A Fatal Truth

by Faith Martin

  But if they had confidently expected DI Jennings would greet this news with enthusiasm and a certain amount of satisfied gloating, they were in for a rude awakening.

  ‘Oh, do you?’ Jennings said flatly – which was their first warning. ‘Let me be the judge of that. Constable.’ He fixed her with a beady glare. ‘Your report please?’

  ‘Sir?’ Trudy prevaricated.

  Beside her, Clement sighed and sat down heavily, a look of resignation on his face. He might not like the man, but there were no flies on Harry Jennings.

  ‘What have you been doing today, Constable Loveday?’ Jennings asked silkily.

  ‘We’ve finished questioning the family sir, and have concluded …’

  ‘Tell me everything,’ Jennings snapped, genuinely angry at her obvious prevarication. ‘Do you think I don’t have eyes in my head, Constable? Or do you think I was born yesterday?’ He spared a brief glance for the grim-faced coroner, and wished that he had the authority to light a fire under the old vulture as well, but knew he’d have to content himself with dragging the truth from his officer. ‘You’ve clearly discovered something unsavoury. Now out with it,’ he rapped.

  For a moment Trudy still hesitated. But then Clement said wearily, ‘You’ll have to tell him, Trudy.’ And to Jennings he added warningly, ‘Not that you’ll wish you hadn’t allowed her to keep quiet. Believe me, knowing what we know isn’t going to make you any happier.’

  Jennings rolled his eyes bitterly. ‘Marvellous,’ he said. ‘Just bloody marvellous.’ He heaved a massive sigh. ‘All right, come on then – out with it.’

  So Trudy told him everything.

  Once or twice during the sorry, sad, and horrific recital, it looked as if Jennings was about to interrupt, but he never actually did so. Clement, watching the Inspector’s face transform from an expression of impatient anger to dawning understanding and subsequent distaste and horror, couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man. They, at least, had had some time to acclimatise themselves to the whole sorry mess, whereas Jennings was having it all dumped into his lap. Not only that, but now that he’d demanded the truth, he was the one who was going to have to decide what to do about it.

  Clement could only hope the man did the right thing.

  Finally, when Trudy’s report was finished, there was silence for a long, long time.

  Eventually, DI Jennings shuffled in his seat. ‘There’s no forensic evidence to be had at all, you say?’ he asked finally.

  ‘No, the fire destroyed it all, as you know,’ Clement said flatly.

  ‘And you don’t believe that any member of the Hughes family can be persuaded to tell the truth? That they saw Mr Matthew Hughes enter the shed after Thomas Hughes had entered?’ he asked next.

  ‘We don’t even know if any of them did, sir,’ Trudy pointed out prosaically. ‘And even if one or more of them had, I can’t see them testifying against Matthew. Not under the circumstances. Can you?’

  Jennings nodded perfunctory. ‘And you’re sure that there’s no chance that you could get a confession from the man himself?’

  Clement wearily went through the reasons why it was so unlikely that the killer of Thomas Hughes would ever admit to what he’d done.

  ‘And the dead man was actually willing to let his own grand-kiddie die, just to save himself from spending a few pounds?’ Jennings asked, but it was clear from the disbelief in his voice that the question was all but rhetorical. ‘Well,’ he said briskly, rousing himself and shaking off the nightmare world of the Hughes family. ‘It’s quite clear to me that since there’s no possible case for the prosecution to get its teeth into, I think we should just quietly close the Hughes case once and for all, as you initially suggested, and file it away. The original findings at the inquest can remain unchallenged.’

  Clement smiled a shade cynically. He had no doubt that Jennings’s superiors wouldn’t have thanked him for landing such a mess of a case in their laps, and by neatly sweeping it all the under the carpet, the Inspector was doing himself a favour, as much as anything else.

  But perhaps he was doing the man an injustice?

  Clement sighed, stood up and almost stumbled as his left foot began to tremble violently. He cursed his tiredness, which had almost certainly been instrumental in bringing on the latest bout of weakness, and tested his weight on his legs carefully, before he felt safe enough to actually step away from the support of his chair.

