His father had been a widower for some time now. And he was at that age when men could make a fool of themselves over a pretty girl. Worse still, a man like Clement, who had both independent wealth and status, would represent a very attractive proposition to anyone on the lookout for a wealthy husband.

Just how long had this dark-haired, doe-eyed demure little WPC and his father been working together?

And exactly how ‘friendly’ were they?

Chapter 6

‘I thought the old girl was never going to start,’ Clement Ryder mused ten minutes later, and patted the dashboard of his Rover P4 as they finally and carefully pulled away from his house. There was barely room in the middle of the road for the big car to push past the snowdrifts on either side and even in low gear, the car’s rear end had the unnerving tendency to head off in odd directions.

Trudy, who was merely grateful that it had started (otherwise she’d have had to cycle up the freezing Woodstock Road) smiled distractedly.

Once they’d made their way to the more recently cleared and wider carriageway of Banbury Road, Clement glanced across at her thoughtfully and frowned. His young friend wasn’t her usual ebullient and sparkling self today, and he suspected he might know why. He hadn’t exactly been oblivious to the chilly atmosphere in the kitchen earlier – a chill that had nothing, for once, to do with the atrocious weather.

‘You mustn’t let Vincent worry you,’ he said casually. ‘He’s always something of a grump in the mornings. It takes him time to warm to people.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mind,’ Trudy said hastily. ‘And he might have been right to be unhappy with me. I didn’t even stop to consider whether you might not want to be dragged out of your warm home on a national holiday!’

‘Nonsense! I’m glad you did,’ he said, evidently meaning it.

Reassured, Trudy began to relax.

Clement frowned once more as he turned the windscreen wipers on. The snow was coming down again, faster than ever, but it wasn’t the thought of yet more snow that concerned him.

His son was no fool, and Vincent had seen him take that tumble last week – a result of his Parkinson’s disease getting worse. It had happened in the house too, without even the excuse of a slippery pavement to disguise it. He had simply failed to lift his feet properly – his own fault entirely. Although he tried to make a conscious effort to think about walking normally, sometimes he just forgot.

Bloody disease!