A Fatal Secret. Faith Martin

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       Chapter 1

      Easter Sunday morning saw probationary WPC Trudy Loveday going in to work as usual.

      DI Jennings, true to form, saw no reason why she should be exempt from working through the holiday. Even though, before the week was out, she was due to attend a sumptuous lunch at the very swanky Randolph Hotel, where she would be the ‘star’ guest and feted as something of a heroine by members of the local press – as well as a certain Earl of the realm.

      After being angry with her for initially keeping the seriousness of the event from them, her parents were now, naturally enough, as proud as punch about it all. But whilst they were eagerly looking forward to the event, Trudy herself was not so sanguine.

      Although it was true that some months ago she had tackled and arrested a murder suspect all on her own, at the same time preventing the suspect from murdering the son of the Earl, she did not feel particularly heroic. Worse still, when the news had broken that the Earl intended to set up the dinner and have her presented with a formal letter of gratitude in front of the city’s press and various high-up members of the constabulary, she’d been ragged about it constantly by her peers.

      And to no one’s surprise (least of all hers!), her immediate superior had made it very plain what he thought about it all. Which was not much. In Inspector Jennings’ opinion, the only woman police officer under his command was in danger of getting above herself. And it was his job to make sure her head was not allowed to swell! But no amount of protestations on her part that she had known nothing about it had convinced him that she wasn’t secretly thrilled with the attention.

      So it was that she found herself at work during the Easter break, which in truth she didn’t really mind much at all. After all, others had to do it and lowly probationary constables (as the inspector had told her with a hard gleam in his eye) were very low down the pecking order when it came to being given prime time off.

      Even so, it was a skeleton staff in the police station that morning, as the city’s many bells rang out for Easter. Not that Trudy minded that. At least DI Jennings wasn’t there to keep on giving her sharp, annoyed looks, and Sergeant O’Grady, as the senior officer present, was in a mellow mood. Some kind soul had brought in a huge chocolate Easter egg, which was very quickly being consumed by the few officers minding the store and, all in all, a holiday air prevailed.

      Even the telephones were mostly silent, as if the city’s thieves and lawbreakers, too, were all sitting at home, presumably eating chocolate eggs of their own. But at just gone three-thirty, the phone rang, and from the look on Sergeant O’Grady’s face, it was clear that their quiet day had just been cancelled.

      A slightly chubby man, with a big quiff of sandy-coloured hair and pale-blue eyes, he began scribbling furiously, then glanced up at the station clock. ‘Right. Yes, it’s a little early maybe to fear the worst just yet, but it doesn’t sound good. And the parents are sure he wouldn’t miss his dinner? Oh, right, I see. And the address is…’ He scribbled quickly, then nodded. ‘OK, I’ll help organise the search from this end. I dare say you already have some volunteers out and about? Right. And the local constable’s already there? Fine, we’ll have our own officers at the grounds within half an hour. Bye.’

      When he hung up, Trudy, PC Rodney Broadstairs and Walter Swinburne – the oldest constable at the station – were all looking at him expectantly.

      ‘Right, everyone,’ the sergeant began briskly. ‘We have a missing child, I’m afraid.’ The words were guaranteed to make everyone’s heart sink, and Trudy felt her breath catch. She knew that the majority of missing children were found within the first few hours of them being reported missing, of course, but still. They were words you never wanted to hear.

      ‘His name is Eddie Proctor, and he’s 11 years old,’ Sergeant O’Grady swept on. ‘This morning he attended – along with nearly twenty or so other youngsters from the local primary school – an Easter egg hunt in the grounds of Briar’s Hall.’

      Trudy vaguely recognised the name. Briar’s Hall was located in Briar’s-in-the-Wold, a village just on the outskirts of north-west Oxford. It consisted, if she remembered rightly, of a pub, a church, a handful of mostly farmworkers’ cottages, and a modest but pretty, classically Georgian square-shaped house made out of local Cotswold stone. The big house itself, she felt sure, was surrounded by a small patch of woodland, and boasted reduced but still admirable gardens, which is where, presumably, the Easter egg hunt had been arranged.

      ‘Kiddie’s probably just wandered off to eat his eggs without having to share them with his friends,’ PC Rodney Broadstairs said hopefully. He was a tall, blond, good-looking young lad, who thought far too much of himself, in Trudy’s opinion, but she could only hope that, in this case, he was right.

      ‘Be that as it may, he should have returned home at one o’clock for his Sunday lunch. And didn’t,’ the sergeant said crisply. ‘Since it’s Easter, the family were going to have roast chicken with all the trimmings, and the boy’s favourite pudding – a chocolate sponge pudding with custard. And the boy’s mother is adamant he wouldn’t miss it for all the tea in China. So…’

      For the next few minutes the sergeant was busy ringing around the division’s other stations, which were also short-staffed, rounding up as many volunteers as he could find. Meanwhile, Trudy, old Walter and Rodney Broadstairs were dispatched in one of the police cars to make the short journey to Briar’s-in-the-Wold. Walter drove, since Rodney was still on the police-sponsored driving course and didn’t have his licence yet. Naturally, Trudy’s name had never been put forward.

      Not that such a minor detail like that was going to stop her. Her friend, Dr Clement Ryder, had offered to teach her how to drive on their own time, and she was going to take him up on it!

      But thinking of her friend, the city’s coroner, made her feel suddenly pensive. Their last case together hadn’t ended exactly how he’d thought it had, and she felt uneasy about keeping secrets from him. Oh, they’d found the killer all right, a very vindictive killer who had chosen to end their own life rather than face justice. But true to form, they hadn’t СКАЧАТЬ