Chapter Ten

They crunched across the gravelled car park, and when they reached Victoria’s car, Penny scanned the ground floor windows of the Hall while she waited for the metallic click that indicated Victoria had unlocked the passenger door. As she heard the click and reached for the door handle, she raised her eyes to the first floor, where a figure stood at a window, hand resting on the edge of the curtain, gazing down at her. She waved gently at the figure, but the person did not respond, just stepped back into the room and disappeared from view. It was all over in seconds, and Penny climbed into the car and settled into the passenger seat for the short drive back to town.

“So what’s next?” Victoria asked. The bright, crisp November morning had warmed up nicely. Penny gazed over the hilltops, covered in low-lying, wispy clouds, before replying.

“It’s Remembrance Day Sunday, so I’d like to attend the service at the cenotaph.” She checked her watch. “We’ve got plenty of time to get there. And after that, it would be a nice gesture if we dropped off some flowers at Rhian’s house, don’t you think? To let her know we’re thinking of her.”

“That’s a good idea. We’ll pick up some flowers after the service.”

Victoria parked in her usual spot at the rear of the Spa, and drawn by the sound of the local brass band’s enthusiastic—if occasionally off-key—version of It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, they walked the short distance to the granite cenotaph graced with bronze plaques bearing the names of men who had given their lives in several wars. About a hundred people of all ages, talking quietly amongst themselves and most dressed warmly in casual clothes of jeans, jackets, and wooly hats, each with a red poppy pinned on the collars or chests of their coats, had gathered at the monument. At fifteen minutes to eleven, as the band segued into Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, Rev. Thomas Evans, his white surplice flapping gently in the light breeze, appeared at the head of a small group of veterans, cadets, serving members of the three branches of the armed forces, and local dignitaries. They were accompanied by flag bearers who marched proudly, banners held high, and when the party reached the cenotaph, they lined up smartly. Two elderly veterans in wheelchairs, gloved hands folded and resting lightly on the dark-green plaid rugs covering their laps, were greeted with enthusiastic applause.

When everyone was in position, the music stopped, and Rev. Evans began to speak.

“We gather here today, on the one hundredth anniversary of the Armistice that ended the First World War, to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice …” As Penny listened, her eyes wandered over the assembled townsfolk. There, at the edge of the crowd, her cairn terrier Robbie on a lead and watching the proceedings with his bright, brown eyes, was Bronwyn Evans, the rector’s wife. Beside her stood Mrs. Lloyd and Florence, all three women better dressed than most in knee-length coats. Florence was bareheaded, but Mrs. Lloyd wore a black beret, tipped to one side, that complemented her smart red coat with a black velvet collar.

At the end of the row of dignitaries, holding the wreath that had been handed to him when he arrived, stood Emyr, dressed in the blue uniform of an officer in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, and behind him and off to one side was Jennifer Sayles. Penny recognized her as the figure she had seen at the upstairs window of Ty Brith Hall that morning. At first they seemed like an ordinary couple attending a formal service, but as Penny looked closer, they had that unmistakable, constricted look about them of two people who had recently been arguing, perhaps in the car on the way here. Emyr’s shoulders seemed filled with tension as he stared straight ahead, maintaining an emotional distance between himself and his companion, and Jennifer’s red lips were pressed together in a tight line that drooped slightly at the corners of her mouth. If she knew how aging that was, she wouldn’t let herself do it, thought Penny. Something about her that Penny hadn’t noticed before now struck her as familiar, although she couldn’t place where she’d seen her.

At the stroke of eleven o’clock, the final notes of the “Last Post” faded away and the townsfolk of Llanelen joined with millions across the nation and the Commonwealth to observe the two-minute silence. Penny bowed her head. She paid silent tribute to the members of her own faraway Canadian family who had served in both wars, and she thought of the servicemen and servicewomen, from all countries, symbolized by the poet Hedd Wyn, who had never made it home.

