Grounds for Appeal

SEVENTEEN

In the house in the Wye Valley, there was as yet no sign of an anticipation of Christmas and work went on as usual. On Tuesday, the solicitor in Bristol phoned to confirm that the date for the Appeal was the tenth of January. After returning from his morning visit to the mortuary in Chepstow, Richard invaded Angela’s sanctum across the hall to discuss the arrangements.

‘We’ll have to stay in London for at least the previous night, as the kick-off is ten thirty in the morning,’ he said. ‘A pity it’s a Thursday.’

She looked at him enquiringly. ‘Why is it a pity?’

‘Means no chance of a dirty weekend, partner!’ he replied with one of his facetious grins.

‘You’re like an overgrown schoolboy sometimes, Richard!’ she replied with mock disgust, though she had to hide a smile of her own. ‘If I have to put up with you for a night, I suppose we could stay again at the Great Western in Paddington. It seemed so convenient for the train.’

Serious again, he nodded. ‘I’ll get Moira to ring up and make a booking. I wonder how it will turn out?’

He was referring to the Appeal itself, as until today they had heard no more from the lawyers since the conference in Bristol.

‘Are you happy with our side of the evidence?’ asked Angela, motioning to him to sit down in a swivel chair on the other side of her desk.

‘I’m quite sure that I can debunk the ridiculously over-accurate estimate of Anthony Claridge about the time of death. What about your end?’

His partner shrugged. ‘I’m absolutely sure that the blood splatter couldn’t have come from the knife; it had to be the injury to the nose. Whether or not they believe me is out of my hands.’

Richard nodded. ‘That’s not our problem. We just present the scientific truth as best we can. After that it’s up to the lawyers.’

She fixed him with her brown eyes. ‘Do you think she was guilty, Richard?’

He thought for a moment. ‘It would be wrong to say that I don’t care, as any miscarriage of justice is an affront to society, especially if it arises from bigoted minds who are more concerned with their own reputation than with the truth. But what matters to me is offering the best scientific opinion I can, without any influence from sympathy or compassion for the client. Perhaps she did kill him, but on the evidence that was presented to the trial jury, she shouldn’t have been convicted, given the alibi she had. That’s what matters to me.’

Angela nodded. ‘That’s how I feel, too. At least Millie won’t hang, whatever happens next month.’

There was silence for a time, as they both looked out across the valley, where the trees now wore their grey winter uniform. Richard, conscious of an air of sadness that had descended on them, decided to change the subject.

‘What did you think about the last part of the Dumas saga last weekend? A pity if the family get divided because of the return of the prodigal son.’

Recognizing that he was trying to divert her, Angela was grateful for his sensitivity.

‘Do you feel this chap from Thailand is genuine?’ she asked.

The final chapter of the strange story related to them by Louis Dumas was that the arrival of the alleged missing son had created a serious rift in the family. Though the father maintained a neutral scepticism until more proof was forthcoming, Emily Dumas was convinced that Pierre Fouret was her long-lost son, Maurice. When the younger Dumas, Victor, learned of the extraordinary reappearance of his brother, he exploded into a tirade of denial, both because of what he claimed was the cruel deception being played upon his parents, especially his mother, but also with an eye to his inheritance. Apart from the house and vineyard, his father had extensive property in France and the prospect of having to share it with an alleged elder brother incensed him beyond measure. He had denounced the man as a scheming impostor and every argument put forward by his parents was met with a contemptuous dismissal.

‘If he could find those facts from the army records and the old newspapers, so could anyone else, especially a confidence trickster intent on swindling you!’ he had declared, according to Louis. He refused to take part in any medical tests or to meet Pierre, threatening that if he came to the house, he would walk out on him.

The Dumases had consulted lawyers and employed an investigative agency, but they were not helpful, saying that as far as they could determine, the facts advanced by Pierre Fouret were true, but repeated what Victor had pointed out, that such public information was available to anyone who had the incentive and patience to dig deeply enough. They had contacted the Fourets in Montreal and confirmed that Pierre’s story was true as far back as his being taken by them from the orphanage, but there was no corroboration of what had happened in the years prior to that.

‘We even made enquiries through the British Embassy in Thailand,’ Louis had said. ‘But it was impossible to locate any of the nuns in the former orphanage as it had long been disbanded. Enquiries in Vietnam were out of the question, as since the contentious splitting of that country into two by the Geneva Accord of 1954, the northern part containing Yen Bai was now communist, making a search for Sukhon impossible, even if she were still alive in war-torn Indo-China.’

Angela and Richard had discussed this before and the obvious direction of the Dumases’ concern was whether any biological tests could determine whether Pierre Fouret was really Maurice Dumas.

