The Ryder and Loveday Series Books 1–3

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘So I have to ask myself,’ Trudy said excitedly, half an hour later, ‘why did PC Gordon get a job, and at such a good salary, too, for a mere night watchman, at Fleet-Wright’s lorry yard?’

Opposite her, and watching her with a mixture of amusement and approbation, Clement smiled gently. She was so full of enthusiasm! So eager, he could almost see her nose twitching, like a dog that had picked up the scent.

When DI Jennings had agreed he could have the services of a PC to help him with the Fleet-Wright inquiry, Clement – who was nobody’s fool – had always expected to be fobbed off with the dregs of the station house. After all, Jennings had no incentive to offer him anyone decent. Which hadn’t worried him at all, since all he needed was a body in a uniform to lend him the bona fides he needed to make it all legal and by the book. He didn’t actually require his police liaison to have any brains, let alone enthusiasm.

So when he’d first been introduced to probationary WPC Trudy Loveday, he hadn’t been fazed – either by her youth or total inexperience. Furthermore, it had quickly become clear to him that Jennings, the fool, hadn’t known what to do with the girl. No doubt he’d been obliged to take a WPC onto his team, but he was the kind of man who lacked imagination.

So Clement hadn’t been surprised to learn, from inserting the odd, deft question here and there into their conversations, that Trudy’s career so far had included little more than office work. With the odd foray onto the street in pursuit of purse-snatchers, or into the park to nab flashers!

But it hadn’t taken long before he began to suspect that the girl not only had ambition and gumption, but intelligence too. Clearly, she was still wet behind the ears, and as green as they came, but Clement didn’t mind that. In his days as a surgeon, he’d been used to guiding young medical students, and trying to teach them what was really needed to do the job properly. Admittedly, they’d all been older than WPC Loveday. But as his old professor had told him – if you could get ’em young, and before they’d acquired too many bad habits, you could mould them into something worthwhile.

Now he waited to see just how much his protégée had picked up on during her visit to the Gordon residence.

‘What put you on to that in the first place?’ he asked mildly. As he did so, he reached for the cup of tea his secretary had not long since placed on his desk. As he picked it up, however, his hand had a spasm and he quickly put it down again.

‘The house,’ Trudy said promptly. Her eyes went to the rattling cup, and noted that the old vulture had spilt some tea onto his paperwork. Thinking nothing more of it, she quickly explained the sort of house the Gordons were living in, and the quality of their beige-rayon three-piece suite.

‘And it didn’t occur to you, perhaps, that, during his career, PC Gordon might have… ah… acquired some savings?’ he asked delicately, carefully pulling his hand back across the table and letting it drop out of sight into his lap.

Trudy scowled at him angrily. ‘Of course it did,’ she snapped. ‘His personnel file was the first thing I checked. But there was nothing… er… worrying about it.’

She certainly wasn’t about to discuss one of her former colleagues with the old vulture in any detail. DI Jennings would have a fit.

‘Quite,’ Clement said mildly. ‘So you cast around for something else that would explain it?’

He glanced down and noticed that his hand was fluttering like a bloody butterfly trapped in a glass jar. Slowly he eased it down, pressing it between his thigh and the armrest of his seat.

‘Yes. And that’s when I found out he worked for Gisela’s father,’ Trudy said, leaning forward in her chair in an unconscious gesture of excitement. ‘That’s got to mean something, hasn’t it?’ she demanded.

‘When did PC Gordon retire, exactly?’

And his growing faith in her abilities and competence grew as she checked her notebook. Clearly, she’d had the foresight to check that out.

‘Thirty years after first joining the force,’ she confirmed. ‘Still shy of his state-pension age – but a lot of coppers do that,’ she added, determined to be fair. ‘It’s one of the perks of being in the force. You can put in your thirty years, collect your pension, and still get another job, or part-time job, to help see you out.’

Clement nodded. ‘And how long after the inquest would this have been?’

‘About five months,’ Trudy said.

‘So, getting a part-time job with the Fleet-Wright company could have been a coincidence?’ he asked blandly, rather enjoying playing devil’s advocate. Especially when his companion rose to the bait so delightfully.

‘At almost double the salary as other night watchman jobs?’ she snorted. ‘I don’t think so! He’s earning almost as much doing those three nights a week as my dad earns driving the buses!’

‘So, from that you conclude… what?’

By his side he could feel his hand trembling. Damn it, the spasms were getting longer with every month that passed.

