A fatal end, p.5
A Fatal End, page 5
‘Doesn’t sound as if it’s any big deal to me,’ Vincent argued. Unlike his father he did enjoy pop music and listened to it often, but he would be the first to admit that he didn’t have any idea of how the industry actually worked.
‘I agree,’ Clement said dryly. ‘But let’s stick to what we do know. The Rainbirds is a group of five, of which Ray Reason and Martin Cuthbertson are the leading members. They’ve been formed for nearly a year, and were unknown until they got a “gig” at the Bootleggers. The teenagers liked them and their songs, and began demanding to hear them. This meant they were able to climb the greasy ladder to getting a spot every Saturday, and at the best time too – the nine-to-ten spot.’
‘Hardly world-shattering, even so,’ Vincent continued to argue.
Clement nodded. ‘Perhaps. But it was getting them noticed, which I think is the point Mr Cuthbertson was making. I imagine the Rainbirds saw themselves attracting the attention of a radio station and getting some airtime, perhaps? Which in turn could lead them towards attracting the attention of a record company? I don’t know how these things work, so I may not have that quite right. In any event, the Rainbirds were the star attraction for their teenage fans.’
He paused to pour himself a second cup of nearly cold tea and took a sip.
‘The night Mr Reason died, as far as I can tell, wasn’t in any way unusual,’ he continued. ‘The band members began to arrive individually at the club around seven, and went down to the basement common room to set up their equipment and drink beer. Both Mr Reason’s and Mr Cuthbertson’s girlfriends arrived a little later in order to listen to them perform and dance.
‘During the evening – again according to the testimony of the witnesses – Mr Reason was behaving perfectly normally. He didn’t seem agitated or particularly excited about anything. He split his time between watching the earlier bands perform so that he could assess if they might be serious competition, having a drink at the bar, talking to his fellow performers and various hangers-on in the common room, and taking the odd trip or two to the gentlemen’s lavatories.’
Clement swirled his teacup thoughtfully. ‘At around a quarter to nine, four members of the Rainbirds were in the common room and were getting themselves ready for their star turn. At that point, Raymond Reason wasn’t there, and it was generally assumed that he was still upstairs in the dance room, probably canoodling with his girlfriend. The first they knew that something was wrong was when a member of the previous star turn, now resting in the common room, left to go upstairs, but couldn’t because of a commotion around the spiral stairs. Someone above was shouting down at him to keep the area clear, and that an ambulance had been called.’
‘The barman had just found the body at that point?’ Trudy put in.
‘Yes. Again, according to the statements, Martin Cuthbertson and the rest of the Rainbirds began to hear rumours circulating in the common room that someone had found a dead body on the stairs, and that it was Ray. The girlfriends of both Ray and Martin Cuthbertson – Linda Kempson and a Miss Jennifer Renfrew – were both upstairs at this time, listening to the eight-to-nine band finishing up. But pretty soon they too began to hear rumours that something bad had happened, and gradually got to hear that it was Raymond Reason who had come to some sort of grief.’
‘What happened then?’ Vincent asked.
‘Felix Simpkins at least had the sense to keep everyone away from the stairs, which was a blessing for Mr Reason’s girlfriend. The ambulance came, the attendants established that he was dead and the police were called. It wasn’t until they were able to move the body that those effectively trapped downstairs were able to get out.’
‘And nobody saw him fall down the stairs?’ Vincent said.
‘No. Or at least, nobody admitted to seeing it happen.’
‘But the club must have been packed,’ Trudy put in sceptically.
‘True. But don’t forget, the vast majority of people there were actually in the main dance hall, either to listen to the band, drink or dance. The majority of the staff were either at the bar or working the door. Only a few people would have any reason to be backstage or working back-of-house. The barman who found the body only did so because the bar was running low on gin, and he’d gone back to the furthest storeroom to get some more – and noticed feet lying at an odd angle on the fifth step of the stairs. Because of the tight angle of the spiral, he couldn’t actually see the rest of the body clearly. But even so, the sight must have looked odd.’
