A Fatal Flaw

by Faith Martin

  ‘No, sir. I’m a police officer,’ Trudy said quietly.

  Instantly, Robert Dunbar recoiled, and beside him his wife drew in her breath in a sharp hiss.

  ‘You’ve brought in the police? You stupid girl,’ Christine hissed at Grace witheringly, and Trudy felt her hackles rise on her friend’s behalf as she felt Grace Farley quail beside her.

  ‘Actually, Mrs Dunbar, she hasn’t,’ Trudy put in coldly. ‘Not officially, anyway. But she has asked me to come down and… well, see what I could find out about your troubles here.’

  Robert wasn’t a man who had built up a small fortune without learning how to think quickly and adjust to life’s challenges. His gaze sharpened on her thoughtfully. ‘You’re with the city police, you say?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Trudy said, and waited.

  ‘Hmm. And what, exactly, has Grace taken it upon herself to tell you?’ he asked tightly.

  Grace paled slightly but stood her ground as Trudy ran over what she knew.

  ‘And what do you think you can possibly do about it?’ It was, perhaps inevitably, Christine who cut in with a voice as acid as a lemon drop.

  ‘Well, I thought I could take a look around, chat to the girls. See if anything stands out as being odd.’ But even as she spoke, Trudy realised how lame that sounded.

  Beside her, Clement continued to watch man and wife thoughtfully. If he’d had to place money, he would have said the woman was the one who held the original purse strings, but he was not so sure if she was the one with the power. Her husband had the sort of force and energy that he’d encountered before in men (and a few women) that usually indicated single-mindedness.

  And in Robert Dunbar’s case, he was sure his single-minded purpose was the pursuit of money and prestige.

  ‘I doubt you can learn anything in a few hours chatting backstage,’ Robert said now, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. ‘Mind you, it might be a good idea to have someone trained as an observer about the place, longer-term. To see if they can catch our mischief-maker in the act.’

  ‘Robert!’ Christine hissed warningly.

  ‘But nothing official mind,’ he added, staring at the nonplussed Trudy. ‘We don’t need you reporting back to your superior officers or such.’

  Trudy blinked. What on earth was the man going on about? ‘But, sir…’ she began.

  ‘I’ll hire you privately. Pay you an hourly rate and a bonus if you can catch our troublemaker. What do you say?’ Robert offered briskly.

  Trudy, at that moment, was incapable of saying anything at all, and merely gaped at him.

  ‘Of course, we’ve already got the perfect, whatchamacallit… “cover” that’s it, yes, “cover” all set and ready to go. Rather obvious, don’t you think? No one will suspect another competitor of being a nosy parker, will they?’ Robert smiled, nodding happily. ‘Good. You can start tonight. I’ll introduce you as our newest entrant. Do you want to use your own name or make one up?’ he steamrollered on.

  Trudy decided enough was enough, and drew herself up to her full height. As she did so, she caught Dr Ryder’s eye and he turned quickly away, his shoulders shaking suspiciously.

  Trudy glowered at his profile. Laugh at her, would he, the old… old… vulture!

  She turned a cold face upon Robert Dunbar. ‘Sir, I have no intention…’ she began imperiously, but was abruptly undone, as Grace quickly reached out and laid a hand on her forearm.

  ‘Oh, Trudy, that would be perfect. You’d have the perfect excuse for talking to people and exploring backstage and all that. Who knows, the trickster might even try something on you, and then you’ll have no trouble finding out who did it.’

  Her faith in her was so touching that for a moment Trudy was tempted.

  But it was ridiculous. Besides, there was no way she could ‘moonlight’ as some sort of private inquiry agent for Mr Dunbar.

  DI Jennings would have a fit!

  ‘I really can’t—’ she began but was again interrupted.

  ‘I think that’s an ideal solution,’ Clement Ryder said, his face now deadpan, and his voice as smooth as the honey that Mr Dunbar was so eager to sell by the bucket-load to Oxford’s discerning shoppers. ‘I’ll clear it with DI Jennings,’ he added to Trudy with an arrogant sweep of his hand.

  Trudy shot him a killing look.

