Carmarthenshire Constabulary. They greeted each other, being old acquaintances, then Lewis explained the problem.
‘I’ll bet you’ve never had this request before, Larry,’ he claimed. ‘The super wants two samples of engine oil compared.’ He explained the problem and after listening, McLoughlin raised the flap in the counter.
‘Better come through and we’ll have a word with the eggheads.’
After a quick cup of Nescafe in Larry’s office, they went through into the second building, half of which was the toxicology laboratory, filled with benches of glassware, bottles and exotic electrical instruments.
From previous submissions of alcohol and drug samples, Lewis had a nodding acquaintance with Dr Archer, the man who ran this section. He again explained Ben Evans’s request to examine the exhibits from Gower.
‘This chap’s car has got a slight oil leak and he wants to know if he had parked in a particular spot where he shouldn’t have been.’
Archer, a tall, stooped man with a small pointed beard, made a sucking noise through his teeth to express doubt.
‘I don’t know if we can tell one brand of oil from another, Inspector. It might have to go away to some specialist place, like the Shell laboratories.’
Lewis hastened to elaborate on his story and told Archer about the testing of the additive in Prentice’s Jaguar.
‘Molybdenum sulphide? Bloody hell, that’s a new one on me!’ exclaimed the chemist, pushing his half-moon spectacles up his long nose. He turned to a bookshelf above a nearby desk and took down a volume from the middle shelf.
‘Let’s try good old Sherwood Taylor, he usually covers most things.’ After running his finger down the index, Archer turned to a page in the middle and began muttering under his breath, Lewis catching words like ‘ammonium phosphomolybdate’. Then, closing the book, he turned back to the police officers.
‘I think we can make a stab at it,’ he said confidently. ‘It’s not as if we need to measure the concentration at this stage, but just to be able to identify the stuff, eh?’
Lewis agreed, glad that the scientist had not kicked the possibility of helping into touch.
‘There’s hardly likely to be anyone else in South Wales with molybdenum sulphide in their sumps,’ he said. ‘Except for the other people in that company and one of their stolen vans. That’s something we would have to sort out.’
Leaving the brown envelope with the chemist, he left with the promise that they would try to get a result back to Gowerton within the next week.
After being up all night, Angela Bray took to her bed on returning to Garth House and stayed there until noon, but Richard had to go to Newport to carry out the day’s post-mortems. He made some breakfast for himself at about half past six, then wrote out a report on the night’s activities to send to the Gloucester coroner and police, when Moira had typed them up. Afterwards he took the opportunity to catch up on some medical journal articles until eight, when he washed, shaved and departed.
Soon afterwards, both Moira and Sian arrived and were intrigued to find a note from Richard telling them that Angela was in bed and that he had gone to Newport.
‘Why has she gone to bed?’ asked the technician, wondering if her boss was unwell, but Moira soon found the handwritten report on her desk.
‘They’ve been up all night, that’s why,’ she exclaimed, after scanning the papers. ‘They’ve had a murder!’
This called for an early cup of tea and the two women sat down in the kitchen to discuss their first definite homicide with almost an air of pride.
‘If we get in with the police, there should be more work like this,’ said Sian eagerly, again identifying strongly with the partnership.
‘Richard will surely have to go to the Assizes with this one,’ said Moira. ‘I hope he’s got a nice dark British suit for that, not those funny tropical ones he’s so fond of wearing.’
She was very conventional when it came to clothes, either her own or other people’s. Though she dressed nicely, her tastes were always subdued compared with either Angela, who was a fashion plate – or Sian, who favoured the young and trendy. Richard’s safari suits, with button-down pockets and half-belts at the back, made Moira think of big-game hunters or coffee planters.
Sian immediately came to Pryor’s defence.
‘I quite like the way he dresses,’ she declared. ‘Makes him look younger and more romantic!’
Moira thought that was because Sian wanted to narrow the age gap between her and her employer. Though the two women had become good friends, whenever Richard Pryor was the subject of the conversation, each became a little possessive, even if they didn’t realize it.
The crunch of heavy boots outside the back door heralded the arrival of Jimmy Jenkins, who seemed to have a sixth sense for detecting a pot of tea, as he did for a pint of beer.
‘Came to have a go at all those weeds in the front,’ he explained. ‘Proper disgrace they are, the old lady would have a fit if she saw them.’
However, he seemed in no hurry to attack the offending vegetation and sat down for his tea. He even had his own large mug in the cupboard, obscurely inscribed ‘A Present from Bognor Regis’. The drive down from the house to the main road was quite steep and ran at the side of a long stretch of coarse grass, which could hardly be called a lawn. At the edge adjacent to the gravel drive, there had been a narrow flower bed, still sporting a few straggling rose bushes, but since Richard’s aunt had died, it was filled with a luxuriant growth of weeds.
‘It would be nice to see it looking tidy again,’ said Moira, having known the house when it was kept in excellent condition.
‘The doctor would rather have me mess about getting his vineyard ready,’ grumbled Jimmy. ‘I told him no good will come of that, but he’s got his mind set on it.’
Moira rose and washed out her cup at the sink.
‘Well, have a go at the front while he’s not here,’ she advised. ‘But keep it quiet, as Doctor Bray is asleep, poor woman. She’s been up all night, gallivanting around mortuaries!’
Angela was wide awake by the afternoon, having joined Richard for lunch, for which Moira had prepared a cottage pie, with local potatoes, carrots and peas, followed by strawberries from higher up the valley.
‘These are what Jimmy’s always telling me to plant instead of vines,’ said Richard, liberally pouring cream over his fruit. ‘I suppose I’ll have to humour him next year, but there’s plenty of room for both.’
Sian sometimes felt that she was living in a slightly schizoid world, where murder, suicide, skeletons and blood were discussed alternately with weeding gardens and growing grapes and strawberries. But she enjoyed every minute of it and was determined to get this additional qualification in biochemistry. Then she could help make the laboratory more versatile and hopefully get some more sophisticated equipment to expand their capabilities.
They talked about the midnight escapade into the Gloucestershire forest and Richard explained the reasons for declaring it a murder, not a suicide.
‘The blood and the lividity showed that the chap must have been lying down after the shooting, but before he was propped up in the driving seat,’ he said. ‘But apart from that, the pistol must have been fired from well over a foot away, possibly a yard or more, so unless he had abnormally long arms, he couldn’t have shot himself!’
‘How could you tell that?’ demanded Sian, who always wanted to have cast-iron reasons.
‘When a gun is fired, all sorts of gunk comes out of the muzzle, apart from the bullet,’ said Pryor. ‘Flame, soot and unburned propellant. I admit there’s a huge difference in how far these things travel, depending on the type of gun and the type of ammunition, but suicides are usually contact or near-contact wounds, as the person tends to press the muzzle against the skin. Here there was nothing except a clean hole.’
Moira wanted to know what was the background to the killing, but Richard had not much to tell her.
‘We pathologists often don’t get to know all the details, as we may never hear any more about the case for a year, until it comes to trial,’ he complained. ‘And then, if there’s a guilty plea or the evidence is uncontested, we may never even be called to court and never hear a damn thing more.’
Angela remained very quiet and Pryor guessed that she was thinking of the unexpected visitor in the mortuary that morning. Later that evening, they sat in her room having a gin and tonic, which was now becoming a routine to unwind after the day’s work. The rain had cleared off and through the bay window, the valley could be seen in its green beauty once again.
They both knew that each of them was thinking of the same thing, but Richard wisely held his tongue until she
