The Thread of Evidence

by Bernard Knight

  ‘What exactly is going on in there, chaps?’ asked Gerry in the hail-fellow-well-met manner that came so easily to him. ‘From the entrance, it looks a real shambles!’

  One of the policemen, brought by the CID to help with the manual work, pulled himself up and mopped his forehead, still sweating from his spell of excavating at the bottom of the shaft.

  ‘Well, Doctor, our shift – that’s us three – spent all our time just moving damn great stones from a heap and stacking them back along the passage. I don’t know what the other boys are doing in there at the moment.’

  Another of the constables spoke up.

  ‘Hardly room to move in there, what with three of us, the superintendent, two inspectors and a sergeant – not to mention the photographer.’

  ‘About ninety per cent policemen and ten per cent air, eh?’ Gerry was addicted to facetious comments – in contrast to his more serious-minded brother, who was rather dour in his speech.

  ‘What’s been found so far?’ asked Peter, his mind on the Morning News.

  The police officer appeared to have read his thoughts. ‘I really couldn’t say, sir,’ he replied evasively. ‘But I think Superintendent Pacey picked up a few things.’ Peter looked away from the mine entrance up to the crest of the grassy slopes above them. Here PC Griffith stood yawning after his night’s vigil, keeping a small group of curious sightseers at bay.

  ‘Wonderful where they come from, isn’t it?’ said one of the constables, following his gaze. ‘If you had a corpse in the middle of the Sahara, there’d be a crowd of damn rubbernecks there inside ten minutes!’

  Peter agreed fervently. ‘It beats me how they knew about this in the village last night. Dash it, not two hours after we left here, I called in the pub, and they told me more about the affair than I knew myself!’

  David gave a short laugh, tinged with annoyance.

  ‘It’s that ruddy woman in the post office – she knows the medical history of most of my patients better than I do myself.’

  A thoughtful expression came into Peter’s face.

  ‘Talking of this, there was some funny backchat in the Lamb about my uncle and these remains. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. But when I mentioned it to old Roland, he acted most oddly. He’s not right even this morning – won’t say anything – but I can tell that he’s upset. Have you any ideas, Gerry? You’ve got your fingers on the local pulses – in more ways than one.’

  The younger of the doctor brothers looked blankly at Peter.

  ‘Sorry, not the faintest. But the gang that get into the Lamb of a night have always got some damn silly yarn to spin.’

  ‘What about you, David. Any idea what the mystery is?’

  David shook his head. He dropped his gaze and began fumbling with a cigarette.

  ‘No – no, I’ve no idea, I’m sorry,’ he said rather shortly.

  Before Peter had time to speculate on the lack of conviction in the doctor’s voice, there was a crunching of boots from inside the entrance of the shaft. A figure emerged blinking into the morning sunlight.

  He was a thickset man, with a bull neck and shoulders like a wrestler. Though actually quite tall, his barrel-like body seemed to take inches off his height.

  Peter had met him when he had asked permission to come up at eight o’clock; and he was able to introduce him to the Ellis-Morgan brothers as Detective-Superintendent Pacey, the CID officer in charge of the investigation.

  Gerry immediately taxed him with one of his flippant remarks.

  ‘What’s going on down at the jaws of hell, there, Super?’

  Charles Pacey rubbed a handkerchief over his chubby face to remove the sweat and mud splashes.

  ‘Looks like Hades too, Doc,’ he said cheerfully, ‘Still, the boys have done well; they’ve moved all the big rock already. It’s just a question of scratching through the rubble and sieving some of it now.’

  Pacey had a strong Welsh accent, but of the South Wales valleys, not the Cardigan twang. His bass voice suited his burly shape to perfection. He turned to the three men still sitting on the grass.

  ‘Give them another quarter of an hour, then go in and let ’em have a break. OK?’

  ‘But what have you found, Super?’ persisted Gerald.

  The detective grinned at him and deliberately prolonged the suspense.

  ‘If you’re Dr Gerald Ellis-Morgan, then you must be our police surgeon, sir.’

