A Fatal Mistake: A gripping, twisty murder mystery perfect for all crime fiction fans

Occasionally, a juror would surprise him. But he thought he had the measure of this bunch all right.

The old boy with the rumpled blue suit, for instance, was undoubtedly going to nominate himself as chairman of the committee, and would probably be backed up by the two middle-aged stalwarts from the WI, who were sitting at the far right of the line. A younger woman and two younger men were clearly impatient and wanted only to get it all over with. No doubt they felt they had better things to do. A rather vacant-eyed middle-aged man was actually taking it all in keenly, which was more than could be said for an old woman who was busily knitting something surreptitiously on her lap. As for the rest, they were the usual mix and match to be found anywhere in British society.

After the medical man came one of the boy’s tutors, who maintained he’d been a steady, reliable sort of chap, and would almost certainly have passed his exams with a good upper second. As far as he knew, Derek Chadworth had no money worries, or girl trouble, and the last time he’d seen him he had been as bright and breezy as ever. In other words, Clement thought, eyeing the witness indulgently, he was making it clear that the boy had no reason whatsoever to go about chucking himself in the river and thus making such a nuisance of himself.

It went down well with the jury, who could now relax even further, since the nasty little spectre of suicide seemed less likely.

Next up came the boy’s parents, his tearful mother making everyone feel sympathetic and uncomfortable in equal measure. She too stated that her son’s last letter home had been cheerful, and full of what he intended to do once he’d matriculated. When asked by the coroner, she said her son could swim a bit, after a fashion, but that he wasn’t what you’d call ‘particularly at home in the water’.

So far, Clement thought, keeping a careful eye on the clock (since one of his remits was to keep the schedule ticking along nicely and make sure things didn’t overrun – otherwise his officers tended to get restless), it was all shaping up to be either misadventure or death by accidental drowning.

He expected it to be all over bar the shouting by four o’clock. Which would suit him fine. He was rather looking forward to a round of golf before it got too dark. And he thought if he could find old Maurice Biggleswade at the eighteenth hole, he might win a guinea from him in a bet as to who could get a birdie.

However, as luck would have it, the next few witnesses began to make him sit up and pay closer attention.

First up was the police report. Delivered by a young PC, his evidence was simple enough on the face of it. They had established that, on the day in question, up to fifty or more students had congregated on the banks of the river in Port Meadow to hold an impromptu picnic party in celebration of the end of exams for most of them. This party comprised three separate contingents. First, a group of fifteen or so students had arrived at the banks of the river via bus or motorcar. These had consisted largely of young women and a few young men, who had brought food, towels, bathing dresses and such. A second group had arranged to meet them via punt and had hired two such vessels from nearby Magdalen Bridge, setting off down the river at around 9.30 a.m. However, a third party of students, who had also rented a punt, had just happened to meet up with them and accidentally collided with the other two punts, tipping a large number of students into the river.

A few dry words of query from Clement quickly established that most witnesses, when questioned early on that afternoon (once the body of Derek Chadworth had been pulled out of the river a little downstream), had been clearly rather the worse for drink.

Indeed, the PC admitted with a deadpan face, most of the students had admitted to being a ‘bit squiffy’ on orange juice and champagne, supplied by Lord Jeremy Littlejohn in his rooms in college, even before setting off to hire the punts. And that, on the journey towards Port Meadow, beer and yet more champagne had been quaffed liberally.

Lord Littlejohn, it became clear, was the sun around whom most of the other students orbited, the leading light in student society, and it simply didn’t do to disappoint him, or otherwise incur his laconic displeasure. Not if you wanted to be in with the ‘in’ crowd, anyway!

About half the partygoers had elected to stay ‘larking about’ on the punts while half had disrobed and swum to shore by the time the third punt arrived and the collision took place.

When asked what the immediate result had been when all three punts collided, tipping the majority of passengers into the river, most students agreed that everyone thought it was ‘screamingly funny’ and ‘a bit of a jape’. Nearly everyone from the original two punts had clambered up and onto the banks, for the river was hardly wide at that point. They then proceeded to strip off all they decently could (and perhaps not so decently in some cases, the constable muttered darkly) in the hope that the hot sun would quickly dry their clothes – and themselves – off.

All those from the third punt, however, had elected to climb back onto their vessel and – amidst much ribald argument over who had caused the accident – head back to Oxford the same way they’d come.

All those questioned were adamant they had heard no calls for help, nor seen anyone in obvious difficulty in the water.

Having given his evidence, the PC left the stand with obvious relief.

Obviously, not every student present at the party had been called to give testimony – only a small cross-section. But it was when these students were called to give more specific evidence that Clement Ryder first began to smell a rat.