Trudy flushed. ‘I’m not prepared to say, just yet. We don’t know enough,’ she said cautiously.

Clement nodded. ‘Very wise. But it is interesting, isn’t it? That not long after the inquest, the first copper on the scene takes early retirement and lands a job – a rather suspiciously well-paying job, with the father of the dead girl?’

‘Yes. What’s more, I’ve done some more digging.’

‘Have you?’

‘Yes!’ Trudy shot him a fulminating look. Did the man think she was a complete idiot? ‘At the time of Gisela’s death, the Gordons – all seven of them – were living in a three-bedroom council house in east Oxford. Then they bought the house in Kidlington, outright mind, just before Gordon handed in his papers.’

‘Outright?’

‘Yes – for nearly three hundred and twenty-five pounds. No mortgage, nothing. I couldn’t actually trace how he paid it,’ Trudy was forced to admit, ‘as the banks aren’t obliged to give us information like that without the proper paperwork.’

‘Pity,’ Clement said. ‘But it would be interesting to see if Mr Reginald Fleet-Wright’s bank balance was depleted by that same amount, at the same time, wouldn’t it?’

Trudy nodded. ‘So what do we do now?’ she asked, unable to mask her excitement. All her earlier doubts about the justification for following up on the case were being eroded as she discovered she didn’t like it when the authorities were being lied to any more than Dr Ryder did.

‘Oh, by the way, I have to do some surveillance duty, so I might not be available tomorrow,’ she remembered to inform him.

She didn’t mention they now had a prime suspect in the Marcus Deering/McGillicuddy case. It wasn’t, after all, any of the coroner’s business. Besides, Dr Ryder had now all but given up even pretending that the tenuous link between Jonathan McGillicuddy’s death and that of Gisela Fleet-Wright was likely to go anywhere. Now he’d got his way, and the old case that had always been his main focus of attention was being properly re-examined to his satisfaction, he clearly didn’t feel the need to dangle that particular carrot in front of her DI’s nose.

For him (and now for her too) this was all about getting to the truth surrounding the death of an unhappy, unlucky and mentally unbalanced young girl.

‘So, what do you think we should do now?’ she asked eagerly.

‘Well, I think we’ve learned all we can about the background of the case, don’t you?’ Clement raised one bushy, silvery eyebrow. ‘Now I think it’s time we spoke to the main character in our little drama.’

Trudy blinked for a moment, and then swallowed hard. ‘You mean Gisela’s mother?’

‘I mean Gisela’s mother,’ he agreed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Trudy didn’t quite know what to expect from Mrs Beatrice Fleet-Wright. She knew from reading the files that the woman had been born into an affluent family (her father’s company brewed half the beer sold in the county) and that she had gone on to marry an equally affluent man. A fellow Roman Catholic, Reginald Fleet-Wright had inherited his father’s haulage company, whose lorries had probably helped deliver her family’s beer, among other things.

Before her marriage, Beatrice had lived in a large house in Woodstock with the rest of her family. After her marriage, she had moved into a large house off Woodstock Road in Oxford.

She had produced two children, which was perhaps a smaller amount than most Catholic families. She did a lot of charity work, and she had admitted in open court that she might have been responsible for the death of her daughter.

Who wouldn’t want to meet such a woman and try to unlock her secrets?

All of these thoughts and more flooded her mind, making her almost tremble with nervousness and excitement, as Clement Ryder pulled into the driveway of the white-painted north Oxford mansion and cut the engine.

And even in the depths of a bleak and grey winter, Trudy could see that the gardens, in spring and summer, would be wonderful. Neatly clipped box hedging bordered rose bushes that, at the moment, looked cropped back and almost ugly. Several silver birches, though, still managed to look magnificent, with their lace-like branches and silver bark.

Could Jonathan McGillicuddy, when he’d worked in these lovely gardens so many years ago as a young man, ever possibly have imagined that one day in the future people would walk through all this lush beauty in order to ask questions about his murder?

As her eyes swept over the six – or was it seven? – bedroomed house, with its double-glazed windows and impressive front porch, Trudy found herself wondering what her mum would make of a house like this. Would Barbara Loveday ever have dreamed of living in a place like this? Trudy smiled to herself and shook her head. Of course she wouldn’t. Houses such as this were for the likes of women who dressed in clothes that had been cut to fit, and wore silk gloves in church, and pearls at their necks and in their ears.

Not for the likes of them!

The maid who answered the door looked surprised to see Trudy in her uniform, but relaxed a little as the distinguished gentleman with the thick silver hair and lovely educated voice introduced himself and asked if the mistress of the house was at home.