  Gerry shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

  ‘I am, in theory. But, in practice, it means that I have a look at a couple of drunks every year, that’s all.’

  Pacey beamed. Peter thought that his outward good humour was an effective way of covering his dealings with any unwary suspect. Beneath the benign ‘farmer’s boy’ manner, the journalist sensed a flinty shrewdness.

  ‘Well, here’s your chance, Doc!’ went on the detective. ‘You can have first crack at this lot.’

  He waved a ham-like hand at the entrance, where another raincoated figure was emerging, his arms full of polythene bags.

  ‘Bring ’em over here, Willie,’ Pacey said to his colleague – a tall, emaciated detective-inspector.

  Willie Rees carried his load over to the spot that Pacey had pointed out and dumped them at the side of a photographer’s holdall and a large wicker pannier, which stood on the grass.

  The superintendent took a large plastic sheet from the pannier, which was the ‘Major Incident’ box of the CID. It contained all sorts of bags and bottles, protective sheets and gadgets that could prove useful at the scene of a crime.

  ‘We’ll spread the stuff out on this, Willie. Now, Doctor, could you tell me something about this little lot?’

  Pacey crouched by the sheet and spread the plastic bags on it. Each one had a luggage label tied around the neck, recording the exact site where the contents had been found. As he began undoing the strings on the bags, the others clustered around to get a good view.

  Pacey suddenly twisted his head around to look at Peter.

  ‘Mr Adams, I’m sure you’ll remember your promise and not write anything for your paper without asking me first, eh?’

  Peter agreed readily. He was too grateful for the chance of being present at all, to abuse his privilege. He watched the superintendent slide some brown fragments from the first bag.

  ‘What about this, Doc?’ the big man asked heartily.

  There appeared to Peter to be several chunky pieces, and a few thin curved bones which even he recognized as ribs. Gerald picked up some bits, and David took the rest:

  ‘These are vertebrae – bits of the spinal column,’ pronounced the younger brother. ‘My God, they look old to me! I wonder if we’ve got another Piltdown Man?’

  ‘In a lead mine?’ Pacey countered sweetly.

  David was seriously staring at all sides of the bits which he had taken. ‘These are ribs and a broken shoulder blade. Heaven only knows what the small bits belong to – could be fingers, I suppose.’

  Peter thought again how like the father David was. His small eyes flickered behind his spectacles, and he had the same pointed chin that stuck out rather aggressively. David was two years older than his brother, and, in his thirty-four years, had picked up many of John Ellis-Morgan’s mannerisms.

  Pacey looked up at David, squinting into the sun. ‘So they are all human, without a doubt?’

  ‘All the big pieces, certainly. I can’t vouch for the scraps, though I should think that they are fragments knocked off the larger bones.’

  The detective went carefully through the six bags of bones, showing the contents to the doctors and putting them back gently into their labelled containers.

  ‘We’ve got a sketch plan of where all these were found, Willie, haven’t we?’

  The thin, nervous-looking inspector wagged his head.

  ‘Yes, and photographs of each zone marked out on the floor.’

  ‘Don’t suppose it’ll matter a damn, anyway,’ Pacey said happily

  ‘W
hat’s this zone business, Superintendent?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Oh, just a rough guide to record where each exhibit came from on the floor of the shaft. There’s been such a devil of a fall of roof in there that it will bear no resemblance to the original position of the skeleton. But we’d better do it, just in case, I suppose.’

  David and Gerald gave their opinion on as many of the bones as they could recognize and then abandoned the attempt. Pacey hauled himself elephantinely to his feet. Peter was struck by his resemblance in size to Ceri Lloyd, though his bulk looked all muscle instead of fat.

  ‘Now then, gentlemen, can I have a couple of answers. First, this is a human skeleton – right?’

  David looked seriously at the detective.

  ‘Well, part of one, to be accurate.’

  ‘How much is missing?’

  ‘We’ve got no skull. And no legs below the knees.’ said Gerry.

  Pacey pulled his ear – a movement which Peter soon came to recognize as sign of deep thought on the superintendent’s part.

