According to the Evidence

by Bernard Knight

  Leonard Atkinson, the ‘junior’ counsel, though he must have been at least fifty years of age, also felt he must contribute something to earn his conference fee. ‘But a week later, when the results from the laboratory were available, Angus Smythe sent a report to the coroner and the police, saying that he was now of the opinion that the immediate cause of death was potassium poisoning.’

  Nathan Prideaux gestured at his empty coffee cup and the silent young lady refilled it from the tall pot on her tray.

  ‘From then on, it was all downhill!’ he boomed. ‘Samuel Parker was interviewed several times by the police and two weeks later, after they had sought the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions, he was arrested and charged with murder.’

  ‘When it went before the magistrates, I tried to get bail,’ said his solicitor. ‘They refused, so he’s been on remand in Gloucester Prison since last June. He was committed for trial two months ago, where we reserved our defence.’

  The London barrister settled back with his cup of coffee.

  ‘I’ve come late to this case, Dr Pryor, so perhaps you could summarize exactly what the prosecution medical evidence amounts to – and what we can do to counter it.’

  Richard folded his hands on top of his papers, as he knew the facts by heart after hours of reading.

  ‘Dr Smythe said that he could find no immediate cause of death, such as a coronary or a pulmonary embolus. The morphine levels were substantial, but not in a lethal range. No barbiturates were present, so Pentothal could not be implicated. He admitted that advanced pancreatic cancer with multiple secondary growths were present, but analysis of blood plasma, cerebrospinal fluid and the fluid from the vitreous of the eye showed high concentrations of potassium. He considered this last one quite abnormal and could see no other explanation but that a significant quantity of a potassium compound had been administered.’

  ‘Why would Angus Smythe have taken samples from the spinal fluid and the eye fluid?’ barked the QC. ‘I can understand the use of blood samples – they are the obvious source of most analyses I’ve dealt with – but why these more exotic ones?’

  Richard automatically slipped into lecturer mode.

  ‘It’s been known for many years that blood is rapidly contaminated and altered after death, so that many substances diffuse around and their concentration bears little comparison to their level during life – especially for small molecules like sodium, chloride and potassium. However, the eye and to a lesser extent the spinal fluid are in compartments relatively isolated from other tissues and may retain the living levels more accurately.’

  The others digested this explanation in silence until Nathan Prideaux snapped another question. ‘And what do you think of his findings, doctor?’

  Richard considered this slowly, then made a careful reply. ‘Until I was asked to look into this case, I would have agreed with him, as they have been the accepted wisdom for many years. But some very recent research, which is still ongoing and published only in preliminary report form at scientific meetings, casts doubt on his opinion.’

  He paused before continuing even more carefully. ‘In addition, there is another factor, known to physiologists but perhaps not to pathologists unless, like myself, they had specifically to seek it out.’

  He then spent a quarter of an hour in laying out, in as non-medical language as he could manage for such a technical subject, why he thought Angus Smythe could be challenged.

  After a number of supplementary questions by both barristers, the leading counsel again cut to the core of the matter.

  ‘You say that one part of your hypothesis rests on very recent work, not yet published in the scientific journals. So how did you come across it, Dr Pryor?’

  ‘I recall sitting through a paper presented at an International Forensic Congress in Brussels last year, when a German researcher gave a short account of his preliminary findings. That led me to delve in what little literature there was about vitreous humour, which is the jelly-like fluid inside the eyeball.’

  The meeting in Belgium was one he had come from Singapore to attend, afterwards taking the opportunity to visit Britain to deal with his aunt’s will and to finalize legal affairs concerning his divorce. It was also the meeting where he met Angela Bray and hatched their scheme to turn Garth House into a private consultancy.

  Nathan Prideaux’s leonine features became set in a scowl.

  ‘So how are we to place your contradiction of Dr Smythe’s opinion before the court in a form strong enough to convince a jury, if there is no published data to support it?’

