Kitabı oku: «A Fatal Flaw», sayfa 2
Chapter 2
Dr Clement Ryder watched his hand, which was lying flat on the tabletop, and scowled as it began to twitch slightly. Grimly, he used his other hand to massage the palm, and after a while, the twitching slowly abated. But he knew it would be back.
He’d self-diagnosed himself as suffering from Parkinson’s disease whilst still a surgeon in London, which had led to him resigning from his medical career and embarking on his new life as a coroner in Oxford.
Although, so far, he’d managed to keep his condition a secret from everyone – his friends, family, and work colleagues alike – he was well aware that he faced an uphill struggle in the years ahead to keep the secret safe, as the disease inevitably progressed and worsened. And the symptoms became more and more obvious.
But at least, being a widower and living alone now that both of his grown children were off living lives of their own, his domestic situation put him in a good position to keep his private demons strictly private.
Which was why he scowled somewhat ferociously as he heard the doorbell ring. Visitors were seldom welcome. He glanced outside, saw that it was nearly fully dark, and wondered who could be calling at this time in the evening.
Although he was a man of influence and power, and often socialised with Oxford’s movers and shakers, his real friends were few and far between, and all of them knew that he wasn’t the kind of man that you simply ‘dropped in on’ to have a chat and a nightcap with.
He got up somewhat reluctantly from his chair, a tall man at just over six feet in height, with a shock of thick silvery-white hair. He was a few years off his sixtieth birthday, but looked comfortably closer to 50. As he walked out into the hall, he watched his feet carefully. The stumbling uneven gait of a man in his condition was a dead giveaway to well-informed eyes, and he was glad to notice that, so far, he was walking as well as he’d ever done.
Perhaps, in the future, he might have to feign some sort of leg injury to cover up any falls or mishaps? Or a touch of fictional arthritis might fit the bill? It would certainly give him an excuse to use a walking cane. He’d have to give it some thought.
He opened his front door with a peremptory sweep, and then blinked in surprise as he saw the young, tall, brunette woman standing anxiously on his step.
Trudy Loveday had never called at the coroner’s home before. On the previous two occasions that they’d worked murder cases, she’d always gone to his office to make her reports or to meet up with him.
She’d found his name and address in the phone book and hadn’t been at all surprised to have to find her way to the prestigious area near South Parks Road, where he lived in a terrace of large, Victorian houses, in a leafy street not far from Keble College.
‘Hello, Dr Ryder,’ she said now, launching nervously into speech. ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling on you like this… If you’ve got company, I can always come back…’ She half-turned, almost wishing he’d say that he had, so that she could go away again.
For now that she was here, she was feeling distinctly uneasy. It was one thing to be assigned as this important man’s police liaison by her boss, but that was a whole world away from coming to his private residence, out of uniform, and begging for a favour. It smacked of presumptuousness, and as such, was enough to send her face flooding with colour.
Which was why she’d come over barely ten minutes after Grace Farley had left, as she’d felt that the sooner she got it over with, the less fraught her nerves would become.
‘No, no, I’m alone,’ he reassured her pleasantly. ‘Come on in, Constable Loveday,’ Clement said, using her title rather than her name, since he’d instantly picked up on her anxiety.
Trudy forced a smile and stepped inside a small but – to her eyes at least – still rather grand hall, with black and white tiles on the floor, and a large oval ornately-framed mirror set over a narrow console table. She noted the private telephone that rested on it and was once again reminded of the differences in their status.
If the Lovedays ever needed to make a telephone call, they used the phone box at the end of their street, like everyone else.
‘Come on through to the study,’ he said, indicating the door that stood open to their left. ‘I was just about to make some cocoa,’ he lied. ‘Would you like some?’
‘Oh, no thank you,’ Trudy said instantly. ‘I won’t stay long, and I don’t want to take up your time,’ she insisted. But even as she spoke, she wondered if it was true that the coroner had been about to drink so innocent a beverage.
Once or twice in the past, she’d wondered if he drank too much. Occasionally she’d noticed one or two signs that might indicate intoxication. But she watched him now as he led her into a pleasant, book-lined room with large sash windows overlooking the tree-lined street beyond, and he seemed to be alert and sober.
‘Take a seat,’ he offered, indicating one of the green leather button-back chairs that sat in front of a walnut desk. He took his own seat behind it as Trudy, still feeling very much the supplicant, lowered herself into the chair.
‘The reason I’ve come,’ she began, launching into her story before she could give herself time to chicken out, ‘is that I’ve just had a visit from an old friend of mine. And what she had to say… I thought you should know about it.’
‘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 Farly 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 slighter 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
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?
