A Fatal Truth

by Faith Martin

  Sometimes Trudy worried about Dr Ryder when he showed these occasional signs of stress or tiredness. She knew that if something were ever to happen to her mentor, she’d be stuck doing nothing more than routine office duties back at the station – the only way she could ever hope to continue to investigate proper, interesting cases was with this man by her side. And yet, how selfish was that? Guiltily, she wondered if it was possible that she kept telling herself that everything was all right purely because she didn’t want anything to be wrong? And yet, Dr Ryder was an experienced medical doctor – he’d spent years working as a world-class surgeon for heaven’s sake! Surely, if he were really ill, he’d know about it? And she’d never seen anything that really worried her, had she? He’d never seemed to be in pain, or even look ill, for that matter. No, she had to be right in thinking that he just sometimes got tired, that was all.

  ‘This has to put Mr Matthew Hughes at the top of our suspect list, doesn’t it?’ she said, eager to start discussing possibilities with him.

  ‘It certainly makes him a person of interest,’ Clement agreed, a little more calmly. ‘But don’t forget, everyone but Caroline benefited in some way. Even his sister Mary got a twenty-thousand-pound inheritance. And a pension for life is nothing for Godfrey to sneeze at, nor are the deeds outright to a large house in Headington for Alice. As well as trust funds for all his male grandchildren.’

  ‘Yes, but a million pounds,’ Trudy breathed.

  ‘Would you kill your father for a million pounds?’ Clement asked, and suddenly Trudy felt herself come down to earth with a bump.

  ‘No, of course I wouldn’t,’ she said with a sigh. ‘You’re right. I mustn’t jump to conclusions.’

  But even as her mentor drove through the darkening afternoon and dropped her off outside the police station, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of real excitement.

  For the first time since being given the assignment, she was beginning to really feel as if there might be something in the newspaper’s muckraking after all. Perhaps there was more to Thomas Hughes’s death than a bizarre accident. And if he had been killed, then his murderer must, by now, be quite confident that they’d got away with it.

  But he or she hadn’t counted on herself and Dr Ryder, she thought with inner satisfaction. They simply wouldn’t stop until they’d tracked the killer down.

  What’s more, she realised with a rush of happiness and pride, she wasn’t scared or worried at that prospect at all!

  Chapter 13

  The next morning, Duncan Gillingham walked slowly down Broad Street, always keeping his quarry in sight, but taking care to mingle and blend in with the usual mix of shoppers, students and tourists that perpetually clogged the city streets. It simply wouldn’t do for him to be spotted and challenged. Not now that the game and the stakes were getting so interesting.

  Ever since the police had reluctantly confirmed that they were now ‘looking into’ the Thomas Hughes affair, his stock was riding (temporarily at least) high at the paper, and he was determined to make the most of it whilst it lasted.

  Especially when it gave him such a heaven-sent opportunity to earn both brownie points at work, whilst at the same time giving him the perfect excuse to pursue his own, private vendetta.

  Of course, Sir Basil Fletcher wasn’t his greatest fan, but at least he could console himself with the fact that that had nothing whatsoever to do with his writing ability. As he walked, Duncan couldn’t help but grin. Sometimes, watching the old man try to hide his chagrin could be really entertaining – especially when he was forced to accept Duncan into his home as a guest. Of course, all he really wanted to do was throw him out on his ear and keep him firmly in his place. Which was very low down on the totem pole.

  At least the actual editor of the Tribune, Bill Niven, was a newspaperman through and through, and the paper’s owner had enough confidence in Bill to let him have his head. Bill knew a good story when he saw it – and was willing to back both his hunches, and (to a certain extent) those of his reporters. Especially when they promised him even bigger headlines to come.

  Of course, Bill might not be quite so happy with Duncan if he knew that he was skiving off his latest assignment to cover a story at City Hall in order to pursue his own goals instead. But he was confident that he didn’t actually need to attend the council meeting where a contentious proposal was struggling to get through in order to write a good piece. Besides, if he missed anything juicy he could always pick up on it at the pub later, where his fellow journalists always retired for a bevy and a gossip.

