A Fatal Truth

by Faith Martin

‘I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this, Mr Hughes,’ Trudy heard herself saying sympathetically. ‘We’ll try not to be long. But as I’m sure you can appreciate, whenever allegations are made of a serious nature, we have to follow them up.’

  Matthew listened patiently, and at the end of her set speech, smiled briefly. ‘Even if these allegations come from some muck-raking reporter out to make a name for himself at our expense, and sell a few more copies of his awful rag?’

  ‘You don’t think there’s any truth in his innuendoes then, sir?’ Trudy said, deciding on the spur of the moment to take the bull by the horns. So far they’d been going about this case all softly-softly, and she was curious what would happen if she put a little bite into things. ‘There does seem to be some truth in the Tribune’s claims that your father was not universally liked, sir,’ she pointed out. ‘I’ve done some research on some of your father’s less … shall we say, conventional businesses, and it does seem to me that he caused many people to lose considerable amounts of money.’

  Matthew winced a little at this, but made no move to come to his late father’s defence. Which didn’t surprise either Trudy or Clement, for surely his family could have had no illusions about him.

  As if to confirm that, the dead man’s youngest son shifted slightly on his seat, and said quietly, ‘I was never in business with my father. As a consequence, I can’t really comment, can I?’ He spread his hands wearily, in a gesture that reminded Trudy of someone.

  ‘Why was that, sir?’ she asked. ‘I’ve just spoken to your older brother Godfrey, and I can see why he preferred not to join the family concern—’ she saw Matthew smile slightly at this ‘—but you yourself are in retail.’ She indicated the office around them. ‘So why not join Hughes Enterprises?’

  Trudy was really interested in his answer, because if this man had been more estranged from his father – and for a long period of time before his death – then they needed to know about it.

  Matthew drew in a long, slow, breath. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, and Clement was sure he was contemplating what lie to tell them. Then he seemed to change his mind and he deflated slightly, letting out a heavy sigh. ‘Let’s just say, even as an eighteen-year-old, I knew that working for my father would be hellish, and leave it at that. And no, before you ask, I never regretted that decision. My position here may not be as spectacular as one I could have expected if I’d joined my father’s firm, but it pays well enough for our needs.’

  ‘He must have been disappointed, though?’ Trudy pressed him. ‘With Alice married, and Caroline estranged from him, and Godfrey … well, going into the scholastic profession,’ she said diplomatically, ‘he must have been relying on you to toe the family line?’

  Matthew shrugged. ‘Father got used to his children disappointing him, Constable. We know, because he often told us so. He said, for instance, that I had no gumption working my way up the hierarchy here, whereas if I’d joined him, I could be a top-flight executive by now. But he totally failed to understand why I didn’t want the sort of high-pressure job that working at Hughes Enterprises would have entailed. Nor could he ever appreciate why spending time with my wife and children instead of working day and night making money, appealed to me. It was certainly not a factor that had ever concerned him,’ Matthew added.

  Trudy nodded. ‘I don’t mean to sound offensive, Mr Hughes, but I’ve spoken to most members of your immediate family now, and it seems to me that none of them were, well, close to your father. Would you say that’s fair?’

  ‘Very,’ Matthew said with another brief smile.

  ‘Caroline blames him for your mother’s death. Did you?’ Trudy tried next.

  ‘Without doubt,’ Matthew said. ‘Father treated her abominably.’

  ‘Did she want to go to America for the specialist treatment?’ Trudy asked. ‘Only there’s been some conflicting testimony about that. Her doctors seemed to think that she wasn’t that keen.’

  Matthew turned to look out the window, clearly not seeing the grey and dull view, but something else entirely. ‘My mother lost heart,’ he finally said. ‘And died. In the end, I think it was a relief for her. Does that answer your question?’ he asked harshly.

  Now it was Trudy’s turn to wince. She’d obviously caused him pain, which instinctively made her want to cringe. On the other hand, she knew she couldn’t let things rest.

  ‘I understand from Mr Bough that the family has just heard your father’s will being read?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, a shade warily, and shifted his gaze to her once more.

