A Fatal End Read online

  Readers love the Ryder & Loveday series

  ‘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’

  About the Author

  FAITH MARTIN has 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 became 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.

  Also by Faith Martin

  A Fatal Obsession

  A Fatal Mistake

  A Fatal Flaw

  A Fatal Secret

  A Fatal Truth

  A Fatal Affair

  A Fatal Night

  A Fatal End

  FAITH MARTIN

  HQ

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  1st Floor, Watermarque Building, Ringsend Road

  Dublin 4, Ireland

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2022

  Copyright © Faith Martin 2022

  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 © June 2022 ISBN: 9780008410544

  Version: 2022-05-31

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Readers love the Ryder & Loveday series

  About the Author

  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

  Dear Reader …

  Keep Reading …

  About the Publisher

  This is dedicated to loyal readers everywhere. Be assured, every author really appreciates you.

  Prologue

  Oxford 1963

  It was the first Saturday of September 1963. Playing on the radio in someone’s front room, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas were singing their latest number-one hit, ‘Bad to Me’, and the sound filtered out through the open window into the warm streets of the city.

  In the cinemas, the latest posters were advertising the upcoming attraction of The Great Escape, featuring the American heart-throbs Steve McQueen and James Garner.

  But what really floated the boat of the teenagers now was the new wave of popular music sweeping the land, and Oxford – like most major cities – was only too happy to cater to their wants and needs with open arms … and open hands.

  For just two shillings, you could venture down the left-hand side of the High Street where a rather disreputable alleyway would take you to the Forum, or you might prefer to hang out at the Carfax Assembly Rooms, which had played host to the Beatles the year before they became nationally famous.

  But for those ultra-modern young girls and boys who liked to think of themselves as being a cut above the lily-livered masses and made of much sterner and rebellious stuff, the Bootleggers Club in Walton Street was the place to go. Delicious rumours circulated that real criminals could sometimes be found there, and the bar staff were notoriously lax when it came to estimating a youngster’s age. All the best up-and-coming bands played there too, and it was satisfyingly dark, dingy and – better yet – hated by local city councilmen who were always trying to get it shut down. And somehow never quite managing to do it.

  That particular Saturday night started out at the Bootleggers Club much as usual. By seven o’clock the first of the bands had begun to perform on the small stage. Already the room, not the biggest in the world, was packed. The band – a motley group of likely local lads calling themselves the Undergrads – were doing their best, but apart from a toe-tapping basic beat, they had little else going for them.

  Not that that fact worried Felix Simpkins much. As manager of the club, he cared little about the quality of the entertainment, so long as the youngsters came in their droves, paid the entrance fee and drank his booze. Besides, he knew the first few acts were always the worst. Later on, the big draw – the Rainbirds – would take to the stage in the prime nine to ten p.m. spot, and even Felix, who had a tin ear, could tell they were in a different class from most of the long-haired rabble.

  In the basement below, where the acts went to change, drink and relax in a makeshift common room so squalid that even the rats thought twice about going in there, Ray Reason smoked from a pack of Players and watched his fellow Rainbird member Marty Cuthbertson picking gently on his Watkins Rapier. Marty, like every other kid with the drive to become a pop star, dreamed one day of owning a Gibson or a Fender, and just like everyone else, had to make do with what he could afford.
br />   Ray, at nineteen, was blessed with brooding good looks, with black hair and blue eyes. He liked to call himself the lead singer, but the truth was, he and Marty usually shared the singing. That was because Marty was the band’s songwriter. He was also, by the tiniest of margins, the band’s best guitar player too, a fact that Ray would never willingly admit out loud. But Marty was too tall, too lanky, too goofy-looking to really set the hearts of their female fans alight.

  No, it was because of Ray that the band was getting a reputation as the next big thing. And when the next posters went out to advertise one of their gigs, come hell or high water, the band’s name would have changed to ‘Ray Reason and the Rainbirds’. He’d been talking about it to rest of the lads for ages, insisting that it sounded better. Just look at the current number one! It wasn’t ‘the Dakotas’, was it? No, it was Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas. And the new Mersey sound that was all the rage – was it ‘the Pacemakers’? Or was it Gerry and the Pacemakers? He’d even pointed out that his own name (he really had been christened Raymond Reason) was the ideal name to go with ‘Rainbirds’.

