The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

The Birdman of Tonypandy by Bernard Knight

Bernard Knight (b. 1931) was for many years a Home Office Pathologist and is Emeritus Professor of Forensic Pathology at the University of Wales College of Medicine. He has written such key texts as Forensic Medicine (1985), Lawyer’s Guide to Forensic Medicine (1982) and the definitive Knight’s Forensic Pathology, now in its third edition (2004). Knight has also turned his talents to fiction and is the author of the historical mystery series featuring the twelfth-century coroner Sir John de Wolfe, which began with The Sanctuary Seeker (1998). Knight had previously written fiction under the alias Bernard Picton, starting with The Lately Deceased (1963). He also contributed several story lines to the TV series, The Expert, which ran from 1968 to 1974, and adapted a novel based on the series in 1976. But perhaps his main claim to fame will be that Knight oversaw the recovery of all twelve bodies of the victims from the garden of Fred and Rosemary West in Gloucester in 1994.

If anyone could concoct the undetectable perfect crime, Bernard Knight is surely our man. Maybe I ought to preface the following with “don’t try this at home”.

He laid his binoculars on the window ledge and decided that it was time that he murdered his wife.

Pondering for a few minutes, Lewis Lloyd reviewed the various methods that had been going through his mind for the past few weeks. He had more or less decided on one, the prime considera tion being that he should never be convicted of the crime. There was no doubt that he would be strongly suspected – and if his luck was out, he might even be brought to trial, given their past record of domestic discord.

But found guilty – never!

Having made the decision, Lloyd gave a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to the window. Picking up his glasses again, he trained them at the line of scraggy rowan trees and stunted oaks that rimmed the top of the mountain, high above his hut. He watched a group of magpies strutting about under the trees, until his attention was diverted by a pair of buzzards soaring high over the old coal tip, beyond the ruined lime-kiln.

Lewis Lloyd loved birds and this ramshackle hut was his only refuge from the nagging and abuse that he suffered down in the valley bottom. He often came up early in the morning, or when the pub was shut in the afternoon. Sometimes he even stayed overnight, in winter huddled over the little pot-bellied stove, blissful in his solitude.

Lewis smiled complacently behind his binoculars, thinking that when the deed was done, he could come up even more often, with no Rita to screech objections at him.

Yes, it was high time to put Plan A into action.

“Bloody nonsense!” growled Mordecai Evans, tossing the letter on to his cluttered desk. “We’ve got enough aggravation already without daft women writing us letters.”

“Mind you, boss, that family’s got a bit of previous,” murmured his sergeant, peeved that Mordecai had dismissed his offering in such a cavalier fashion. The detective-inspector, a squat bruiser who could have doubled for John Prescott, scowled up at Willy Williams.

“What previous? A bit of form for couple of domestics?”

“Lloyd broke her arm once – and another time she got a couple of busted ribs,” said Willy defensively. “The beak gave him six months, suspended on account of provocation.”

“Big deal!” sneered the DI. “So we’re supposed to take her seriously, are we?”

He hauled himself to his feet and grabbed the crumpled letter from the desk, going to the window for better light. Though he was reluctant to admit it, he couldn’t see so well these days and a visit to Specsavers was on the cards soon. Peering at the cheap notepaper in the grey light that managed to percolate through the dark clouds looming over Pontypridd, he glowered at the unwelcome message.

“How did you come by this, Willy?”

“Eddie Morgan, the desk sergeant at the nick up in Ton Pentre gave it me yesterday, when I was up there about the break-in at the Co-op.”

“And where did he get it?” grumbled Mordecai, slumping back into his chair.

“Rita Lloyd brought it in a few days ago. Apparently, she bent his ear something terrible, saying her old man was threatening to kill her, so she was making an official complaint.” The detective-sergeant delivered this with some relish. “Eddie said he forgot all about it, knowing what a nutter Rita was – but as I was there, he said he thought he’d better pass it on to us.”

“Oh, Gawd!” sighed Mordecai. “Was she battered and bruised this time?”

“No sign of it, he said. But half-pissed, as usual.”

Wearily, the DI pulled a stack of case folders across the desk towards him. “Well, I haven’t got bloody time to waste on that now. If she comes in with two black eyes, we’ll have a word with her, otherwise it goes in my ‘pending’ file.” He opened the top folder and peered myopically at the first page of endless police bumf, so his sergeant took the hint and sloped off to the canteen for his refreshments.

Ten minutes later, his lanky ginger-haired figure slid back through the door and he came to stand in front of the desk, his knuckles resting on the edge.

“I think you’d better have another read of that letter, boss,” he said in sepulchral tones. “I just had a cup of tea with the coroner’s officer. He happened to mention that Rita Lloyd was found dead yesterday morning!”