  ‘Well, it’s been a long day,’ he said in massive understatement. He felt absolutely wrung out. ‘So I’ll bid you goodnight. Inspector.’ He shot a knowing glance at Jennings, who smiled blandly back at him.

  ‘Dr Ryder.’

  Clement turned and smiled gently at Trudy. ‘Trudy, my dear, as always, it’s been a pleasure and a delight working with you. Until the next time, then?’

  Trudy smiled and nodded. And it was only then that she recalled, at the beginning of the case, how worried she’d been that she might not be able to cope with working with this man again. How long ago that now seemed! And how absurd her lack of self-confidence seemed now.

  If she could cope with the pity and the horror of a case like this, she felt like she could cope with anything!

  ‘Dr Ryder,’ she said warmly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I don’t think I did much this time Trudy,’ Clement said, meaning it. ‘It was all down to you.’ And if he’d deliberately held himself back, giving her all the room she needed in order to shine, he was confident that she had no suspicion of it.

  When the door had closed behind the old vulture, Jennings looked at his officer thoughtfully. Without doubt, this had been as nasty a case as he’d ever come across.

  No wonder she looked pale and hollow-eyed – especially if, as the old vulture had acknowledged, she’d carried most of the weight of it herself.

  He grunted a little and then took a deep breath. ‘You did well, Constable Loveday,’ he said gruffly. ‘This Hughes affair was a bad piece of work, and you met the challenge admirably. Well done.’

  Trudy stared at him, her jaw falling open. Had the unthinkable really just happened? Had DI Jennings actually complimented her?

  Jennings eyes sharpened on her. ‘Well, don’t just stand there looking like a stunned mullet, WPC Loveday,’ he said acerbically. ‘Don’t you have work to be getting on with?’

  ‘Yes sir!’ Trudy responded instantly, and turned and walked stiffly to the door.

  But as she reached for the handle, she was grinning widely.

  If you loved seeing Trudy crack the case, and want to be the first to know about the next gripping Ryder and Loveday novel, click here to sign up to Faith Martin’s newsletter!

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  Author’s Note:

  The Oxford newspaper mentioned in this novel, THE OXFORD TRIBUNE, is not a real newspaper, and should not be confused with any real newspaper in existence – in Oxford or anywhere else!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from the first book in the Ryder and Loveday series, A Fatal Obsession …

  PROLOGUE

  Oxford, July 1955

  The body on the bed lay sedate and demurely silent as the middle-aged man looked slowly around the room. It was a lovely room – large, well-proportioned and lavishly decorated in tones of blue and silver. One of two large sash windows was partly open, allowing a warm summer breeze to blow in, gently wafting the fine net curtains and bringing with it a faint scent of honeysuckle from the lush and well-tended gardens below.

  The man wandered slowly around the opulent bedroom, his eyes greedily taking in everything from the quality of the silk bedsheets to the bottles of expensive perfume on an ornate antique dresser, while being careful not to touch anything. Having been born into a working-class family, he knew nothing about the pedigree of the paintings that adorned the walls. But he would ha
ve been willing to bet a week’s wages that the sale of just one of them would be more than enough to set him and his family up for life.

  He’d never before had cause to visit any of the mansions that proliferated in the swanky streets that stretched between the Woodstock and Banbury Roads in the north of the city, or any of the leafy avenues in the area. So now he took his time, and a considerable amount of pleasure, in looking around him, luxuriating in the deep tread of the plush blue Axminster carpet beneath his feet, which was so reminiscent of walking on mossy lawns.

  His eyes turned wistfully to the jewellery box on a walnut bedside table, left carelessly open. Gold, pearls and a few sparkling gemstones winked in the summer sun, making his fingers positively itch.

  ‘Very nice,’ he muttered quietly to himself. But he knew better than to slip even a modest ring or two into his pocket. Not this time – and certainly not with these people. The man hadn’t reached his half century without learning there was one law for the rich, and one for everyone else.

