Before his wandering thoughts developed into fantasies, he found that they were already in the suburbs of Bristol and had to concentrate on navigating through the big city to reach the centre. Most barristers had their chambers in or around Short Street, an aptly named lane in the oldest part of the city, near the remnants of the medieval town wall. The Assize Courts were halfway along the street, providing lawyers with the minimum of exercise to get to their trials. Richard had no chance of parking in Short Street, but eventually found a space not too far away.
‘Traffic is becoming impossible in this country,’ he grumbled, as he manoeuvred the bulky car into a narrow space. ‘I can’t imagine what it will be like in fifty years’ time!’
‘I read that Winston Churchill wanted to pave over Horse Guards Parade and The Mall for parking places,’ said Angela, as they got of the car. ‘But there is some scheme to fit coin-operated parking clocks in London in the next couple of years.’
They followed the directions given by Douglas Bailey and found the chambers in a narrow alley alongside the court buildings. In the rather dingy entrance, a long hand-painted plaque on the wall gave the names of the resident barristers in pecking order of seniority. A third of the way up, they saw the name of Miss Penelope Forbes, the only woman on the list.
Inside, a stoop-shouldered clerk took them upstairs and along a corridor to a small room, where Miss Forbes had her office. She rose to meet them from behind a paper-strewn desk which filled almost half the room. Douglas Bailey was already there and he pulled forward two hard chairs for them. After introductions and hand shakes, they all sat down, giving Richard time to look at the barrister who would appear for Millie when she assisted her leader, a Queen’s Counsel.
Penelope Forbes was a tall, thin woman of about forty-five, with rimless spectacles and prematurely greying hair pulled back into a severe bun on the back of her head. Angela thought she looked very tired, but had a pleasant smile and a pair of sharp blue eyes. She began by thanking Richard for his report, of which she had a copy in front of her, as did the solicitor.
‘I’ve discussed it over the phone to Paul Marchmont, our leading counsel, who said it sounded promising. We’ll have to have another conference soon with Paul, of course, but I thought I’d just go through the main points with you today.’
Before they began, Richard explained Angela’s presence, as a senior forensic biologist with years of experience at the Metropolitan Police Laboratory.
‘Doctor Bray feels that the claim that the blood present on the sleeve came from the stabbing can also be contested.’
The barrister smiled at Angela. ‘I look forward to hearing your opinion, Doctor Bray. Before that, perhaps you, Doctor Pryor, could run through a summary of what you feel about the vital time-of-death issue.’
Richard ran his finger through his hair, in a rather nervous gesture that was unusual for him. Angela suspected that he was not used to displaying his professional expertise to a woman, even though he already had a virtual harem back at Garth House.
He was given a respite by the appearance of a secretary bearing a tray of coffee in a motley collection of cups and saucers. While they drank the rather insipid brew, the conversation became more general.
‘It’s the old story of doctors sticking rigidly to the rules of thumb that they have been taught since they were students,’ began Richard. ‘I’m not blaming them for having poor methods to work with, for I’m in the same boat. But the problem lies in the dogmatism and stubbornness which many doctors have. I’ve got no better methods myself, but at least I am always willing to qualify the results with an acknowledgement that they are very approximate and prone to large errors.’
Penelope Forbes smiled again, a habit which seemed to come easily to her.
‘Do I detect an allusion to the great Sir Bernard Spilsbury there? But I agree, I often come across such witnesses. Do you feel it’s a fault especially with the older experts? The one in this case is certainly getting on in years.’
Richard agreed, with reservations. ‘It’s not just because they’re old, in the sense of being doddery old fools. I think it’s more because with years of practice behind them, they feel too sure of themselves — the “I’ve seen it all before” syndrome.’
Angela joined in the discussion for the first time. ‘Doctor Pryor is right, I’ve seen experts steamrolling their way through their evidence, stubbornly refusing to accept any sensible contrary opinion.’
