Faith Martin - A Fatal Secret

FAITH MARTINhas been writing for nearly thirty years, under four different pen names, and has published over fifty novels. She began writing romantic thrillers as Maxine Barry, but quickly turned to crime! As Joyce Cato she wrote classic-style whodunits, since she’s always admired the golden-age crime novelists. But it was when she created her fictional DI Hillary Greene, and began writing under the name of Faith Martin, that she finally began to become more widely known. Her latest literary characters WPC Trudy Loveday, and city coroner Dr Clement Ryder, take readers back to the 1960s, and the city of Oxford. Having lived within a few miles of the city’s dreaming spires for all her life (she worked for six years as a secretary at Somerville College), both the city and the countryside/wildlife often feature in her novels. Although she has never lived on a narrowboat (unlike DI Hillary Greene!) the Oxford canal, the river Cherwell, and the flora and fauna of a farming landscape have always played a big part in her life – and often sneak their way onto the pages of her books.

‘Insanely brilliant’

‘I absolutely loved this book’

‘Faith Martin, you’ve triumphed again. Brilliant!’

‘If you haven’t yet read Miss Martin you have a treat in store’

‘I can safely say that I adore the series featuring Dr. Clement Ryder and Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday’

‘This book is such a delight to read. The two main characters are a joy’

‘Yet another wonderful book by Faith Martin!’

‘As always a wonderful story, great characters, great plot. This keeps you gripped from the first page to the last. Faith Martin is such a fantastic author’

A Fatal Obsession

A Fatal Mistake

A Fatal Flaw

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Faith Martin 2019

Faith Martin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © September 2019 ISBN: 9780008336158

Version: 2019-08-02

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Readers love the Ryder & Loveday series

Also by Faith Martin

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Epilogue

Dear Reader …

About the Publisher

For my sister Marion, with many thanks for helping me out with the research!

Oxford, England. 1st April 1961.

It was a lovely Saturday morning, and less than three miles away as the crow flies from the city of dreaming spires, someone was contemplating how ironical it was that it should be April Fool’s Day.

The daffodils were just beginning to bud in the small woods surrounding Briar’s Hall. Birds were busy building their nests, and a weak and watery sun was promising that spring really was on its way.

But the person leaning against a still-bare ash tree, moodily observing the fine Georgian building below, cared little for the promise of bluebells to come.

That person was thinking of only one thing: death, and how best to bring it about.

Perhaps, not surprisingly, that person was feeling not at all happy. Not only was death on its own something that you would never consider in detail unless given absolutely no choice, contemplating cold-blooded murder was even more unpleasant.

Not least, of course, because if you were caught at it, you’d be hanged. Which was terrifying.

And yet death – and murder – there would have to be. The person in the woods could see no other way out.

Which instilled in that person’s heart yet another, stronger emotion. Rage.

It was simply not fair!

But then, as the person in the woods had already learned very well indeed, life had no interest in being fair.

A woodpecker struck up its rat-a-tat-tat drumming on an old dead horse chestnut tree deeper in the woods, its resonance vibrating through the air. But the human occupant of the wood barely noticed it.

Tomorrow , the silent watcher in the woods thought, would be a good day for it. With so much happening, there was bound to be confusion, which would almost certainly provide the best opportunity for action.

Yes. Tomorrow someone would have to die.

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.