A Fatal Truth

by Faith Martin

  After her husband had died, she’d assumed that she’d settle down into widowhood without too many regrets, and such had been the case for the first year or two. After that, however, she began to find that silence and aloneness began to chafe. It was not, after all, as if she was truly old yet. She still had plenty of good years left in her, but she found it more and more difficult to contemplate them alone. There were just so many instances when having a man around made life so much easier.

  Going on holiday, for instance, was not so much fun when one travelled alone, she’d discovered. The old biddies who frequented holiday hotels on the coast did tend to be so sympathetic! And there were plenty of times, say, when the electricity went off during a winter storm, when it would have been nice to have someone else there, just to share a candle with, and groan or laugh about the absurdities of coping in the dark. Someone to make you a hot drink when you had a raging cold, or deal with taps that dripped, or clear gutters when they began to overflow.

  And so, gradually, the idea of remarrying began to seem more and more attractive. Of course, the problem with that was one which had plagued ladies of a certain age since the time Jane Austen began penning her witty novels and probably long before that too – namely, the dearth of suitable, available men.

  And therein lay the rub, Mary thought with a touch of wry impatience.

  But after running into Rupert Burrows again, and finding him to be the answer to all her problems, it was annoying (to say the least) to discover that execrable older brother of hers resolutely refused to consider his old army colleague to be suitable for her in any way.

  Of course, he was a few years younger than herself, Mary acknowledged, watching Rupert fondly as he sipped his tea. But only by six years, so it was not as if she could be accused of robbing the cradle! But his undoubted good looks (whilst attracting Mary in the first place) had also been something else that her brother had held against him. Tall, handsome, blond men with blue eyes and a full moustache, according to Thomas Hughes, were nearly always up to no good. Especially if they were reduced to living on an inadequate army pension!

  As if she needed the warning! Of course, Mary had always known that part of her attraction for Rupert was her financial security. She was, after all, no silly dreamy-eyed or innocent girl, unaware of the world and the way it worked. But Rupert was hardly a full-fledged gold digger, just as she was no great heiress. And if she had no objection to acquiring a handsome husband to see her through her old age, at the cost of keeping him in the small but necessary luxuries in life, then what business was it of Thomas’s?

  She looked at her fiancé fondly once more, wondering what he was thinking. Dressed in his best Harris tweed suit, with his old regimental tie impeccably knotted, he looked the epitome of a respectable if unremarkable man at ease, and it was hard to understand why her brother had been so pig-headed and determined to prevent their marriage.

  He certainly couldn’t have objected to poor Rupert’s background. Born in Sussex to a perfectly respectable land-owning ‘gentleman’ farmer and the daughter of a Bishop, he’d gone to good (if not top-notch) schools, and earned a place at Oxford, where they’d first met. He’d trained as an architect, and had never married. Perhaps because the war had intervened just when he had probably been considering settling down.

  Here Mary Everly let out a gentle sigh. Yes, that was where the true trouble lay, of course – in that regrettable incident during the war.

  She could still recall the glee in her brother’s face when he told her all about it, fully expecting her to be shocked to the core, and disavow Rupert on the spot. And she could still (with much more satisfaction) remember how the look on his face had changed when she’d rounded on him in no uncertain terms.

  After all, she’d pointed out with equal glee and cold fury, Thomas could hardly claim to have had a ‘spectacular war’ himself, could he? Working at the War Office, he’d never seen the battlefield, or had to put his own life on the line. And why should she give Rupert up over things that had happened years ago? Mistakes were being made all the time. Besides, everyone knew that bad things happened in the war. It was a war, for Pete’s sake!

  The resulting row had been furious and loud, with Thomas insisting that his sister would only be allowed to marry Rupert over his dead body, and the fallout had resulted in an estrangement between them that had never been breached. And now that her brother was dead, Mary mused pragmatically, it never could be.

  ‘Would you like a biscuit, Rupert?’ Mary asked mildly. ‘I baked some shortbread yesterday – your favourite.’

