A Fatal Secret Read online

  But the lorry was now out of sight, so there was no use dithering about it, and with a shrug Trudy told herself that, of course, the case she was working now – the unexplained death of a small boy – had to take priority. Even so, she had to console her conscience by promising herself that the next violation of the law she saw would have her swooping down on the miscreant like a veritable avenging angel. Well, as close an approximation to that as a probationary WPC of the City Police could manage, anyway!

  Once at the nearest library, it didn’t take her long to find, with the help of a friendly assistant librarian, the archive of the city’s newspapers.

  She started, naturally, with the obituaries. The death of someone as prominent in local society as the wife of Martin de Lacey was almost sure to have been well documented, and a lavish if discreet obituary was an obvious starting-off point. It would provide her with date of death and some bare facts, although it was by no means certain that she’d learn much more, she had to acknowledge realistically. Old families, as she was fast learning, had a habit of keeping their business low key.

  But she needn’t have worried, since she immediately struck gold with a newspaper article that had been published just a day after Martin de Lacey became a widower. The story had simply been too newsworthy to keep out of the papers.

  With her heartbeat steadily accelerating with every word she read, Trudy made copious notes of the very interesting particulars surrounding the death of Jennifer de Lacey, nee Wainwright, a little over three years ago.

  Jennifer had been the only daughter of a wealthy banker from Sussex, who had come up to Oxford to study Fine Art at Somerville College. At one of the city’s many soirées, she met her future husband, Martin de Lacey, and the couple fell in love and were married just after Jennifer finished her degree. She was 21, and from the photographs Trudy later managed to track down of their big, society wedding, had been a very beautiful woman indeed. With waves of long dark hair framing a heart-shaped face, it wasn’t hard to see why Martin de Lacey had chosen her for his bride.

  The marriage seemed to have been a happy and successful one, with Jennifer giving birth to two children – Emily, and then three years later, George. Trudy had little trouble tracing their activities through the archives, as they were featured prominently at charity galas, theatre first-night performances, and all the big annual balls. The glamorous couple were also photographed regularly at the Henley Regatta, and of course, Ascot and other such events.

  But then, three years ago, tragedy had struck this golden couple.

  One morning, Jennifer had taken her favourite horse, a handsome hunter named Seamus, out for his usual ride, which included a gallop over the hills on the de Lacey estate. She had been an acknowledged horsewoman from an early age, and was a regular at the local hunt, and the de Laceys, naturally, kept a large stable.

  But that morning, Seamus, sweating and in a state of some agitation, had returned to the stables without his rider.

  An immediate search was made, and Jennifer’s body was found in one of the meadows, lying not too far from a large hawthorn hedge. Her neck had been broken, along with her collarbone and one of her legs, leading to speculation that her horse may have trampled her, or rolled on her, in their fall.

  When she read this, Trudy had to pause to think of the odd coincidence that both the unlucky Mrs de Lacey, and the boy, Eddie Proctor, should both meet their ends in much the same manner – that of a broken neck.

  It was all but a foregone conclusion at the inquest that the jury would decide that Mrs de Lacey had fallen after jumping the hedge, and that they would bring in a verdict of misadventure. She was duly buried in Briar’s-in-the-Wold churchyard, and was mourned by her surviving husband, children and her parents.

  Trudy made a note in her notebook to ask Dr Ryder if he could look up the inquest details and see what the witnesses had had to say about it all. She knew that he couldn’t have been the coroner at the original inquest, or he’d have mentioned it before now, but she also knew that Clement wouldn’t let that stop him from accessing the records. And if his fellow coroners didn’t like it, they would no doubt be told to lump it!

  Feeling satisfied with her progress so far, Trudy packed up for the day and went home.

  Chapter 14

  When he got back to his office, Clement Ryder checked that the door was firmly shut behind him, and that his secretary was safely and noisily tapping away at her Remington typewriter. He then went to his desk, sat down with a relieved grunt and, reaching into his desk drawer, withdrew a small brown glass bottle of pills.

