About Faith Martin

FAITH MARTIN has been writing for nearly thirty years, under four different pen names, and is about to have her fiftieth novel published. She began writing romantic thrillers as Maxine Barry, but quickly turned to crime! As Joyce Cato she wrote classic-style whodunits, since she’s always admired the golden-age crime novelists. But it was when she created her fictional DI, Hillary Greene, and began writing under the name of Faith Martin, that she finally began to become more widely known. Her latest literary characters, WPC Trudy Loveday and city coroner Dr Clement Ryder, take readers back to the 1960s, and the city of Oxford. Having lived within a few miles of the city’s dreaming spires all her life (she worked for six years as a secretary at Somerville College), both the city and the countryside/wildlife often feature in her novels. Although she has never lived on a narrowboat (unlike DI Hillary Greene!), the Oxford canal, the River Cherwell, and the flora and fauna of a farming landscape have always played a big part in her life – and often sneak their way onto the pages of her books.

Readers love Faith Martin:

‘A must read for all crime fiction fans’

‘Have become an addict of Faith Martin – love her novels’

‘Cracking good read’

‘Plenty of action and drama to keep the reader gripped through to the end’

‘I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys crime fiction’

‘Compelling murder mystery’

‘Fabulous police procedural’

Also by Faith Martin

A Fatal Obsession

A Fatal Flaw

A Fatal Secret

A Fatal Mistake
FAITH MARTIN

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Faith Martin 2018

Faith Martin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © September 2018 ISBN: 9780008297770

Version: 2019-08-21

Table of Contents

Cover

About Faith Martin

Readers Love Faith Martin

Also by Faith Martin

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Acknowledgements

Coming Soon

Dear Reader

About the Publisher

For all my new Ryder and Loveday readers

Chapter 1

Summer 1960

Jimmy Roper stopped to let Tyke, his ageing but still inquisitive black-and-white mongrel, cock his leg against the wall overlooking Port Meadow. It was a glorious morning in mid-June and, overhead, the sun shone with an intensity that warned him the temperature would skyrocket come noon.

It was not the sort of day, you’d have thought, when anything bad could possibly happen.

The village of Wolvercote lay mostly behind him now, but from someone’s open window a wireless was playing the latest pop tune that all the youngsters nowadays seemed to find so enthralling. An obliging DJ told him he’d been listening to the Everly Brothers’ April hit, ‘Cathy’s Clown’.

As he approached the large expanse of Port Meadow, he paused to observe a really fine view of the legendary ‘dreaming spires’ of Oxford. In front of him, the river wound its way through the water meadow, which was just now ridding itself of its spring blaze of buttercups. Tyke happily sniffed about among the thistles.

As he approached the riverbank, he noticed that two fishermen had set themselves up for a day’s sport. One, sitting at the top of the bank with his legs dangling over the side, had on an old, floppy, wide-brimmed hat. This served not only to keep the direct sun off his head, but no doubt helped stop the garish sunlight reflecting off the water and into his eyes. It was festooned with colourful fishing flies. He had his head down and was watching his float intently. After a second or two, Jimmy also spotted it – a red spot making its way gently downstream.

His companion also wore a hat and, for added measure, was wearing a pair of large sunglasses. He’d elected to sit closer to the river’s edge, at a spot where the rather steep bank had given way, and the previous tenants (a herd of Friesian cows) had trampled down a path in order to drink. He seemed to be dozing, though, rather than watching his float, for Jimmy noticed it had been allowed to catch in a patch of river weed.

He wished them both a courteous but quiet ‘good morning’ and, not wanting to disturb the fish, walked with a lighter tread as he passed them.

He hadn’t gone much further, following the course of the river absently upstream, when he became aware of a gaggle of voices. Youthful and bantering, they sounded like something you’d hear at a party, and were thus oddly out of place in the peaceful country setting.

Rounding an oxbow in the river, he suddenly noticed a gay crowd congregating on the banks in front of him and had no problem identifying them as students, intent on enjoying the end of their exams.

Some of the young women in the group – at least twenty strong, Jimmy estimated – had already laid down gaily striped beach towels on the grass and were setting out the beginnings of a picnic. At barely eleven o’clock in the morning, Jimmy wondered whether it was supposed to be a late breakfast or a really early lunch. Then he supposed that, to these bright young things, it hardly made much difference. He noticed that strawberries, boxes of chocolates, fruit and bottles of wine featured predominantly.

Which was very nice for some, he thought, a shade enviously.

Clearly no dark thoughts could have been passing through the minds of these happy young things. They were out to enjoy their youth, the sunshine of the day, and the delights of an alfresco party. To them, death was a foreign concept, something that wouldn’t have to be considered for many decades yet.

Besides, on a day such as this what could possibly happen?

One young woman, with a mane of silvery fair hair, patted the place beside her on a towel and a young lad, who looked barely eighteen, hastened to join her.

Jimmy was pretty sure the fishermen downstream wouldn’t be best pleased by all the noise and frolicking about. Every self-respecting pike, chub, dace, roach and perch within a quarter mile must have heard them thumping about and skedaddled for quieter waters!

One or two of the young men were quickly stripping down to their bathing trunks, obviously intent on cooling off in the water.

He meandered on, smiling as one of the (rather pretty) girls shrieked as a lad scooped water over the side of the bank and splashed her. As he went past the group, however, he noticed a tall, freckle-faced man with a head of shockingly vibrant red hair, standing a little bit away and on the outskirts of the scene, watching with an expression of disdain on his face. This, and the fact that he looked to be in his mid-twenties at least – and thus a few years older than the average student – made him look out of place.

Jimmy was too intent on reaching the shade of some nearby trees to stop and pay any attention to the strangers and their doings. But as he walked on, he suddenly saw, up ahead, a plethora of disembodied heads floating along in what seemed to be the middle of the river. For a moment it brought him up short, but then, as they came better into sight, he realised they were just yet more revellers, arriving via two large punts.

Punts, he noticed with a look of mixed alarm and amusement, that looked vastly overloaded and were lying very low in the water. Surely there shouldn’t be that many of them crammed onto each craft? What was more, both of the lads who were standing on the rear platforms and wielding long punting sticks looked a little the worse for wear!

And even as he watched, the punting youth on the lead boat called out some request to one of his passengers, who was sprawling dangerously close to the waterline. Thus admonished, the very slender youth, dressed casually in white slacks and shirt, and with a head of hair so fair it was almost white, reached obligingly underneath him and produced what looked suspiciously like an open bottle of champagne, which he handed up to his friend.

The young man accepted it with a cry of triumph and casually stopped work to swig from it, tottering back a step. He would almost certainly have ended up in the river if someone else hadn’t reached out just in time to grab his trouser leg and haul him back again.

Naturally, this caused a load of heckling and good-hearted chaffing from the others, and Jimmy shook his head, not sure whether to laugh indulgently at the youthful shenanigans or to self-righteously wonder just what the world was coming to.

He finally reached the welcome shade of a line of trees that skirted the village road, and sat down on an old tree trunk. Tyke, glad to rest his old bones, gave a little grunt of satisfaction as he lay down at his master’s feet in the cool, shaded grass.

If some dogs actually did possess such a thing as an intuition for evil, or a sense of impending calamity,Tyke wasn’t troubled by such a gift.

And so, for about ten minutes, the retired milkman and his little dog simply sat there, listening to the drone of bees and watching yellow-brimstone and orange-tip butterflies flitting about the meadow. Then a quick glance at his watch told him that his wife would be getting his lunch on soon so, with a small sigh, he got up and began the return journey. If he didn’t miss his guess, it would be fish-paste sandwiches and a slice of her Madeira cake – one of his favourites.

