A Fatal Truth

by Faith Martin

  ‘So, how’s the new job?’ he asked. His sister had re-trained as a hairdresser recently and now worked part-time at a local salon. With her good looks and long black hair as a free advertisement, she was an asset to the shop, and all concerned knew it.

  She shrugged listlessly. ‘Fine. The pay’s good.’

  Duncan nodded, but he was watching her closely. She’d put a little much-needed weight back in the last few months, and some of the deep shadows around her eyes had gone. Either that, or she was wearing make-up.

  ‘You feeling better nowadays?’ he asked tentatively.

  His sister, who’d been staring absently out of the window, shifted her gaze to him for a moment, then returned to her perusal of the housing on the other side of the street. Her face, Duncan realised with a pang, was totally expressionless.

  ‘I’m fine. Like I was last week and the week before when you asked,’ Lily said flatly. ‘I wish you’d stop worrying about me.’

  Duncan nodded, but it was meaningless. Of course he was worried about her. And of course she wasn’t fine. How could she be?

  He wanted to ask her if she’d been to a doctor recently – a proper doctor – and if she had, had she allowed him to examine her thoroughly. Just to see make sure that there had been no complications from … from what had happened.

  But he knew he couldn’t do that. It would only embarrass her and make her angry. Or cry.

  ‘Seen the papers lately?’ he said instead, turning to look casually out of the window himself now.

  ‘We always have the Tribune now, you know that,’ Lily said, by way of answer.

  Duncan nodded. He knew, of course, that his parents read every article he ever wrote. In fact, he was sure his mother cut them out and kept them in a scrapbook. By the street’s standards, he was a success story, and they never let anyone forget it. What they’d do when he finally told them he was engaged to the daughter of Sir Basil Fletcher, he didn’t know. For some reason, he was holding that back until he and Glenda made it official, with an engagement party somewhere swanky. The Randolph, maybe.

  ‘So you know about this Thomas Hughes bloke dying then?’ Duncan carried on carefully. ‘You know who he was, right?’ he added blandly.

  Lily shifted slightly on the edge of the bed and transferred her gaze to the slippers on her feet. ‘Yeah, I know who he was,’ she said quietly.

  Duncan nodded. For a few moments, the room was totally silent. Then he said, ‘I’m going to go the office now and write the next article for the evening edition. The police are investigating the family properly now. I’ve been speaking to the one they put in charge. You wouldn’t believe it, but it’s a woman, and she’s younger than you! What do you think of that?’

  Lily slowly flexed one foot and shrugged. ‘Good for her,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘I’m going to point her in the right direction, sis, I promise,’ Duncan said softly.

  Lily shrugged one shoulder.

  For another minute there was silence again. Then Duncan sighed. ‘I told you I’d get him, Lil. And I will. I swear.’

  Suddenly he saw her shoulders go tight and tense, and her chin shot up as she looked at him with the first sign of real emotion he’d seen in her since she’d had to kill the baby that had been growing inside her. ‘Dunc.’ She used the abbreviation of his first name without thinking, a throw-over from their childhood days. ‘You haven’t done anything stupid, have you?’ she asked urgently. Her voice was tense, and her wide blue eyes were bright with alarm.

  ‘Of course not,’ Duncan denied firmly. ‘You know me, sis. I’m never stupid.’

  For a few moments, brother and sister stared silently at one another, then Lily’s shoulders relaxed, and she returned her gaze to the window. ‘Just be careful, Duncan, that’s all,’ she finally said.

  ‘Always,’ Duncan promised. He got up, kissed the top of her head lightly, and walked downstairs, his heart heavy and thumping sickeningly in his chest. He wanted his young, carefree, happy and innocent sister back. But he knew she was gone forever.

  ‘Just off, Mum. Got an article to write,’ he called through the empty hallway.

  ‘OK son, come by again soon,’ the answer echoed from the kitchen.

  Duncan walked back down the garden path, knowing his sister’s eyes were on his back. He didn’t turn around to look up however, but got in the car and turned the ignition.

  He caught his reflection in the driving mirror, and the man reflected back at him looked perfectly calm. Only on the inside was he aware of a cold, relentless rage.

