A Fatal Secret

‘Eddie! Eddie Proctor? Can you hear me?’ she called, but after the first, initial moment of hope, which insisted there had to be a chance that a high, fluting child’s voice might answer, there was only silence.

Grimly, Trudy began to circumnavigate the orchard, hoping against hope that they would not find the boy’s drowned body in the lake.

*

It was nearly five o’clock when Trudy’s ever-decreasing circle of investigations had brought her almost to the middle of the orchard. Despite the cool April clouds, she was feeling warm in her uniform after so much walking and swishing of the sticks, hoping to catch a glimpse of a sleeping child in the grass.

She spotted a low, round circular wall of red bricks in some surprise, then, after a moment’s thought, realised that it could only be an old well. Indeed, the T-shaped thick wooden bracket that would have covered the top of the circle, and from which a bucket would have dangled, allowing water to be drawn, was still lying in the grass beside one edge of it. Over the years, it had been almost covered by a vicious-looking wild bramble and a particularly dense patch of dock, and she surmised that the big house probably hadn’t had need of the water supply since before the war.

She sat down gingerly on the outer wall to take a breather, glad to feel that the old red bricks still felt pretty stable beneath her. At some point, she noted with relief, the old well had been safely covered by a lid of thick, roughly nailed-together wooden planks, shaped into a circle and then placed on top – probably to stop wildlife from falling inside.

But as she looked down at it, she realised that it wasn’t fitting properly. Or, more likely, had it just eroded away at one edge? For as she looked more closely, she could see that there was now a small gap, perhaps a foot and a half wide, at one side.

Feeling her heartbeat rise a notch, she walked around until she was level with the crescent-shaped gap and without taking the time to think about it, bent down and peered into the Stygian darkness inside.

Instantly the smell of damp, stale water and algae assailed her nostrils. But the well was obviously deep, and she couldn’t really see to the bottom of its depths.

‘Eddie! Are you down there?’ she called.

Silence.

Trudy stood back. She would have to take a proper look, of course, so there was nothing for it but to pull the rest of the lid away – allowing more light to filter inside, giving her a better view. But she quickly found, much to her annoyance and chagrin, that tug and pull and heave as she might, she simply couldn’t shift it. It didn’t help that, over the years, the wood had warped and sunk into the outer rim of the well, making it hard to get a proper grip on it.

Grimly, she realised she was going to have to get some help. Which would just give her colleagues something else to crow about! A poor little girlie who needed a big strong man to help her. She could already hear them sniggering. As if she hadn’t already been the butt of enough jokes all day, thanks to a grateful peer of the realm!

Grunting and groaning, and almost wrenching her shoulder out of its socket, she finally admitted defeat and stood panting for a moment.

Of course, it was unlikely that the boy had climbed through the gap and gone into the well. But you never knew. A boy eagerly on the hunt for chocolate might not have stopped to consider that the people in charge of hiding the Easter eggs might have considered the inside of a disused well an unfit hiding place!

So she took a breath then blew two long blasts on her whistle. It rent the quiet air, and sent a flock of peewits in the nearest field shooting up into the sky, giving their iconic call of alarm.

After a minute had gone by, she repeated the process, and soon heard a voice hail her from the edge of the woods. Her heart fell when she recognised Rodney Broadstairs’ figure moving quickly down the hill towards her.

It had to be him, didn’t it, Trudy thought mutinously. The golden, blue-eyed boy of the station. As she’d known he would, he started to grin at her the moment he saw her predicament. ‘Hello, what have you found then, gorgeous?’

Trudy nodded at the well. ‘I can’t get the lid off – I think it’s stuck. But there’s a gap at the side, big enough for a boy to get through. It needs to be checked out,’ she said, feeling annoyed that she sounded as if she needed to justify herself to him.

‘Yeah, I suppose. Hey, you down there Eddie?’ he bellowed, leaning over and peering into the darkness. Trudy had already done the same, without any result. And once again, the silence remained stubbornly unbroken.