And then the atmosphere of dignified, respectful silence was broken by rowdy teenage boys on bicycles, jeering at the crowd and shouting profanities at one another as they rode by. Those honouring the memory of the war dead raised their heads, glared at the offenders, and then exchanged annoyed glances. But the damage was done, and a few moments later, when the bugler played “Reveille,” indicating that the silence was over, the crowd rustled and stirred back to life. After the service concluded with wreath laying, a blessing, and finally the playing of the national anthem, the group exchanged parting words with their neighbours and, thinking about getting home to prepare lunch or meeting up with a friend at the pub, drifted away.

Mrs. Lloyd exchanged a few words with Emyr and then made a beeline for Penny.

“Oh, Penny. I just asked Emyr if there’s any news after last night, and he was quite short with me. ‘Of course not!’ he said. How was I to know that?” She glanced at Victoria. “Anyway, you have to ask, don’t you? He said he was in a bit of a rush. He’s driving his young lady to the Junction railway station to catch the train back to London. Has to get back to her fancy job. Works in public relations, someone told me last night.”

Penny watched as Emyr and Jennifer Sayles shook hands with the mayor and then left.

“She’s taking the train to London,” repeated Penny. And then she remembered where she’d seen Jennifer Sayles. She’d been one of Meg Wynne Thompson’s bridesmaids, all those years ago, at Emyr’s ill-fated wedding. Penny had done the bridal party’s manicures, but naturally Jennifer had shown no sign of recognizing her. After all, who would remember a manicurist? Penny thought back to the day the bridesmaids, excited and chatty, had come to the little salon she’d operated in Station Road. So much time had passed and everyone had changed. She didn’t even think of herself as a manicurist anymore; she thought of herself as the co-owner of a thriving business and a reasonably successful watercolour artist.

She turned her attention back to Mrs. Lloyd as she was saying, “Yes, yes, Florence, I’m coming,”

“I left that chicken in the oven roasting for our lunch,” said Florence. “But now I’ve got to get home to baste it and put the potatoes on. If you want to dillydally here, that’s fine, but I’m leaving now.”

“I’m amazed that Florence would be cooking today,” said Penny as Florence set off, with Mrs. Lloyd hesitating in her wake, torn between scurrying after her friend and wanting to talk to people. “If I’d worked as hard as she did yesterday preparing that incredible dinner, I’d be having leftovers or takeaway today.”

Victoria laughed. “So would I! And I’m not sure I would have had the energy to turn up for this service, either. Right, then, shall we pick up some flowers and then make our way over to Rhian’s?”

The local flower shop was closed on Sundays, so as they walked the short distance to the supermarket, Penny asked Victoria if she’d noticed the body language between Emyr and Jennifer Sayles.

“I did. Very frosty. Something was most definitely not right there,” Victoria replied. “They looked like they were on the verge of breaking up. As if they didn’t even like each other very much.”

“They seemed happy enough last night, so it looks like they had a falling out either overnight or this morning. They’d certainly been arguing, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, I would. I wonder what about.”

As the automatic doors of the supermarket swished open, they entered and chose the best bouquet on offer, an all-white assortment of roses and carnations. With Victoria carrying the flowers, they made their way to a row of identical terraced, red-brick houses, each with a small garden and overhang above the door. Victoria’s eyes swept over the houses, and she pointed halfway up the street. “I’m pretty sure that’s it.”

Penny rang the doorbell, and a few minutes later Rhian appeared.

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t expecting to see you! But do come in.”

“We hope we’re not intruding,” said Penny, “but we wanted to tell you in person how sorry we were to hear about your nephew.”