“Nothing! What d’you mean, nothing?” demanded Mordecai Evans. “There must be something, for God’s sake!”

On hearing his sergeant’s news, the DI had gone storming downstairs to the little room where the coroner’s officer presided, Willy trailing in his wake. He stood over Jimmy Armstrong, a large, placid man who had been a police officer before he returned after retirement to the same job as a civilian.

Jimmy shook his head sadly. “Sorry, guv, we got nothing. There was a post-mortem this morning and the doc found nothing that could have killed her. He’s kept some samples for analysis, just in case.”

Mordecai brandished Rita’s letter under Armstrong’s nose. “She wrote to us, saying her husband was threatening to kill her, man! Now she’s dead!”

The coroner’s officer shrugged. “Don’t blame me, I’m just the dogsbody round here. Perhaps you’d better have a word with the coroner.”

“Damn right I will,” muttered the detective. “And a few words with the flaming husband as well.” His irritation subsided as the possible consequences of this affair began to sink in. He sat on one of the hard chairs provided for grieving relatives when being interviewed by Armstrong and stared pensively at the coroner’s officer.

“You live in Tonypandy, Jimmy. What’s the gossip on these Lloyds these days?”

Armstrong, whose tweed suit and tidy grey hair made him look like everyone’s favourite uncle, clasped his hands as if in prayer.

“Queer pair, a disaster waiting to happen, I reckon.”

“He still runs the pub? I thought he’d have had the sack, after his run-in with the law,” growled the DI.

“It’s a Free House, he’s not just a manager,” cut in the sergeant. “The Elliot Arms is a bit of a dump, but we don’t get much trouble there. It’s too old-fashioned to attract the yobs, no strippers or live music, just a quiz-night once a week.”

“Why were he and his missus at each other’s throats then?” demanded Mordecai.

Armstrong shrugged his big shoulders. “Incompatible, they are! He’s a quiet sort of bloke, until he gets his rag out, then he’s got a terrible temper. She’s an old slag-booze, bingo and blokes. Rita’ll go for anything in trousers – at least, when she’s sober enough to stand up.”

The DI grunted and hauled himself to his feet. He tapped the letter. “So there might be something in this, eh?”

The coroner’s officer held up his hands defensively. “Don’t ask me, that’s your job. But I’d have a word with my boss first.”

The coroner was a local solicitor who conducted his business from his offices above a shoe shop in Pontypridd’s Taff Street, a few hundred yards from the Divisional Police Headquarters. Mordecai Evans and his sergeant took a walk there, pushing impatiently through the ambling throng in the narrow road, which was the town’s main shopping street.

They turned in at a door on which a worn brass plate declared “Thomas, Evans and Rees – Solicitors” though these gentlemen were long dead and the present senior partner was Mr David Mostyn, Her Majesty’s Coroner for East Glamorgan.

In a seedy reception area at the top of a narrow flight of stairs, a girl with a bad head-cold showed them into his office. Mostyn was a rotund man with a shiny bald head and a round, pink face that always seemed to have a smile on it, even when he was discussing death in all its often horrible forms. He ushered the two detectives to hard chairs and sat down again behind his paper – infested desk.

“My officer has told me about the situation over the phone,” he began, picking up a form from a pile in front of him. “We already had a bit of a problem in that Doctor Carlton hasn’t yet been able to give me a cause of death.” He gave them a cheery grin, as if he had just won the Lottery.

“Surely that’s unusual in itself, sir?” muttered Mordecai, picking at a pimple on his neck.

The coroner shook his head happily. “Not that unusual, Inspector. Especially if tablets or alcohol are involved, nothing may be found at the post-mortem, but the answer may come later from laboratory tests.”

The DI delved into his inside pocket and pulled out Rita Lloyd’s letter, now encased in a clear plastic envelope. He handed it across the desk.

“You see our problem, sir. I get this this morning, then I’m told she’s already dead!”

David Mostyn scanned through the single page of writing, then handed it back and rubbed his bald head as an aid to thought.

“It certainly requires us to proceed with caution, officer. What do you know about this pair?”

Mordecai motioned with his head towards his sergeant. “Williams here knows them best, he comes from that part of the valley.”

Willy cleared his throat and began to speak as if he was in the witness box, though he managed to avoid phrases like, “I was proceeding in a northerly direction.”

“Sir, Lewis and Rita Lloyd have been known to me for a long while. In fact, I arrested him some time ago for assaulting his wife. He is the owner and licensee of the Elliot Arms in Tonypandy, a free house where he lives with the now deceased.”

The coroner nodded, his benign smile still firmly in place. “Have you spoken to him about this yet?”

Mordecai shook his head. “We’ve only known about this for an hour, sir. It was only by chance that Lewis Armstrong mentioned to my sergeant that she was dead.”

