Pryor nodded. ‘So far, there doesn’t seem much to go on. I hope this lady isn’t wasting her money on a wild goose chase.’
Trevor Mitchell grinned, his stern face lighting up for a moment. ‘She’s not short of a few bob, is Agnes – though she’s keen to add a lot more to it from her nephew’s money. I’ve benefited from making a couple of similar goose chases for her in the last couple of years.’
‘D’you think there’s anything in this one?’
Mitchell shrugged his wide shoulders, from which his head seemed to rise without any neck.
‘No reason why it shouldn’t be. This Anthony fellow did just vanish over three years ago, so he has to be somewhere!’
‘But this Mrs Barnes seems to have it sewn up, with this ring and the watch.’
The former detective pursed his lips. ‘It’s only her word that says they belonged to him. There’s no corroboration from anyone else, she’s got no one to confirm it.’
They were interrupted by the kitchen door opening and a small lady entered carrying a tray. She was a wisp of a woman, with fair hair coiled in a roll around her head. Wearing a floral pinafore that almost matched the loose covers of the furniture, she gave Richard a smile from her elfin face as she set down the tray of coffee and biscuits on a small table between the two men.
‘This is my good wife, Doctor!’ announced Trevor. ‘Mary, this is the professor from Singapore we’ve been hearing about. Come to live in Garth House, down in the valley.’
‘I hope you’ll be very happy there, Professor,’ said Mary Mitchell. ‘I knew your aunt slightly, she sometimes used to come up here to church whist drives.’
With another smile, she went back to her kitchen, leaving her husband to hand a plate of Crawfords Rich Tea biscuits to his visitor.
‘So do I call you “Doctor” or “Professor”?’ he demanded.
‘“Doctor” will do, thanks,’ answered Pryor. ‘I held a university chair for a short time, but that was a long way from here. It always seems daft for men to hang on to their military rank long after they’ve packed it in. I suppose I could equally call myself “Major”, but it would sound silly.’
After a biscuit and a few sips, they got down to business.
‘I’m going to see Mrs Oldfield after I leave here,’ said Pryor. ‘Anything I should know before I meet her?’
‘Bit of an old snob, is Agnes,’ confided Mitchell. ‘She’s not seventy yet, but seems older, a real hangover from Edwardian days. Speaks her mind, and damn the consequences!’
‘So why does she think these remains are those of her nephew, this Anthony chap?’
Mitchell grinned again, which lightened his forbidding features. ‘She thinks every set of bones found within fifty miles of here must be his! This is the third time I’ve gone poking into other deaths – but they had cast-iron identities. At least this one is a bit more open to doubt.’
He drank down his coffee and replaced the cup in its saucer.
‘Anthony had plenty of money, as he and his father ran a factory in Swindon during the war, making some bits for aircraft. His parents died some years ago, but he didn’t need to work again, so he enjoyed himself.’
‘How old was he, then?’ asked Richard, taking another biscuit.
‘Forty-five when last seen three years ago. He used to do a lot of hill walking in the Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons – he was keen on fishing as well. He lived in a private hotel in Cheltenham, but latterly came to stay with his aunt, to be nearer the hills, she said. Apparently, he was also dotty about archaeology, and used to visit ancient places both here and abroad.’
‘And you didn’t find any trace of him from the time he vanished?’
Mitchell shook his head. ‘He wasn’t classed as a missing person for a long time after that. He used to just push off whenever he felt like it without telling anyone, as he had no other relatives. It was only when she hadn’t heard a word from him for over a year that she began to wonder if he was dead. That’s when she hired me, but what could I do?’
‘So he could be living in Nepal or camping in the Mexican jungle?’ said Richard.
‘It’s possible, but Mrs Oldfield won’t have it! She reckons he’s dead, but until it’s proved or he stays missing for seven years, she can’t collect. He intended leaving everything to her, according to Agnes – and the solicitor confirmed it to me.’
Richard took another biscuit and opened the file that the lawyer had given him the previous day.
‘According to this, the remains found near the reservoir were those of a man in middle age, of about average height and build. Not very helpful, as that fits about half the male population of Britain! Was there anything about the two missing men that wouldn’t fit that description?’
The former detective shook his head.
‘Of course, I’ve only been dealing with Anthony Oldfield, the Barnes angle is new to me. But Anthony, from what his aunt says and the photos I’ve seen, was a pretty ordinary-looking bloke, a bit on the lanky side perhaps.’
‘Has the solicitor asked you to look into the Barnes side of things on Mrs Oldfield’s behalf?’ asked the pathologist.
Trevor Mitchell nodded. ‘Yes, he told me that she wanted me to cooperate with you. She’s dead keen on winning this one, her nephew must have a lot of family money tucked away and she wants it.’
Pryor looked pleased at this. ‘I’m glad we can work together on this. As a doctor, it’s a bit difficult for me to go knocking on doors and asking questions.’
Mitchell’s face screwed up even more as a quizzical expression spread across his face.
‘What sort of questions, Doc?’
‘Well, anything noticeable about this Albert Barnes, which would be inconsistent with what’s described in this post-mortem report, little though that is.’
Mitchell thought for a moment. ‘Like a hunchback or club foot, you mean?’
‘That sort of thing – but we wouldn’t get that from his wife, who sounds as keen as our client on proving that the remains were that of her relative.’
‘But we might get something from a neighbour, perhaps.’
The pathologist nodded. ‘At least they wouldn’t be biased witnesses. It’s a long shot, but we’ve got little else to go on.’
‘And of course, we haven’t got the bones any more, they’re buried,’ added Mitchell.
Pryor nodded. ‘Without getting a sight of those, I can’t see we can go much further.’ He finished his coffee and stood up.
‘I said I’d be at Newnham by eleven o’clock. Mustn’t keep the lady waiting, especially as she sounds like an old-fashioned stickler for good behaviour. I’ll see if there’s any more medical details I can get from her. A pity we’ve got no head.’
‘At the moment, we’ve got nothing at all, Doc,’ said Mitchell, accompanying him to the door. ‘I’ll make arrangements to see Mrs Barnes to get her end of the story. She won’t be thrilled to see me, if she realizes that I’m trying to throw doubt on the coroner’s findings.’
Asking his host to thank his wife for the coffee, Richard made his way to his car, where he sat and pulled out a dog-eared book of AA road maps that had belonged to his father. Though he knew the area fairly well, from holidays with his aunt before the war, he needed to check on the route to Newnham, which was on the other side of the forest, on the main A48 to Gloucester. His finger traced out the road up to Coleford, then across to Cinderford and down an unclassified road to Newnham, which lay right on the river. Richard recalled it was one of the best places to see the famous Severn Bore, another memory from his student days.
He set off, window down in the rising heat and drove across the forest, through the most heavily wooded part of the Royal Forest that had provided England with so many ships in centuries gone by. In midsummer, the foliage was still fresh and green, quite different from the deep, lush colours of the jungle and rubber trees with which he had become so familiar during his years in the Far East. However, today the temperature was almost as great, a freak heatwave for June – but it was a dry heat, not the suffocating dampness of the tropics.
The road took him past the seventeenth-century Speech House in the middle of the forest, where the Verderers still held their Court every forty days, as they had done since the time of King Canute. Richard had learned these nuggets of local history during his pre-war holiday tours with Uncle Arthur in his old Morris Ten saloon.
As he came down the last lap of the journey into Newnham, the panorama of the narrowing river estuary lay