  He’d bought the pills during his Christmas holiday in Switzerland a few months ago, where he knew an old friend who would prescribe them for him with no questions asked.

  He took two of the pills now with water and then leaned back in his comfortable chair. He felt a little tired, but ignored it. He was no spring chicken, and couldn’t expect to swan around as if he were. Even so, he knew that the ennui that sometimes swept over him couldn’t always be accredited just to his age. That was wishful thinking.

  After a lifetime in medicine, he knew what it meant to have Parkinson’s disease. Who better?

  But he was confident that he was still in the very early stages, and that he’d done all that could be done to maximise his chances of continuing to lead a good and productive life for some years to come yet.

  Of course, he’d had to resign as a surgeon. You couldn’t continue to operate when your hands might start trembling any moment. But he told himself he was reasonably happy with his new career as a city coroner. It was interesting and fulfilling most of the time, and allowed him to keep making his mark in the world.

  His mouth felt dry – another symptom of the blasted disease that was slowly but inexorably making inroads into his health – and he poured himself a second glass of water.

  And then he went over that moment in the car, when Trudy had asked him if he was feeling well. He wanted to believe that it meant nothing. That it was just his heightened sensitivity on the subject that made him think she had begun suspecting that there was something wrong with him.

  But he knew he would be living in a fool’s paradise. Trudy was a bright, clever, and observant young woman. Clearly, she was, at the very least, aware of something not being quite right. And she couldn’t have made it any more clear that she was giving him the opportunity to talk about it, if she’d come right out and asked him.

  But there was simply no way that he could confide in a young, serving police constable, that he was unfit for his duties. Burdening her with his secrets, and then asking her to keep them would be patently unfair on her. Even though he was fairly confident that she wouldn’t report her knowledge to her superiors if he asked her not to, it still wasn’t a risk that he was prepared to take.

  Besides, he was a man who’d always kept his own counsel.

  And what if she started pitying him? He shuddered. No. He would say nothing. Whatever little tell-tale signs she’d noticed, at this stage, could only have led to vague suspicions on her part. With luck, it would be a year or more before anything more overt made her sure that something was wrong with him.

  And they would cross that bridge when they came to it. Not before.

  Determined not to sit and brood, he turned his thoughts to the Proctor case. It was early days yet, but he was beginning to think that perhaps the boy’s father might just be on to something.

  It was not so much that they’d learned anything physical. Nothing, for instance, that Trudy’s hard-headed DI would accept as actual evidence. But the psychology was interesting. The players in the drama were slowly taking shape, and Clement’s instincts were beginning to kick in. He was not a man given to outbursts of imagination or the kind to be influenced by atmosphere, naturally, but Clement was nevertheless willing to concede that there was definitely something ‘off’ at Briar’s-in-the-Wold.

  Not that he’d say as much to young Trudy! She’d accuse him of having ‘intuition’
which was nonsense. But he was an experienced man of the world, and you didn’t get to be his age, and reach the heights of both his chosen careers, without learning how to read people.

  And so far, he’d met several players in the Eddie Proctor case who were definitely afraid of something, and intent on covering up whatever it was that worried them. Whether or not that was actually something as bad as murder, though… Oh well, time would tell.

  And so, telling himself that although he was feeling heavy-eyed, he really didn’t need to take a nap (bloody Parkinson’s be damned), Clement determinedly reached for the first of the folders in his In Tray, and opened it.

  Chapter 15

  The moment Trudy stepped through the front door, the smell of steak and kidney pudding wafted through from the kitchen, making her mouth water.

  Her mother called out her usual hello, and Trudy answered back as she ran lightly up the stairs to change and have a wash, before coming back down.

  As she stepped into the hall she heard her father’s voice, then, with some surprise, another male voice answer him. As she swept into the small kitchen, Brian grinned up at her from the table and mumbled hello.

