by Faith Martin
Rex’s face began to shine. ‘You’re right! They wouldn’t have had a clue!’
‘Exactly. But she was magnificent, wasn’t she? She was even willing to go through with the ultimate sacrifice – to actually die! It’s like something from a Thomas Hardy novel,’ Clement said. ‘The beautiful young tragic heroine, undone by love. Her wicked parents’ despicable scheme to hush up the scandal. And the triumph of her young brother, the only man who truly loved and appreciated her, coming to her rescue and avenging her honour.’ Clement shook his head. ‘It’ll be spectacular.’
‘Yes! Yes!’
‘But first, you must let WPC Loveday arrest you. And then you must make a full confession, mind,’ he warned, his voice almost chiding now.
Rex nodded, but he was so caught up in the sick fantasy world the coroner had just described for him that he barely gave a nod of consent. Already, he was mentally preparing his speeches for the trial.
Trudy, in something of a daze, responded to the significant stare the coroner gave her, and, standing up on legs that felt distinctly wobbly, reached for her handcuffs before, with some trepidation, approaching Rex Fleet-Wright.
She was, in truth, rather afraid of him. He was clearly mad. But then her backbone stiffened and her chin came up. She had her duty to do, and she was damned well going to do it!
But she needn’t have worried. As she reached him he impatiently held out his wrists for her, his eyes, shining in madness, already somewhere far away.
Trudy took a breath and forced herself to recite the familiar caution. ‘Rex Fleet-Wright, I must caution you that anything you say will be taken down and may be given in evidence.’
But as she spoke, all she could think – and with some wonder – was I’m actually arresting a man for murder.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When they arrived back at the station, the desk sergeant was the first to notice them. Phil Monroe took one look at Trudy’s stunned but triumphant face, the coroner’s rather bleaker expression, and their prisoner, who was looking around rather like someone inspecting a second-class restaurant, and reached straight for the telephone to inform DI Jennings he was wanted.
The Inspector met them at the door to his office, and when he saw the young man in cuffs, looked questioningly at his WPC. Trudy swallowed hard. ‘Sir. I’ve just arrested Mr Rex Fleet-Wright for the murder of Jonathan McGillicuddy.’
For a second, her superior looked stunned, then thunderous. ‘You’ve done what?’
Rex giggled.
‘I think you also need to arrest him for the assaults on Anthony Deering,’ Clement put in dryly, cutting off Jennings before he had a fit of apoplexy. ‘Isn’t that right, Rex?’ he asked mildly.
Jennings, wide-eyed, shot a look at the young man, who nodded complacently. ‘Oh, yes. I fixed his car all right. It was easy – I read up on it in a car manual. And I set the wire with the booby trap so he’d fall off his horse. I stole the bird-scarer from a farmer’s shed. I can show you where if you like,’ he offered helpfully.
Jennings, clearly flustered, pulled himself together and nodded brusquely. ‘I see. WPC Loveday, perhaps you’d like to get Mr, er, Fleet-Wright settled down in an interview room. Dr Ryder…’ He shot the coroner a fierce glare. ‘Perhaps you’d like to brief me? Thoroughly!’
Trudy, glad to get away from her simmering DI, quickly set about processing her prisoner, enjoying enormously the look on the booking officer’s face as she read out the charges. She had barely filled in the paperwork and got Rex settled in the interview room when the door opened.
She wasn’t surprised to see DI Jennings and Sergeant O’Grady come in. The Sarge gave her a broad grin behind the DI’s back.
‘You can go, Constable,’ Jennings said, dismissing her abruptly, and Trudy, without a qualm, made herself scarce. She had never been naive enough to think she’d ever be allowed to sit in on the formal interview, let alone play a hand in it, but she didn’t care. After all, she’d heard it all anyway!
Instead, she made her way to her desk, receiving curious looks from the rest of the constables in the room as she did so. Clearly, the rumour mill had already been hard at work, and the range of looks she was being given ranged from scepticism, to envy, to amusement.
Clement Ryder found her ten minutes later, sitting in splendid isolation and furiously tapping away at her typewriter as she transcribed the notes from her notebook. She had no doubt DI Jennings would be demanding them soon.
With the coroner’s approach, though, she left off typing and smiled at him wearily. ‘Is the DI very cross with me?’ she asked.
Clement shrugged carelessly as he slipped into the seat opposite her. ‘So-so,’ he drawled. ‘But I did point out to him that you had been keeping him updated on what we were doing, as requested, but that the culmination of the case unravelled so quickly and unexpectedly that it was hardly your fault it ended as it did. It wasn’t as if we could stop our interview in mid-flow and call him in, was it? Mrs Fleet-Wright would almost certainly have taken the time to pull herself together and call a solicitor. And, as I pointed out to him, given our lack of evidence, we needed to get Rex’s confession down as a matter of some urgency.’
Trudy sighed heavily. ‘And he agreed with you?’
Clement’s lips twitched. ‘In the end. And reluctantly.’
Trudy nodded glumly.
‘Cheer up,’ Clement said with a smile. ‘Soon he’ll have cleared up his murder case, his superiors will be off his back, and he’ll have earned the everlasting gratitude of Sir Marcus to boot. He’ll be feeling positively mellow.’
Trudy didn’t feel particularly confident that any of this joy would filter down to her. In fact, she was pretty sure that, come tomorrow, she’d be back to walking her beat and looking for flashers in the park.
To take her mind off that, she looked across at the coroner thoughtfully. ‘Just how much did you know? Or guess?’ she demanded. ‘Before we went to talk to Mrs Fleet-Wright, I mean? Only it strikes me that you seemed to have it all figured out even before we set foot in the house.’
