A Fatal Secret

‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

‘If you will be so kind then as to tell the jury in your own words what happened on the afternoon of Sunday, 2nd of April?’

Trudy turned to face the jury and gave a succinct, accurate report of what had occurred that afternoon. When she was finished, she cleared her throat and glanced questioningly at the coroner, but he had no questions for her. Her account had been full enough that there was nothing that needed clarifying or pursuing.

*

Outside the court, Trudy trudged back a shade despondently to the station. Tomorrow was the day she was to be lauded in front of the press and the city’s top dignitaries as the heroine of the hour, but never had she felt less like celebrating anything.

*

After Trudy’s departure, Clement called the medical witnesses, who testified that the boy had died of a broken neck, and not due to drowning at all. As Clement had expected, this caused a bit of a sensation in the court.

It was soon explained that the well, being over eight feet deep, also narrowed slightly towards the bottom, so if the boy had been leaning over and had lost his balance, the chances were fairly good that he would have pitched down head first. And the water, which had turned out to be only about two feet deep wouldn’t have been enough to have broken his fall much.

Even so, as he listened to the evidence, Clement wasn’t totally convinced by this explanation. The lad would only have needed to twist a little to either one side or the other to land on a shoulder. And wouldn’t it have been an instinctive thing for him to do so? Wordlessly, he made a brief note on his court papers.

And there was another thing he’d noticed in the preliminary reports that had caught his analytical eye. So after the medical man had finished his piece, he cleared his throat, indicating he had further questions.

‘I take it the deceased’s hands were examined?’ he asked quietly.

The police surgeon confirmed that they had been.

‘And did he have any detritus from the sides of the well under his fingernails, indicating that he had tried to scrabble at the sides of the well as he fell? Brick dust, green algae, mould, anything of that kind?’ he’d pressed.

The medical man admitted that they’d found no such evidence, but then gave the opinion that that need not be significant. It was quite possible that the boy had been too surprised, and the fall too brief, for him to have had time to try to catch hold of some sort of support to help break his fall.

Clement dismissed the doctor with a courteous nod, but was frowning slightly as he made more notes.

When it was the turn of the boy’s family to give evidence, emotions ran high, as they were bound to. But especially so when the boy’s mother tearfully insisted that her son was a good lad, and would never have disobeyed the Easter egg hunt organiser’s admonitions to stay within the walled garden where all the eggs had been hidden.

Since nothing of further significance was brought to light after all the other witnesses had been called, it surprised no one when an obviously upset and moved jury returned a verdict of accidental death.

All that was left for Clement to do was to censure the organisers of the hunt for not checking the grounds beforehand and spotting the potential perils of the inadequately covered well. No doubt, he added heavily, the de Laceys, owners of Briar’s Hall, would be quick to have a new cover made for the well. Or they might even consider filling it in altogether, which meant, at least, that a similar tragedy would be averted in the future.

But for the weary, distraught parents, what could any of that matter now?

Chapter 4 (#ulink_f082301b-1ea0-5e9a-b91f-5b28d63a8e72)

Trudy Loveday took a deep, calming breath as she paused outside the main entrance to the swanky Randolph Hotel.

Behind her on Beaumont Street was the magnificent edifice of the Ashmolean Museum, whilst off to her left was the oft-photographed Martyrs’ Memorial. But for all the times she’d passed by this famous building, she’d never imagined she’d ever set foot inside it.

Beside her, she could feel her mother almost vibrating with similar excitement. Like her daughter, Barbara Loveday couldn’t really believe that they were about to be treated to lunch by an actual Earl. Well, not the Earl himself, naturally, but his secretary.

Barbara’s husband Frank, however, was displaying emotion of a far different kind – that of distinct unease. Not for the first time, his hand crept up to his collar (which clearly felt too tight) to check his tie was straight. It was an article of clothing he only ever wore to weddings, funerals and christenings, and he eyed the passing people warily, as if expecting them to be pointing at him or smiling behind their hands.

But the only people taking notice of him were the members of the local press, who’d been invited by the city of Oxford’s top brass to take photographs of the occasion and then interview the heroine of the hour for their various local newspapers.

It had taken some time for this honour to be arranged, as the incident precipitating it had, in fact, happened last summer, but these things, it appeared, took time. Trudy was inclined to wish they hadn’t bothered at all. She, like her father, felt distinctly out of place.

‘I do look all right, don’t I, Mum?’ she asked nervously, though, in fact, she hadn’t had to make an agonising decision over what to wear.

With nearly all her superior officers in attendance, she was, of course, dressed in her police uniform, the black-and-white suit looking incredibly smart, and cleaned to within an inch of its life. Her cap sat neatly on her severely pinned-down mass of dark brown locks, and her face was totally free of make-up.

‘You look lovely, doesn’t she, Brian?’ her mother said, turning to look at the young man standing beside her.