  ‘Hello, Brian,’ she said with a friendly smile, but inside she felt her spirits dip a little. It was not that Brian was an unattractive visitor to come home to. He had a mop of pleasing sandy-coloured hair, and a wide, handsome face, a little marred by freckles perhaps, but this was more than compensated for by his smile. He had a nice square chin, and clean white teeth, and was, as Trudy knew only too well, considered to be something of a catch by all the girls in Botley.

  But after the lunch at the hotel, she’d sensed that things between them – and their lacklustre courtship – needed to be sorted out once and for all, and she was not particularly looking forward to it.

  ‘Isn’t this nice?’ Barbara Loveday said cheerfully, hefting the suet pudding from her biggest saucepan of boiling water, and setting the glass dish onto the draining board. ‘Brian just popped around to see if you were back from work yet, and since there’s more than enough’ – she indicated her muslin-topped steaming pudding – ‘to go around, I asked him to stay for dinner.’

  Trudy nodded, pulling back her chair. Naturally, her mother would invite him to dinner. Barbara Loveday spent a good deal of her time reminding her daughter of just how lucky she was that Brian Bayliss was so fond of her.

  ‘Yes, Brian always could smell a good dinner from a mile off!’ she teased him.

  She’d known Brian for all her life, and felt as natural with him as she did with her own brother. He was just a year older than she was, and since his family lived just down the street, they’d gone through primary and secondary school together. There, although he had never exactly shone in the classroom, Brian had excelled at rugby, and now played for the local amateur team, who regularly managed to lift the available silverware on offer.

  It had always been Barbara Loveday’s and Mrs Bayliss’s fondest wish that the two of them would make a match of their own, but for all their scattered dates and friendly outings together, Trudy had never really felt that this was going to happen. And now she was wondering if she was not the only one who’d been thinking that. For unless she’d misread the signs, her so-called ‘boyfriend’ wasn’t all that keen on taking their relationship any further either.

  ‘Brian’s just told us he’s got a new job,’ her father said, folding his newspaper away and propping it up against a plant pot on the kitchen windowsill.

  ‘Yes, with better pay than his old job, plus the chance of rising to foreman in five years’ time,’ Barbara put in eagerly as she mashed the potatoes and then moved to the sink to strain the swede and carrots that were to accompany their meal.

  ‘Oh? Where’s this then?’ Trudy asked Brian obligingly.

  ‘Working for the council.’ It was, perhaps not surprisingly, her mother who swiftly supplied the answer, her voice indicating her pride at this coup on his part. Brian, so far, had yet to speak, and Trudy cast him a swift thoughtful glance, wondering if he resented having someone answer for him.

  But he was smiling amiably at her, and Trudy supposed that he must have got used to it, since it was usually his own mother who did the talking in the Bayliss household!

  ‘Doing what, Brian?’ Trudy asked, stressing his name slightly, and looking at him firmly.

  ‘Road-sweeping,’ Brian said succinctly.

  ‘Good job for a big strapping lad like you,’ her father said approvingly.

  Trudy nodded, glad because Brian seemed glad.

  ‘Here we go then,’ Barbara said, setting down two heaped, steaming plates of food in front of the two men, before bringing two much smaller portions to the table for herself and her daughter.

  ‘We’re that looking forward to getting a telly next week, did your mother tell you?’ Barbara said to their visitor, passing him a bottle of Daddies Sauce. ‘Your mum said she was going to see if she could get your dad to agree to renting one as well. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?’

  Trudy speared a piece of steak as her mother battled to get her visitor chatting. Brian was a nice boy, but he needed to find some other girl to court, someone who wasn’t interested in pursuing a career, perhaps. And there would be no shortage of offers, Trudy mused, glad to have her conscience appeased, as she thought of the string of girls who’d be happy to take him on.

