Bernard Knight - Grounds for Appeal

‘I’m not all that clear, but I think the general thrust is that, notwithstanding all the conventional rules of legal procedure, if a situation seems a flagrant disregard of common sense and fair play, then the rules should be circumvented… but you’ll be able to tell me more about it in a year or two’s time, when you’re a legal expert yourself!’

Their forensic debate was interrupted by the phone ringing in the office and Moira went off to answer it. She came back to tell Richard that the police in Aberystwyth wanted to speak to him and when he picked up the receiver, he found it was Meirion Thomas on the other end. They spoke for about ten minutes and when Richard went back to his cold cup of coffee, he had more news to tell his colleagues.

‘It sounds as if our Body in the Bog case has been wrapped up as far as it can go,’ he announced.

The others clamoured for the details, all having had a stake in the unusual case. Angela had done the original serology on the tissue from the borehole, Sian had prepared histology sections of the skin and the bone disease, while Moira had typed all the reports.

‘So who was he? And have they got the chap who killed him?’ demanded Sian.

Richard retold the chain of events which Meirion had described to him.

‘Some antique dealer recalled seeing a man with a Batman tattoo years ago. They traced his van back to Cardiganshire and found old blood stains in the back, of the same group as our corpse. The van belonged to a former Czech soldier, who was in a gang in Birmingham, then got moved to Borth to act as a fence for stolen goods and a lookout for sheep rustling.’

‘Extraordinary story!’ said Angela. ‘You wouldn’t believe it if you read it in a novel. They did pretty well to get a blood group from a van after a decade.’

‘You haven’t told us yet who he was!’ persisted Sian.

‘Some American seaman called Josh Andersen, who decided he didn’t want to be torpedoed in 1942 and ran off to become a gangster in the Midlands. It seems that he started pinching money from the gang boss, who had him rubbed out, as they say in Chicago.’

He went on to relate what DI Thomas had told him, about the Czech’s confession that he had been lumbered with a headless corpse for disposal.

‘A pretty tall story, that!’ observed Moira. ‘Have they charged him with the murder?’

‘Apparently not, though they’re holding him as an accessory for the time being. No doubt the Director of Public Prosecutions will have to sort it out. Meirion thinks that probably either the gang leader, Mickey Doyle, or one of his henchmen actually did the deed. But Doyle legged it to Spain several years ago and they can’t get him out.’

‘So why cut his head off?’ queried Sian with a little shudder of horror, even though she had known about it for weeks.

‘Retribution for trying to fleece his boss, apparently. This Doyle villain seemed to have taken grave exception to this Josh skimming part of the profits from his protection rackets, brothels and casinos, so he had him killed and then exhibited his head on festive occasions as a warning to the rest of his gang.’

They kicked the topic around for a time, squeezing every last bit of information from Richard, who only knew what Meirion had told him.

‘We must tell Priscilla about this, unless it’s already all over the local papers down in Cardiganshire,’ said Angela. ‘She was in on it from the very beginning. In fact, she owes her new university post to this beheaded gangster, as otherwise she would never have met Doctor Boross!’

‘Well, it certainly beats going down the Labour Exchange as a means of looking for a job!’ giggled Sian.

It was one of those cold, fine days that occur in winter, with a thin blue sky looking down on frosted fields, as Angela and Richard drove to Cardiff on their way to the vineyard in St Mary Church. They had decided to make a day of it, as it was the first time that Angela had been to the city, declared the capital of Wales only a few months before. After an early lunch in the Angel Hotel, the place where Louis Dumas had met his alleged son, Richard walked her around the centre of the city, which he knew well from six years there as a medical student. She dutifully admired the huge castle and the superb buildings of the civic centre, although secretly she would have preferred spending the time in the three large department stores.

Then a forty-minute drive through the Vale of Glamorgan brought them to ‘Chateau Dumas’, as her partner insisted on calling it, where a rather apprehensive Louis and Emily received them courteously. They ushered them into the sitting room, where a tall young man rose to greet them. Black-haired and serious of face, the two doctors saw nothing of either of his presumed parents in his features — but Richard recalled that the younger son Victor also bore no particular resemblance to them. The father introduced him as Pierre Fouret and the soft-spoken Canadian replied in an accent which was more French than North American.

‘I understand that we all have to undergo this ordeal of the needle!’ he said, in a tone intended to lighten the rather tense atmosphere. Angela, who was rather taken by this good-looking man, went along with his ploy.

‘Just a small prick in the arm, Monsieur Fouret. I guarantee that you’ll survive!’

The bloodletting was performed swiftly and discreetly in Louis’s study across the hall, Angela’s experienced hands taking the three samples into her labelled tubes with the minimum of drama or disturbance. When she had repacked her bag and washed her hands, they went back to the sitting room for the inevitable tea and biscuits. They made rather strained small talk for a while, keeping off the subject of the Dumas family problems. Pierre told them of his life as a tractor salesman and the travelling it entailed.

‘I’m off back to Quebec next week and will probably be in the States and Mexico for a few months,’ he explained. ‘I doubt I’ll be sent back to Europe until the autumn.’

Richard wondered if this was a coded message that he would not be hanging around the family, seeking to ingratiate himself with them. The time soon came for them to leave and as they rose to go, Richard learned that Louis intended driving Pierre back to Cardiff to catch the train for London.

Richard and Angela made their way to the Humber, parked on the gravel area outside, as the Dumas clan said their goodbyes. Angela got into the front seat and as Richard was putting her case in the boot, he saw another car turning into the driveway from the road outside. It was a new yellow Triumph TR2, a two-seater sports car with the hood down, in spite of the winter weather. It drew up nearby and Victor Dumas got out, muffled in a heavy car coat and a scarf. He looked rather surprised to see Richard, but greeted him affably.

‘Hello, doctor! I didn’t expect to see you back here in this cold weather. I’m afraid the vines are all fast asleep for the next few months.’

Feeling rather uncomfortable, Richard saw no alternative but to say why he was there.

‘Just called in to take some blood samples. We were just leaving, actually.’

Victor’s face changed in an instant as he realized the implications. His smile vanished and his face reddened in anger.

‘Is that bloody crook here?’ he snarled. ‘I’ll not have him pestering my parents, they’ve suffered enough!’

As if on cue, the trio from the house appeared at the front door and stopped dead as soon as they saw Victor outside. As he marched angrily towards them, his father stepped forward and attempted to act as peacemaker.

‘Victor, come and meet Pierre Fouret. He’s just come to have a blood sample taken…’

He got no further, as Victor began ranting at the older man, who stood impassively under a barrage of invective and abuse, the thrust of which was that he was a scheming charlatan, out to make trouble and wheedle his way into his parents’ affections.