Richard hid a grin, as he detected a trace of bitterness in his partner’s voice. He felt that in the past, she must have had a couple of frustrating contests with other experts.
‘Yes, the harder they are challenged, the harder they dig their heels in and refuse to admit that they could be wrong,’ he confirmed. ‘It’s often a matter of professional pride, and I’m afraid forensic medicine tends to attract the prima donnas of the profession, those who like to see their names in the newspapers.’
Having finished his rather insipid cup of Maxwell House, Richard got back to business.
‘With the time-of-death issue, there are four aspects to consider — and, indeed, challenge. The first is rigor mortis, so beloved of crime novelists. Then there’s post-mortem lividity, the discoloration of the skin after death. The next is stomach contents and the last, the only one with any hope of giving a decent estimate, is the body temperature.’
The solicitor asked the first question. ‘How many of those can you challenge, doctor?’
‘All of them, I hope. At least, what I can challenge is Doctor Claridge’s interpretation of them. His confidence in his accuracy is completely unfounded and I suspect it was coloured by what the police told him of the circumstances.’
He began going through the items, one by one, keeping the explanation rather superficial, as he knew he would have to do it all again in more detail when they met the ‘silk’ — a lawyer’s name for a Queen’s Counsel, because of the gown he wore.
‘The easiest one to contradict is post-mortem lividity, or “death staining” as it used to be called. In fact, the modern name is hypostasis, not that a new name makes it any more useful.’
‘I see Claridge doesn’t actually claim that this lividity points to the one-hour time window that’s relevant?’ Miss Forbes pointed out.
‘No, he just says it’s consistent with that time of death. What he doesn’t say — and the defence didn’t ask him — was that it would also be consistent with death far outside that time bracket. And that’s the situation with the other criteria. They could all be correct, but they could also be hopelessly wrong.’
Miss Forbes seemed intent on being a devil’s advocate, as well as one for Millie Wilson — which was quite right, as the opposition would be asking the same questions of Doctor Pryor.
‘But Doctor Claridge said in his evidence that he took all those criteria into account together, in coming to his conclusion as to the time of death.’
Richard’s laugh was a sardonic bark. ‘Adding four lousy methods together still makes one lousy conclusion,’ he replied. ‘The answer doesn’t get better by its multiplicity.’
‘So that applies to rigor mortis as well, I presume?’ asked the solicitor.
‘Rigor is marginally better than lividity, but that’s not saying much. Claridge saw the body in the mortuary; he wasn’t even called to the scene. It had been dead since sometime the previous night when he examined it at two o’clock in the afternoon. There’s no chance of pinning the time of death to within an hour after that delay.’
‘You said that temperature is the best means of timing the death, doctor,’ said Penelope Forbes. ‘The pathologist here seemed to rely most heavily on that.’
Richard Pryor shrugged in dismissal. ‘It could have helped a lot more, but the whole examination was poorly carried out. No one thought of taking the temperature at the scene, when the body was found. It was almost another seven hours before the temperature of the body was measured. The body was never weighed in the mortuary, so we
don’t know what his body mass was, which affects the cooling rate.’
Angela smiled at her partner, who was getting more voluble as he argued his case, gesturing with his hands, his unruly brown hair tossing about.
‘So you’ve rubbished three of his criteria! What about the state of his stomach contents?’
Richard subsided a little, but shook his head dismissively. ‘Another fairy tale, if you’re looking for accuracy. There are so many variables, there’s not a chance of settling on the true time many hours later. When I was in Singapore, I did a little research on this, in cases where it was known what time the dead person last ate. Comparing that time with what was in the stomach was too random to be of any use in evidence — and certainly not beyond reasonable doubt!’
For another half-hour they bandied the matter around, Richard giving his reasons why he felt it impossible to restrict the time of death to the time when Millie was back in the house in St Paul’s.
