Faith Martin - A Fatal Flaw

‘Never mind. If you come round to my office when it’s over, I’ll fill you in,’ he promised.

‘Will you? Thanks so much,’ Trudy said, already rising. He politely walked her to the door and was still smiling slightly as he shut it behind her.

Her youthful enthusiasm, as always, had lifted his spirits a little and helped lighten his mood. She might not have realised it, but the coroner was glad she’d come.

It wasn’t until after she’d thanked him and was on her way back home, that Trudy wondered what he’d made of Grace’s other concerns about the tricks being played at the theatre.

Had he been interested in that anyway? The rather catty goings-on of a bunch of would-be beauty queens couldn’t have concerned him much.

In any case, it couldn’t hurt to pop by the theatre herself one afternoon during rehearsals, just to satisfy her own curiosity. She knew from what Grace had said that the theatre’s owner was happy for them to use the building during daylight, as long as they vacated the premises long before the evening performances began. Presumably the place didn’t do matinees.

It sounded fun, in a way. She’d never seen a beauty contest being held before, and it had a certain appeal. All those pretty dresses and things. Mind you, she couldn’t imagine stepping out in front of people just dressed in a swimming costume! The thought made her shudder.

But just to have a look around and put Grace’s mind at rest – well, where was the harm in that? When Trudy had first started school, it had been a daunting time and the slighter older girl had been kind enough to take her under her wing. She’d even intervened once, when a playground bully had tried to push her into the sandpit. So far, she’d never been in a position to repay the debt, but now, finally, she could.

It never once occurred to her that by doing so, she might be putting her own life at risk.

Why would it?

Mrs Christine Dunbar sighed over a large bunch of russet chrysanthemums that stubbornly failed to form into the shape she wanted, and began re-arranging them, somewhat impatiently, in a large cut-glass vase.

She was a rather handsome but large and fleshy woman, who was never seen out and about in public without wearing her corset. Her tightly waved, rather brassy blonde hair was always hardened into submission by a lavish application of hairspray, and her face was always made up with the latest and finest cosmetics. Only her rather boiled-gooseberry blue eyes caused her real concern, but, as her practically-minded mother had always told her, there was very little she could do about those.

Her grandfather had been a Tory politician for many years, and once, in his glory days before the Great War, had even been a member of the cabinet. And it was from him that, as an only child, she had inherited the large, whitewashed mansion just off the Woodstock road where she now lived. Sited firmly in the prestigious area in the north of the city, it boasted a large, well-tended garden, and a double garage.

Finally having beaten the blooms into submission, she carried the now perfectly arranged vase into the lounge and placed it on top of the grand piano. Neither she nor her husband could play the instrument, not being particularly musical, but it had stood in pride of place in the room, probably since Queen Victoria had reigned.

Her husband, sitting on the sofa and perusing the London Times , barely noticed her presence as she took a seat on the sofa opposite him, and reached for an embroidery hoop, containing her latest needlework.

She enjoyed making religious mottoes, usually surrounded by a flower border, which she then donated to the local church bazaar.

Now she looked over a rather fine pink peony that she had almost finished, and regarded her husband, Robert, without any obvious signs of enthusiasm.

In many ways, she believed, she had rather married beneath her. And yet she couldn’t deny that in many other ways, her choice had been a wise and inspired one.

Robert was not, she admitted to herself without any undue sense of worry, a particularly handsome man. Of average height at five feet seven inches, he was now, at the age of 52, going slightly bald on top, but kept his hair nicely dyed black, which went with his nearly ebony-coloured eyes. The matching moustache was similarly obsidian, but his chin was undeniably weak. Her husband liked to dress well though, and at times, it sometimes occurred to Christine to wonder (rather uneasily and with a sense of rare self-awareness) if he might not have a better sense of fashion than she did. He was one of those men who radiated an immense sense of energy. The kind of man who was used to getting things done but also seemed full of humour and bonhomie; but that, as she very well knew, was merely a front for his rapacious nature.

Of which she approved enormously.

For although Robert had been born of distinctly lower-middle-class parents (his father had been a chemistry teacher at a second-rate boys’ prep school) his ambitions had always been first-class. And she, on the market for a husband who could keep her in luxury, had been perspicacious enough to sense that he had the brains and the determination to succeed in life.

As, indeed he had. He had taken her not immodest dowry and turned it into a very profitable company producing jam, honey and marmalade to the discerning palate, nationwide.

Of course, it was ‘trade’, and as such, rather below what she was used to, but Christine had made it a point never to set foot in the actual ‘works’. What’s more, she had grimly ignored any behind-the-hand sniggering that might have gone on in her set during the early years of her marriage. It was now an immense source of satisfaction to her that, as income tax began to bite so hard and many of her friends had to tighten their belts or sell off the family heirlooms, she had been able to carry on spending as much as she had ever done.

It was just annoying that the ‘works’ had been allowed to intrude so rudely in her life in recent weeks.

Normally, whenever her husband discussed his plans for expanding the business or crowed over his latest scheme to bring Dunbar products more firmly into the public eye, Christine barely listened.

But this latest venture of his was causing her no end of anxiety.

When he’d first proposed establishing Miss Oxford Honey in a bid to make their own brands as famous as those of Oxford Marmalade, Christine had been almost speechless. Her conservative soul had shrivelled at the thought of something so utterly down-market as a beauty contest, and she could imagine the sniggering starting up all over again.

Surely, she’d protested to her husband, he had been in jest?

And just as surely, she’d come to learn that he was not. For whilst he had become used to acceding to her requests in the normal run of things, he was adamant that ‘work’ was his domain, and in this one area he would not be dictated to.

Eventually, therefore, she’d been forced to back down. But that did not mean that she was totally defeated. Instead, she’d magnanimously and cunningly offered to lend a hand herself, and ‘help’ him run the whole event.

In this way, she’d pointed out cannily, he wouldn’t need to neglect the routine work, or the vital day-to-day running of the business, whilst still being able to make use of his brilliant marketing strategy.

In reality, of course, she’d only done it to ensure that her husband would have as little to do with it as possible, because… Well, as Christine had been forced to face, rather early on in her marriage, Robert had a bit of a roving eye.

It was annoying, of course. And when she’d been younger, overwhelmingly painful. But over the years, and by constantly telling herself that it was nothing really hideously embarrassing, she’d managed to ignore it. Well, mostly.