  Trudy wasn’t surprised by his sudden interest. After all, his inheritance and what it would mean to become a wealthy man must have been pushed to the forefront of his mind. But that was only human and didn’t necessarily mean that he was any more money-grubbing or avaricious than anyone else. But it would be interesting to find out, Trudy mused cannily, just how much he coveted his father’s fortune.

  ‘And I understand that you were the main beneficiary?’ she asked, careful to keep her tone neutral.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you surprised?’ Trudy asked, expecting another short, one-syllable answer. Instead, the youngest son of the dead man shifted a little on his seat again then gave another of his slightly ironic smiles.

  ‘Yes and no. Yes, I supposed I was the obvious one he’d choose. The girls were both out – Alice because she was married, and the old man expected her husband to provide for her, and Caroline because she’d had the nerve to stand up to him and show her contempt. And Godfrey … well, let’s face it, I’m sure we can all understand why Father would never have let Godfrey get his hands on the family money. Which only left me. And yet …’

  He paused, sighed and turned again to stare out of the window. ‘I wouldn’t have been at all surprised, when the will was read, if he’d left me nothing at all, either.’

  He was quiet for so long, a small frown tugging at his brows, that Trudy was forced to prompt him once more. ‘Why was that, sir?’

  ‘Hmmm?’ He turned to face them, then spread his hands in a gesture that once more reminded Trudy of someone else. ‘It’s just that I don’t want you running away with the feeling that I was his favourite. I can assure you that I wasn’t. I argued with him as much as any other of my brothers and sisters. Well, Caroline excepted of course. Once or twice … Oh, never mind.’

  Trudy wanted to push him further, since she could guess what he’d been about to say. Namely that once or twice, Caroline Hughes’s intense hatred for her father had probably boiled over into a real shouting match. Maybe even became physically violent? But she sensed that this man wasn’t the sort to ‘rat’ on his siblings.

  ‘Can you tell me what you argued about?’ Trudy asked instead.

  But Matthew only drew in another deep breath. ‘Oh, what couldn’t we argue about? You have to understand, Constable, my father could make a saint want to spit. He could argue about “art” with Godfrey until they were both red in the face. He could interfere with Alice’s running of the household, or the way she was raising her children, or the price of her grocery bill or any damned thing you’d care to mention, and practically reduce her to tears. And it was the same with me. Why hadn’t I been promoted for over two years? Why did I go on holiday instead of buckling down, why did I wear a black suit instead of a grey one, or a blue one? He could find fault with anything and everything.’ Matthew broke off and laughed. ‘Father expected the world to shape itself to accommodate him, rather than the other way around. There was really no dealing with the man in any sensible way.’

  Trudy nodded. ‘It must have been very trying for you sir. Did you see your father go into the shed on November the 5th?’ She abruptly changed tactics.

  And for a moment it worked, because her witness looked taken aback and clearly had to mentally readjust his attitude. Unfortunately, his version of events that night matched pretty much with what everyone else had already told them.

  When he’d finishe
d he smiled, and said, ‘Is there anything else?’

  To which, Trudy of course, could only say, ‘No thank you, sir, I think that will be all for the present. Thank you for your time.’

  Matthew watched them rise and leave. His eyes were thoughtful. He thought it odd that the coroner, who had overseen his father’s inquest, had not so much as uttered a word throughout the interview.

  Chapter 18

  Outside, Trudy glanced at her watch, saw that it was nearly lunchtime, and that she had some time yet before she had to get back to the station and do some ‘proper police work’ as DI Jennings sarcastically called it.

  ‘So what did you make of him?’ she asked, as they made their way down the narrow lane back to the car. ‘You were very quiet in there.’

  ‘Hmmm. I was busy watching him – besides, you were doing fine without any input from me,’ he told her truthfully.

  ‘And what did you observe?’ Trudy asked curiously.

