prove him dead, but all her efforts to find something proved fruitless. She had vague ideas about discovering a receipt or a guarantee for an Omega wristwatch or a Blood Transfusion Service Donor’s Card, but there was nothing in the few papers he had left in a desk in his room. She wondered if he had left anything with his bank or in a safe- deposit box somewhere, but had no idea how to follow that up – she must ask Lethbridge about it, she decided.
While Mrs Oldfield was rooting around at her home, eighty miles to the west Michael Prentice was pacing around his living room at
He was trying to make sense of Eric Laskey’s phone call, to tell him of the detective’s visit to the factory. What earthly connection could their research into lubricant additives have to the matter in hand? And why did the inspector insist on taking some of the new product away with him? Like his business partner, Prentice was unhappy that a sample of their closely guarded innovation had left the premises, but even he could not believe that a police officer had any commercial motives.
He poured himself a strong whisky and added a spot of water, then marched out into the garden with the glass in his hand. Walking around the corner of the house, he went to where his car was parked in front of the garage and stared at it, as if seeking inspiration. He circled the Jaguar, but saw nothing that triggered any explanation.
Opening the boot, he looked inside and felt around the carpeted floor, again without result. Mystified he slammed it shut and stood back to sip his drink. As he stood there contemplatively looking at the ground, his eyes focused between his feet and became aware of scattered black stains on the concrete.
‘Bloody useless mechanics!’ he hissed. After the first two thousand miles his car had travelled since the molybdenum had been added to the engine oil, the condition of the main bearings and big ends had recently been checked. It seemed obvious now that when the sump pan had been replaced, either the ring of bolts had not been tightened sufficiently or the gasket had not been renewed, leading to a slight oil leak.
He hurried back into the house, then came out again with a raincoat and went to the garage, where he found a wire brush on the workbench, which he pushed into his pocket. With rapid strides, he set off eastwards along the track, scanning the uneven stones as he went.
FOURTEEN
Richard Pryor could stay up working or reading late into the night without protest, but once in bed, he detested having to get up again. That was the one thing about forensic medicine that he disliked, the frequency of being called out in the early hours.
It was fortunate then, that just before midnight on Sunday, he was still reading in his room when the phone went and his presence was requested in a wood about twenty miles away. The call came from a Detective Superintendent Tom Spurrel in Cheltenham.
‘Sorry to disturb you so late, Doctor, but we’re in a bit of a spot. We’ve got a shooting and no pathologist to attend the scene.’
He went on to explain that their regular Home Office pathologist from Oxford was already out on a double murder that would keep him occupied until late next day.
‘My old friend Trevor Mitchell had told me about you and suggested that if we ever needed a backup, you might be able to help us out,’ he added.
Richard was only too happy to oblige, as he was keen to get a foothold in the Home Office work. He asked the Gloucestershire officer for more details.
‘We’ve got a chap shot dead in a car in a forestry area between Ross-on-Wye and Gloucester. It looks like a suicide, but the DI that was called is not happy about it, mainly because the deceased is a known villain from London. We can fill you in more when you get here.’
He gave some directions to Richard, suggesting that the best route was up to Ross via Monmouth, then down on the A40 towards Gloucester.
‘I’ll have a police car waiting for you on that road a couple of miles before you get to Huntley village. He’ll lead you to the scene, as it’s hidden away up some country lanes.’
With a promise to be there within an hour, Richard ran upstairs and tapped on Angela’s door.
‘Are you in bed or decent?’ he called.
She was not in bed, but was in a dressing gown when she opened the door.
‘What’s this, Richard? Are you desperate enough to come knocking on a lady’s door in the middle of the night?’ she quipped.
He quickly told her about the phone call. ‘Do you want to come?’ he asked. ‘Be like old times for you.’
She agreed readily. ‘Give me time to get some clothes on. I’ll see you downstairs in five minutes.’
The Humber’s headlights were soon carving a passage through the slight mist that filled the valley as they drove. There were few other cars on the road and at Ross, they turned east towards Gloucester. Some miles down the A40, Angela spotted the illuminated roof sign of a police car parked in a field gateway. They slowed to a crawl until the big Wolseley flashed its headlights at them and Richard pulled up alongside.
‘We’ll go on a short way, Doctor and then turn left,’ called the driver from his open window. They followed him for a couple of miles through a sleeping village called Dursley Cross and then along narrow roads with woods on either side.
Angela was looking at a folded road map by the light of a small torch. ‘There’s a huge area of woodland here, must once have been part of the Forest of Dean.’
After another half mile the brake lights of the police car came on and he slowed to turn left into a bumpy track which went deep into the trees, seen dimly in the reflected light of their headlamps. A few hundred yards more brought them into a clearing, where two other police cars, two unmarked cars and a plain van were parked.
The other driver came across to them as they were retrieving their bags from the back seat.
‘We’ll have to walk a little bit now, sir,’ said the officer. ‘The way we came in isn’t the direct way to the scene, but we didn’t want to drive over any tyre marks.’
Another uniformed bobby was standing guard over the cars and took their names down on a clipboard.
‘I’ll take you through, I’ve got a decent torch here,’ said the police car driver, leading the way.
Walking through the forest was an eerie experience, as soon a glow appeared ahead where portable lights had been set up. A dense mist was hanging at head height between the trees and the dim light revealed only the straight black trunks of the larches on every side. The macabre effect was heightened when they overtook two men in black carrying a coffin through the ghostly scene, presumably the duty undertakers coming from the van parked in the clearing.
When they reached the lights, propped on tripods over car batteries, they saw a dark-coloured car at the end of a barely visible firebreak running through the wood.
Around it were half a dozen men, two of them in uniform. One of the others came to meet them as they approached.
‘Good of you to come, Doctor! And you, miss’ he added to Angela, assuming she was his secretary.
‘She’s a doctor too,’ explained Richard with a grin. ‘Doctor Bray, formerly of the Metropolitan Police Laboratory, until I stole her away!’
The superintendent introduced himself as Tom Spurrel, another large man, as most of Gloucester police seemed to be. Another officer approached them and Spurrel explained that he was Brian Lane, the DI who first attended.
‘The situation is this, Doctors,’ the superintendent began. ‘There’s a dead man in that car, shot through the neck. The gun’s on the floor and it looks like a suicide – but maybe that’s what it’s supposed to look like.’
‘You already know who he is, you said?’ asked Pryor.
‘Well, we know who the car belongs to and from the description we had over the phone from the Met, there seems little doubt that the chap is Harry Haines, a toerag from South London.’
‘Harry Haines? I’ve heard of him,’ exclaimed Angela. ‘Wasn’t he a villain from New Cross way, who got off on a murder charge a few years back? Some fight between rival gangs, that ended in a shooting. We had material from it in the Met Lab.’
Spurrel nodded in the gloom. ‘That’s him, his mob ran protection rackets and a bit of prostitution and
