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

‘Hmm.’ The coroner made no attempt to hide his reaction to this bit of flummery. Instead, he went off on a different tack. ‘Did you know Derek well?’ he shot out crisply.

‘Oh, no.’

‘But wasn’t he a member of the Marquis Club?’ Clement slipped the knife in smoothly.

Trudy was interested to see the young man actually start in his chair and then go very pale. ‘What?’ For a moment, his face seemed to fight for some sort of expression. Horror? Surprise? Dismay? Confusion, certainly. Eventually, he swallowed uncomfortably and gave a rather sickly smile. ‘No. No, I’m sure he wasn’t.’

‘Ah. I thought that might have been why Lord Littlejohn invited him,’ Clement said, careful to keep his voice conversational.

Lionel Gulliver, perhaps taking heart from this, seemed to gather his wits together with a bit of an effort, and manage a second, more convincing smile. ‘Oh, no, I don’t think that could have been the case. Er, I mean, you’d have to ask Jeremy that, wouldn’t you?’ he added, glancing longingly out of the window.

Trudy, her shorthand competently filling her notebook, thought Lionel looked as if he wished he might jump out, so uncomfortable did he seem.

‘Yes, we’ll be sure to do that when we see him,’ Clement said non-committally. ‘So, let’s have this straight once and for all. Is it your opinion that Derek Chadworth was not at the party the day he drowned?’

Again, Lionel seemed to start in his chair. He really was a nervous sort, Trudy thought, beginning to feel, perhaps for the first time with any confidence, that the coroner really was on the track of something with this case.

‘Well, as a matter of fact, no, I don’t think I am saying that,’ Lionel said, a shade confusingly. ‘I’m beginning to think that perhaps Derek was on one of the punts after all.’

Trudy felt her mouth fall open at this unexpected about-face. She shot a quick, perplexed look at the coroner, who was regarding the theology student with his head cocked a little to one side, rather like a robin regarding an interesting worm.

‘So, are you saying you did see him that day? At the party?’ Clement said slowly.

‘No! I mean… I think I might have. But I can’t swear to it.’

The coroner regarded the young man steadily for a moment or so and noticed that the unfortunate youth was actually beginning to sweat – not to mention fidget about nervously on his chair.

He also noticed that Gulliver’s rather weak mouth had now begun to set in a thin, stubborn line, and that his chin had come up. Clearly, he’d reached the point where he was willing to be stubborn about things. Which meant pushing him further would be pointless.

Thus, Clement sighed and rose to his feet, catching Trudy completely unawares. ‘Well, thank you for your time, Mr Gulliver,’ he said abruptly. ‘I understand you’re going to train for the priesthood?’

‘The Church of England, yes,’ the young man said, getting to his feet with alacrity, a look of utter relief passing across his unremarkable features.

‘Hmm. In which case, you’ll know what the Bible has to say about bearing false witness?’

Lionel Gulliver gulped audibly. ‘Yes, sir, I know that,’ he muttered wretchedly.

The coroner nodded, smiled briefly, and then clapped the young man on the back so hard he had to actually take a step forward to prevent himself from falling flat on his face.

‘Well, good luck, Mr Gulliver,’ he said jovially, and Trudy, hastily shoving her accoutrements back into her satchel, trotted out after him, very aware of one pale-faced theology student staring miserably after them.

Once again in the sunshine outside, she stood blinking in the bright light for a moment, and then sighed heavily. ‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ she muttered.

‘Do you think so?’ Clement asked, and something in his tone had her shooting him a quick, suspicious look.

What had he seen or heard or deduced that she had missed?

‘You know, I’d be willing to bet… yes, I’d be willing to bet half a crown that that young man has been “got at”,’ Clement mused out loud. ‘Someone has persuaded him to keep his mouth shut.’

Trudy didn’t know if she was willing to go that far, but wisely kept silent, accurately guessing that he wasn’t going to elucidate any further.

They set off up the path bordering the quad, and called out a farewell to the porter as they passed through the gates and headed towards the coroner’s car. This was a smart-looking Rover 75-1110 P4, which he’d parked (illegally, Trudy noticed with a guilty flush) on some double-yellow lines in a side alley.

Like the gentleman he undoubtedly was, he unlocked and held open the passenger door for her and then shut it once she was safely inside. After getting behind the wheel, however, instead of turning the key in the ignition, he settled in his seat and stared blindly out at the city going about its business outside.

