Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

“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.