Victoria held out the flowers. “And to let you know that if there’s anything you need from us to please just let us know. And take all the time you need off work. We know you need to be with your family now.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Rhian, taking a step back and holding the door open with one hand. They found themselves in a dim, narrow hallway, with a kitchen at the far end and, on their right, a set of dark-brown stairs with a threadbare runner leading to the first floor. “Actually, you’ve come at a good time. My sister’s been on the phone all morning, and my mother’s terribly upset. She’s still in shock, I think. Well, that’s understandable. You don’t expect to wake up of a Sunday morning and be told your grandson’s dead.” She gestured to a door on their left. “Go through.”

Penny and Victoria entered a drab, cramped sitting room. A mud-coloured three-piece suite, with old-fashioned white crocheted arm covers, overpowered the room. A floor lamp with a tasseled shade, a small, cheap bookcase whose shelves bowed under the weight of romance novels, and a curio cupboard filled with figurines of Georgian and Victorian ladies dressed in sweeping skirts and flower-bedecked bonnets, waiting patiently for their suitors, fought for space with the sofa and chairs. And underneath it all was a rather tatty carpet featuring a swirly pattern of brown and yellow roses. The room’s everyday ordinariness was relieved by the contrast of an unexpectedly modern painting hanging above an elderly electric fireplace. In a traditional, dated sitting room like this one, Penny would have expected to see a print of a rural scene, grazing sheep against a mountainous backdrop, perhaps. But to her artist’s eye, this painting, vibrant, and confident in its use of strong colour choices and bold, broad brushstrokes, seemed remarkably out of place. Knowing Rhian, Penny thought the painting could not possibly reflect her tastes.

She directed her attention from the painting to the small woman with bright copper-coloured hair slumped in the armchair. She raised dull, red-veined eyes to take in the visitors.

“Mam, this is Penny and Victoria from the Spa,” said Rhian. “You know, where I work.” The woman gave them a curt nod and then turned her eyes to her daughter, as if seeking further explanation. “Mam, I’m just going to put these lovely flowers they brought us in some water. Do you want me to make you another cup of tea when I’m in the kitchen?”

Mrs. Phillips groaned. “One more cup of tea and my bladder’ll be fit to burst.”

“I’ll take that as a no, then.”

With a resigned gesture, Rhian directed Penny and Victoria to the sofa, and once they were seated, Victoria offered their condolences to the dead youth’s grandmother. The woman acknowledged her words without replying but dabbed at her eyes with a balled-up tissue, which she then placed on the table beside her where it joined a sad little pile of others. A heavy silence settled over the room, broken only when Rhian returned, carrying the flowers in a glass vase. She set it on the table in front of the window and adjusted the white net curtains around it.

“There,” she said. “They look lovely, don’t they, Mam?” She sat down at the end of the sofa, knees together and her body turned toward Penny and Victoria. “It was good of you to call in, and bring us flowers,” she said. “You can’t image how terrible this morning has been. The police have been wonderful, though. They sent a female support officer round to stay with my sister and keep her informed.”

“I’m glad,” said Victoria. “The police seem to be so much better at that sort of thing than they used to be. They show more sympathy and understanding to grieving families.”

“Would it help to talk about your nephew?” Penny asked. “Perhaps you’d tell us a bit about him. What kind of person he was, and so on.”

“He wasn’t like most lads his age from around here,” Rhian said. “He knew what he wanted to do in life, and when he left high school he went off to the university in Bangor. He was the first in our family to go to uni. We were so proud of him, weren’t we, Mam?” Her mother sniffled agreement as she gave her puffy eyes a halfhearted dab.

“We thought he was doing well, but he fell in with a wild crowd, Rhodri did, and started drinking and taking drugs, and ignoring his studies, so he never made it past first year. To be honest, my sister, being a single mum and all, had been strict with him growing up. Too strict, I guess, and sometimes kids just can’t handle all the freedom when they leave home, and they go a bit wild and get into all kinds of trouble.”

“Oh, I know how that can happen all too easily,” said Penny. She’d been on a similar path during her first year at university in New Brunswick, and although she’d managed to squeak through the required courses and narrowly avoid the fate that had befallen Rhodri, a few of her friends, who’d spent too much time at the bridge table or in the local bars, hadn’t. They had left at the end of the spring term, never to be seen again.

