‘It’s safe enough. The tractor can’t drop any further,’ said DS Nichols, reassuringly.
‘When you’re ready, we’ll jack it up and get him out,’ added Crippen as the pathologist began feeling the dead man’s arms and legs for warmth and rigor mortis.
‘Has the police surgeon been?’ asked Richard.
‘Yes, he certified death. Said he was stiff then, so he must have died some time ago.’
Pryor examined the hands, then pushed up one of the loose trouser legs of the mechanic’s stained dungarees to look at his shin. This seemed to interest him, and he did the same on the other leg, taking a few minutes to repeatedly press his thumb into the purpled skin. Then he stood up and looked at the expectant faces of the small group gathered around.
‘I can’t do any more until we get him out, Mr Crippen. Are you ready to do that now?’
The detective inspector nodded. ‘I’ve sent the cousins back to the farm. Best not to have them around if they’re possible witnesses for the coroner. Our chaps here can pull him out.’
With a coroner’s officer, three detective constables acting as photographer, exhibits officer and a dogsbody, as well as a uniformed PC, there was no lack of muscle power. Within minutes one DC had dragged a trolley jack from the back of the barn and, pushing several of the fallen blocks out of the way, set it under the right-hand side of the back axle.
‘This will lift three tons, so no problem with an E27N like this,’ promised the DC, who was something of a tractor enthusiast.
He pumped away at the long handle, and the hydraulic jack smoothly lifted the back end of the Fordson.
‘That’ll do it!’ shouted Crippen from the doorway once the big tyre had risen about nine inches from the floor. ‘Pull him well clear, lads. We don’t want any more accidents.’
Richard gave Angela a look that, combined with the raising of his eyebrows, suggested to her that something was not quite right. However, he did not elaborate and watched as the policemen carefully lifted the body by its arms and legs and laid it gently on the tarpaulin a few yards from the tractor. Beneath the wheel where the head had been lying, the concrete floor was stained with blood, but there was not sufficient to leave a pool.
The senior detective became aware that Shane Williams was still across the yard, staring fixedly at what the police were doing. He motioned to the only officer in uniform.
‘Best send that kid back up to the farmhouse, Davies. We don’t want him having nightmares, but I may want to speak to him later.’
With the corpse now clear of the tractor, both Richard and Angela crouched alongside the head. She had been in the forensic service for many years and had attended scores of scenes of death, so, although she did not relish blood and gore at such close quarters, she was not particularly distressed by this one.
As she pulled a pair of rubber gloves from their murder bag, she gave him a quizzical look. ‘What’s bothering you, Richard?’ she asked in a low voice.
‘I want to see his feet and legs as well as his neck,’ he muttered cryptically, before turning his attention to the top end of the body. The tyre had been almost a foot wide and had crushed everything from the upper chest to the lower jaw. With over a ton weight above pressing against the concrete below, the tissues and bones had been converted into a bloody pulp, the skin torn and grossly discoloured. Pryor lifted the head up, feeling it wobble obscenely because of the shattered neck vertebrae.
‘I’m trying to see the back of the neck. The skin there hasn’t suffered so badly,’ he murmured to his partner. But without turning the whole body over on to its face, there was no way he could get a satisfactory view, so he laid it down again and went to the legs. This time, he pulled down the woollen socks, as well as dragging up the trouser legs as high as they would go.
‘That’s just post-mortem lividity, surely?’ asked Angela, pointing at the purplish staining that covered all the exposed skin.
‘That’s just the problem,’ he said quietly, then looked across at the police officers, who were keeping at a respectful distance.
‘I’d like to get him to a mortuary as soon as we can, Mr Crippen,’ he said. ‘I can’t examine him properly out here, though I’ll have to take his temperature or it’ll be too late, given that he almost certainly died last night.’
Like Angela, Arthur Crippen picked up a note of concern in the pathologist’s voice. ‘D’you think there’s a problem, doc?’ he asked.
Richard declined to be drawn too far. ‘Let’s just say I’ll be happier after I’ve had a good look at him on the slab,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile, I’d suggest you preserve the scene until we know what we’ve got. And perhaps it would be wise to get a few more pictures of him, now that he’s out in the open.’
The detective inspector, with years of experience behind him, recognized a hint when he heard one and rapidly began organizing his troops.
THREE
It was now a little late to have lunch, but the two scientists found a small cafe in the twisty little streets of Brecon that could offer them bacon, egg and chips with their bread, butter and tea.
They had tried a pub on the way from Cwmcamlais, but after threading their way past sheepdogs and local farmers drinking Buckley’s Bitter, all that was on offer at the bar were crisps, desiccated pork pies or Scotch eggs.
‘So what’s all this mystery, Richard?’ demanded Angela as they sat over a second cup of Brooke Bond in the bay window of the little shop. He had refused to be drawn during the short journey from Cwmcamlais, promising to explain it after he had had more time to think.
‘Those legs,’ he said, stirring sugar into his tea. ‘Why is there all that lividity in them, especially on the front of the shins? The fellow had been on his back for hours.’
Though she was a biologist, not a medical doctor, Angela immediately realized what he was implying. ‘But that seems impossible! He was found lying under a tractor with his neck squashed.’
‘The whole thing is bloody odd! No wonder Hawley Harvey Crippen wanted me to have a look at it.’
She ignored his facetious renaming of the DI and demanded to know what he was going to do about it.
‘Depends on what else we find when I can go over every inch of that body.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘They should be at the hospital by now, so let’s get on with it.’
It was a small hospital and a small mortuary, little more than a brick shed near the boiler house. There was no mortuary attendant, but Pryor was used to fending for himself. With the help of Billy Brown, the coroner’s officer, he was able to deal with the examination after two undertakers had carried the corpse in from their van and laid it on the solitary slate slab in the small, dingy room.
Arthur Crippen and one of the detective constables crowded in behind, while the photographer took more pictures of the clothed body. Richard and Billy began removing the heavy boots, socks and then the crumpled dungarees and flannel shirt. As soon as the body was bare, Pryor again took great interest in studying the legs, then moved to the hands. Pulling off the underpants, he took the long thermometer which Angela handed him from their bag and slid it into the corpse’s back passage. Standing back, he waited for the mercury to settle and used the moments to speak to the detective inspector.
‘There’s something not right here, Mr Crippen. I’m not sure yet, but I suspect you’ve either got a concealed suicide here – or possibly even a murder.’
The DI remained impassive, his features retaining his usual gloomy frown. ‘It didn’t ring true to me either, doc. But what makes you think that?’
Richard turned to put on a long red rubber apron that the coroner’s officer took from a hook on the wall. After he had looped the chain over his neck and tied the tapes at the back, he put on the rubber gloves that Angela produced from their bag, then explained his suspicions.