  Most of his anger, he knew, was aimed at himself. He should have looked out for Lily better. But after he’d left home, it was inevitable that he wouldn’t see quite so much of her, and thus wouldn’t know what was happening in her life.

  He’d simply had no idea how bad things were until it was too late. Until, one night, when he’d received that frantic phone call from her and he’d met her in their local churchyard. It was there, amongst the tombstones that she’d confessed to him that she’d gone to a back-street abortionist. That, after a few days, she was still bleeding a little. That she felt so unwell. That she was getting scared. And, most of all, that she was adamant that no one else could know.

  Going to their regular doctor was out of the question.

  So he’d asked around in places where people would know about such things, and had found out about the ‘Friday clinics’. Some hospitals had decided to open a Friday clinic – Friday being pay day – in order to treat women who were either septic or bleeding. He’d paid for her treatment, of course.

  And physically she’d healed. But there was still no sign of life behind her eyes.

  As he finally drove away from the house, Duncan renewed his promise to himself that Kenneth Wilcox was going to pay for what he’d done to Lily. One way or another.

  Chapter 27

  Kenneth Wilcox looked surprised to find the WPC and coroner returning to his shop, but he hid his impatience well as he invited them into his office and asked them to sit down. His secretary, hovering uncertainly in the doorway, waited for instructions, but Kenneth was in no mood to offer them hospitality. If they wanted a cup of tea they could go to a café. He dismissed the pretty blonde girl with a simple nod and smile and then turned his attention to his unwanted visitors.

  ‘So, has anything new turned up in your investigations, Constable?’ he asked boldly. ‘Only I’m rather surprised to see you back again. I’d have thought your superiors would have been convinced by now that my father-in-law’s death was nothing more than an unfortunate accident.’

  Trudy smiled blandly. ‘We were just wondering if you’d thought of anything else that we should know, sir. Very often, after a little while has passed, people remember things that had previously slipped their minds.’

  Kenneth looked at her sceptically, and Trudy wondered why Duncan had warned her about him. On the face of it, he was an attractive, successful, middle-aged, happily married man. He had no criminal record, and so far, she’d found nobody who had a bad word to say about him.

  Now that she was here, she was wondering if a certain reporter hadn’t been leading her up the garden path in more ways than one. It was more than possible that Duncan had given her bad information, although she couldn’t quite see what he’d have to gain from that.

  Still, she might as well push Kenneth a bit and see what happened.

  She led with, ‘I understand your father-in-law’s will has now been read, Mr Wilcox. I think I’m right in saying that your wife gets the house in Headington – but nothing more?’

  Kenneth’s face went slightly tight, but he managed a nonchalant shrug. ‘We never expected any great legacy,’ he said flatly. ‘Thomas always did think that his daughters should be provided for by their husbands.’

  ‘So the fact that Matthew Hughes got so much, relatively speaking, and the rest of you almost nothing, doesn’t worry you?’

  ‘My son has a trust fund so his future’s sorted, that�
�s the main thing. And we have the house, as you say. Plus I have my own money – and plans for a new shop in town. All in all, I’m well content with my lot, I assure you.’

  ‘Did you like Thomas Hughes sir?’ she asked mildly. ‘Only we’ve been hearing, from various sources, that he was a bit of a trial to your wife. Treating her more as a servant than a daughter, it seems,’ she exaggerated a little. ‘It must have been a bit of a strain sir. Living with him, I mean.’

  Kenneth’s eyes flickered slightly, but his vague smile remained firmly in place. ‘He was sometimes hard to live with, yes. But he was family. You put up with it, when it’s family, don’t you?’

  He looked to Clement and gave a small man-to-man shrug.

  And suddenly Trudy just knew that she was wasting her time. This man would not be baited into saying something unwise – and certainly not to her. She had the feeling that Mr Wilcox had women firmly filed away in certain categories, and that none of these categories included treating them as his equal.

  She also felt as if Duncan, as annoying as he was, was on to something.

  There was something about this man that she didn’t like. Something hard and calculating – something that belied his affable charms and ageing good looks.

