Bernard Knight - Where Death Delights

‘Hey, lay off, boss!’ he complained, as the grinning superintendent pulled him back up. ‘But you’re right, it could be done.’

Angela had an objection. ‘Surely she would struggle and then there would be signs of restraint! Wouldn’t she show fresh bruises on her shoulders and arms if she was gripped to hold her under water for a few minutes?’

Richard pursed his lips in doubt.

‘If she was thrashing about, yes – but what if she was unconscious, after a bang on the head?’ he asked. ‘There were certainly signs of a recent head injury, which could be put down to being bashed against rocks while still alive in the sea – but which we now suspect didn’t happen!’

They were suddenly interrupted by a call from the police driver, who had been leaning on the bonnet of the big Wolseley, having a surreptitious smoke.

‘Super! Does the chap you’re interested in, drive a Mark Five Jaguar?’ There was an unmistakable urgency in his voice, as he pointed an arm down the track towards Southgate.

Ben Evans’s head snapped up as he replied. ‘Yes, a black one! Why?’

‘Because a car like that was driving right up here, when it suddenly reversed, turned in the bushes and has gone like a bat out of hell back down the road, sir!’

Lewis stared at his senior officer. ‘He must have spotted us messing about here at the pond!’

The superintendent was already pounding down the path, moving very quickly for a man of his bulk, Lewis racing after him. They piled into the police car, the driver discarding his Woodbine and scrambling in to start the engine.

‘Get after him, man! There’s only one road out of this place,’ snapped Lewis, who had taken the front passenger seat.

The driver did a neck-jolting two-point turn into the bracken and gorse at the side of the bumpy track, then shot off after the other car, which was already well out of sight. Angela and Richard were left staring after them, her diatom pot still in her hand.

‘Never a dull moment in this job,’ she said calmly.

In the police car, the driver was bemoaning his lack of acceleration.

‘We’ll never catch a big Jag like that,’ he said bitterly. ‘Why couldn’t he have had a Standard Ten instead?’

Thankfully, unlike some of the CID cars, this one had radio and Lewis was already reaching for the handset. Calling up the Control Room, he requested interception on the most likely roads back towards Swansea, as westwards was a dead end at the end of the Gower peninsula, with only ocean between it and North America.

Their driver raced the Wolseley through Pennard, the chromed gong on the front bumper hammering out a warning as they went. The road branched at Pennard Church and Ben Evans yelled for the constable to take the left fork and go up to the next junction and then towards Fairwood Common, the road to the centre of Swansea.

‘Where does he think he’s going?’ shouted Lewis. ‘He can’t get away, there’s nowhere to go.’

‘He’s in a panic, that’s what!’ replied Evans. ‘He saw us looking into that pond and realized the game was up.’

Lewis was on the radio again.

‘They’ve got two traffic cars coming from Dunvant. If he’s on this road, they should block him before he gets there.’

In a few moments, they were on an open road going across the moorland towards Upper Killay, the now-abandoned RAF fighter station on their left.

‘That’s them ahead,’ shouted the driver, just as Lewis had a radio confirmation that the first traffic car had made contact. Peering down the long straight road, Lewis could see one vehicle slewed across the road and another tilted on the verge at the side. In a few more seconds, they were alongside another police car, with the Jaguar half-toppled into a rush-filled ditch, where it had attempted to squeeze past.

Two uniformed officers were pulling a dishevelled figure out of the driver’s door when the two detectives approached. Shaken, but still defiant, he began blustering about illegal harassment, but Ben Evans jerked his head at his inspector. Lewis Lewis stepped forward and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder as he was held by the other officers.

‘Michael Prentice, I’m arresting you for the murder of your wife Linda. You need not say anything, but anything you do say may be used in evidence.’

Ben Evans added his own unofficial rider.

‘You’ll hang for this, you callous bastard!’

The morning tea break at Garth House had become a regular briefing session, where news of their cases was bandied about. A week after their trip to Gower, Richard reported a telephone conversation he had with Ben Evans in Gowerton, who was officially ringing him to tell him that both he and Angela would be required to give evidence at the magistrates’ court in a few weeks’ time.

‘There’s going to be a full hearing at new committal proceedings against Prentice,’ Ben had said. ‘He’s got another high-powered barrister to represent him and it looks as if they’re trying to wangle a manslaughter verdict to save his neck.’

The three women in the staff room all wanted to know if Michael Prentice had confessed to what had happened.

‘I can’t see he can plead manslaughter if he held his wife’s head under water until she drowned!’ objected Sian.

‘Ben Evans told me that Prentice coughed to causing the death when he saw us taking samples at the garden pool – but he later retracted some of it to try to bolster his manslaughter defence,’ said Richard.

‘So what did he say he did?’ asked Sian, who had developed a proprietorial interest after having prepared the diatom test.

‘He claims they had a hell of a row again over his infidelity with that blonde woman. She threatened him with a carving knife and chased him out into the garden. They struggled against the rockery and some how she fell face forward into the water and drowned!’

‘That sounds utter nonsense to me!’ declared Moira.

Richard drank some tea, then agreed. ‘Of course it is, but if the alternative is an eight o’clock walk in Swansea prison, he’ll clutch at any lame excuse.’

Sian shuddered, suddenly less proud of her expertise in demonstrating diatoms.

‘It’s pretty horrible to think that what I did could lead to them hanging that man,’ she murmured.

Angela put a reassuring arm around her shoulders.

‘It’s not what you did, Sian, it’s what he did that matters,’ she said softly. ‘He killed her, then threw her into the sea as if he was getting rid of some inconvenient rubbish.’

The technician nodded. ‘I suppose I’ll get used to it, but I still think that this awful ritual of hanging is barbaric. The sooner it’s abolished, the better!’

Privately, Richard Pryor agreed with her.

Edward Lethbridge sat in his office above the building society in Lydney, drafting another will for a client who seemed to change his mind about every six months. There was a tap on his door and one of the secretaries from the next room put her head in.

‘There’s a gentleman to see you, Mr Lethbridge. He doesn’t have an appointment, but he said he won’t keep you more than a few minutes.’

The solicitor sighed and pushed his papers aside.

‘Very well, Mavis – show him in.’

A tall man entered, dressed rather foppishly in a velveteen jacket and a limp bow tie. He had wavy hair greying at the temples, framing a high forehead and a pointed jaw. Advancing to the desk, he thrust out a hand to Lethbridge.

‘Jolly good of you to see me at such short notice,’ he said with a slight lisp. ‘I’m Anthony Oldfield, I gather you’ve been looking for me.’

Lethbridge had seen and heard many strange things during his professional life and he rose to the occasion well.