  ‘Lovely idea, old girl,’ Rupert beamed. But his smile faltered as soon as she’d left the room, and when she returned with the biscuit tin, she found him staring pensively into the fire.

  ‘It will all blow over, won’t it Mary?’ he asked her anxiously. ‘I mean, this newspaper Johnny will eventually start picking on someone else, and you and I will be all right, won’t we?’

  Mary looked at his worried big blue eyes and smiled softly. ‘Of course it will, Rupert. These things have a way of working themselves out, you’ll see. Now, how do you feel about a spring wedding?’

  Chapter 24

  Trudy saw him the moment she walked into the café. He had changed his suit since she’d met him at the bus stop that morning, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d gone back to his home to change into a nicer suit in order to impress her.

  Then, more pragmatically, she told herself he’d probably had to interview someone prominent earlier that afternoon and his editor had told him to make himself look very smart and presentable.

  As she approached, she saw the moment he noticed her, and watched his face light up. She wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t felt pleased at the unspoken compliment, and for a moment, her breath fluttered in her throat. Then she was smiling politely at him, and heard herself say coolly, ‘Mr Gillingham, thank you for waiting.’

  ‘You’re not late,’ Duncan said at once, half-rising politely from his seat, as she drew out one of the chairs in front of her.

  The café was almost empty, with the lunch hour crowd long departed, and the afternoon tea brigade not yet in evidence, but the few customers who were there, Duncan noticed with a hidden smile, were covertly watching her. He didn’t find it in the least surprising – the combination of an attractive young woman, wearing a police officer’s uniform, was bound to bring her attention, no matter where she went.

  To his intense gratification, Trudy swept off her cap, revealing a mass of curly near-black hair, which had been twisted into a becoming chignon atop her head. A few strands had escaped their confines during the day, and now lay curling over her forehead, and creeping out to caress her cheek. He had to resist the urge to reach out and push one back from just below her ear.

  She did not, however, take off her jacket. Perhaps too much informality wasn’t to be expected on their first meeting.

  And Duncan was going to do everything he could to make damned sure that this was only their first meeting.

  ‘So, thanks for meeting me,’ he began, glancing up as the waitress approached. She was slightly older than Trudy, a pretty girl with blonde hair and big brown eyes, and Trudy noticed the way that she smiled at him as she came up to his side.

  ‘Let me treat you to afternoon tea,’ Duncan said to Trudy, who smiled briefly but shook her head.

  ‘Just a cup of tea for me please,’ she said firmly to the waitress, who barely glanced at her. Even though she didn’t think finger sandwiches and dainty cakes counted as offering a bribe, it had been drummed into her at training college that a police officer always had to be careful about accepting any kind of ‘gift’ from the public, witnesses and especially suspects. Although, of course, the reporter could hardly be said to fall into the latter category, Trudy thought gratefully.

  ‘And for the gentleman?’ the waitress prompted, her smile widening ever further as Duncan looked up at her.

  ‘Oh, the same for me too, t
hanks.’ He gave her a determinedly vague smile. He had noticed that the WPC hadn’t failed to register the blonde girl’s obvious interest in him, and he wanted to make sure that Trudy Loveday knew that it wasn’t reciprocal.

  The waitress left with obvious reluctance, and Trudy was careful to keep her face bland as she glanced across the table.

  His black hair gleamed in the light from the streetlamp outside the window, and she thought again how attractive he was. A bit like Cary Grant, but darker, and with a hint of danger about him. Perhaps it was his unusual green eyes.

  ‘So, Mr Gillingham …’ she began crisply, telling herself that she was going to keep this all strictly professional, but before she could even begin, he grinned at her and interrupted.

  ‘Oh please, call me Duncan,’ he said. ‘I hope we’re going to get to know one another a bit over this Hughes story, and it seems so formal to go on calling each other Mr this and Constable that, don’t you think?’

