Kitabı oku: «A Fatal Mistake», sayfa 4
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
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.
‘Oh, Dad – nothing dangerous! Nothing silly! I’m only going to go to some student hangouts, and chat and gossip! It’s not like I’m entering dens of iniquity or anything.’
By the sink, her mother heaved a massive sigh. She was counting out some money and putting it in a biscuit tin – which meant it was being put by for the rent. The money for the electric and water bills, which she took down to the post office and paid whenever they came in, was kept in an old Bisto tin and a canister marked ‘ginger’ respectively.
‘Lucky it’s summer and the electric bill won’t be so high this time,’ she muttered to herself, and Trudy felt a flash of something very close to shame.
Although she paid for her ‘keep’, she knew it wasn’t all that much, and probably didn’t go very far. The trouble was, her wages weren’t exactly generous. But she could always do without, couldn’t she? Stockings, for example, weren’t needed in the summer either.
‘Mum, would you like a little more for my keep each month?’ she asked, walking over to her and slipping her hands around her mother’s ample waist. ‘I can always make do…’
‘No, you won’t, then, our Trudy,’ Barbara Loveday said firmly. ‘Brian dropped by earlier. Wanted to know if you wanted to go to some dance or other on Saturday night. It’s time you had a pretty new dress to be seen out and about in. Your “best” is looking a bit dated now. You save your money up and treat yourself.’
Trudy, well aware her mother considered Brian Bayliss, a boy she’d known since infant school, as prime husband material, bit back a sigh and forced a quick smile onto her face.
‘Oh, I expect I’ll see him around,’ she agreed peaceably, releasing her arms and walking casually back to the kitchen table.
As usual, the table had a small lace cloth on it that had come down in the family from her namesake, Aunty Gertrude. In the centre was a small vase of Poole pottery (her mother’s pride and joy, bequeathed to her by her own maternal grandmother) with a small bouquet of Sweet Williams in it. Her father grew them religiously in the garden, as both of his ‘girls’, as he referred to his wife and daughter, had a fondness for the scents given off by the carnation family.
‘A dance might be nice,’ she said. It was easier to keep her mother sweet than to argue with her that she was in no hurry to marry and start producing babies. And Brian – who was a local hero due to his prowess with a rugby ball – was a nice enough lad. And a good dancer!
‘Mind you don’t go out to these student places at night, then, my girl,’ her father said, putting his foot down, making his daughter regard him fondly. As if his word was still law, Trudy thought with a slight pang. She wasn’t his little girl any longer. If either DI Jennings or Dr Ryder thought she needed to go out at night, then she would have to!
But Trudy Loveday hadn’t reached the ripe old age of nineteen without learning how to handle her parents.
‘Yes, Dad,’ she said meekly.
She wondered just what she should wear tomorrow. Mentally, she began running through her rather meagre wardrobe. She wasn’t sure she had anything really suitable. After all, Oxford women students were all bluestockings from wealthy backgrounds, and their clothes were, of course, of the best quality. She was pretty sure her Woolworths glad rags wouldn’t fit the bill!
How she wished she had the nerve to ask Dr Ryder if she could buy some more ‘upmarket’ clothes, in order to fit in more easily and be accepted as one of the gang. But she just couldn’t see herself asking him for money for a fancy hat! And the look on DI Jennings’s face if she were to put in an expenses claim for a new outfit was just too comical – and horrific – to even contemplate!
Chapter 6
Reginald Porter (Reggie to his family and very few friends) leaned nonchalantly against the wall surrounding the Ashmolean Museum, and glanced casually up and down Beaumont Street. On another hot summer’s day, the place was crowded with shoppers and tourists. Down the way a little, a couple of students were sitting on the steps leading up to the world-famous museum, smoking French cigarettes and talking animatedly about something to do with Oriental art. With a sneer of contempt, Reggie ignored them. What did it matter what the overeducated, overprotected little sods thought?
