Grounds for Appeal

EIGHT

Oscar Stanton turned into the Crown Hotel, on the corner of Station Street in central Birmingham. It was near New Street Station and was convenient for those of his friends who travelled in from the suburbs for their regular dose of nostalgia. About eight retired reporters met for a few pints on the last Friday of the month, chewing over old times and reporting who amongst the newspaper fraternity of the city was sick or dead since the last session. They used an alcove off the main lounge, where a large table was covered in their glasses, half-eaten ham rolls, overflowing ashtrays and packets of crisps. Around their fourth pint or double Scotch, Oscar turned his pebble lenses on to the man sitting next to him.

‘Brian, I was talking to a chap the other day, he’s a CID man from Wales. He was telling me about some old corpse they’d dug up there recently, one without a head. It reminded me of that yarn that Piggy Donovan used to trot out years ago, about some pub that was alleged to have a bloke’s head hidden in a pot.’

The old reporter, ten years senior to Oscar, took a long swallow from his tankard before answering.

‘I vaguely remember something about it, soon after the war. But Piggy was such a lush, you couldn’t depend on half he said — or what he wrote in his copy!’

‘He’s been dead these past five years, has Piggy,’ said Oscar. ‘Anybody else who might recall anything about it?’

Brian used a slight lull in the conversation around the big table to call across to a member on the other side.

‘Duncan, you’re the last one here to cover crime on the Post. Ever hear a yarn about some preserved head kept in one of the pubs?’

Duncan MacKenzie was a few years younger and only recently retired from the Birmingham Post, the city’s major newspaper. A thin man with an aristocratic goatee sticking out from his chin like a spike, he was a hard drinker, his lined face displaying many prominent veins, even more marked on his nose. He considered the question carefully, before replying.

‘That story was going the rounds many years ago, I remember. Some connection with the gangs up in Winson Green. The coppers looked into it, but nothing more came of it.’

Another man, well into his seventies, spoke up from Oscar’s left. ‘I remember that, too. Piggy Donovan was carrying on about it. He said he was going to write a piece as a feature, then he suddenly went quiet. I think he’d been got at by someone.’

‘You reckon it was up in Winson Green?’ asked Oscar, hopefully. To his surprise, the old man nodded.

‘Yes, he reckoned it was in the cellar of the Barley Mow, near Black Patch Park. A tough area, especially in those days.’

‘It’s pretty tough still,’ said Duncan MacKenzie. ‘But the Barley Mow has long gone. They demolished that part a few years back — and not before time.’

Oscar felt let down, as it had looked hopeful when some of the others had confirmed the rumour. ‘Any idea what it was all about? Did anyone you know actually see this thing?’

There were grimaces and shaking of heads, but no hard information.

‘Something to do with the gangs in that area,’ ventured MacKenzie. ‘During the war, there was all sorts of graft going on there, apart from the usual robbery and violence. Black-market dealing, mainly, on a wholesale basis. And plenty of bribery and corruption — the police and the council were accused of it every now and then.’

It was soon obvious that no one had any better information about a shrivelled head. It was just part of the city’s underworld lore that came the way of newspaper men.

That evening, when he got home to Moseley, Oscar phoned his friend Tony Cooper and told him the little he had learned about the fabled head.

‘The only possible lead was that the Barley Mow in Winson Green seems to be the place where the story originated. But that pub’s been demolished long since.’

Sergeant Cooper was more impressed than Oscar had expected.

‘Winson Green! That’s the sort of place you might expect something like this. I’ll mention it to our CID boys, but they might need an armoured car to go asking questions up there!’

There were a number of very tough places in and around the great city of Birmingham, but Winson Green was up there near the top of the list and had been even worse ten years earlier, at the end of the war. Birmingham’s huge prison was in Winson Green and it was a stock joke that it was built there so that all the local villains did not have so far to travel when they were banged up.

After Oscar had rung off, Tony decided that before making enquiries through his own Force contacts, he had better speak to Gwyn Parry. He was due to come up for a day at the end of the week to collect his wife, Bethan, who had done a splendid job in getting his own wife back on her feet. However, he decided to give him a ring and a few moments later was put through to Gwyn at his home at Temple Bar, just outside Aberystwyth.

Bethan came in at the same time and he surrendered the phone to her for a few minutes. When she had finished her anxious enquiries about the children, who were enjoying themselves at their grandmother’s house, Tony gave Gwyn the few scraps of information he had picked up that day from his newspaper cronies.

‘There seems to be some substance in that rumour about a head,’ he told him. ‘Even down to where it was supposed to be kept, though the place has since been pulled down. Though why it should be linked in any way to your headless corpse, I can’t imagine!’

He could almost hear Gwyn’s brain working at the other end of the line. ‘You say your pals suggested this might be linked to possible gang squabbles up there?’

‘That area is one of the places where there used to be a lot of that sort of trouble. Still is, comes to that.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ retorted Gwyn with feeling. ‘These bloody sheep rustlers and a lot of organized country-house burglaries are down to your Midland villains.’

‘Do you want me to have a word with our CID, to see if they can make a few enquiries?’ asked Tony.

Gwyn chewed it over in his mind for a moment.

‘I’d better talk to my DI first and see whether he thinks it’s worth bothering your lot with it. We’ve still got the Yard involved, though they got fed up and buggered off back to London. I’ll let you know when I come to fetch Bethan on Saturday.’

