They paused there to have a look on the way back, but this time driving past the house without stopping, because of the curtain-twitcher.
‘Think that was the fancy woman?’ asked Richard. ‘If it is, she didn’t waste much time moving in!’
His chauffeur shrugged.
‘Takes all sorts, dunn’it!’ he said.
TEN
The following week was a busy one for Garth House, as Richard’s stint as a locum in Newport produced a steady stream of sudden deaths, a couple of suicides, a fatal road accident, a death under anaesthesia and a fall from a factory roof. Angela was also busy, as her reputation in the blood-grouping field for disputed paternity had spread rapidly and she had half-a-dozen new cases to deal with.
Sian also had her hands full with several blood and urine alcohol estimations, using the time-consuming Widmark method, as well as some more histology for Richard. One of the two suicides needed a carbon monoxide analysis, as the victim had her head in a gas oven – and the other one was more obscure, being a mixture of barbiturates and an unknown number of tablets from an unmarked bottle.
‘We’d better ask the coroner if this can be sent to the Cardiff Forensic Laboratory,’ said Richard, after Sian had explained that she had no facilities for doing a blind screening test on the blood and urine samples that he had brought back from the Newport mortuary. The Cardiff laboratory was one of the seven that the Home Office had set up across England and Wales and although it specialized in the forensic examination of documents, it also did the full range of investigations.
In addition to Pryor’s work in Newport, there were a number of routine post-mortems in Monmouth and Chepstow, so there was little time to think about the more curious cases.
‘I’ve heard nothing from Trevor Mitchell so far this week,’ observed Richard, as he and Angela sat over the ham and salad supper that Moira had left for them on Wednesday evening.
‘We can’t expect any progress on the exhumation yet,’ replied Angela, sampling a glass of sweet cider that Jimmy had brought in from a farm a few miles away.
‘Knowing the speed the Home Office reacts, the application is probably still sitting in someone’s ‘In’ tray in Whitehall.’
Her partner drank some beer, his preferred drink, this time a bottled one from Brain’s Brewery in Cardiff.
‘I wonder if the police have decided to lean on Michael Prentice?’ he mused. ‘I thought that Superintendent Evans was quite a capable chap, he reminded me of Trevor. If they don’t make their minds up soon, the coroner is going to let them bury that poor woman.’
‘Would it matter if they did?’ asked Angela. ‘You said there’d be nothing to be gained by a third post-mortem, given that you’ve got all the samples.’
Richard grunted. ‘All the same, any decent defence counsel would complain that they were at a disadvantage if they couldn’t get their own expert opinion. They could hardly get much joy out of O’Malley’s report.’
The biologist speared the last piece of local ham with her fork.
‘The coroner won’t allow cremation, you said – so they could join our club and get an exhumation order.’
Richard grimaced. ‘The value of what they could get out of that will get less by the week, once the body is buried,’ he observed.
Perhaps the Glamorganshire Constabulary had the same concerns, as that evening, a maroon Vauxhall Velox saloon parked at the side of the track across the cliffs at Pennard and two police officers went across to the gate of
Ben Evans led the way up the long gravel drive and his inspector followed, looking about him with a professional eye.
‘He’s in, as there’s a car at the side of the house,’ muttered the superintendent, nodding at a black Jaguar parked outside the garage at the rear of the house.
‘He can’t be short of a bob or two,’ growled Lewis. ‘That’s a Mark Five, and brand new by the look of it.’
The senior officer went to the front door and banged on the brass knocker, discoloured by the constant salt spray that blew up from the sea. He heard some muffled voices, then a shape appeared beyond the coloured frosted glass of the top half of the door. When it was opened, a tall man in a Fair Isle jumper stood there, but there was no sign of anyone behind him.
‘Mr Michael Prentice?’ queried Evans. ‘Could we have a word with you, please?’
He identified himself and Lewis Lewis as police officers, but Prentice needed no introduction to know that this pair were detectives. He sighed and stood aside, opening the door fully.
‘You’d better come in, I suppose. No doubt that bloody father-in-law of mine has set you on to me with his crazy notions.’
‘In fact, sir, we are here at the behest of the coroner,’ began Ben Evans, heavily. ‘We thought it better to visit you at home, rather than at your place of work.’
Prentice led them into a room on the left of the hall, one of those with a bay window that overlooked the front garden. It was expensively furnished with a leather three-piece suite around a thick patterned carpet. A baby grand piano stood against a further wall and there were two glass-fronted cabinets filled with porcelain.
Prentice motioned them to sit on the settee, but remained standing in front of the stone Minster fireplace in which was fitted a coal-effect electric fire, now switched off.
Lewis produced a notebook and pencil, leaving his DS to do all the talking, but Michael Prentice beat him to it.
‘I know you are only doing your duty, but this is really intolerable! My late wife’s father has disliked me since the moment he set eyes on me, years ago! This is a great chance for him to embarrass me, but I must warn you that I intend taking legal action against him for defamation of character.’
Evans, who had heard similar threats so many times before, remained imperturbable.
‘We just need to establish some facts about your wife’s death, sir. I’m sorry I have to trouble you at a sad time like this, but there are some points which need clearing up.’
Prentice, somewhat deflated, gave up his ‘master of the house’ pose before the hearth and subsided into one of the buttoned armchairs.
‘What is it you want to know?’ he sighed. ‘I’ve given all this to the uniformed men who came at the time of my wife’s death, as well as to the coroner’s officer.’
‘What is your occupation, sir?’ asked Evans, thinking of the very expensive car outside.
‘I’m a partner and technical director of a company that develops new equipment for the motor industry – electronic ignition systems, lubricating additives, disc brakes and the like,’ he said with obvious pride. ‘We have a research and production unit on Jersey Marine, just beyond Swansea docks.’
‘And how long have you been married?’
‘Just over five years. My wife was twenty-eight when she drowned and we married on her twenty-third birthday.’
Lewis scribbled away as the other detective carried on with his questions.
‘I understand that your wife, Linda, was a keen swimmer. She went in almost every day, is that right?’
‘In the summer, yes. We’ve been in this house for a year and she only stopped swimming from about last October until this April.’
‘So where did you live before?’ asked Ben Evans.
‘In Slough, where our first small factory was based. We were offered a good deal on a new building and rate- relief in Swansea, so we moved here. Linda wanted to be near the sea, she loved the coast.’
Evans paused for a moment, while he leaned across to look at what Lewis had written.
‘Is all this necessary, Officer?’ said Prentice testily. ‘I’ve said all this over and over before!’
‘I’m afraid so, sir. Now, let’s go to the day she vanished. What exactly happened?’
Michael Prentice hunched forward in his chair, his hands clasped between his knees.
‘This is very painful for me, Superintendent. But if you must know yet again, I was at my office as usual, leaving after breakfast and working late, getting back here about eight in the evening. It’s almost an hour’s drive at rush