For a moment all three were silent and solemn as they pictured this.
‘Presumably, then, we can rule out anyone down in the basement.’ Trudy broke the silence tentatively. ‘I mean, if they were trapped down there, then there can’t have been any way out except up the stairs? There wasn’t a tiny window, or a back door or anything?’
‘No, the stairs were the only exit,’ Clement confirmed. ‘I studied the blueprints of the building.’
‘If he was pushed down the stairs, it had to have been someone who’d been in the main room or come through the front door?’ she mused.
‘Unless,’ Vincent said, ‘someone lay in wait from him on the stairs below and grabbed him by the lapels or something and yanked him forward?’
Clement gave his son an approving glance. ‘Yes. We know Mr Reason came down the stairs very violently, face forward. Which means he was either pushed from behind or impelled from the front. The head wounds would have been in the same place, either way it was done.’
‘We can’t rule out anyone at all?’ Trudy sighed.
‘No, I’m afraid we can’t,’ Clement said quietly.
Almost as one, the three of them sighed slightly and leaned back in their chairs. ‘So that’s what we’re up against,’ Vincent said at last, nodding his head.
Trudy began to contemplate the task in front of them. One thing instantly became very clear. This was not a case that could be solved by technical evidence, because there would be very little. Even if she could persuade her Inspector to launch a full-scale investigation, which was extremely doubtful, what would they find? The staircase would be alive with fingerprints – and even if they did find the prints of some of the major players in the case, so what? Felix Simpkins, the band members and their girlfriends, all of them must have gone down those stairs many times in the past.
There was no murder weapon to find and process.
And no witnesses had come forward.
‘If we’re going to get to the bottom of this,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘we’re going to have to find out who wanted Ray Reason dead. Motive is going to be key. We have no other way in, or starting point.’
‘I agree,’ Clement said, who’d been thinking along much the same lines.
Vincent, although slightly surprised by their quick agreement, was willing to go along. He knew they had far more experience at this sort of thing than he had, and he was desperate that he be allowed to help. Which meant following their lead and not making waves.
‘So how do we go about that?’ he asked.
Trudy slowly looked across at Dr Ryder. ‘We need to get inside their world,’ she said simply.
She knew that the coroner wouldn’t like what she was going to propose next, because he was very protective of her, but she knew she would have to ignore, for once, his objections.
‘No!’ Clement said, almost at once.
Vincent stared at him, but his father was too busy scowling at Trudy to notice. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ Clement added firmly.
‘What?’ Vincent yelped.
‘It’s the only way, Dr Ryder. I’m the only one who could fit in, and get people talking to me.’
‘What?’ Vincent said again, beginning to feel annoyed and worried in equal measure.
‘She wants to go “under cover” at that bloody club.’ Clement scowled at his son.
‘It makes sense,’ Trudy objected firmly before Vincent could respond. ‘I can pass as a music fan, and out of uniform I can make myself look a few years younger. I can mingle and chat with the girl fans, and get to know the singers and players.’
‘Yes, and you know what they think of girls who do that,’ Clement said bitingly.
It made Trudy blush, because, of course, she did know that everyone would get the impression she was … well … no better than she ought to be.
Vincent finally caught on, and not surprisingly, immediately agreed with his father. ‘Trudy, you can’t! What if some guitar-playing, drunken gorilla gets you into a dark corner and tries it on?’
‘I can handle myself,’ Trudy said flatly. ‘I’m not totally defenceless!’ Although she had no idea if she could hide her police truncheon in a handbag. ‘And I have my police training. I can throw a man on the floor faster than you can say Jack Robinson.’
‘Which won’t help you if there are more than one of them,’ Vincent said, before his father could. ‘The thing about bands is, they come in groups, remember?’
