Bernard Knight - According To The Evidence

‘Those fibres were coarse and looked like hemp or sisal,’ said Angela. ‘And the mark on the skin suggests it was about half an inch wide.’

‘Some of that coil over there would fit the bill,’ said John Nichols, pointing at a hank thrown over a drum of Duckhams lubricating oil standing alongside a grey Ferguson tractor.

‘All the rope will have to be packed up and taken back to Cardiff tomorrow,’ said the biologist. ‘Those fibres from the neck will have to be matched against them.’

Richard Pryor was staring up at the chain hoist hanging innocently above their heads. ‘Apart from the other evidence, it certainly rules out a suicide,’ he commented.

‘How d’you mean, doc?’ asked Crippen.

‘Well, he would hardly sling a rope over the hook, put the noose around his neck and then start hauling himself up by pulling hand over hand on the chain. He’d pass out before he got his feet off the ground!’

The detective inspector agreed. ‘No doubt someone did it for him, after strangling him. Then he must have spotted those fingermarks on the neck and realized that they gave the game away. So he decided to have him down again and squash him under the Fordson.’

Richard rubbed his chin, now bristly after a long day. ‘He must have been left hanging for some time, otherwise that lividity wouldn’t have had a chance to settle in his legs.’

‘How long, doctor?’ queried the sergeant. ‘The killer must have either hung about here all that time or come back later.’

‘Can’t put an exact time on it; it’s very variable,’ said Pryor. ‘But I suspect it must have been at least a couple of hours to get that intense.’

Crippen mulled this over. ‘So unless he waited here for a hell of a long time, he must have come back to the barn. Sounds like a local job, not just some passing thug.’

His sergeant snorted. ‘One of those buggers up at the farm, sir! Got to be. Who else would want to croak a boozy mechanic?’

Richard Pryor decided that he didn’t want to get involved in any police business, so he prepared to leave them to it.

‘Dr Bray and I will get back home, if we can’t do any more for you. It’s been a long day.’

The DI was sincere in his gratitude when he walked them to the Humber.

‘You’ve done a damned good job for us – and you, ma’am!’ he added. ‘I’ll keep you informed of what’s going on here. Perhaps you could have a word tomorrow on the phone with the forensic people in Cardiff, to tell them what specimens you took and that sort of thing.’

Angela promised to liaise with her old colleagues, as she knew all the case officers in Cardiff. ‘We’ve collected blood and urine samples for alcohol, especially as he’s got this history of drinking. Maybe that’s at the bottom of all this?’

As Crippen opened the car door for Angela, he gave a grim promise.

‘You may be right. Tomorrow, I’ll be squeezing all I can from those folk up at the farm.’

It was dark before they got back to Tintern Parva, the village nearest to Garth House at the lower end of the Wye Valley.

As Richard was putting the car away in the coach house at the back, Angela was surprised to see a light in the kitchen window. She had expected Moira Davison, the young widow who looked after them, to have left something cold for their supper in the old fridge, maybe sliced ham and salad. But when she opened the back door and went into the kitchen, she found Moira there, pulling something out of the Aga stove.

‘I thought you could do with a hot meal after such a long day,’ she announced, her gloved hands placing a large cottage pie on top of the big cooker.

‘Moira, you’re a wonder!’ Richard sniffed the aroma appreciatively as he came into the room.

‘You’ve not been waiting here for us all evening, have you?’ asked Angela, pulling off her coat and dropping thankfully into one of the chairs at the table, which was already set with two places.

‘No, but I’ve been back and forth, keeping an eye on the oven,’ said the trim, attractive woman. Slim and petite, she had an oval face framed by jet-black hair cut in a bob, a straight fringe across her forehead. Moira lived a few hundred yards away down the main road to the village. When the partners had started up the forensic consultancy six months earlier, they were virtually camping out in the dusty old house, living out of packets and tins. Also, their laboratory technician, Siân Lloyd, couldn’t keep up with the typing of reports as well as doing her technical work, so it was a godsend when they found an efficient lady almost on their doorstep who could not only do some cooking and cleaning but keep on top of the office work.

Moira put her pie on a cork mat on the big table, another legacy from Richard’s aunt. Together with local carrots and peas, the two scientists tucked in hungrily, washing the food down with cider from a large flagon.

‘Aren’t you joining us, Moira?’ asked Angela, eyeing the apple tart that she was taking from the warming oven.

‘No, I had something at home earlier. But I’ll make some coffee and have one with you, so that you can tell me what you’ve been up to today.

‘By the way,’ she added. ‘There were a couple of messages today, nothing urgent. I’ve left a list on your desk, doctor. The only one that sounded interesting was a call from a firm of solicitors in Stow-on-the-Wold, who wanted to talk to you about giving them a medical opinion in a criminal case.’

‘Did they say what it was about?’ asked Angela.

‘No, but they left their number, and I promised that we would get back to them tomorrow. Perhaps it’s another murder!’

Like their technician Siân, Moira was very enthusiastic and partisan when it came to the work of the Garth House consultancy. They took a pride in being part of it and wanted to be involved as much as possible. The cases were often highly confidential, often being sub judice until cases came to court, but both employees had shown in the past months that they could be trusted to keep their mouths shut. Moira had been a secretary to a local solicitor and Siân had worked in a hospital laboratory, both jobs requiring strict attention to confidentiality.

Between the pie and the apple tart and then over coffee, the partners gave Moira the details of the unusual case in Breconshire that had occupied them for most of the day.

‘How extraordinary! A good start for your first Home Office call-out,’ she exclaimed. ‘Who on earth could have done such a thing?’

‘Our friend Dr Crippen seems set on blaming one of those up at the farm,’ said Richard, making Moira giggle over the poor detective’s name. ‘I suppose he’s right, as there are very few others to suspect in that lonely place.’

By the time they had helped their housekeeper to clear up the kitchen, it was getting late. Richard saw her to the bottom of the steep drive and watched her go down the road with her torch, keeping well into the hedge as there was no verge or pavement.

When he got back inside, Angela declared that she was going up to her room to listen to the wireless and read for a bit, before going to bed.

Accommodation had been something of a dilemma when they had first come to Garth House. Though there were plenty of rooms, there was only one bathroom. At first, Angela had stayed in a bed and breakfast in Tintern, but soon rebelled at the cost when there was a large house available. It belonged equally to both of them – or more accurately to the legal partnership that they had set up. When she left London, Angela had sold her flat and put the money into the firm, Richard contributing Garth House itself, a substantial Victorian dwelling with four acres of land. His aunt had died in a retirement home twelve months ago, her husband having passed away years before. She left her estate to her only nephew Richard, who used to stay with her when a boy and even when a medical student in Cardiff. This legacy coincided with the offer of a ‘golden handshake’ from his university post in Singapore. As he had been divorced not long before, there seemed nothing to keep him in the Far East, so he took the plunge and came home to Wales to set up in private practice with Angela.