“Because I have already seen it . . . and all in my mind’s eye.” I had seen the blackthorn and the field maple, their canopies intertwining, and a hawthorn, with the flowering form of ivy insidiously overtopping its upper branches. Grasses, white dead-nettle, black nightshade, woundwort, docks, goosefoot, and some nettle all contributed to the dense bank between the bare soil of the field and the ditch itself. These had all shed their pollen onto the leaves of the grassy, herb-rich bank. The offenders had trodden in it and carried it back to their car. That hedge and bank had witnessed them setting his body alight and making their getaway. It was informing on them now.
Standing there, with the summer sun beating down and the sloes swelling on the bush, I looked back along the hedgerow. How had I known it was here, exactly here? The fact was: there was simply no other place it could have been. The rest of the hedgerow was . . . wrong. It could not have provided the right assemblage of pollen grains to match the ones I had found in the car. And it struck me then, as perhaps it should have struck me before, that the world is actually so much more heterogeneous, more varied than I could ever have imagined. There was only one place the body might have lain along the edge of this field, only one place where the assemblage I had found in my laboratory, the picture I held in my mind, fitted closely with what I was seeing here at a crime scene. Ten yards along the hedgerow in one direction, the assemblage would have been different; ten yards beyond that, the assemblage would be more different still. There was such specificity in the pollen record.
What surprised me, and now it seems very silly, was that the pollen on the ground matched mostly those plants growing very, very close to where the offenders must have parked their car. The significant exception was cereal. The pollen from that field across the wide road must have traveled at least 400 meters from the crop. That in itself was a revelation to me. There was insignificant influence from plant species that were growing just short distances away. I had little doubt in my mind now that much of the received wisdom in palynological textbooks and papers might need to be revised, at least for some things.
If one stretch of a farmer’s hedgerow was so vastly different from another, I wondered what it meant for the assemblages of plants and fungi in woodlands, in meadows, in the grass verges and gardens, along which we walk every day? If one edge of a maize field was so different from another, did that mean that every square meter of landscape was as different from another as one person is from the next? Perhaps the pollen and other microscopic matter taken from a boot, a wheel arch, a doormat, or the pedals in a car were as unique and useful as a fingerprint in determining what someone had touched, what someone had done? Standing here, by a Hertfordshire hedgerow where a man had been left to decompose, I felt my own version of Edmond Locard’s “every contact leaves a trace” epiphany: I had thought I had known the natural world reasonably well, but the truth was I had barely scratched the surface. I had been overlooking so much, and the world, which was already so strange and full of wonders, seemed a little stranger and more wonderful still. The information I was able to provide made compelling evidence to indicate that the occupants of that car had contacted the edge of that particular ditch. I did not hear the outcome of the case until very much later but, apparently, my evidence had been an important element in the trial, and the subsequent conviction, of the murderers.
CHAPTER 4
Under the Surface
Not an auspicious start, some might say. I came into the world in the front bedroom of a modest little house in a Welsh mining village, in the depths of a bitter winter, in the middle of the Second World War.
Back then, the world was full of misery—but all in faraway places. We were just half a mile uphill and east of the waters of the Rhymney River, black with coal slurry, gurgling and splashing all the way down to the Severn Estuary. It separated us from Glamorgan, where people were different from us, in our greener land of Gwent. The Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons were not far to the north, the sea was not far away to the south, and the sparkling waters and verdant valley of the Wye were just a few miles to the east. A short, steep climb up behind the houses would bring you on to wide vistas of bare mountain. Garden flowers were rare where we lived because of the persistent raiding by sheep coming down out of the hills, and there were always escapee ewes trotting, as proud as queens, down the village streets, straggling dirty wool and lambs behind them.
