Where Death Delights

by Bernard Knight

  ‘A lot of effort for two little words which may mean nothing useful,’ said Angela dubiously.

  Trevor drank his tea and got up to leave. ‘Next time I’m near Hereford, I’ll call in and make some enquiries. Nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ he added, philosophically. ‘When I was in the CID, we sometimes got a result from snippets just as unlikely as pec.rec!’

  After their meal that evening, Richard and Angela brought a couple of chairs from the office and sat on the tiled area outside the front porch, between the two bay windows. It was a glorious evening, the setting sun lighting the opposite side of the valley, making the dense woods glow in different shades of green. He had unearthed a bottle of Gordon’s gin from one of the boxes in his room and with some tonic water that Moira had thoughtfully added to the shopping list, they spent a peaceful hour relaxing.

  The woman stretched out her legs luxuriously.

  ‘Quite a change from my flat in New Cross, with the fog coming up from the river and the noise of the traffic outside.’

  ‘I though you lived in posh Blackheath,’ observed Richard, lazily.

  ‘The estate agents always called it that, but really it was New Cross,’ she admitted. ‘But this is much nicer!’

  The sat and sipped their gin for a time, watched the shadows change beyond the Wye as the sun slipped down.

  ‘People would take us for an old married couple,’ said Richard grinning at his partner.

  Angela glared at him. ‘Don’t get any ideas, my lad!’ she growled. ‘We’re just business partners, remember?’

  Her feelings towards him were ambivalent, she realized. Richard was an attractive enough fellow, in a lean and wiry sort of way. He was clever, honest as far as she knew and generous, but was given to swings of mood that were so unlike her steady temperament that she doubted she could put up with him in anything other than an arm’s length relationship. At the same time, she felt herself illogically irritated by the hero-worship attitude of Sian towards him – and even after only a few day’s acquaintance, the respectful and admiring manner of Moira Davison.

  ‘Right, tell me about today, we’ve not had a chance until now,’ she commanded.

  Pryor described the strange mortuary in Swansea and the people he had met there, then summarized what he had found.

  ‘No doubt at all that she had drowned, it was just as obvious as that chap dragged out of the Wye at Chepstow,’ he said. ‘But I’m a bit concerned about some of the injuries on the body. I realize she was being bashed about on the rocks, but I need to know how old some of those bruises were. They certainly weren’t all fresh.’

  ‘Because of this story that the dead woman’s friend told to her father?’ asked Angela.

  ‘Yes, she reckoned that the daughter claimed that her husband was being violent because she wouldn’t agree to a divorce.’

  Angela sipped her drink slowly as she pondered.

  ‘What are you going to tell Massey?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve got to be cautious, I don’t want him rushing around yelling “murder” until I’ve had a chance to look at those injuries under the microscope.’

  ‘The funeral has been postponed once already. Can they hang on to the body even longer?’

  ‘That’s up to the coroner. If it does turn out to be suspicious, then I don’t see how he can allow it to be buried – certainly not cremated, as was the family’s intention.’

  ‘But there’s been a second post-mortem. Won’t that do as defence autopsy?’

  ‘No, because I’m acting for the father, who’s in the position of a complainant. If the husband was ever charged, then his defence lawyers would almost certainly want another opinion of their own, to counter mine.’

  ‘We’d better get it right then, laddie!’ said his partner, sagely. ‘When are you going to tell the father what’s going on?’

  ‘I hope Sian can manage some decent histology, but that will take a few days. I’ll have to say something to him before then, I’d better ring him tomorrow.’

  They sat for a while longer, then Angela decided it was getting cooler as the sun went down. She stood up and collected the glasses, while Richard took the chairs back inside.

  ‘I forgot to tell, you, the coroner’s officer in Newport rang, he wanted to know if you could cover there from next week, as their chap is going on holiday. Sounds as if your pal Brian Meredith has been talking on the grapevine again.’

  ‘Newport? Should be quite a few cases there. Perhaps we’ll be able to afford another bottle of gin after all, partner!’