The coroner stared down at the paper he held in his hand.

“All I’ve got is Lewis’s daily notification to me. It just says that the family doctor was called to the house-Dr Battachirya, that would be – who then phoned in to say he was reporting a death, as he couldn’t give a certificate. The woman was found dead in bed by the husband at seven-thirty yesterday morning.”

Mordecai Evans’s pugnacious face stared at David Mostyn.

“That’s all you have, sir?” he demanded, as if he suspected that the coroner was holding out on him.

“At this stage, yes. If the p.m. had shown a natural cause of death, like a coronary or a stroke, I would have issued a disposal certificate and that would be an end of it. As it is, I have to wait for the pathologist, Dr Carlton, to come back to me eventually with an update based on the results of the tests he sent away.”

“How long will that take, sir?” ventured Willy Williams.

Mostyn beamed back at him. “Varies a lot, sergeant. Some things, like alcohol and carbon monoxide, he can have done in his own hospital the same day. More complicated tests for drugs have to be sent away and can take weeks.”

The inspector glowered at the coroner as if it was his fault. “We may not be able to wait that long, sir. I’ve spoken to my Superintendent and he’s told me to see the husband and if I feel there’s any doubt, to proceed as if it’s a criminal investigation.”

David Mostyn’s smile faded a little. “And what would that entail in this case?”

Mordecai shrugged his bull-like shoulders. “We may have to call in the Scenes-of-Crime team to the pub, sir. And possibly ask the Home Office pathologist to carry out a second autopsy-with your consent, of course.”

He could almost see the figures ringing up like a cash register in the coroner’s eyes, as Mostyn calculated the extra cost to the budget he received from the local authority. However, he rallied and with his grin at maximum rictus, he agreed with good grace.

“Well, have a talk with this Lloyd chap, Inspector – and keep me informed as to what’s happening.”

The Elliot Arms was an ugly red-brick building on the main road through the Rhondda Valley, a twisting, congested route lined with terraced houses, betting shops and Chinese take-aways. Built in 1900 to wash the coal-dust from the throats of thousands of miners, the public house had fallen on hard times, now that not a single pit remained in the valley. Lewis Lloyd had managed to survive by accepting a frugal life-style, most of his custom coming from the old colliers whom came to the Elliot mainly out of habit. There was also a hard core of pigeon fanciers, whose Club met once a week in the barren room above the Public Bar. Lewis was himself a pigeon man, with a large loft out in the backyard where he kept a dozen cherished Fantails. He also had a moderate lunch-time trade in ham-rolls and pasties bought mainly by the workers from a small plastics factory further up Mafeking Terrace, the side street on the corner of which his pub was situated.

Just past the factory, the road angled up at almost forty-five degrees, climbing out of the valley bottom to the green heights five hundred feet above, where his bird-watching retreat lay beyond the last houses and then the allotments.

This Wednesday, the day after his wife had been carried out feet first by Caradoc Builders and Undertakers, Lewis Lloyd drew back the bolts on the doors to the Public Bar on the dot of twelve. He did this every day, closing up at three and opening again from six until eleven.

Yesterday was an exception, not because of overwhelming grief, but because he had had to go down to the coroner’s office and the undertaker’s to sign forms, which threw his usual routine out of kilter. The loss of his wife made little difference to his staffing problems, as Rita rarely appeared in the bar, except when she wanted a fresh bottle of gin or when the fancy took her for a flirtatious gossip with some of the less geriatric patrons.

At lunch times, Sharon, a fat adenoidal girl from Mafeking Street, helped behind the bar, mainly employed in inserting a lettuce leaf and a slice of reconstituted ham into bread rolls. She also removed the cellophane from cloned Cornish pasties and popped them into the microwave, to satiate the appetites of the workers from Panda Plastics. On alternate evenings, the gloomy mahogany bar was manned by either Wayne or Alvis. The first of these two young men was a deserter from the Army, the other on bail awaiting trial for burglary.

With the doors opened, the landlord walked across the cavernous room, its half-panelled walls and ceiling yellowed with decades of cigarette smoke. He sat on a stool at the end of the bar, next to the hinged panel that gave access to the serving area and his sitting room and kitchen beyond. Picking up the Western Mail, he began reading the sports pages, ignoring the sympathetic looks from Sharon, who having been nurtured on television soap-operas from the age of three, was convinced that his nonchalant manner concealed abject grief. In fact, Lewis’s mind was not on the current aberrations of the Welsh Rugby Union, but was busy reviewing the likely consequences of his recent homicidal behaviour.