Two business types in a pair of matching neat, pin-striped, dark-blue suits and bowler hats swept past, discussing the tennis.
‘I tell you, mark my words, the men’s finals will turn out to be an all-Australian affair this year,’ one of them said to his companion, with a shade of bitterness in his Home Counties accent. ‘Wimbledon nowadays seems to belong to them.’
‘Really? Which one do you think will lift the silver then? Rod Laver or Neale Fraser? Not that I really care – I’m more of a cricket man myself. Have you been following the second test against South Africa? Disgraceful, I call it…’
They passed on, their equally banal chatter about meaningless sport wafting past and over him. Instead, Reggie kept his eyes fixed on the progress of his quarry. He’d followed him all the way down the Broad after he’d stepped out of his college gates. Mind you, Reggie mused viciously, it was easy enough to keep track of him, with that head of hair so ostentatiously fair it was almost white, and his swagger telling the world he thought he owned it.
Right now, he was crossing the road alongside the Martyr’s Memorial, and was heading, of course, for lunch at the Randolph hotel. Where else, Reggie Porter thought contemptuously, would someone like Lord Jeremy Littlejohn go for a snack?
He’d been keeping tabs on the peer now, off and on (as his working hours permitted), for over a month. Because of this, he was working up a general picture of the man and his habits. Which was why Reggie knew all about His Lordship’s select little list of eateries.
He sighed as the fair head disappeared into the hotel. He’d been wearing his usual trademark white – today, in the form of a crisp white shirt and white linen summer jacket over pale-grey flannels.
It hadn’t taken Reggie long to notice that his quarry had an affectation with regard to the colour, and again his heart twisted bitterly in his narrow chest. What a poseur! What a nancy boy! And how inappropriate! That Lord Jeremy Littlejohn of all people should favour white – the supposed colour of innocence! He just couldn’t understand what Rebecca, his little sister, had seen in him.
As he thought of Becky, Reggie felt his heart give a sickening lurch. Just where was she? What had happened to her? Had she really run away to London as everyone insisted? And if she hadn’t, where was she? He had to find out. It was killing him, not knowing.
He remembered her being brought home to the house by his parents when he was barely seven years old. A tiny scrap of a thing, he’d resented her at first for turning his life upside down, and threatening to steal all his parents’ love, which had once been his alone.
But he’d been fascinated by her not long after – as a squalling infant, and then a chubby toddler, taking her first steps. As a child, she’d been simply adorable, with a riotous mop of fair curly hair, just tinged with the faintest hint of copper, and a pixie-like, gamin face. Precocious, funny and a little wild, naturally, she’d soon been able to twist him around her little finger, just as she had everyone else.
As soon as she’d hit her teens, she started to sing and dance, wear too much make-up and express an interest in being a ‘star’. Somehow, the naivete of her extravagant dreams had only led to her family indulging her all the more. Of course, underneath all her pseudo-sophistication, she was still a total innocent.
His face twisted as he thought of her now, alone and helpless somewhere in the big, wide, nasty world, without her family to protect her. It was then that he noticed a woman passing by with a shopping basket in one hand giving him a startled look, and hastily stepping out past him.
Quickly, he wiped all expression off his face. He knew that, with his shock of very red hair and heavily freckled face, he wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, so it wouldn’t do to draw any further attention to himself. After all, the last thing he wanted, especially now, was for people to start noticing him.
Surreptitiously, he took out his notebook and made a note of the time and jotted down Littlejohn’s movements that morning. It gave him pleasure to know he was building up a blueprint of the man’s life. Learning his routines and foibles. All his dirty little secrets.
It made it so much easier to torment him.
And the tormenting wouldn’t stop until he’d found out what had happened to Becky – because he was sure the aristocratic swine knew something about it.