  Right now, he had far better things to do with his time than actually do his job. Like keeping his eye on one particular member of the Hughes family.

  Of course, Duncan couldn’t be totally sure that Thomas Hughes’s death hadn’t been accidental, in spite of the promises he’d made to Bill that he was on to something there. But knowing what he did about the personality of one of the people at the centre of the mystery, it seemed extremely likely to him that the man’s death was suspicious. But he could hardly rely on the police finding the evidence and securing a conviction with so little to go on. No, it was up to him to find that proof, and right now, he was the only one who knew where to look for it.

  The person he was following suddenly paused and started to turn around. Without breaking stride, Duncan quickly side-stepped into the shop nearest to him – a newsagent’s, as it happened. Instantly he was enveloped in slightly warmer air and the smell of tobacco and humbugs. His quarry had clearly thought of something they urgently needed in the post office next door to the shop, so whilst he was waiting to resume his surveillance, Duncan sauntered to the counter and ordered some cigarettes. He favoured the unfiltered woodbines over Players No6 or Benson & Hedges. Whilst he was there, he also bought a tin of pipe tobacco for his father, and a box of chocolates for his girlfriend, then remembered to neatly fold away the green shield stamps that came with his change. His mother was saving up for a set of cutlery she had her eye on for Christmas, and was constantly pestering her offspring for the damned things.

  Not that he would have to worry about such penny-pinching himself for much longer. Not once he married Sir Basil Fletcher’s only child, Glenda.

  Lingering in the shop doorway until his quarry re-emerged form the post office, Duncan lit a cigarette and smoked thoughtfully.

  Glenda was a nice enough looking girl, not too bright but with a good heart, and he had an engagement ring all picked out. He needed only a few more months of saving his salary before he could afford to buy it, and was confident that she would accept his proposal when he popped the question. It was clear to everyone that she was mad about him. Just as it was equally plain that her father was not.

  Oh well, Duncan thought, with another grin. Too bad the old man thought his precious only child could do much better for herself than marry one of his junior reporters. Mind you, Duncan could sort of see Sir Basil’s point of view. It wasn’t even as if he was even lower middle-class. His father had worked on the Morris Minor production line for years– something that no doubt gave Sir Basil nightmares.

  But Glenda, bless her heart, didn’t care. From the moment they’d met at the Tribune’s Christmas party last year, the writing had been on the wall. Glenda had noticed the young, handsome and well-built man with thick black hair and intriguing green eyes at once. And Duncan had made sure that he was introduced to the Tribune heiress.

  And he hadn’t looked back since. The courtship had been straightforward enough in spite of the obvious pitfalls presented by her father’s mostly silent but palpable disapproval. But as if to make up for that, Glenda and his own parents – slightly to everyone’s surprise – had got on like a house on fire. Although the daughter of the peer had attended Cheltenham Ladies’ College and then a Swiss finishing school, Glenda was no snob. She didn’t care that he had grown up in a council house in Cowley, or that he now resided on a narrowboat on the Oxford canal in the less than reputable area of Jericho. In fact
, Duncan suspected she found the whole thing rather ‘romantic’.

  Of course, having grown up with no money, Duncan saw nothing ‘romantic’ at all about living on a cramped boat, and couldn’t wait for the time when he was able to move into some nice flat somewhere. Perhaps in the prestigious north of the city – in one of those whitewashed mansions on Woodstock Road maybe. For he had no doubt that Sir Basil wouldn’t be able to bear it to see his princess slumming it, and would cough up with a desirable residence of some description once marriage had made Duncan officially his son-in-law. Perhaps he’d even stretch to a cottage in Osney Mead?

  His pleasant daydreaming was quickly cut off as a familiar figure stepped out of the post office and back into the dark, damp, cold November morning.