As he retraced his route along the river towards the noisy and boisterous student party, he noticed a third punt was following a little way along behind him but paid it little attention. Instead, he gave them all a wide berth, returning to the river only when he was once again beyond the oxbow.

He wasn’t surprised, a little later on, to see that neither of the fishermen had remained in their places. He could well imagine how they must have cursed the students for selecting that spot for their revelries.

And so, Jimmy Roper and his dog went back to the village and to their midday meal, neither one of them giving the students so much as another passing thought.

Thus it was left to someone else to stumble upon the tragedy a capricious fate had always had in store for such a bright and beautiful day. Someone, perhaps, who was far less equipped to deal with the consequences of human darkness than an old soldier.

Barely an hour later, Miriam Jenks, a new mother to a rather large and placid baby girl, was pushing her pram down the village street, on her way to the village shop to order in a few necessities. Waiting on the pavement for old Dr Thomas’s ‘moggy’ Morris Minor to pass by, she decided it would be a good idea to get out of the fierce heat. So, she steered the pram onto the hard, flat, grassy path beside the riverbank to take advantage of the shade provided by the willow trees that lined the river course there. As she went along, she started to croon a tune to the baby, who had started to grizzle.

She was still humming the lullaby when something caught her eye, and she looked down to see a human body floating in the water just beside her. Having got caught up in the protruding roots of a particularly large willow, it was being moved gently about in a small eddy, one arm rolling up and down, for all the world as if it was waving at her.

But the young man with dark hair was lying facedown in the water, and she knew at once that he was dead. But even as she thought this, the current moved, and with what seemed to her to be a slow, dreadful and fascinating inevitability, the body turned inexorably onto its back.

Naturally, this made Miriam come over ‘all queer’, as she was to later tell her best friend. For a moment or two, however, she froze where she was.

But the sight of that face, pale and so pitifully and irrevocably beyond all human help, made her knees fold abruptly beneath her, and she found herself suddenly on the grass. She put out her hands to save herself, but even so, she was now much closer to the edge of the river and the body it cradled.

She noticed his clothes had ballooned, the trapped air helping to keep the boy afloat. She also noticed, fleetingly, that he seemed a good-looking lad and not much above twenty.

So young.

And so dead.

She heard a noise and realised it was coming from her. She was sobbing, softly.

For a second, the body seemed close enough for her to touch, if she reached out, down the bank and across the water – but, of course, she knew that wasn’t so. Nevertheless, she saw her hand moving forward, shaking uncontrollably in front of her as if to offer… What? her shocked brain demanded rather scornfully. Succour? Comfort? Help?

A cold voice in the back of her head told her she could provide none of these things.

She began to shiver violently, which made no sense to her. The sun was at the point in the sky when it was almost at its hottest. Even the birds had ceased singing, as if the heat had enervated them.

Feeling sick, she forced herself to her feet and began to run, pushing the pram wildly in front of her and bumping it roughly over the path. Naturally, this delightful motion promptly sent her daughter off to sleep more thoroughly than any lullaby.

She felt absurdly guilty – as if she was abandoning the dead boy when he needed her the most. She almost wanted to turn her head, to make sure he wasn’t watching her cowardly retreat with accusing, beseeching eyes.

But she had just enough sense, through the fog of shock, to realise this couldn’t possibly be so.

She was still sobbing softly when she emerged once more onto the street proper, frantically stopping the first person she saw, who happened to be an old man wheeling his wheelbarrow to the nearby allotments, and tearfully gasping out what she’d seen.

The old man promptly took her home with him, told his wife to look after her, called the police and then nipped off to the river to see the spectacle for himself.

Obviously, nothing as exciting as this had happened in the village in years!

Chapter 2

Nearly one week later, Dr Clement Ryder, a coroner of the City of Oxford, sat at his bench, listening to the court proceedings getting underway at the inquest into the death of Mr Derek Chadworth, aged twenty-one, a former student of St Bede’s College, Oxford.

At the age of fifty-seven, the coroner was a tall man, standing at an inch over six foot, with healthy, abundant white hair and somewhat watery grey eyes. And if he was just beginning to have rather more meat on his bones than in his youth, he wore the extra pounds well. The role of coroner was a second career for him after having spent the majority of his adult working life as a renowned surgeon. But not liking to dwell on the reasons for his enforced change of direction, he now watched the courtroom and its denizens with some interest. As was to be expected in a case like this, the public gallery was full, with its fair share of local reporters taking up a jockeying position. The jury, looking both sheepish and self-important, had just taken their places. A police constable waited to give his evidence rather nervously. He looked young and inexperienced, and Dr Ryder hoped he wasn’t going to have any trouble keeping him to the point.

Widely known to be a man who didn’t suffer fools gladly, he was in appearance an imposing figure, and many of the members of the public (as well as some of the court officials) watched him warily. He had the look of someone who had no problems whatsoever in juggling such weighty issues as life and death in his obviously capable hands.

He displayed no signs of outward impatience as the proceedings finally got underway. And the first of the court’s functions (to assign a name or identity to the deceased) was rapidly disposed of, as Derek’s parents had already identified his body.

Having done that, the often much trickier second question – of trying to ascertain exactly how the deceased had come to meet his end – was tackled.

First up was a nervous young mother, who gave her evidence of having seen a body floating in the river near the village of Wolvercote in a rather rushed and whispery voice. Dr Ryder, while handling her kindly, had to demand more than once that she speak up.

Next came the medical man. Dr Ryder knew him, of course – and was most certainly known by him! All those who had to give medical evidence in his court understood that no fudging would be tolerated, as it was quite clear he knew as much – if not more – about medicine as those actually giving the evidence! According to Dr Clement Ryder, at least. So it wasn’t wholly surprising that police surgeons and pathologists weren’t particularly happy when called upon to give evidence while Clement was the presiding coroner. Some of the older brigade, who naturally felt superior to both jury and coroner, and had thus become used to taking it for granted that their word would be taken for law, now refused to set foot in court if he was presiding. Of course, none of them was willing to admit that perhaps they hadn’t kept quite as up to date with all the new science and medical practices over the past decade as they should have. And they most certainly weren’t willing to concede that his own years as a surgeon gave him the right to show them up in public or drag their mistakes and uncertainties to the attention of the press.

The present medico, however, was of the younger, brasher and more confident generation of men and had no qualms about stating his opinions concerning the medical evidence uncovered in his autopsy. These opinions he proceeded to relate to the jury in no uncertain terms – including the time of death, which he stated as between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., with a small leeway on either side.

Dr Ryder listened without interruption (a minor miracle in itself, some aficionados of the court might have said) and occasionally even nodded in approval. Mainly because the young man, without condescending or speaking down to the jury in any way, was managing in a clear and concise way to convey the facts.

The cause of death had clearly been drowning. What was more, the water found in the dead man’s lungs had been consistent with a second sample taken from the river and it was noted that there was rather a lot of sediment present, suggesting that the water the victim drowned in had been significantly churned up. Furthermore, froth at the mouth and all other signs of death by drowning had been present and meticulously noted. There were no significant signs of anything else untoward – such as a blow to the head of the type so beloved of many penny-dreadful murder-mystery books. Nor were there any scratches on his face or hands, or anything else that might indicate the young man had been in a fight or suffered any other assault upon his person.

Here, the coroner cynically noted that a number of those present seemed vastly disappointed. Evidently they had been hoping for rather more drama – especially the press men.