‘Right then – let’s get this lid off,’ Rodney said, rolling up his sleeves a little and taking an awkward grip on the edge nearest the middle of the well. Since he had a longer reach than she did, he did eventually manage to lift and drag the cover to one side, but Trudy wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t smiled at how hard he found it. The language he used was colourful enough to make her mother blush.

Sweating and red-faced, he finally let the heavy wooden circle fall onto the ground. And as one, Trudy and Broadstairs leaned over the edge of the circular red bricks and peered inside.

Trudy hadn’t really expected to find the boy in there. So the sight of a dank circle of unbroken water didn’t surprise her. But then she saw what looked like hair, floating just below the top of the water surface. And below that, a slightly lighter shade of something submerged showed through under the dark, stagnant water.

‘Eddie was wearing a white shirt, wasn’t he?’ she heard Rodney say gruffly beside her. His voice was hoarse and dry, not at all like his usual, confident, cocky tone. And when she dragged her eyes away from the sight of that small patch of floating hair, she saw that he looked pale and slightly sick.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, her own voice wobbling precariously. Before they’d left, Sergeant O’Grady had given them a brief description of the boy, and what he’d last been seen wearing when he’d set off with his pals to hunt for the eggs.

Forcing back the tears from her eyes, Trudy lifted her whistle to give three sharp, quick blows.

As she did so, Rodney Broadstairs climbed onto the edge of the well and started to lower himself gingerly down. There would be a bit of a drop, even for him, for the well looked to be over six feet deep.

She hoped he wouldn’t fall on top of the boy and wondered if she should stop him and tell him to wait for somebody to come, perhaps with a rope.

But then she realised they simply couldn’t wait. There was just a chance that the boy might still be alive. But with his face fully submerged, and only his hair floating just below the surface, she knew how unlikely that was.

And as she waited for her colleagues to come running, she couldn’t stop the tears from falling at last. Because she knew that the poor boy’s mother and father, waiting at home for news, would soon have their hearts broken forever.

Chapter 3

‘Calling Probationary WPC Gertrude Loveday.’

Trudy, hearing her hated first name called out loudly for all to hear, shot around and rushed forward to the usher, before he could call her for a second time.

‘Here, coming!’ she said breathlessly, hurrying towards the door being held open for her. She just had time to tug down her tunic top and make sure her cap was straight before entering the room.

It was three days since the death of little Eddie Proctor, and the inquest had been opened first thing that morning.

In a row of benches to one side, the public had filled the seats to overflowing, and in the front row, she recognised many of the immediate Proctor family.

She’d gone with the local police constable that awful day to break the news of Eddie’s death to the boy’s mother and the rest of his family, and had comforted the poor woman as best she’d could. Now she gave a brief sympathetic nod to Doreen Proctor, a small brunette woman whose brown eyes looked enormous in her pale face.

Forcing herself to keep her mind on the job, she turned her attention to the coroner, Dr Clement Ryder.

Her friend and mentor nodded at her politely but with no signs of open recognition, and looked so much his usual calm and authoritative self, that Trudy felt herself relax.

He also didn’t look the least bit ill, she noticed with a distinct sense of relief. It had been some time since she’d last seen him, and she must have been subconsciously dreading doing so, in case she saw any worrying signs of something being wrong with him.

‘WPC Loveday, I understand you were the one to find the boy’s body?’ Clement began professionally.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

‘If you will be so kind then as to tell the jury in your own words what happened on the afternoon of Sunday, 2nd of April?’

Trudy turned to face the jury and gave a succinct, accurate report of what had occurred that afternoon. When she was finished, she cleared her throat and glanced questioningly at the coroner, but he had no questions for her. Her account had been full enough that there was nothing that needed clarifying or pursuing.

*

Outside the court, Trudy trudged back a shade despondently to the station. Tomorrow was the day she was to be lauded in front of the press and the city’s top dignitaries as the heroine of the hour, but never had she felt less like celebrating anything.