Jim Armstrong, the coroner’s officer, had offered nothing more than gruff sympathy and efficient form-filling, when he had gone down to the police station to give him details about his lately deceased wife. Then he had phoned Lloyd about an hour ago, to tell him that there had been a hitch in the proceedings and that he should not make any arrangements for the funeral until he heard again from the coroner’s office. For form’s sake, the publican tried to sound concerned and asked what the problem was, but the officer was evasive.

From previous less serious brushes with the law and from some research in the Public Library at Porth, he was aware of what would be the likely sequence of events. The post-mortem would show nothing and there would most probably be an adjournment of an inquest until further futile tests were done. With luck, the coroner would then throw in the towel, hold a resumed inquest with an “open” verdict and let burial go ahead. If he was less fortunate, the rozzers would come sniffing round, given that he had had some domestic trouble with Rita in the past. As long as he stonewalled them, there was nothing to fear, as they had absolutely nothing to go on, even though there was a large insurance policy riding on the death.

Though Lewis Lloyd was relatively uneducated, having left school at sixteen, he was intelligent and cunning and had worked out all the possible permutations of what may happen after he had done the deed. He had no remorse, as the drunken, unfaithful, vituperative Rita had it coming and all that now remained was to weather any stormy passages that might be in store.

There was only one aspect that Lloyd had been unable to factor into his equations – and that was because he had known nothing about the letter that his wife had sent the police.

Willy Williams parked the CID car in Mafeking Terrace an hour later and as they walked back to the drab building on the corner, Mordecai asked him what sort of chap this Lewis Lloyd was.

“Bloke about forty-five, ordinary enough, I suppose. Used to be on the railway, but got run over by an engine, still limps a bit. Had a nice bit of ‘compo’, so he bought the pub with it, they say. Mad keen on birds, he is – the feathered sort.”

“What’s all this with his missus, then?”

“Rita? Frizzy blonde, quite a looker in her time, but she got too fond of the bottle. Used to be a hairdresser, but I reckon she was too lazy to make anything of it.”

“So why would she marry a bird-watching wimp like Lloyd?”

“Probably the compensation he had-keep her in gin for life, that would! Though I hear the pub’s not doing too well these days, so Lloyd’s probably a bit skint.”

They reached the corner and Willy’s proffered curriculum vitae was curtailed as they pushed open the door of the pub. Inside the bar, an old man slumped in one corner, reading a racing paper. Half a dozen younger men and women were crowded round a couple of tables in the centre, chattering, drinking lager and eating Sharon’s offerings off paper plates.

A dark-haired man was sitting at the bar reading a newspaper, but when he saw Willy, he folded it up and came towards them.

“Mr Lloyd?” said Mordecai Evans, managing to make the simple words sound menacing.

Lewis nodded a greeting to Willy, who he had good cause to recognise and then nodded at the DI to agree that he was indeed Mr Lloyd.

“Detective Inspector Evans from Ponty,” grated Mordecai. “Can we go somewhere more private?”

In the gloomy back room, which had a worn three-piece suite, a dining table and a small television set, Lloyd motioned the police officers to sit and perched himself on the edge of a dining chair.

“This is just where we come when we’re serving in the bar,” he said apologetically. “Our proper living quarters are upstairs.”

Mordecai ran a finger round his thick neck, jammed into a tight collar. It was hot in here and he suddenly fancied one of his suspect’s pints.

“Your wife died yesterday, Mr Lloyd. I’m sorry to disturb you at a time like this, but we need to ask a few questions.” He didn’t sound in the least sorry, thought Willy.

“I found her dead in bed, officer. I can’t understand it, it was a terrible shock. She hadn’t been ill – at least, no more than usual.”

“What do you mean by that?” grunted the DI, suspiciously.

Lloyd’s rather swarthy face looked down at his fingernails. “Well, it’s no great secret round here that she was too fond of the sauce, if you get my meaning, especially living on licensed premises. Dr Battachirya warned her about it many times. He sent some tests away last year, but we didn’t hear any more.”

“But the doctor said he couldn’t give a certificate, so it couldn’t be that,” chipped in Willy.

“I don’t know, then,” replied Lloyd, shrugging his shoulders. “I expect the hospital will find something.”

“You had a conviction for assaulting her not long ago? What do you say to that?” demanded Mordecai, accusingly.

The publican’s dark eyebrows rose in surprise. “I don’t see why you bring that up! She wasn’t beaten to death, was she?”

“I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind,” snapped the detective. “Have you caused any further physical harm since then?”

Lloyd bridled at this. His indignation was genuine, as he knew perfectly well that Rita would not have so much as a scratch on her at the post-mortem.

“Of course not! And I resent you even suggesting such a thing.”

Unperturbed, Mordecai dipped into his pocket and brought out the plastic-covered letter, which he held out to Lloyd.