‘Of course she could have killed him in that half-hour, there’s no denying that,’ he said in conclusion. ‘But equally, he could have died in the many hours after she left the house — and this medical evidence is so nebulous that it can’t exclude that possibility.’
The junior counsel nodded her understanding of his argument and repeated what Moira had said back in Tintern.
‘Of course, it’s not up to the defence to prove that a person didn’t commit an offence. The onus is on the prosecution to prove they did!’ She sighed. ‘But often it doesn’t seem to work that way with juries. Especially when there’s such a poor defence effort — they didn’t even call any medical witness to try to challenge what Doctor Claridge was saying. I think they felt this was such an obvious case that it wasn’t worth putting themselves to much trouble.’
Miss Forbes turned over a few pages in her file.
‘It’s fortunate that the plea in mitigation impressed the judge, over the assaults which Millie suffered from Arthur Shaw, especially during that fateful hour — otherwise she would have been hanged by now, instead of getting life imprisonment.’
She turned to Angela. ‘Now, Doctor Bray, tell me about these bloodstains.’
EIGHT
Oscar Stanton turned into the Crown Hotel, on the corner of Station Street in central Birmingham. It was near New Street Station and was convenient for those of his friends who travelled in from the suburbs for their regular dose of nostalgia. About eight retired reporters met for a few pints on the last Friday of the month, chewing over old times and reporting who amongst the newspaper fraternity of the city was sick or dead since the last session. They used an alcove off the main lounge, where a large table was covered in their glasses, half-eaten ham rolls, overflowing ashtrays and packets of crisps. Around their fourth pint or double Scotch, Oscar turned his pebble lenses on to the man sitting next to him.
‘Brian, I was talking to a chap the other day, he’s a CID man from Wales. He was telling me about some old corpse they’d dug up there recently, one without a head. It reminded me of that yarn that Piggy Donovan used to trot out years ago, about some pub that was alleged to have a bloke’s head hidden in a pot.’
The old reporter, ten years senior to Oscar, took a long swallow from his tankard before answering.
‘I vaguely remember something about it, soon after the war. But Piggy was such a lush, you couldn’t depend on half he said — or what he wrote in his copy!’
‘He’s been dead these past five years, has Piggy,’ said Oscar. ‘Anybody else who might recall anything about it?’
Brian used a slight lull in the conversation around the big table to call across to a member on the other side.
‘Duncan, you’re the last one here to cover crime on the Post. Ever hear a yarn about some preserved head kept in one of the pubs?’
Duncan MacKenzie was a few years younger and only recently retired from the Birmingham Post, the city’s major newspaper. A thin man with an aristocratic goatee sticking out from his chin like a spike, he was a hard drinker, his lined face displaying many prominent veins, even more marked on his nose. He considered the question carefully, before replying.
‘That story was going the rounds many years ago, I remember. Some connection with the gangs up in Winson Green. The coppers looked into it, but nothing more came of it.’
Another man, well into his seventies, spoke up from Oscar’s left. ‘I remember that, too. Piggy Donovan was carrying on about it. He said he was going to write a piece as a feature, then he suddenly went quiet. I think he’d been got at by someone.’
‘You reckon it was up in Winson Green?’ asked Oscar, hopefully. To his surprise, the old man nodded.
‘Yes, he reckoned it was in the cellar of the Barley Mow, near Black Patch Park. A tough area, especially in those days.’
‘It’s pretty tough still,’ said Duncan MacKenzie. ‘But the Barley Mow has long gone. They demolished that part a few years back — and not before time.’
Oscar felt let down, as it had looked hopeful when some of the others had confirmed the rumour. ‘Any idea what it was all about? Did anyone you know actually see this thing?’
There were grimaces and shaking of heads, but no hard information.
‘Something to do with the gangs in that area,’ ventured MacKenzie. ‘During the war, there was all sorts of graft going on there, apart from the usual robbery and violence. Black-market dealing, mainly, on a wholesale basis. And plenty of bribery and corruption — the police and the council were accused of it every now and then.’