  Duncan, his green eyes narrowing in enmity, doggedly took up his pursuit. He had no real hopes that anything would come of his surveillance, but you simply never knew. All he needed was one small thread to pull on, one juicy secret to uncover, one sniff of corruption or scandal, and he wouldn’t hesitate to spread the news of it across the banner of the Tribune.

  Duncan knew that he couldn’t rely solely on his ploy of setting the plod into looking into Thomas Hughes’s hideous death to pay the dividends that he craved. Especially if, despite his personal belief that it was murder, the incident turned out to have been a freak accident after all. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t be turned to his advantage, if he was careful and played his cards right.

  He’d have to find out which flatfoot was handling the investigation, instigate a meeting and then make sure that he nudged him in the right direction. A few helpful hints, a bit of friendly manipulation over a pint or two at the Eagle & Child, and who knew what might be achieved? He’d discovered early on in his childhood that he had the knack of making people like him; winning friends and influencing people had never been a problem for him.

  But whilst it was sweet to think of a certain someone actually being arrested for the murder of Hughes (and all the shock, pain, and fear that would generate) Duncan was a realist, and knew that the odds of it happening were low at best. No, ensuring that his quarry became a ‘person of interest’ to the police had always been just one more step in his war of attrition – just one more way of piling on the pressure, and making life in general difficult and miserable.

  But if he was to get the revenge he craved, he needed a back-up plan. Any plan would do. So long as he could get his payback, he wasn’t fussy. Which meant watching and waiting for his opportunity. Sooner or later something would crop up and then he wouldn’t hesitate to go straight for the jugular.

  Chapter 14

  Whilst the reporter pursued his vendetta downtown, Alice Wilcox anxiously set about making the lounge in her Headington home as welcoming as possible. Mrs Greaves had come in an hour earlier than her usual time and had ‘obliged’ by vacuuming and dusting everywhere, and now Alice set about arranging the bronze chrysanthemums she’d bought that morning into a large glass vase, and setting it in the centre of the coffee table.

  In another hour, the solicitor, that nice Mr Bough, would be coming over to read the will, and she felt a shiver of excitement lance through her. No doubt Godfrey, Matthew and his family, and Auntie Mary would all start to arrive within the next half an hour or so, and she wanted the place to look nice. Caroline had refused to come.

  She paced a little, walking to the window every now and then, anxiously looking out to see if Kenneth had come back from the shop. She wished he hadn’t insisted on going in. It hardly seemed worth it, when the solicitor was due to arrive at ten-thirty.

  She paced, straightened up an undistinguished landscape painting that hung on one wall and made sure that all the antimacassars were straight on the backs of the chairs and sofa.

  She felt unbearably nervous. It was one thing to know what her father had said was in his will. But her father was a born liar.

  At the police station, Trudy got on with her usual duties, but was also impatiently watching the clock. Dr Ryder was meeting his old colleague for lunch in order to learn the facts about Mildred Hughes’s final illness, but after that, they were going to interview Godfrey and perhaps Matthew Hughes, time permitting. The minutes seemed to be dragging. More than once she felt the sharp edge of Sergeant O’Grady’s tongue for not paying attention to the ringing telephone.

  But she found it hard to concentrate on typing up shoplifting reports. Round about now, for instance, the Hughes family would be learning about the terms of their father’s will and she couldn’t wait to find out how the two men especially had taken the news. One, that he was now worth a fortune free and clear, with money to spend whenever and however he wished; the other that, although he could rely on a pension, it would be meted out to him in a set amount for the rest of his life by executors bound to follow his father’s strict orders.

  Catching PC Rodney Broadstairs grinning at her cheekily, she reluctantly dragged her mind back to her typewriter, and her witness statement from a woman who’d had her handbag snatched by a young hooligan in New Inn Hall Street.

  Then her mind was back in Headington again. How would Alice feel about only inheriting the house? Would Caroline really not care that she hadn’t even been mentioned …?