“Your wife handed this in to the police only a few days ago. What do you say to that?”

The publican had never played poker, but he might have been a great success at the game, for as he read the letter, his face betrayed none of the concern that flooded through him. Stupid bitch, he thought, what did she want to go and do this for, just before he saw her off! But confidence in his plan soon overcame the shock of her accusing him to the police. Whatever they thought, nothing could ever be proved.

He handed the letter back to Mordecai. “She was hardly compos mentis much of the time, inspector. Tipsy most of the day. Emotional and dramatic, I think she imagined she lived in Coronation Street or Emmerdale!”

“What d’you mean by that?” snapped the inspector, suspiciously.

Lewis Lloyd shrugged and turned up his hands, continental-fashion.

“Out of touch with reality, I think they call it. She spent all her time accusing me of something, very often ranting and raving, usually about money. No wonder she drove me to giving her a slap now and then.”

Willy Williams decided to join the debate.

“Well, she tells the police she’s in fear of her life from you – and then turns up dead within a day or two. What about that?”

Lloyd turned a dead-pan face towards the sergeant. “What about it, then? You tell me what she died of? What makes you think I could have killed her?”

There was no answer to that and the two officers turned in some frustration to routine questions about where and when.

“She was found dead in bed, so where were you?” grated Mordecai.

“In the back bedroom, we hadn’t slept together for a couple of years,” said Lewis. “I might have caught something, she went with so many other blokes,” he added bitterly.

After a number of further questions and getting unrewarding answers, DI Evans got up and hovered menacingly over Lewis.

“I’m not satisfied, Mr Lloyd, so while we’re waiting for more information from the hospital, I’d like to search your premises. Do you consent or shall I have to get a warrant?”

“No, you carry on, lad!” said Lewis affably. “I’ve got nothing to hide, so help yourself!”

Willy tried to look menacing, but he didn’t have the face for it like Mordecai. “You’ve got a hut up the mountain, too, haven’t you?” he said.

The landlord nodded. “Just an old shanty, it used to be for the fitters at the top end of the slag hoist when the colliery was working. I rent it from a farmer now, somewhere to watch the birds from and get a bit of peace from Rita.”

“Well, we’ll want to search that too, so I’ll be sending some officers up here later today.”

With that feeble threat, the detectives marched out, leaving Lloyd to once again carefully review all his actions, to check that they had been foolproof.

The rest of the day saw a lot of action, with little result. After reporting back to his Detective-Superintendent at Headquarters in Bridgend, Mordecai Evans got his blessing to crank up the investigation and by mid-afternoon, a white Scenes-of-Crime van pulled up in Mafeking Street, followed by a Ford Focus carrying a civilian photographer. Three SOCOs delighted the gawping inhabitants of the street by ostentatiously standing at the back of their van to pull on their white paper suits and then trooping into the pub, carrying an assortment of metal cases.

Meanwhile, after a number of phone calls to the coroner and to the Forensic Pathology department in Cardiff, Mordecai and Willy made their way up to the new Abercynon General Hospital, a few miles away.

This was a large concrete edifice, looking like a grain-silo with windows. It had been built on the site of a former colliery and on the bulldozed slag at the back, the mortuary occupied the exact spot where the winding-house had once stood. The detectives found the consultant pathologist, Dr Archie Carlton, waiting for them in the little office, looking somewhat disgruntled. He was a thin, gangling man, with a lock of mousey hair flopping over his forehead and was a born pessimist.

“Don’t see why you want that Home Office chap coming up here,” he said peevishly. “I had a word with him on the phone, when he rang to say he was coming. If I say there’s nothing to be found, then no one else is going to be able to say anything different.”

After the usual ritual of cups of dark-brown tea being supplied by the mortuary attendant, Mordecai attempted to be diplomatic.

“It’s the coroner and my chief, doc. They insisted, as there’s some dodgy background to this death.” He explained the circumstances and managed to placate the hospital pathologist’s wounded pride before a screech of rubber on gravel outside heralded the arrival of Professor Peter Porteous from Cardiff.

The forensic pathologist was rather like a rubber ball on legs, a bouncy little man of fifty, with receding hair and a toothbrush moustache. He affected a yellow waistcoat and a drooping bow tie and was always in a hurry, inevitably having to be somewhere else before he even arrived.

Grabbing a mug of tea, he went straight into a discussion with Archie Carlton.

“Didn’t find a thing, eh?” he gabbled. “All the stuff gone off for histology and toxicology?”

The hospital doctor nodded mournfully. “Asked for everything, even insulin. Blood, urine, bile, stomach contents, CSF, vitreous fluid, the lot.”

“She was forty, I gather. No problem in her coronaries?”

“Clean as a whistle, could drive a bus down them. Normal sized heart, no pulmonary embolism, damn all.”