*

After Trudy’s departure, Clement called the medical witnesses, who testified that the boy had died of a broken neck, and not due to drowning at all. As Clement had expected, this caused a bit of a sensation in the court.

It was soon explained that the well, being over eight feet deep, also narrowed slightly towards the bottom, so if the boy had been leaning over and had lost his balance, the chances were fairly good that he would have pitched down head first. And the water, which had turned out to be only about two feet deep wouldn’t have been enough to have broken his fall much.

Even so, as he listened to the evidence, Clement wasn’t totally convinced by this explanation. The lad would only have needed to twist a little to either one side or the other to land on a shoulder. And wouldn’t it have been an instinctive thing for him to do so? Wordlessly, he made a brief note on his court papers.

And there was another thing he’d noticed in the preliminary reports that had caught his analytical eye. So after the medical man had finished his piece, he cleared his throat, indicating he had further questions.

‘I take it the deceased’s hands were examined?’ he asked quietly.

The police surgeon confirmed that they had been.

‘And did he have any detritus from the sides of the well under his fingernails, indicating that he had tried to scrabble at the sides of the well as he fell? Brick dust, green algae, mould, anything of that kind?’ he’d pressed.

The medical man admitted that they’d found no such evidence, but then gave the opinion that that need not be significant. It was quite possible that the boy had been too surprised, and the fall too brief, for him to have had time to try to catch hold of some sort of support to help break his fall.

Clement dismissed the doctor with a courteous nod, but was frowning slightly as he made more notes.

When it was the turn of the boy’s family to give evidence, emotions ran high, as they were bound to. But especially so when the boy’s mother tearfully insisted that her son was a good lad, and would never have disobeyed the Easter egg hunt organiser’s admonitions to stay within the walled garden where all the eggs had been hidden.

Since nothing of further significance was brought to light after all the other witnesses had been called, it surprised no one when an obviously upset and moved jury returned a verdict of accidental death.

All that was left for Clement to do was to censure the organisers of the hunt for not checking the grounds beforehand and spotting the potential perils of the inadequately covered well. No doubt, he added heavily, the de Laceys, owners of Briar’s Hall, would be quick to have a new cover made for the well. Or they might even consider filling it in altogether, which meant, at least, that a similar tragedy would be averted in the future.

But for the weary, distraught parents, what could any of that matter now?

Chapter 4

Trudy Loveday took a deep, calming breath as she paused outside the main entrance to the swanky Randolph Hotel.

Behind her on Beaumont Street was the magnificent edifice of the Ashmolean Museum, whilst off to her left was the oft-photographed Martyrs’ Memorial. But for all the times she’d passed by this famous building, she’d never imagined she’d ever set foot inside it.

Beside her, she could feel her mother almost vibrating with similar excitement. Like her daughter, Barbara Loveday couldn’t really believe that they were about to be treated to lunch by an actual Earl. Well, not the Earl himself, naturally, but his secretary.

Barbara’s husband Frank, however, was displaying emotion of a far different kind – that of distinct unease. Not for the first time, his hand crept up to his collar (which clearly felt too tight) to check his tie was straight. It was an article of clothing he only ever wore to weddings, funerals and christenings, and he eyed the passing people warily, as if expecting them to be pointing at him or smiling behind their hands.

But the only people taking notice of him were the members of the local press, who’d been invited by the city of Oxford’s top brass to take photographs of the occasion and then interview the heroine of the hour for their various local newspapers.

It had taken some time for this honour to be arranged, as the incident precipitating it had, in fact, happened last summer, but these things, it appeared, took time. Trudy was inclined to wish they hadn’t bothered at all. She, like her father, felt distinctly out of place.

‘I do look all right, don’t I, Mum?’ she asked nervously, though, in fact, she hadn’t had to make an agonising decision over what to wear.

With nearly all her superior officers in attendance, she was, of course, dressed in her police uniform, the black-and-white suit looking incredibly smart, and cleaned to within an inch of its life. Her cap sat neatly on her severely pinned-down mass of dark brown locks, and her face was totally free of make-up.