“Anyway, our Rhodri ended up having to move back in with his mother here in Llanelen, and he really struggled. His dreams were crashing down all around him and he didn’t know what to do with himself. Had no direction, no purpose. But he kept up with his love of art. In fact, he painted that picture over the fireplace, didn’t he, Mam?” Her mother sniffed again in agreement. “Rhodri’s mother—that’s my sister—she thinks there were more paintings, but they must have got left behind in Bangor when he moved out of his student digs. And he did them all in his own time, too. They weren’t part of his coursework.”

“He was very talented,” Penny said. “But tell me. When did Rhodri move back to Llanelen?”

“Over the summer. He sat his exams in May, then when the results weren’t what he’d hoped for, he didn’t go back for the autumn term. I think he was planning to try to get into art school, Liverpool maybe, where it would be more hands-on and less academic. He took on some casual work at the hotel so he could have a bit of spending money and pay his mum for room and board, so we thought he was on the right track. I mean, sometimes it takes a while for young people to sort themselves out, doesn’t it?”

Mrs. Phillips let out a little exclamation of agreement and spoke for the first time. “He was a good boy at heart, Rhodri was. He never meant anyone any harm.”

“How old was he?” Victoria asked.

“He was just about to turn twenty.” Rhian picked up a framed photo from the mantelpiece and handed it to Penny. “Here he is just finishing high school, so this was taken a year or so ago.”

Penny tipped the photo to catch the light filtering through the net curtains and saw the face of the young man who had helped her light the candles just before the guests entered the dining room and whose hand she had briefly held as he lay dying on the wet walkway outside Ty Brith Hall. Now, knowing the family connection, she could see a hint of his aunt Rhian in his small dark eyes set in a rectangular face, but his nose was longer than hers, and his lips were full where hers were thin. “Have the police given you any indication of what might have happened?” Penny asked, handing the photo of Rhodri to Victoria.

“No. They said they wouldn’t speculate and that they should know more after the …” She glanced at Mrs. Phillips. Penny, realizing that Rhian did not want to risk upsetting her mother any further by using the word “postmortem,” gave her a quick nod of understanding. Since today was Sunday, the earliest the postmortem would be performed would be Monday.

“It was something to do with that bad crowd he got in with, I’m sure of it,” Mrs. Phillips said. “And I’ll tell that to the police and anyone else who cares to listen.”

“What can you tell me about this bad crowd?” Penny asked.

“Oh, the lads he knew when he was in high school. The ones who left early and never got any qualifications while Rhodri completed his A levels. The troublemakers who live on the council estate. Just about every one of them is known to the police, I’m sure of that.”

“We might have seen a few of the younger ones this morning during the Remembrance Day service at the cenotaph,” said Victoria. “Rode by on bicycles, disturbing the two minutes of silence with their shouting and swearing.”

“Sounds like them,” replied Mrs. Phillips. “That’s how they start out. No respect for person or property. And of course as they get older, they lose the bicycles and cause all kinds of problems in cars. Although how they can afford to run a car, I have no idea, since they’re all work shy.”

“And what did Rhodri study at university?” asked Victoria.

Rhian turned to face her mother. “History and art, was it, Mam?” When the older woman nodded, she added, “He loved both those subjects.”

“He certainly was talented,” Penny said again. “The loss of a young person is always a great shame, but it seems all the sadder, somehow, when a life showing promise is cut short.” Rhian’s mother let out a choking sob.

“There’s something I’d like to ask you,” said Penny. “I don’t know if you can help, but I’m sure you’d want to, if you can. You see, there’s a lad gone missing. He’s about the same age as your Rhodri, eighteen or nineteen, but I wondered if there’s a connection, since both young men were at the Hall last night. Lane Hardwick, he’s called.” She looked from Mrs. Phillips to Rhian. “Does the name ring a bell? Did the two know each other?”