  ‘Well, thank you Mr Wilcox, that’s all for now,’ she said, surprising both Clement and Kenneth alike. She stood up abruptly, and as the coroner stepped forward to shake the other man’s out-thrust hand, she turned away, pretending not to notice when Kenneth offered his hand to her.

  They found the outer office empty, and as Trudy shut the door firmly behind her, she sighed. ‘I just don’t like that man,’ she said quietly, not wanting her voice to carry. ‘And much as I’m loath to admit it, I think Mr Gillingham might be right about him being a “wrong ‘un.” I just think we’re wasting our time tackling him head on though.’

  ‘I agree,’ Clement said, surprising her a little by agreeing so promptly. ‘Men like that never give themselves away. Too damned smart by half. Which is why it’s a good thing we have another option open to us.’

  ‘We do?’ Trudy said, baffled. ‘What’s that then?’

  Clement grinned then nodded down at the empty desk beside them. Beside the typewriter and files, the telephone and a vase of rather wilted chrysanthemums, was one of those blocks of wood, with a metal nameplate attached. ‘We ask Miss Susan Royal. Has nobody told you, if you want to know everything there is to know about a man, you can either ask his wife, his valet or his secretary?’

  Trudy grinned back. ‘Good idea! I wonder where she is? Perhaps she’d agree to let us take her out for a coffee break?’

  Just then Miss Royal herself made an appearance. From the way she was patting her newly brushed hair and the pristine patina of her lipstick, Trudy guessed that she’d just come from the ladies’, after freshening herself up. She was only just out of her teens, Trudy judged, and froze like a rabbit caught in headlights as she saw them watching her with such concentration.

  She almost gulped.

  Then Clement put on his most avuncular smile and stepped towards her. ‘Ah, Miss Royal, just the young lady we were looking for,’ he reached out to the coat stand beside him, and before she knew what was happening, he was helping her into her woollen overcoat. ‘My companion and myself would like to take you out for coffee.’

  ‘Oh but …’ She cast a quick, helpless look at her boss’s closed door. ‘I don’t think …’

  ‘Oh, Mr Wilcox won’t mind,’ Clement lied smoothly. ‘Now, where’s the best coffee shop around these parts, hmm?’

  Whilst Trudy and Clement set about learning all they could about her boss from Miss Royal, over at the Tribune’s office, Duncan Gillingham, his face set and cold, typed furiously on his Remington typewriter. He’d pause every now and then to think. Around him, his fellow scribes typed, smoked, typed, chatted, and typed some more, but most of them left him alone.

  He had the look of a man who wouldn’t appreciate the latest joke or dirty talk surrounding someone’s less-than-faithful wife.

  ‘Police admit the Thomas Hughes case is far from closed.’ He contemplated without enthusiasm the headline he’d chosen (surely it needed more punch?) and then the few paragraphs he’d written so far. It was all good solid stuff, but if he was going to skew the focus of the piece from the death of the local bigwig, and turn the spotlight onto his son-in-law he was going to have to be careful.

  Tonight, he’d ring up Trudy Loveday and see what progress she was making. And if she hadn’t unearthed any dirt on Wilcox yet, he’d be happy to help her out. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have plenty to spare, since Duncan had made it his mission to know all he could about the man.

  Without mentioning Lily at all, he had enough on his private life to do the man’s reputation some serious damage. He just needed a legitimate forum from which to do it. And a murder case, reported in the press, was ideal. He just needed that final push …

  With a grim smile he hunched over his typewriter, ramping up the innuendo and narrowing the spotlight from the family as a whole to just one individual. Or maybe, for form’s sake, it might be more prudent to chuck in another suspect as well? Say the other son, Godfrey? Yes, that would make sense. When he’d been doing his research into the family, he’d come across certain rumours that Godfrey had a rather smutty hobby, which his father might not have liked very much. But he mustn’t smear the dirt on Godfrey took thickly – it was vital that Wilcox took the brunt of it.

  It really was true, Duncan mused, that the pen was mightier than the sword. A fact that Kenneth Wilcox was soon going to understand better than anyone.

  Chapter 28

  ‘Oh, Mr Wilcox is all right. I suppose,’ Susan Royal said a little uncertainly. They were sitting in a tiny tea room at the back of a local cake shop, which felt rather stuffy and over-warm, but the scent of freshly-baked bread and pastries, in Clement’s opinion, more than made up for it.

