A Fatal Mistake, page 8
‘All right,’ the older man concurred agreeably.
‘And I think we still agree, don’t we, that an accident still seems the most likely of the three options,’ Trudy swept on. ‘And the students not wanting to admit he’d been a part of their group could just mean they wanted to distance themselves from it. Just in case anyone blamed them for not coming to his rescue, say. Or… well… for whatever reason.’
‘Hmm…’ he said, a shade less certainly.
‘Anyway, let’s leave that to one side for a moment too,’ Trudy hastily swept on, before he could start picking holes in her reasoning (she knew from past experience just how well he could do this!) ‘Let’s just touch on number three. Murder.’ She felt a little flush of excitement wash over her as she said the thrilling word.
‘All right, let’s touch on it,’ Clement agreed, watching her with twitching lips.
‘OK. Well, if someone had wanted to kill Derek, it seems to me they must have either arranged for the collision to happen, thus giving them an opportunity to hold Derek underwater and drown him, or else simply taken the opportunity offered by the accidental collision to kill him.’
‘Sounds reasonable.’
‘So surely we should be concentrating on the third punt – and those students on it?’ she pointed out eagerly.
Clement hated to rain on her parade, since she looked so bright and happy with herself, but he had no other choice. ‘Yes, that was the first thing I thought of too,’ he said mildly, pretending not to notice the way her face fell. ‘So, before I went to your DI asking for help, I’d already talked to all the students on the third punt and satisfied myself that none of them had anything to do with it. First of all, none of them knew either Derek or Lord Littlejohn, and none of them was a member of the Marquis Club. Furthermore, they were all engineering students who knew one another well. And the chap doing the punting explained to me just how the accident happened, and I was convinced he was telling the truth. He rounded the bend and found the two other punts blocking the river. He didn’t have time to avoid them.’
‘Oh,’ Trudy said, a little deflated. ‘And I take it that neither he, nor any of the other engineers, noticed Derek in difficulties?’
‘No – none of them noticed anyone who was having trouble in the water. And those who weren’t the best of swimmers all seemed to have pals helping them out.’
‘Well, that means then, surely, that the collision itself was an accident,’ Trudy persisted. ‘So if it was murder, somebody at the picnic party took advantage of the accident to get rid of Derek in a way that would make it look like accidental drowning.’
‘Perhaps,’ the coroner said mildly, and his lips twitched again as he saw he had aggravated her with his temporising. ‘But that’s what we’re trying to find out, isn’t it?’ he added, appeasing her with a smile.
Chapter 9
That afternoon, Jimmy Roper conscientiously mowed his back lawn and then retreated with the local paper and a deckchair under the flowering cherry tree in one corner. Tyke, with a sigh, curled up in the shade under the sagging bottom of the chair and began to softly snore.
With a sigh of contentment, the retired milkman turned to the sports pages first, thinking he might just get himself a cold bottle of Bass from the fridge, once his wife had gone into town on the bus for her regular shopping trip.
Still thinking on this pleasant and tasty possibility, he began leafing absently through the black-and-white newsprint, and was suddenly struck by the name of the student who had drowned a week ago.
Like the rest of the village, his wife had been full of it these past days, and when she’d realised her husband had been walking along the river not long before it must all have happened, she’d been hailed as a reliable source of information. But although she’d been extremely gratified by this turn of events, Jimmy didn’t like to think on it too much.
He’d seen enough death in the war – all those young men… he didn’t like to think of another waste of such a young life, right here on his back doorstep.
He almost hurried past the article, except for the little byline, which caught his eye. It was an appeal from the city coroner, one Dr Clement Ryder. He was asking for anyone who had been in the area that day, but who had not been called to court to give testimony, to get in touch with him at his office.
Jimmy frowned thoughtfully and somewhat reluctantly read on. The coroner was asking for any and all witnesses to come forward, no matter how little they believed they could help. He was interested in building up a picture of life on the river that day, and any and all information would be treated in confidence.
Jimmy sighed gently. Surely he had nothing to say that could be of any use? Like most people, his initial instinct was to have nothing to do with anything out of the ordinary and unknown. If the war had taught him one thing, it was to volunteer for nothing! Getting mixed up in any sort of unpleasantness when you didn’t have to wasn’t something your average British citizen longed for.
But also, like most decent, hardworking people, Jimmy had a respect for law and order, and it had been drummed into him from early childhood that you should do what was right and expected of you. Civic duty was something everyone had to consider carefully.
He sighed and reached down absently to scratch Tyke behind his black-and-white ears. ‘Well, old boy. Any advice? Do I get in touch with this here coroner, or don’t I?’
His old dog stretched and yawned, then went back to sleep.
But Jimmy Roper wasn’t the only one who had read the coroner’s appeal in the newspaper. Two others had also seen it, with somewhat similar reactions.
One was a Mrs Enid Clowes, a sixty-eight-year-old woman living in a little bungalow at the other end of Wolvercote, and her reaction was one of mixed alarm and excitement. Nothing much ever happened in Enid’s world, which was run along lines of strict routine. This felt safe and secure, of course, but was also inclined to render her life rather stultifying and boring.