  Richard had anticipated this challenge and was ready with answers. ‘The first proposition is no problem, as it can be supported by well-known authoritative textbooks – and if needs be, calling established experts in physiology. The other one, which is so new as not to have percolated into the forensic literature, will need direct contact with the pioneers of this technique.’

  ‘And how do we do that, may I ask?’ demanded the QC.

  ‘With your agreement, I could contact the man I heard give the lecture in Brussels to confirm his findings and possibly to learn of others who may be following up the same line of research.’

  ‘Where is this person, d’you know?’ queried the junior counsel.

  ‘Last night I looked up the old programme from that Belgian meeting and found his name and academic affiliation. He is a Professor Wolfgang Braun from the University of Cologne in Germany.’

  ‘Presumably he speaks English, if he gave that lecture you heard,’ growled Prideaux. ‘Unless you are fluent in German, perhaps?’

  Richard grinned. ‘Not a word, I’m afraid. But Professor Braun was quite proficient in English.’

  The two barristers looked questioningly at each other.

  ‘Time is of the essence, doctor. We have only a fortnight before trial,’ said Leonard Atkinson. ‘If these foreign gentlemen have anything useful, we would have to arrange to get sworn statements made by lawyers in their home countries.’

  ‘Or even get them over here in person to give evidence,’ snapped Prideaux. ‘I think that you are going to have a busy time for the next few days, Dr Pryor.’

  The discussion went on for a time, but they all knew that they were dependent on the results of Richard’s labours if this tenuous defence ploy was to be firmed up sufficiently to be used in court.

  On the way out, Richard found himself talking to the solicitor, George Lovesey, as they went down the stairs.

  ‘Keep in touch, doctor,’ said the lawyer. ‘Every day if necessary, as time is breathing down our neck. Spend what you like on phone calls overseas, as long as you get some results!’

  As he went to his car and started the journey to Merthyr, Richard hoped that his optimism about contacting Professor Braun and getting something useful from him was justified.

  It certainly looked like a busy week ahead.

  TWELVE

  He arrived at his parents’ home in the early afternoon, to be faced with a huge cooked lunch that his mother had waiting for him. This was the usual routine for his weekend visits, Lily Pryor trying to make up for the two decades since he last lived at home. She was convinced that he had not been fed well enough through all these years, ignoring his normal wiry body, which he inherited from his equally stringy father.

  After a couple of hours’ relaxation, in which he was brought up to date with the local gossip, tea was served, with sandwiches and home-made cake. When he had recovered sufficiently to move, he was hawked off in the family Standard Vanguard to visit his widowed Aunt Emily and her spinster sister Bronwen, who lived in a terraced house in Cefn Coed a couple of miles away. Thankfully, he was only expected to have a glass of sherry and some Welsh cakes, while he was interrogated about his divorce and the prospect of getting married once again.

  He took it all in good part, as he was fond of his family. It was just as well, as he had aunts, uncles and cousins scattered all over the nearby valleys and was dragged to visit th
em in rotation whenever he came home. Later that evening he went up to his father’s golf club on a high plateau above the town and had a couple of pints with men he had known since he was a boy. Contentedly, he went to bed in his old room, with his pre-war books and toys still in cupboards and on shelves.

  He slept well, though the task of pursuing the impending murder case revolved in his mind for a time before he fell asleep and was there again when he woke late in the morning.

  A full Welsh breakfast was shaken down by a walk with his father around Cyfarthfa Park, where a Victorian castle belonging to one of the rich ironmasters was a visible reminder of the days of the industrial dominance of Merthyr Tydfil, as well as violent labour relations, squalid living conditions and epidemics of cholera and typhoid.

  He planned to set off for Tintern Parva soon after the inevitable large Sunday lunch. When this was over, he was drinking his coffee when he heard the telephone ringing in the front hall.

  As his mother went to answer it, his father smiled complacently.

