A Fatal Secret
‘Great characters, great plot and a totally dazzling finish… Wonderful. ’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars Oxford, 1961 A family day out at Briar’s Hall ends in tragedy when a young boy goes missing – and his body is found at the bottom of a disused well in the orchard. It looks like a simple case of an eleven-year-old exploring where he shouldn’t: a tragic accident. But Coroner Clement Ryder and Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday aren’t convinced. If Eddie had been climbing and fallen, why were there no cuts or dirt on his hands? Why would a boy terrified of heights be around a well at all? Clement and Trudy are determined to get to the truth, but the more they dig into Briar’s Hall and the mysterious de Lacey family who live there, the murkier things become. Could it be that poor Eddie’s death was murder? There are rumours of blackmail in the village, and Clement and Trudy have a horrible feeling that Eddie stumbled on a secret that someone was willing to kill for… Fans of Betty Rowlands, Agatha Christie and Faith Martin’s DI Hillary Greene series will not want to miss this! Readers LOVE A Fatal Secret! ‘A brilliant book! This is Faith Martin at her scintillating best!… A cracking good read… Highly recommend this book and I give it a delighted 5 stars!’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars ‘Gripping suspense that will have you on the edge of your seat. I was hooked from page one. ’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars ‘Great plot, excellent main characters and I read it in one sitting! I would highly recommend this book. ’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars ‘Gripping… Crime-busting nostalgia at its very best. ’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars The Ryder and Loveday SeriesBook 1: A FATAL OBSESSIONBook 2: A FATAL MISTAKEBook 3: A FATAL FLAWBook 4: A FATAL SECRET
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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 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 Secret
FAITH MARTIN
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 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
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.