But, forget the winter and the war, the least auspicious thing for me was being born to these parents. My mother was too young, not yet twenty-two, when she had me—although, after three years of marriage, she was anxious to follow custom and have a child. My father was only four years older and, because he worked in the pit, was more useful there than in the army. They were a striking pair. My mother was very small and vivacious, with pale milky skin, light hair, and startlingly blue eyes. My father was a Clark Gable/Errol Flynn lookalike, with jet-black hair, arched eyebrows, a Hollywood black mustache, blue eyes, and a wonderfully rich bass voice. There was not an ounce of fat on him and he had a six-pack that came from hewing coal, not workouts at the gym. He had charisma and women were coquettish in his company. This must have made my mother feel insecure, even though she certainly had her share of admirers. People who still remember her when she was young tell me that she seemed like a film star in that drab little village. She was never seen without lipstick and every hair in place—such a contrast to the young drudges around her who, after the rosy flush of their wedding day, became dowdy as the reality of being a miner’s wife hit home. The custom was to hide the hair in a turban and wear a Welsh shawl wrapped around the body to form a sling for the baby, leaving the hands free for work. My mother was determined not to be so shackled—and, as a result, I never had that secure feeling of being close to her breast for any length of time; though I do acutely remember her delicate and distinctive smell. Theirs was a turbulent marriage and, if I felt more generous, I would say my parents could not help it. But I was at the heart of the tumult and it is difficult to forgive the lack of tranquility in your home.
The world then was very different from today, though some of the old ways still linger. Everyone knew what went on in everyone else’s lives, or thought they did. My aunties, uncles, and cousins lived in the same street and my father’s parents owned the little grocery shop at the top of the hill. My memories are shattered fragments of colored glass, some clear, some vague, others distorted. But my first sharp recollection was sitting, legs outstretched, on the leather backseat of a black car. I distinctly remember being puzzled because my legs were shorter than everyone else’s—and I did not like my shoes. When I first told my mother this, she would not believe me until I described the little silky yellow dress with too-tight puffed sleeves and green shoes, each with a yellow stripe from the toe. She was equally stunned when I recounted having my picture taken—being lifted onto a chair in my auntie Eva’s front room, wearing a scratchy pink organza dress that was too big for me. It had been sent by relatives from Australia and the family was proud of it. My mother simply could not believe that I recalled it so accurately. “But you were only eighteen months old in that car, and only two when that picture was taken!” she protested. But I do remember; these moments are imprinted upon me. Even now, I look back and marvel that such a young child could be so analytical and so decisive. Never underestimate a toddler—he or she might remember things you would prefer forgotten.
Of course, we are the product of our parents’ combined genes, and these influence our innate brain chemistry, but “what we are” also depends on our childhood and life experiences. I think people would say I am outward-going, confident, and assertive, as were both my mother and father, and learning from the behavior of those around me must have played its part. Genes are moderated by memes. Whenever a visitor came to our house, all youngsters were expected to do a recitation, sing a song, or perform one’s excruciating rendition of some piano piece. No one was allowed to be shy or refuse. Pe
rhaps it was good training for communicating; teachers were a major export from our little country, and the Welsh seem to have an inclination to the theatrical.
Compared to the young today, our lives were unfettered by worry about how dangerous strangers might be. Any outsider coming into our community was soon identified and, in any case, we rarely saw anyone who was not at least a little familiar. I never saw a black person until I left the Valleys, though some lived in the dock area of Cardiff, and I had never heard an English voice other than my uncle Fred’s foreign burr from the Forest of Dean. We had one flasher in the district. Everyone knew him and no one was frightened of him. It was said that he had studied too hard and that it had “turned his brain.” Poor man—he used to slouch around in an old army coat and everyone called him “Organ Morgan.” I now know why. My best friend and I sometimes caught sight of him when we were on our “adventures.” We were avid readers of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books and were sure we could, and would, unravel mysteries. We made our own jam sandwiches, pinched cake from the pantry, and set off up the mountain to look for problems to solve. We never found any and would come back with purple mouths, hands, and knees from picking wimberries, the smaller British cousin of the American blueberry, and wet feet from boggy bits of ground. We sometimes got a bit frightened when bands of mountain ponies mugged us for the contents of our little bags. They still roam the hills above the Valleys and, given half a chance, will still accost you for treats.
