centre. ‘As long as we can afford the coal! Heating this house will cost a fortune.’
‘I should think we could get wood easily enough around here, the whole valley is a forest,’ replied Richard, full of optimism today. ‘I’ll have to ask Jimmy, he’ll probably offer to cut down someone’s trees for us!’
They listened to the six o’clock news on the massive Marconi radiogram that had been part of the furnishings, but the details of the national rail strike and the disaster at the Le Mans motor race in which a crashed Mercedes had killed over eighty people, were too depressing and they switched it off.
‘No trains, but I think I’ll drive up to Berkshire in the morning to visit my parents,’ announced Angela. ‘I need to bring down some more of my things I’ve left with them since I left the flat.’
‘At least you can get a decent meal when you’re home,’ suggested Richard. ‘I wonder if we’ll get any replies from that advertisement?’
‘Hardly likely in a place as small as Tintern Parva,’ replied Angela. ‘I think you’ll have to put it in the local Monmouthshire paper to get any hope of a response.’
It turned out that she was wrong about this, for later that evening as she was sitting upstairs her room, enjoying the view of the sunlit valley through the bay window, she heard the distant ringing of their solitary telephone in the hall below.
It stopped after a few rings and a few moments later, there was a tentative tap on her door.
‘Are you decent?’ came Richard’s voice. Even in the short time they had inhabited the house, they had both become meticulous about respecting each other’s space and he normally kept well clear of Angela’s territory. The bathroom was a problem and he was determined to hive off part of the spare bedroom behind his, to have a second one constructed.
She went to the door and invited him in, motioning him to another chair opposite hers in the bay window. Because of the wonderful view, she used this front room as her lounge, again with remnants of the original furniture pressed into use. Her bedroom was the one behind and another project they had in mind was a connecting door, to save her having to go out on to the landing each time she wished to move from one room to the other.
‘I heard the phone, was that more business for us?’
He shook his head and gave her one of his impish grins.
‘Guess what? That was a reply to our card in the post office. It’s only been there a few hours!’
She leaned forward, as surprised as he had been.
‘Good God? Who was it, someone from the village?’
‘Yep, a lady called Moira Davison, lives just down the valley on the main road.’
‘Moira Davison? Sounds Scottish, maybe all she can cook is haggis!’ said Angela, facetiously.
‘She didn’t sound Scottish, she had a slight local accent. Said she can cook, but her main talent is secretarial work.’
Angela looked dubious. ‘Can she make beds and clean the house as well, I wonder?’
Richard shrugged. ‘We’ll find out on Monday. I suggested she came up here to see us in the afternoon. Hopefully, I’ll be down in Chepstow mortuary in the morning.’
They discussed the economics of the matter and decided to see if she would come for five days at four pounds a week, given that she seemed suitable.
‘What about income tax, national insurance and all that?’ asked Angela, as ever the practical one of the pair.
‘I’ll have to ask my accountant about that – when I get one,’ he said vaguely. ‘Until then, we can slip her a few quid on the quiet.’
Having committed themselves to the black economy, they had to wait until Monday to see what Mrs Moira Davison was like.
Left alone on Saturday morning, after Angela had left for Berkshire, Pryor decided to wash his car in the back yard, using a hosepipe, sponge and chamois leather.
He was very fond of the Humber, a handsome black saloon for which his father had stumped up the cost. Though five years old, it was as good as new and a great improvement on the pre-war Morris Ten he had had in Singapore. The car had survived the Japanese occupation but had been rapidly succumbing to rust in that humid climate.
When he had finished, he made himself a bacon and egg fry-up in the kitchen, washed down with a bottle of beer from Hancock’s brewery in Cardiff.
He fervently hoped that the ‘Scottish woman’ as Angela persisted in calling her, would want the job, as he was already fed up with this ‘indoor camping’, especially after the luxury of a houseboy and an amah in the house in Singapore. In fact, the thought of Angela relaxing after a good lunch at her parent’s place, made him suddenly decide to follow her example. Locking up, he drove off on a ninety-minute journey to Merthyr and arrived at his parents’ house in Cefn Coed in time for tea.
Though he had stayed with them after returning from Singapore, while waiting for Garth House to become available, they were delighted to see him. During his long years abroad, he had only managed two visits home and it was now pleasant for them to have him in the next county. By seven o’clock, he was slumped in an armchair, replete after a massive meal that his mother had cooked, telling them all the details of this first week in the new venture. His father had helped with the burden of financing it, buying him the car and a new binocular microscope, as well as some other equipment, so he was happy that his son seemed confident that this rather risky endeavour was going to succeed.
As the evening wore on, he gave in to his mother’s persuasion and decided to spend the night there, sleeping in his old room, where he had grown up until he went to university. After a morning lie-in and a large Sunday lunch, he drove back home and arrived around four o’clock. As he went into the large empty house, he was surprised to find that he missed Angela’s presence and was looking forward to her coming back that evening.
Sian had laboriously typed his two post-mortem reports before leaving on Friday and he went to his room at the back of the house to check through them. He signed the one which concluded that the cause of death was ‘myocardial infarction due to coronary thrombosis’, but that relating to the woman would have to wait until Sian did her analysis for barbiturates.
He was looking at the reports, typed on plain foolscap paper, and was contemplating having standard forms printed with their partnership names at the top, when he heard the phone ringing. It was in the hall, just outside his room and he answered to find that it was the coroner’s brother, Peter Meredith.
After some polite introductions, the Swansea barrister explained that he was involved only as a ‘go-between’ and the person seeking advice was a professional friend of his, Leonard Massey, QC, of the Middle Temple.
What Meredith had to say only strengthened the suspense, as Richard related with relish when Angela returned soon afterwards. He sat her in the staff lounge and brought in a tray of tea and biscuits from the kitchen.
‘A Queen’s Counsel looking for a pathologist down here in the sticks?’ she exclaimed. ‘But why? They’re coming out of the woodwork in London – Keith Simpson, Francis Camps, Donald Teare!’
After years in the big city, she knew all about the forensic scene there, but Richard shook his head as he poured her a cup of tea.
‘This isn’t to do with one of his trials up there,’ he said. ‘This is personal, for the dead woman involved is his daughter. It seems that he wants a second autopsy – and the first one was done in Swansea.’
His partner raised her elegant eyebrows. ‘So what was wrong with the first one? How did she die, anyway?’
Pryor offered her the plate of Peek Frean’s shortcakes, and took one himself after she declined.
‘Peter Meredith didn’t know much about it himself, but said that it was reported to the coroner and that it was said to be a drowning in the sea.’
‘So where do we go from here?’ asked Angela, sipping her tea.
‘I told Meredith that I was happy to give any help I could, so he’s ringing his QC pal with our phone number. He should be contacting me tomorrow to give me more information.’
‘Roll on tomorrow!’ said the scientist gaily. ‘This could be the start of something big, as they say in Hollywood! Getting the lawyers to put your name about will do us no harm at all. Tomorrow might be a memorable day, especially if the Scottish lady comes up trumps!’
It was to be an eventful day, one way and another.
Sian was in early and with Angela supervising, set about the barbiturate analysis. Though the scientist was primarily a biologist, an expert in blood, semen and anything botanical or zoological that had a forensic angle, she