So anything out of the norm was a cause for both celebration and extreme caution.
She’d been out and about that day and, like the rest of the village, had been shocked and dismayed by the awful tragedy – as well as just a little bit excited (although she’d never have admitted this to herself, let alone anyone else).
But she couldn’t think how what she had seen or heard could be of any possible interest to a man as important as the coroner.
A widow since the war, she was one of those dithering, easily flustered old ladies who usually made most people impatient within five minutes of meeting her. She was also of the same mind as Jimmy Roper, in that she didn’t want to get mixed up in anything ‘not nice’. What would her neighbours say, for instance?
Of course, it would make her the centre of attention if she were just to mention… But no. Better not. As her old mother had always said, ‘Better safe than sorry.’
On the other hand… the notice in the paper did say they were interested in any little bit of information, no matter how apparently insignificant.
Not having a black-and-white mongrel to consult for advice, she spent the rest of the afternoon turning the matter over and over in her mind, while pottering about and doing her usual chores in her quiet, neat and lonely little home.
It was quite typical of her that, by the time it got to be dark, she still hadn’t come to any conclusion or made any definite decision as to what she ought to do.
The third person to read the short article was a thirty-year-old man called Clive Horton. He had a respectable, if not highly paid, job as a clerk at an insurance company in Somertown, a nearby suburb of the city.
He lived with his widowed mother in a tiny flat not far from a very prestigious avenue, whose line of cherry trees they could see (if they strained their necks a little) from the bathroom window.
Clive, a short, thin, and – alas – rather chinless man, was enjoying the warm summer weather by sitting next to his bedroom window without a tie on, the top two buttons of his starched shirt daringly undone. He read the newspaper article in his usual meticulous and thorough way, then, rather more quickly, read it again.
Used to poring over documents with great precision, he was inclined to think long and hard before taking any course of action.
In the end, he decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to approach the coroner in person. Someone from his company might see him enter the mortuary premises and start making enquiries. (Clive lived in mortal terror of any out-of-the-way behaviour on his part getting reported to the senior management of his company.) As the sole breadwinner for himself and his mother, holding down his job was his top priority in life.
But it was his duty to answer this direct call for information, since he too had been out and about near Port Meadow at the time in question, taking his usual constitutional. A man had a duty to remain fit and healthy, after all.
Not to volunteer such information as he had might somehow rebound on him and put him in a bad light should it ever come out that he had failed to inform the authorities of what little he knew.
Clive, it had to be said, was the sort of person who always paid due attention to the authorities. Be they his mother, God, or anyone in the civil service!
Yes, clearly, the diligent clerk thought pedantically, what was called for was a letter to the coroner’s office, detailing all he had seen that day that might be of any interest whatsoever. Naturally, he would need to take his time over such an important letter. It might have to be used at some point in an official capacity and would certainly go on file somewhere. And anything that bore his signature would have to be accurate and worded so carefully that absolutely nothing could be made of it that might, in any possible way, rebound on him to his disadvantage.
So he wouldn’t hurry. He would have to get it perfect.
He got out a pad and pen and began to make preliminary notes. After that he’d do a first draft, and then consider it carefully before starting a second.
And when he was finally content with it, he would post it.
With a second-class stamp, obviously, since he wasn’t made of money.
Chapter 10
Celia Morrison pushed open the churchyard gate and ignored the usual creak it gave when it got past a certain point. She knew the sexton was supposed to keep it oiled, but really, who cared?
In her hand she held a large and fragrant bunch of colourful Sweet Williams, plucked from her front garden not a few minutes ago.
Around her, the pretty little village of Islip dozed in the soporific afternoon sun. Bumblebees droned in the wildflowers bordering the lane that ran alongside the churchyard wall and, over in the meadow, the river glinted silver and gold as it meandered through the pastures.
Her feet began to drag as they took her to the newest row of graves, for she was in no hurry to reach her destination. Instead she paused a little to look around. In the older parts of the churchyard, the graves tended to lean, and none of them had any colourful votive gifts of flowers or mixed leaves. Of course, with most of these inhabitants having been dead for more than a century, even their children had long since died themselves, leaving no one to remember them, or mark their passing.
As the rows became newer, however, you came across the odd gravestone bedecked with flowers, until, gradually, nearly all of those in the last (and thus most recent) two had colourful offerings of remembrance arranged around a loved one’s name.
And then there were the newest ones of all…
Swallowing back a hard, bitter lump that had risen to her throat, Celia Morrison forced herself towards one of these. Bending down by the headstone of her daughter, she removed the fading flowers she’d left there last week, and poured out the green and stagnant water from the vase onto the grass.
‘Here you are, Jenny, the first of this year’s Sweet Williams. Your favourite,’ she murmured quietly.