He sighed and stretched, realising that, soon, he’d have to leave off his surveillance and go back to work. He was currently the under-manager of a shop selling bicycles on the High, but he confidently expected to be made manager soon. Old Huddlestone was due to retire next winter, and the job was sure to be his. Even so, he couldn’t afford to neglect his duties, and having to fit his campaign of attrition against Lord Jeremy Littlejohn in around his day job was enough to drive him to distraction.
So far as he could tell, the steady spate of poisonous and ever-more threatening anonymous letters he’d sent to the peer didn’t seem to be having any outward effect on the appalling little dilettante. He still carried on with his wild parties and disgustingly lazy lifestyle as if the world were his oyster. As it no doubt was, damn him.
But Reggie had plans for escalating the pressure ever further. Then they’d see how long His Lordship could maintain his display of indifference and bravado.
He smiled wolfishly as he remembered the events of last week.
The death of his sycophantic and dirty-minded little friend must have shaken him up all right, of that he was sure. Oh, yes – what had happened to Derek Chadworth must be causing the peer of the realm some sleepless nights!
Wearing a hat to hide his distinctive red hair, Reggie had managed to get a place in the coroner’s court when the inquest was being held. He could tell Lord Jeremy had been as nervous as a cat in the witness box, even though he’d given his evidence in his usual annoying and laconic drawl.
But underneath, he’d been like a cat on hot bricks. Wondering how things would play out…
And very satisfying it had been too, Reggie Porter thought now with a predatory grin. Now, all he had to do was find one little crack in His Lordship’s armour of wealth and privilege and keep working away at it.
He was going to find his little sister, or find out just what had happened to her, and nothing and no one was going to stop him. And he would do, quite literally, whatever it took.
His large, freckled hands shook slightly as he put his notebook away and, with a last, withering glance of contempt at the hotel’s attractive façade, walked briskly away towards the High.
Chapter 7
Maria DeMarco twisted her hands together nervously in her lap as she regarded the alarming old man seated opposite her.
She’d gone into the Bluebell Tea Room to meet her friend Lucy for a farewell lunch, but, as usual, her somewhat flighty companion was late. She’d been about to curtly dismiss the man who’d taken a chair at her table, murmuring a bland ‘Hope you don’t mind if I join you for a few minutes’, with a blistering reply that she did indeed mind – very much – when she recognised him.
‘Miss DeMarco, isn’t it?’ Dr Clement Ryder said now, with a jovial smile on his face as he made a show of settling comfortably into his Windsor chair. ‘Thought I recognised you. I hope you don’t mind if I rest my weary bones for a short while?’
It was, of course, no coincidence that he’d run into her here. He’d gone to her college expressly to interview her, but, on the way, had spotted her walking on the pavement across the road, and had followed her to the little café.
Now he sighed elaborately. ‘This heat isn’t to my liking. But I daresay you’re used to far warmer climes in Italy?’
Maria, brought up to be respectful of her elders, smiled nervously, wishing her friend would arrive, giving her an excuse to politely get rid of him. ‘Yes, I suppose that is true,’ she murmured casually.
‘I just wondered if you’d had any more thoughts about the death of that poor young man,’ he dismayed her by asking firmly, for she’d been trying to cast around for a subject that would steer the conversation away from any mention of the dead boy.
‘I? No… Well, yes, naturally it has been on my mind,’ she hastily corrected herself, feeling totally wrong-footed. ‘It was such a tragic thing to have happened.’ She tried to sound politely non-committal.
‘Yes. His parents thought so,’ Clement said dryly, very neatly scuppering her attempts to distance herself from the events of the previous week.
Maria felt herself go cold at this rather brutal rebuttal and nodded miserably. ‘Yes – his poor parents! Oh, how I wish I had never gone to that wretched picnic,’ the young girl said with sudden savagery.
And that, Clement thought cynically, was probably the first totally truthful thing she’d ever said to him.
‘Yes. Life isn’t always roses and chocolates, I’m afraid,’ he agreed gently.
Maria flushed. ‘Now you make fun of me, I think.’
