Grounds for Appeal

by Bernard Knight

  ‘Do we believe in these two mystery men from Birmingham?’ asked Meirion.

  His sergeant pointed out that the head had been found a hundred miles away, so perhaps Beran’s claim to have been in Cardiganshire when the killing took place, possibly had some validity. ‘And we should be able to trace police and fire service records if a Merc was burned out between here and the Midlands around that time.’

  They kicked the evidence around for a time, until Meirion decided he had better go and tell David John Jones what had taken place.

  ‘It’s up to the brass to decide what happens next – especially who runs this prosecution, us or your lot, Trevor?

  Hartnell pondered this for a moment. ‘I’ll be ringing my boss in a minute, but I think it has to be a Birmingham case from here on. You’ve got an unlawful burial, but it looks as if the murder was in our patch.’

  The local DI nodded his agreement. ‘I’m sure you’re right, and it’s not our problem. But who the hell strangled him? Beran seems to have been down here, so either the two hoods who brought the corpse killed him – or even Mickey Doyle himself.’

  ‘And until Spain signs an extradition treaty, we’ve not got a snowball’s chance in hell of finding out,’ said Trevor Hartnell with an air of finality.

  TWENTY-ONE

  After the first few days of January had come and gone, it felt in Garth House as if the festive season had never been. A faint air of anticlimax hovered over the staff as they settled down to pick up their routines.

  Sian’s microscope sections of the heart in the ‘road rage’ dispute had allowed Richard to confirm his previous suppositions. The thrombus in the coronary artery was seen to be at least several days’ old, certainly well before the incident with the truck. This fitted with the suggestive results of the TTC experiment that there was infarction of the heart muscle, tissue damage which had to be well in excess of the one-hour interval between the altercation on the road and the time of death. Having explained all this to the Hereford coroner, that worthy was able to placate the relatives sufficiently for them to abandon their intention to bring a legal action against the other driver.

  Angela and Richard had two other matters coming up for their attention. In a few days, they would be going to the Royal Courts of Justice for the Millie Wilson Appeal – and soon after that, they were to investigate the intriguing case of the vintner’s Prodigal Son.

  On the tenth of the month, they found themselves at Newport railway station, waiting for the Red Dragon express to Paddington. Jimmy had driven them down in the Humber, as they would be staying in London for at least one night, depending on how the case went.

  When the train thundered in behind the famous Caerphilly Castle engine, they found their seats in a First Class carriage, booked by the ever-efficient Moira.

  There were four other people in the compartment, so they were unable to talk shop. Richard was in one of his restless, expansive moods that Angela was coming to recognize. She thought he was like a big schoolboy, excited at a journey by train to ‘the big city’.

  ‘This is getting to become a habit, buzzing off together to London for the night,’ he whispered. A few months earlier, they had gone up to deal with an exhumation for the War Office at the military hospital on Millbank.

  ‘We’re becoming creatures of habit,’ she responded. ‘Just like last time, I’m going to haunt Bond Street this afternoon, while you go to hit the library again at the Royal Society of Medicine!’

  He grinned at her. ‘But we can’t go to see The Mousetrap this evening, because we did that last time.’

  ‘No, but you can treat me to a meal at a decent restaurant,’ she countered. ‘Then we’d better go back to the hotel and swot up our reports ready for tomorrow.’

  Richard groaned. ‘I’ve been through them so often, I could recite them by heart! But you’re right, we have to do our best for poor Millie. We only get one shot at this.’

  A few minutes later, the train plunged into the Severn Tunnel, the longest in Britain, and he felt Angela shudder.

  ‘I hate tunnels,’ she murmured. ‘I always feel as if I’m being buried alive.’

  He felt a sudden urge to hold her hand until they emerged into daylight again, but the presence of other passengers inhibited him. Before they reached Swindon, he suggested coffee in the dining car, partly to be able to talk without being overheard. As they sat facing each other across a table, they discussed recent cases and the personalities in their little world of the Wye Valley.