  Next morning, Pryor had one routine post-mortem in Chepstow, but by mid-morning was back at Garth House, where Angela was busy with her paternity tests, checking blood groups of the mother and child against the putative father, who had denied that the child was his and therefore had no obligation to finance its upbringing. Sian was assembling her histology equipment, ready for Monday, when the tissues that Pryor had taken would be sufficiently fixed in formaldehyde for her to process them for examination under his new microscope. Unlike the big hospital laboratories, which were beginning to get the new automated processing machines, she would have to do it by hand, placing the tissues in jars of varying grades of alcohol and then xylene until they could be embedded in paraffin wax, ready for cutting into diaphanous slices, ready for staining.

  Richard looked in briefly on this earnest labour, then backed out and went to the telephone, where he placed a trunk call to Leonard Massey’s chambers in London. Fortunately, the barrister was available to talk to him, as he had cancelled many of his commitments, due to this family tragedy. Carefully, Pryor summarized his post-mortem findings at Linda’s autopsy, emphasizing that these were provisional conclusions and would have to be further investigated over the next few days, possibly a week.

  ‘But you feel that some of these injuries were made before death, not in the sea?’ demanded Massey, well-used to interrogating witnesses.

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know yet how long before death – and I may never be at all accurate,’ answered Richard, cautiously.

  ‘This last letter that my daughter wrote to her friend Marjorie, was about ten days before she disappeared. Could they be that old?’

  ‘It’s possible. They would be unrelated to the events surrounding her death, so perhaps made during an assault. I can’t be more specific at this stage – and as I say, dating injuries is notoriously inaccurate.’

  There was a silence over the miles of phone line between them, but Richard could sense the wheels going round in Massey’s head.

  ‘So where does that leave us, Doctor?’ he asked eventually. ‘What am I to say to the coroner and the police?’

  ‘I need at least a few days to check on these wounds. I’m afraid that these laboratory investigations inevitably take time. It’s not my place to become involved in the legal aspects, but I doubt that the coroner would want to hold on to the body after two post-mortems, given the tenuous evidence we have so far.’

  Massey seemed of the same opinion. ‘Naturally, my wife and I are distressed enough as it is without having to again delay laying poor Linda to rest. Do you see any merit in postponing burial any longer?’

  Richard shook his head at the telephone, even though the recipient was over a hundred miles away.

  ‘I think I have every sample that is necessary, Mr Massey. I doubt the coroner would grant a cremation order in the circumstances, but I see no reason why you could not go ahead with a burial, if he agrees.’

  This was because the slight possibility of an exhumation existed, should any future defence lawyer insist on a further opinion.

  Massey switched to another aspect of the case.

  ‘I’d like to know more about this alleged affair that Michael Prentice was having with some woman. I presume she was down in South Wales, so do you happen to know any reputable enquiry agent who could get some information?’

  Richard was happy to be able to recommend Trevor Mitchell, telling him that the former detective s
uperintendent was working with him on another case. He gave Mitchell’s phone number to Massey and they left it at that for the moment, Richard promising to send a written preliminary report that day and keep him informed the following week about the results of the microscopic examination.

  He sought out Moira in the kitchen, where she was preparing a couple of trout for lunch, new potatoes and peas already waiting in saucepans on the Aga cooker.

  She always slipped home for an hour at lunchtime, as it was only five minutes away and she wanted to feed her cat.

  ‘When you come back, can you type out a report on this Swansea case and get it in the post tonight?’ he asked. ‘I’ll write it out in longhand now and leave it in the office.’

  ‘I can take shorthand, if you ever need it,’ she offered.

  Richard grinned and made a show of sniffing the air like a Bisto Kid. ‘I’d rather you finished making our lunch, thanks all the same!’

  As she went back to flouring the glistening fish, she had another suggestion.

  ‘A lot of offices now are using these small tape recorders, Doctor. I’ve seen a portable one in a little carrying case that you can take around with you and record straight into it when you do your work.’