  Thoughtfully, his eyes turned once more to the body on the bed. A pretty little thing she was. Young too. Just out of her teens, perhaps?

  What a damned shame, he thought vaguely.

  Then the breeze caused something on the bedside table to flutter slightly, the movement instantly catching his eye. He walked closer to the bed and the dead girl, again careful where he put his feet, and saw what it was that had been disturbed. It had clearly been deliberately propped up among the pots of face cream and powder compacts, lipsticks and boxes of pills.

  Bending ponderously at the waist, the man, who was definitely beginning to run to fat, squinted down at it and read some of the words written there.

  And slowly, a large, beaming smile spread over his not particularly attractive face. He gave a long, slow, near-silent whistle and then looked sharply over his shoulder to make sure nobody from the house had come upstairs behind him and could see what he was about to do. Confident he remained alone and unobserved, he reached out for the item and put it safely away in his large inside jacket pocket.

  Then he lovingly patted the place over his heart where it lay. For, unless he was very much mistaken, this precious little find was the best bit of luck he’d had for many a year – if not in his whole life. And it was certainly going to make his imminently approaching retirement years far more pleasant than he’d ever previously anticipated.

  He walked jauntily to the door, leaving the dead girl behind him without a second thought, and stepped out confidently onto the landing.

  Time, he rather thought, to tackle the man of the house.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Oxford, January 1960

  Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday shouted, ‘Oi, you, stop right there. Police!’ at the top of her lungs, and took off at a racing sprint.

  Needless to say, the young lad she’d just seen snatch a woman’s handbag as she was standing below the clock face on Carfax Tower did nothing of the kind. She just had time to catch a fleeting impression of a panic-stricken young face as he shot a quick look at her over his shoulder, and then took off down The High, like a whippet after a hare.

  He nearly got run over by a taxi as he crossed the main road at the intersection but, luckily for Trudy, the traffic that had screeched to a halt to allow him to cross meant she could take advantage of the gap to race across herself, in rather more safety.

  On her face, had she but known it, was a look of sheer joy.

  Sergeant O’Grady had given her the task of trying to find the man responsible for a spate of bag-snatching in the city centre that had been going on since before the Christmas rush, but this was the first time she’d actually caught sight of her quarry in all that time. Though the thief had been active enough, and the list of outraged complaints from housewives and shoppers had grown steadily longer, neither she nor any of her fellow constables walking the beat had yet been lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time.

  Until now.

  And a month of pounding the freezing pavements, taking statements from enraged or tearful women, and hiding behind shop doors on increasingly aching feet while keeping her eyes peeled for mischief, had left Trudy with a proper grudge against this particular villain.

  Which meant she was in no mood to lose him now.

  She was aware that many of the people in the streets were watching her race by with open mouths and round, astonished eyes. Some of the men, indeed, looked as if they were going to try and interfere, and she could only hope and pray that they wouldn’t. Although they no doubt meant well, the last thing she needed was for some chivalrous, middle-aged bank manager to try and stop the fleeing thief for her, only to be roughly tossed to the floor, punched, or worse.

  The paperwork involved in that was something she definitely didn’t want to think about. Not to mention the look of resigned fury that would cross DI Jennings’s face when he learned she’d somehow managed to muck up such a simple arrest.

  Less than a minute of mad chasing had passed so far, and rather belatedly she remembered her whistle and debated whether or not she should use it.

  At nineteen (nearly twenty), Trudy Loveday still remembered her glory days at the track and field events at her school where she’d always won cups on sports day for her racing – be it sprinting or cross-country. And she could still run like the wind, even in her neat black shoes and police uniform, with her leather satchel of accoutrements bouncing on her hip. Moreover, she could tell she was gaining ground on the little villain in front of her, who had to deal with the added obstacle of shouldering pedestrians out of his way as he ran, leaving the pavements rather less clogged for her.