She was.

Trudy was now so agog to actually meet one of the main characters in the case that she had to prevent herself from breaking out into a run as they crossed the small but immaculate front hall. Absently, she noted the old-fashioned William Morris tiles on the floor, and thrush-and-strawberry-patterned wallpaper on the walls. The whole space was redolent of the scent of lavender furniture polish, and as she passed a grandfather clock, ticking ponderously in one corner, its mahogany exterior glowed with the evidence of centuries of care.

‘If you’d like to wait in here, I’ll tell madam you’re here,’ the maid said. She was about Barbara Loveday’s age and, as she left, Trudy, trying not to appear curious, wondered if her mother had ever considered domestic work. And if so, would she have liked to work in a place such as this?

She’d have to ask her when she went home for her tea.

She watched the coroner walk slowly around the room – clearly a little-used sitting room – and made a note of the lush, mustard-coloured velvet curtains, an accent colour that was mirrored in the autumn-coloured patterned carpet, and the chintz covers on the chairs. A low coffee table, mahogany like the rest of the furniture, bore a single coffee-table book, featuring arty black-and-white photographs of Oxford. And just when, Trudy wondered with a somewhat bitter smile, had anyone in this house actually bothered to look at them?

‘Hello. Maud tells me you want to see me?’

The voice that came from just over her left shoulder was soft, well educated and utterly lacking in curiosity. Trudy turned and straightened her spine as she looked at the woman closing the door behind her.

At around five-feet-eight, she was a couple of inches shorter than Trudy, and had immaculately cut and styled short brown hair. No doubt Mrs Fleet-Wright was a regular visitor at some fancy hair salon in Summertown. Her green eyes watched them, seemingly without curiosity as well, as Dr Ryder strode forward, his hand held out in greeting as he introduced them.

But although the woman smiled at him and shook his hand, Trudy noticed that she was far more interested in her. Not that she made it obvious. Perhaps it was the police uniform? Perhaps it brought back old, bad, sad memories of when people had questioned her before, dressed as Trudy was now.

‘Please, sit down,’ their hostess said. ‘Tea?’ she offered politely.

‘No, thank you, Mrs Fleet-Wright,’ Clement answered for both of them. ‘We’re sorry to bother you, but we’re talking to everybody who knew Mr Jonathan McGillicuddy,’ he began.

Trudy wasn’t taken by surprise at this opening gambit. They’d discussed beforehand, and at some length, just how to approach this interview, and both had agreed that telling Beatrice they were once more looking into her daughter’s case would almost certainly be counterproductive. If she’d lied once and under oath (and now Trudy was as convinced as the coroner that she had), they could hardly expect her to be more truthful now.

So they’d agreed that the oblique approach might be the way to go if they were to have any chance of learning something new. And making her believe this was all about Jonathan, and the recent murder case, was the obvious way of doing that.

‘Oh, yes, I see.’ Beatrice sat down in a large armchair that seemed to dwarf her. Both Trudy and Clement had opted to sit at opposite ends of the sofa, facing the chair. ‘I read in the papers about… Well, It’s all so shocking.’

The older woman turned to Trudy, her body language now screaming tension. Her back was ramrod-straight and she was sitting perched on the very edge of her seat, her neat legs tucked ladylike together and leaning slightly to her left. Her hands, inter-clasped on her lap, twisted restlessly. ‘Do you have any idea who might have done it? He was such a nice young man.’

Nice? Trudy blinked. According to all the evidence she had, Gisela had been put through hell by Jonathan McGillicuddy, especially when he threw her over. Odds were that she’d even killed herself over her love for him, and the trauma of his desertion.

‘Surely, Mrs Fleet-Wright, you couldn’t have approved of the way Mr McGillicuddy treated your daughter?’ Trudy said flatly.

For a moment, Beatrice Fleet-Wright looked totally flustered. She went white, then red, then white again. She opened her mouth, seemed about to speak, then closed it again. Eventually, she took a long, slow breath and forced herself to sit back in the chair. Her hands, though, remained clutching the ends of the armrests on the chair. Indeed, her fingers were digging in so deeply, she looked afraid she might fall off, or maybe just float away into space, if she didn’t hold on tight and anchor herself down.

Behind her artificially calm face, Beatrice told herself frantically that she needed to calm down. She was already behaving foolishly. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t known, right from the first second she’d read of Jonathan’s death, that this moment would surely come to pass at some point.