And just as surely, she’d come to learn that he was not. For whilst he had become used to acceding to her requests in the normal run of things, he was adamant that ‘work’ was his domain, and in this one area he would not be dictated to.
Eventually, therefore, she’d been forced to back down. But that did not mean that she was totally defeated. Instead, she’d magnanimously and cunningly offered to lend a hand herself, and ‘help’ him run the whole event.
In this way, she’d pointed out cannily, he wouldn’t need to neglect the routine work, or the vital day-to-day running of the business, whilst still being able to make use of his brilliant marketing strategy.
In reality, of course, she’d only done it to ensure that her husband would have as little to do with it as possible, because… Well, as Christine had been forced to face, rather early on in her marriage, Robert had a bit of a roving eye.
It was annoying, of course. And when she’d been younger, overwhelmingly painful. But over the years, and by constantly telling herself that it was nothing really hideously embarrassing, she’d managed to ignore it. Well, mostly.
After all, many of the women in her set had to put up with men who strayed, especially wealthy men; men who were used to a certain amount of power and status. It was just their way. So long as it was handled discreetly, everyone could pretend it wasn’t happening. And Robert, she had to admit, was always very careful indeed to be discreet. As he should be!
For a second, her rather unattractive face contorted with pain.
Although Christine had no qualms about letting her husband manage her money and capital, she’d been wise enough to keep it all under her own name. Which meant that Robert had lived for the nearly twenty-five years of their marriage well aware of which side his bread was buttered, and that keeping her sweet was definitely in his own best interests.
But she was, by nature, a deeply suspicious woman (and subconsciously at least, a very insecure one), so it hadn’t taken her long to discover his succession of mistresses. These he kept in a discreet flat in High Wycombe, where Dunbar had a second factory, and which required Robert’s ‘input’ once or twice a week.
This arrangement she’d been forced to accept with grace, as a woman of her intelligence and sophistication had been trained to do.
And she didn’t – well, not really – believe that he would ever be so crass and stupid as to let himself get mixed up with some working-class dolly bird who had delusions of becoming a fashion model or some such thing, on the back of winning a local beauty contest.
Even so, it was a fact of life that Robert liked pretty women. And when men reached middle age… well, they could often get a little bit silly. The thought of letting him run free among so much temptation had definitely been enough to raise her hackles.
Luckily, she had a very good spy-in-the-camp in Grace Farley, whom she’d persuaded her husband to put in charge as the ‘face of Dunbar’s’ during the running of the event. And she could always make sure Grace did as she was told. And, of course, she could rely on good old Patricia Merriweather to help her keep her errant husband on the straight and narrow.
A widow herself, the old lady knew how the world worked all right, and of course the Merriweathers were one of Oxford’s ‘old’ families, whose ancestry went back even further than her own.
Yet, still, Christine felt vaguely uneasy about the whole thing.
Strange things had been happening. That incident with the face cream, for instance. And that poor girl taking a tumble from the stage steps. Not usually a woman given to picking up on ‘atmosphere’ or imagining things, even she was beginning to sense something… brooding, surrounding the whole competition.
And worse still, about a week ago, certain rumours had started to reach her ears about one of the girls boasting about ‘hooking’ a sugar daddy for herself!
So now Christine felt as if her whole world suddenly hung in the balance. Which was intolerable! As if she would let some silly little chit of a girl threaten her wellbeing and the pleasant, well-oiled orderliness of her life!
She glanced across at her husband thoughtfully.
She was fairly sure that he’d paid off the girl who’d come out in a rash to keep quiet about it. He must also be aware of the other instances of petty sabotage as well, since he’d made no secret of how worried he was that bad publicity might mar the first of what he hoped would be an annual event.
But at least things were progressing well in other ways. The Old Swan Theatre had seen better days, but it was still a respectable venue and ticket sales for the public show in three weeks’ time were selling well. All the newspapers were lined up, and even the local radio station would cover it.
Several large local businesses, such as department stores and florists, were backing the enterprise, both by providing the prizes for the girls and by sitting in on the judging panel.
And wasn’t she herself keeping a tight hold on the reins? She’d stepped in and taken control when she needed to and would remain in the driving seat until the whole debacle was over. There was certainly no way the contestants themselves – floozies and airheads all of them – could ever get the better of her!
Yet, lurking in the back of her mind, was the worry that her poor fool of a husband was in danger of forgetting himself and doing something monumentally stupid. So stupid that it would put their nice cosy world in real danger.
At this thought, Christine Dunbar stabbed her embroidery needle through the white fabric so forcefully that she pricked her finger. She stifled a very unladylike epithet and quickly sucked the blood from her throbbing digit before it could stain anything.
Her eyes when she looked across at her husband, still reading his paper in blissful ignorance, were narrowed and calculating.
