A Fatal Flaw: A gripping, twisty murder mystery perfect for all crime fiction fans

‘Oh?’ Clement asked, clearly puzzled but also intrigued. Which was, Trudy hoped, a good sign.

‘Yes. It’s about the girl who died recently from ingesting poison – the yew berry case, and she—’

Clement Ryder quickly held up his hand. ‘Before you go any further, let me stop you just a moment. That’s one of my cases – I’m holding the inquest the day after tomorrow.’

‘Oh. I rather hoped it might be one of yours,’ Trudy admitted. ‘It makes things so much easier.’

Clement smiled wryly at her. He’d come to know Trudy Loveday quite well during the past year, and had come to respect her ambition and intelligence, but she could still be heart-breakingly young and naive sometimes.

‘It might, or it might not,’ he said firmly. ‘But it’s not really the done thing to discuss details of an inquest before it’s even started. And if you’re here to ask questions about the case, I’m afraid I simply can’t discuss it with you. Even if you’ve been assigned the case in your official police capacity…?’ He paused delicately, one eyebrow raised, and Trudy quickly shook her head.

‘Oh no, I’m not,’ she confirmed. And didn’t need to say any more. Both of them knew that her boss wouldn’t have assigned her to work on such an important case since DI Jennings preferred her to do office work, make the tea, and hold the hands of female victims of handbag-snatchings or lost cats.

Letting her work on a case that involved actual police work wasn’t something that would have occurred to him!

‘No,’ Clement agreed, a shade heavily and with an ironic glint in his eye. ‘But even if you had been working the case—’

This time it was Trudy’s turn to interrupt him, which she did, aware that she was blushing slightly.

‘It’s all right, Dr Ryder, I haven’t come here to try and find things out. I’d never presume on our…’ She found herself wanting to say the word ‘friendship’ and managed to alter her tongue just in time. ‘Acquaintance. Actually, it’s just the opposite. I’ve come here to tell you something that you might find relevant. Or not. I’m not really sure,’ she said, suddenly feeling confused and not at all as confident as she had been that that this important man would be interested in Grace’s opinion at all.

Suddenly, sitting here in this posh house and in this rather imposing room, Trudy began to wonder what she could have been thinking.

Had she been horribly stupid? When she’d set out, she’d been sure that, because he liked her and they’d got on well in the past, he would be glad to see her and interested in what she had to say. Now, she felt far less sanguine.

‘Well, I won’t know until I hear it, Trudy,’ Clement said casually, amused by her sudden lack of coherence, and determined to put her at ease. She reminded him a little of a cat set down in an unfamiliar environment, and he was glad when she began to relax. ‘So, tell me what it’s all about then,’ he advised her amiably.

Thus encouraged, it didn’t take her long to recount the substance of Grace Farley’s visit, and when she’d finished, she waited expectantly to see what he had to say.

Clement took only a few moments to process the information, and briefly consulted his memory – which, mercifully, was still functioning perfectly. ‘The files on the case are all back at my office, of course, but I’m pretty sure Grace Farley isn’t one of the witnesses on my list,’ he finally admitted.

‘Does that mean you can’t call her as a character witness then?’ Trudy asked, disappointed, and making Clement laugh softly.

‘It’s not a criminal trial you know,’ he reminded her gently. ‘I’ll be calling the person who found her – which was her mother, I believe – along with medical experts and such like. And her best friend, I believe, who, presumably, will be saying much the same as your visitor?’

Trudy shrugged. ‘I don’t know if she will or if she won’t. But Grace was really adamant that Abigail wasn’t suicidal. I just thought you should know. And I promised Grace I would tell you, so…’ She shrugged graphically.

Clement nodded. ‘So now the ball’s in my court, as they say. Both literally and figuratively speaking.’

She grinned, then looked wistful. ‘I wish I could attend the inquest. I’m sort of interested now. But I don’t think the Sergeant will let me have the time off! Not even if I make the case that it’s all good experience for me.’

‘Never mind. If you come round to my office when it’s over, I’ll fill you in,’ he promised.

‘Will you? Thanks so much,’ Trudy said, already rising. He politely walked her to the door and was still smiling slightly as he shut it behind her.

Her youthful enthusiasm, as always, had lifted his spirits a little and helped lighten his mood. She might not have realised it, but the coroner was glad she’d come.

It wasn’t until after she’d thanked him and was on her way back home, that Trudy wondered what he’d made of Grace’s other concerns about the tricks being played at the theatre.

Had he been interested in that anyway? The rather catty goings-on of a bunch of would-be beauty queens couldn’t have concerned him much.

In any case, it couldn’t hurt to pop by the theatre herself one afternoon during rehearsals, just to satisfy her own curiosity. She knew from what Grace had said that the theatre’s owner was happy for them to use the building during daylight, as long as they vacated the premises long before the evening performances began. Presumably the place didn’t do matinees.

