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it were.’
    He almost said ‘put some flesh on the bones’ but that would have been a slip of the tongue that he knew this severe lady would not appreciate.
    â€˜What do you need to know?’ she asked, lifting her own cup with some difficulty.
    â€˜Can you give me some better details of his physical appearance, for a start? His exact height, build and any old injuries or serious illnesses, for instance.’
    She frowned and sipped her coffee as she considered this.
    â€˜I’ve told Edward Lethbridge all I know,’ she replied. ‘I can’t tell you his exact height, he was perhaps a little taller than you, say five feet ten inches. He was rather slim, because he was such an active man, always walking or climbing somewhere.’
    â€˜Did he ever have any serious falls doing that? Had a fracture of an arm or leg, perhaps?’
    â€˜Not that I was aware of, no. Though he was away for months at a time, before the war and since, even going abroad to the Alps or the Middle East or somewhere.’
    Aware that he was getting nowhere fast, Pryor tried another tack.
    â€˜Do you know if he was ever admitted to hospital for anything – I’m thinking of the possibility of obtaining X-rays, for example.’
    â€˜What could they tell you, Professor?’ she demanded.
    â€˜If we could compare them with the actual bones, we might find a match?’
    He refrained from saying that they were more likely to exclude a match than confirm it, thinking she would not want to hear the pessimistic side – but she was ahead of him.
    â€˜But you don’t have the actual bones, do you?’ she snapped.
    Pryor sighed, she had a sharp mind, but an abrasive manner, as Trevor had warned.
    â€˜Not yet, but we need more facts to support an application for them to be re-examined.’
    â€˜An exhumation, you mean? Would that be necessary, I would prefer poor Anthony to be left in peace.’
    She had obviously already made up her mind about the identity. Richard turned up his hands in a gesture of despair.
    â€˜Without a better examination, there would be no hope of overturning the verdict.’
    Agnes Oldfield pondered this for a moment and Pryor could almost hear the cash register ringing in her head as she weighed an exhumation against an inheritance.
    â€˜Very well, if it is the only way,’ she announced regally. ‘How can that be arranged?’
    Richard shook his head. ‘It’s not that easy, I’m afraid. We have nothing to go on from your end, so to speak. Your nephew vanished three years ago, but there is not the slightest evidence that he is dead. Before we can even approach the coroner about an exhumation, it would have to be shown that those remains were not those of Albert Barnes. That would be to rectify the coroner’s verdict, not to replace it with your contention that the remains were those of your nephew – that would have to be a separate exercise. Mr Mitchell is investigating this possibility even as we speak.’
    He thought it useful to emphasize how her minions were getting on with the job.
    There was nothing more that he could extract from Mrs Oldfield, though he spent a few minutes getting a better idea of how her nephew had vanished. It seemed that in June 1952, he had checked out of his private hotel in Cheltenham with all his belongings and arrived at his aunt’s house in Newnham, saying that he wanted to stay with her until he found another hotel or a flat in Bath, where he fancied living for a time. After a few weeks, he set off with a suitcase, saying he was going to stay a few days in Bath to look around – and never came back.
    â€˜I never heard another word from him,’ she said finally.
    Feeling that further poking into these matters was a job for Mitchell, rather than a forensic pathologist, Pryor rose to his feet, saying that everything possible would be done and that she would be kept informed –