He went on to tell his opposite number that the Yard were also involved and got the usual reaction.
‘Let’s make some more enquiries up here before we wheel them back in,’ suggested the ACC. ‘This man you mentioned, Micky Doyle, is well known to us. A villain of the first water, though he somehow manages to keep out of jail.’
‘What could possibly be the connection between a body hidden down here and the rest of him being up there with you?’ asked Davy John. ‘Is this suggested gang connection feasible?’
‘I came down here from Manchester, so I’ll believe anything about gang warfare,’ said the Birmingham officer. ‘Anyway, I’ll get some men on to it and get back to you.’
With a promise to mail the whole file on the ‘Body in the Bog’ to him, David Jones rang off and sat back to ponder on when — or even, whether — to tell New Scotland Yard about this potential new development.
TEN
Garth House seemed emptier without the colourful and vivacious figure of Priscilla Chambers decorating it. Even Moira, who originally viewed her arrival with more than a tinge of jealousy, missed her attractive personality and cheerful manner.
‘Let’s hope Priscilla gets a job she likes pretty soon,’ she said to Sian, as the technician brought in some results for typing. ‘She seemed so keen on going back to her old bones.’
‘I thought that perhaps she and Richard might have got something going between them,’ said the ever-romantic Sian. ‘Especially as nothing of the sort seems to be developing elsewhere!’
She said the last part in a stage whisper, though Richard was at Hereford mortuary and Angela was in her front sitting-room, reading a newly arrived copy of the Journal of Forensic Sciences from America.
Moira failed to respond to Sian’s comment, as although she knew it was a ridiculous fantasy, she had her own dreams about Richard Glanville Pryor. To change the subject, she told Sian about a phone message she had just received.
‘They want another conference in Bristol over this Appeal,’ she announced. ‘The QC is coming down from London for it, so Richard and Angela will have to make another trip across the river.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I wish I knew more about the law. The more I see of it here, the more I want to learn. It seems far more interesting from this angle than all that dull stuff about probate and conveyancing that I used to type when I worked in a solicitor’s office.’
Sian was upbeat about Moira’s ambition. ‘I’m sure Richard will help you. He promised he would and he never breaks his word. In fact, I heard him telling Angela only yesterday that he would have a word with his friend the Monmouth coroner, as his brother is a barrister.’
Encouraged by this, Moira began banging her typewriter with new enthusiasm, contented that her hero was still thinking of her well-being.
Christmas was now only a few weeks away and Angela was planning to have a few days at home over the holiday. She was still concerned about her mother, though she was recovering well from her slight stroke. Angela drove back to see her at their stud farm every weekend, just as Richard went quite often to visit his parents in Merthyr Tydfil. He could rely on being well fed there, instead of staying in lonely isolation at Garth House. Moira always made lunch for him on Saturdays, but Sunday was down to his own efforts, unless he went out somewhere to eat.
The message about the case conference with leading counsel also carried the news that the Appeal had been listed for early January, so Richard had resolved to go soon to the libraries of the medical schools in Bristol and Cardiff. He wanted to check that he had read everything available about the estimation of the time of death, so that he could not be wrong-footed if it came to a contest in court. He had just read an important article that had been published earlier in the year, originating from Ceylon, but wanted to make sure that nothing even more recent had slipped past his notice. Richard knew that Doctor Angus Mackintyre was one of the dogmatic old school of ‘It is so, because I say so’ philosophy, but he did not want the opposition to find even one chink in his own argument. Even if not relevant to the issue, he knew that once an expert witness is shown to have a weakness, it can be used to denigrate the rest of his evidence.
However, he was distracted a little when, the next day, he was waylaid by Jimmy in the backyard, who told him that his crony who sometimes worked in the Glamorgan vineyard had spoken to his boss there about Richard’s interest in establishing a similar project. The owner, Mr Louis Dumas, said that he would be happy to show Doctor Pryor around his estate and Jimmy had brought a crumpled piece of paper with a telephone number and an invitation to arrange a meeting. Richard was delighted, as his volatile imagination saw him soon being admitted into the arcane brotherhood of vintners. He phoned that evening and made an appointment to go down to visit Monsieur Dumas on Saturday of the following week — he already mentally applied the French title to him, after hearing the slight but definite Gallic accent over the telephone. When he told Angela later, she could not resist teasing him in her quiet way.
‘Monsieur Dumas, no less! I suppose we’ll end up having to call you the Count of Monte Cristo!’
She was not to know that this new contact was to lead to something more complicated than just growing grapes.
After the ACC in Birmingham had spoken to David Jones and agreed to launch an investigation into the missing head, he discussed it with his Head of CID, a chief superintendent, who next day called the DCI for the Division in which Winson Green and Handsworth were situated. The order trickled down this chain of command until it reached those officers who would actually have to do the work.
A copy of the slim file on the headless body arrived from Aberystwyth and eventually landed on the desk of a harassed inspector at the police station in Foundry Road.
Trevor Hartnell was an experienced detective, but had only been in this division for about three years and had never heard of this elusive head. However, the name Micky Doyle was well known to him as one of the local gangsters who was slippery enough never to have been successfully prosecuted.
Hartnell called his sergeant and four detective constables into his cubicle in the dreary CID room and explained the situation to them.
‘The brass in headquarters want us either to find this bloody cranium or prove it’s all a fairy story. The best lead we’ve got is what this snout in Handsworth said, about it being in the old Barley Mow.’
His sergeant, a burly bruiser named Tom Rickman, stroked the jowls under his chin.
‘That’s long gone, for a start. The Co-op have built a shop on it now.’
‘Have you ever heard of this yarn, Tom?’ asked the DI.
Rickman was dismissive. ‘Yeah, but it’s just a bit of the daft gossip that gets dredged up now and then, when folks have a few too many pints.’
One of the younger DCs had been scanning a copy of the file, updated with local information. ‘That grass over in Handsworth mentioned the landlord of that pub, guv’nor. That seems fairly definite, doesn’t it?’
The inspector nodded.
‘That’s what you lot have got to follow up. Find this landlord, if he’s still around. Ask anyone you can think of, if they’ve any knowledge of this whole business. The chief super is keen to get this sorted, as he says he’s got the ACC on his back.’
After a few more minutes discussing shift rotas and other bits of housekeeping, the team broke up and went their various ways, Tom Rickman heading straight for the place where the demolished pub had once stood.
His tall, broad figure strode along the depressing streets of the area, where rows of shabby red-brick houses were interspersed with small workshops and warehouses. Many of the faces he passed were West Indian, who were coming in increasing numbers to work in the factories.