Clement leaned back in his chair with a slow frown. He was dressed in a dark grey suit with a discreet navy stripe, and a navy and red tie. His head of thick, white-and-grey hair gleamed in the grey November light coming through the curtains. In the fireplace, a large coal fire glowed invitingly. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he asked.
Trudy shook her head. ‘No, thank you. This shouldn’t take long,’ she said with another forced smile. ‘DI Jennings has been asked by our superintendent to cast a second, more detailed look over the death of Mr Thomas Hughes. It was your case, I believe?’
Clement smiled briefly. He felt a little hurt by her rather chilly, brusque manner, but he was wise enough not to let it show. Clearly something was bothering his young protégé and until he learned what it was, he was prepared to tread carefully.
In an effort to lighten the mood, he decided a compliment probably couldn’t hurt anything. ‘Don’t say Jennings has finally seen the light and begun to give you more responsibility? That’s wonderful, Trudy’
Trudy forced yet another smile. ‘Thank you.’ She wished the coroner wasn’t being so friendly and informal. She wanted to get this bit over and done with and leave as quickly as possible.
‘Did anything strike you as odd about the case, Dr Ryder?’ she asked, finally looking up from notebook and for the first time, properly meeting his eye. She felt herself flush as she recognised both concern and bafflement in his look.
It was obvious that he was picking up on her reticence and she quickly looked away again, quashing a feeling of irritation. It wasn’t as if she’d asked to be put in this position!
‘No, I can’t say as it did. Not at the time,’ he added, making her blink.
‘That sounds as if you’ve had second thoughts, sir. Any particular reason?’ she asked eagerly, pencil poised.
Clement shrugged. ‘I read the papers, along with most of the city. I have to say, the Tribune’s contribution did take me by surprise a bit. It almost felt as if the writer had been taking things a bit too personally. But you know the old saying – where there’s smoke there’s fire. So I did just wonder if something more might be afoot. I take it the headlines in the Tribune are what lit the fire under the powers that be over at your station?’
Trudy opened her mouth to deny it, then realised there was very little point.
‘When certain … accusations are made, they have to be investigated as you know.’
‘Quite right too – and by us, no less. Well, it’s about time we had another case, isn’t it?’ He leaned forward to pick up his telephone and Trudy watched in horror as he rang through to his secretary. ‘Ah, yes, Jean. I’m afraid I’m not going to be in the office quite as often as I thought this week, so you can please cancel any non-urgent appointments and re-arrange my schedule to leave me, say, three hours free every day until further notice.’
He hung up and beamed at Trudy, who continued to gape at him, appalled.
‘Is something wrong, Constable Loveday?’ Clement asked mildly, deciding abruptly to take the bull by the horns.
She gulped, knowing that she was going to have to tell him that she would be working this one alone and didn’t need his input. Why oh why, she wondered desperately, had he assumed that she’d come to him to ask for his help?
She saw him lean back with a happy and content smile on his face, and felt her heart fall even further. She sat up a little straighter, searching to find the right words that would let him down without hurting his feelings.
Clement, aware of the lengthening silence and something of the mental battle that was obviously waging behind her face, watched her with unfathomable, grey eyes. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked mildly.
Trudy nodded, relieved to have such a perfect opening to set things straight dropped right into her lap. But even as she opened her mouth to tell him that he wasn’t needed, she felt the words dry up.
Apart from anything else, she suddenly realised that it wasn’t actually true. She knew (none better) how intelligent this man was. How experienced, and how thorough – and just how much of an asset he’d be. For another thing, nobody knew the case better than this man, who’d have any relevant details already at his fingertips.
So why was she so determined not to work this case with him? It didn’t make sense … until suddenly, in a blinding flash of awful self-awareness, it did, and she knew just why she was feeling as jittery as she was.
Since Easter, she’d been doing her job and slowly dealing with her inner demons. She’d found the courage to walk her beat alone again, and stalk purse-snatchers, and question witnesses, and do all the daily routine things that she’d once feared might be beyond her. After each of the little milestones that she set for herself had been successfully reached and passed, she’d come to believe that the crisis was over. Her self-belief and self-confidence had been restored, and everything was all right again.
But now, as she sat here in this room, she had to acknowledge that only half the battle had been won. For completing her regular police duties was only a part of her professional life and career. Her cases with Dr Clement Ryder were something entirely different.
On their last case, she’d nearly lost her life. And until she worked with him again on another case, she could never be truly sure that she had – once and for all – conquered all her demons. What’s more, the time had now come when she had to do just that. No wonder she felt as if she was all over the place!