Unaware of this, however, the young doctor swept blithely on. He had also found alcohol present in the deceased’s stomach – not enough to state that he was very drunk, but enough to suggest he perhaps wouldn’t have been operating at his best. (Later evidence would prove the young man had been out drinking into the early hours.)

When the young doctor finally stepped down, the coroner’s brisk thanks ringing as an endorsement in his ears, Clement could see he’d made a good impression on the jury, who were now looking a little more relaxed, if not downright relieved. And it wasn’t hard to understand why.

In his two years as a coroner, Clement had come to read juries as clearly as if they were his old medical texts. No matter what the case, he’d learned all juries had certain things in common.

Nearly all of them, for instance, were anxious and aware of the burden being put on them by being called to carry out their civic duty. This was especially apparent in obvious cases of suicide, where none of them wished to add to the burden of bereaved families by labouring the point, and where, nearly always when bringing in this verdict, they included the rider ‘while the balance of their mind was disturbed’.

Sometimes they were afraid – if, for instance, the cause of death was particularly harrowing and they knew they would have to listen to horrific evidence, such as some poor farm worker being pulled into a combine harvester or something along those lines.

In the case of a suspicious death – a rare occurrence – there was always the added element of excitement and scandal that gave a particular glow to their cheeks.

Clement had seen all sorts sitting on the jury – working men, housewives, mothers, a smattering of professionals, and the occasional layabout or academic. By and large, though, they were good, honest (if not particularly intelligent), average men and women, who could be relied upon to have common sense and bring in a sound verdict. But if, by any chance, it looked as if they might be about to wander off the straight and narrow and deliver some silly verdict because they’d got a bit above themselves, or had become confused or bamboozled, it was his job to steer them back onto the right path.

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.

Chapter 3

Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday stifled a yawn and got up from the uncomfortable chair she’d been sitting on for the past four hours. Her posterior felt rather numb, and she was glad to stretch her legs, but as she did so she glanced automatically at the poor man lying in the hospital bed in front of her. He didn’t stir. And from what she’d overheard of the doctors’ low-voiced consultations with one another earlier that morning, she rather feared he never would.

A car had mounted the pavement and hit Mr Michael Emerson in Little Clarendon Street late last night. The driver had failed to stop, and witnesses hadn’t been able to provide a decent description of the vehicle that had knocked him over, breaking his arm and fracturing his skull.

When she’d reported for duty at the station that morning, her superior officer, DI Harry Jennings, had assigned her to sit by his bedside in the event that he regained consciousness and began to speak.

But she hadn’t been at the Radcliffe Hospital (ironically, barely a stone’s throw from where the poor man had been run down) more than half an hour before she’d begun to suspect the futility of her task. Clearly none of the medical staff believed he would survive, and Trudy felt desperately sorry for the man’s wife, who was right now sleeping in the chair on the other side of his bed.

Careful not to wake her, Trudy put down her notebook and pen on the bedside table and walked stiffly to the window to look outside.

The hospital was a large and beautiful pale-stone building, rather Palladian in style, surrounding a central courtyard on three sides, with Cadwallader College on the right-hand side of it, and a stand of old cedars to the left. As she glanced out at the soot-blackened pub on the opposite side of Woodstock Road, she blinked a little in the bright sunlight.

It was another hot summer’s day and very warm in the ward, and underneath her black-and-white uniform she was uncomfortably aware that she was perspiring a little. At least she didn’t have to wear her policewoman’s hat indoors, but her long, curly, dark-brown hair was twisted into a neat, tight knot on top of her head, and her scalp felt distinctly damp and itchy.

The window was open, though, allowing a scant breeze to come in, and she supposed she should be glad it wasn’t winter, when the air would be thick with smoke from all the chimneys. But even as she watched, an old Foden lorry trundled past, adding its bit of pollution to the grime that seemed to coat the beautiful city of dreaming spires and left everything looking and feeling slightly grubby.

She was just contemplating returning to her uncomfortable chair when she heard the soft slap-slap of the flat shoes all the nurses wore. She turned around, expecting to see a nursing sister taking her patient’s vital signs.

Instead, a young nurse she hadn’t seen before was beckoning her over. ‘There’s a telephone call for you. You can take it at the desk,’ she informed her quietly.

‘Oh, thank you,’ Trudy said.

She smiled an apology at Mrs Emerson, who had awoken at the sound of voices, but the poor woman barely noticed as she once again fixed her gaze intently on her husband. She’d learned from a hurried conversation with the matron that the couple had been married for nearly twenty-five years and had three grown-up children, and Trudy simply couldn’t imagine how she must be feeling.

Feeling depressed, she followed the briskly trotting nurse to the desk in the centre of the ward, where a tight-faced sister handed her the receiver before bustling away. Clearly, she was of the opinion that she had better things to do with her time than act as secretary to a lowly policewoman, and Trudy didn’t really blame her.

‘Hello, WPC Loveday,’ she said smartly.

‘Constable. Get back to the station sharpish, please. I have another assignment for you.’ She recognised DI Jennings’s voice at once, and automatically stiffened to attention.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said. But already she could hear the dialling tone in her ear.

She trotted back to Mr Emerson’s bedside and stowed her accoutrements neatly away in her police-issue satchel, only stopping at the nurses’ desk on her way past to ask someone to send word to the local police station should their patient say anything.

Then she jogged outside, where she collected her bicycle, mounted it and began to pedal fast towards St Aldate’s. Luckily it wasn’t far and wouldn’t take her long. She knew how DI Jennings felt about being kept waiting.

As she pedalled, careful to dodge the many other cyclists thronging St Giles, she wondered why she’d been called off her duty at the hospital so soon.

At nearly twenty years of age, she was an intelligent young woman, and had quickly realised DI Jennings wasn’t at all happy at having one of only a few women PCs assigned to his station. Trudy had quickly become resigned to being given the dregs of police work, keeping her clear of his eyeline and out from under his feet. Thus, she had gloomily been expecting to stay at the hospital for days, hugging her notebook and pen in case of the odd mumbled word, and fighting off boredom and pity in equal measure.

So what on earth could the sudden summons back to the station be all about? She hoped, glumly, that she hadn’t done something wrong that she was about to be hauled over the coals for. Any minor misdemeanour of hers was always noted and sarcastically commented on, whereas if PC Rodney Broadstairs, the station house’s blue-eyed boy, made the same errors, nobody said a word.

When she got to the station, there was nobody about to give her any clue as to what was in the wind, although Walter Swinburne, the oldest PC at the station, gave her an encouraging smile as she passed his desk.

But the moment she tapped on her DI’s door, waiting for his summons before entering the office, her gloom lifted like magic. For there, sitting in the chair in front of DI Jennings’s desk and scowling ferociously at him, was Dr Clement Ryder.

And probationary WPC Trudy Loveday was probably the only copper in the city who was ever glad to see him!

DI Jennings watched her come in, noting her flushed cheeks and damp hair – no doubt the girl was feeling the heat and the bike ride had winded her. He bit back a sigh of impatience and the retort that rose to his lips that a man would have been able to take such physical exertion in his stride. And if the picture of some rather overweight male constables flashed through his mind to give lie to this thought, he firmly suppressed them.

Instead, he sighed heavily and indicated the chair next to his unwanted visitor. ‘Take a seat, Constable Loveday,’ he said flatly.

‘Thank you, sir,’ Trudy said smartly, and sat upright on the edge of the chair indicated.

‘Hello, Constable Loveday,’ Clement Ryder said, turning to her and thinking how charming she looked today. A little dishevelled, perhaps, but her dark-brown eyes were dancing with curiosity and interest. Just as he remembered them.