First off, one Rt Hon Lady ‘Millie’ Dreyfuss was called to the stand. A third-year English literature student from Cadwallader College, she stated clearly that, although she hadn’t known Derek Chadworth, she was sure he couldn’t have been part of the picnic party. She had been in charge of laying on the food and making the travel arrangements, and had delegated some of these chores to three other girls, who’d brought along their boyfriends to help. But they hadn’t offered the dead boy a lift in their cars, nor had he been one of the small group of students who’d caught the town bus.

The next witness up was the lad who’d been responsible for the third, ‘random’ (as Clement had come to think of it) punt. He’d been indignant and hotly insistent that the blame for the dunking hadn’t lain with his boating prowess. He claimed the two ‘Lord Littlejohn’ punts had been meeting end to end across the water when he’d rounded the bend in the river, and that he’d had no chance to avoid a collision.

Since both he and the passengers on his punt were among the most sober of the witnesses questioned – according to the police constable – the coroner could see the jury was inclined to believe him.

He was also quite adamant that the drowned boy had not been a member of his party. As well as having the regulation number of passengers only (and not being vastly overloaded, as everyone freely admitted the other two punts had been), this punt had comprised exclusively engineering students, who were all known to one another.

Clearly, then, Derek Chadworth must have been on one of Lord Jeremy Littlejohn’s punts. On the face of it, this seemed by far the most likely explanation, as several witnesses had testified that ‘we all poured onto the punts by Magdalen Bridge until there wasn’t an inch of space left.’ And ‘none of us wanted to be left behind, as Lord Jerry gives such great bashes, so we all crammed in.’

However, as the afternoon wore on, it became clear to Dr Ryder that something untoward was afoot. What was more, he wasn’t certain the jury had noticed it.

It began simply enough, with one sheepish student after another taking the stand and admitting to being present on a punt, but to having very little real memory of what had happened. ‘Had a bit too much champers, I’m afraid’ was a familiar litany. As was ‘when we all ended up in the drink, I just splashed to the bank as best as I could’. And ‘I didn’t notice anyone else having any trouble or I’d have helped the poor blighter out’. But not one of them mentioned seeing or talking to Derek Chadworth before the accident.

The jury seemed less than impressed with these examples of drunken high jinks, but most of them looked ready to dismiss it as ‘one of those things’. The rich upper classes would play. And these things happened.

But Clement wasn’t so sure.

Eventually, he decided to take a more active role in order to get some answers, and he chose his victims carefully.

He waited until a theology student by the name of Lionel Gulliver had taken the stand, and – working on the somewhat precarious premise that someone who was training for the church would be less likely to lie under oath – began to question him in earnest.

‘So, Mr Gulliver. I take it that, as a potential man of the cloth, you were perhaps… er… a little less the worse for drink than some of your fellow students when you got on the punt at Magdalen Bridge?’ he asked, fixing the nervous youth with a flat stare.

Lionel Gulliver, a rather small, neat-looking young man with a quiff of sandy hair and big blue eyes, went a trifle pale. ‘Well, I’d had one glass of Lord Littlejohn’s Buck’s Fizz. To show willing and all that,’ he admitted with a gulp.

‘But only one?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So you were more aware of your fellow students and surroundings than most of your party?’

‘Oh, well, I don’t suppose I was quite as… er…’ The theology student plucked his collar nervously. ‘But, as the good Lord said, let him who is without sin cast the first stone and all that.’

Dr Ryder smiled grimly. ‘Yes. I fully understand you not wanting to come across as morally superior, Mr Gulliver,’ he said sardonically. ‘But this is a court of law, and you’ve taken an oath on the Bible to tell the truth, and these good men and women of the jury need facts if they’re to deliver a fair verdict.’

At these steely words, the young man paled even further and visibly stiffened in the witness box.

‘Oh, of course.’

‘Splendid,’ Clement said dryly. ‘So, can you tell us… did you know Derek Chadworth by sight?’

‘Oh, er… yes, I’d seen him around once or twice.’ He went rather red, and then cast a quick, nervous glance towards the public gallery. He then hastily looked away again, his lips firming tightly together.

‘And so,’ the coroner swept on, ‘was Mr Chadworth one of those on the same punt as yourself?’

Again, the young man plucked at his collar and glanced nervously across the courtroom, as if seeking inspiration. But he didn’t seem to find any, because he turned a rather miserable-looking face to the coroner and took a deep breath.

‘You know, sir, I don’t believe he was,’ he said reluctantly. Far too reluctantly, in the circumstances, the coroner thought. After all, it should have been a simple enough question to answer – not one that gave the theology student cause for so much angst.