Angela sighed. ‘I told them time and again that there was no technique based on blood tests or anything else that could absolutely prove that any child was the offspring of a particular person. All that can be done is to exclude that possibility — but it sometimes seems hard, even with intelligent, educated people, to get them to believe it.’

Her partner ran a hand through his springy hair.

‘I know, it’s like a doctor telling a patient some important fact about their illness, then finding that however well you explain it, their mind seems reluctant to accept it if it doesn’t fit with what they want to know.’

‘I can give them probability results, which sometimes can be pretty near a positive answer,’ agreed Angela. ‘But you can never get to the hundred per cent mark, even if you get lucky with all the blood subgroups and the other factors that are being discovered all the time.’

‘What about the genetic stuff that these people discovered in Oxford the year before last?’ asked Richard. ‘Will there be any hope of this DNA being useful?’

‘You mean Crick and Watson?’ she replied. ‘Well, who knows what may come out of it in years to come. But at the moment, it’s just a nice toy for geneticists. It’s not going to help the Dumas family.’

He stretched and hauled himself out of the chair. ‘Well, anyway. I’m sorry for them, as until this is settled one way or the other, there’ll be no peace in the family.’

That same morning, Meirion Thomas and his sergeant, Gwyn Parry, drove north out of Aberystwyth for a few miles on the A487 until they reached the village of Comins Coch.

‘Do you know where Ty Canol is?’ asked Meirion, as Parry swung the Wolseley off the main road and drove through the village back out into the countryside to the south.

‘Yes, and you should too! It’s where we had that stake-out for almost a week, about five years ago. Remember, we had a tip-off about rustlers and damn-all happened.’

There had been so many of those attempts to foil the sheep thieves that the DI had forgotten this one, but when the whitewashed farmhouse came into view after a couple of miles, it all came back to him.

‘Myrddin Evans, he was the farmer, wasn’t he?’ he recalled.

‘Yes, and there he is!’ said the sergeant, pulling up at the gate to the yard. A man wearing the inevitable flat cap perched on one side was dragging the gate open for them. Gwyn Parry drove across to the other side of the cobbled yard, into the shelter of a rusty corrugated French barn. There was a strong east wind and chaff was blowing around their legs as they got out of the car.

Myrddin Evans had closed the gate again and advanced on them, the skirts of his grubby raincoat flapping, even though he had several turns of binder twine wrapped around his waist. He came near and glowered at the two policemen.

‘Don’t tell me there’s another tip-off about rustlers! I’ve got all my ewes up in the pound behind the house, so there’s no chance of them being pinched!’

He spoke in Welsh, but with a few choice English obscenities mixed in. Meirion always thought that the expression ‘swear like a trooper’ was nonsense, as they couldn’t hold a candle to farmers when it came to foul language.

‘Nothing to do with that, Mr Evans,’ said Parry, placatingly. ‘We called to ask about your van, that’s all.’

The weather-beaten face registered surprise. His mouth opened, revealing totally toothless gums.

‘I haven’t got a bloody van! I use a Land Rover with a big trailer these days.’

Meirion Thomas hauled out a piece of paper from his breast pocket and held it fluttering in the cold wind.

‘According to the Vehicle Registration people, you’ve got a green Ford thirty-hundredweight, number EJ 2652.’

‘Oh, that old thing! It’s not been on the road for years. The crankshaft went and the body’s so rusty it wasn’t worth fixing. What d’you want to know for?’

‘Have you still got it?’ asked the sergeant.

The farmer waved a hand vaguely in the direction of a row of stone-built cowsheds on the other side of the yard. ‘Bloody thing is rotting away behind there. I keep fence posts and rolls of wire in it.’

‘Is it the one you bought from Jaroslav Beran down in town?’

Myrddin Evans’ bewilderment became more obvious.

‘Yes, that foreign bugger sold me a pup; I paid forty quid for a heap of rust. Didn’t last more than a year before the engine blew up. What’s all this about, anyway?’

‘That man you bought it from was a crook, Myrddin. We’re looking into some of his past activities, for which he may have used the van,’ said Meirion evasively.

‘Needn’t tell me he was crooked,’ growled the farmer. ‘He sold me that heap of rubbish for a start!’

The DI started to walk across the yard. ‘Let’s have a look at it, then.’

Behind the grey-slated roof of the cowshed, they found a green van nestling in a patch of dead nettles. All the tyres were flat and it seemed to be sinking slowly into the Welsh countryside. The rusted bonnet was against the wall of the building, so that the back doors were accessible, being kept closed by yet more binder twine being wrapped around the handles.