  His smile was so winning, and he was so obviously sure of his charm, that Trudy couldn’t stop herself from shooting back coolly, ‘No, I don’t think, Mr Gillingham.’ She reached into her satchel for her notebook and ostentatiously turned to a fresh page.

  When she looked at him again, he was grinning, trying to look abashed, and failing. ‘Sorry, but I do I really have to keep calling you Constable Loveday?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Gillingham, you do,’ Trudy said, resisting the urge to grin back at him. ‘This is official police business.’

  ‘And what if it wasn’t? Could I call you by your first name then? By the way, what is it?’ he cajoled cheekily.

  Trudy, who never used her full name, (what her parents were thinking of, naming her after her Aunt Gertrude she had no idea!) sighed patiently. ‘This morning you said you had some information about the death of Mr Thomas Hughes.’ She tapped her notebook tellingly with a biro pen.

  When she’d been at school, she, like all her classmates, had learned to write with an old-fashioned nib and a bottle of ink, and she was forever thankful to Mr Biro for his wonderful invention. Even so, some of her older colleagues still only used pencils whenever they could, and regarded the ‘new-fangled’ biro pens with suspicion.

  ‘From the stories you’ve been writing for your newspaper in the last few days, you’ve been hinting about Mr Hughes’s death not being an accident,’ Trudy swept on. ‘Do you care to tell me why you think that there was something untoward happening at the bonfire party that night? I take it you attended the coroner’s inquest?’

  ‘I did,’ he assured her. ‘And duly listened and made note of the man’s nearest and dearest trotting out the family line,’ Duncan added, eyes twinkling. She really did look lovely when she was being all severe and constabulary. But a slight flush on her cheeks and the quickness of her breathing told him that WPC Loveday was not as coolly indifferent to him as she would have him believe.

  ‘You think they were lying?’ she asked sharply, and all at once she really was all business. Which told him that, pretty as a picture though she might be, this lady also had ambition – and would be no pushover.

  Duncan sighed a little, and hastily reminded himself where his true priorities lay. It was all very well flirting with the unexpectedly delightful police officer in charge of the case, but he had to remember that he needed to lead this particular horse to water – and make her drink it.

  ‘Oh, maybe not lying, exactly,’ he said casually, preparing the ground carefully, ‘but let’s just say, they were not exactly falling over themselves to be perfectly truthful either.’

  Trudy continued to tap her notebook with her pen. ‘In what way, exactly, Mr Gillingham?’ she asked with exaggerated patience.

  ‘You know, by now of course, about the old man’s dodgy business ventures?’ he began cautiously. He needed to lay the groundwork before he started to steer her in the right direction, and it wouldn’t do to let her know that she was being manipulated.

  ‘I’ve done my research, Mr Gillingham. None of Mr Hughes’s financial affairs were illegal,’ she shot back crisply, confirming his opinion that WPC Loveday had her wits about her.

  ‘No, but a lot of people lost a lot of money because of him. And you’ll have noticed that he never invested any of his own pennies when it came to the more risky schemes? It’s no wonder he made a fortune.’

  ‘If that’s all you have …’ Trudy began to make getting-ready-to-leave gestures, and Duncan laughed, holding his hands out in an appeasing gesture.

  ‘All right, all right, obviously that’s not all.’

  Trudy sighed elaborately and leaned back in her chair, looking cross and bored, but the truth was she was enjoying herself enormously.

  Just then, the waitress returned with the tray and took her time setting out the teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl, and cups and saucers. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing else you’d like, sir?’ she asked coyly.

  Duncan again smiled vaguely at her but shook his head, and with a small sigh, she slipped away.

  ‘So what else do you have to go on?’ Trudy pressed.

  ‘You know the man’s youngest daughter hated him, don’t you? Caroline Hughes. She blamed him for her mother’s death.’

  Trudy gave nothing away, but it was obvious this man had done a lot of digging and had unearthed a lot of the Hughes family secrets in the process. Was it possible he’d discovered something that she and Clement had, so far, missed?