  ‘I wonder how many times your mother’s done that for me?’ he asked. ‘That’s the one thing I don’t miss since giving up the practice – the damned phone dragging me out at night and weekends!’

  As if to mock him, his wife’s head came around the door. ‘It’s for you, Richard. It’s the police. They want to call you out!’

  ‘Sorry to drag you out on a Sunday, doc, but we felt we should get you to deal with this, as you are already involved.’

  Arthur Crippen sounded genuinely apologetic as once again he stood with Richard Pryor outside the small door of the barn at Ty Croes Farm. Around them were the same team, Detective Sergeant John Nichols, the coroner’s officer and one of the detective constables who had been here the previous week.

  ‘I was already in Merthyr, so I was more than halfway here,’ Richard said reassuringly.

  The sergeant pulled the small door open and went in to release the bolts of the big door and push it back, letting the late-afternoon sunshine into the cavernous building.

  The big blue Fordson Major had gone, but in its place on the floor sprawled a body. It lay on its back, the arms by its side. Richard hardly needed to look at the corpse to know the cause of death, as a shotgun lay on the concrete not far from the right hand. It also took only one step forward to discover the identity of the dead man.

  ‘Mostyn Evans! Well, well! Has this cleared up your case, Mr Crippen?’ In spite of the several thousand deaths that he had dealt with over the years, Richard always felt a little saddened at the loss of a life, whatever the circumstances.

  ‘He left a note, doctor,’ said the detective inspector. ‘In fact, he left several notes. Will you have a look at him first?’

  Richard went to crouch alongside the corpse, which was fully dressed in the same clothes as Mostyn had worn at his last interview. Under the chin was a narrow smear of soot around a central hole the size of a shilling piece. At one edge he saw a reddish-brown rim extending about halfway around the hole, where skin had been forced up against the muzzle by the expanding gas beneath. There was an ooze of blood and tissue from the wound, but for a shotgun blast the external damage was relatively slight.

  ‘That gun is a four-ten, I assume?’ he asked, looking up at the officers standing nearby.

  Arthur Crippen nodded. ‘Yes, with a single barrel. The typical farmer’s rabbit and rat gun, but it seems to have done the job well enough.’ The four-ten was the smaller of the two types of shotguns found on farms, the twelve-bore being its big brother.

  Richard felt the forehead and hands of Mostyn Evans. They were cold, but the armpit still had some warmth. When he tentatively moved the elbow and knee joints, he could feel stiffness developing.

  ‘Do we know when this happened?

  John Nichols answered. ‘Almost to the minute, doc. Jeff Morton heard a gunshot just after midday. That’s why the body was found so quickly, as he came straight down to investigate. No one else would have been out shooting on the farm today.’

  The pathologist still squatted, looking at the body. The face was quite peaceful, the eyes closed, though he knew well enough that it did not reflect the state of mind at death. Crime novelists’ lurid descriptions of ‘features contorted in fear’ always exasperated him.

  ‘Where did the gun come from?’ he asked.

  ‘It was his own, though there are several other shotguns locked up at the farm,’ said the sergeant.

  Richard got to his feet and faced the detectives. ‘How much do you want to do about this? Are you treating it as suspicious, with the full works, like calling the Cardiff lab out?’

  Crippen looked undecided. ‘Given the gist of the suicide note, I can’t see the point. I know there was another murder in exactly the same spot, but surely this clears it up. It’s beyond belief that anyone else could be involved in both of them.’

  ‘You’d like a post-mortem straight away, I expect? I’ve got a busy week ahead of me. I’d rather not have to come all the way back here tomorrow. Is it possible to use the mortuary in Brecon on a Sunday?’

  ‘No reason why not, doctor,’ said Billy Brown. ‘I can get the key from the hospital lodge. There’s no attendant anyway; the porters look after the place.’

  Crippen turned to his sergeant. ‘Just to be on the safe side, we’ll take the gun for fingerprints and lock this place up until tomorrow.’