‘Dr Ryder,’ she said calmly, displaying none of her happiness to see him. This took some effort on her part because she’d already guessed that he’d come into her life to rescue her from the humdrum routine of her usual working days. Just like the last time she’d seen him, when he’d asked for her help on another case. A case, she was very happy to remember, that they’d solved between them.

Harry Jennings sat up a bit straighter in his chair. ‘Dr Ryder was just telling me all about the Chadworth case, Constable. Are you familiar with it?’

‘No, sir,’ Trudy admitted, and promptly wondered if she would be in the doghouse for not knowing. Was it something she should have been studying?

Harry Jennings shrugged his shoulders. ‘No reason why you should be, I suppose,’ he admitted, a shade reluctantly. ‘You weren’t called out to take a part in it, as I recall. Perhaps Dr Ryder can give you a brief summary,’ he added, thin lips twitching slightly. He’d already had his ear bent for the past quarter of an hour on the subject and didn’t feel inclined to repeat it.

‘Derek Chadworth, a law student, found dead in the river last week,’ Clement obliged him succinctly.

‘Oh, yes. I know the case,’ Trudy said at once, and with some relief. She hated looking ignorant in front of the coroner. As her DI had said, it wasn’t her case, but she had overheard some of her colleagues talking about it in the outer office. ‘He was one of the drunken students on the punts that overturned, wasn’t he? Death by accidental drowning?’

‘That’s what we all thought the verdict would be.’ DI Jennings couldn’t help but interrupt, his voice sardonic in the extreme now. ‘However, it seems the… jury—’ and here he laid a rather pointed emphasis on the last word ‘—in their undoubted wisdom, chose to bring back an open verdict instead.’

The coroner’s lips twitched slightly. Trudy caught the tension in the room and forced back a smile. If it came to a battle of wills or wits between these two men, she knew who the winner would be.

‘And as I was just telling the Inspector here,’ Clement Ryder slipped in smoothly, with an expression as innocent as a newborn babe’s, ‘an open verdict requires a little more investigation.’

DI Jennings sighed heavily. ‘And as I was telling him,’ he said through teeth that, if not exactly gritted, seemed inclined to stick firmly together, ‘it’s a verdict that will have caused upset to many families.’

‘The dead boy’s, you mean, sir?’ Trudy said, a little puzzled. Only to swallow hard as the DI shot her a furious look.

‘Not just the deceased parents, Loveday,’ he snapped. ‘Although, naturally, they can’t have been very happy with such a—’ and here he shot the bland-faced coroner a telling look ‘—meaningless verdict. I was also thinking of the parents of all the other students present on that tragic day.’

‘Most of whom are ladies and gentlemen of distinction and means, naturally,’ Clement put in, shooting Trudy a twinkle-eyed look.

‘Be that as it may,’ Jennings snarled, ‘you can see their point of view! Nobody wants their son or daughter to have to deal with such a tragic turn of events on what should have been a day of celebration. Having a friend die young can be a very traumatic event in any circumstances. But to have that tragedy drawn out even further by a coroner’s jury leaving matters so up in the air… and with nobody quite knowing what to make of it… well!’

He threw his hands out in a gesture of annoyance. ‘Naturally, people want answers and to be able to decently draw a line under things. And a verdict of accidental death, or even death by misadventure, would have allowed them to do just that.’ He took a deep, steadying breath. ‘The Chief Superintendent is of the opinion that the case should be allowed to quietly settle down, allowing the boy’s parents to bury him and grieve in peace. And for all the other young men and women involved to get on with their lives.’

Dr Ryder slowly swung one leg over his knee and regarded his ankle socks thoughtfully. He had, of course, as DI Jennings had surmised only too accurately, influenced – some might even have said instigated – the verdict that had been handed down.

It had been quite easy for a man like Clement Ryder to arrange, naturally. He’d merely had to fix the foreman of the jury with a gimlet eye as he took them through a summary of the evidence, and stress certain facts. For instance, when telling them that ‘if, on consideration, you feel that some questions remain unanswered to your satisfaction, then it is only right and proper that you return an open verdict’. And, ‘if you feel that you are not sure exactly how Mr Chadworth came to drown on that day last week, then you mustn’t allow yourself to guess, or be swayed by any one theory’. This last had been directed at the WI matrons, who’d taken the hint all right.

Oh, no. He hadn’t wanted a cut and dried verdict, but one that would give him time to get to the bottom of what had really been happening in his court, and an open verdict was the only one that would allow him to do so.

Now he smiled benignly at the irate Inspector and spread his hands in a gesture of appeasement. ‘Of course, it’s an intolerable situation for everyone,’ he surprised Jennings by admitting. ‘Which is why the case needs investigating a little further,’ he reiterated.

‘As if we don’t have enough on our plates as it is,’ the Inspector grumbled. ‘We had a hit and run last night, and we’ve still got that Sussinghurst case dragging on…’

‘I’m sure you’re very busy, Inspector,’ Clement interrupted smoothly. ‘Which is why I’ve asked you to spare just a solitary and humble PC to help me do a little more digging.’

As he spoke, he saw Trudy Loveday’s face begin to glow with pleasure as she realised that her hopes about the reason for this call to the DI’s office were well-founded. For, once before, the coroner had come to the station to ask for a police officer to help him with a case, and the DI had assigned him Trudy.

And that time, between them, they’d managed to catch a murderer!

Of course, there was little likelihood of that happening again, Trudy knew, but even so! It beat sitting about in a stuffy hospital for hours on end, either waiting for her patient to say something meaningful, or for the poor man to pass away.

Jennings, suddenly tired of being the old so-and-so’s cat’s paw, shook his head and, like Pontius Pilate, seemingly washed his hands of the whole affair.

‘Haven’t I said you can have WPC Loveday for a few days?’ he said testily. ‘And may I remind you, only for a few days! I can’t spare her for long, haring about on some open-and-shut case, just because you’ve a bee in your bonnet about some students being less than candid!’

‘Thank you, Inspector. I’ll be sure to thank the Chief Constable for your forbearance when next I see him at the club,’ Clement said, smiling affably as he rose from his chair.

At this parting shot, Jennings flushed mightily. He rather suspected that ‘the club’ the coroner was referring to had something to do with the Masons – an institution he was determined to join just as soon as it could be arranged.

Any ambitious officer needed to be a member of that club all right, and this timely reminder that it didn’t do to get on the influential Dr Ryder’s bad side had him backing off rapidly, albeit with little grace.

‘Yes, well, thank you, Dr Ryder,’ Jennings muttered. Then, as the medical man began to make for the door, Jennings, too, rose from his seat. ‘I’ll just have a few words with my officer, sir, before you go,’ he added quietly.

‘Righty-oh,’ Clement said cheerfully, opening the door and passing through it without shutting it behind him. Trudy, seeing the look on the Inspector’s face, hastily rectified that and then returned to stand meekly before his desk.

But her heart was racing. She was going to work with Dr Ryder again! She was actually going to watch and listen and be taught things, instead of being given paperwork and ignored. She could have sung with happiness.

‘Right then, Constable,’ Jennings said heavily. ‘You know the drill – same as last time. Just keep the old man happy, and report back to me every day. I want to know everything that man is up to. Understood?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Trudy said. She knew Dr Ryder was too clever a man not to know she would be forced to do this, so didn’t feel at all treacherous in agreeing to the orders.

‘Try and rein him back from any real excesses. And watch you don’t go about upsetting any VIPs,’ he added, all but wagging a finger at her. ‘Most of the parents of the young people at that picnic party are members of the aristocracy, or the new money set. And if you go about upsetting them, they’ll get on to the top brass, and the top brass will have me roasted. And I won’t stand for that! Understood?’

