‘Funny-looking paper – the print is a bit blurred, but it’s readable,’ said Angela. The German envelope also had a few pages of regular paper, the typing obviously a carbon copy of an original. There were short covering letters from the senders, hoping that the accompanying material would be of some use.
‘What happens next?’ asked Angela as she began to read the missive from America.
‘I’ve got to read it all and see if it helps to support my hypothesis,’ he answered, looking intently at the pages from Cologne. ‘Thank God it’s in English. We’d be delayed again if we had to wait for a translation from German.’
They read steadily for ten minutes, then exchanged papers, absently drinking their tea between pages. ‘Does it help?’ asked Angela when they finally dropped the documents on the table.
Richard nodded. ‘Just the job! I don’t know how strong the evidence is for these chaps’ own research – estimating the time of death – but that’s no concern of mine in relation to our veterinary surgeon.’
‘What happens next?’ she asked again.
‘I’ll have to go through all this stuff carefully, then draft a summary of the aspects that we need for this defence. George Lovesey wants it urgently, to send to them and get affidavits sworn and returned for submission to the court in Gloucester.’
‘How’s he going to do that in time? We haven’t even had the second lot from America.’
Her partner shook his head. ‘That’s his problem. I expect he’ll find a way – lawyers usually do, especially when they’re going to stick it all on the bill!’
Next morning Richard monopolized Moira and her typing skills so completely that lunch had to be cold ham and salad. He had spent all evening until midnight going through the papers from Stow and roughing out drafts for affidavits. Now Moira was banging out fair copies on her big Imperial as Richard had arranged with the solicitor to take them to Stow that afternoon.
For once, he was free, as there were no post-mortems at his two regular mortuaries, though he had agreed to go next morning to the big hospital in Newport. Here he had been asked to act again as an independent pathologist over a death in the operating theatre, as according to the coroner’s officer the relatives were unhappy.
When he had checked through the final copies, Richard dropped them into his old oriental briefcase. ‘Let’s hope these do the trick,’ he murmured to Moira.
‘You’ve got the other American one to deal with as well,’ she replied, getting up to start setting out lunch. ‘I hope you understand all that stuff. It’s gibberish to me!’
‘We’ve got to convince a court, so I’ll have to put it over as simply as I can,’ he answered soberly. ‘That’s the problem with our jury system. When it comes to technical evidence, the jurors tend to switch off – or go to sleep!’
This led to an argument about whether the Continental system of a trio of professional judges was better than the Anglo-Saxon reliance on the good sense of a dozen solid citizens. Angela was all for a jury, but Richard had his doubts.
‘It’s fine when it comes to straightforward facts, like whether Bill was in the pub that night or whether Joe beat his wife,’ he argued. ‘But start a long lecture about temperatures and time of death or some obscure explanation about the concentration of some poison, then you’ve lost them. You really need experts to evaluate expert evidence.’
Sian, always the champion of the common man, was strongly with Angela, but Moira sided with Richard, saying that she had read in the newspaper about a fraud trial that was still going on after three months, with the bemused jury trapped under a welter of accounts and statistics. Soon after lunch, Richard decided he had better leave for Gloucestershire.
The Humber made good time across the full width of the big county, and he arrived at Stow soon after three o’clock. As soon as he was shown into the lawyer’s chamber, George Lovesey rose to meet him, waving another sheaf of papers at him.
‘Dr Pryor, the other American material has arrived! Almost as quickly as that telegraphed batch.’
Richard sat down on the other side of the desk and they exchanged documents. The lawyer began reading the draft affidavits that Pryor had written, while the pathologist pored over the notes that the researcher in Minnesota had sent. It was an outline for a future article to be submitted to the
When he had finished studying his papers, the lawyer looked over his glasses at Richard Pryor.
‘You’ve made it quite clear; even I can understand it!’ he said warmly. ‘But it seems that the three experts have come to somewhat different conclusions about the potassium levels. Is that going to be a problem for us? In cross-examination, prosecuting counsel will seize on any opportunity to discredit us.’
Richard nodded and tapped his own papers, the ones from Minnesota. ‘I know what you mean, but happily that doesn’t concern us. They can argue between themselves until the cows come home, about the implications of their findings, but that’s not what matters to us.’
He explained at length what he meant, and eventually George Lovesey was satisfied. ‘We’ll have to have at least one pretrial conference with Nathan Prideaux to get this really sorted out,’ he observed. ‘Now what about the other prong of your attack on the prosecution case?’
‘You mean Professor Lucius Zigmond? He seems the most authoritative person to fire that particular broadside.’
Lovesey waited for a few moments as one of his office staff had tapped the door and brought in the inevitable tray of tea and biscuits. When she had served them and left the room, he continued.
‘As you suggested, I contacted him and he is quite happy to give a statement and attend court if necessary. He seemed quite tickled by the idea, especially when I mentioned the fee and expenses. I think you should go to see him, to explain exactly what is required. That seems to be the most effective way, given how short of time we are.’
Over the teacups, they discussed details of the affidavits, the solicitor suggesting a few editorial changes to fall in line with legal conventions. Then Richard settled down to write a version of the affidavit based on the new material from Minnesota. It was fairly straightforward, as it followed the others almost exactly, apart from substituting some of the different analytical data of the potassium concentrations in the eye fluids at varying periods after death. When they had agreed on final versions, Lovesey said that he would get his legal agents in London to send them by the fastest route, the one that the Chicago papers had arrived by.
‘I hadn’t realized that the GPO had this photo-telegraph service from London,’ he said. ‘Apparently, it’s been there since 1935, but the place was bombed out during the war and they restarted it on the Victoria Embankment in 1948.’
‘I’ve never heard of it either,’ admitted Richard. ‘Probably damned expensive, but useful.’
‘It’s used mainly for sending photographs for newspapers, but apparently it will accept text just as well,’ explained George. ‘Our agent can use it to send these drafts back to the three researchers, to save time. But, of course, the actual sworn statements will have to be airmailed back to us. The court would never accept anything but original signatures and the stamp of the attorneys who administered the oaths.’
Richard grinned to himself at the archaic language of the law, though he knew that medicine’s vocabulary was just as mystical.
Before he left, he promised Lovesey that he would make arrangements to talk to Professor Zigmond in London and agree on a form of words that could be used in a deposition of the biochemist’s evidence in court.
‘Make it soon, doctor,’ were the solicitor’s final words. ‘We’ll be at the door of the Assize Court before we know it!’
SIXTEEN
The next day, Wednesday, was too busy with post-mortems for any expeditions to ‘the Smoke’, as Angela was fond of calling the city where she had worked for so many years.
However, Moira kept Thursday clear by phoning a couple of coroners’ officers to postpone cases for a day, and by just after eight that morning Richard Pryor was on the up-platform at Newport Station waiting for the eight twenty-five to Paddington.