  Moira used the term delicately, still not quite used to his macabre occupation.

  ‘A good idea, when we get some cash under our belt, we’ll think about it. There’s so much stuff we need, it’s frightening.’ As he went back to his room to start writing, he thought of the shopping list that Angela had for the laboratory, especially on the chemistry side. It would take a lot of mortuary work and paternity tests before they could even think of some of that equipment.

  With a sigh, he sat down and pulled out his fountain pen.

  An hour later, Moira was clattering away on her new Olivetti, copying Richard’s draft report. He had good handwriting for a doctor, and she had no difficulty in transcribing it, even the unfamiliar medical terms.

  After only a few days, she was enjoying her new job very much – it was a strange one, a little housework, some cooking and now this, describing the dissected remains of a young woman. After several years of mourning and apathy for her lost husband, she felt as if life could restart properly once again and she was grateful to the inhabitants of Garth House for giving her this unexpected opportunity. She realized that Doctor Bray was slightly wary of her, though she was friendly and communicative enough. Moira also knew that this might be due to an almost subliminal feeling of competition over Richard Pryor – she had not yet worked out what the relationship was between the two partners, or what it might develop into in the future.

  As she was typing away and musing on the new turn her life had taken, Richard was answering the telephone in the hall. He had earlier brought a spare stool from the kitchen to put alongside the small table that carried the heavy black instrument, as he anticipated spending a lot of time there until the GPO got around to putting in some extensions in the other rooms.

  It was the Gower coroner on the line, a local solicitor called Donald Moses. He had just been contacted by Leonard Massey about Richard’s preliminary findings.

  ‘This leaves me in a difficult position, Doctor,’ he said, sounding rather agitated. ‘If I feel there is any substance in these suspicions raised by Mr Massey, then I’m bound to pass the matter to the police.’

  Pryor repeated what he had told Massey, that he could not be more specific until he had examined the sections of the bruises under the microscope, which could not be until sometime the following week.

  ‘There was a detective present at the post-mortem,’ he added. ‘But he just verified the continuity of the samples I took and I didn’t discuss any findings with him, they are too uncertain at present.’

  Donald Moses sighed. ‘Mr Massey is very persistent, I’m afraid. But I don’t want to start a wild goose chase and then find it comes to nothing. To even approach the husband of the dead woman at this stage would be most unfortunate if nothing came of the matter.’

  Richard saw a flaw in this argument.

  ‘But he must already know that something is going on, as the original funeral date was postponed for my examination?’

  The coroner accepted this ‘He never contacted me to ask why, which is a little odd. I suspect that his father-in-law had it out with him. He’s a forceful personality, to say the least!’

  Pryor wanted to avoid getting too involved in aspects that were none of his business.

  ‘I’ll be sending you a copy of my preliminary report today, it’s being typed as we speak. And as soon as I see the tissue sections, I’ll get back to you.’

  The coroner seemed relieved by this breathing space.

  ‘I’ll hang fire until then, Doctor. But if you find nothing definite, I’m going to allow a burial to go ahead whenever the family want it. Mr Massey told me that you said you had all the material that was necessary.’

  After he put the phone down, Richard sat on his hard stool for a few moments to think about the situation. It seemed that a lot might hang on his examination of the bruises next week, as the coroner was right in saying that it would be both embarrassing and unjust to start a possible murder investigation, based only on the angry dislike of a father-in-law, fuelled by a letter alleging a domestic dispute.

  Well, he thought, there was nothing more he could do until Sian came up with the microscopic sections in a few days’ time, so he might as well enjoy the weekend.

  He had seen in the newspaper that the new film Richard the Third, with Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Claire Bloom was playing in Cardiff and decided to go down on Saturday. He wondered if Angela would like to go with him – maybe they could hold hands in the back row, he thought facetiously!

  SEVEN

  As a Shakespearean performance was being played out in a Cardiff cinema, another drama was taking place in a Swansea hotel.