  ‘You don’t sound that sure,’ Trudy said with a friendly smile. ‘Been working for him long?’

  ‘Oh no. Just a few weeks, actually. The last girl left without giving her notice, so the agency I worked for sent me over to cover for her,’ Susan said, her pretty face going from one to the other of them, as if she couldn’t make up her mind which of them fascinated her most. ‘I was only meant to be a temp, you see, but he hasn’t started advertising for a permanent replacement yet. I suppose that’s a good sign, isn’t it?’ she asked them, somewhat naively. ‘I mean, that usually means that they’re happy with you and might keep you on, like.’

  Susan lifted her cup of tea to her mouth, but didn’t drink from it. She probably didn’t want to smudge her lipstick, Trudy thought with an inner smile. Although the secretary was probably around the same age as herself, Trudy couldn’t help but feel that there was still something very young and childlike about her. It made the police officer in her feel protective of the other woman, somehow.

  ‘Would you like to have a permanent job as his secretary?’ Trudy asked gently.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Susan said at once, her pretty face lighting up. ‘Or maybe … I’m not sure,’ she added, confusingly.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Clement said. ‘You can say anything to us, and we’ll understand and it’ll go no further. We’re not trying to trick you into doing or saying anything you don’t want to,’ he added, reaching for his own cup and saucer and adding a sugar cube into the steaming tea.

  ‘Sorry, I know I don’t always make myself clear. Take working for Mr Wilcox – sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s not.’ Susan sighed and tried again. ‘It’s just that working for the agency’s all very well, but you never know where you’ll be working from one day to the next, you see?’ She looked at them anxiously, and was relieve when they both nodded encouragingly. ‘Always having to get to know new people and figure out their systems, and what have you. It’s hard sometimes, and people can get so impatient if you don’t work things out right away, can’t they?’ Her eyes opened widely
. ‘And then, after a week or so – or even only a few days sometimes, off you have to go and start all over again with someone else.’

  Trudy nodded. ‘It sounds a bit frantic,’ she admitted. ‘So to save all that palaver, you’ll take the permanent job, if Mr Wilcox offers it to you?’

  Again, the girl hesitated. Trudy glanced at Clement, who was watching Susan with a slightly bemused, slightly benevolent smile. He was obviously thinking the same thing as she was. Miss Royal wasn’t particularly bright, and she probably wasn’t a particularly efficient secretary. But she was very pretty.

  ‘Oh yes. I suppose I will,’ Susan muttered, putting down her cup and fiddling nervously with a teaspoon.

  ‘You still don’t sound very sure,’ Trudy probed delicately. ‘Is there something wrong? I think you said his previous secretary left without serving notice. That’s unusual isn’t it? Do you know why?’

  ‘Oh, not really. Well, only from listening to the others talk, and all that. But, I got the feeling that Angela and Mr Wilcox had a row of some kind.’

  ‘Really? What kind of a row?’ Trudy was careful to keep her voice light and casual. ‘It must have been a bad one if Angela … what was her last name?’

  ‘Er … Not sure I remember … oh, Calver. Yes, I’m sure it was Calver.’ Susan beamed.

  ‘Well done – I often have trouble remembering names too,’ Trudy lied. ‘So, did the others say what the row was about? People who work in small businesses always seem to know each other’s business too if you know what I mean,’ Trudy grinned encouragingly. ‘But I suppose you of all people would know that – doing the job you do.’

  Susan smiled. ‘Oh yes. You’re so right, they do. A hotbed of gossip some places, I can tell you. The things I’ve heard in some offices …’ Susan shook her head wonderingly.

  ‘So what was the gossip about Angela?’ Trudy lifted her cup and took a sip of tea, and when Susan looked at her with troubled eyes, smiled blandly back. ‘It’s all right, like Dr Ryder said before, it won’t go any further I promise. The police don’t go around gossiping,’ she added, guessing that it wouldn’t hurt to remind the secretary that she was speaking to the ‘authorities’ and as such, needed to pay attention and co-operate.