  ‘Well, there’s quite a bit of. stuff still to be sorted through.’ He swung around to the resting policemen.

  ‘Better get in there now, lads, and give the others a breather.’

  As the men trooped into the dark hole, Pacey carried on with his questions.

  ‘The next thing is – how many bodies?’

  David’s eyebrows went up. ‘How many? One, of course!’

  Pacey beamed again. Peter felt that if the big man were an executioner, he would smile as he sprung the trap.

  ‘With respect, Doc, it isn’t “of course”. Are there any bones duplicated – have I got to look for the owners of one body – or two?’

  David looked at Gerald for support.

  ‘What d’you think, Gerry – were there too many of anything?’

  ‘The bits are in such a tatty state that only an anatomist could be certain – it must be as old as hell!’ Gerald seemed to be determined to push the deceased back at least into the Middle Ages.

  ‘Right, then – next question. Male or female?’

  Again the two practitioners looked doubtfully at one another.

  ‘The pelvis – the hip bones – seem to be here, answered David. But they’re smashed in pieces.’

  ‘And there’s no skull – so the two main parts for sexing it are missing,’ added his brother.

  David stood staring at the heap of plastic bags.

  ‘What about it, Gerry? You’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of being right.’

  ‘And an equal chance of making a fool of myself, too. Still, Dad said that he’d stuck his neck out last night and called it female, so we may as well back him up.’

  David nodded his agreement and pushed his horn-rims back up his nose. Peter was reminded yet again of Ellis-Morgan senior.

  Pacey peeled off his mud-spattered mackintosh to display a blue pinstriped suit.

  ‘Too damn hot in that! Now, sirs, you’re doing very well,’ he complimented them. ‘Ready for the jackpot question? How old is she? And how long has she been in there?’

  David threw up his hands in mock horror.

  ‘Would you like her name as well, Mr Pacey? You’ll have to get your pathologist to answer that one – and good luck to him!’

  ‘Has it been there six months, six years, or six hundred?’ Pacey persisted gently.

  ‘Certainly not the first two!’ Gerald snapped, with professional indignation.

  ‘No, I agree,’ said his more-cautious brother. ‘But I think the last one – six hundred – a bit much.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Why not?’ demanded Gerald.

  ‘Because it would hardly be in the lead mine, if it was that old,’ cut in Peter.

  ‘Ah, that’s cheating – I meant from the medical point of view,’ replied Gerry.

  ‘I don’t give a damn how we find out,’ said Pacey. ‘If that’s a good enough reason for scrubbing out the six hundred, fair enough. What about sixty instead?’

  David shrugged. ‘No good asking me, Superintendent, I haven’t a clue – coughs and bellyache are my line of medicine.’

  Pacey doggedly produced more questions. ‘Any idea how old she was?’

  Gerald Ellis-Morgan hooted scornfully.

  ‘You’ve been watching too much television, Mr Pacey. The sort of programmes where the doctor feels the head of the corpse and says “He died at midnight – three weeks, last Friday.”!’

  Pacey grinned even wider.

  ‘I know the sort of thing you mean. They get me hopping mad, too. But I thought there might be something obvious that might give a lead to the age of the bones.’

  ‘But surely, you’re going to get somebody really expert to look at the stuff, aren’t you?’ asked David, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

  ‘Oh yes. But, as you were here, I thought I’d get a bit of advance information.’

  ‘Who’s going to be the expert?’ Gerald asked curiously.

  ‘Professor Leighton Powell – from the medical school at Swansea.’

  ‘Who’s he – I seem to have heard the name?’ Gerry had qualified in London and knew less about the local pundits than did his brother, who had trained in Wales.

  ‘He’s the Professor of Forensic Medicine and the local Home Office pathologist. I’ve heard him lecture.’

  ‘He should be up later this morning,’ explained Pacey.

  ‘Well, David and I have shot our forensic bolt – so you’ll have to leave your questions for him. And even the great experts will have their work cut out to learn much from this collection of antiques!’ Gerald jerked a thumb at the heap of pathetic remains on the ground.