‘You look lovely, doesn’t she, Brian?’ her mother said, turning to look at the young man standing beside her.

Barbara Loveday had insisted on including Brian Bayliss as their ‘plus-one’ to the event, and Trudy looked across at him now with a rueful smile. They had been friends for years, and the occasional trip to the cinema or meal out had somehow led to them being considered ‘a couple’ by their respective families. Although Trudy wasn’t so sure – and she was beginning to suspect that Brian wasn’t, either!

‘Come on, Mum, don’t put Brian on the spot like that!’ she admonished gently.

Brian – a tall, handsome rugby-playing lad – coloured softly and mumbled something about her always looking lovely. But he looked even more uncomfortable and out of place here than her father!

His eyes slid over hers and guiltily away again, and in a sudden flash of intuition, she realised that he didn’t actually want to be here at all. For just an instant, she felt a flash of anger wash over her. If he felt so miserable about dressing up and coming to a ‘fancy do’, why hadn’t he simply had the gumption to refuse to come? He could always have said he couldn’t get the time off from his job at the bus depot.

But as quickly as her irritation came, it went again. She knew for herself just how ruthlessly her mother could steamroller people into doing as she bid them, and Brian had always been the easy-going sort. Anything for a quiet life, that was his motto.

Now she leaned closer to him, and whispered, ‘I’m sorry she dragged you into this. I can see you’d rather be somewhere – anywhere – else.’

He shot her a quick look, considered lying about it and then merely shrugged and gave her a sheepish grin. In truth, ever since he’d learned that she was going to get an award for bravery, he’d felt a bit funny about it. It didn’t seem… natural, somehow. In a way he couldn’t have explained, even if someone offered him a pound note, he felt wrong-footed and uneasy about it all. Apart from anything else, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it was up to men to be brave. Even though it wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t doing a dangerous job too – like being a fireman or something – he felt as if he was being in some way undermined.

Along with Trudy’s parents, he hadn’t much liked her joining the police force, and his mates regularly ragged him about it. Now, as he glanced around nervously at the reporters snapping her photograph, and realised that everyone would be reading about her in the papers tomorrow, he felt a sort of squirmy, almost embarrassed feeling, wriggling about inside him. It was bound to make the teasing ten times worse.

Trudy, watching him, frowned slightly, but realised that now was not the time to ask him what was troubling him, and made a mental note to tackle him about it later. Right now, she had more pressing things to worry about.

She had not long turned 20 and was looking forward to the autumn, when her probationary period would be over and she would be a fully fledged woman police constable. Well, she would be, so long as she didn’t do anything to seriously blot her copybook, she reminded herself with an inner grimace.

Of course, there were some of her colleagues back at the station who grumbled that, with what amounted to an unofficial award for bravery being meted out to her, she was almost bulletproof in that respect.

But Trudy wasn’t so sure. Her immediate superior, DI Jennings, was of the opinion that the only right and true way to acknowledge a police officer’s gallantry, was to award them the Queen’s Police Medal – which, in his opinion, should never be awarded to women. Also, such medals only tended to be awarded to those with the rank of sergeant and above. And she was sure he was not the only member of the force to think like that.

All of which left her feeling that if she so much as put a foot wrong, they’d be only too happy of any excuse to get rid of her.

Of course, her superiors had to admit that today would provide good publicity for the force – hence their appearance at that morning’s luncheon. There would certainly be enough Chief Superintendents and even higher ranks to make Trudy feel like Daniel walking into the lion’s den.

But she was thankful that at least DI Jennings wouldn’t be present. His glowering presence would almost certainly put her off her soup! Not that she thought, at that moment, that she would be able to swallow a thing.

Her heart was hammering in her chest and her hands felt clammy. She almost wilted with relief when she saw Dr Ryder striding down the pavement towards them, looking debonair and totally unruffled by all the fuss. A quick glance at her watch told her that he was right on time.

At just a touch over six feet in height, and with his shock of silvering white hair, the city coroner cut a fine figure of a man, and dressed in a dark navy suit and his old school tie, he caught many a passing matron’s approving eye.