“She was bit cyanosed, you said on the phone?”

Carlton shrugged. “Just a bit blue round the lips by the time she got here. Nothing specific about that, no petechiae in the eyes or any other signs of asphyxia.”

Porteous nodded briskly. “Don’t believe in the signs of asphyxia myself. Lot of bullshit, used as an excuse by people who should know better.”

Mordecai decided to add his pennyworth. “She was a heavy drinker, professor. Rarely sober!”

Porteous took a mouthful of tea. “Liver look all right?” he asked Carlton.

“Touch of fat, nothing out of the way,” grunted the other pathologist.

“I’ve seen a few boozers throw a double-six with not much to show for it at post-mortem,” commented the forensic man. “But it’s a diagnosis of despair to suggest that.” He put his mug down and looked at his watch.

“Right, let’s get to it. I should have been in Swansea ten minutes ago.”

Five days after the second autopsy, Lewis Lloyd was sitting in his hut on the mountain, wondering what was happening to the investigation.

Both Willy Williams and Mordecai Evans had been back twice, first with another SOCO team to turn the pub over once again – and then to grill him once more. As there was nothing significant to be found or said, they went away with their tails between their legs, Mordecai again muttering empty threats.

Lewis sat in an old armchair, thinking over recent events. He blessed the foresight with which, soon after they were married, he had insured Rita for forty thousand pounds, being flush with his compensation money at the time. She had done her best to go through his windfall with her extravagance on clothes, drink and dubious “shopping trips” to Bristol and London, a thin cover for her numerous brief affairs. Now the money from the Prudential would come in very nicely to clear his debts and let him build a brand-new pigeon loft in the back-yard.

The thought of birds made him get up and scan the mountain-top for feathered friends, but the light was already failing. The autumn was well advanced and even at five in the afternoon, it was getting dusk. It was a poor time of year for bird-watchers and he decided to have a day off next Monday and drive up to Llangorse Lake to see what water-fowl were about. It was cold in the old hut and he contemplated lighting the stove for the first time since last Spring, but as he had to be back for opening time, it seemed hardly worth it, so he subsided into his chair again.

As he sat there wondering when they would release Rita’s body for the funeral, another conference was going on in the CID office in Pontypridd.

The coroner, his officer, and an inspector in charge of the SOCOs were crowded into Mordecai’s cluttered office, along with the DI and his sergeant.

“So what are we going to do about it, Mr Evans?” asked the coroner, with a cheery smile.

“We’re stumped, that’s what we are, sir,” growled Mordecai. “Can’t get a thing out of Lloyd, though my gut tells me the bugger did it!”

“All the investigations have turned out negative,” put in Willy. “At least, unless you’ve got anything new?” He looked enquiringly at the SOCO.

Albert Whistler, a tall, grizzled man nearing retirement, shook his head.

“Sweet Fanny Adams, I’m afraid. We went over that pub with a fine-tooth-comb, as well as that hut up on the mountain.”

“Nothing at all?” queried David Mostyn, with a leer.

“She had no injuries, sir, so there would be no blood. We checked everywhere for poison containers or pills, but nothing but cough medicine and aspirin.”

Jimmy Armstrong, the coroner’s officer, waved a thin file of papers.

“We’ve had both post-mortem reports now, the one from Doctor Carlton and another from the Prof in Cardiff. No help at all.”

The coroner nodded. “I read them before I came across here, they both agree that there was no anatomical cause of death whatsoever. Heart, brain, lungs-everything all normal.”

“What about something like suffocation?” asked Mordecai, still grasping at straws.

“I spoke to Professor Porteous on the phone this morning,” said Mostyn. “He was very helpful, but of no help, if you know what I mean. He said there are some forms of suffocation which can leave no signs at all, but that’s just a negative finding, of no legal use whatsoever.”

“What about that thing with a syringe-full of air that Dorothy L. Sayers got wrong in one of her books?” asked Willy, an avid reader of thrillers.

“The Professor mentioned that as well, actually,” said the coroner cheerfully. “He said it would be impossible, there were no needle marks on the body and Dr Carlton had found no bubbles anywhere in the circulation.”

The Detective-Inspector now glared at the Scenes-of-Crime Officer. ‘Isn’t there something that bloody forensic lab can do to help? What about all those samples that were sent up to them? It’s already cost us a fortune to fast-track the tests.”

Whistler hefted his own file of reports. “They’ve done all they can, Mordecai. All negative results, apart from a fair whack of alcohol. But not enough to kill her, especially as she was used to the juice.”

“How high was it?” asked Willy Williams.