  Of course, both the Dunbars objected to Trudy’s superior officer being informed at all, but were eventually persuaded by the coroner that it was a necessary evil.

  ‘And since Dr Ryder will need a reason for being here too,’ Trudy said sweetly, when he’d finished cajoling them, ‘perhaps you can add him to the judging panel, Mr Dunbar?’

  Clement Ryder blinked at being stabbed so neatly and unexpectedly in the back by his confederate, then reluctantly felt his lips twitch. Oh well – perhaps he’d deserved it.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Robert Dunbar said, without much notable enthusiasm. ‘Er… welcome to Miss Oxford Honey, both of you.’

  Chapter 8

  Clement left first and moved his Rover P4 to the front of the theatre to wait for Trudy to find her way from the side exit, which she did within a few minutes. He’d offered to drive her home so that they could have a serious talk before things went any further. In truth, he was feeling vaguely uneasy about the speed with which things had been happening.

  He was just popping a breath mint into his mouth when she opened the passenger door and slid inside. As she did so, she shot him a puzzled look.

  She had seen no signs that the coroner might have been drinking that night; in fact, nothing about his conversation or behaviour made her think that he had touched a drop. So perhaps he enjoyed the taste of mints simply for their own sake? She hoped so. She’d come to both like and enormously respect Dr Ryder, and the thought that he might have a problem with drink was a depressing one.

  ‘Well, thanks for volunteering me to be a judge,’ he said as he let a gaggle of student cyclists pass by before pulling out into the street. It was now fully dark, so he put his ‘Aunty’ Rover’s lights onto dipped beam.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Trudy said with a smile. ‘But we did both need a reason to be there, didn’t we?’ she pointed out reasonably. ‘We couldn’t just expect to wander around the theatre asking questions and not arouse suspicion.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But it worries me now that we arrived together,’ Clement said.

  ‘Why would that matt… Oh!’ Trudy said, catching on quickly. ‘Yes, of course. If there is something going on in the competition, and someone there tonight was responsible for what happened to Abby…’

  ‘Exactly. They must be on the alert already. And then us two show up together… I don’t like it,’ the coroner said. ‘In fact, I’m thinking it might be best to drop the whole thing. Oh, not the case,’ he said as Trudy began to protest. ‘Just your “undercover” assignment.’

  For a moment, Trudy was silent, thinking things through. On the one hand, she hadn’t really been all that enamoured with the idea of becoming a beauty pageant contestant! She didn’t think she was a particularly shy or retiring sort of person, especially, but she had been raised by parents who had set ideas about what was and wasn’t respectable. And some aspects of the contest made her want to squirm with embarrassment. So she was sorely tempted to grasp the excuse to pull out of it.

  On the other hand, she was excited by the prospect of playing a bigger role in this case. The first two crimes she’d helped with had been very much Dr Ryder’s province – or so it felt to her. This time around, being in the thick of it, as it were, she had been hoping to get more hands on. And she was reluctant to give that up.

  In her hand she had a whole sheaf of papers, given to her by the Dunbars, that listed rehearsal times, competition rules, information on the behaviour that was expected by the competitors and all sorts of disclaimers and things to sign. It had all felt so thrilling and different from her usual run-of-the-mill existence.

  Perhaps it was the atmosphere in the theatre,
the sense of excitement and ‘something new’ that pervaded the whole experience, but Trudy felt very reluctant to give it all up without a fight.

  ‘But I don’t think anybody actually saw us arrive together,’ she said slowly. ‘Except Grace of course, but she already knows about us.’

  ‘And the doorkeeper,’ Clement added flatly.

  ‘Oh, but I don’t think many people would talk to him or take much notice of him,’ Trudy dissembled. ‘I got the distinct feeling that he was very much a theatre-employee and the beauty contest people weren’t really “theatre” people to him! I mean, actors and technicians and stuff. He just let us in and then went back to his cubbyhole. I didn’t even see him again until he let us out. He struck me as the kind of old man who liked to complain a lot but kept himself to himself.’

  Clement sighed. ‘I still don’t like it. For a start, it’s bound to get around that I was the coroner on the Abigail Trent case. And if her killer is connected to the pageant, he or she is bound to smell a rat.’

