A Fatal Secret

Martin looked at him, then quickly away again. Once more he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Look, I wish you’d come and talk to Vince yourself. And I might as well come clean straightaway. Er… I’ve rather taken it on myself to have a word with our Chief Constable.’

Clement went rather still. ‘Have you?’ he said mildly.

Martin de Lacey flushed slightly. ‘Yes. Look, I’m sorry and all that, but one of the chaps at the golf club told me that you… er… well, sometimes look into cases, police cases, I mean, after they’d been closed.’

Clement smiled grimly. ‘I’ve been known to meddle once or twice, yes,’ he admitted with a slight smile. He could well imagine the horror stories the Chief Constable could have poured into de Lacey’s ear.

As if reading his mind, the squire of Briar’s-in-the-Wold shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

‘Quite. Yes, so I… well, I took the liberty of asking Sir Penfold if he would mind arranging it with the officer in charge of Eddie’s case to, er, let you look into things a little further.’

‘Is that so?’ Suddenly, Clement’s smile grew wider, because he knew that DI Harry Jennings was officially in charge of the Proctor case. And the thought of his reaction on being informed that once again he would have to put up with Dr Ryder’s interference was too precious not to savour.

‘All right, Mr de Lacey. I’ll talk to the boy’s parents, and if I think the case warrants further investigation, I’ll be happy to oblige you,’ Clement said, suddenly tiring of the game. One or two points raised at the inquest had been bothering him, and he wasn’t at all averse to being given the opportunity to satisfy his curiosity.

Furthermore, it had been some time since he and Trudy had worked on a case together, and he was looking forward to another break from his usual caseload.

Martin de Lacey looked relieved and then, rather curiously, began to look uncertain. Finally he merely shrugged and smiled, stood up and shook the coroner’s hand. ‘Thank you, Dr Ryder.’

‘Not at all,’ the coroner said briskly, rising to see his visitor out.

He walked back to his desk, feeling distinctly rejuvenated. Just what the hell was going on? It was unusual for an influential family like the wealthy de Laceys not to simply sweep unpleasantness under the carpet and forget all about it. Was it possible the dead boy’s father had some sort of hold over the family that went beyond their feelings of guilt over an abandoned well? The thought was definitely an intriguing one.

Clement gave a mental shrug. Well, whatever it was, he and Trudy Loveday were going to have an interesting time finding out. For, of course, the first thing he’d demand of DI Harry Jennings was that he release her from her usual duties in order to assist him.

Chapter 6 (#ulink_08d45e8a-4307-533d-9e7c-5da88b6d9f45)

Trudy’s heart lifted as she knocked on the door and then entered the now familiar outer room of the coroner’s office, where his secretary smiled up at her and quickly announced her expected arrival.

Needless to say, it had made her day when her sour-faced superior had called her into his office earlier that day and told her that she was being seconded, yet again, to Dr Clement Ryder for a few days. DI Jennings had stressed the ‘yet again’ with bitter emphasis, but in truth, he hadn’t seemed all that unwilling to let her go. In fact, Trudy rather suspected that he was glad to have her out from under his feet.

Trudy, however, wasn’t giving her grudging boss much thought as she walked forward and took her usual seat in front of the coroner’s desk. She was simply relieved not to have to continue her current task, which was helping the clerk in the records office.

Not that DI Jennings had said much about her latest assignment, only grunting something about it involving the death of the little boy she’d found down the well.

‘So,’ she said as soon as she’d sat down, ‘you really think there’s something odd about little Eddie Proctor’s death? Did something strike you at the inquest?’

‘Yes and no,’ Clement surprised her by saying crisply. ‘As far as I could tell, all the witnesses called were being honest and truthful – which is not always the same thing, oddly enough – and I have no real or solid reasons as yet to suspect that the verdict was incorrect.’

‘Oh,’ Trudy said, both stumped and a little dismayed. ‘So why am I here then?’

Clement relented slightly and smiled. ‘You’re here mainly because of Martin de Lacey, head of the family up at Briar’s Hall.’ He absently reached into his coat pocket, withdrew a roll of mints and popped one into his mouth. ‘He came to see me. Apparently, he’s not satisfied with the way things stand.’

Trudy blinked, thought about it for a moment or two, then frowned. ‘He’s feeling guilty about the well not being covered properly and he wants reassurance?’ she hazarded. She could understand why that might be so, but she felt rather put out that that was all there was to it.

‘You look like a child after someone’s just burst their balloon,’ Clement commiserated. ‘But for what it’s worth, I think there might – just might – be something more going on here than at first meets the eye.’

‘Oh?’ This time her tone was more hopeful.

‘Yes. Anyway, he went over my head and got the Chief Constable roped in before I knew anything about it. But since, for a change, this time I’ve actually been asked to do a little digging’ – his lips twisted in a wry smile – ‘I thought you might like to help. But if you’d rather get back to the station…?’