  ‘Moira seems dead set on this law thing,’ observed Angela. ‘I don’t know how we’ll manage without her, but I’m glad she’s found something to aim for. She’s too young to just moulder away as a lonely widow.’

  ‘I’m making enquiries at the universities in Cardiff and Bristol, to see what’s on offer for someone like her,’ he replied. ‘She got good results years ago with her School Certificate and says she has her double-matric, so there shouldn’t be any problem in qualifying for admission. Getting some financial help would be the thing – there must be bursaries and scholarships for mature students.’

  Angela smiled. ‘We’re like a couple of earnest parents, trying to do the best for our children!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ll be getting Sian to do a doctorate soon!’

  ‘Not just yet, though she’s damned good at chemistry. In fact, I’m hoping to get us some work from that private clinic in Newport. They often want blood sugars, ureas, glucose tolerance tests and other clinical stuff. Sian could do those standing on her head, if we get the kit for her.’

  Again she smiled at his enthusiasm. ‘Who’s left for you to help up the ladder, Richard? Perhaps you could send Jimmy on an Advanced Driving Course – or perhaps over to Burgundy to learn viniculture!’

  ‘More likely he’d want to go to Evesham to learn how to grow bigger strawberries!’ said her partner ruefully. ‘Talking of viniculture, are we all set to go down to Chateau Dumas next week?’

  Angela set down her GWR coffee cup and nodded. ‘All I need to take are some syringes, needles and oxalate tubes. A sample each from father, mother and the alleged son.’

  ‘Just as well you don’t need one from Victor Dumas. He’d probably chuck your syringe over the nearest hedge!’

  ‘It’s such a shame that this has caused such a rift in the family,’ she said sadly. ‘Madame told me that the presumed son from Canada is adamant that he doesn’t want any part of the inheritance. He says he has a good job and his foster parents in Montreal have told him that he will be their heir.’

  Richard sighed at what seemed an intractable problem.

  ‘Obviously Victor doesn’t believe that. It has to be said that some confidence tricksters are very clever at covering all the angles.’

  Angela poured more coffee for them from the pot on the tray, as their conversation drifted to other things.

  ‘Priscilla looked very happy with her new job,’ she observed. ‘I’ll bet she has half the red-blooded men in the university chasing her by now.’

  ‘Only half? Everyone from the Vice-Chancellor down will be setting their caps at her.’

  Priscilla Chambers had called in at Garth House the previous week, on her way back to Aberystwyth from spending Christmas with her parents in Oxford. Breezing in from her MG roadster, she was her usual lively, flirtatious self as she hugged and kissed everyone and handed out belated Christmas presents. She reported that she was getting on famously with Eva Boross and that they had already started on the excavation of the ancient monastery up in the hills.

  ‘I’m glad she’s happy there,’ said Richard. ‘I must have a drive up to Aberystwyth one day and see how she’s getting on,’ he added mischievously.

  Angela eyed him suspiciously. ‘Down boy!’ she said sternly. ‘Priscilla would eat you alive. Talking of Aberystwyth, have you heard if there’s been any progress on the bog investigation?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not since before Christmas. I must give DI Thomas a ring when we get back. That’s the
trouble with being a pathologist, you do your bit at the post-mortem, then everything goes quiet until the trial. And if they don’t charge anyone, then often that’s the last you ever hear of it.’

  Angela agreed. ‘Same with many of our science cases. I used to learn more from the Daily Telegraph than I did from the police.’

  ‘Not like it is in detective novels and films! If you believed those, you’d think that it was the doctors who solved all the cases, not the coppers who do all the leg work.’

  The train slowed for Swindon and they went back to the compartment to reclaim their seats. Angela turned to her Vogue magazine, anticipating seeing the real thing that afternoon in the famous shops of the West End. Richard knew how keen she was on fashion and wondered again how she managed to dress so elegantly on her salary, especially since she had left the security of the public service for the more uncertain rewards of private enterprise. He strongly suspected that her well-heeled family subsidized the contents of the expensive-looking carrier bags that she carried when she returned from her shopping expeditions.