‘Trudy, you look splendid,’ Clement said. ‘And Mr and Mrs Loveday – good to see you again. You must be so proud of your daughter,’ he added, turning to address her parents.

‘Oh please, call me Barbara,’ her mother said at once. ‘And yes we are, very proud, aren’t we, Frank?’

Her father, who was shaking the coroner by the hand, nodded wordlessly. In truth, he would be glad when the whole thing was over. He’d spent the last week, it seemed, trying to memorise which knife and fork was which, and the difference between a dessert spoon and his soup spoon. (He’d been full of disbelief when his wife had shown him a magazine photograph of a dinner setting at the grand hotel.)

But of course, underneath all that, he felt as if his chest must be thrust out like a pouter pigeon because, of course, he was as proud as punch of his daughter’s achievements, as Clement had surmised.

Not that that had been either his or Barbara’s first reaction when Trudy had learned of the proposed ceremony, for then she’d had to confess exactly why she had been singled out for it. And tackling a killer all on her own – thus saving a Lord of the Realm in the process – was enough to give any parent nightmares.

She was still in the doghouse for not telling them properly all about it at the time, instead, merely passing the incident off as if she’d just made a normal arrest.

Trudy, remembering her manners, introduced Brian to the coroner. True to his usual, tongue-tied form, Brian muttered something indistinct and shook Clement’s hand heartily.

‘Right, I think we’d best go in,’ Clement said briskly.

Trudy, her heart rising to her throat, shot him a dark look. She had her suspicions that Dr Clement Ryder had been one of the driving forces in urging the Earl to instigate this morning’s ceremony, and she wasn’t sure whether to hug him or kick him.

But right now, she hadn’t the energy to do anything except concentrate on not making a fool of herself, for now they were stepping up towards the door, and the liveried doorman was coming to greet them. Behind her, she heard the press photographers snapping away again, and swallowed hard.

Taking a deep breath, she, Brian and her parents followed Clement into the dining room, where the crystal chandeliers alone made her blink in amazement.

Chapter 5

The following Monday morning, Martin de Lacey of Briar’s Hall travelled into town and made his way to Floyds Row, where the mortuary and coroner’s office was situated.

He wasn’t particularly surprised to be regarded with some favour by the secretary who guarded the coroner’s inner sanctum.

At six feet tall, with dark, slightly receding hair, a luxuriant moustache and big grey eyes, he was used to women from 20 to 60 regarding him with a certain interest. It helped that he was a well-set-up man, who had a curiously scholarly look about him that gave him a totally spurious air of distinction.

He was not, he knew, particularly clever, but he was very comfortably wealthy, and his family had owned land in the north of the county for centuries. And he did wear his country clothes very well indeed.

Widowed, with two children, Martin de Lacey was usually very happy with his lot.

But not recently – no not recently.

‘I wondered if I might have a word with Dr Ryder please?’ He approached the secretary sitting at her desk and gave his usual smile. It was naturally winsome, and under the dark curl of his moustache, his teeth seemed rather more white and sparkling than they actually were. As a man of some social standing, he was used to getting his own way, and he foresaw no particular difficulties in getting his way this time.

‘May I ask your name, please?’ The slightly thin woman, who could have been any age between 40 and 60, asked the question with that friendly disinterest cultivated by secretaries who guarded the doors to their boss’s kingdom.

‘Martin de Lacey. It’s about the Edward Proctor case that he heard on Wednesday.’

It was now Monday, and already the papers had moved on to another sensation.

‘I’ll see if he can spare you a few minutes. Would you take a seat, please?’

Martin nodded, but didn’t, in fact, sit down. Instead he wandered over to the nearest window and stared out pensively over the cobbled courtyard and brick buildings of Floyds Row. He was uncomfortably aware of the presence of a mortuary nearby, and wished that he were walking across the fields surrounding his house, instead of feeling cooped up so close to all this death and unpleasantness.