  Her legs and arms were pumping away in that satisfying and remembered rhythm that allowed her to eat up the yards, and she was reluctant to alter that flow, but training and good sense told her she must. So, trying not to lose momentum, she reached her hand across her chest, swung the silver whistle on its chain up to her lips, and blew hard on the outward, expelling breath.

  The distinctive, loud-pitched whistle promptly resounded in the cold, frost-laden air, and would, she knew, bring any of her colleagues within hearing distance running to her aid. Which might be just as well if the bag-snatcher decided to give up his attempt at a straight flight and tried to lose himself in the city’s narrow, medieval back streets, or by dodging in and out of the shops.

  But so far he was intent on just running down The High, no doubt confident he could outrun a mere woman. But this hardly made him the first man to underestimate her.

  With a confident grin, Trudy put on an extra burst of speed. He was so close now, she could almost feel the moment when she’d rugby-tackle him to the ground, hear him grunt with surprise and then see the look of dismay on his cocky little face as she slipped her handcuffs on him and gave him his caution.

  And at that moment, just as she was reaching out and getting ready to grab him, he turned and glanced over his shoulder, saw her and swore. And immediately began to dodge to his right, between two parked cars.

  Trudy cast a swift look over her shoulder, saw that the road was clear, then looked ahead as far as Magdalen Bridge, noticing the familiar outline of a red bus chugging along, coming towards her. But she had plenty of time before it reached them.

  Anticipating the fleeing thief’s intention of crossing the road and trying to lose her down one of the side streets opposite,

  Trudy gave a final blast on her whistle. This was as much to warn the gaping, watching public to keep out of the way as it was an attempt to attract further help from her colleagues.

  Then she leapt sideways.

  Her timing, as she’d known it would be, was near perfect, and before he could gain the middle of the road, she was on him, swinging him around and back towards the pavement. She hit him hard, putting all of her slight weight into it. Luckily, at five feet ten, she was a tall girl, and had a long reach.

  The thief landed unluckily on his nose on the icy tarmac, and yelped in shock. He was a skinny
, wiry specimen, all arms and legs, and already his nose was bleeding profusely. Comically, he was still clutching the lady’s handbag he’d snatched back at Carfax.

  Trudy felt her police cap fall off as she landed on top of him but, mercifully, her long, wavy, dark-brown hair was held up in such a tight bun by a plethora of hair pins and elastic bands that it remained contained.

  Reaching behind her, with one knee firmly positioned in the middle of the thief’s back, she groped for her handcuffs. She was vaguely aware of a male voice shouting something only a short distance away, and that the public, who had begun gathering in a curious little knot around her, were now moving back, when the thief beneath her suddenly bucked and twisted violently.

  And before she could even open her mouth to begin to caution him, his elbow shot upwards, smacking her firmly in the eye.

  ‘Owwww!’ she yelled, one hand going up instinctively to cup her throbbing cheekbone. This provided the bag-snatcher with the opportunity he’d been waiting for, and he gave another massive heave, sending her sprawling.

  Nevertheless, she had enough presence of mind to reach out and grab him by the foot as he attempted to get up. He turned, drew back his free leg and was clearly about to kick her in the face when she became aware of another figure looming over her.

  ‘All right, matey, hold it right there! You ain’t going nowhere,’ a triumphant voice said. And a pair of large male hands came into her view, hauling the bag-snatcher to his feet. ‘I’m arresting you for assaulting a police officer in the course of her duty. I must caution you that anything you say will be taken down and may be given in evidence.’

  Trudy, her large, dark-brown eyes watering as much in frustration as in pain, watched as PC Rodney Broadstairs – the Lothario of St Aldates police station – slipped his handcuffs onto her suspect. Stiffly, she got to her feet. Only now that the adrenaline was wearing off was she beginning to feel the scrapes and bruises she’d sustained in the tackle. Although, fortunately, her gloves, uniform, and the heavy black serge greatcoat she wore over it had saved her from losing any actual skin.