At this, Trudy gulped. She wasn’t quite sure just how she was supposed to go about stopping Dr Ryder when he wanted something, and when he could be, well, perhaps a little straightforward in his speech and manner.

Seeing her hesitation, and guessing the reason for it, DI Jennings sighed heavily. Even he had to concede that it was hardly fair to ask a young girl of nineteen to handle someone like Ryder. Someone who could blister the paintwork with just a look or an acid phrase, and had been known to best the sharpest of QCs and any number of other dignitaries. ‘Oh, just do your best, Constable,’ he finished wearily.

‘Yes, sir,’ Trudy said, and, with a feeling of infinite relief, quickly left the Inspector’s office.

Once outside the station, it was just a short walk to Dr Ryder’s office in the coroner’s court and mortuary complex in Floyds Row. His secretary, recognising her from their first case six months before, smiled at her as Clement strode in, ordering ‘tea and cake, and plenty of it’ as he swept past her.

The older woman shook her head and sighed at his cavalier manner. But Trudy noticed she was smiling.

A few minutes later, Clement Ryder was eating a slice of angel cake and watching his young protégé thoughtfully as she read through the court documents on the seemingly unremarkable case of the drowned law student. He was curious to see what she made of them.

On their last case he’d come to acquire a great deal of respect for this young woman’s intelligence and backbone. She was still very green, of course, but she had plenty of potential, if steered right. Which was why, of course, he’d made damned sure Jennings assigned her to him again. Of course it helped that the buffoon of an inspector totally underestimated the girl’s qualities. Given the proper mentoring by her older and more experienced colleagues, she could really shine. Not that that was likely to happen, he thought, a shade gloomily.

Still, he’d do all he could to help her hone some skills while she was helping him get to the bottom of his latest project.

It took her half an hour to read every scrap of paper in the file, and when she’d finished she leaned back in the chair, a slight frown pulling her fine, dark brows together over her dark, pansy-brown eyes.

‘Well?’ he asked sharply.

‘On the face of it, sir, it looks rather straightforward, doesn’t it? There was a large party of drunken students, and two very overcrowded punts. There was a collision with a third punt and, as a result, a lot of people were pitched into the river. It’s quite possible Derek either couldn’t get to the surface quickly enough, or perhaps got trampled underneath someone else’s feet, expelling all the air from his lungs before he knew what was happening.’

‘Oh, yes. All of that is possible.’ The coroner surprised her slightly by agreeing at once. ‘Mind you, I still think it rather odd that nobody saw him getting into difficulties. There were at least twenty or more students in the water.’

‘Who would have been looking to save themselves, most likely,’ Trudy put in.

‘Oh, almost certainly.’

‘Perhaps he couldn’t get to the surface because of the sheer weight of numbers? Who knows, maybe somebody flailing about actually stood on him?’

‘Again, perhaps. But supposing any of that happened, with so many eyes actually in the water, and so many eyes on the bank watching it all happen, is it very likely that nobody saw the body rise to the surface at some point and float away?’

‘Perhaps it didn’t rise to the surface?’ She played devil’s advocate automatically.

‘Most bodies do,’ the coroner said, then shrugged. ‘Then again, who’s to say? Perhaps they did see a body float away but agreed among themselves to keep quiet about it.’

‘That’s rather far-fetched, isn’t it?’ Trudy said doubtfully. ‘Why would they do that?’

The coroner shrugged. ‘Who’s to say? The thing is, the reason you have an inquest in the first place is to tackle issues like the hows and whys.’

‘So you’re not convinced the court did get to the bottom of what really happened?’ she asked slowly. She’d learned a lot from her last encounter with this sometimes difficult, but always brilliant, man. And if he thought something was ‘off’, she wasn’t going to gainsay him out of hand.

‘Forget about the mechanics and facts of it for a moment, Trudy,’ Clement advised quietly, leaning back in his chair, and feeling his right leg tremble slightly.

With a scowl, he surreptitiously rubbed it under cover of his desk, quickly checking to make sure she hadn’t noticed this sign of weakness, and sighed. ‘Just run the testimony of the students over in your mind. What strikes you most about it?’

Trudy again went up a notch in his estimation when she didn’t answer straight away, but instead gave the question some thought. ‘Well… it does strike me as rather odd that the deceased had been invited to the party at all. I mean, from what I can tell, most of the partygoers were there at the invitation of this Lord Jeremy Littlejohn,’ she went on, checking the relevant pages. ‘The younger son of a duke, isn’t he?’

Clement snorted. ‘Indeed he is.’

Trudy shot him a quick look. ‘You didn’t like him?’

‘Irrelevant,’ the coroner said briskly. ‘Carry on with what you were saying.’

‘Well…’ Trudy frowned, trying to find a comfortable way of talking about social class with this professional man, while not letting her own, strictly working-class, origins get in the way. ‘It seems to me that his sort… I mean, most of his friends were wealthy and, well, upper class. But Derek Chadworth, according to his tutors and parents, was a scholarship boy. His father was merely a country solicitor. And he didn’t seem to do anything out of the ordinary to put himself on the map, so to speak, did he? He wasn’t a rowing blue, or a rugby star or anything, was he?’

‘So?’ Clement encouraged.

‘Well… he hardly seems a likely candidate to have belonged to their set,’ she concluded nervously, and immediately felt relieved when the coroner nodded approvingly.

‘No, he doesn’t. You’re quite right. And yet, when it came time to give his evidence—’ Clement nodded at the folder resting on her knees ‘—Lord Jeremy clearly stated, in an offhand manner, that he might have issued the invitation to Derek Chadworth. But that he couldn’t be sure whether or not he’d taken him up on it.’

Trudy nodded, rereading His Lordship’s evidence. ‘Yes. He says… Yes, here it is. “I knew Derek from around – I’d had a few ciders with him at the Eagle and Child and that sort of thing. I told him we were having a bash at Port Meadow and, if he wanted to come, he needed to be at the bridge and on a punt by half nine.” Hmm, he goes on to say that, on the day in question, after a couple of glasses of something called… er… Buck’s Fizz… at breakfast, he was feeling a bit tight and wasn’t sure whether or not he’d seen him among the crowd piling into the punts.’

‘Buck’s Fizz is a mixture of freshly squeezed orange juice and champagne,’ Dr Ryder informed her dryly. ‘A popular choice for indolent young pups and arrogant lordlings who like to hold breakfast parties in their rooms for their minions.’

Trudy nodded and mentally made a note. Dr Ryder really didn’t like Lord Littlejohn. He must have done something to ruffle the coroner’s feathers. But from what she’d read of his evidence, she couldn’t quite see what it might be. True, he had been annoyingly vague about the dead boy – but so had all the other students.

‘Anything else strike you as odd?’ Clement asked mildly. But his eyes, when he looked at her, were as sharp as flint.

Trudy frowned. There was something nagging at her, something that didn’t exactly feel as if it fitted together. But no matter how hard she tried to track down the cause for her unease, she wasn’t able to. Eventually she shrugged. ‘I’m not sure.’

Clement nodded with a soft sigh. Well, perhaps that was only to be expected. It wasn’t as if the young WPC had attended as many coroner’s sittings as he had!

‘OK – try this. Put yourself in the shoes of one of them,’ Clement said with a slight grimace. ‘Not that you’d want to, mind. But you’ve just finished sitting your exams. You have a job in the City, or a job in Daddy’s firm or some such, just waiting for you to step into, and your whole life is stretching ahead of you in a golden haze of wealth and comfort. Now, just how much would you want to “come down” from Oxford with your name mixed up in some death-by-drowning scandal?’

