A Fatal Secret. Faith Martin

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       Chapter 3

      ‘Calling Probationary WPC Gertrude Loveday.’

      Trudy, hearing her hated first name called out loudly for all to hear, shot around and rushed forward to the usher, before he could call her for a second time.

      ‘Here, coming!’ she said breathlessly, hurrying towards the door being held open for her. She just had time to tug down her tunic top and make sure her cap was straight before entering the room.

      It was three days since the death of little Eddie Proctor, and the inquest had been opened first thing that morning.

      In a row of benches to one side, the public had filled the seats to overflowing, and in the front row, she recognised many of the immediate Proctor family.

      She’d gone with the local police constable that awful day to break the news of Eddie’s death to the boy’s mother and the rest of his family, and had comforted the poor woman as best she’d could. Now she gave a brief sympathetic nod to Doreen Proctor, a small brunette woman whose brown eyes looked enormous in her pale face.

      Forcing herself to keep her mind on the job, she turned her attention to the coroner, Dr Clement Ryder.

      Her friend and mentor nodded at her politely but with no signs of open recognition, and looked so much his usual calm and authoritative self, that Trudy felt herself relax.

      He also didn’t look the least bit ill, she noticed with a distinct sense of relief. It had been some time since she’d last seen him, and she must have been subconsciously dreading doing so, in case she saw any worrying signs of something being wrong with him.

      ‘WPC Loveday, I understand you were the one to find the boy’s body?’ Clement began professionally.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

      ‘If you will be so kind then as to tell the jury in your own words what happened on the afternoon of Sunday, 2nd of April?’

      Trudy turned to face the jury and gave a succinct, accurate report of what had occurred that afternoon. When she was finished, she cleared her throat and glanced questioningly at the coroner, but he had no questions for her. Her account had been full enough that there was nothing that needed clarifying or pursuing.

      *

      Outside the court, Trudy trudged back a shade despondently to the station. Tomorrow was the day she was to be lauded in front of the press and the city’s top dignitaries as the heroine of the hour, but never had she felt less like celebrating anything.

      *

      After Trudy’s departure, Clement called the medical witnesses, who testified that the boy had died of a broken neck, and not due to drowning at all. As Clement had expected, this caused a bit of a sensation in the court.

      It was soon explained that the well, being over eight feet deep, also narrowed slightly towards the bottom, so if the boy had been leaning over and had lost his balance, the chances were fairly good that he would have pitched down head first. And the water, which had turned out to be only about two feet deep wouldn’t have been enough to have broken his fall much.

      Even so, as he listened to the evidence, Clement wasn’t totally convinced by this explanation. The lad would only have needed to twist a little to either one side or the other to land on a shoulder. And wouldn’t it have been an instinctive thing for him to do so? Wordlessly, he made a brief note on his court papers.

      And there was another thing he’d noticed in the preliminary reports that had caught his analytical eye. So after the medical man had finished his piece, he cleared his throat, indicating he had further questions.

      ‘I take it the deceased’s hands were examined?’ he asked quietly.

      The police surgeon confirmed that they had been.

      ‘And did he have any detritus from the sides of the well under his fingernails, indicating that he had tried to scrabble at the sides of the well as he fell? Brick dust, green algae, mould, anything of that kind?’ he’d pressed.

      The medical man admitted that they’d found no such evidence, but then gave the opinion that that need not be significant. It was quite possible that the boy had been too surprised, and the fall too brief, for him to have had time to try to catch hold of some sort of support to help break his fall.

      Clement dismissed the doctor with a courteous nod, but was frowning slightly as he made more notes.

      When it was the turn of the boy’s family to give evidence, emotions ran high, as they were bound to. But especially so when the boy’s mother tearfully insisted that her son was a good lad, and would never have disobeyed the Easter egg hunt organiser’s admonitions to stay within the walled garden where all the eggs had been hidden.

      Since nothing of further significance was brought to light after all the other witnesses had been called, it surprised no one when an obviously upset and moved jury returned a verdict of accidental death.

      All that was left for Clement to do was to censure the organisers of the hunt for not checking the grounds beforehand and spotting the potential perils of the inadequately covered well. No doubt, he added heavily, the de Laceys, owners of Briar’s Hall, would be quick to have a new cover made for the well. Or they might even consider filling it in altogether, which meant, at least, that a similar tragedy would be averted in the future.

      But for the weary, distraught parents, what could any of that matter now?