wouldn’t know who talked to that bastard. As for strangers, I don’t recall any, apart from some delivery men, though we know most of those. And, of course, our farming friends came, plenty of those – and customers having mechanical jobs done, they’d come up here to pay Aubrey or Jeff. Sure there were plenty of visitors, but we know almost all of them in a rural place like this!’
His shrewd eyes seemed to lose their former worried vagueness, and he fixed Arthur with a penetrating stare.
‘You’re trying to tell me that you think one of the boys did it, aren’t you?’ he growled. ‘That either my son or my nephew is a murderer and that they might be arrested and might end up on the gallows! Is that it?’
Crippen held up his hands, palm up in an almost French gesture. ‘A murder has been committed. Someone did it, and they will eventually be caught and arrested. I can tell you now that a decision will be made in the next day or two whether to call in Scotland Yard. If they come, then I can promise that this place will be turned upside down again and that the level of questioning will be a lot harder than ours.’
He stood up and looked down at the father figure of the farm.
‘If you have any influence with the others here, please use it to suggest that if they have anything else they want to tell us, now is the time to do it. If there are any circumstances that might excuse what happened to Tom Littleman, this is the last chance.’
Mostyn Evans hauled himself to his feet and straightened his back, giving him an extra inch over Crippen.
‘I’ll do whatever I can, officer. You can depend on it.’
He went out into the yard and walked with a new determination across to his house.
TEN
After Angela left for Berkshire in the late afternoon, Richard found himself alone in Garth House. He spent a hour in his study, looking at some of the microscope sections that Sian had prepared for him from post-mortems during the past week, then went outside to ‘walk his broad acres’, as he liked to think of it. He had never owned any land before or even a house, having spent his life either in hospital accommodation, an officers’ mess or, in Singapore, in a rented apartment. Though the house and four acres was technically the property of the partnership, he still had a proprietorial feeling towards it and enjoyed ‘potching about’ on the sloping ground behind the house. At the end of September, though the evenings were starting to draw in, there was still broad daylight for him to examine the two long rows that Jimmy Jenkins had prepared for those elusive vines, which still had not arrived from the nursery in Sussex.
Jimmy had hacked off the coarse turf with a spade, then turned the soil with a small motor cultivator, a gadget like a lawnmower with rotating blades on either side. As he walked the length of the two rows of churned soil, he heard the roar of a motorcycle coming up the steep drive. A few moments later Jimmy appeared lugging a sprayer which he kept in a shed alongside the coach house.
As usual, half a cigarette dangled from his lip as he approached.
‘You’re working late, Jimmy. What are you going to do?’
The gardener-handyman put down the yellow tank and started pumping the handle on top to raise the pressure.
‘Got an hour before the darts match down at the Swan, doctor,’ he informed Richard. ‘Thought I’d give that patch a dose of weedkiller before you puts in them vine plants – if they ever come.’
They talked for a few minutes about the weeds and couch grass that were already appearing in the tilled soil. ‘They’ll choke your bleeding grapes unless you keep them down,’ he warned.
Richard was pleased that Jimmy was at last reconciled to a vineyard and had given up his campaign for strawberries.
‘Where did you learn that about vines?’ he asked curiously.
The other man looked a little sheepish. ‘I saw that book you had in the kitchen, when I was in having a cup of tea with Moira the other day. Quite a few good tips, there was!’
Pryor suspected that this was the first time Jimmy had ever read a word about horticulture of any sort, having learned all his lore from half a century as a countryman – but he was pleased that he was now taking an interest in Richard’s pet project.
He watched as Jimmy slung the spray tank on his shoulder and began walking alongside the long ribbon of bare earth, spraying it from the nozzle on the end of the hose. He stopped at intervals to pump up the pressure, needing a couple of passes to cover the width, before taking the device back to the shed.
‘There’s a bottle of beer in the pantry, if you want to wet your whistle,’ offered Richard. There was an old bench outside the back door, and the pair of them sat comfortably in the evening light to empty a flagon of Rhymney bitter between them.
‘Must be a bit different here to Singapore,’ said Jimmy.
‘Damned sight cooler, though you get used to the heat,’ replied the pathologist. ‘I had three years in Ceylon and that was much the same, hot and damp.’
The gardener reached across to top up Richard’s glass. ‘In the army, was you? See any action out there?’
Pryor grinned. ‘Not the military sort, no. I was in an army hospital there, and when we took back Singapore I was posted there to help get theirs up and running again. The Japs had played hell with it, including a massacre of patients and staff.’
He took a long satisfying drink. ‘Were you ever in the forces, Jimmy?’
‘Nah, protected occupation, me! Farming up the valley, I was. Damned hard graft it was then. Mind you, I had perforated eardrums and flat feet, so they wouldn’t take me anyway, ’cause I tried to join.’
After a companionable silence, Jimmy began to probe again, with the insatiable curiosity of people in a small village.
‘Was you ever married, doctor?’
‘Yes, I was married all right! It didn’t work out, I’m afraid. We were divorced last year.’
Jimmy downed the last of his ale and stood up.
‘I reckon you’ll soon be married again, doctor, living in there with three great-looking ladies!’ He picked up Richard’s empty glass and made for the kitchen to put them in the sink.
‘Point is, doctor, which one of them will it be?’
He tapped the side of his nose knowingly and vanished through the back door.
A little later Richard decided he had better see what Moira had left for his supper but was surprised to find nothing obvious in the Aga or in the refrigerator. This was odd – though she knew that Angela would be away, she was also aware that he was staying that night.
He was just thinking of opening a tin of corned beef when there was a tap on the back door and Moira came in, bearing a tray covered with a cloth.
‘You thought I’d forgotten you, no doubt,’ she said apologetically. ‘It took longer than I expected.’
She set the tray down and pulled off the cloth to reveal a large domed dish cover. Removing this with a flourish, she exposed a pie dish with a golden crust rising above it. Alongside was a Pyrex dish under whose lid could be seen potatoes, peas and carrots. An elegant trifle with a cherry on top sat alongside.
‘I’ll just put the dishes in the oven to keep warm and the trifle in the fridge, while I lay the table for you.’
The efficient woman busied herself with her culinary operations, and soon she had him seated at the table with a large plate carrying the steak pie and vegetables.
‘It’s not my birthday, Moira!’ he protested. ‘Why are you spoiling me tonight?’
She placed pepper and salt before him. ‘I knew you would be on your own, so I thought I’d make something special for you. It’s easier for me to cook things at home, as I’ve got all my gadgets to hand. It’s no distance to carry it up.’
He looked down at the substantial pie, which gave off a mouth-watering aroma. ‘Won’t you sit down and help me eat this? It looks marvellous!’
She shook her head. ‘I ate earlier, thanks. You just enjoy it, then I’ll make coffee, clear up and leave you in peace.’
