told him he could go but that he would probably be interviewed again, next time at the police station in Brecon.
‘I’ll not say another word without my solicitor being present – nor will my wife,’ growled Aubrey. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Inspector. Yes, I hate that man’s guts now a hundred times more than I disliked him before, but that’s as far as it goes!’
He stomped out and left the two CID men time for another Player’s Navy Cut while their constable went to find Jeff Morton.
‘Do you fancy him for it, John?’ asked Crippen ruminatively.
The sergeant shrugged. ‘He makes no bones about his dislike of Littleman, even before this revelation about his wife. I think he’s a hard man. He could have attacked the victim in a temper, maybe after a flaming row, then thought up this elaborate scheme to conceal it.’
‘But that surely would happen only after he’d found out that Littleman was having it off with his wife – and he denies that pretty strongly, as does Betsan.’
Nichols grimaced. ‘They could both be lying. It’s not something anyone wants to own up to.’
Crippen stubbed out his cigarette in the tin lid that served as an ashtray. ‘Here’s the other one coming. Let’s see what he’s got to say about it.’
Sitting in the chair opposite Crippen, Jeff Morton presented a very different picture from the cousin who had just left. He was subdued and frightened, the pallor of his face making the livid birthmark on his face all the more prominent in contrast.
‘I need a smoke!’ were the first words he uttered. His trembling hands pulled out a small tin box, from which he rolled his own cigarette. The inspector waited patiently until the man had lit it with a brass lighter, then started his questions.
‘Do I gather that you have had a certain discussion with your wife over a personal matter?’
Morton looked at the police officer as if Arthur was a poisonous snake about to strike. ‘Yes, and I can’t really believe it,’ he muttered.
‘Are you sure you didn’t know before this? Or even suspect it?’
The man hunched down even further into his stained mechanic’s overall. ‘Of course I didn’t. I still can’t believe this is happening.’
‘Have you spoken to your cousin about what’s happened?’
The inspector put the question in that way, as he wasn’t quite sure if telling a man that his cousin’s wife had been unfaithful might be some breach of confidence, murder investigation or not. However, Jeff’s reaction removed any possible problem.
‘I can’t believe that, either. Betsan, of all people!’ Then he seemed to realize that his own wife was even further beyond his belief.
‘Perhaps you discussed it with him a long time ago!’ cut in John Nichols, performing his bad cop role. ‘Perhaps you both knew and decided to settle scores with Tom Littleman?’
This accusation seemed to restore some mettle into Morton’s backbone. He sat up and agitatedly crushed his wrinkled cigarette into the tin lid.
‘What are you trying to say?’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘For Christ’s sake, you can’t think that Aubrey or I had anything to do with it!’
‘You had good motives, both of you,’ accused Crippen. ‘The man seduces your wives, you already disliked him for being a drunk and an unreliable worker – and you wanted to get rid of him as a partner, which he refused. People have been murdered for far less than that!’
‘And two of you would make this elaborate killing a lot easier,’ added the sergeant remorselessly. ‘Though I suppose at a pinch either of you could have done it alone. He wasn’t much of a match for strong fellows like you.’
Morton stared at the two officers as if they had suddenly taken leave of their senses. ‘This is madness! Of course we didn’t kill the bastard, much as I’d have liked to more than once.’
Then he again rallied and, as if he had been coached by his more resolute wife, he repeated his cousin’s declaration that he refused to answer any more questions unless his solicitor was present.
The DI ignored this, and in a more matter-of-fact tone went on to rehearse with him all the details of Morton’s movements on that fateful day and night.
The answers were the same as before, and with some frustration Arthur Crippen let him go after a further quarter of an hour’s fruitless interrogation.
As Morton stumbled out of the caravan, they saw Aubrey Evans and his father waiting for him across the yard at the door of the farm. Aubrey put an arm around Jeff’s shoulder to lead him inside, but the sergeant called across to the older man.
‘Mr Evans! Mr Mostyn Evans, could we have a word with you now, please?’
The older man looked across. As his son and nephew vanished into the house, he began to walk slowly across to the caravan. Crippen watched him coming through the window and saw that in spite of his big frame he looked much more gaunt than when he was interviewed a few days earlier. When he came in and sat down, Arthur saw sadness and despair on his face.
‘This is a terrible business – terrible!’ were his first words. ‘I can hardly credit what’s happened to Ty Croes. Seventy-six years I’ve lived here and this is the saddest day of my life.’
The lids below his blue eyes had a red rim, and his cheeks seemed more sunken than before. He blew his nose on a large red handkerchief and sighed. ‘So what d’you want with me, officer?’ he asked resignedly.
‘I assume you’ve been talking to your son and nephew about certain personal matters?’ said Crippen.
‘If you mean hearing that that evil little swine Littleman had been having his way with Betsan and Rhian, yes, I’ve heard about it,’ he said with sudden savagery.
‘Are you sure you had no inkling of this before they told you?’ persisted the inspector.
‘Of course not! If I had, I’d have kicked the sod’s arse all around the farm before throwing him out into the road – partner or no partner!’
‘You never approved of him, I gather?’ asked the sergeant.
‘At first, I had no reason to think one way or the other. He seemed to know his stuff with vehicles and machinery. It was a great mistake later to let him have part of the business, but we didn’t realize then that he was fast becoming a drunken sot. And how could we know that he was going to turn into a seducer?’
‘You never saw him with either of the wives?’
Mostyn Evans shook his head. ‘He must have been damned careful, the bastard! Only played away when the girls were well off the farm.’
He shook his head as if to fling off images in his mind. ‘They had a day off now and then, to go to Brecon or even down to Swansea. There was the car, the Land Rover or the pickup they could use. That’s when it must have happened.’
‘You live with your son and daughter-in-law in the farmhouse?’ asked Nichols.
‘Yes. I was born there and will probably die there. I don’t get under their feet, I’ve got a couple of rooms upstairs at the back.’
‘You didn’t see much of Littleman, then?’ asked Crippen.
Mostyn shook his head, wiping his face again with the red handkerchief. ‘No occasion to, thank God. He knew I didn’t like him, and the feeling was likewise. I help out a bit at the farming, mostly driving our new Fergie T-20, an old man’s privilege. But I rarely had cause to go down to that damned barn where Littleman was.’
There was a silence while the sergeant caught up with his writing and Arthur Crippen gathered his thoughts.
‘You realize that this was a murder, Mr Evans,’ he said at last. ‘The most serious of offences, one, as the law stands now, with a capital penalty at the end of it?’
The old man stared at the detective as if he failed to understand his meaning.
‘We are almost convinced that it was committed by someone living at Ty Croes,’ went on Crippen. ‘If you have any reason to think it was an outsider, for your family’s sake say so.’
John Nichols picked up the questioning. ‘Did you ever see any strangers hanging around the farm – or even nearby on the roads? Anyone who came to talk to Littleman, for instance?’
Mostyn looked from one officer to the other. ‘I told you, I hardly ever went down to the workshop, so I