When I look back on our sheer freedom, I can only feel sad for today’s children who are packaged and sealed up, their flights of fancy being satisfied by electronic wizardry. I marvel at how young we were, how far we wandered unsupervised, how nobody felt the need to walk us to and from school—and how entirely normal that kind of free, wild life was compared to today.
I was the sort of child who loved school. That solid, squat, Pennant Sandstone building, surrounded by a big sloping playground and tall iron railings, was everything to me. It was full of gifted teachers who made learning fun, and I was convinced that our headmaster, Mr. Davies, was Jesus. In fact, I knew he was. He had a funny nostril and scars in the palms of his hands—and, even though my mother tried to explain that he had been hurt in the war, I did not believe any of it. Mr. Davies behaved like Jesus. He was kind and every one of us loved him. He was the polar opposite of Mr. Probert, who petrified us. He had taught my father in the same school and wore the same starched butterfly turn-down collar and black jacket as he had years before. He had studs in his boots that used to make sparks as they hit the nails in the wooden floorboards when he marched up and down, barking out his lessons; the roughest of boys were subdued in Mr. Probert’s presence. Even my father spoke of him with reluctant deference.
I only knew a few boys and girls whose fathers did not work in the pit and therefore, as far as we were concerned, did not have proper jobs. Except for the very few, we were all well fed, well dressed and, on the whole, well behaved; but there was one family where a baby arrived every year, each one seemingly smaller and more delicate than the last. How on earth did they all fit in that little house? They always seemed to be eating bread and jam and, whatever the weather, the boys wore old Wellingtons that left scurf marks around their legs. I remember when they all got ringworm, and had their heads shaved and painted blue with gentian violet, then the only available remedy for such fungal diseases. But we did not make fun, and we were sorry, though scared to get too near. Mind you, neighbors made sure that food found its way into the pantry of that house, and the children were clothed in everyone’s castoffs.
All these years later, I still hanker after the way life was in that village. Life was simple; we respected adults and were particularly terrified of “Dai book and pencil.” He was the local policeman who got his name from his fondness for pulling out his notebook and pencil as a warning. In fact, most of us were genuinely worried about doing anything wicked. Chapel and peer pressure saw to that. How different it is now. These days, even little ones know about class, color prejudice, sexual deviance, and recreational drugs. These just did not exist for us, and I am glad for my innocent background—I have never been tainted by any of them. Some people were posher than others, but the differences between us all were insignificant, and none of us felt inferior to anyone else. I suppose we were considered to be one of the “better” families because I rarely got dirty, and my father had a motorbike. I had more than my fair share of toys and books and, because of the skills of my maternal grandmother, I had the most exquisitely handmade clothes. My dolls had them too.
Modern genealogy websites have told me that I am descended from the younger sons of farmers who left Pembrokeshire, Radnorshire, and Gloucestershire—leaving the fresh country air to seek their fortunes in the nineteenth-century coal Klondike, and unwittingly contributing to the devastation of our beautiful Welsh valleys. My mother’s side was different, though. Her father was Welsh, but her mother was descended from Scottish farmers and innkeepers’ sons who, in the 1830s, with their wives and some children, endured cramped three-month voyages in little ships to New South Wales, where they became tenant farmers and gold prospectors. I come from tough stock—adventurers and hard workers. Even though my Australian grandmother was tiny, she epitomized that strength and robustness—and, of all the people in my life, she influenced me the most.
* * *
—
One of my earliest memories of my father is of him shivering, sweating, and racked with coughs, as this tiny child crept into bed beside him. He had caught pneumonia while lying in wet grass on Caerphilly Mountain doing his Home Guard duty. This was before the National Health Service, and before readily available antibacterial drugs—and I still remember the terrifying reality that he might die. The only thing that seemed to help him at all were lemons steeped in hot water, and I remember the jugs sitting there at the side of his bed. In those days, you either got better or you died. Coughs were suppressed in case you were thought to have tuberculosis—which, because it was then incurable, carried a stigma. My next memory of my father is even stronger: this time, he is looming over me as I lie in bed, his face wet with tears—which I thought very peculiar—because the same pneumonia was in me, his little girl, and I was rapidly fading away.