It sounded fun, in a way. She’d never seen a beauty contest being held before, and it had a certain appeal. All those pretty dresses and things. Mind you, she couldn’t imagine stepping out in front of people just dressed in a swimming costume! The thought made her shudder.

But just to have a look around and put Grace’s mind at rest – well, where was the harm in that? When Trudy had first started school, it had been a daunting time and the slightly older girl had been kind enough to take her under her wing. She’d even intervened once, when a playground bully had tried to push her into the sandpit. So far, she’d never been in a position to repay the debt, but now, finally, she could.

It never once occurred to her that by doing so, she might be putting her own life at risk.

Why would it?

Chapter 3 (#ulink_47c6f814-1efd-52f0-9b7f-543cd8f7ce9b)

Mrs Christine Dunbar sighed over a large bunch of russet chrysanthemums that stubbornly failed to form into the shape she wanted, and began re-arranging them, somewhat impatiently, in a large cut-glass vase.

She was a rather handsome but large and fleshy woman, who was never seen out and about in public without wearing her corset. Her tightly waved, rather brassy blonde hair was always hardened into submission by a lavish application of hairspray, and her face was always made up with the latest and finest cosmetics. Only her rather boiled-gooseberry blue eyes caused her real concern, but, as her practically-minded mother had always told her, there was very little she could do about those.

Her grandfather had been a Tory politician for many years, and once, in his glory days before the Great War, had even been a member of the cabinet. And it was from him that, as an only child, she had inherited the large, whitewashed mansion just off the Woodstock road where she now lived. Sited firmly in the prestigious area in the north of the city, it boasted a large, well-tended garden, and a double garage.

Finally having beaten the blooms into submission, she carried the now perfectly arranged vase into the lounge and placed it on top of the grand piano. Neither she nor her husband could play the instrument, not being particularly musical, but it had stood in pride of place in the room, probably since Queen Victoria had reigned.

Her husband, sitting on the sofa and perusing the London Times, barely noticed her presence as she took a seat on the sofa opposite him, and reached for an embroidery hoop, containing her latest needlework.

She enjoyed making religious mottoes, usually surrounded by a flower border, which she then donated to the local church bazaar.

Now she looked over a rather fine pink peony that she had almost finished, and regarded her husband, Robert, without any obvious signs of enthusiasm.

In many ways, she believed, she had rather married beneath her. And yet she couldn’t deny that in many other ways, her choice had been a wise and inspired one.

Robert was not, she admitted to herself without any undue sense of worry, a particularly handsome man. Of average height at five feet seven inches, he was now, at the age of 52, going slightly bald on top, but kept his hair nicely dyed black, which went with his nearly ebony-coloured eyes. The matching moustache was similarly obsidian, but his chin was undeniably weak. Her husband liked to dress well though, and at times, it sometimes occurred to Christine to wonder (rather uneasily and with a sense of rare self-awareness) if he might not have a better sense of fashion than she did. He was one of those men who radiated an immense sense of energy. The kind of man who was used to getting things done but also seemed full of humour and bonhomie; but that, as she very well knew, was merely a front for his rapacious nature.

Of which she approved enormously.

For although Robert had been born of distinctly lower-middle-class parents (his father had been a chemistry teacher at a second-rate boys’ prep school) his ambitions had always been first-class. And she, on the market for a husband who could keep her in luxury, had been perspicacious enough to sense that he had the brains and the determination to succeed in life.

As, indeed he had. He had taken her not immodest dowry and turned it into a very profitable company producing jam, honey and marmalade to the discerning palate, nationwide.

Of course, it was ‘trade’, and as such, rather below what she was used to, but Christine had made it a point never to set foot in the actual ‘works’. What’s more, she had grimly ignored any behind-the-hand sniggering that might have gone on in her set during the early years of her marriage. It was now an immense source of satisfaction to her that, as income tax began to bite so hard and many of her friends had to tighten their belts or sell off the family heirlooms, she had been able to carry on spending as much as she had ever done.

It was just annoying that the ‘works’ had been allowed to intrude so rudely in her life in recent weeks.

Normally, whenever her husband discussed his plans for expanding the business or crowed over his latest scheme to bring Dunbar products more firmly into the public eye, Christine barely listened.

But this latest venture of his was causing her no end of anxiety.

When he’d first proposed establishing Miss Oxford Honey in a bid to make their own brands as famous as those of Oxford Marmalade, Christine had been almost speechless. Her conservative soul had shrivelled at the thought of something so utterly down-market as a beauty contest, and she could imagine the sniggering starting up all over again.

Surely, she’d protested to her husband, he had been in jest?