But she’d thought she was better prepared than this. And yet, with the very first question, the pretty young girl with the dark hair and big brown eyes had totally stumped her. She simply hadn’t expected such an immediate attack.

But she mustn’t panic.

It wasn’t as if these people actually knew.

‘Jon—Mr McGillicuddy’s relationship with my daughter was… was very difficult,’ she heard herself say calmly. Good. That was better. ‘Gisela could be difficult. She had mood swings, you see, that weren’t always easy to cope with. It wasn’t… Mr McGillicuddy was a young widower with a little girl. He had other priorities… He was our gardener, as you probably know, and my husband never approved. It was never going to work out between them… I, we, could all see that, so in some ways we were relieved when it came to nothing. But…’

She let her voice trail off and gave a soft sigh. ‘This is very hard to explain, I know. But I never blamed J—Mr McGillicuddy for what happened – that wouldn’t have been fair. Gisela could be very possessive. Clinging. And… well, manic sometimes. But that wasn’t her fault,’ Beatrice said, with a sudden flash of spirit. ‘She was ill, you see. It was the same as if she’d had influenza or diabetes, except it was mental… Oh, what’s the use!’ She threw up one hand, then let it fall back to the armrest, where she resumed digging her fingers into the upholstery. ‘Gisela fell so hard for him, and so completely. She always expected far too much from life! She thought it would end in wedding bells and children. And, who knows, perhaps Mr McGillicuddy thought so too, at some point.’

Beatrice paused to take a long, rather shaky breath, and glanced briefly out of the window, her face flickering with remembered pain. ‘But I always knew my daughter would wreck it. It always seemed to me that it was Gisela’s fate to always make herself unhappy.’

For a moment the ineffably sad words hung in the staid, stale air of that beautiful but arid room, and Trudy felt herself swallow hard. Beside her, she could feel Clement sitting totally still, as if afraid to break the mood by even breathing.

Beatrice then sighed sadly, and she carried on talking quietly. ‘My daughter became progressively more and more possessive and jealous as their relationship progressed. Always asking where he’d been, and whether he’d been speaking to other girls. Then she’d swing the other way and apologise, and beg him to forgive her. She would buy him gifts…’ Beatrice flushed a little at this. ‘Inappropriate and expensive gifts. A gold cigarette lighter and case. An onyx signet ring. Things like that. I could tell that Jon—Mr McGillicuddy… was embarrassed by them. I mean, he was just a jobbing gardener then – it wasn’t as if he could wear fancy jewellery to work! And in his social circles… well, bringing out a gold cigarette case at his local pub…’ Beatrice shrugged. ‘It annoyed my husband too. More than once he stopped her allowance so she couldn’t spend money on him.’

Beatrice paused and looked down at her hands. With some effort she seemed to lever them off the armrests and force them into her lap. ‘He gave them back, you know. After she… died. He gave them back to me – the cigarette case and ring. I have them still, in a drawer upstairs. Well…’ She shrugged hopelessly. ‘I didn’t know what else to do with them.’

She glanced across at them both and smiled. The young girl looked sad, and she could tell that nearly all of her earlier antagonism had died away. The older man, though, the man who had introduced himself as a coroner – she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

‘Do you have any idea who might have killed him?’ Beatrice asked pensively. ‘I feel so sorry for his mother! I know, you see, what it’s like to lose a child. And if you were close to making an arrest, it would help her, I think.’

Trudy put on a professional smile and ignored the blatant fishing for information. ‘Inquiries are ongoing, Mrs Fleet-Wright. I can assure you we’re following up all available leads.’ The policewoman in her recited the trite phrases primly.

Beatrice nodded dutifully, hiding an inner sigh. ‘Yes, of course,’ she murmured. Clearly, they weren’t going to tell her anything useful.

‘Mr McGillicuddy first met your daughter when you hired him to work on your garden?’ Trudy asked her softly.

‘Yes. At that point he was working for a gardening firm I’d been using for years. It was only a little while later that he struck out on his own,’ Beatrice confirmed.

‘And he and Gisela quickly became an item?’

‘Yes.’

‘You said your husband wasn’t happy about it,’ Trudy reminded her gently. ‘But how did you feel about it?’

‘Oh, I was worried too, but not for the same reasons as Reginald,’ Beatrice responded. ‘I knew Gisela would become even more emotional and intense. I was worried it would make her mood swings worse, and bring back the awful bouts of depression. And I was right. When they broke up, her depression became almost uncontrollable. Her medication was increased so much… I worried for her.’