Trudy, facing two set faces, stubbornly dug her heels in. ‘And exactly how far will we get, do you suppose, if Dr Ryder goes to the club this Saturday night and starts asking leading questions? Do you think the likes of Felix Simpkins will answer him? Or young girls who’ve probably sneaked out of the house, telling their unsuspecting parents they were going to a friend’s house? Can you see them chatting happily to a man who’s got “authority” practically stamped on his forehead? Or the band members, who’ll take one look at him and think he’s nothing but an old duffer beneath their notice?’
Clement knew she had a point, and for a moment couldn’t think of a counter-argument.
Taking advantage of it, Trudy ploughed on relentlessly. ‘But a young fan, who looks like they do, dresses like they do and fawns over the bands and the music like they do – I’ll just become invisible. The majority of the people who were there when Ray Reason died will be there again this Saturday. I can mingle and chat to people – they’ll be only too happy to gossip,’ she swept on eagerly. ‘After all, being at the spot where someone “famous” died just yards away from them will be the hot topic of the night. Everyone will be talking about it, and anyone who might have seen something, or knows something that they’d never let on to the proper authorities, would talk to me about it without a qualm.’
Seeing that she was serious, Vincent glared at his father. ‘Do something! Talk her out of it!’ he demanded.
But Clement was already shaking his head. He could see that she was going to go ahead with it, with or without them. And without them, she would be doubly vulnerable.
Suddenly, Clement turned and looked at his son, assessing him minutely. ‘You’ll just have to go with her,’ he said flatly.
‘What?’ Trudy said, startled.
‘What?’ Vincent said, at the same time.
‘You can dress down. Get a trendy haircut. You could pass for five years younger,’ his father said succinctly.
Vincent was about to deny that vociferously. For a man of thirty, being told that he could pass for a pop-loving near-teenage boy was utterly demeaning. Then he caught the hard glare in his father’s eye, and saw him jerk his chin slightly in Trudy’s direction, and he finally cottoned on.
It was not his pride that mattered. It was protecting Trudy Loveday from potential harm.
‘Oh, er, yeah, I can do that,’ he muttered. Then he looked across at Trudy and smiled.
‘Fancy a date this Saturday night then, darlin’?’ he said, in an atrocious wide-boy manner. ‘I know this smashing little club in Walton Street where they sell bootleg booze and smuggled smokes an’ everyfink!’
Trudy, looking between the two men, knew when it was time to accept a compromise. She was not silly, after all, and having someone watching her back would be safer.
And if some part of her was rather actually looking forward to dancing close to Vincent Ryder on a dark and cramped nightclub dance floor, then so what?
‘Fine,’ she said, less than graciously.
‘That’s settled then,’ Clement said. ‘At the weekend, you two can go and see what you can find out from the regulars at the club. In the meantime, we need to make a plan of action.’
Chapter 6
Ray Reason’s parents lived on the far outskirts of Banbury, a market town in the north of Oxfordshire. The town’s two main claims to fame were its mention in an old English nursery rhyme, exhorting you to ‘ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, to see a fine lady upon a white horse’ and Banbury cakes, a delicious and long-standing recipe that was still sold in bakeries today.
Neither Clement nor Trudy, however, were tempted to stop at a shop and buy any of the goodies, and neither did more than cast a quick look at the Banbury Cross itself, a statue of horse and lady, as they drove by.
Trudy, who had now passed her driving test (thanks to Dr Ryder teaching her to drive in his Rover) was nevertheless surprised when he’d allowed her to do the driving today. Although he’d taken her side when she’d told him that the police only sponsored young male PCs to pass their driving test, he still always preferred to take the wheel himself whenever they went anywhere.
She was wise enough to know that this was not a reflection on his assessment of her abilities, but because the coroner liked to feel in control at all times and in all circumstances. So when he’d tossed her the keys outside his house and asked if she’d like to do the driving, she’d been a little disconcerted.