“A hundred and sixty-five milligrams per hundred mill,” answered Whistler. “Over twice the legal limit for driving, but nothing like dangerous to life, according to the lab. Put her to sleep, most likely, but with a hardened drinker like Rita Lloyd, perhaps not even that.”

There was a thoughtful silence. “And nothing else?” demanded Mordecai, eventually.

The SOCO shook his head again. “No drugs, no aspirin, no insulin, nothing.”

“I asked Professor Porteous if he had any further suggestions,” offered the coroner. “He mentioned a few things, but the lab had already excluded them. Another possibility was potassium chloride poisoning, but that can’t be analysed after death, apparently, as it’s a natural constituent of the body. And it has to be injected directly into a vein.”

Mordecai Evans glowered. “Can’t see Lewis Lloyd knowing about that stuff. And where the hell would he get it from, anyway.”

“And the body showed no injection marks at all,” reminded Lewis Armstrong. “The second post-mortem was very thorough. The Prof looked particularly for any needle marks, even in the feet.”

There was another bitter silence.

“So where are we?” asked the coroner, with a bland smile. “If you’re not going to charge Lloyd, then I’ve got to get on with my inquest and draw a line under this matter.”

Mordecai ground his teeth. “I hate to see the bastard getting away with it! I even had a word with the Crown Prosecutor, but he laughed down the phone at me. He said the CPS wouldn’t touch it with a barge-pole, unless we came up with something definite.”

The coroner rose to his feet and motioned with his head at his officer.

“Well, there’s nothing more to be gained by sitting here, Inspector. Unless you can get a confession out of this man by tomorrow-or come up with some solid evidence, I’m going to have to complete the inquest. We can’t keep the poor woman above ground for much longer.”

When all the others had left his office, Mordecai Evans glowered at his sergeant.

“Confession be damned! That crafty bugger Lloyd wouldn’t confess to giving short weight in a packet of his crisps!”

A week later, Lewis Lloyd attended the coroner’s inquest, held in a vacant room in the Magistrate’s Court. He wore a dark suit and a black tie as he sat avoiding the poisonous looks thrown across the court at him by Mordecai Evans. Apart from the police and a couple of bored young reporters from the local papers, the only other people present were three nosey old men, whiling away their retirement in the warmth of the court, as the weather had turned frosty outside.

As prophesied, the proceedings were short and unproductive. Doctor Carlton appeared in person to give his post-mortem findings, but the coroner had accepted the written report of the Home Office man, which contributed nothing more useful. With the Detective-Inspector glowering at every word, David Mostyn rattled through the evidence and rapidly summed up the negative findings. There was no jury and he wisely made no comments about any suspicious circumstances, as this was outside a coroner’s jurisdiction. After asking Lloyd if he wanted to ask any questions, which Lewis mutely declined, Mostyn brought in a “open verdict”, leaving the cause of death unascertained. Even the fact that he had refused a cremation certificate was not mentioned in open court, leaving the option open for an exhumation at a later date if any further evidence came to light, unlikely though that seemed.

As Lewis Lloyd walked out into the cold street, Mordecai “accidentally” stumbled against him, making the publican stagger.

“Think you’re such a clever bastard, don’t you, Lloyd! But I’ll have you one of these days!” he snarled.

Ignoring the empty threat, Lewis drove back to Tonypandy just in time for lunchtime opening and a plea from Sharon.

“The lager’s off, Mr Lloyd. Can you put another one on, please?”

He opened the trap in the floor behind the bar and went down the steps to the cellar, switching on the lights as he went. For a few minutes, he trundled aluminium kegs about and connected pipes with the ease born of long familiarity.

“All right, girl, try it now!” he called up the steps. When all was working again, he prepared to climb up to the bar, but took a moment with his hand on the light switch to look around the large cellar. Apart from the row of metal casks and cylinders with their complex piping connected to the bar above, there were racks and cases of bottles, boxes of crisps and peanuts and a collection of oddments which made part of the chamber look like a jumble sale.

As his eyes roved over the old wooden barrels, off-cuts of carpet, plastic bags, broken table lamps, discarded chairs, a dilapidated wardrobe and two bicycles, he grinned to himself. Those silly buggers of policemen had searched this place several times and had seen and even handled the instruments of Rita’s death without the faintest notion of recognizing them as such.

Satisfied that he was now safe for ever, he clicked the switch and went up to check that the lager was flowing properly.

Early that evening, he decided to celebrate by staying the night in his cabin high above the valley. Leaving Wayne to look after the bar, he climbed up Mafeking Street to reach the hut that used to shelter the men maintaining the cable hoist that once brought the black waste up from the colliery. It was almost dark when he unlocked the door. Inside, the cabin felt cold and damp and he shivered for the first time that autumn. Looking though the window to see if there were any birds about, there was just enough light to see as far as the old lime kiln, which had given him the idea in the first place.