“Not that I know of,” said Rhian. “But if you think it might be important, I could ask my sister.”

“It might be worth looking into,” said Penny. “At this stage, it’s difficult to say what’s important and what isn’t, but I’m sure as the investigation continues, the police will find out what happened.” She rested her hands on her knees, and after making eye contact with Victoria, the two rose.

“Before you go, Penny,” said Rhian, “I just want to say if there’s anything you can do to find out how Rhodri died, please do. I know the police will do their best, but you’ve helped out before in other cases, so if there’s anything you can think of that would help us, we’d really appreciate that.”

“Her?” said Mrs. Phillips. “What on earth could she possibly do that the police can’t?”

“I know she doesn’t look terribly clever,” said Victoria with a winning smile, “but you’d be surprised. She’s solved cases in the past, and sometimes the police turn to her for help.”

“Oh, one of those clairvoyant types, is she?” sniffed Mrs. Phillips.

“No,” said Victoria, managing to keep her voice on the polite side of a bristle. “She’s a rather good amateur sleuth.”

“Well, we mustn’t take up any more of your time. It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Phillips, and again, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“I’ll show you out,” said Rhian. She closed the door between the sitting room and the hall behind them. “I apologize for the way she spoke to you just now,” she said. “Mam’s beside herself with grief, and the shock hasn’t even worn off yet. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. But if you can help, we’d be so grateful.”

After assuring Rhian that she’d do everything she could, Penny added, “I didn’t want to mention this in front of your mother, in case it upset her, but it was me who found Rhodri outside. He was still alive, and I held his hand for a minute before I went for help. I’m just so sorry that I couldn’t do anything for him, and even sorrier that we didn’t find him sooner.”

Rhian’s eyes filled with tears. “Actually, it helps to know he wasn’t alone, even if it was just for a moment or two. And I’m glad it was you who was with him.”

The door closed behind them, and Penny and Victoria made their way through the quiet Sunday streets to the Spa.

“Do you want to come up for a bit of lunch?” Victoria asked. “I’m not sure what I’ve got in, but I could rustle us up something, as long as you’re not too fussy.”

“No, you’re all right,” said Penny. “I think I’ll just have a coffee in the café to gather my thoughts before I go home.”

“It feels like we’ve had a long morning, but I don’t know that we accomplished much of anything.”

“Oh, I think we did,” replied Penny. “If Dilys knows where Lane is, I’m quite sure she’ll do her best to convince him that it would be best if he came out of hiding. And if he is with her, he can’t stay there forever. In fact, she might just be the only one who could convince him to let us know he’s safe. Which, of course, I hope he is.”

They had reached the town square, and as Victoria continued on her way, Penny pushed open the door to the café and entered its fragrant warmth. She ordered and paid for a latte at the counter, then took a seat at a window table. Head resting in the palm of her hand, she gazed out at the town square, where an elderly couple waited for the light to change so they could cross the street and a young couple pushed a stroller containing a well-bundled-up toddler. The server set the latte in front of her, and Penny turned away from the window to smile her thanks.

As she dipped a spoon into the foam, she turned her attention again to the town square. The elderly couple had made it across the road, and the couple with the child in the pushchair had reached the other side of the square and were about to disappear down a street that led off it. As she continued to watch, the door of the pub across the way opened and a man emerged. After checking his phone, he pulled a pair of black gloves out of his pocket and put them on. Then he set off, with a pronounced limp, in the direction of the bank. Penny picked up a paper napkin off the table, wiped a circle in the condensation that clouded the window, and peered through the clear space she’d created. As the man turned to look back the way he had come, she instinctively shrank back from the window and wrapped her fingers around the latte glass as if seeking comfort and reassurance from its warmth.

Although she hadn’t been able to see his face, the man’s gait had given him away. She had no doubt who it was: the last person she had expected—or wanted—to see.