Barbara Loveday had insisted on including Brian Bayliss as their ‘plus-one’ to the event, and Trudy looked across at him now with a rueful smile. They had been friends for years, and the occasional trip to the cinema or meal out had somehow led to them being considered ‘a couple’ by their respective families. Although Trudy wasn’t so sure – and she was beginning to suspect that Brian wasn’t, either!

‘Come on, Mum, don’t put Brian on the spot like that!’ she admonished gently.

Brian – a tall, handsome rugby-playing lad – coloured softly and mumbled something about her always looking lovely. But he looked even more uncomfortable and out of place here than her father!

His eyes slid over hers and guiltily away again, and in a sudden flash of intuition, she realised that he didn’t actually want to be here at all. For just an instant, she felt a flash of anger wash over her. If he felt so miserable about dressing up and coming to a ‘fancy do’, why hadn’t he simply had the gumption to refuse to come? He could always have said he couldn’t get the time off from his job at the bus depot.

But as quickly as her irritation came, it went again. She knew for herself just how ruthlessly her mother could steamroller people into doing as she bid them, and Brian had always been the easy-going sort. Anything for a quiet life, that was his motto.

Now she leaned closer to him, and whispered, ‘I’m sorry she dragged you into this. I can see you’d rather be somewhere – anywhere – else.’

He shot her a quick look, considered lying about it and then merely shrugged and gave her a sheepish grin. In truth, ever since he’d learned that she was going to get an award for bravery, he’d felt a bit funny about it. It didn’t seem… natural, somehow. In a way he couldn’t have explained, even if someone offered him a pound note, he felt wrong-footed and uneasy about it all. Apart from anything else, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it was up to men to be brave. Even though it wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t doing a dangerous job too – like being a fireman or something – he felt as if he was being in some way undermined.

Along with Trudy’s parents, he hadn’t much liked her joining the police force, and his mates regularly ragged him about it. Now, as he glanced around nervously at the reporters snapping her photograph, and realised that everyone would be reading about her in the papers tomorrow, he felt a sort of squirmy, almost embarrassed feeling, wriggling about inside him. It was bound to make the teasing ten times worse.

Trudy, watching him, frowned slightly, but realised that now was not the time to ask him what was troubling him, and made a mental note to tackle him about it later. Right now, she had more pressing things to worry about.

She had not long turned 20 and was looking forward to the autumn, when her probationary period would be over and she would be a fully fledged woman police constable. Well, she would be, so long as she didn’t do anything to seriously blot her copybook, she reminded herself with an inner grimace.

Of course, there were some of her colleagues back at the station who grumbled that, with what amounted to an unofficial award for bravery being meted out to her, she was almost bulletproof in that respect.

But Trudy wasn’t so sure. Her immediate superior, DI Jennings, was of the opinion that the only right and true way to acknowledge a police officer’s gallantry, was to award them the Queen’s Police Medal – which, in his opinion, should never be awarded to women. Also, such medals only tended to be awarded to those with the rank of sergeant and above. And she was sure he was not the only member of the force to think like that.

All of which left her feeling that if she so much as put a foot wrong, they’d be only too happy of any excuse to get rid of her.

Of course, her superiors had to admit that today would provide good publicity for the force – hence their appearance at that morning’s luncheon. There would certainly be enough Chief Superintendents and even higher ranks to make Trudy feel like Daniel walking into the lion’s den.

But she was thankful that at least DI Jennings wouldn’t be present. His glowering presence would almost certainly put her off her soup! Not that she thought, at that moment, that she would be able to swallow a thing.

Her heart was hammering in her chest and her hands felt clammy. She almost wilted with relief when she saw Dr Ryder striding down the pavement towards them, looking debonair and totally unruffled by all the fuss. A quick glance at her watch told her that he was right on time.

At just a touch over six feet in height, and with his shock of silvering white hair, the city coroner cut a fine figure of a man, and dressed in a dark navy suit and his old school tie, he caught many a passing matron’s approving eye.

‘Trudy, you look splendid,’ Clement said. ‘And Mr and Mrs Loveday – good to see you again. You must be so proud of your daughter,’ he added, turning to address her parents.

‘Oh please, call me Barbara,’ her mother said at once. ‘And yes we are, very proud, aren’t we, Frank?’

Her father, who was shaking the coroner by the hand, nodded wordlessly. In truth, he would be glad when the whole thing was over. He’d spent the last week, it seemed, trying to memorise which knife and fork was which, and the difference between a dessert spoon and his soup spoon. (He’d been full of disbelief when his wife had shown him a magazine photograph of a dinner setting at the grand hotel.)

But of course, underneath all that, he felt as if his chest must be thrust out like a pouter pigeon because, of course, he was as proud as punch of his daughter’s achievements, as Clement had surmised.