‘pending’ file.” He opened the top folder and peered myopically at the first page of endless police bumf, so his sergeant took the hint and sloped off to the canteen for his refreshments.
Ten minutes later, his lanky ginger-haired figure slid back through the door and he came to stand in front of the desk, his knuckles resting on the edge.
“I think you’d better have another read of that letter, boss,” he said in sepulchral tones. “I just had a cup of tea with the coroner’s officer. He happened to mention that Rita Lloyd was found dead yesterday morning!”
“Nothing! What d’you mean, nothing?” demanded Mordecai Evans. “There must be something, for God’s sake!”
On hearing his sergeant’s news, the DI had gone storming downstairs to the little room where the coroner’s officer presided, Willy trailing in his wake. He stood over Jimmy Armstrong, a large, placid man who had been a police officer before he returned after retirement to the same job as a civilian.
Jimmy shook his head sadly. “Sorry, guv, we got nothing. There was a post-mortem this morning and the doc found nothing that could have killed her. He’s kept some samples for analysis, just in case.”
Mordecai brandished Rita’s letter under Armstrong’s nose. “She wrote to us, saying her husband was threatening to kill her, man! Now she’s dead!”
The coroner’s officer shrugged. “Don’t blame me, I’m just the dogsbody round here. Perhaps you’d better have a word with the coroner.”
“Damn right I will,” muttered the detective. “And a few words with the flaming husband as well.” His irritation subsided as the possible consequences of this affair began to sink in. He sat on one of the hard chairs provided for grieving relatives when being interviewed by Armstrong and stared pensively at the coroner’s officer.
“You live in Tonypandy, Jimmy. What’s the gossip on these Lloyds these days?”
Armstrong, whose tweed suit and tidy grey hair made him look like everyone’s favourite uncle, clasped his hands as if in prayer.
“Queer pair, a disaster waiting to happen, I reckon.”
“He still runs the pub? I thought he’d have had the sack, after his run-in with the law,” growled the DI.
“It’s a Free House, he’s not just a manager,” cut in the sergeant. “The Elliot Arms is a bit of a dump, but we don’t get much trouble there. It’s too old-fashioned to attract the yobs, no strippers or live music, just a quiz-night once a week.”
“Why were he and his missus at each other’s throats then?” demanded Mordecai.
Armstrong shrugged his big shoulders. “Incompatible, they are! He’s a quiet sort of bloke, until he gets his rag out, then he’s got a terrible temper. She’s an old slag-booze, bingo and blokes. Rita’ll go for anything in trousers – at least, when she’s sober enough to stand up.”
The DI grunted and hauled himself to his feet. He tapped the letter. “So there might be something in this, eh?”
The coroner’s officer held up his hands defensively. “Don’t ask me, that’s your job. But I’d have a word with my boss first.”
The coroner was a local solicitor who conducted his business from his offices above a shoe shop in Pontypridd’s Taff Street, a few hundred yards from the Divisional Police Headquarters. Mordecai Evans and his sergeant took a walk there, pushing impatiently through the ambling throng in the narrow road, which was the town’s main shopping street.
They turned in at a door on which a worn brass plate declared
In a seedy reception area at the top of a narrow flight of stairs, a girl with a bad head-cold showed them into his office. Mostyn was a rotund man with a shiny bald head and a round, pink face that always seemed to have a smile on it, even when he was discussing death in all its often horrible forms. He ushered the two detectives to hard chairs and sat down again behind his paper – infested desk.
“My officer has told me about the situation over the phone,” he began, picking up a form from a pile in front of him. “We already had a bit of a problem in that Doctor Carlton hasn’t yet been able to give me a cause of death.” He gave them a cheery grin, as if he had just won the Lottery.
“Surely that’s unusual in itself, sir?” muttered Mordecai, picking at a pimple on his neck.
The coroner shook his head happily. “Not that unusual, Inspector. Especially if tablets or alcohol are involved, nothing may be found at the post-mortem, but the answer may come later from laboratory tests.”
The DI delved into his inside pocket and pulled out Rita Lloyd’s letter, now encased in a clear plastic envelope. He handed it across the desk.
“You see our problem, sir. I get this this morning, then I’m told she’s already dead!”
David Mostyn scanned through the single page of writing, then handed it back and rubbed his bald head as an aid to thought.
“It certainly requires us to proceed with caution, officer. What do you know about this pair?”
Mordecai motioned with his head towards his sergeant. “Williams here knows them best, he comes from that part of the valley.”
Willy cleared his throat and began to speak as if he was in the witness box, though he managed to avoid phrases like, “I was proceeding in a northerly direction.”
“Sir, Lewis and Rita Lloyd have been known to me for a long while. In fact, I arrested him some time ago for assaulting his wife. He is the owner and licensee of the Elliot Arms in Tonypandy, a free house where he lives with the now deceased.”
The coroner nodded, his benign smile still firmly in place. “Have you spoken to him about this yet?”
Mordecai shook his head. “We’ve only known about this for an hour, sir. It was only by chance that Lewis Armstrong mentioned to my sergeant that she was dead.”
The coroner stared down at the paper he held in his hand.
“All I’ve got is Lewis’s daily notification to me. It just says that the family doctor was called to the house-Dr Battachirya, that would be – who then phoned in to say he was reporting a death, as he couldn’t give a certificate. The woman was found dead in bed by the husband at seven-thirty yesterday morning.”
Mordecai Evans’s pugnacious face stared at David Mostyn.
“That’s all you have, sir?” he demanded, as if he suspected that the coroner was holding out on him.
“At this stage, yes. If the p.m. had shown a natural cause of death, like a coronary or a stroke, I would have issued a disposal certificate and that would be an end of it. As it is, I have to wait for the pathologist, Dr Carlton, to come back to me eventually with an update based on the results of the tests he sent away.”
“How long will that take, sir?” ventured Willy Williams.
Mostyn beamed back at him. “Varies a lot, sergeant. Some things, like alcohol and carbon monoxide, he can have done in his own hospital the same day. More complicated tests for drugs have to be sent away and can take weeks.”
The inspector glowered at the coroner as if it was his fault. “We may not be able to wait that long, sir. I’ve spoken to my Superintendent and he’s told me to see the husband and if I feel there’s any doubt, to proceed as if it’s a criminal investigation.”
David Mostyn’s smile faded a little. “And what would that entail in this case?”
Mordecai shrugged his bull-like shoulders. “We may have to call in the Scenes-of-Crime team to the pub, sir. And possibly ask the Home Office pathologist to carry out a second autopsy-with your consent, of course.”
He could almost see the figures ringing up like a cash register in the coroner’s eyes, as Mostyn calculated the extra cost to the budget he received from the local authority. However, he rallied and with his grin at maximum rictus, he agreed with good grace.
“Well, have a talk with this Lloyd chap, Inspector – and keep me informed as to what’s happening.”
The Elliot Arms was an ugly red-brick building on the main road through the Rhondda Valley, a twisting, congested route lined with terraced houses, betting shops and Chinese take-aways. Built in 1900 to wash the coal- dust from the throats of thousands of miners, the public house had fallen on hard times, now that not a single pit remained in the valley. Lewis Lloyd had managed to survive by accepting a frugal life-style, most of his custom coming from the old colliers whom came to the Elliot mainly out of habit. There was also a hard core of pigeon fanciers, whose Club met once a week in the barren room above the Public Bar. Lewis was himself a pigeon man, with a large loft out in the backyard where he kept a dozen cherished Fantails. He also had a moderate lunch-time