Clement felt a touch of excitement lance up his spine. Yes, he knew it. There was definitely something about this case that wasn’t quite as cut and dried as it seemed. But what exactly? And why did he have the feeling that all the young men and women who had just testified in his court had been at pains not to speak out of turn about something?

‘We understand that both punts were rather overcrowded, Mr Gulliver. Are you quite certain that Derek Chadworth couldn’t have got on without your seeing him?’ Clement began to probe delicately.

‘Well, he might have,’ the young man said, seizing so gratefully on this olive branch that he positively beamed his relief at the older man. ‘Oh, yes, that might have happened, I’m sure.’

Dr Ryder smiled rather grimly to himself. Not so fast, my slippery young fish, he thought, almost fondly. As a doctor, he’d been used to his young interns trying to slip things past him. Not that they’d ever succeeded; if they’d failed to read the notes he’d set them, or had neglected to do the experiments proscribed, he’d always found out about it.

Now he regarded the sweating theology student with a shark-like smile. ‘Well, let’s see if we can’t get to the bottom of this, then,’ he said, ignoring his clerk, who was beginning to shift about restlessly. ‘Where exactly were you sitting on the punt, Mr Gulliver?’

‘Er, right at the back, sir,’ the suddenly unhappy student admitted quietly. ‘I was going to take over the punting from Bright-Allsopp if he needed relieving, as a matter of fact.’

‘So you had all the occupants of the punt in front of you?’

‘Er… yes, sir.’

‘And did you see Derek Chadworth among them?’

Defeated, the young man was forced to admit he hadn’t. With a quick glance at the jury, just to make sure they were paying attention, the coroner dismissed him.

He was then forced to bide his time until he found the next suitable candidate. Of necessity, he now needed a witness from punt number two. Barring a theology student, he finally decided that, of all the witnesses called, one Miss Maria DeMarco, an Italian student of fine art, was his best bet.

As she was called to the stand, he approved her sober and respectful dark-grey skirt and jacket, and her neat little black felt hat. She was not beautiful but had a certain elan. And as he’d expected from someone who looked the epitome of a good Catholic girl, she took her oath in a quiet, serious voice, and looked composed but very uneasy.

He was gentle but firm with her.

‘Miss DeMarco, I understand you were on what I shall refer to as the second punt – that is, the punt on which Lord Littlejohn himself was present?’

‘That is so, yes.’

‘And Lord Littlejohn was the main instigator of the party?’

‘Yes, that is so.’

‘He invited you?’

‘Oh, no. A friend of his did. It wasn’t what you would call a very formal affair. Most of those present were good friends of Lord Littlejohn, but his friends had invited some people, and they in turn had brought some people of their own. You see how it was?’

‘Yes. This might account for His Lordship having seemingly misjudged just how many punts he would need to convey everyone safely to the picnic site,’ Clement said dryly. ‘Did you know the deceased?’

Clement had his court officer show her a photograph, provided by the boy’s parents, of Derek Chadworth.

‘Oh, no,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t know this man.’

‘Would you study his likeness, please, Signorina DeMarco? Fine. Now, tell us. Did you see this man among the party on your punt?’

The Italian girl shrugged graphically. ‘I’m not sure. It’s hard to say. It was very crowded. Everyone was squished in… like, how you say… sardines in a tin, yes?’

Dr Ryder nodded. ‘Yes. But a punt isn’t exactly an ocean liner, Miss DeMarco. And the journey from Magdalen Bridge to Port Meadow must have taken you at least twenty minutes.’

‘Oh, yes, but most of the time I was talking to my friends – Lucy Cartwright-Jones and Bunny Fleet. I pay no attention to the men. They were rather… er… loud from the beer and wine.’

‘I see. When the accident happened, and your punt overturned in the water, you must have been frightened?’ He tried another tack craftily.

‘Oh, no, I swim like the fishes,’ the Italian girl said with magnificent insouciance. ‘I was more annoyed to get my lovely clothes wet.’

‘I see. Did you notice any of your fellow students struggling to swim to the shore?’ he said.

‘Oh, no! I would have helped, of course, if I had. But the river was not wide, or deep.’

‘No, I see. Well, thank you, Miss DeMarco.’

As he watched the young woman depart, rather impressed by her ability not to let herself be nailed down to a single straight answer, he mentally shook his head.

Why were they all so evasive when it came to talking about the dead boy? To the point that nobody seemed even willing to say whether or not they’d seen him at the party?

‘I think we’d better hear now from Lord Jeremy Littlejohn,’ Dr Ryder said flatly.

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