‘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 superintendent 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?’