  When the train steamed into Paddington station, Richard carried their overnight cases into the Great Western Hotel through the entrance at the top of the platform and booked them in at the desk.

  ‘Here were are again, ready for another night of unbridled passion!’ he said facetiously as they went up in the lift.

  His partner regarded him coolly, used to his flights of fancy. ‘Sure, Richard! You can have your unbridled passion in Room 321 and I’ll have mine in Room 334.’

  Next morning, they caught the Circle Line from Paddington to the Temple and walked up Arundel Street to the Strand. The huge Victorian-Gothic extravaganza of the Royal Courts of Justice loomed in front of them and they plunged under the great entrance arch into the cold magnificence of the main hall, more like a cathedral than a court of law. It was Richard’s first visit, as he had never worked in London, but Angela had been there several times during her years at the Met Lab, though her usual stamping ground had been in the criminal courts of the Old Bailey.

  She led him to the row of varnished notice boards in the centre, where the Order Papers for the day were pinned up.

  ‘Better see which court we’re in,’ she advised. ‘There are over a thousand rooms in this place!’

  A search of the Order Papers told them that the Court of Criminal Appeal was hearing the case of Millicent Agnes Wilson in Court Six and after following the signs, they climbed a twisting stone stairway to a gallery that ran around the great hall at first-floor level.

  Though the ground floor was milling with people, up here it was quiet, almost sepulchral. Everything seemed to be either gloomy grey stone or dark oak. The entrances to the courts were panelled doors leading into small vestibules, with an inner door opening into the court proper.

  ‘Here’s Number Six, but no one seems to be about,’ said Richard. ‘It’s ten to ten, so we’re in plenty of time.’

  ‘Let’s have a look inside,’ suggested Angela, looking very smart and businesslike in a slim charcoal-grey suit over a white blouse. They went into the cramped vestibule and looked through a window in the inner door. The three Appeal judges were not yet on their high bench, but a group of bewigged barristers, dark-suited solicitors and black-gowned ushers were standing around the front of the court.

  ‘There’s Douglas Bailey and Penelope Forbes,’ observed Richard, pointing at the Bristol solicitor and the junior counsel. They moved into the back of the court and very soon Bailey saw them and came hurrying across to greet them.

  ‘Good to see you both. We’re going to be running a little late, I’m afraid, a lot of legal wrangling to be endured.’ He looked worried and slightly abstracted as he spoke.

  ‘Are there problems?’ asked Richard.

  ‘Some procedural issues about admissibility of evidence. I hope we can get it sorted out, but I suggest you pop down to the refreshment room for half an hour, to save waiting too long in this mausoleum.’

  Angela knew the way and they went back down the stairs and out through a passage at the back of the main hall, following signs to a rather spartan cafe in the bowels of the building. Richard brought a couple of cups of indifferent coffee from the counter and they sat at a Formica-covered table to spend thirty minutes in these uninspiring surroundings at the heart of the British judicial system.

  ‘Bailey didn’t seem all that optimistic, did he?’ said Angela, pushing aside her half-empty cup with a moue of distaste. ‘I wonder what the problem can be?’

  Richard was uncharacteristically cynical. ‘Probably the lawyers spinning it out to increase their fees. They get paid piecework, so the longer it lasts, the more “refreshers” they get.’

  When the half hour was up, they made their way back up to the court, to find an usher waiting for them.

  ‘Mr Bailey asks if you would mind waiting outside here, please. Their lordships are sitting now, hearing legal arguments.’

  He directed them to a bench outside the court, on the cloistered corridor that looked down at the floor of the great hall below. Like all the woodwork, the seat looked as if it had been there since the place was built eighty years earlier.