As December had arrived, Priscilla’s time was up as Angela’s locum and she was leaving on Sunday to go back to London to look for a job. Richard Pryor would have liked to have kept her on at Garth House, but they both knew that there was not sufficient work there for two biologists. She was going back to stay with a friend again until something turned up.

‘Farewell party on Saturday evening, then!’ Richard had declared. He treated them all, including Moira and Jimmy Jenkins, to a meal at the large hotel in Tintern Parva, opposite the ruins of the huge Cistercian abbey. Afterwards they came back to the house and sat until midnight in the staff room, with the table well supplied with Lutomer Riesling, Mateus Rose, whisky, gin, beer and cider for Jimmy.

Well fed and relaxed, the conversation roamed over a variety of topics from growing vines to headless corpses.

The Borth Body was naturally prominent in their gossip, especially as it was the one case where Priscilla had been so useful in confirming the physical dimensions from the bones.

‘The investigation seems to have come to a dead end,’ said Richard. ‘I had a call from the DI this week, saying that unless something turns up, the coroner wants to hold an inquest to get the paperwork tidied up.’

‘I hear the Yard have gone back to the big city,’ added Angela, with a tinge of relief in her voice. Richard guessed she was afraid that Paul Vickers might have shown his face here if the investigation had proceeded any further.

‘A pity we’ll never know how it got there,’ said Priscilla pensively. ‘I wonder how many bodies there are knocking about the countryside which will never be found?’

‘You archaeologists dig up far more than we pathologists ever see,’ chided Richard. ‘Are you still keen on going back to your digging, rather than forensic work?’

The glamorous redhead nodded. ‘I had enough of that in Australia. Those couple of short digs I went on before I came here made me realize that was what I really wanted to do.’ She looked despondent. ‘But when — or even whether — I’ll get the chance again, I just don’t know.’

‘Something will turn up!’ said Angela reassuringly. ‘You’re too good a scientist to go to waste.’

Moira, who had had three glasses of wine, had shed some of her usual reserve. ‘You’re bound to be fine, Doctor Chambers! A couple of college degrees and bags of experience. I only wish I had had the chance to go to university, instead of just a secretarial college!’

‘It’s never too late, Moira,’ said Angela encouragingly. ‘These days there are part-time courses and grants for mature students.’

‘Hey, hang on!’ called Richard, in mock outrage. ‘That’s our wonderful secretary and chef you’re trying to get rid of!’

Moira smiled a little sadly. ‘Just a pipe dream, Doctor Pryor.’

He shook his head vehemently. ‘Nonsense! We’ll make some enquiries next week and see what part-time courses are around. You could have day release in the week like Sian here, then maybe later you’ll want to go full-time.’

Jimmy stepped in to lighten the mood. Though he still wore his old poke cap, tonight he was wearing a baggy tweed jacket and a stringy tie for the occasion.

‘I ain’t going to no college, doctor!’ he said stoutly. ‘I already done fifty years in the university of life! And learned a lot about growing strawberries, not them old grapes!’

Richard was the constant butt of good-natured teasing about his desire for a vineyard on the acres behind Garth House. Though Jimmy, an inveterate cynic, was always scornful of the project, he had still worked hard to get the vines planted and now seemed resigned to ‘the doctor’ making a success of it.

‘You wants some proper advice about it, doctor,’ he proclaimed, over his third pint of local cider. ‘Otherwise you’ll fall flat on your face.’

And where am I going to get that, Jimmy?’enquired his boss. ‘I’ve read umpteen books on viniculture, what more do I need?’

‘You can read a dozen books on riding a bicycle, but that don’t help you when you first gets on one!’ retorted the grizzled old gardener. ‘A pal o’ mine down in Cowbridge does some hedgin’ and ditchin’ for a fellow nearby who has got about five acres of vines and has been making booze there for a couple of years. I reckon he’d let you go down there and have a look round and a chat if you got in touch.’

‘Don’t encourage him, Jimmy!’ complained Angela. ‘Or he’ll end up closing our forensic business and going bankrupt trying to market Chateau Merthyr Tydfil or something!’

Her partner made a face at her and went into a huddle with Jimmy to get more details of this alcoholic Garden of Eden down in the Vale of Glamorgan. The time went on and eventually the party broke up, Richard taking the Humber down the valley to drop off Moira at her house and Priscilla at her lodgings, before taking Sian the five miles down to Chepstow, as the last bus had long gone.

When he got back, Angela had just finished washing up glasses in the kitchen and was on her way to bed.

‘Thanks for the celebration, Richard,’ she said warmly, as they walked up the corridor. ‘It was good of you to give Priscilla a nice send-off. I know she’s worried about her job prospects. She says she’s got some savings tucked away, but they won’t last long in London.’

‘Perhaps she ought to look for a temporary place in one of the forensic departments there, even though she says she wants to go back to digging holes in the ground. I could have a word with someone in Guy’s, or St George’s or The London Hospital.’

Angela smiled affectionately at him as she moved to the foot of the stairs.

‘You’re a real Good Samaritan, aren’t you? You’ve fixed up Sian to become a biochemist, you’re encouraging Moira to become a lawyer and now you’re going to get a job for Priscilla! What are you going to do for me, eh?’

She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and hurried up the stairs, leaving him thoughtfully touching his face as he contemplated the possible answers to her question.