A Fatal Secret

DI Jennings, true to form, saw no reason why she should be exempt from working through the holiday. Even though, before the week was out, she was due to attend a sumptuous lunch at the very swanky Randolph Hotel, where she would be the ‘star’ guest and feted as something of a heroine by members of the local press – as well as a certain Earl of the realm.

After being angry with her for initially keeping the seriousness of the event from them, her parents were now, naturally enough, as proud as punch about it all. But whilst they were eagerly looking forward to the event, Trudy herself was not so sanguine.

Although it was true that some months ago she had tackled and arrested a murder suspect all on her own, at the same time preventing the suspect from murdering the son of the Earl, she did not feel particularly heroic. Worse still, when the news had broken that the Earl intended to set up the dinner and have her presented with a formal letter of gratitude in front of the city’s press and various high-up members of the constabulary, she’d been ragged about it constantly by her peers.

And to no one’s surprise (least of all hers!), her immediate superior had made it very plain what he thought about it all. Which was not much. In Inspector Jennings’ opinion, the only woman police officer under his command was in danger of getting above herself. And it was his job to make sure her head was not allowed to swell! But no amount of protestations on her part that she had known nothing about it had convinced him that she wasn’t secretly thrilled with the attention.

So it was that she found herself at work during the Easter break, which in truth she didn’t really mind much at all. After all, others had to do it and lowly probationary constables (as the inspector had told her with a hard gleam in his eye) were very low down the pecking order when it came to being given prime time off.

Even so, it was a skeleton staff in the police station that morning, as the city’s many bells rang out for Easter. Not that Trudy minded that. At least DI Jennings wasn’t there to keep on giving her sharp, annoyed looks, and Sergeant O’Grady, as the senior officer present, was in a mellow mood. Some kind soul had brought in a huge chocolate Easter egg, which was very quickly being consumed by the few officers minding the store and, all in all, a holiday air prevailed.

Even the telephones were mostly silent, as if the city’s thieves and lawbreakers, too, were all sitting at home, presumably eating chocolate eggs of their own. But at just gone three-thirty, the phone rang, and from the look on Sergeant O’Grady’s face, it was clear that their quiet day had just been cancelled.

A slightly chubby man, with a big quiff of sandy-coloured hair and pale-blue eyes, he began scribbling furiously, then glanced up at the station clock. ‘Right. Yes, it’s a little early maybe to fear the worst just yet, but it doesn’t sound good. And the parents are sure he wouldn’t miss his dinner? Oh, right, I see. And the address is…’ He scribbled quickly, then nodded. ‘OK, I’ll help organise the search from this end. I dare say you already have some volunteers out and about? Right. And the local constable’s already there? Fine, we’ll have our own officers at the grounds within half an hour. Bye.’

When he hung up, Trudy, PC Rodney Broadstairs and Walter Swinburne – the oldest constable at the station – were all looking at him expectantly.

‘Right, everyone,’ the sergeant began briskly. ‘We have a missing child, I’m afraid.’ The words were guaranteed to make everyone’s heart sink, and Trudy felt her breath catch. She knew that the majority of missing children were found within the first few hours of them being reported missing, of course, but still. They were words you never wanted to hear.

‘His name is Eddie Proctor, and he’s 11 years old,’ Sergeant O’Grady swept on. ‘This morning he attended – along with nearly twenty or so other youngsters from the local primary school – an Easter egg hunt in the grounds of Briar’s Hall.’

Trudy vaguely recognised the name. Briar’s Hall was located in Briar’s-in-the-Wold, a village just on the outskirts of north-west Oxford. It consisted, if she remembered rightly, of a pub, a church, a handful of mostly farmworkers’ cottages, and a modest but pretty, classically Georgian square-shaped house made out of local Cotswold stone. The big house itself, she felt sure, was surrounded by a small patch of woodland, and boasted reduced but still admirable gardens, which is where, presumably, the Easter egg hunt had been arranged.

‘Kiddie’s probably just wandered off to eat his eggs without having to share them with his friends,’ PC Rodney Broadstairs said hopefully. He was a tall, blond, good-looking young lad, who thought far too much of himself, in Trudy’s opinion, but she could only hope that, in this case, he was right.

‘Be that as it may, he should have returned home at one o’clock for his Sunday lunch. And didn’t,’ the sergeant said crisply. ‘Since it’s Easter, the family were going to have roast chicken with all the trimmings, and the boy’s favourite pudding – a chocolate sponge pudding with custard. And the boy’s mother is adamant he wouldn’t miss it for all the tea in China. So…’

For the next few minutes the sergeant was busy ringing around the division’s other stations, which were also short-staffed, rounding up as many volunteers as he could find. Meanwhile, Trudy, old Walter and Rodney Broadstairs were dispatched in one of the police cars to make the short journey to Briar’s-in-the-Wold. Walter drove, since Rodney was still on the police-sponsored driving course and didn’t have his licence yet. Naturally, Trudy’s name had never been put forward.

Not that such a minor detail like that was going to stop her. Her friend, Dr Clement Ryder, had offered to teach her how to drive on their own time, and she was going to take him up on it!

But thinking of her friend, the city’s coroner, made her feel suddenly pensive. Their last case together hadn’t ended exactly how he’d thought it had, and she felt uneasy about keeping secrets from him. Oh, they’d found the killer all right, a very vindictive killer who had chosen to end their own life rather than face justice. But true to form, they hadn’t done so before leaving behind a very curious letter about the coroner, designed to do as much harm to him as possible.