  They waited patiently for an hour, Richard eventually getting restive, as the hard oak was becoming unkind to his backside. Both of them were free from any stage fright at appearing before Lords of Appeal, as they had been too long in the business of giving expert evidence to be at all nervous, but the delay was proving irksome.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ said Richard, as he stood to walk up and down the corridor, partly to bring back the circulation into his thighs. On the second circuit, his question was answered, as Douglas Bailey and Penelope Forbes came out of the courtroom to speak to them. Both looked despondent, though the woman looked angry as well.

  ‘Big problem, I’m afraid,’ growled Bailey. ‘It looks as if we’ve brought you up to London for nothing!’

  Richard stared at him in surprise. ‘You mean you’re not going to call us? Has there been an adjournment?’

  Miss Forbes shook her head. ‘More than that, I’m sorry to say. Their Lordships, in their wisdom, have decided that they will not hear your evidence. Not today, not ever, unless we manage to get another Appeal sometime in the future!’

  Angela was indignant, in her usual dignified way.

  ‘But that’s outrageous! This Appeal was Millie’s only hope. Why on earth have they refused to listen to us?’

  Before the barrister could reply, the court door swung open and a very angry Paul Marchmont strode out. He was red in the face and his hair was dishevelled as he tore off his wig. Advancing on them, he began apologizing profusely.

  ‘I’m so sorry, doctors! Both for you and poor Millicent Wilson! Those silly old fools in there should be retired, before they do any more legal damage!’

  Though Marchmont was known as a bit of a rebel, this was strong language even for him.

  ‘So what’s happened?’ asked Richard, perturbed that all his hard work seemed to have been in vain.

  ‘The three wise monkeys in there declared that this was an Appeal, not a retrial. Their argument, from which I could not budge them, was that your opinions could have been given at the original trial and is therefore not new evidence.’

  ‘But we were not involved at the trial,’ protested Angela. ‘We’d never even heard of Millie Wilson then.’

  The QC threw up his hands in disgust. ‘I know, but this has happened before. The judges take such a narrow view of things and stick like glue to the rules. I tried to preach the “natural justice” sermon to them, but they were not impressed. Obviously, they had made up their minds not to hear you before we’d even started.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why our evidence was not good enough for them,’ persisted Angela stubbornly.

  Marchmont waved his arms about in denial.

  ‘My dear lady, it was first class! Their blinkered argument was that as you are not putting forward any new disco
veries made since last year, the same evidence could have been offered at the trial, either by you or by some other competent forensic experts. I could not deny to their lordships that all you have so diligently put forward in your excellent reports was available knowledge last year. The judges said that the fact that it was not so offered was the fault of the defence team and that was not a factor that concerned them.’

  Richard was becoming as exasperated as the senior counsel.

  ‘So Millie will have to spend God knows how many years in prison because of some technicality seized upon by three elderly judges? Is there nothing that can be done for her?’

  Marchmont mopped his brow with a flowing white handkerchief before settling his wig back on his head.

  ‘After their lordships have lunched, I’ll try to nit-pick a few points in the trial proceedings, but I know it will be futile. The success rate in criminal Appeals is abysmally low, as the judges’ mafia stick together and the Lords of Appeal fall over backwards not to find any fault with the way their brothers in the lower courts conduct their business.’

  With more profuse apologies and commiserations – and a reassurance that all expert witness fees and expenses would be met – the lawyers left them to make their way out of the vast building. Richard was still seething with indignation at having done all that work in vain, but Angela was more concerned with their inability to have helped Millicent Wilson.

  ‘The poor woman will be devastated,’ she said, as they walked out into the Strand. ‘I don’t envy Douglas Bailey for having to break the news to her.’

  In the open air, away from the inimical atmosphere of the courts, Richard’s mercurial temperament took an upswing.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and have a nice lunch somewhere, then get to Paddington and head back to civilization in Wales.’

  Next morning at coffee in the staff room, they had to relate every detail of their abortive trip to Sian and Moira, who were equally incensed by the outcome.