  But Marty wasn’t having it, and that pushy cow of a girlfriend of his wasn’t having it either. But Ray would win in the end. He always did.

  Outside, a young female fan, almost (but not quite) too young to get past even the Bootleggers’ lackadaisical doorman, was instead prowling around the back passageways, looking for a window that she could climb into.

  In the main dance hall, Lindy-Lou Kempson listened to the Undergrads murder a revamp of an old Buddy Holly song and tried not to wince. She was steadily drinking vodka, although she knew she really shouldn’t be. At eighteen, she’d only started drinking a few months ago, when she discovered the Bootleggers Club and began dating Ray. Now she stood against the wall at the back of the dark, cramped, heaving room and felt sick.

  She was also beginning to feel quite desperate. What if her boyfriend didn’t stick by her? A very pretty girl, with long brown hair and big pansy-brown eyes, she was the daughter of a respectable middle-aged couple, who’d come, originally, from Torquay. And she knew her parents would be shocked and furious if they knew that she was ‘in trouble’.

  Jennifer Renfrew, who delighted in calling herself Jenny Wren, was watching Lindy-Lou from behind a crush of silly giggling girls who couldn’t be much older than fourteen. She had spotted Lindy-Lou almost immediately upon entering the hall but was studiously avoiding her. Instead, she pushed her way through the little group of starry-eyed teenagers and made her way out to a side door, where she emerged into a dim and smelly corridor. The lavatories were out here, and she noticed the light in the gents’ wasn’t working again. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she stepped quickly past them. Trust that penny-pinching and obnoxious Felix not to get it fixed.

  She walked quickly down the unsavoury corridor towards a dog-leg turn. Just beyond it, a narrow iron spiral staircase descended to the basement, from which she could hear voices wafting up. She knew they belonged to the players in the bands who were hanging out down there as they waited for their turn on the stage, and nervous laughter and cigarette smoke leaked upwards in equal measure.

  She hoped Marty had worn that new shirt she’d got him. It showed off his fair hair just right, and would make him stand out under the stage lights. He needed all the help he could get to make sure that Ray didn’t hog the audience’s attention.

  She negotiated the tight space of the staircase and turned to the only large doorway down there. As she paused on the threshold, looking around for her boyfriend, she saw Ray first, lounging on a sofa that had half its stuffing spilling out, and drinking thirstily from a pint glass of beer.

  She ignored his sardonic grin as their eyes met, and she wound her way through to where Marty was sitting, picking out yet another new tune on his guitar.

  Jenny knew Ray wanted to take over as leader of the band, but he’d do it only over her dead body. Marty was the songwriter, he could play the guitar like Eddie Cochran and his voice was as good as Ray’s any day of the week.

  Outside, a large Bentley pulled up beside the entrance to the club and a man climbed out, surveying the brightly lit but appallingly ugly little building with a wry smile.

  Titus Crowther-Beauley was thirty-nine years old but looked a lot younger. He dressed well and lived well. He was five foot seven, with dark brown hair and eyes, a legacy from his now-deceased Italian mother. His father – a minor, penniless lord – lived in genteel poverty in Scotland, in a crumbling fortified manor house that Titus avoided like the plague.

  Well-educated but cash poor, Titus had had the brains, good sense, charm and ruthlessness necessary to make his own name – and money – choosing to inhabit the world of television, theatre, film and now the music industry. Agent and in some cases manager of nearly a hundred stars – no matter what their metier – he had a good eye and ear and had risen to become an acknowledged star-maker.

  And he very much enjoyed being fawned over and feted by good-looking aspiring actresses, desperate film directors and fashion magazine editors alike.