  Trudy had to admit that he had a point. Even though Robert Dunbar had promised to put it about that they needed another judge, and that Dr Ryder had always been on a shortlist as a city VIP, to an already alert and wary mind, that explanation might not sit well.

  ‘Even so, they wouldn’t have any reason to suspect me,’ Trudy pointed out stubbornly. ‘I’m just another girl in the parade, a hopeful, silly little girl, looking to wear a cheap-but-sparkly crown! Who’s going to think I represent any danger? In fact, it might work out to our advantage,’ she continued with renewed enthusiasm. ‘You could be the stalking horse, attracting all the killer’s attention, and whilst he or she is busy watching you, I can get on with things, unnoticed, in the background.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ Clement said dryly. ‘I’ll be sure not to drink or eat anything whilst I’m “judging”. Is it down this way that you live?’ he broke off to ask, not being particularly familiar with this area of town.

  ‘Yes. Next turn on the left.’ Trudy guided him to the front of her house – a semi-detached council house towards the end of a line of similar houses, and when he pulled the car to a halt, suddenly asked diffidently, ‘Do you want to come in? I’m sure my mum and dad would like to meet you. I’ve told them all about you. Unless…’ She suddenly looked unsure.

  After all, why would an important man like the coroner be interested in meeting her family?

  ‘I’d love to,’ Clement said smoothly, turning off the ignition. ‘One of these days, I’m going to have to get seatbelts fitted,’ he said, changing the subject smoothly so as to give Trudy a chance to cover her obvious confusion. ‘The amount of road traffic fatalities I have to deal with makes me shudder. There are just too many cars on the roads these days, and half the drivers don’t seem to know what they’re doing.’

  Trudy, barely listening to him, walked quickly to the front door and opened it. Her father never locked the doors until it was time for bed. As she went into the tiny front hall, she called out quickly. ‘Mum, Dad, visitor!’ to give them ample warning.

  She closed the door behind the coroner, took his hat and coat and hung them up on the wooden ‘tree’ that stood in the hall, then headed for the living room. As she did so, she heard the sound of the wireless being hastily switched off. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and walked in.

  Barbara Loveday rose from her favourite armchair by the fireplace, brushing down the skirt of her dress as she did so, whilst her husband rose from the sofa, looking surprised as he caught sight of Clement Ryder.

  Clearly, the older man perceived at once and with some amusement, they had been expecting Trudy to have brought home a ‘nice young man’ for them to meet. It made him suddenly realise how little he knew about his young friend’s private life.

  Presumably she was courting?

  ‘Mum, Dad, this is Dr Ryder. He’s the coroner I sometimes work with, the one I told you about,’ she added, for good measure.

  ‘Oh, Dr Ryder, I’m so pleased to meet you,’ Barbara said, holding out her hand and stepping forward. ‘Our Trudy’s been singing your praises for months now.’

  ‘Mum!’ Trudy blushed.

  Clement smiled charmingly, and Trudy was suddenly aware of how alien her friend looked in this environment. With his smart suit and distinguished air, he looked so out of place in the ordinariness of her home. Her dad was wearing an old pair of trousers with his shirt unbuttoned at cuffs and neck, but as he shook hands with Clement, Trudy felt curiously proud of him.

  He might only be a bus driver, shaking the hand of a social superior, but he was master of his own home and looked only friendly, hospitable and at ease. But then so too, she realised with something of a shock, did Clement Ryder.

  ‘Mrs Loveday, Mr Loveday, I’m pleased to meet you at last.’ He shook their hands in turn. ‘You must be very proud of your daughter. She’s certainly been of invaluable help to me this last year.’

  ‘Please, have a seat,’ her father said. ‘We were just about to put the kettle on, weren’t we Babs?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ her mother said at once. ‘Would you like tea or coffee, Dr Ryder?’

  ‘I’d love coffee if you have some. Milk, one sugar please.’

  Barbara smiled and quickly left for the kitchen. She would return, Trudy knew, with a tray containing the best china, a plate of biscuits, and some slices of whatever cake she had made that day.

  It was an unseasonably warm night, and the living-room window was slightly open. And just before either man could speak, there came the unmistakable sound of clucking.

