The Thread of Evidence Read Free Page B

he lifted a particularly large rock.
    The doctor had barely grabbed it when there was an ominous rumble and an avalanche of stone slid down to fill in their excavation completely.
    Ellis-Morgan hastily backed away.
    â€˜Better leave it for now. Otherwise we’ll have the whole lot down on top of us.’
    He picked up the bundle of remains and turned to the entrance.
    â€˜Let’s go and see what we’ve already found looks like in the open.’
    They made their way back to the impatient group at the mouth of the shaft, to emerge, mud-spattered and blinking, into the evening light.
    Peter pounced on his father-in-law-to-be. ‘What did you find in there? Are those more bones?’
    â€˜Hold on, lad. Let’s put these down somewhere.’ The doctor spread his finds on the grassy bank at the side of the old ramp.
    â€˜Now then, let’s see how much anatomy I remember after forty-odd years.’
    He studied the grubby collection as the others clustered around to look over his shoulders.
    â€˜This is a radius – from the forearm. And these two are ribs,’ he said, holding them up.
    â€˜And this is a vertebra – from the spine. And this.’
    He laid some more ribs out in a neat row.
    â€˜What’s that big one?’ asked the ever-impatient Peter.
    â€˜Ah, that’s the prize of the collection, Griffith – the one we found last.’ He picked it up. It was a bone about a foot long, with knobs at either end.
    â€˜This is the bone from the upper arm – the humerus. And this is a right-sided one,’ the doctor proudly explained.
    â€˜They don’t look much like the bones my student pal used to have,’ objected Peter. ‘They were smooth and white.’
    â€˜And they hadn’t been lying in mud and water for umpteen years, either,’ countered Ellis-Morgan. ‘These have got half an inch of mud stuck to them.’
    He rubbed the arm bone vigorously in the grass to clean it.
    â€˜That’s better – what’s this, I wonder?’
    The doctor jerked his glasses back up his nose with a finger, and peered short-sightedly at the bone.
    He picked at something with a fingernail while the others waited expectantly.
    After a long moment, he squinted at the constable over the top of his spectacles.
    â€˜Wynne, perhaps you’ll get those sergeant’s stripes out of this after all!’
    He tapped the bone as he spoke.
    â€˜There’s a saw cut here. Just below the shoulder!’

Chapter Two
    â€˜I always said that it was him that had done it!’
    The speaker gave a final rub to the pint glass and hung it on its hook over the bar.
    His audience on the other side of the counter, nodded in unison. Three tankards were lifted to their lips as if to put a seal of approval on the landlord’s judgement.
    â€˜How did you come to know of it so soon, Ceri?’ asked one of the men, a wizened old fellow in a crumpled felt hat. Ceri Lloyd, the landlord of the Lamb and Flag, Tremabon’s only public house, leant his enormous body across the small bar in a gesture of confidence.
    â€˜Lewis John the Post Office came in about an hour ago,’ he hissed in a loud stage whisper. ‘His missus was on the switchboard when Wynne Griffith put a call through from the doctor’s house to his inspector in Aber – heard it all, she did.’
    â€˜â€™T isn’t right, that,’ one of the other men muttered into his beer. ‘That nosy old bitch will cause some trouble one of these days.’
    He was recollecting some rather indiscreet telephone calls which he had recently made himself.
    â€˜Well, she did, anyhow,’ carried on Lloyd – his cascade of chins wobbling as he strove to impart his confidential news to the whole of the crowded bar parlour. ‘Griffith was reporting some bones that him and Dr John had just found.’
    â€˜You’ve told us all that once already,’ complained