A Fatal Mistake. Faith Martin

yes, that might have happened, I’m sure.’

      Dr Ryder smiled rather grimly to himself. Not so fast, my slippery young fish, he thought, almost fondly. As a doctor, he’d been used to his young interns trying to slip things past him. Not that they’d ever succeeded; if they’d failed to read the notes he’d set them, or had neglected to do the experiments proscribed, he’d always found out about it.

      Now he regarded the sweating theology student with a shark-like smile. ‘Well, let’s see if we can’t get to the bottom of this, then,’ he said, ignoring his clerk, who was beginning to shift about restlessly. ‘Where exactly were you sitting on the punt, Mr Gulliver?’

      ‘Er, right at the back, sir,’ the suddenly unhappy student admitted quietly. ‘I was going to take over the punting from Bright-Allsopp if he needed relieving, as a matter of fact.’

      ‘So you had all the occupants of the punt in front of you?’

      ‘Er… yes, sir.’

      ‘And did you see Derek Chadworth among them?’

      Defeated, the young man was forced to admit he hadn’t. With a quick glance at the jury, just to make sure they were paying attention, the coroner dismissed him.

      He was then forced to bide his time until he found the next suitable candidate. Of necessity, he now needed a witness from punt number two. Barring a theology student, he finally decided that, of all the witnesses called, one Miss Maria DeMarco, an Italian student of fine art, was his best bet.

      As she was called to the stand, he approved her sober and respectful dark-grey skirt and jacket, and her neat little black felt hat. She was not beautiful but had a certain elan. And as he’d expected from someone who looked the epitome of a good Catholic girl, she took her oath in a quiet, serious voice, and looked composed but very uneasy.

      He was gentle but firm with her.

      ‘Miss DeMarco, I understand you were on what I shall refer to as the second punt – that is, the punt on which Lord Littlejohn himself was present?’

      ‘That is so, yes.’

      ‘And Lord Littlejohn was the main instigator of the party?’

      ‘Yes, that is so.’

      ‘He invited you?’

      ‘Oh, no. A friend of his did. It wasn’t what you would call a very formal affair. Most of those present were good friends of Lord Littlejohn, but his friends had invited some people, and they in turn had brought some people of their own. You see how it was?’

      ‘Yes. This might account for His Lordship having seemingly misjudged just how many punts he would need to convey everyone safely to the picnic site,’ Clement said dryly. ‘Did you know the deceased?’

      Clement had his court officer show her a photograph, provided by the boy’s parents, of Derek Chadworth.

      ‘Oh, no,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t know this man.’

      ‘Would you study his likeness, please, Signorina DeMarco? Fine. Now, tell us. Did you see this man among the party on your punt?’

      The Italian girl shrugged graphically. ‘I’m not sure. It’s hard to say. It was very crowded. Everyone was squished in… like, how you say… sardines in a tin, yes?’

      Dr Ryder nodded. ‘Yes. But a punt isn’t exactly an ocean liner, Miss DeMarco. And the journey from Magdalen Bridge to Port Meadow must have taken you at least twenty minutes.’

      ‘Oh, yes, but most of the time I was talking to my friends – Lucy Cartwright-Jones and Bunny Fleet. I pay no attention to the men. They were rather… er… loud from the beer and wine.’

      ‘I see. When the accident happened, and your punt overturned in the water, you must have been frightened?’ He tried another tack craftily.

      ‘Oh, no, I swim like the fishes,’ the Italian girl said with magnificent insouciance. ‘I was more annoyed to get my lovely clothes wet.’

      ‘I see. Did you notice any of your fellow students struggling to swim to the shore?’ he said.

      ‘Oh, no! I would have helped, of course, if I had. But the river was not wide, or deep.’

      ‘No, I see. Well, thank you, Miss DeMarco.’

      As he watched the young woman depart, rather impressed by her ability not to let herself be nailed down to a single straight answer, he mentally shook his head.

      Why were they all so evasive when it came to talking about the dead boy? To the point that nobody seemed even willing to say whether or not they’d seen him at the party?

      ‘I think we’d better hear now from Lord Jeremy Littlejohn,’ Dr Ryder said flatly.

       Chapter 3

      Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday stifled a yawn and got up from the uncomfortable chair she’d been sitting on for the past four hours. Her posterior felt rather numb, and she was glad to stretch her legs, but as she did so she glanced automatically at the poor man lying in the hospital bed in front of her. He didn’t stir. And from what she’d overheard of the doctors’ low-voiced consultations with one another earlier that morning, she rather feared he never would.

      A car had mounted the pavement and hit Mr Michael Emerson in Little Clarendon Street late last night. The driver had failed to stop, and witnesses hadn’t been able to provide a decent description of the vehicle that had knocked him over, breaking his arm and fracturing his skull.

      When she’d reported for duty at the station that morning, her superior officer, DI Harry Jennings, had assigned her to sit by his bedside in the event that he regained consciousness and began to speak.

      But she hadn’t been at the Radcliffe Hospital (ironically, barely a stone’s throw from where the poor man had been run down) more than half an hour before she’d begun to suspect the futility of her task. Clearly none of the medical staff believed he would survive, and Trudy felt desperately sorry for the man’s wife, who was right now sleeping in the chair on the other side of his bed.

      Careful not to wake her, Trudy put down her notebook and pen on the bedside table and walked stiffly to the window to look outside.

      The hospital was a large and beautiful pale-stone building, rather Palladian in style, surrounding a central courtyard on three sides, with Cadwallader College on the right-hand side of it, and a stand of old cedars to the left. As she glanced out at the soot-blackened pub on the opposite side of Woodstock Road, she blinked a little in the bright sunlight.

      It was another hot summer’s day and very warm in the ward, and underneath her black-and-white uniform she was uncomfortably aware that she was perspiring a little. At least she didn’t have to wear her policewoman’s hat indoors, but her long, curly, dark-brown hair was twisted into a neat, tight knot on top of her head, and her scalp felt distinctly damp and itchy.

      The window was open, though, allowing a scant breeze to come in, and she supposed she should be glad it wasn’t winter, when the air would be thick with smoke from all the chimneys. But even as she watched, an old Foden lorry trundled past, adding its bit of pollution to the grime that seemed to coat the beautiful city of dreaming spires and left everything looking and feeling slightly grubby.

      She was just contemplating returning to her uncomfortable chair when she heard the soft slap-slap of the flat shoes all the nurses wore. She turned around, expecting to see a nursing sister taking her patient’s vital signs.

      Instead, a young nurse she hadn’t seen before was beckoning her over. ‘There’s a telephone call for you. You can take it at the desk,’ she informed her quietly.

      ‘Oh, thank you,’ Trudy said.

      She smiled an apology at Mrs Emerson, who had awoken at the