She felt her heart thumping in her chest and swallowed hard. She took a deep breath and said – not quite truthfully – ‘Of course there’s not a problem. Everything’s fine, Dr Ryder. And thank you for agreeing to help me.’
In his chair, Clement felt his shoulders suddenly relax. For a second there, he’d wondered if she was actually going to reject his offer of help. Not that it took a genius to figure out why she might have felt reluctant to take on another case with him. The attack they’d both suffered during their last case had shaken even him, and he had served in the war!
He’d wanted, many times over the past months, to call on her and see how she was doing, but instinct – and experience – told him that it might not be a good idea. Sometimes, life’s hardest lessons had to be learned alone – or they were never learned at all.
But he’d always known that Trudy was a woman of rare courage as well as brains and ambition, and he’d had faith in her – faith that was now being justified.
But even as he picked up the telephone again to ask his secretary to bring him the Hughes file, something else began to worry him.
What if something else was making WPC Trudy Loveday question whether or not she wanted to work with him again? Was it possible that she had, in fact, guessed that he had a serious illness?
Once or twice in the past he’d wondered if she had noticed some of the physical symptoms of a person with Parkinson’s disease. Although he was still in the early stages, he sometimes stumbled, and from time to time his hands trembled uncontrollably.
And Trudy was a trained observer.
On more than one occasion in the past, Clement had wondered if she was going to ask him outright about the state of his health. He’d been prepared to lie to her face and tell her that he was fine.
In the end though, she hadn’t asked. Perhaps it was out of respect for him, or perhaps she simply hadn’t been confident enough of the accuracy of her observations. But did she still secretly wonder about him? Did she wonder or fear that he wasn’t up to another case?
The thought made him go cold.
Because if that was so, he’d have to make sure that he gave her no cause to regret bringing him in on this latest investigation.
Trudy, blissfully unaware of her mentor’s state of mind, looked up with a resigned sigh as his secretary deposited the Hughes file on his desk.
All right, so she was feeling a certain amount of trepidation about working with the coroner again. But really, she was just being silly. It was not as if there was any rational cause for it. She’d done some research before leaving the station, and she knew that the likelihood of anything truly sinister having happened in the Hughes’s family back garden last Bonfire Night had to be virtually nil. It had been a tragic and awful event, yes, but nothing about it suggested that a crime had been committed.
Just because, so far, each time she and Dr Ryder had joined forces it had turned out to be a case of murder, it didn’t mean that it would always be so. Especially on such a flimsy case as this! As Dr Ryder himself had just pointed out, her superior officers only wanted the case looked into at all because some silly man writing for the papers had been doing some muck-raking.
No, surely they’d just do a quick but thorough investigation, she’d write up her report for DI Jennings and that would be it. It would probably take only a few days at most and turn out to be downright boring!
Duncan Gillingham read his article again and smiled grimly. Although it was nice to see his byline in print, and to know he’d made a bit of a splash and put the cat amongst the pigeons, for once it wasn’t the appeasement of his vanity that was giving him cause for satisfaction.
He’d just got off the phone with a somewhat disgruntled Superintendent Maltings, who’d been forced to confirm that the police were indeed taking a deeper look into the Hughes affair.
Which was just what he’d wanted and schemed for all along. Because, although they didn’t know it yet, he had one distinct advantage over the police, when it came to the Thomas Hughes affair.
He already knew that there was a killer amongst the Hughes family circle.
And he was determined to see that someone suffer …
With that in mind, he began to write the leader for tomorrow’s article, confirming that the police had come around to the Tribune’s way of thinking at last and had re-opened the case. The newspaper (and its readers) now awaited their results with bated breath, and were sure that the constabulary – now that they were actually investigating the affair properly – would soon get to the real truth behind Thomas Hughes’s death.
The reporter smiled over his trusty black and gold Remington typewriter.
No doubt, when a certain person read of that particular development over their morning cup of tea, it would ruin their appetite for breakfast.
And nor would it end there. For the Tribune’s bloodhound of a reporter would, naturally, be out and about, asking questions of his own. And the results of his endeavours would be splashed across the front pages of the newspaper for some time to come!
As he re-read his text, Duncan Gillingham smiled wolfishly.
Sooner or later, a nasty little worm that thought it was safely wriggling around unseen and safe in the camouflaging dirt would be dragged out into the cold hard light of day and the full glare of publicity.
And if, in the process, he made a name for himself and forced Sir Basil to at last acknowledge that his soon-to-be son-in-law did actually know his trade, well then, that was just an added bonus, wasn’t it?