Clement gazed innocently back at her. ‘Well, I was pretty sure about the part Beatrice had played in covering up her daughter’s scheme. Once I’d asked myself why the woman would fake a suicide note and then stand up in court and take the blame for her daughter’s death, it was pretty clear something pretty drastic had to be behind it all.’
Trudy sighed. ‘Even so! Figuring out Gisela’s plan to frame Jonathan for her murder was some leap.’
‘Well, there were clues,’ Clement said modestly. ‘And the robbery of the chemist’s lad was a big one. But mostly, it was what we learned about the dead girl’s character that provided the biggest insight into what must have happened that afternoon.’
Trudy shook her head. The old man was amazing. Then her eyes narrowed. ‘And Rex? Did you know about him too? Killing McGillicuddy?’
Clement hesitated briefly. In truth, he hadn’t really started putting all that together until the young man had burst into the room, all but frothing at the mouth. But it hadn’t been that hard to see how the land lay, especially as the lad himself had been so accommodating.
‘Well, it was clear someone had killed Jonathan,’ Clement pointed out. ‘And if we swept away all that Deering business, and asked ourselves who would have a good motive for wanting Jonathan dead, then the little brother became the obvious suspect. We know he adored his sister and must have been devastated by her death,’ he pointed out. ‘We know, since it was the school holidays, that he’d have been in or around the house on the day she died. And, let’s face it, once he started talking, it wasn’t that hard to steer him into admitting it all, was it?’
Trudy shuddered, remembering Rex’s gleeful boasting. ‘He’s not right in the head, is he?’ she said, after a moment’s thought.
‘No, I don’t think he is,’ Clement agreed quietly. ‘Which is perhaps just as well.’
Trudy gave him a puzzled look and he said softly,
‘Do you really want to feel responsible for seeing a man hanged, WPC Loveday?’
Trudy went pale. It wasn’t something that, until that moment, she’d actually thought about. But she had arrested him. And she had, along with the coroner, been responsible for collecting the evidence against him. So just how would she feel if, in a year’s time, say, he was led to the gallows…
She felt sick.
‘As it is, he’s bound to end up in an insane asylum somewhere,’ Clement pointed out quickly, seeing her go rather pale. ‘It’s been my experience that when that type finally blows, they unravel pretty quickly. It won’t take the trick cyclists long to get their hands on him and declare him unfit to stand trial – you mark my words.’
Trudy let out a huge sigh of relief and then smiled. ‘So he won’t even get his day in court, like you promised?’
Clement shrugged. ‘No. How sad.’ He grinned. Then he slapped his hands on his thighs in preparation for getting up and leaving. ‘So, when you’ve finished for the day, I take it that you and your fellow officers will go out and celebrate?’ he asked, glancing around the room. ‘I believe that’s traditional, isn’t it?’
Trudy nodded. In truth, though, she was feeling so wrung-out that all she really wanted to do was go home to her mum and dad and let them fuss over her and take care of her. Not that she was going to tell anyone here that!
‘Yes, probably,’ she said casually.
The old vulture smiled, then stood up. ‘Well, it’s certainly been interesting, WPC Loveday,’ he said, and held out his hand to her. After a startled second, she jumped up and shook it warmly.
‘Yes, Dr Ryder, it has,’ she agreed. And felt a shaft of sadness lance through her as the old man turned to go. She was going to miss him, as aggravating and annoying as he could be.
Then, just as he was about to step away from her desk, he swung back to look at her, his eyes glittering. ‘Mind you, now that DI of yours has set a precedent, there might be other cases that cross my desk that I’m not happy with.’
Trudy blinked, then began to smile. ‘That’s certainly a possibility, Doctor,’ she said cautiously.
‘And if that happens, I might need to have a police liaison again.’
‘I can see how that might be necessary, sir,’ she agreed with growing confidence.
‘And if I do, DI Jennings might be reminded of just how well it worked out the last time he appointed you to that office.’
Trudy looked less sure.
‘Especially if I made it clear to him just what a nuisance I might make of myself if he were to fail to give me what I wanted,’ Dr Clement Ryder added modestly. And reaching for his hat, he placed it squarely on top of his head.
Trudy could have kissed the old vulture. Instead, she merely inclined her head and said crisply, ‘Until next time then, Dr Ryder?’
Acknowledgements
With many thanks to Mr Ken Wells (police officer, retired); Mr N. Gardiner, from the Oxford Coroner’s Office, and The Oxford Bus Museum.
The next book from Faith Martin, A Fatal Mistake, is coming in October 2018.
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About the Author
Faith Martin has been writing for nearly 30 years, under four different pen names, and is about to have her 50th novel published. She began writing romantic thrillers as Maxine Barry, but quickly turned to crime! As Joyce Cato she wrote classic-style whodunits, since she’s always admired the golden-age crime novelists. But it was when she created her fictional DI Hillary Greene, and began writing under the name of Faith Martin, that she finally began to become more widely known. Her latest literary characters WPC Trudy Loveday, and city coroner, Dr Clement Ryder, take readers back to the 1960s, and the city of Oxford. Having lived within a few miles of the city of dreaming spires for all her life, (she worked for 6 years as a secretary at Somerville College) both the city and the countryside/wildlife often feature in her novels. Although she has never lived on a narrowboat (unlike DI Hillary Greene!) the Oxford canal, the river Cherwell, and the flora and fauna of a farming landscape have always played a big part in her life – and often sneak their way onto the pages of her books.
Also by Faith Martin
A Fatal Mistake
A Fatal Flaw
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