  ‘I thought he looked tired. And it was not just that he was pale and had bags under his eyes. His whole manner seemed ineffably weary somehow,’ Clement said. ‘As if everything was too much of an effort. He couldn’t even get angry, could he?’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Trudy mused. ‘I did wonder, at first, if he might be the only one of the family to actually care that his father was dead.’ Trudy paused. ‘But the more we talked, the more it became obvious that he wasn’t. So what did you think about his story?’

  Clement shrugged. ‘It’s hard to say. He seemed honest and straightforward enough.

  ‘I agree. I think, if it wasn’t an accident, then we definitely have to look at the family. So shall we go and see Alice now? She’s the only one we haven’t interviewed.’

  They had arrived back at the car, and Trudy waited whilst Clement searched his pockets for his car keys. He found them, then in trying to isolate the ignition key from the door key, fumbled with the set and dropped them. He gave a mild curse before bending down and picking them up from the pavement.

  Trudy, as always whenever she noticed his unusual clumsiness, pretended not to notice. If she believed that drinking caused his lack of co-ordination, she’d probably have been more concerned – not least because he was nearly always driving. But she’d never smelled alcohol on him, and she was confident that, by now, she could tell when a man was stone-cold sober and when he wasn’t. Far more likely, his occasional frailties were due to his increasing age. And it didn’t seem very polite or politic (not to mention nice) to make any comment on what was bound to be a touchy subject. Like most men ‘of a certain age’ she was sure that, in his own mind, Dr Clement Ryder was still as fit and active as he’d been twenty years ago!

  No, turning a blind eye and pretending ignorance seemed by far the best option.

  ‘There are others that I think we should interview first,’ he said quickly as he opened the door. ‘Witnesses who are usually more sharp-eyed and intelligent than most people think, but are often overlooked,’ he added, slipping in behind the steering wheel.

  He reached across to open the passenger door, hoping Trudy wouldn’t think anything of the dropped keys. But he was aware of a slight tremor in his hand as he pressed down on the door lever.

  For a moment Trudy didn’t know what he was talking about, but by the time she had climbed in and shut the door, she’d worked it out. ‘You mean the children who were at the bonfire party?’

  ‘Yes. I think we should talk to some of them. Gently, mind, and with their mothers present. But kids are often more resilient than we give them credit for, and as I’ve said, can be quite observant.’

  He didn’t want to start the car just yet, not until he’d felt the momentary weakness in his hands fade, so he needed to keep his companion talking. ‘Have you noticed how vague everyone has been about who did what?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Trudy said at once. ‘Perhaps it was Kenneth who suggested the paraffin, or maybe it was Godfrey? It might have been Aunt Mary who did this, or perhaps it was Alice.’ Trudy mimicked the way her witnesses had answered her questions, her exasperation obvious. ‘It would be nice to get some straightforward, no-nonsense answers to questions, wouldn’t it? So do we start with Alice and Kenneth Wilcox’s children?’

  Clement unobtrusively rubbed his hands against his thigh. ‘Well, we can talk to them when we go and see her. First, let’s call around on Matthew’s children. They’ll be coming home from school around now.’

  ‘All right,’ Trudy agreed.

  Cautiously, Clement raised the keys to the ignition, and was relieved when he managed to slide the right key home without any further ineptitude.

  The rain having begun again, he switched on both his headlights and his windscreen wipers, and carefully pulled away.

  Chapter 19

  Matthew and his wife Joan lived in a nice but modest semi-detached house on the outskirts of Osney Mead. Like his Aunt Mary, the house where he lived had a view of water meadows, but there any similarity ended. The house had been built just after the war, and had none of the olde-worlde charm of Mary Everly’s nineteenth-century country cottage in Wolvercote.

  Grey, pebble-dashed, with a modern garage and shed built on, it looked like what it was: a functional, well-built but unspectacular house, built in a cul-de-sac of fourteen similarly semi-detached houses.

  ‘Number twelve, I think it is,’ Trudy muttered, taking a quick peek into her notebook to be sure. ‘No, number nine,’ she corrected herself, then looked around and pointed. ‘That one.’

  Trudy and Clement dashed through the rain together up the short garden path, and were glad to take shelter under the generous porch roof.

