‘I wish we had our hands on that damned diary,’ Clement muttered.
Trudy nodded. She wished she hadn’t been so careless as to talk about the case out in the open in the village. She’d certainly never do so again – that particular lesson was well and truly learned. She should have realised that their presence was bound to attract the curiosity of the village children, and learning what they were doing would be high on any kiddie’s list. The bragging rights it would give them with their friends would be phenomenal.
She felt distinctly deflated as they made their way to the Finch residence in taut silence, and tried to snap out of her gloomy mood as Clement knocked briskly on the door. Castigating herself wasn’t going to help anyone or anything, and she couldn’t let herself get distracted. As Dr Ryder had just pointed out, they needed to find that diary of David’s and his parents were likely to be their best chance of doing so.
She was expecting Mrs Finch to answer the door again, and was therefore very disconcerted, when the door swung open, to find herself in the presence of Superintendent Finch himself. Not that she’d ever met him in person, but she recognised him from when he’d given his evidence at the coroner’s court.
She felt herself instinctively straighten to attention. ‘Sir,’ she said smartly. She was half-expecting him to barely acknowledge her, so used was she to men in authority always seeking out other men in authority to engage with first. So she felt utterly stunned when her superior officer’s face creased into a welcoming smile, and he reached out his hand to her.
‘WPC Loveday, I’m very glad to see you. Congratulations! I can’t tell you how pleased I am by your progress. Come on in and tell me all about it. I knew I was right to ask you two to investigate David’s case!’
Trudy blinked and shot Clement a baffled look. Congratulations? On what, exactly – and what progress had they made?
Clement shot her back an equally blank stare and gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders.
Feeling full of trepidation, Trudy stepped into the Superintendent’s hallway and followed him through to the small front room. There was no sign of his wife, and he indicated a pair of armchairs impatiently as he took a seat on a small sofa.
‘I can’t tell you how glad I was to get DI Jennings’s call last night,’ he swept on. ‘That was a very clever piece of deductive reasoning, Constable,’ he added, running a hand over his face. In spite of his ebullient mood, he looked tired and pale, and Trudy felt her heart go out to him, even as her mind scrabbled to understand what this was all about.
‘Er, thank you, sir,’ she said, a shade helplessly. Although she reported to the station every morning, that morning DI Jennings hadn’t been in his office, so she was literally in the dark.
‘Although in itself the evidence isn’t conclusive, it’s certainly suggestive. Oh yes, I think we can say that. Certainly it’s cast the verdict of suicide into doubt.’
Trudy gulped, realising that she could put it off no longer – there was nothing else for it. She was just going to have to admit, humiliatingly, that she had no idea what the Superintendent was talking about, and feel like a perfect fool. Just when she was already still kicking herself for her earlier mistake with the village children, too.
Luckily he burst into speech before she could do so.
‘Yes, getting that ladder tested was a stroke of genius!’ Keith Finch said, giving her another grateful look.
The ladder!
Trudy, who hadn’t realised how tense she’d actually been, felt her shoulders all but slump in relief as comprehension finally came. So the test results must have come back in on the woodworm and the state of the rungs. And it didn’t take a genius to work out that the experts’ verdict had been that the wood had been in no fit state to take a man’s weight.
‘Of course, Jennings pointed out that David knew the barn well, and might have known the ladder was a bit rickety from playing there as a kid. But I told him – in no uncertain terms, you can be sure – that was all but irrelevant. Nobody who was in the act of killing themselves, especially when befuddled already by a sleeping drug, was going to have the presence of mind to avoid stepping on ladder rungs that they might have guessed were unable to take their weight, would they?’ Superintendent Finch looked from one to the other. ‘I mean, it’s just not feasible, is it?’
‘I wouldn’t have said so, no,’ Clement said, sensing that Trudy’s nerves were probably a little fraught right then. ‘I take it that DI Jennings …’ He broke off diplomatically.
‘Is now having to rethink the whole thing?’ the Superintendent finished happily. ‘Yes he is. Well, I suppose it would be more accurate to say that he’s not quite so sure that the case is as cut-and-dried as it first appeared. Which as far as I’m concerned, is a major step forward. So …’ He leaned forward eagerly in the chair. ‘Now that things are moving at last, what’s your next move?’
He looked at Trudy expectantly.
Chapter 25
Under her superior officer’s unwavering gaze, Trudy gulped. Their next move? For a hideous second her mind went a total blank and she groped for the first thing she could think of.
‘Well, we’ve spoken to someone called Mortimer Crowley. I don’t know if DI Jennings mentioned him?’ she heard herself say. Luckily (and astonishingly,) she heard herself say it in a calm and even confident manner.
Beside her, Clement leaned forward slightly in his chair, and as if sensing she might need