Clement waved a vague hand in the air. ‘My apologies. Miss DeMarco. Let me be frank. I’m not satisfied with the events in my courtroom regarding Derek Chadworth’s death. Not satisfied at all.’
Maria drew in a swift breath, her dark eyes darting all around the tea room, looking for a possible means of escape. But the waitresses, dressed in their black-and-white uniforms, were busy delivering lunches, and nobody was paying them any attention. Over by the far window, two young men were smoking and chatting, with one of them eyeing her favourably, but she could tell he wasn’t interested enough to disrupt her tête-à-tête with the older man.
She silently cursed Lucy for always running late, and tried to avoid the coroner’s knowing eyes. ‘Oh?’ she mumbled unhappily.
‘Yes. You see, I think people were lying to me. And that tends to make me cross,’ Clement said mildly.
Maria blinked furiously. This was intolerable! That she should be put in this position at all…
‘I hope you don’t think I lied to you, Dottore?’ Maria, forced on the defensive, met his eyes boldly.
‘No,’ he surprised her slightly by saying. ‘I don’t think any good Catholic girl could place her hand on the Holy Bible and lie, at the peril of her immortal soul.’ He gave her another kind smile.
His words pricked her conscience, and she felt her eyes actually smart with unshed tears. Quickly, she swallowed them back. It wouldn’t do to lose control of herself – and the situation – now.
‘You are quite right,’ she said, truthfully enough. ‘I did not lie under oath.’
Dr Ryder sighed gently. ‘But perhaps you didn’t exactly tell the truth either?’ he persisted.
Maria flushed. ‘I said I didn’t see that poor boy on the day of the picnic, and I didn’t,’ she said firmly.
‘Hmm. So you and all the others said. But would it surprise you to know that some of your fellow students that day are now saying they might have seen him after all?’ he asked curiously. And he wasn’t exaggerating. Since speaking to Lionel Gulliver, he’d spoken to three other students, not called as witnesses at the inquest, but who had been at the party on the fateful day, and all three of them were singing from the same hymn sheet. Derek might have been there. But they, personally, couldn’t swear to it.
He could see at once that this news did surprise Maria. She shot him a quick, puzzled frown, then shrugged.
Clement realised that whoever had sent out the word that, from now on, nobody was to be so sure Derek hadn’t been present that day, had failed to get the message across to Maria.
Slowly he leaned forward across the table, planting his elbows on the tabletop, folding his hands just in front of him and resting his chin thoughtfully on top of his knuckles. He gazed at her openly across the expanse of cutlery and the little vase of daisies in the centre of the blue-and-white-checked tablecloth.
‘Who is it that’s pulling the strings, Maria?’ he demanded softly. ‘Lord Littlejohn?’
He saw her give a little start.
‘Well, he is the obvious ringleader, isn’t he?’ he swept on, almost kindly. ‘The head honcho of your little gang. The big chief of the Marquis Club?’ He said the last sentence carefully, but caught nothing other than a brief moue of distaste on her face.
‘Oh, that! A silly little club for silly little aristocratic boys who have no respect for women, and fancy themselves as rebels! Hah! What do I care about all that?’ she asked, with the Latin flair for magnificent arrogance. ‘I was only there because a boy I liked asked me.’
‘And do you still like him?’ Clement asked, amused by this eye-flashing display of temper in spite of the seriousness of the situation.
‘No,’ the spirited young girl shot back. ‘Like I said before, I wish I’d never gone out with them on that day.’
Clement nodded. ‘So… is there anything you want to tell me, Maria? Now that we’re away from the courtroom, and away from prying eyes and ears?’
Visibly, the girl hesitated.
‘Since you’re going back home soon anyway? Back to Italy and away from all this and everyone here?’ he wheedled. ‘What you say to me will be in the strictest confidence, I assure you.’
