Bernard Knight - According To The Evidence

‘I’ll get it, I’ve got to go to the kitchen anyway,’ offered Moira, taking her empty cup and saucer with her. A moment later she put her head around the door and beckoned to her boss.

‘It’s the police in Brecon, doctor. Sounds as if they’re calling you out.’

‘Your fame is spreading quickly, Richard!’ chaffed Angela.

It was only a few weeks since Pryor had been put on the Home Office list of forensic pathologists, primarily to stand in for other areas when the designated doctor was not available.

He uncoiled his lean body from the deep chair and went out into the passage, which ran from the front hall to the kitchen at the back. Though Post Office Telephones had recently installed extensions in their office opposite, as well as in Richard’s room, the original instrument was still on a small table in the passage, an old Bakelite model with a tarnished dial.

Moira had vanished into the kitchen with her cup and saucer and left the receiver on the table. Picking it up, he soon found that a detective sergeant from Brecon was asking him to turn out to visit a scene.

‘Probably an accident, doctor, or possibly even a suicide. But my DI wants to make sure that there’s nothing fishy about the death.’

Something in Nichols’ tone suggested to Richard Pryor that he felt that there might well be something fishy, but he did not want to pursue it on the telephone. Taking directions to Ty Croes Farm, which was between Brecon and Sennybridge in the next county, he promised to be there within a couple of hours.

As he put the phone down, Angela Bray and Siân came out of the staffroom.

‘Do you want a trip out into the jungle, Angela?’ he asked flippantly. ‘There’s a body lying under a tractor about forty miles away.’

‘Doesn’t sound very forensic to me,’ said Siân in a disappointed tone. She marched off to the laboratory, where she had several alcohol analyses waiting. Angela grinned at Richard.

‘She wants every call to be a serial murder, poor girl!’ she said. ‘Do you really want me to come with you?’

‘I thought it might be a change for you. You’ve been stuck here for days with those paternity tests. And you never know, the keen eye of a forensic scientist might be vital!’

The handsome biologist smiled at him. ‘It would be nice to have a ride in the country on such a nice day. You’re off straight away, I suppose?’

She went off to her room at the front of the house to get a coat and the ‘murder bag’, a leather case which contained their tools of the trade. Ten minutes later they were rolling down the steep drive in his black Humber Hawk, turning left on to the main road and setting off up the valley towards Monmouth. As she had said, it was a nice autumn day, with the dense woods on the steep sides of the gorge beginning to glow with a spectrum of colours, from green through gold to orange. The River Wye meandered down below them, its meadows bright green on either side.

‘We’re lucky to work in such a lovely place,’ said Angela. ‘This beats Scotland Yard, even if I could just see the Thames if I leaned out of the window!’

Five months ago Angela, a scientist with a PhD in genetics, had given up her job in London’s Metropolitan Police Laboratory and joined Richard Pryor in this risky venture in South Wales.

Though the Met Lab was a prestigious place, she had become disenchanted with a repetitive workload and the poor chance of further promotion. That, together with a traumatic broken engagement, had persuaded her to join Richard when he proposed setting up a private consultancy after returning from years in the Far East. He had been given a generous ‘golden handshake’ from his university appointment in Singapore, where he had been Professor of Forensic Medicine. This coincided with his aunt’s bequest of Garth House, and he had decided to take the plunge and go private, persuading Angela to become his partner. He had met her months earlier at a forensic congress and they had hatched this plot to go it alone.

As they drove, he related what little the sergeant had told him about the death they were attending. Angela wondered what could be so odd that the CID wanted a Home Office pathologist at the scene of what sounded like an industrial accident.

‘Ours not to wonder why, just prepared to do or die!’ sang Richard. Angela smiled to herself at his happy mood, brought on by this first call in his new role for the police. He was a nice chap, she thought to herself, never snappy or unpleasant. He had these moods of elation but was sometimes anxious at the gamble they had taken at giving up salaried jobs for the uncertain nature of private practice. After months of living in the same house, their relationship was still strictly professional, but she liked him a lot.

The black Humber, which he had bought second-hand on returning to Britain, was a spacious, comfortable car, and the forty miles through Abergavenny and Brecon passed quickly. Richard had a set of Ordnance Survey maps for all the counties along the Welsh Marches, and with Angela as pilot they easily found the secondary road off the A40 that led to Cwmcamlais, the nearest hamlet to the farm that the detective sergeant had described.

Beyond the empty rolling farmland, the profile of the Brecon Beacons lay on the skyline, and to the west the high ridges of Carmarthen Van and the Black Mountain could be seen from the higher points of the road. A little further on, a police constable was waiting at a small junction and, after the pathologist had identified himself, the officer climbed into the back of the car and directed them down the side lane.

‘Past the farmhouse, sir, then on for a bit and you’ll see the yard and buildings on your left.’

A few moments later the Humber pulled in to the cluttered yard, where a police Wolseley, a blue Vauxhall and a small white Morris van were parked. A small group of men were standing smoking near the van but came across as soon as they arrived. Introductions were made all around before Arthur Crippen launched into an account of the incident.

‘Behind that big door, doctor, there’s a fellow lying dead with his neck under the back wheel of a tractor.’ He jabbed a finger towards the barn. ‘No doubt about who he is – it’s the mechanic who does most of the repair work. In fact, he’s a partner of the other two men.’

‘This is not just a farm, then?’ asked Richard Pryor.

The DI shook his head. ‘They’ve got this business repairing agricultural machinery and implements. I suspect it’s paying better than actual farming these days, though they’ve got a fair-sized dairy herd.’

He returned to his main story. ‘This chap, Thomas Littleman, was a bit of a boozer, it seems. Not the best of workers and, from what I gather, the other two from the farm, who are cousins, were not too keen on continuing the partnership. Anyway, last evening Aubrey Evans had a bit of a barney with him, as he was well behind in finishing a job on a tractor that had been promised for yesterday.’

‘Who exactly is Aubrey Evans?’ asked Angela.

‘He’s the senior partner; lives in the house and does most of the farm work,’ explained the sergeant. ‘The other one is his cousin, Jeff Morton, who lives in a cottage at Ty Croes and does some of the mechanical work as well.’

Crippen picked up the thread of his tale once again.

‘Aubrey told Littleman that he had to finish the job last evening and that’s the last anyone saw him alive. They have a young chap as a sort of apprentice, who opens up the barn every morning. That’s him over there, name of Shane Williams.’ He jerked a head towards the youth, who was sitting on the tailboard of a Land Rover at the other side of the yard, aimlessly swinging his legs.

‘He opened up at seven today and found the body under the tractor. He raced up to the farm and raised the alarm. Bit of a shock for him, no doubt.’ Crippen’s long face looked even more mournful, and Richard sensed that he was sorry for the boy.