Trudy grinned unrepentantly at him. ‘You know I wouldn’t,’ she said crisply. In truth, she was just glad to see him in such high spirits and looking so undeniably well.

She had not told him about the existence of the letter claiming that he was ill, let alone that she’d read it and destroyed it. Instinct told her that he’d be both angry and indignant about its contents, but more than that, he wouldn’t be at all pleased to learn that she’d put her career at risk in order to do him a favour.

Dr Clement Ryder, she was beginning to know, would not take kindly to being in someone’s debt.

‘So where do we start?’ she asked. Forcing herself to concentrate solely on the matter in hand, she gave a slight frown. ‘The most obvious place is with Mr de Lacey, I take it? Presumably, he must have had something to go on, if he thinks there’s more that needs to be investigated?’

But Clement thought about that gentleman – and his very careful way with words, and, after some thought, slowly shook his head. ‘No. No, I think we’ll leave him for a bit. I have a feeling there might be something odd there…’ He paused, tried to put into words the cause of his nebulous misgivings about that gentlemen, and failed. Instead, he shrugged in dissatisfaction. ‘I just got the impression that he’s keeping something back, or that he’s got some sort of agenda of his own,’ he finally said. ‘And if that’s so, then at the moment we won’t stand a chance of worming out of him just what it is. No, I want to get a deeper understanding of things before we tackle him again.’

Trudy, recognising the coroner’s tone of voice, sat up a little straighter in her chair. Clearly, Dr Ryder meant business. And slowly her heart rate began to accelerate again. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be such a dead-end case after all? From very unpromising beginnings, was it possible that they might be on to something again after all?

‘All right, sir,’ she said. ‘Where do we begin?’

Clement smiled. ‘I keep telling you, you can call me Clement you know, when we’re not in public,’ he said, clearly amused by her formality.

‘Oh no, sir, I couldn’t do that,’ Trudy said firmly. Even if, sometimes in her own head, she did indeed think of this man as ‘Clement’, it would never do to forget herself and refer to him as such in front of her colleagues. Or even her parents! She’d never hear the end of it. ‘I don’t mind calling you Dr Ryder,’ she conceded generously.

‘Thank you,’ he said, perfectly straight-faced. ‘Well, I think the first place we need to start is with the parents. Martin de Lacey would have me believe that he came on their behalf. If that’s true, we need to find out why the boy’s father in particular is so convinced that the boy’s death couldn’t have been an accident.’

Trudy nodded grimly, rising from the chair and girding her loins for another heart-breaking encounter with the Proctor family.

Chapter 7 (#ulink_509c2383-7098-5bac-839d-f77c8c7e714c)

Doreen and Vincent Proctor, along with their remaining three children, lived in one of a row of small terraced cottages leading off from the village green, where the majority of farmworkers for the estate were housed.

As they climbed out of the car and looked around at the rich, arable land, Clement supposed that almost all inhabitants of Briar’s-in-the-Wold worked on the de Lacey estate in some form or other. Save for the odd private doctor or professional, of course.

The village boasted the usual square-towered Norman church, a small primary school and a pub called ‘The Bell’. A small puddle, probably fondly thought of as a pond by most of the villagers, played host to a few desultory mallards, but it was at least ringed with cheerful just-in-bloom daffodils. Pussy willow shed pale lemon pollen over them as an accent of colour.

A cold wind had the pair of them quickly hurrying up a neatly tended front garden and knocking at the Proctors’ front door.

‘Eddie’s brothers and sister might be back at school by now,’ Trudy warned, not sure how long the Easter holidays lasted. ‘If they are, do you want me to try and talk to them at some point?’

‘We’ll see,’ Clement said. ‘Children sometimes know more than we think they do – but they can also exaggerate, or just make stuff up to try and please you. Besides, it might be a bit too early to talk about their brother just yet. They’re probably still in shock.’

Trudy bit her lip, angry with herself for not thinking of that, then stiffened as the door was abruptly opened by the man of the house.

Vincent Proctor was a squat, powerful-looking man, with the hands of a farm labourer, a mop of unruly brown hair, and shaggy brows over large, cow-like eyes.

‘You were the coroner for our Eddie,’ he said at once, having recognised Clement from giving evidence at the inquest. ‘Mr de Lacey said you might call. Come on in out the wind. There’s a good fire in the kitchen.’

He led them down a small, dark entranceway to the back of the house, where a large, wood-fired stove gave off some welcome heat.

There was no sign of his wife. Evidence of the remains of a breakfast composed of bread and dripping were still out next to the draining board by the sink, however, and Trudy wondered if it had been the father of the children who’d seen them off to school with something inside their tummies.

‘The wife’s upstairs,’ Vincent Proctor said flatly, as if reading her mind, and Trudy, for some reason, felt herself flush. She had not intended to look in any way disapproving.