‘Want to look inside?’ demanded the owner.

‘Yes, it may be that we have to take the whole van away for examination. But let’s see what it’s like first.’

Evans reluctantly unwound the hairy cord that bound the handles together and with a squeal of rusty hinges, dragged the two doors apart. Inside, the detectives saw a layer of six-foot fencing posts on the floor, covered with rolls of pig-wire and spools of barbed wire. Both being from farming stock, they saw nothing odd in old vehicles being used in this way. The countryside was peppered with old railway wagons, which made cheap and useful shelter for animals, feedstuff and equipment.

They advanced on the old Ford and looked at as much of the floor as was visible. Then they trampled through the nettle stems and dragged open the side doors to look at the sodden, rotting upholstery of the seats.

‘Think forensic can do anything with this?’ asked Parry.

The DI shrugged. ‘Amazing what they can find, sometimes.’

He turned back to Myrddin Evans, who was regarding them with a scowl at this waste of time.

‘Have you ever carried meat in this — or killed any animals in it, chickens and the like?’

He shook his head. ‘No, never! I used to collect feed sacks from the Farmers’ Co-op in it — and sometimes hauled a few sheep or pigs. But never slaughtered in it, I was never into black-marketing, not like some I could mention around here.’

Meirion had his doubts about that, but he was not interested in that now. ‘We might have to either take this van away or perhaps have a team of experts up here to examine it. We’ll let you know.’

The farmer’s scowl deepened. ‘Bloody nuisance! Any compo in it for me?’

Meirion pleaded ignorance on that one, but before they left he had one last question.

‘Do you know if this chap Beran is still around?’

Myrddin pushed his cap back on his head to scratch his grey bristles with a forefinger. ‘He was keeping that old shop he had in Vulcan Street when I bought that damned van off him. But I did hear later that he lived somewhere out of town. Bow Street, I think it was.’

After failing to find Beran in the telephone directory, the legwork that followed was delegated by Meirion Thomas to a couple of detective constables. They were sent to comb the Electoral Roll and question the Rates Department in the County Hall for any address of the elusive Czech. Nothing at all was found in the name of Jaroslav Beran and by mid-afternoon, the DI had sought the advice of the Deputy Chief Constable, David John Jones.

‘How the hell did a fellow with a name like that ever come to be in Aberystwyth?’ demanded Jones.

His senior — and only — ranking officer in the CID looked down at his boss.

‘At the trial that sent him down for eighteen months, it was said that he was a member of the Free Czech Army during the first part of the war, but he was invalided out in ’forty-two, on account of being accidentally shot in the foot.’

‘Did it himself, I’ll bet,’ grunted the DCC. ‘That’s an old dodge. But someone must know where the damned man is?’

‘He’s certainly not around here. That farmer who has his old van thought he had moved to Bow Street, but there’s no mention of him being there in the county records. I’m waiting to have a call back from someone in the Parole Board in Swansea. They must surely have kept tabs on him, or he’d be back behind bars by now.’

When he went back to his own cubbyhole of an office, there was indeed a call from Swansea, with interesting information about the missing man.

‘He changed his name, that’s why you can’t find him,’ said a man identifying himself as Beran’s probation officer.

‘Can an ex-con do that?’ demanded the DI.

‘Yes, he can these days. He claimed that his foreign name was a hindrance to him getting a job and like many of his Czech and Polish ex-forces friends, he wanted an English-sounding name. As long as we could still keep track of him, we had no reason to object, so now he’s officially called James Brown. We’ve got an address for him, it’s Gelli Derwen, Llancynfelyn, near Borth.’

The detective inspector almost fell off his chair with astonishment. Llancynfelyn was within bowshot of the part of Borth Bog where the body had been buried. In fact, it was there that the police vehicles had parked when they went to dig it up.

He hurried back to David Jones’ room with the news.

‘This fellow has to be involved, somehow! It’s far too much of a coincidence that the tattooed bloke drove Beran’s van years ago in some crooked scheme involving stolen goods from houses robbed by Midland gangsters.’

The DCC, usually a placid man more concerned with staff rosters and overtime claims, became almost animated.

‘You’re right, bach! But why the hell would he go back to live on the edge of the bog?’

‘Morbid interest or a guilty conscience?’ suggested Meirion. ‘So what do we do now? Bring in Birmingham — or even the Met?’

David Jones scowled. ‘Nothing those London blokes can do that the Midlands and ourselves can’t. Best tell Birmingham straight away — and you’d better get the forensic people to go over that van you told me about.’