  The Osborne was a small, but exclusive, hotel perched on the edge of a low cliff at Rotherslade. About six miles from the town centre, it was at the eastern end of the Gower peninsula, overlooking the popular Langland Bay.

  In one of the best bedrooms, with a perfect sea view, a furious row was going on.

  ‘You’ve got a bloody nerve, interfering in my affairs like this!’ ranted Michael Prentice, his face suffused an angry red. He was a tall man, though not so heavily built as his father-in-law, who stood facing him in a colder type of fury.

  ‘Your affairs! That’s what’s led to this, according to Linda’s best friend,’ he responded scathingly.

  ‘Watch what you say, Leonard, or I’ll have you for slander, barrister or not!’ snarled the younger man, his handsome face contorted with hate. ‘You accuse me of assaulting my wife and I’ll break you!’

  The two large men stood just inside the door, squaring up to each other like a pair of boxers before the fight.

  ‘Do you deny pushing and punching Linda when she discovered you were having it off with some tart?’ said Leonard, in intense but measured tones.

  ‘Don’t you call her a tart, damn you!’ howled Michael, then stopped dead, as he realized he had been tricked by the experienced advocate.

  The Queen’s Counsel gave a cynical smile. ‘No use denying it now, Michael? Who is she?’

  ‘Mind your own damned business. If Linda and I did have a row, what’s that to you?’

  ‘As I’m her father, a great deal, blast you!’ rasped Massey, losing his temper for a moment. ‘She writes to her friend that you want a divorce and that you assaulted her, then within a couple of weeks, she ends up dead! Do you wonder that I feel that it’s my business?’

  Prentice glowered at the barrister. ‘Are you accusing me of murder now, instead of assault? Good God, man, I could sue you for thousands for this!’

  Massey looked around the room with exaggerated care.

  ‘Indeed? Where are the witnesses? I think you’ll be talking to people soon who have no fear of slander. I’m talking about the police, Michael.’


  The younger man took a threatening step nearer Massey.

  ‘You wouldn’t dare, damn you! Your reputation would be ruined when the farce was exposed!’

  The barrister did not flinch, but glared at his daughter’s husband with utter contempt. ‘It won’t be my decision, it’s up to the coroner. It’s his duty to report any suspicious circumstances to the CID. You’ll be getting a visit from them soon, I don’t doubt.’

  He turned away and went to a table, where he picked up a cheque and handed it to the other man.

  ‘Meanwhile, we have to do the decent thing and see that my poor daughter is put to rest. The coroner will be calling you on Monday about a disposal order for burial, so this is for whatever funeral director you choose.’

  Michael Prentice snatched the cheque and violently ripped it in half, dropping the pieces on the floor.

  ‘I don’t want your damned money, blast you! I can bury my own wife, thank you very much!’

  He swung around, and went out, slamming the door behind him.

  Massey stood for a moment looking down at the fragments of paper on the floor, then he took a diary from his breast pocket and looked up a telephone number. He went to the phone and asked for an outside line.

  ‘Is that Trevor Mitchell? . . . this is Leonard Massey.’

  On Sunday, Richard Pryor spent much of the afternoon in his large plot behind the house. He was increasingly keen on starting a vineyard, in spite of Jimmy’s scathing remarks and with the help of a long tape measure, was pacing off a large patch about the size of two tennis courts.

  In the house, Angela was standing in the window of one of the back bedrooms with a mug of coffee in her hand, watching him as he banged lengths of wood into the ground with a brick, making off the margins of his chosen area. She smiled, much as a mother would humour a child who wanted to build a spaceship in the garden.

  ‘Enjoy yourself, Richard, but it’ll never happen,’ she murmured. Probably by this time next year, he would be full of keeping turkeys or pigs there instead, or some other impulsive and equally impracticable scheme.

  As she stood sipping her Nescafé, she idly tried to analyse her feelings towards him. It was a strange situation, she thought, living alone in a house with a man in a totally platonic relationship. Or was it all that platonic, she wondered?