  Tonight, he’d come to the Bootleggers to listen again to a band that his spotters had first picked up on as a possible contender for the next big thing. On the whole, he’d been impressed by his first sight and sound of the band, and had cautiously sounded them out, to see if they already had management. He’d made no promises, but not surprisingly most of them had been very excited by his interest, although he had encountered unexpected reticence from one member of the band. Nevertheless, he’d gone to see them again, and had once more been happy with their performance.

  Now he’d all but made up his mind to add to them to his stable, his instinct telling him that, potentially, they might turn out to be a nice little gold mine for him. And as for the lone dissenter, well, he was sure that little problem could be dealt with, if it became necessary.

  The man on the door, mightily impressed by his motor, almost bowed him into the dingy club’s interior. Titus only hoped things didn’t become too manic tonight. When word got around (and it soon would, like wildfire) that he was there and maybe talent-scouting, things had the potential to get silly. Once or twice, his presence had nearly caused a riot at am-dram productions and singing contests, as acts desperate to catch his attention came (in some cases literally) to blows in order to impress him.

  From the main room a heavy beat was throbbing and Titus took a deep breath before plunging into the world of hypersexual teenage girls and gyrating dancers. He doubted he’d get a decent drink in this backwater and only hoped that the Rainbirds would be as good as the last time he’d seen them.

  And so that Saturday evening at the Bootleggers progressed, more or less, as it had done many times before. Acts came and went, long-haired young men sang sometimes incomprehensible songs, and girls and boys kissed under the cover of darkness, drank too much and (in some rare cases) discreetly imbibed things other than alcohol.

  Except this time, and before that particular night was out, an ambulance would have to be called and a dead body would have to be removed.

  And a soon-to-be-grieving family would get a knock on their front door and learn that their lives would never be quite the same again.

  Chapter 1

  Dr Clement Ryder looked over his packed coroner’s court with slightly watery grey eyes that missed nothing. There was a preponderance of girls in their late teens clogging up the public galleries, but in the circumstances, Clement didn’t regard that as particularly surprising.

  At just over six feet, and now nearing his sixtieth birthday, the former surgeon turned city coroner was an impressive figure. With thick silvery-white hair and matching bushy eyebrows, he was dressed impeccably in his favourite dark blue suit, and everyone who felt his gaze on them automatically sat up a little straighter. To begin with, he’d never lost that cool, almost otherworldly confidence of a man who had regularly wielded a scalpel on a helpless human body. Plus, there weren’t many people in that room who were una
ware that Dr Ryder was someone of power and influence.

  That particular Wednesday morning, with the courtroom clock showing that it was just coming up to half past ten, Dr Ryder was observing his latest jury with a slightly weary eye.

  Yesterday, he’d opened the inquest on the death of Raymond Reason – a musician found dead at the Bootleggers Club, halfway down a set of spiral iron stairs, having apparently fallen down them. All the witnesses had been questioned, and the medical evidence had been duly given. Unfortunately, they’d started late, and the medical evidence had thrown up some rather complicated issues (picked up on and thoroughly questioned by Clement himself) and so they’d had to reconvene today.

  Which meant that the members of the public who had been called upon to do their civic duty and act as coroner’s jury were anxious not to waste any more time than they had to in order to get things over and done with. And, unless Clement was totally misreading them (and Dr Ryder very seldom did that) they were itching to deliver a verdict of accidental death and then swarm out of the courthouse to hearth and home, work or the nearest pub, depending on their various priorities.

  And there was very little that he could do to stop them, much as he might like to.

  As a former surgeon, he had listened closely and, far more importantly, understood the medical evidence given by the pathologist. Namely, that Ray Reason had received two blows to the head, with the second one being the fatal injury. But he was not sure that the jury had noted the significance of this, even though he’d tried his best to bring it to their attention with his questioning of the medical expert.

  He sighed and straightened a little in his chair. The remainder of the evidence available had now been dealt with, and he had only to give his summing up.

  Unluckily for him, he was frustratingly aware that he had no real legal or ethical way of directing them towards the verdict that he thought should be brought in. In his opinion, the way and means by which Raymond Reason had met his death could bear much more investigation. But even he had to admit that the evidence simply wasn’t there to bring in a verdict for murder by person or persons unknown. Not yet anyway.