By then, times had moved on just a little, and the doctor produced M&B tablets, the only relief available. M&B stood for “May & Baker,” the pharmaceutical company which, in 1937, was responsible for formulating sulfapyridine. It is one of a range of sulfonamides and, ironically, research into these compounds had its origin in Germany as far back as 1906. M&B powder and tablets became the magic bullets for many bacterial diseases ranging from leprosy to gonorrhea. It also saved Winston Churchill from pneumonia, allowing him to carry on leading the war effort. It is rarely used for humans anymore because of its side effects but, in the 1940s, it saved many from the devastation of septicemia and death that even minor bacterial infections could bring. By the time I reached seven years old, I was already considered to be a “delicate” child and had had my fair share of dosings with M&B.
Another day seared into my mind is a hot and sunny Friday. Fridays meant . . . fish and chips. And as the school bells tolled for the end of morning that day, I was the first up and out of the school gates, scrambling out of breath across the green between the school and our street. Home was only a few hundred yards away—but, when you are seven years old, even this can seem like miles. Still, eager as I was, I hurtled there, knowing that my mother—who hand-cooked the chips for me every Friday lunchtime—would almost be ready.
When I got there, the front door was open, as in all the other houses, and I crept, unheard, into the hall, hiding against the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. What a silly design that house had. The cold larder was off the dining room and not the kitchen. To this day I do not know why, but I waited there, holding my breath, as my mother approached. She hadn’t heard me.
I waited and waited until
she was almost upon me, and then . . . “Boo!”
My mother reared back in fright, just as I had intended. But the joke was not to last long. She had been carrying the pan of scalding chip fat to the cold larder and I had waylaid her.
As she stumbled back, the chip pan flew out of her hands. The scalding oil arced out of it. I could see it as if it was suspended in the air above me. Then it came down, like a huge wave, across my hair and head, my neck and face. I screamed and screamed and screamed.
I still remember the pain. I still remember the screaming that seemed to be coming from somewhere else but was, in fact, coming out of my own mouth, going on and on and on. I remember a jumble of neighbors, alerted by my shrieks, came running in.
And then I remember nothing until, sometime later, my father burst into the room. To this day, I can see the horror in his eyes as he grasped that the tiny figure, swathed in bandages with only eyes and mouth squinting through, was his daughter. My mother stood back against the door watching, just watching while my father went on his knees to me. I do not think he every truly forgave her for that day. My head would be in bandages for two years. Nowadays, there would have been an emergency ambulance, skin grafts, and the very best treatment but, back then, the NHS was only two years old, and all I had was the local doctor and whatever remedies he could provide. And perhaps that is why the mark of that day has never left me either; even now, seventy years later, I have to arrange my hair carefully to hide the scars.
It was not long after that the repeated illnesses began. Was it coincidence or was it something in my constitution, weakened irreparably by the burns? Whooping cough and measles came all at once. Bronchitis and pneumonia and pleurisy were my constant bedfellows. My lungs never seemed to recover, and soon I had developed bronchiectasis. The disease enlarges parts of the airways, which produce too much mucus. I coughed constantly, was always short of breath, and hawked up blood. My chest ached and ached. From then on, I was not like all the other children, waking up each morning, wending across the green to school. I stayed home, in my chair by the fire. My teachers visited me, but there was nothing to help disadvantaged children in those days, and my education became loose and haphazard—certainly unsupervised. Thankfully, I was very good at reading. I relied on the books sent to me from the school, as well as my very own set of Arthur Mee’s The Children’s Encyclopædia. What M&B had done for my body, Arthur Mee did for my mind. I loved the stories—Evelyn’s discovery of Grinling Gibbons in an East End workshop, Achilles and his vulnerable heel, the discovery of electricity and the properties of amber. By those encyclopedias I taught myself to knit patterned squares, the theory of music, the flags of the world, Aesop’s fables, and Roman, Greek, and Norse mythologies. I “invented” slippers from felt, with knitted uppers and elastic to keep them on, and refused to wear anything else on my feet. These books were magical and, on the occasions when I was allowed to go to school, one went with me under my arm.
The Nature of Life and Death Page 6