Trudy shuddered. ‘I wouldn’t! Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t like it for a start. People like that need their reputations to be spotless, don’t they, and… oh!’ Suddenly, as light dawned, Trudy began to quickly reread the transcripts again.

‘Exactly!’ Dr Ryder said sharply, seeing she’d spotted the discrepancy now. ‘So why didn’t they all simply deny the dead boy had been part of their party? There is nothing, after all, in the physical evidence to say he had to have met his death while attending that celebration. He could have got into the river by some other means, at some other time. The time of death itself was given as between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., after all. Granted, that supposition stretches coincidence quite a bit,’ he added with a frown.

Trudy, busily reading over the evidence of the Italian girl again, knitted her brows, only half-listening to him. ‘Well, perhaps they couldn’t deny it. I mean, if he was there… and there were so many witnesses… they couldn’t run the risk of being found out to be lying. Isn’t that committing perjury? Unless they all got together and agreed to say the same thing – and that’s almost impossible, isn’t it? I mean, that many people… a conspiracy on that scale… surely it’s not feasible.’ She broke off her reading to look at him intently.

The coroner sighed and shrugged. ‘I’m not so sure about that, Trudy. People en masse can act very differently from people as individuals. Just look at riots, and mass hysteria and mobs. These students were all of an age, and all friends, and all had their own necks and best interests to look after. So they definitely had good reason to tell the same story. And don’t forget that all of them – mark my words – were under the thumb to some degree or other of our Lord Jeremy Littlejohn. A proper little Machiavelli, if ever I saw one! I thought as much the moment the man opened his mouth to give evidence in my court. Then there’s such a thing as peer pressure, you know. Nobody likes to be thought of as a snitch. And who among them could have afforded to become an outcast by going against the consensus of opinion? Don’t forget, Lord Littlejohn and his family wield a lot of influence in the world these people inhabit,’ Ryder warned her. ‘One word in a banker’s ear, and somebody doesn’t get that job in the City he was looking forward to. Or one whisper from the Countess to some society matron or other, and some young girl can find her marriage prospects withering. Oh, yes. I can quite see how they could all be coerced or bribed or bullied into towing the line.’

Trudy went back to reading the files again. And wondered. Was she allowing Dr Ryder’s comments to colour her view of things? Or did the testimonies now all seem to have a certain ‘sameness’ about them?

‘So you think they were coached in what to say? By Lord Littlejohn?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘They all lied to keep him sweet?’

The coroner caught the scepticism in her voice and shook his head with dissatisfaction. ‘Not necessarily. I’m just saying there’s something that doesn’t ring true about the evidence they gave,’ Clement said grimly. ‘Time and time again, they say the same vague thing. “Derek might have been there, but I didn’t see him.” Or, “I was so drunk, I couldn’t say for sure that he was there. But then I can’t say that he wasn’t either.” Why, if you’re going to distance yourself from such a tragic event, and you all get together and agree to put on a united front, don’t you just go the whole hog and say, “Derek wasn’t there. Nobody saw him.” That way, the police would have to take your word for it. Even if they didn’t believe it, how could they prove otherwise?’

Trudy shook her head. Put like that… ‘But maybe they were telling the truth. Maybe they were just all so drunk they didn’t remember.’

‘Perhaps,’ Dr Ryder said, clearly not believing it for a minute and blowing out his breath in an annoyed whoosh. ‘But just take it from me, young Trudy,’ he said firmly, sitting up straighter in his chair. ‘Somebody—’ and here he nodded at the folder in her hands ‘—was trying to pull a fast one at that hearing. And in my court too! And I’m not having it. Something, as the Bard said, is rotten in the state of Denmark, and I intend to find out what it is. Of course,’ he added, feeling compelled to be honest with her, ‘when we do find out what it is, it might be nothing earth-shattering. It might not even be relevant to Mr Chadworth’s death. It might just turn out to be some silly stunt or secret the students are keeping to themselves for some reason. But until we find out what it is, we can’t know, can we?’

‘Do you think it’s possible they all collaborated to kill him?’ she suddenly asked breathlessly, her eyes glittering, her cheeks flushing in excitement.

And at this outburst of youthful exuberance, Clement grinned widely. ‘Whoa! Nobody said anything about that!’ He reined her back kindly.

‘But is it possible somebody at that party deliberately killed him?’ she persisted.

‘Well, let’s think about it for a minute,’ he said, thoroughly enjoying himself now. ‘There were more than twenty kids splashing about in the water. How likely is it, do you think, that someone could have grabbed hold of him and held him under without anyone noticing? Given that drowning men tend to splash about a fair bit.’

Her face fell. Then lightened again. ‘But if, say, three people did see it, and were for some reason keeping quiet about it…? That might explain why you think their evidence was suspect.’

‘Perhaps. But if you were going to kill someone, would you risk doing it in front of so many potential witnesses? And don’t forget, even if you were willing to take a chance on being able to bribe or threaten your fellow students in some way, that doesn’t negate the possibility that someone outside your control – an independent witness on the riverbank, for instance – would see you and spill the beans.’

Trudy sighed heavily, but, not willing to give up just yet, said tentatively, ‘Well, perhaps he wasn’t drowned at the party. Perhaps someone knew there was going to be a party and took advantage of it.’ With growing enthusiasm she sat up straighter. ‘The killer lures Derek to the river and drowns him there, knowing the punting party will be blamed.’

‘In which case, how did he know there’d be an accident? Unless he had an accomplice on one of the punts?’

Trudy sighed. ‘That does seem to be rather overcomplicated. But it’s not unheard of, is it? Two people conspiring to commit murder. But perhaps the accident was just a coincidence?’ she mused brightly. ‘The killer didn’t know there was going to be a collision, but at a picnic party, on a hot summer’s day by the river, he or she could count on there being a fair amount of swimming and bathing taking place. Perhaps the killer just relied on the fact that a drowned student, found in the river on a day when there’d been so many students mucking about in the water, would naturally be presumed to be one of their number, who had come to grief at the party?’

‘Perhaps. But have you considered the difficulty in that scenario?’ Clement cautioned her. ‘The killer would have to lure Derek to the river. How? On what pretext? He or she would then have had to drown a very fit and able lad, in a large stretch of water. The medical evidence made it clear he hadn’t received a blow to the head or been incapacitated by any obvious drug. Even if he was still a bit tipsy and hungover from a night’s drinking, you can be sure Derek would have put up a fight. And the chances of him being able to wriggle away are quite high, you know. It’s not as easy to drown someone as you might think. For a start, the killer would be certain to get drenched too.’

‘But it’s still possible,’ Trudy persisted stubbornly.

‘Perhaps. But again, the medical evidence puts time of death at around eight in the morning at the earliest. So where on the river could the killer feel safe from prying eyes? At that time, a lot of people are out and about, going to work, walking their dogs, fishing and what have you. If you were a killer, would you risk it? How could you be sure of going unseen and unnoticed?’

Trudy reluctantly acknowledged all these problems, and her woebegone expression made the coroner smile.

‘I’m not saying anything you’ve hypothesised didn’t happen. Just that we don’t know! Which means we need to do a lot more digging. So… are you ready to start?’

At this, probationary WPC Loveday grinned widely. Was she ready?

Of course she was ready!

‘Do we start at the scene of the accident?’ she asked brightly.

‘Whatever for?’ Clement asked, sounding surprised, but with a small smile playing on his lips. ‘I doubt there’d be anything to see after all this time, and the police went over the ground pretty thoroughly anyway. Any clues they might possibly have missed will long since have been trampled over by cattle or washed away in the river. Or do you think we might find a cigarette butt, containing tobacco made only in a small Malay village, and only sold in this country to three Emeritus Fellows and a recluse? Thus leading us straight to our prime suspect?’