Once again, Meirion beat a retreat downstairs, where he first phoned the liaison officer at the Home Office Forensic Science Laboratory in Llanishen, on the outskirts of Cardiff. They already knew about the case, as they had dealt with some of the material from the bog exhumation, but Meirion explained the new developments and the DCI who acted as a go-between between police forces and the lab, promised to come up next day with one of the scientific officers, to have a preliminary look at the old van.

The next call was to Trevor Hartnell in Winson Green, who was still nominally the Investigating Officer in the death of the tattooed man. He was delighted to hear of the progress made in Aberystwyth and wanted to be in on any interview with Jaroslav Beran, presumably now to be known as ‘James Brown’.

‘At least it’s less of a mouthful — and we can call him Jimmy,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ll talk to my DCI and probably the chief super first, but I’ll have to come down there. Can’t get there until tonight, I’m afraid.’

Meirion could see a risk of his Christmas going down the pan, but there was nothing new in that for a policeman.

‘No problem, he’s been here for years, so another day won’t matter. He’s hardly likely to do a runner after all this time.’

That same Tuesday afternoon, a violent altercation took place at the side of the main A49 road between Hereford and Leominster, a few miles north of the city.

An elegant two-tone Alvis saloon was pulled up close behind a large green Post Office Telephones van which had extending ladders secured to the near side.

The driver of the GPO vehicle descended from his cab and stomped angrily back to the car, where the driver had wound down his window, ready to engage in a shouting match.

‘What d’you mean by blowing your bloody horn at me all the time?’ snarled the man from the van, a large, pugnacious fellow dressed in dungarees.

The car driver, a portly man in his fifties, glared red-faced up at him. ‘Because you cut me up back there, pulled right across in front of me. I want to see if you’ve scratched my offside wing!’

The van man put his hands on the roof of the Alvis and bent down so that his face was almost in the window opening.

‘Don’t be damned silly, mister. I had to pull in because of oncoming traffic, but I didn’t come within feet of you!’

Another higher-pitched voice came from inside the car, where a woman was sitting in the passenger seat.

‘Oh yes, you did! I’m sure I heard a scraping noise as you passed!’

The car driver pulled at his inside door handle and tried to open it against the bulk of the GPO man.

‘Get out of the way, I want to see if there’s any damage,’ he snapped, his fleshy face now suffused with angry indignation. He struggled out and pushed past the bigger man, who was at least a dozen years younger, and half a foot taller. Bending down near the front of the sweeping front wing, he stared at it, then ran a hand over the lower offside edge.

‘Yes, I thought so!’ he shrieked. ‘Those are new scratches. Now the whole wing will have to be resprayed!’

It was the van driver’s turn to push him side, as he bent to make his own inspection.

‘I didn’t do those. They must have been there already. There’s none of my green paint in them. I told you, I didn’t come near your damned car!’

‘You must have!’ screeched the Alvis driver. ‘I’m going to have a look at your nearside.’ He padded away between the vehicles to the grass verge and scanned the side of the van. With a howl of triumph, he pointed to the skirt of the rear part of the body, where low down behind the rear wheel, the green panelling had a comb-like series of grey lines. ‘I told you so! You did scrape across my front. Those are the same colour grey as my paintwork!’

The van driver ran a perfunctory hand across the offending area of metal.

‘Get away with you! Those were there before. You’re just a bloody troublemaker. I’m off, can’t waste time with the likes of you.’

Without further ado, he walked round the front of the green van and opened the driver’s door. Almost gibbering with righteous anger, the tubby Alvis-owner hurried around him and, reaching into the cab, snatched the ignition keys from the dashboard.

‘You’re not going until we settle this!’ he said quaveringly, holding the bunch of keys defiantly behind his back.

‘Give me those flaming keys, blast you!’ roared the other man, who was not used to being crossed by posh little men who criticized his driving skills. He advanced on his antagonist, who made the mistake of throwing the keys into the winter undergrowth of the verge, where they vanished into a tangle of brittle stems and briars.

‘You can look for them once you’ve admitted being in the wrong and given me your name and address,’ retorted the car owner, his voice almost squeaking with tremulous emotion.

With a howl of rage, the GPO driver gave him a push in the chest, which sent him staggering back against the gleaming radiator of the Alvis. He lost his balance and slid down to sit momentarily on the chrome bumper, then slowly subsided on to the road surface, where he toppled over and lay still.

At this, his wife erupted from the front of the car, followed by another woman who had been sitting in the rear seat. They crouched over the fallen man, whose face was now pale, with sweat beading his forehead, in marked contrast to the purple enragement of a few moments earlier.

‘You’ve killed him!’ screamed his wife. ‘Get an ambulance!’