‘You know, Trudy, I think it might be time you learned how to work undercover,’ he astonished – and thrilled – her by saying.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked eagerly.

‘Well, you’re of an age to be a student. Out of uniform, you could easily pass for a college gal. I want you, starting tomorrow, to dress in civvies and start hanging out at the regular student haunts – there’s that bookshop café in St Ebbes for a start. And the pub by the river – you know the one. Use your initiative. Start making friends. Chat about Derek and the Marquis Club. Find out what your average student not in Lord Littlejohn’s intimate little circle is saying and thinking about it all. But don’t be too obvious about it. Think you can do that?’

Trudy, who was feeling a mixture of alarm and excitement at the thought of working while not shackled to her uniform, forced herself to look calm and serious.

‘Of course I can, Dr Ryder,’ she said calmly. But, inside, her heart was beating like that of a bird caught in a trap. To work like a proper detective, and without having her uniform instantly identify and restrict her, was freedom indeed! Rising to the ranks of the CID was her ultimate (and secret) ambition. She’d be the first woman to…

But then, as reality came back in a dampening rush, she felt her heart fall. ‘I’m not sure DI Jennings will agree to it, Dr Ryder,’ she said despondently. In fact, if she knew her superior officer (and, alas, she did, only too well), he would worry she’d get in far too much trouble working undercover. He’d be terrified she’d bring the force into disrepute and earn him the ire of his immediate superiors.

‘Don’t you worry about him. He’ll toe the line,’ Clement predicted confidently.

Trudy, slightly awed by his easy belief in his own power, blinked. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said. But she wasn’t any too sanguine that even the crusty old coroner would be able to make her DI do something he thought might rebound badly on him.

Seeing that it was getting on, Dr Ryder drove her to the station so she could finish her shift, and then drove back to his office to work on his other cases.

Trudy wasted little time in tapping on her superior officer’s door in order to give her report of her day’s activities. Jennings surprised her considerably, after listening to her quietly, by agreeing somewhat tersely that she could indeed dispense – temporarily – with her uniform whenever she needed to pose as a student for Dr Ryder.

As she left his office, a little glow of delight warming her insides, she could only conclude that he didn’t believe his WPC talking to a bunch of students about a mare’s nest of the coroner’s own making could get either of them into any trouble.

Which, as things turned out, just went to show how little DI Jennings knew!

Chapter 5 (#ulink_98897241-2b31-5c6e-b5e7-47fc8404f8e4)

That evening, as she sat down to tea with her mum and dad in their council house kitchen, she found herself excitedly telling them a little about her latest case. On the radio, Anthony Newley was singing ‘Do You Mind?’ The radio was only on at all because her father didn’t want to miss a repeat of Hancock’s Half Hour that was due to begin soon.

She was careful not to go into any detail, of course, mindful of the rules that stated police work should never be discussed with ‘civilians’. But she knew neither of her parents was happy with her career choice, and she wanted to point out to them that she was doing well in her chosen profession – even if she was gilding the lily a bit!

‘So you see, in letting me work in plain clothes, DI Jennings must be starting to trust me at last,’ she concluded, somewhat less-than-truthfully.

‘Well, I don’t know, our Trudy,’ said her mother, Barbara Loveday, worriedly. ‘Them students can get up to some wild things. And a drowned lad ain’t very nice.’ As she crossed the yellow-and-brown linoleum floor with the dirty plates and deposited them in the deep sink, she cast a concerned glance over her shoulder at her husband.

Frank Loveday had been a bus driver all his life. He was proud of his son, Martin, who worked as a carpenter for a building firm, since he considered him to be an artisan, and therefore a step up from his old man. And although he outwardly backed his wife up whenever she argued that Trudy should be thinking of finding a nice young man and settling down, he was, in fact, secretly even more proud of his daughter.

It took guts to join the police, and for a young slip of a girl… Even so, he wouldn’t have been human if he didn’t worry about her.

Now he folded his newspaper and looked at her over the top of it. She was a picture, her eyes shining with excitement and her cheeks flushed and happy. And he didn’t have the heart to bring her down.

Nevertheless, he felt a slight flutter of alarm in his stomach. When she walked the beat in her uniform, he felt fairly content that she would be safe. People admired and respected the police, and her uniform, he felt, offered her considerable protection.

But if she was going to go around dressed as any other girl, nosing about in something nasty… ‘Exactly what are you supposed to be doing for this here coroner chap, then, our Trudy?’ he asked gravely.