Trudy laughed. ‘All right, point made! That sort of thing only happens in Sherlock Holmes novels. So, where do we start?’

Chapter 4

Their first port of call was Webster Hall, the college where Lionel Gulliver had been studying theology for the past three years. He was due to ‘go down’ within the next two weeks, and the coroner was grimly aware they needed to act fast, since most of the witnesses to what had happened to Derek Chadworth would likewise also soon disperse.

The college was quiet, and when they enquired at the porter’s lodge after Lionel Gulliver, the guardian of the gate recognised Dr Ryder at once. Trudy knew (mostly from the grumbling comments of her Inspector) that Dr Ryder had many high-ranking friends in the town, and porters of colleges were notorious for knowing – and cultivating – anyone who was anyone. So she wasn’t particularly surprised when the bowler-hatted individual greeted the coroner by name.

‘Ah, Dr Ryder, sir, pleased to see you again. I take it our Dr Fairweather hasn’t managed to beat you at chess yet, sir?’

Clement gave a grunt of laughter. ‘No, he hasn’t, nor will he. But since he serves the best port in Oxford, I’m happy to let him keep on trying. Can you tell us what house and room number Lionel Gulliver is currently occupying?’

‘Of course, sir,’ the porter said smoothly, consulting a list and promptly coming up with the goods. He added softly, ‘I take it you’re here about that poor boy from St Bede’s? Tragic event that, sir, if I may say so.’

‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ Clement said, his face and voice becoming very bland indeed. Trudy, who’d expected him to be anxious to get on with things, suddenly realised he was in no hurry after all, as he leaned nonchalantly against the doorframe and sighed. ‘A young life, cut off in its prime… It was a sad day for the university, Barstock. Did you, er, know young Mr Chadworth particularly?’ he added casually, making Trudy prick up her ears.

Like nearly all college porters, Barstock seemed to know all and could be persuaded to expound a little if the mood took him.

‘Not very well, Dr Ryder, sir. No, I wouldn’t say that,’ the porter responded carefully. ‘But I’d seen him around. He and, er, certain other young gentlemen belonged to one of the clubs that sometimes met here.’

‘Ah,’ Dr Ryder said with a smile. ‘Say no more. Boys do like to set up their clubs, don’t they?’ He allowed his tone to become indulgent. ‘In my day, I belonged to a pudding club. Once a month we met and tried to eat a pudding in every restaurant in Oxford. Couldn’t do it nowadays,’ he added ruefully, patting his rounding stomach. ‘Indigestion for one thing!’

The porter duly laughed. And Trudy, who’d begun to feel impatient with all this chit-chat, suddenly (and rather belatedly) cottoned on to the fact that the coroner was actually working his way up to something specific.

‘Of course, nowadays, undergrads have far more, er, esoteric things to form clubs about, I daresay,’ Clement mused idly.

‘Oh, yes, sir. Take young Mr Gulliver, sir, the young man you’re enquiring about,’ the porter went on smoothly. ‘A nice chap – his uncle was once Bishop of Durham. Hoping to emulate him one day, I daresay. Now, he’s a member of several clubs.’

‘All harmless, I’m sure.’ The coroner played along. ‘Being a theology student and all that.’

‘Yes, sir. Harmless, mostly. One’s a birdwatching outfit, and one is a folklorist society. And, of course, since his uncle on his mother’s side is a baron, he’s also a member of Lord Littlejohn’s club,’ the porter tossed in, very casually.

At this, Trudy stiffened like a pointer spotting a falling pheasant. She was very careful now to keep absolutely quiet and still, in case she should attract attention to herself, and her uniform should stop the porter’s tongue.

‘Ah, yes… Lord Littlejohn,’ Ryder said, his voice as bland as milk. ‘He had to give evidence at the inquest. An… interesting sort.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the porter agreed flatly.

‘Rather taken with himself and his social ranking, I thought,’ Ryder swept on, having accurately guessed that the porter’s opinion of His Lordship exactly matched his own. ‘In fact, I got the impression that he thought he deserved to be next in line to the throne, as opposed to being the mere son of a duke – and the second son at that.’

But this was a step a little too far for the porter, who made an indistinct murmuring sound, and the coroner quickly backed off.

‘Still, I daresay the club he formed is harmless enough. Does it have an official name?’ he enquired casually.

‘Yes, sir – they call themselves the Marquis Club. I think the title is a reference to their aristocratic credentials.’

Trudy looked nonplussed at this but Ryder caught the reference at once. ‘Oh, of course. The fighting men! So Lord Littlejohn regards himself as a man with backbone, does he? Funny. I saw no sign of it in my court.’

The porter’s lips didn’t actually smile, but managed a twitch. And having decided he’d done his civic duty in a manner that in no way brought his college into disrepute, he brought the conversation smoothly to an end by informing the coroner that he was sure he would find Mr Gulliver in. Clement, accepting he’d got all he was going to, thanked him and moved gracefully away.

As they walked through the grounds to the staircase indicated by the porter, Trudy looked about her with interest. It wasn’t often that she had cause to set foot inside one of the city’s famous colleges. All was pretty much as she’d expected (golden stone buildings, velvet grass lawns, neatly tended flowerbeds), and she quickly turned her thoughts to the matter in hand.

She refused to show her ignorance by asking Dr Ryder about the origin of the club’s name. Besides, she didn’t need to – clearly the original Marquis, whoever they were, had been fighters of some kind. And from the porter’s comments about Lionel Gulliver having a relative who was a baron, it seemed as though you had to be some sort of ‘gentry’ in order to become a member.

Instead, she zeroed in on the porter’s behaviour.

‘He clearly didn’t think much of Lord Littlejohn, did he? Or his chosen name for their club.’

‘No, and I don’t blame him,’ Clement said shortly with a little huff. ‘A more indolent, lazy and self-indulgent specimen I have yet to meet.’

Trudy was about to say something when, at the bottom of the stone staircase, she saw the coroner stumble slightly as he lifted his foot to mount the first stair. As she automatically reached out to help him, however, the coroner clutched at the wooden rail lining the inner wall and, without a word, began to climb vigorously.

Wisely, she said nothing. She knew that, sometimes, older folk weren’t quite as robust as they once had been. And if her old granny was any indication, they didn’t like to be reminded of it!

For his part, Dr Ryder mounted the steps with tight lips – he knew the stumble had had nothing whatsoever to do with incipient old age.

A few years ago, he’d noticed a slight tremor in his left hand – and, as a surgeon, it had instantly raised alarm bells. Under an alias, he’d undergone a set of tests, and had been diagnosed with what his medical colleagues were beginning to call Parkinson’s disease. The condition had been known about for centuries, of course, and under a variety of different names – the Shaking Palsy in Europe, and under the ancient Indian medical system of Ayurveda as Kampavata.

But whatever name you gave it, it had meant the end of his time wielding a scalpel, and hence his change of career. He’d been very successful, so far, in keeping his condition a secret from both his friends and work colleagues, knowing that, if they found out about it, it would end his working life.

But as the condition slowly progressed and worsened, and his various symptoms became more and more obvious, he reluctantly acknowledged that it could only be a matter of time before he was found out.

Still, he was determined to keep going for as long as possible before that happened. And, so far, he was sure nobody even suspected. He could only hope his young protégé hadn’t noticed his uneven gait or had put it down to a simple misstep.

At the top of the staircase they found room eight. With a brisk rap of the iron ring knocker against the centuries-old wooden door, he announced their presence.