A letter that Trudy had been the first to read, and – given no chance or time to consider what to do about it – she had then been forced to make a split-second decision on what to do about her unwanted knowledge. And giving in to her instinctive impulse to conceal it from her superior officers had left her feeling in something of a quandary ever since.

Withholding evidence was such a taboo that she still couldn’t quite believe she’d actually done it. But what other choice, really, had she had?

As she sat in the car, vaguely watching the scenery go by, Trudy still wondered if she could have – should have – done things differently.

Although, after much soul-searching, she had burned the letter, all she had to do was close her eyes and she could read it as if it still existed on actual paper.

To whom it may concern

I feel it my duty to inform the Oxford City Police that I have, on a number of occasions, observed Dr Clement Ryder, a coroner of the city, to show symptoms of what I firmly believe to be some kind of morbid disease.

I have noticed him to suffer from hand tremors on several occasions, and also a dragging of his feet, leading him to almost stumble.

Since a coroner is an officer of the law and holds a position of great responsibility, I feel it incumbent on me to point out that, very unfortunately, it may be possible that he is unfit to continue to serve in his present position.

I therefore advise, very strongly, that he be assessed by one of his fellow medical practitioners as soon as possible.

Faithfully—

Of course, she knew that the killer had written the letter out of sheer spite, intending to make as much trouble and inconvenience for the coroner as possible. But it had been a very clever letter, making no outright or unbelievable accusations, merely stating that Dr Clement Ryder was ill, and should thus be removed from his office as medically unfit.

On the face of it, it was a ludicrous claim. And now that she’d had ample time and space to think about it, she wondered if she shouldn’t have just left the letter where she’d found it, for wouldn’t her superiors have simply scoffed at it? Surely they would have regarded it as sour grapes on the part of a double killer, filed it away and forgotten about it.

Or would they?

Her immediate superior, DI Harry Jennings for one, was no fan of the coroner, since Dr Ryder would insist on sticking his nose into what the DI considered to be strictly police business. So he would have been very interested in pursuing anything that might help rid him of his troublesome nemesis.

And what if it turned out that there was some basis to the accusations? Trudy shifted uncomfortably on the back seat and suppressed a small sigh.

Yes, if she was going to be truly honest with herself, that was what really worried her. It wasn’t so much whether or not her chickens might come home to roost and one day blight her career. After all, nobody had seen her take the letter or even suspected its existence. No, she felt safe enough from the prospect of having to face any disciplinary proceedings.

But her suspicion that what the letter had alleged might just be true wouldn’t go away.

Because, for as long as she’d known him, she’d noticed a few odd things about her friend. The way Dr Ryder’s hands would tremble every now and then. She’d tried to put that down to age – after all, old men sometimes did have the shakes, right?

Then there was the way he would sometimes stumble slightly, as though he’d tripped over an obstacle that wasn’t there. Again, she’d put that down to him shuffling his feet. She’d noticed that sometimes he didn’t pick his feet up properly – ironically a failing that her father had often scolded her for as a child!

Of course, she’d half-suspected that he might drink a little more than he probably should, which would account for most of the things she’d noticed. A colleague had once told her that secret tipplers often kept popping breath mints to disguise the smell of booze on their breath, and it was true that, just lately, the coroner had started chewing on strong mints.

But what if he didn’t have a fondness for too much drink after all? What if the trembling hands and unsteady gait meant something else? Because if he really was ill…

Yet the only way she could know that for sure would be to ask him about it. It sounded simple enough, but Trudy had a feeling that it was going to be nothing of the kind. The coroner was a private and sometimes intimidating man, and she doubted he would take kindly to her dabbling in what he was certain to feel was none of her business.

But that was a problem for another day. Right now, Trudy thought anxiously, they had a missing child to find.

Chapter 2 (#ulink_362ec832-4d0c-5dcf-a687-2012434bd4f0)

It was apparent from the moment they arrived at Briar’s Hall, and reported to the officer in charge, that the boy had not yet been found.

The village Bobby wasn’t quite as old as Walter, and introduced himself as Constable Watkins.

‘Right. At the moment, we’re concentrating on the area around the lake, for obvious reasons,’ Watkins began grimly. ‘You two men make your way to the south side.’ He pointed across a small paddock. ‘You’ll see where the others are. Follow the path, but don’t bother searching the reeds where someone’s already left markers. Here…’ He handed Rodney and Walter a bunch of small wooden sticks, with red and white tapes dangling loosely from their ends. ‘Stick them in the ground at more or less twenty-yard intervals.’

Trudy glanced around, trying to get the lie of the land. They’d travelled through the length of the small village, which now sat in a shallow valley to the east of her. They were at the bottom of a slight rise, and surrounded on three sides by woodland. Presumably, the rise and the trees were keeping Briar’s Hall itself from view.

‘You, WPC…?’

‘Probationary WPC Loveday, sir,’ Trudy said smartly, earning her a sharp, beady-eyed look.

‘Oh yes? You’re the one who’s got herself in some bigwig’s good books eh?’

Trudy flushed painfully. ‘I didn’t do anything that anyone else wouldn’t do, sir,’ she began defensively, wondering how long she’d be forced to eat humble pie with her fellow officers. ‘It was the Earl who insisted on all this fuss.’

The now infamous letter of thanks, due to be doled out to her by the Earl’s secretary during the upcoming bash, would no doubt be instantly snaffled by her mother. Much to her daughter’s horror, Barbara Loveday had insisted that she was going to get it framed so that it could hang in pride of place over the front-room mantelpiece. Next thing she knew, her father would be charging the neighbours sixpence to come and admire it!