Maria made a little face. ‘It is true. I will be glad to get away from here,’ she said, looking out at the city through the window. Past the gingham curtains, it looked particularly lovely today, with its soot-darkened Cotswold stone glowing golden underneath the grime, its ivy-clad walls looking mellow in the summer haze, and all the clock towers, which chimed so haphazardly on and around the hour. ‘Oh, it seemed nice enough at first, this place, but underneath…’ Maria sighed.
Then she straightened in her chair a little and shot the older man a solemn look. ‘I think, Dottore, that you should be careful here. Oxford is a very… elite place. And you have not, I think, the kind of power you might need… if you started to… how do you English say?… ruffle the wrong kind of feathers?’
Clement Ryder felt a ripple of surprise wash over him. For a split second he thought the young madam was actually having the gall to threaten him. But then, as he met her slightly concerned gaze, he realised she was actually trying to warn him.
He bit back the urge to laugh, and instead nodded solemnly.
‘I’m not without power and influence myself, Miss DeMarco,’ he said quietly – and with some understatement.
For a moment, Maria considered this. She knew she must look as unsure as she felt. The trouble was, she was still, even after three years, a relative stranger here. And although she knew some things, she didn’t know others. She knew, of course, all the myriad things her fellow students knew. So she knew she had to keep her mouth firmly shut about that awful afternoon on the river.
She didn’t understand enough about the power base in this city to know who really had influence and who didn’t. Of course, she knew all about the Marquis Club, and that the elite and rich members of that little clique all had families with influence and power. Sons of dukes would always be protected and cosseted. It was the way the world worked – whether you were in England or in Italy. Maria knew this.
However, she didn’t know enough about the politics of the city to know if this man, this coroner, was right to feel so sure of himself. Oh, she’d heard he had powerful friends in high places. But were they powerful enough?
As she met his steady, compelling gaze, she felt herself weaken. After all, like he’d said, next week she’d be back home in Italy, and she could put this part of her life behind her. Her own family were powerful enough in their own country to protect her from any consequences.
‘Miss DeMarco, a boy has died,’ Clement said sharply, interrupting her line of thought. ‘If you can help me, in any way, don’t you think you should do so?’
Maria flushed. Yes, that was all very well. But a girl had to look out for herself. Also, it was not nice to be the tattletale.
She sighed. But perhaps just a hint or two couldn’t hurt? After all, he’d promised nothing she said to him would be repeated.
‘I know nothing about how that boy came to drown,’ she said flatly, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Do you believe that?’
‘Yes. I rather think I do.’
‘Very well then,’ she said, with a hint of satisfaction. ‘I can say nothing more about what happened that afternoon… but I can say this. That boy who drowned? I don’t think he was a very nice boy.’
Clement blinked. Whatever he’d been expecting her to cough up, it hadn’t been that. He slowly unfolded his hands and arms and leaned back in the chair to give her more space.
‘Why do you say that?’ he asked curiously, careful to keep his voice light. He certainly didn’t want to spook her, just when she’d started to trust him. But he needed more information. ‘I thought you said you didn’t know him?’
‘And I did not,’ Maria confirmed sharply. ‘But I heard things. Not much…’ She quickly held up a hand to forestall him. ‘Nothing specific. Just rumours, you understand. Somebody would say something, and I would overhear. Nobody spoke badly about him openly, or anything like that. But I could tell. It was in their voices. In the knowing looks that passed between them, whenever his name came up. There was something about that boy that was not nice. And that’s all I can tell you,’ she added firmly.
Then her face lit up with relief, and the coroner turned his head a little to see a tall brunette weaving her way through the tables towards them.
‘Oh, Maria, sorry to be so late…’ She paused, obviously expecting an introduction to her friend’s companion.
But the Italian girl was already rising, and saying firmly, ‘It’s all right, Lucy. This gentleman was just leaving.’
Dr Ryder gave her a brief, somewhat sardonic smile, murmured something to the ladies, and walked away.
His face, though, as he walked out into the bright, sunny afternoon, was very thoughtful indeed.
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