The door was opened quickly enough by a small, lean youth, whose face fell the moment he recognised his visitor. He had a short cap of dark-brown hair with a propensity to curl (which was probably the bane of his life), a rather nobbly chin and large hazel eyes. The expression in them, when they slid from that of the coroner and took in Trudy’s uniform, became almost panic-stricken.

‘Mr Gulliver? You remember me? Dr Clement Ryder, city coroner.’

‘Oh, er, yes, of course.’

‘I have just one or two more questions concerning the death of Mr Derek Chadworth.’

The young theology student gulped. ‘Oh. Really? I, er, rather thought that was all over and done with.’

‘No, sir. Not with an open verdict. We’re still investigating,’ he said with quiet satisfaction. ‘May we come in?’ he demanded, his tone indicating he didn’t know what the youth of today were coming to, keeping their elders and betters standing about on doorsteps.

The young man instantly flushed and hastily stepped to one side. ‘Oh, of course. Sorry. Do come in. Excuse the mess. I’m in the process of packing up to “go down”.’

Trudy, glancing around the room thoughtfully, didn’t think much of the ‘mess’. The room looked neat and tidy, if perhaps a little bare.

‘We’ll try not to keep you long,’ Clement assured him mildly. ‘There were just a few things that struck me in the evidence you gave in my court that I’d like to have clarified.’

‘Oh, er, right. Please, sit down. Can I nab a scout and see if I can lay on some tea or something?’ he offered, indicating chairs and glancing half-heartedly out of the window.

For a moment, Trudy was stymied by his use of the word ‘scout’, then vaguely recalled that college servants were called that, for some arcane reason or other.

‘Oh, no, thanks. We’re fine,’ Clement said.

Trudy took the chair furthest from the student’s eyeline and tried to make like she was invisible. Nevertheless, as she slipped her notebook out of her satchel, she noticed his eyes swivel in her direction and then move quickly away again.

He looked unhappily at the coroner as he sat down and rubbed his hands nervously across his trousers at the knees. ‘My evidence? I don’t know that I was much use, sir. I really didn’t know anything, unfortunately.’

‘Yes, that was very apparent,’ Clement said, so dryly that the younger man actually blushed. ‘Let’s see if we can’t get a little more specific, shall we?’

The young man swallowed hard and made a stab at a smile. ‘I’m not sure it’ll be much use, sir. I don’t really know why I was called at all, if I’m honest.’

The older man waved that sally away as if swatting a fly. ‘You say you never actually saw Derek Chadworth on the punt you were on?’ Dr Ryder began, gently but firmly.

‘No, that’s right. That’s what I said. But, of course, he might have been on the other punt.’

‘Hmm.’ The coroner made no attempt to hide his reaction to this bit of flummery. Instead, he went off on a different tack. ‘Did you know Derek well?’ he shot out crisply.

‘Oh, no.’

‘But wasn’t he a member of the Marquis Club?’ Clement slipped the knife in smoothly.

Trudy was interested to see the young man actually start in his chair and then go very pale. ‘What?’ For a moment, his face seemed to fight for some sort of expression. Horror? Surprise? Dismay? Confusion, certainly. Eventually, he swallowed uncomfortably and gave a rather sickly smile. ‘No. No, I’m sure he wasn’t.’

‘Ah. I thought that might have been why Lord Littlejohn invited him,’ Clement said, careful to keep his voice conversational.

Lionel Gulliver, perhaps taking heart from this, seemed to gather his wits together with a bit of an effort, and manage a second, more convincing smile. ‘Oh, no, I don’t think that could have been the case. Er, I mean, you’d have to ask Jeremy that, wouldn’t you?’ he added, glancing longingly out of the window.

Trudy, her shorthand competently filling her notebook, thought Lionel looked as if he wished he might jump out, so uncomfortable did he seem.

‘Yes, we’ll be sure to do that when we see him,’ Clement said non-committally. ‘So, let’s have this straight once and for all. Is it your opinion that Derek Chadworth was not at the party the day he drowned?’

Again, Lionel seemed to start in his chair. He really was a nervous sort, Trudy thought, beginning to feel, perhaps for the first time with any confidence, that the coroner really was on the track of something with this case.

‘Well, as a matter of fact, no, I don’t think I am saying that,’ Lionel said, a shade confusingly. ‘I’m beginning to think that perhaps Derek was on one of the punts after all.’

Trudy felt her mouth fall open at this unexpected about-face. She shot a quick, perplexed look at the coroner, who was regarding the theology student with his head cocked a little to one side, rather like a robin regarding an interesting worm.

‘So, are you saying you did see him that day? At the party?’ Clement said slowly.

‘No! I mean… I think I might have. But I can’t swear to it.’

The coroner regarded the young man steadily for a moment or so and noticed that the unfortunate youth was actually beginning to sweat – not to mention fidget about nervously on his chair.

He also noticed that Gulliver’s rather weak mouth had now begun to set in a thin, stubborn line, and that his chin had come up. Clearly, he’d reached the point where he was willing to be stubborn about things. Which meant pushing him further would be pointless.

Thus, Clement sighed and rose to his feet, catching Trudy completely unawares. ‘Well, thank you for your time, Mr Gulliver,’ he said abruptly. ‘I understand you’re going to train for the priesthood?’

‘The Church of England, yes,’ the young man said, getting to his feet with alacrity, a look of utter relief passing across his unremarkable features.

‘Hmm. In which case, you’ll know what the Bible has to say about bearing false witness?’

Lionel Gulliver gulped audibly. ‘Yes, sir, I know that,’ he muttered wretchedly.

The coroner nodded, smiled briefly, and then clapped the young man on the back so hard he had to actually take a step forward to prevent himself from falling flat on his face.

‘Well, good luck, Mr Gulliver,’ he said jovially, and Trudy, hastily shoving her accoutrements back into her satchel, trotted out after him, very aware of one pale-faced theology student staring miserably after them.

Once again in the sunshine outside, she stood blinking in the bright light for a moment, and then sighed heavily. ‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ she muttered.

‘Do you think so?’ Clement asked, and something in his tone had her shooting him a quick, suspicious look.

What had he seen or heard or deduced that she had missed?

‘You know, I’d be willing to bet… yes, I’d be willing to bet half a crown that that young man has been “got at”,’ Clement mused out loud. ‘Someone has persuaded him to keep his mouth shut.’

Trudy didn’t know if she was willing to go that far, but wisely kept silent, accurately guessing that he wasn’t going to elucidate any further.

They set off up the path bordering the quad, and called out a farewell to the porter as they passed through the gates and headed towards the coroner’s car. This was a smart-looking Rover 75-1110 P4, which he’d parked (illegally, Trudy noticed with a guilty flush) on some double-yellow lines in a side alley.

Like the gentleman he undoubtedly was, he unlocked and held open the passenger door for her and then shut it once she was safely inside. After getting behind the wheel, however, instead of turning the key in the ignition, he settled in his seat and stared blindly out at the city going about its business outside.

‘You know, Trudy, I think it might be time you learned how to work undercover,’ he astonished – and thrilled – her by saying.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked eagerly.

‘Well, you’re of an age to be a student. Out of uniform, you could easily pass for a college gal. I want you, starting tomorrow, to dress in civvies and start hanging out at the regular student haunts – there’s that bookshop café in St Ebbes for a start. And the pub by the river – you know the one. Use your initiative. Start making friends. Chat about Derek and the Marquis Club. Find out what your average student not in Lord Littlejohn’s intimate little circle is saying and thinking about it all. But don’t be too obvious about it. Think you can do that?’

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!

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