  David looked pointedly at his wristwatch.

  ‘Gerry, we’ve a day’s work ahead of us, so we’d better get moving. Thanks for letting us see the stuff, Superintendent.’

  Pacey thanked them in turn for their help and they set off across the turf towards the path down to Carmel House.

  Before following them, Peter Adams turned to Pacey.

  ‘Can I send just a few words off to my paper? I’m supposed to be on holiday. But, being on the spot like this, it is too much of a temptation.’

  Charles Pacey looked blandly at the tall journalist.

  ‘Very well, but just make it a short statement of the facts, will you. Nothing about the saw cut yet. And no fancy stuff about country-wide manhunts and imminent arrests!’

  Peter hurried after the two brothers, being intent on telephoning the Morning News offices and scrounging a cup of coffee from his fiancée.

  The detective-superintendent turned back to his lanky assistant. Willie Rees, although tall, had the advantage of not looking like a policeman. He could dissolve into any crowded place without arousing the suspicions of the most watchful crook.

  ‘We’d better get back into that damn hole, Willie – here’s the other shift coming out.’

  Another trio of perspiring diggers trudged out of the entrance, to have a well-earned rest outside.

  ‘Keep an eye on that lot of Nosy Parkers,’ advised Pacey, pointing to the skyline where Griffith still kept a dozen snoopers at bay.

  He stooped and plunged into the dark shaft, fumbling a torch from his pocket as he entered. With Rees close behind him, he shuffled down to the far end of the tunnel.

  Inspector Morris, the uniformed man from Aberystwyth, was directing the efforts of the excavators. A detective-sergeant was waiting to take charge of any more finds; and a police photographer stood ready with his flash-camera at one side.

  ‘Well done, Morris, not much left now,’ said Pacey.

  Morris, dressed in a suit of dungarees, shone his hand lamp on the side wall of the shaft.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder what that is up there,’ he said.

  Pacey picked up another powerful electric lamp from the floor and directed it at the wall.

  ‘You mean that shelf affair up there?’

  ‘Yes, it’s right up against the old working face – lo
oks as if they started to cut a side gallery, then gave it up.’ Pacey saw that about six feet from the ground, there was a rough ledge running back from the blind end of the working for a few yards. It was covered with loose stones; and, above it, the beam of the light vanished into a black cavern in the roof.

  ‘I’m wondering if these bones might have been on that ledge originally,’ suggested Morris. He was an oldish man, humourless and severe, although quite an efficient officer, as far as Pacey knew.

  The superintendent looked hard at the shelf.

  ‘Yes, could quite well have been,’ he agreed. ‘And that fall of roof might have swept it off onto the floor, eh?’ Rees waggled his own torch to draw attention to the rocks which lay on the nearer end of the ledge.

  ‘Those stones look as if they’ve been stacked there deliberately. They’re covered in slime – not like the ones that have fallen out of the roof.’

  Pacey looked closely and saw that half a dozen big stones were stacked tidily at the end of the ledge, like bricks in a wall.

  ‘Nip up and have a look, Willie. You’re the tallest. Get on Edward’s back.’

  The inspector hoisted himself onto the shoulders of one of the more burly constables and peered over the barrier of stones on the shelf, his head up in the cavity in the roof.

  ‘Have a few of these big ’uns down there, will you.’ He passed a few large rocks down to waiting hands and thrust his hand lamp over the rubble.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘Ugh! For Christ’s sake, let me down!’

  Willie Rees slid to the floor more quickly than he had gone up. Even in the poor light, his face could be seen to be paler than usual.

  ‘What’s up there?’ demanded the detective-superintendent.

  ‘At one end there’s a head – a skull, rather. And, down the bottom, there’s a pair of legs with sort of waxy flesh on them and the bones sticking up out of the middle, They look bloody horrible!’ His lips pulled back in an expression of revulsion.

  Pacey turned a satisfied face to the dour Morris.

  ‘You were dead right, then. That’s where it came from.’

  The constable who had supported Rees offered to climb up and get the remains from the ledge.