As he crumpled up some newspaper and pushed it into his stove with a handful of firewood, he recalled reading about those kilns, which burned endlessly in the old days, turning lumps of limestone into quick-lime for farmers and builders. On winter nights, tramps used to sleep huddled near them for warmth – and quite a few never woke up. The heavy carbon dioxide gas produced by the kilns used to settle over them and, though not poisonous in itself, displaced all the oxygen and peacefully extinguished their dismal lives.

Intrigued, Lewis had pursued his researches in the Reference Library and discovered that such deaths left no physical signs whatsoever, the explanation being derived only from the circumstances. He also read that not only lime-kilns, but wells dug deeply into chalk and even grain silos on farms could produce this fatal heavy vapour that killed so silently.

He put more wood and coal on the fire and lit a butane camping-lamp to give him enough light to read his latest bird-watching magazine, for there was no electricity in the hut. Sitting in the tattered but comfortable arm-chair, he leafed through the pages, with a can of Boddington’s Bitter and a Cornish pasty for sustenance. As the room warmed up, Lewis became comfortably drowsy but, before falling asleep, he went over yet again in his mind, the details of the plot which had defeated the best brains of the police and the forensic experts.

That memorable night, Rita had been out for the evening, allegedly at a hen-party, but Lewis was well aware that she had gone out to a club in Merthyr with her latest chap, a used-car dealer from Aberdare. She had returned at one in the morning, reeling drunk and this had decided him that tonight was the night-or, rather, morning. After giving him some semi-coherent abuse, Rita tottered off to her bed and within minutes was flat on her back, snoring like a hog.

Lewis Lloyd had swung into action, going down to the cellar for his equipment. From the old wardrobe, he took four wire coat-hangers saved from the dry-cleaners and bent them at right-angles. He took them upstairs with a few black plastic rubbish bags and carefully constructed a kind of open-topped well around his wife’s head. By sliding one end of each hanger under the pillow and the duvet, he erected four supports around which he arranged the plastic bags, securing them with sellotape.

At this stage, he checked that she was undisturbed, but as expected, Rita was out cold and, even if she had woken up, would have been too confused to know what was going on. Satisfied, he went downstairs again and humped up one of the gas cylinders that was used to pressurize the metal beer kegs. Propping it against the bedside cabinet, he used a length of spare tubing to fill his improvised gas chamber with carbon dioxide. He left the end of the tube inside, keeping a slow but steady flow to displace all the air from inside his little tent. Lewis was well aware that it would overflow, but the heavy gas would sink to the floor and was no danger to himself. He checked at intervals with a cigarette lighter to make sure that the chamber was full, the flame going out from lack of oxygen as soon as he dipped it below the top edge of the plastic bags.

“Worked like a dream!” he murmured, as he slumped in his armchair, then giggled as he wondered if Rita had had any last dreams that night. Her breathing changed after a few minutes from noisy snoring to a rasping hiss, and quickened in rate. Then it began to diminish, both in volume and speed, and after another five or six minutes appeared to cease altogether. By the light of his little flame, he could see that her face and lips had become faintly violet and he suspected that she was already dead. To be on the safe side, he left the gas running and went outside for half an hour, to avoid any possible effects upon himself. When he came back, he knew she had gone, but checked the absence of a pulse in her neck just to make sure.

Turning off the gas, he opened the window to dissipate any remaining vapour. Then he dismantled his apparatus and returned the cylinder to the cellar, where he reconnected it to the barrel of lager, ready for business when they opened. He straightened out the hangers and hung them back in the wardrobe, then filled the plastic bags with old papers and other rubbish and dumped them out in the yard, ready for the bin-men. His work done, he made one last check to make sure that Rita had not managed some kind of resurrection, then he went to bed himself and slept soundly with no twinge of guilt or conscience until it was time to “discover” her body.

Now with a sigh of satisfaction, Lewis sleepily finished his beer and putting aside his birdy magazine, slid further down in his chair for a doze and to think about a trip he had planned to Mid-Wales next month to look for red kites.

“Now we’ll never bloody know what happened to his missus!” grumbled Mordecai Evans, as they left the coroner’s court a week later.

“It certainly wasn’t carbon monoxide poisoning, that’s for sure!” said Willy Williams. “Did you see the colour of his skin in the mortuary? Now I know what they mean by ‘being in the pink’!”

The Detective-Inspector ignored his sergeant’s feeble attempt at witticism. “The SOCOs say the flue-pipe of that stove must have been blocked since last Spring. Bloody ironic, really!”

Willy nodded sagely. “Lewis Lloyd would have appreciated that, if he’d known. A jackdaw’s nest, of all things!”

“Serve the bugger right,” grunted Mordecai.