tray, and they sat in the twilight coming through the window that faced up the valley, until she switched on an old table lamp with a faded silk shade that Richard still remembered from the days when he stayed with Aunt Gladys.

Emboldened by a glass or two of wine, Moira cautiously probed into Angela’s background, as even Siân’s talents at worming out gossip had left some blanks.

‘Dr Bray’s gone home to her parents,’ she said. ‘I gather it’s some sort of big farm?’

‘Her father breeds horses and her mother breeds golden retrievers, as I understand. There’s a younger sister as well, but I haven’t heard that she breeds anything!’ he added whimsically.

‘Sounds a very grand family, real Home Counties stuff!’

Richard nodded as he finished his coffee. ‘Her father was a top civil servant, I gather, until he retired at the end of the war and took to horses.’

He leaned across the low table between them and topped up her wine glass. ‘May as well finish this, it won’t keep,’ he said. Moira looked a little apprehensive but made no protest. She was always a neat woman, petite and shapely, but this evening she seemed to have taken more trouble than usual with her appearance. Her glossy black hair shone in the lamplight and she seemed to be more carefully made up. When she took off the white apron she wore for serving the food, Richard saw that she wore a smart blue linen dress, tightly cinched at the waist, with a flared skirt. He had always had an appreciative eye for an attractive woman and thought that Jimmy was quite right when he had commented on the trio in Garth House.

Moira ventured again to bring the conversation around to personalities. ‘I’m surprised that Dr Bray isn’t married, though Siân mentioned that she had been engaged.’

Richard didn’t want to break any of Angela’s confidences – not that he knew all that much himself, though he suspected that Siân knew as much, if not more, than he did.

‘She was, until just before she moved here. Her fiancé was a senior detective in Scotland Yard, but it seems it didn’t work out.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Just as my own marriage didn’t work out, I’m afraid.’

Moira’s brown eyes widened. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, doctor! I had heard that you had been married, but I didn’t want to pry.’ She added this with a pang of conscience at being mildly untruthful.

Richard grinned at her. ‘There’s no secret about it. It was one of those impulsive wartime things. She was five years younger than me. I met her in the military hospital in Colombo, where she was a civilian-attached radiographer.’

‘Did you get married in Ceylon?’ asked Moira, seeing in her mind a romantic wedding under a tropical sun, with a handsome major in uniform and a bride with frangipani flowers in her hair.

‘Yes, then the bloody Yanks dropped their atom bomb and I was posted to Malaya when the Japs surrendered. Miriam was left behind for a year, which was a bad start. Then she came to Singapore, but never really liked it.’

He forbore to explain that she had found solace in frequent affairs with a number of expatriates in the Colony, which led to a separation and eventually divorce. Moira couldn’t think of anything useful to say, so she took refuge in sipping her wine, while she wondered if Miriam had been that much younger than Richard.

Thinking that he had better change the subject, he asked if she knew whether Siân had a boyfriend. ‘I suppose I can still call it that at twenty-four,’ he said. ‘I always think it sounds a bit odd applied to mature people.’

Moira smiled, feeling a happiness that Richard sensed, for he beamed back at her. Perhaps it was the Mateus Rosé, he thought.

‘Yes, I think there’s a gap in the English language,’ she agreed. ‘There needs to be something between boyfriend and fiancé. Perhaps we can invent a word!’ She giggled, not something that she normally did.

‘So is Siân courting, as we used to call it?’ he asked again.

‘She did mention a boy in her biochemistry course in Cardiff, but I don’t know if it’s at all serious. She’s so keen to get on in the world that I doubt she wants to settle down yet.’

They talked on easily for another hour, finishing the wine, though Richard drank the lion’s share. As it got dark outside the window, Moira’s sense of decorum seemed to overcome her desire to stay in this lovely man’s company and she rose from her chair, feeling slightly unsteady.

‘I must go. Whatever would the neighbours think if they knew I was sitting drinking with you in an empty house, doctor?’

He got up and opened the door for her. ‘The only neighbour for quarter of a mile is you, Moira!’ he said cheerfully. ‘And frankly, I don’t give a damn what they think.’

Promising to fetch her tray and dishes in the morning, she was about to say goodnight when Richard went to the hallstand and took Angela’s raincoat and draped it over Moira’s shoulders.

‘It’s dark and chilly out there,’ he said. ‘I’m going to walk you home to see you safe.’

Going down the drive, he put her arm under his, partly because she was tottering a little on her high heels, but also because he wanted a little feminine contact. She kept it there for all the four hundred yards along the main road until they reached her gate, where she released him.

‘Thanks for a lovely meal, Moira – and your company, it’s made my evening,’ he said.

‘Thank you for everything, Dr Pryor, it was lovely. Even for getting me a little tipsy – I feel quite naughty!’

Before he could decide to say anything he might regret, she turned and clipped up the short path to her front door.

They called their goodnights and she vanished to the sound of a yapping welcome from her Yorkie. Richard turned to walk back home and sighed heavily. He enjoyed the company of women, especially such an attractive one as Moira.

‘Perhaps I should have given her a goodnight kiss,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Though she is my cook and secretary. It would complicate matters, wouldn’t it, Richard my lad?’