  The detective constable who was acting as exhibits officer fetched a new brown-paper sack from his van and put on a pair of rubber gloves. He bent down to carefully lift the shotgun and for safety’s sake opened the breech. He checked to make sure the cartridge inside had been fired by looking at the pin impression on the base.

  ‘Stinks, sir. Not long since it was fired,’ he reported.

  Richard stepped nearer. ‘Before you bag it, can someone measure the distance between the muzzle and the trigger?’

  As Billy Brown went to the van to fetch a tape measure, Richard explained that it was best to check that Mostyn Evans’ arm was long enough to fire the gun after it had been placed against his own neck.

  ‘I’ve seen people use lengths of wood or even complicated bits of string to pull the trigger, when the barrel was too long, but there’s nothing like that lying around here.’

  The coroner’s officer measured the distance Richard wanted, the DC recording it in his notebook. After the weapon had been safely packed, there was little to do except wait for the duty undertaker to come out from Brecon in response to a radio message from the police car.

  Arthur Crippen and the sergeant retreated to the other side of the yard for their inevitable smoke, while the inspector explained to Richard Pryor what had been in the notes.

  ‘He left three envelopes on the ground, a few feet away,’ he explained. ‘Two were addressed to his son and his nephew and were very personal, as well as talking about his will and the farm finances. The other one was for me and the coroner.’

  ‘He seemed very well organized,’ observed Richard. ‘Makes a bit of nonsense about the usual suicide verdicts at inquest, when they say “while the balance of his mind was disturbed”!’

  ‘I agree. He seemed very calm and calculating about the whole affair,’ said the detective inspector. ‘It was quite a detailed note, but the gist of it was that he didn’t want any further suspicion to fall on anyone else.’

  ‘I think your veiled threats about one of the family possibly facing the gallows made up his mind to end the investigation,’ commented his sergeant. Arthur nodded, sending his half-smoked cigarette spinning over the fence.

  ‘He also told us that he was suffering from prostate cancer, and his doctor had told him he wouldn’t last another year. The family didn’t know, as he had refused any treatment.’

  ‘So did he actually say that he’d killed Tom Littleman?’ asked Richard.

  ‘He described it in some detail!’ replied the DI. ‘He found out about the man’s sexual adventures last week, when he came across his daughter-in-law crying
in the house one day. She confessed to having allowed him to seduce her, though he’d dumped her by then. She was dead scared that her husband would find out.’

  ‘So what did he do about it?’

  ‘He wrote that he wanted to keep it from the others at the farm, so he waited until he knew his son and nephew had gone off to their NFU meeting, then went down to where Littleman was putting in his overtime to finish that tractor. He was in a rage to start with, but he says that the mechanic told him to piss off and mind his own business.’

  ‘Not the right thing to say to a big bloke like Mostyn,’ said John Nichols with a wry smile.

  ‘No, especially when the silly bugger boasted that not only had he been knocking off Betsan but Rhian as well,’ growled Crippen. ‘Mostyn says in his letter that he was already in a high temper and that made him lose it altogether. He grabbed Littleman around the throat to give him a good shaking before he “punched the lights out of him”, as he described it. But the fellow immediately went limp on him and dropped to the ground, stone dead!’

  ‘Is that possible, doctor?’ asked the sergeant. ‘I thought they struggled for a time and went blue in the face and all that!’

  Richard shook his head. ‘That’s only if the air supply is cut off first. It’s well known that in some cases a sudden pressure on the arteries at the side of the neck can stop the heart instantaneously. Squeezing the neck, even in fun, is a dangerous thing to do.’

  ‘So it could have been a manslaughter rather than a murder?’ suggested Crippen.

  ‘Sure, the defence would certainly plead that, and I’d have to agree with them about the mechanism of death. It makes it less premeditated than squeezing for five minutes with the victim’s eyes popping and the tongue sticking out!’