  ‘And that he made his older daughter, Alice’s life, hardly worth living?’ Duncan went on. ‘I’ve spoken to the Wilcoxes’ daily woman and the old part-time gardener who both say the old man treated her like a slave. Even reduced her to tears sometimes.’

  Duncan took a sip of his tea, watching her closely for any reaction. Annoyingly, though, he couldn’t tell if she was impressed or not.

  Trudy continued to say nothing. She hadn’t known about the latter, but when she took a moment to think about it, it didn’t exactly surprise her. From all that she’d learned about the dead man, he’d been selfish and uncaring about his treatment of those supposedly nearest and dearest to him for all his life.

  ‘And did you know that his eldest son only received a measly pension in the old man’s will?’ Duncan pressed on, his twinkling green eyes daring her to deny any of it.

  Trudy, who in spite of herself, was becoming more and more impressed by the depth of the man’s knowledge, wondered grimly who he had charmed in the solicitor’s office to get such information. Probably one of the partners’ secretaries no doubt, she thought sourly.

  ‘So it’s not as if there weren’t a lot of people glad to see the back of him, Constable,’ Duncan insisted. ‘Surely, by now, you’ve gathered some evidence that the blow he took to his head wasn’t the result of any exploding firework? I mean, you have to ask yourself, how likely is it that one of them knocked him out? Would a rocket really have the heft behind it to knock a man clean out? Wasn’t it mentioned at the inquest that he might have hit his head on a wooden shelf? It’s not such a leap, is it, to say that he was hit over the head by something wooden? Otherwise, any grown man should have been able to crawl out of that shed when it caught fire unless he’d already been seriously incapacitated, surely?’

  Trudy blinked. ‘Mr Gillingham, I do hope you haven’t asked me here to try and pump me for information?’ she said indignantly. ‘Because if you have, I can tell you now that you’re wasting your time. If, or when, the police force has any information it wants to share with the press, our—’

  ‘All right, all right, pax,’ Duncan grinned. ‘And as if I’d dare try and grill you, WPC Loveday!’

  Trudy reached for the sugar bowl and added two lumps to her steaming cup of tea and slowly stirred it in. ‘Do you actually have anything relevant to tell me, Mr Gillingham, or are you just wasting my time? You do know it’s an offence to waste police time, I take it?’ she added with a slight smile.

  ‘Are you going to arrest me, Officer?’

  ‘Don’t tempt me!’ Trudy shot
back, and for a moment Duncan felt a distinct stirring in his loins at the thought of this woman slipping the handcuffs on him. Then he laughed and dragged his mind back to the matter in hand.

  ‘All right – straight up this time,’ he said, leaning forward a little in his chair, and casting a quick glance around. ‘Have you cottoned on yet to what a truly nasty piece of work Mr Kenneth Wilcox is?’ he asked, his voice deadly serious now.

  Trudy felt her chest tighten slightly. ‘Go on,’ she said cautiously.

  She wasn’t a fool, and she knew that when a journalist invited you to a café, you could bet all the doughnuts on the menu that they would try and get something from you that they could quote in one of their stories. And she’d made a promise to herself that she would give this handsome young man not even a crumb that he could put in print and attribute to a ‘source within the police force’.

  But she was now very aware that if Duncan had discovered something of real importance, then she needed to get that information out of him – and to do so without resorting to quid pro quo.

  She felt herself tensing as she realised that she was going to have to be very careful now – not by so much as by a look or a gesture must she give away that she had no idea what he was getting at.

  ‘Mr Kenneth Wilcox – husband of Alice, and prime mover and shaker around the bonfire that night,’ Duncan said drolly, careful to keep his voice light and neutral. ‘Of all the people there that night, who would have known the contents of the shed better than him? What’s more, he would have had ample time before the family members started to arrive to make a good reconnaissance of that garden shed. And who knows what he might have done whilst he was in there?’

  Trudy allowed herself to smile sceptically. ‘Like what? Set up a booby trap for his father-in-law?’