  An hour and a half later, Dr Ryder signed the last of the letters in his ‘In’ tray, and sat back with a sigh. His fingers and wrist hurt slightly and he rubbed them impatiently, looking down at his digits with a scowl. It was probably just the usual writer’s cramp – or maybe even a touch of arthritis.

  But any weakness in his hands and feet worried him.

  He reached into the bottom right-hand side drawer of his desk and withdrew a tube of strong mints. He popped one into his mouth and began to suck it, the gesture all but automatic now. Halitosis was one of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and it had become second nature to him to consume a breath mint whenever he was due to socialise.

  He was looking forward to seeing his old friend, and was interested in learning more about Mildred Hughes’s case. Like all doctors, he found rare conditions fascinating.

  But he was very much aware that his old friend was still a practising physician, and would have a doctor’s sharp eye, so he knew he would have to be careful during lunch. It was one thing to keep his condition a secret from laymen. Hiding his symptoms from someone who had no medical knowledge or experience was relatively easy. But it would be a different story when it came to his former colleagues.

  With a grim smile, he reached for his favourite Trilby hat, shuffled into his raincoat, cheerfully informed his secretary that he would be out for most of the rest of the day and stepped outside to walk the short way to the pub in the High Street.

  Fortunately it wasn’t raining, but the streets were still damp from an earlier downpour and once or twice he felt his feet slide on the sleek pavement.

  He told himself it meant nothing, yet he had to concentrate on making sure he lifted his feet with every step. Shuffling was another dead giveaway of his condition.

  Chapter 15

  ‘So Caroline was right,’ Trudy said in disgust, a few hours later, as she and the coroner made their way to Godfrey Hughes’s flat in Clement’s trusty Rover.

  ‘Basically,’ the coroner confirmed. ‘According to James, Mildred Hughes might well have had a longer life expectancy had she gone to the United States for the experimental treatment. Mind you, it couldn’t have been guaranteed,’ Clement warned her, changing gear to pass a coal lorry that was trundling along well below the speed limit. ‘The thing about experimental trials is that nobody can predict them. What’s more, some patients will always respond better to treatments than others.’

  ‘But if she’d been your patient, would you have recommended the treatment?’ Trudy asked curiously.

  ‘Oh yes. The potential benefits far outweighed any negatives, as far as I could tell. Mind you, I was a surgeon, not a blood specialist,’ Clement temporised.

  ‘And her doctors did explain all this to
the family?’ Trudy pressed.

  ‘Yes, according to James.’

  ‘But she didn’t go? To America, I mean?’

  ‘No,’ Clement said.

  Trudy shifted a little in the seat to look at him more closely. ‘Did your friend seem surprised by that? I mean, given the circumstances, and knowing that the family could afford the treatment and travel, he must have expected that they’d opt to go to America.’

  Clement sighed heavily. ‘I know. And once I’d got a few glasses of claret down him, James did become rather more communicative. Basically, he confirmed Caroline’s account of things. Over time, it became clear to him that Thomas Hughes was the driving force in the family, and that what he said was law. And his opinion of Mrs Hughes was that she was a placid, rather worn-down lady, who was used to going along with her husband’s wishes.’

  ‘Yes, but surely not to the extent that she wouldn’t put up a fight to have the best medical care!’ Trudy protested hotly.

  Clement smiled sadly. In his many years of medical experience, he’d treated patients with all sorts of problems – both physical and mental. So it wasn’t hard for him to picture a woman too browbeaten to stick up for herself.

  ‘Don’t forget, she was ill, Trudy,’ he tried to explain gently. ‘Seriously ill people often get tired. Too tired to cope with added pressure. They lose concentration. They become depressed and uncaring. And yes, even too uncaring, sometimes, to care whether or not they live or die.’

  He indicated into the road where Godfrey Hughes kept his modest flat, and started looking for a parking space. ‘James got the impression that, towards the end of her illness, Mrs Hughes had simply had enough. That she didn’t want any more treatments, any more needles, any more medicines that made her feel sick and giddy and even more ill. She just wanted to stay at home quietly and to die in peace. At least, that was what she told him.’