It had been a while since she’d been behind the wheel (at work, she still had to use a police-issue bicycle more often than not) so she drove very carefully and a little bit slowly – and wondered why Dr Ryder was now content to be a passenger in his own car.
Over the three years or so since they’d been working together, she had wondered sometimes about some of the things that she noticed, every now and then, about her mentor. The way his hand shook at odd little moments. The strong breath mints he always chewed. His tendency to shuffle his feet when he became tired. In the early days, she did wonder if the great man might have drunk a little more than was good for him, but she’d quickly come to realise that she’d been traducing him. The coroner might be a social drinker, but he never drank whilst at work. She’d simply dismissed the signs as things that happened to people as they grew older.
Now, though, she began to wonder all over again. Was he looking just a little more frail than before? He might have lost a bit of weight too. Although he was still his bluff, no-nonsense self, was he just a little less forceful than usual? Or was she imagining things now?
‘Watch out for the signpost for Cropredy,’ Clement said, breaking into her fretful musings and forcing her mind back onto the task in hand. ‘They don’t live in the village, but the road where their house is situated should be in the same direction.’
‘I see it,’ Trudy said, and after glancing in the mirrors, made the correct signal and turned.
Back at Clement’s house, they’d agreed that they needed to start with the dead boy’s parents – and that all three of them turning up at once might be overwhelming for the grieving couple. Since the Reasons would already be familiar with the coroner from their appearance in his court (giving evidence of the deceased’s identity) and with Trudy wearing her police uniform to lend officialdom to the meeting, it was, naturally, Vincent who had to stay behind.
To stop him feeling left out, they’d asked him to go to the library and read all the press articles he could find on the story so far, and take any notes that he found interesting. Trudy could tell by the look he gave her that he knew he was being fobbed off, but he’d taken it in good part.
As she thought about Dr Ryder’s son, she felt a warm feeling steal over her, and tried to ignore it. After all, he was thirty! And Dr Ryder’s son. And wasn’t he a professional man in his own right? If she remembered correctly – and she knew she did – he was a junior partner in a firm of architects. Such a man was way out of a humble, working-class girl’s league.
‘I think this is their house just here on the left.’ Clement’s voice once again dragged her wandering thoughts back to reality, and she carefully pulled over, parking the big car almost perfectly. She turned off the ignition, feeling ridiculously pleased with herself.
Clement, noticing it, bit back a small smile. ‘A very smooth drive, and excellent parking if I may say so,’ he complimented her. It wasn’t her fault, after all, if he was being forced to take every opportunity these days to be driven, rather than drive himself. Although he still felt safe behind the wheel, it tired him more than he liked to admit and, as a coroner, he knew all about the fatal consequences that could result from driver fatigue.
It was, of course, yet another reminder of why he was going to write his letter of resignation within the next few days.
When he’d had to confess to Vincent at the beginning of the year about his incurable illness, he’d promised his son that this year, 1963, would be his last working year.
But, Clement reminded himself firmly, he still had these last few months to enjoy and make the most of. And he was not going to let depression or gloom deprive him of his last hoorah!
‘Thank you, Doctor.’ Trudy beamed at him.
Clement looked at her face, pretty and proud, and wondered if she realised just how smitten his son was with her. He thought, on the whole, probably not. For such a pretty girl, Trudy Loveday lacked a certain amount of self-confidence.
But that would change soon enough, he thought, given human nature and the changes that time always wrought. And then, with a pang, he thought that it was a pity that he probably wouldn’t be there to see it all happen.
He took a deep breath and got out of the car. He didn’t know that his face looked grim and bleak at that moment, or that Trudy had seen it.
Her own smile wiped out, she climbed out of the car after him and swallowed hard. Something was wrong. She knew it. At his home, as they’d eagerly discussed the case with Vincent, she’d sensed something unspoken going on between father and son. Some tacit, unhappy thing that hovered, just out of sight, unwanted, unacknowledged, but nevertheless there between them.