She set about pouring fresh water from an old pop bottle – lemonade, another of Jenny’s favourites – into the vase, and then arranged the flowers. Setting them against the well-scrubbed and pristine stone, she finally leaned back on her heels and read the inscription she and her husband, Keith, had chosen for their only child.
‘In loving memory of our dear daughter, Jennifer Elizabeth Morrison, who left us on the 12th of January, 1959. Aged 17 years. Safe in our Lord’s hands.’
Safe. Yes, she’d insisted on that. For that was the only way she could bear to think of her lovely Jenny. Safe at last, and at peace.
Of course, there were those in the village – miserable, loveless, heartless old biddies mostly – who had been scandalised her daughter had been laid to rest here at all.
But the rector had been so kind and had fought her case with his bishop. In the end, they’d been allowed to bury her here, joining some of her aunts and uncles, one set of grandparents and four cousins. For the Morrison family had lived in Islip for generations. Well, on Keith’s side, anyway.
Celia, a slight, dark-haired woman with big, brown eyes, sighed heavily, then felt something warm drop onto the back of her hand. When she looked down in surprise, she realised it was a small droplet of water.
It took her a moment to realise it was her own teardrop.
With a weary gesture, she reached up and, using the sleeve of her summer frock, wiped her face dry. What was the point of crying?
She stood up listlessly and walked slowly away, telling herself she had things to do and people to see.
She had to start getting Keith’s tea on, for a start.
As the mother of Jennifer Morrison walked back to her home to start cooking the evening meal, Lord Jeremy Littlejohn, in his rooms at St Winnifred’s College, Oxford, was getting slowly but comprehensively drunk.
It was something he was used to doing, and could do well. The art of drinking properly, as he’d told his amused friends, was to pace yourself and enjoy the process, otherwise what was the point? It was also a man’s duty, he’d tell them loftily, to learn how to hold his liquor and behave at all times as if he were perfectly sober. And to achieve this accomplishment, you needed to practise.
This speech was usually met with cheers and encouragement, and an all-round agreement that he was right, and that they needed to practise too. But today he was drinking all alone. And he definitely wasn’t in the mood to be amusing.
The young lord was stretched out in a large, rather battered, leather chair. Like most of the rooms in his ancient college, it had been furnished and decorated with the donations of past alumni. So the furniture could be anything from the 1600s to modern Danish. Likewise, you had to take pot luck with the art (which could be genuinely ghastly or utterly divine) as all manner of bizarre bequests had been left to the old alma mater in various wills.
He even knew someone who’d had to live with an elephant’s-foot umbrella stand, left by some blighter who’d been a viceroy of India or some such awful thing. Apparently it stank in wet weather.
Lord Jeremy Littlejohn snorted as he thought about this, then lifted the bottle of Beaujolais to his lips. He’d already drunk one bottle and was making serious inroads into a second. It was good wine, but not of the very best. You didn’t drink to get drunk on the best, naturally. He wasn’t a philistine, after all.
But today there was no pleasure in his indulgence, and his eyes kept going, sourly, to the piece of paper resting on top of his desk, along with all the other detritus of student living – mostly piles of books he couldn’t be bothered to study.
It was a small, white, cheap piece of paper.
And it contained small, cheap threats.
He’d begun to get them nearly two months ago. Death threats. Torture threats. Exposure threats. All written in a depressingly lurid and unimaginative style.
At first, he’d shown them to one or two friends, since it had given him the opportunity to be droll. Jeremy rather liked being droll. One of his heroes was Noel Coward. Although – somewhat to the surprise of one or two of his set – he didn’t share that great man’s sexual proclivities, Jeremy did admire enormously his dry wit.
He used the letters to show off, both with his magnificent dismissal of them and by mocking the sender’s banal phrases. Not for the world would he have shown one drop of concern or real apprehension, like any normal mortal might.
Indeed, it was only when they’d become more specific as to his alleged crimes that he stopped sharing them.
And became worried.
Very worried.
And now this latest missive had him very worried indeed.
If only he could find out which envious little bastard had written them. At first, naturally, he’d been inclined to think it was one of his own set – most of them were poisonous, envious little sycophants, who’d take their first opportunity to stick the knife in. (Just the kind he liked!)
But then he’d begun to realise that the writer of the letters didn’t know him all that well, since his list of alleged sins was more general than specific.
So he’d begun to wonder if it was someone outside the Marquis Club – a student who felt slighted at not being invited into the inner circle, perhaps? But he’d had to dismiss that idea too, when he checked and saw that all of the letters had come through the post. Not one had been hand-delivered. And to neglect such an obvious psychological ploy of slipping one of the nasty things under his door in person could only mean one thing.
The sender probably wasn’t a student at all. He simply didn’t have access to the college. Which meant it was a city boy. Town, not gown. It was this revelation that scared him most of all.
Because the young lord knew he had power here, in the hallowed halls of academia, where wealth, name and privilege ruled supreme; but out there, in the real world, his grip and reach were far less certain.
The idea of some faceless, nameless, ordinary little oik watching and judging him was beginning to get seriously on his nerves.
