Thomas Hudd

In the novel Hallowe'en Party, Thomas Hudd was one of two boyfriends who were going out with a sixteen-year old shop assistant in Woodleigh Common named Charlotte Benfield. Some eighteen months before the events in the book, Charlotte had been found murdered with her head bashed in. Hudd and Peter Gordon, the other boyfriend, both became suspects but nothing was ever proven against either of them.

According to Superintendent Spence, Hudd was then twenty, a young, shy, neurotic man who stammered. He had a job at the stationer's. Hudd had a mother, a widow, who doted on him and basically kept him on her apron strings. His mother gave Hudd an alibi. Spence was sceptical, because of his mother's obvious devotion to Hudd, she would have said anything, but nonetheless no one could challenge the alibi.