Angela and her former fiance that had made her so bitter about him. He recalled again the time when Paul Vickers, a detective superintendent in the Metropolitan Police had turned up at a post-mortem in Gloucester. Angela had frozen on the spot, then hurried out of the mortuary with no explanation. She had not mentioned it since, and he knew that the situation was a frequent source of speculation between Moira and Sian.
He poured himself another cup of tea, and his wandering mind seized on the unusual task that the War Office had given him. He wondered how far they had got with processing their case – perhaps the wife had given up, faced with the limitless legal resources of the government. Richard felt sorry for her and a little uneasy about being involved in the matter, but as with most other aspects of his work he was merely a technical adviser and had no part in the legal or especially moral aspects of any case. If he didn’t apply his expertise to the issue and give his best shot at it, they’d soon find someone else who would. He had enough ego and professional confidence in himself to think that he would give as good as – and probably better – an opinion than someone else and at least it would be honest and unbiased.
He looked at his wristwatch, a genuine Eterna bargained for in Change Alley in Singapore, and made his way to the cash desk.
Outside, he was temporarily disorientated but soon moved westwards down Oxford Street until he turned up to Henrietta Place and found the imposing Royal Society of Medicine building and the corner of Wimpole Street. He had become an overseas member when in Singapore and now was able to use their extensive library. He spent an hour searching ‘Index Medicus’, now a quarterly cumulative index of all significant scientific publications in the field of medicine. He had pored over copies in the medical school libraries at Cardiff and Bristol, but, in the hope that the RSM had a more recent copy, he thumbed through it again on the principle that he should leave no stone unturned in seeking anything new about potassium metabolism and toxicity.
He was out of luck, but while he was there he refreshed his knowledge of gunshot wounds from several forensic textbooks that he didn’t possess himself. The time went by, and with a start he realized that he had better get himself back to Paddington. This time he launched out on a taxi, the noisy pre-war Austin weaving its way through the late-afternoon traffic to drop him off in Praed Street with a quarter of an hour to spare. The compartment he found was almost full, but First Class was still comfortable and he had a photograph of Torquay and a map of the Western Region to stare at when he was not looking out of the window at the Thames Valley rushing past. By the time he collected the Humber from the station car park at Newport and drove home, the October evening was drawing towards dusk. Angela had waited for him before having supper, though the table was already set.
‘Moira was bustling about. She thought you’d be in need of a proper meal after your adventures in the big, bad city,’ she said with a hint of sarcasm. ‘So she’s left a steak and kidney pie in the warming oven and there are peas and carrots in saucepans on the top.’
As she again broke her vow never to become domesticated by serving up their meal on to warmed plates, Richard found glasses and a bottle of their favourite cider that Jimmy obtained from someone he knew across the valley in the Forest of Dean.
They settled to eat, and Angela teased him again about Moira.
‘I don’t know if she’s mothering you or whether she reckons the way to man’s heart is through his stomach, but she certainly fusses over you like a hen with chicks.’
She speared a piece of kidney with her fork. ‘I wish someone would fuss over me a bit more,’ she said rather wistfully.
Richard rose to the bait, though he kept well away from the sensitive subject of her ex-boyfriend.
‘You could have come with me, had a day in London. Next time, eh?’
He looked at her mane of brown hair as she bent over her plate and wondered if she was finding this new life in Wales too lonely, after the hustle and bustle of London.
‘If this War Office job comes off, I’m sure we’ll have to go up there to sort it out,’ he said earnestly. ‘We could stay the night – even a weekend if it’s necessary.’
She looked up, her handsome face smiling at him. ‘Are you propositioning me for a dirty weekend, Dr Pryor?’ she demanded. ‘Because if I can have a few hours window-shopping in Bond Street as well, I accept without hesitation!’
He grinned at her, feeling at ease with her over such light-hearted banter, though a part of him wished there might be some truth in her coquettish response.
‘Better not let Moira hear you say that; she’d be shocked. You know how strait-laced she can be.’
Angela looked at him scornfully. ‘Come off it, Richard! We’ve been sleeping in the same house without a chaperone for six months now. Do you imagine that Moira – or Sian, for that matter – hasn’t been speculating every day about our relationship?’
He looked at her in genuine surprise. ‘Never thought about it, to be honest.’
She shook her head in despair. ‘Men! I think you mean that, Richard! Don’t you ever think of anything other than dead bodies and your damned grapevines?’
She got up to take their plates to the sink, and as she passed him she ruffled his hair. ‘You’re like a big schoolboy, Richard Pryor. But you’re not a bad chap, really.’
By the time she had brought cheese and biscuits as their dessert, the moment of relative intimacy had passed and he began telling her about his meeting with Lucius Zigmond.
‘Not that there’s all that much to report, apart from the fact that if he’s needed he’s quite happy to turn up in court and say his piece. He seemed quite tickled by the idea, actually.’
Richard told her about the textbooks that the professor had shown him. ‘Apparently, it’s all standard stuff in the physiology and biochemical world, been known for years.’
‘Then it’s a wonder that the prosecution hadn’t cottoned on to it,’ complained Angela. ‘I suppose it would have torpedoed their case even before it started.’
Richard cut himself a slice of Double Gloucester and took a couple of water biscuits. ‘Zigmond and I talked about this, the watertight boxes that science is divided into. You can be a Nobel Prize winner in one speciality and a complete ignoramus in another.’
They chatted away amiably over coffee in her sitting room as darkness fell over the quiet valley outside. ‘What happens next in the vet case?’ asked Angela. ‘Are you going to meet this fancy QC again before the trial?’
‘Yes, George Lovesey said we’d have to have a final conference once all the affidavits are in. He must be working his staff hard in Stow, getting letters and telegrams going hither and thither to Germany and the States.’
‘Must be a bit of a change for a country solicitor,’ observed Angela. ‘He probably spends most his time conveyancing expensive cottages and writing leases on farms!’
They progressed from coffee to their usual gin and tonic, though Richard was beginning to feel ready for his bed after a long day in London.
‘No news from the War Office chaps, I suppose?’ he asked sleepily as he sank further into the comfortable old armchair.
Angela shook her head. ‘Not a word yet, by phone or mail. I suppose they’re trying to persuade either the widow or the Home Office to allow an exhumation.’
‘Can’t really do a thing without that,’ agreed Richard. ‘The poor woman can’t win her case and the War Office can’t defend one, so it seems a stalemate. I wonder if they’re getting that bullet from the Gulf. The way that place operates, they’ve probably lost it down a drain by now.’
‘I feel very sorry for her,’ said Angela sympathetically. ‘And our crusading Sian is a bit annoyed that we’re acting on the side of the new Tory government, which she says is trying to sabotage the wife’s claim.’
‘I can see the woman’s anger over the suspicion that it was a deliberate shooting by this staff sergeant,’ said Richard. ‘Not that that seems all that likely to me. But compensation for his death, over and above her normal pension, seems a bit out of order, unless it was due to some negligence on the part of the army.’
His partner bridled a little at this. ‘Why not, if she lost her husband and his very good rate of pay as a warrant officer?’
Richard turned up his hands in defence. ‘Sure, if there was any fault on the part of the War Office, such as bad training, or equipment failure or recklessness. But unfortunately soldiers are being killed every day in other parts of the world, like Malaya, Cyprus and Kenya. Their relatives are not suing the government, as being in the