It was soon obvious that no one had any better information about a shrivelled head. It was just part of the city’s underworld lore that came the way of newspaper men.
That evening, when he got home to Moseley, Oscar phoned his friend Tony Cooper and told him the little he had learned about the fabled head.
‘The only possible lead was that the Barley Mow in Winson Green seems to be the place where the story originated. But that pub’s been demolished long since.’
Sergeant Cooper was more impressed than Oscar had expected.
‘Winson Green! That’s the sort of place you might expect something like this. I’ll mention it to our CID boys, but they might need an armoured car to go asking questions up there!’
There were a number of very tough places in and around the great city of Birmingham, but Winson Green was up there near the top of the list and had been even worse ten years earlier, at the end of the war. Birmingham’s huge prison was in Winson Green and it was a stock joke that it was built there so that all the local villains did not have so far to travel when they were banged up.
After Oscar had rung off, Tony decided that before making enquiries through his own Force contacts, he had better speak to Gwyn Parry. He was due to come up for a day at the end of the week to collect his wife, Bethan, who had done a splendid job in getting his own wife back on her feet. However, he decided to give him a ring and a few moments later was put through to Gwyn at his home at Temple Bar, just outside Aberystwyth.
Bethan came in at the same time and he surrendered the phone to her for a few minutes. When she had finished her anxious enquiries about the children, who were enjoying themselves at their grandmother’s house, Tony gave Gwyn the few scraps of information he had picked up that day from his newspaper cronies.
‘There seems to be some substance in that rumour about a head,’ he told him. ‘Even down to where it was supposed to be kept, though the place has since been pulled down. Though why it should be linked in any way to your headless corpse, I can’t imagine!’
He could almost hear Gwyn’s brain working at the other end of the line. ‘You say your pals suggested this might be linked to possible gang squabbles up there?’
‘That area is one of the places where there used to be a lot of that sort of trouble. Still is, comes to that.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ retorted Gwyn with feeling. ‘These bloody sheep rustlers and a lot of organized country-house burglaries are down to your Midland
villains.’
‘Do you want me to have a word with our CID, to see if they can make a few enquiries?’ asked Tony.
Gwyn chewed it over in his mind for a moment.
‘I’d better talk to my DI first and see whether he thinks it’s worth bothering your lot with it. We’ve still got the Yard involved, though they got fed up and buggered off back to London. I’ll let you know when I come to fetch Bethan on Saturday.’
As December had arrived, Priscilla’s time was up as Angela’s locum and she was leaving on Sunday to go back to London to look for a job. Richard Pryor would have liked to have kept her on at Garth House, but they both knew that there was not sufficient work there for two biologists. She was going back to stay with a friend again until something turned up.
‘Farewell party on Saturday evening, then!’ Richard had declared. He treated them all, including Moira and Jimmy Jenkins, to a meal at the large hotel in Tintern Parva, opposite the ruins of the huge Cistercian abbey. Afterwards they came back to the house and sat until midnight in the staff room, with the table well supplied with Lutomer Riesling, Mateus Rose, whisky, gin, beer and cider for Jimmy.
Well fed and relaxed, the conversation roamed over a variety of topics from growing vines to headless corpses.
The Borth Body was naturally prominent in their gossip, especially as it was the one case where Priscilla had been so useful in confirming the physical dimensions from the bones.
‘The investigation seems to have come to a dead end,’ said Richard. ‘I had a call from the DI this week, saying that unless something turns up, the coroner wants to hold an inquest to get the paperwork tidied up.’
‘I hear the Yard have gone back to the big city,’ added Angela, with a tinge of relief in her voice. Richard guessed she was afraid that Paul Vickers might have shown his face here if the investigation had proceeded any further.
‘A pity we’ll never know how it got there,’ said Priscilla pensively. ‘I wonder how many bodies there are knocking about the countryside which will never be found?’
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