  Joan Hughes answered the doorbell’s summons quickly. She was a short, pretty woman, with a lot of curly fair hair and pale blue eyes. She looked flustered at the sight of Trudy’s uniform, and listened with a distracted air as Trudy introduced herself and Clement and explained their mission.

  ‘You’ve just spoken to my husband, you say?’ she asked, looking up and down the street nervously, as if expecting her neighbours to be watching, and wondering about a visit from the police. In spite of that, she made no immediate move to invite them in.

  ‘That’s right. We just wanted to get your version of what happened the night your father-in-law died,’ Trudy said, with a gentle smile.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure,’ Joan said, shifting uneasily from foot to foot.

  ‘We won’t take much time, Mrs Hughes,’ Trudy pressed. Of course, if the woman refused to admit them to her house or speak to them, they’d have no choice but to walk away. But this was the first time she’d encountered any real resistance from the dead man’s family, and it made her feel curious.

  Beside her, she could sense Clement was intrigued too.

  ‘Oh, all right then, you’d better come in,’ Joan reluctantly agreed, moving back to allow them into the hall. ‘Please, go into the lounge, second on the left. I just have to pop upstairs to see to Helen, my littlest. She’s not well.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Trudy said, beginning to feel a little foolish. Here she’d been, imagining all sorts of suspicious reasons why the woman didn’t want to talk to them, and all the time she was worried only about her sick child. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

  ‘My other two are already in the lounge, playing, I’m afraid. I’m about to give them their lunch before they go back to school. If they start to get a bit boisterous, or if they make a nuisance of themselves, just tell them to be quiet. I’ll be back down in a jiffy,’ the harried blonde woman said, and quickly began to climb the staircase.

  Once she was out of sight, Clement whispered, ‘This couldn’t be better. We get to chat to the children without “Mum” there to make them mind their manners.’

  Trudy grinned. She knew from her research that the youngest child was only four years old, and therefore no use as a potential witness, but that the eldest, a boy called Benjamin was nine years old, and his middle sister, Clarissa, was seven.

  When
they walked into the lounge, both children were lying on the floor, doing a jigsaw puzzle. The boy was going to be tall and thin like his father, and the girl, who had mass of honey-gold ringlets, was just as obviously going to be as pretty as her mother.

  Both of them looked up at the unexpected entrance of strangers, and stared at Trudy in particular in amazement. ‘Gosh, are you a policeman?’ the little girl asked shyly.

  ‘Yes,’ Trudy said, knowing what she meant, and not taking offence at her implied change in gender. ‘And you must be Clarissa? And this is your brother, Benjamin?’

  ‘Benny,’ the boy corrected her at once, sitting up and forward so that he was resting on his bent knees. ‘Who are you? Have you come to arrest me?’ he demanded self-importantly.

  ‘Why, what have you been up to?’ Trudy shot back, but with such a wide grin that the lad promptly relaxed.

  ‘Hah, nothing! So you can’t then!’ The boy then looked at Clement, and clearly felt impressed by what he saw. ‘Who are you then, sir?’ he asked much more politely, but clearly intent on discovering this stranger’s bona fides. In the absence of his father, his manner clearly said, he was the man of the house and should be taken seriously.

  ‘I’m Dr Ryder. I’m a city coroner. Do you know what that means?’ Clement looked around the pleasant, beige-coloured room, his eyes settling on some chairs upholstered in a nubby-textured, taupe three-piece suite. ‘Do you mind if we sit down?’

  ‘Of course you can,’ Benny said magnanimously. Clement smiled his thanks, selecting one of the armchairs for himself, whilst Trudy opted for the other. On a pine coffee table in front of them was a scattered selection of women’s magazines and an open biscuit tin with a picture of the Queen on it.

  ‘That’s a grand picture of a dragon,’ Trudy said, seeing that the picture on the puzzle the children were working on represented St George fighting a dragon.

  ‘Not bad,’ Benjamin agreed, whilst his sister, still lying supine on the floor, seemed content to simply watch and listen with a slightly open mouth and say nothing. But Trudy suspected this might change once her shyness abated.