  Of course, it would upset Mrs Bayliss. Not to mention her own mother, but it had to be done. Her top priority right now was her job, and would be for some years to come.

  Her parents simply wouldn’t take her ambitions seriously. Not even her recent moment of fame had made a dent in the Lovedays’ mainly unspoken – but deep-seated – conviction that Trudy’s job was ‘just a phase’ she was going through.

  With a sigh she smiled at Brian, who seemed to be gamely trying to think of something nice to say about television, and she nervously awaited her opportunity. She’d never had to throw over a boy before and even though she was convinced that Brian would be all right about it all, she still felt awkward.

  Later, when the dishes had been washed, wiped and put away, the moment finally came as she walked Brian to the door.

  ‘So, do you want to come to the cinema Saturday night with me?’ he asked without any notable enthusiasm.

  Carefully, she eased him outside and shut the door firmly behind her.

  ‘Brian, there’s something we really need to get clear,’ she began gently but firmly, taking a deep breath. ‘Do you think it’s time we called it a day?’ she asked clumsily. ‘I mean, you and me… it’s not really working out. Is it?’

  She watched his shoulders slump in relief, and she let out a long, slow breath.

  Chapter 16

  The next morning, Trudy went to work in a solemn mood.

  The talk with Brian couldn’t have gone better. He’d instantly agreed that he’d been feeling for some time as if they were just going through the motions, and that he, too, had been trying to work up the nerve to break things off. It had ended with him kissing her on the cheek gratefully, and pressing a hand around her arm. He had left, if not with an actual spring in his step, then without any noticeable regret, which might have hurt her pride had she not been so relieved that neither of them had been left with any hurt feelings.

  But that had been only the first hurdle.

  Fearing a family row, she’d left it until this morning to break the news to her parents that she and Brian were no longer officially an item.

  Frank Loveday, she’d noted without much surprise, hadn’t looked that disappointed, but her mother had been a different story. Dire warnings about girls who were left old maids through being too fussy, were followed up by admonitions about young girls who didn’t have any common sense, to a final, hurt and cold silence when she realised her daughter wasn’t going to back down.

  Now, as she entered the station, Trudy felt almost glad to see DI Jennings, even though all he did was scowl at her and check the clock to s
ee if she was late. (Which just went to show how bad the atmosphere had been at home!)

  She spent the morning catching up on writing her arrest reports for the past week, but finding herself free at lunchtime, she called the coroner’s office. Dr Ryder’s secretary told her that he was indeed free from one o’clock onwards, and so she quickly ate her sandwiches (which she’d had to make herself, since her mother was so disgusted with her) and then pedalled over to Floyds Row.

  Once ensconced in Clement’s office, she filled him in on all that she had learned about Jennifer de Lacey’s death. He immediately got up and asked his secretary to find the records and have them sent up to his office when she had a spare moment.

  ‘So, where do we go from here?’ Trudy asked. ‘Do we talk to Eddie’s brothers and sisters now?’

  But her friend was already shaking his head. ‘I’d still rather leave that as a last resort,’ Clement said. ‘Let’s stick to the adults in the case first. Have you found out who this rich American woman is, who’s causing so much upheaval in the lives of the de Lacey men?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Trudy admitted. ‘But it shouldn’t be that hard, should it?’

  Clement grunted, thought about it for a few moments, then reached for his telephone. He picked up the black Bakelite receiver and then swore under his breath as he realised that he couldn’t recall – from memory – the number that he wanted.

  He thrust aside the painful realisation that he’d never had trouble with his otherwise excellent memory before, and reached instead for his diary, where he had a list of telephone numbers in the back pages. Finding the name of the particular friend he was after, he put his finger in the dial, and twirled the clear plastic around until he had dialled 128.

  For her part, Trudy waited patiently. She had no idea who he was calling, but she’d learned very quickly that Dr Ryder knew many people, from all walks of life, and all of them, so it seemed, were happy to oblige him.