  Trudy recognised it at once of course – it had been a familiar and comforting sound throughout her childhood. Part of the Loveday garden had always been devoted to chickens – a mix of Rhode Island Reds and Buff Orpingtons. During the war nearly everyone in their street had kept chickens, of course, but unlike a number of their neighbours, her father had carried on keeping them.

  ‘Is that a Buff Orpington?’ Clement amazed her by asking, his voice warm with approval. ‘I’ll bet they give you good eggs,’ he went on.

  Her father, sensing a fellow chicken-fancier, immediately agreed. And Trudy, feeling rather disconcerted, sat and listened whilst the coroner and her father debated the merits of keeping a bantam cockerel, as opposed to a bigger bird.

  Her mother came back with a laden tray, as prophesied, and Clement, with very clear and obviously genuine enjoyment, ate two slices of her Dundee cake and thus won her heart forever.

  A half-hour later, and from the front door step, her parents helped Trudy wave Dr Ryder off, and she was left wondering what she’d ever been so worried about. The three most important people in her life got on like a house on fire!

  ‘Now that’s what I call a proper gentleman,’ Barbara Loveday said, watching the coroner walk down the short garden path, her cheeks glowing. ‘A really nice man. It makes me feel a whole lot better knowing that you’re working with someone like that, our Trudy.’

  Trudy bit her lip. She could have told her mother that she actually worked for DI Harry Jennings who was very much a different proposition. But she was far too wise to do so.

  She knew her parents were still hoping that her choice of career was nothing but a passing fancy, and that she’d soon marry anyway, and cease working altogether. She understood why they worried about her, of course, so anything that made them feel happier about things was a definite bonus.

  For that reason, as she bid them goodnight and went to her room, she didn’t tell them about the beauty contest, or that she’d entered it. Not that she had really ‘entered’ it, of course, in the true and proper sense of the word. She wouldn’t be photographed by the official photographer, nor get her picture in the paper, nor yet be in the final public showing when it opened. This she had insisted upon when negotiating the terms of her undercover work with the Dunbars. And she certainly wouldn’t be appearing in any of the publicity opportunities arranged to advertise the competition. Her mother wouldn’t have kn
own where to put her face! And her dad would have put his foot down and ordered her to not set foot in the theatre at all.

  No, she would be very careful not to do anything that might embarrass either her parents or DI Jennings.

  Thinking of her superior officer, she couldn’t help but wonder, with some trepidation, just how he’d take the news that one of his most junior officers was now working undercover at the theatre. Although she had perfect confidence that Clement Ryder could, as he’d promised, ‘handle’ the DI, she also knew that she would be in for some teasing back at the station.

  Oh well. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been the butt of the station jokes. Besides, it might be worth it just to try on some of the sumptuous gowns that Grace had told her about. Gowns that the likes of Bridget Bardot, Doris Day and Audrey Hepburn might wear. Or even Elizabeth Taylor!

  Of course, she knew the dress shops of Oxford and the wardrobe mistress of the Old Swan Theatre couldn’t actually run to the real thing – the genuine St Laurent, Chanel, Dior, or Balmain creations that such luminaries would take for granted. Nor would their hair be done up like…

  Suddenly Trudy’s thoughts ground to a halt, and she clapped a hand over her mouth, as her eyes widened with horror.

  For thinking of actresses and performers made her suddenly realise that, in order to blend in and act like a real beauty pageant contestant, she’d have to do a ‘talent’ spot at the rehearsals, along with everyone else.

  And as she’d told Mr Robert Dunbar, she could neither sing nor dance!

  What on earth was she going to do?

  * * *

  Clement Ryder poured himself a weak whisky and soda and slumped gratefully into his chair. It had been good to meet Trudy’s parents at last. They played such a large part in her life still. And since they’d done such an excellent job of raising her, he’d been sure that he’d like them, and he had. Very much. Indeed, Barbara Loveday reminded him of his favourite aunt, a warm-hearted woman he used to visit as a child and who insisted on baking him scrumptious cakes. And Trudy’s father was very much a man who was happy in his own skin and his lot in life. Which was a trait that seemed to be getting rarer and rarer these days.