Chapter Eleven

Michael Quinn, with his irresistible Irish accent and seductively deep blue eyes.

As the churning in her stomach subsided and her thudding heart slowed and returned to normal, Penny finished her latte, and after deciding not to stop in at the Spa to tell Victoria who she had just spotted, she left the café and set off for home.

As always, walking provided the perfect accompaniment to thinking. And why, she thought, shouldn’t Michael Quinn be in town? He lived in Bangor, a reasonable driving distance from here, and might have any number of good reasons for being in Llanelen today. She hoped the reason he was here had nothing to do with her.

She’d met Michael, an art historian, at the touring antiques appraisal show held at Ty Brith Hall she’d helped organize in the spring, and when he’d taken a special interest in her, she’d fallen hard for his good looks and Irish charm. She’d invested time and emotional energy in what she’d thought was a blossoming romance and had been embarrassed and crushed to learn that while she’d been falling for him, he’d conveniently forgotten to tell her that he was married, and still living with his wife.

Although Penny was grateful she’d learned the truth about his marital status before their relationship had progressed too far, she felt betrayed and angry. Angry with him for his deceit, and angry with herself for being so susceptible to the way he looked and talked. She hadn’t seen him again until today, and she’d thought him well out of her memory range. She felt ambushed by the swirl of emotions that seeing him just now had awoken in her, although she wasn’t sure why. She’d thought there was nothing left to feel for him, except perhaps residual loathing. But if that had been true, why had she had such a visceral reaction to seeing him again?

She unlocked her front door, recently painted a distinctive charcoal grey, and entered her cottage. After hanging her coat in the cupboard, she set her bag down at the bottom of the stairs and headed for the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door, peered in, and took out the remains of a piece of cheddar cheese. She sliced it, set it on a plate with a few crackers and a handful of red grapes, and carried the plate through to her sitting room. She nibbled on the cheese as her mind whirled, remembering the pleasant days she’d spent with Michael Quinn. On one occasion, he’d taken her to see the bluebells in bloom; on another they’d had an outing that had started out light and fun but had taken a frightening turn when he’d been hit by a cyclist on a mountain bike, injuring his leg. Or was it his hip? In any event, he’d been unable to walk, and they’d been stranded in the forest overnight until she’d been able to summon help in the morning. She rested her head against the back of the sofa, trying to remember which leg Michael Quinn had injured, and conjured up the image of the man she’d just seen limping out of the pub. That man favoured his left leg. She cast her mind back to visiting Michael Quinn in hospital, his left leg propped up. Yes, it was his left leg that had been injured, and there had been concern for his hip as well.

She set the plate, empty except for a few grape stems, on the coffee table, and as a wave of tiredness washed over her, she reached for the light blanket folded over the arm of the sofa. Then, in a smooth, easy motion, she pulled it over herself as she stretched out. She turned on her side, tucked her hand under the green-and-yellow-striped cushion, and within minutes of closing her eyes, drifted off into a light sleep.

*   *   *

She awoke to the sound of knocking, not on the front door that a regular visitor would be expected to use but on the back door, which led from the kitchen to a secluded area bounded by a low stone wall.

Penny threw back the light blanket and padded to the back door. Since only one visitor had ever knocked on that door, she had a pretty good idea whom she was going to see. She turned the key in the lock and opened the door. The person she expected stood some way off, watching from the other side of the stone wall, and after seeing her charge safely delivered, she melted into a patch of trees.

Penny turned her attention to the person in front of her.

“So, Lane. Dilys brought you. Good. You’d better come in.” She stood to one side to allow him to enter her kitchen. “Do you want a coffee or tea?”

“Have you got a latte?”

“No, sorry, just regular coffee. But it’s pretty good.”

“All right.” And then, remembering his manners, he added, “Thank you.”

Penny put the kettle on while Lane watched her, arms hanging loosely at his sides.

“Dilys brought me,” he said. “I didn’t know where you live. I couldn’t have found my own way here. I’ve never been to your house before.”

“No, Lane, you haven’t,” said Penny. “Now, then. Would you be more comfortable here in the kitchen”—she gestured to a small table with two chairs—“or would you prefer the sitting room?”

“I don’t know,” Lane replied. “I’ve never seen your sitting room, so how could I know where I want to sit?”

“I see your point. Why don’t you take a look around and then decide where you’d be more comfortable?”

Lane peered into the sitting room, his eyes roving over its pastel shades and soft, plump furniture. He then pointed to the table. “I’d like to sit here. It’s more like the café. Without the latte.”

Penny handed him a clean towel and gestured to the sink. “Maybe you’d like to wash your hands before you have your coffee.” While he did that, she took a few chocolate digestives out of a biscuit tin and arranged them on a plate.

“Will that do you?” Penny asked, “Or would you like something more substantial? I could do you scrambled eggs and toast.”

“A piece of toast would be grand, please. With jam. I like jam.”

“I’ve only got marmalade. Will that do?”

“Suppose so.”

Penny dropped a couple of slices of brown bread into the toaster, poured hot water on the coffee, and suggested Lane sit down. She brought everything to the table and waited until he’d smothered his toast with butter and Florence’s homemade marmalade before she eased into the reason for his being there.

“So Dilys brought you?”

Lane nodded. “She said you wanted to talk to me.”

“That’s right. I do. And Bethan Morgan, the police officer you met before, she’ll want to talk to you, too. Would it be all right with you if I rang her and let her know you’re here with me so she can come round and talk to you?” Lane’s eyes shifted toward the back door, as if he were reassuring himself an escape route was available to him, if he needed it. He cut his toast into four and looked at his fingers. Penny handed him a paper napkin. “And there’s your mother,” Penny continued. “We’d better let her know you’re here, don’t you think? She’ll be worried about you.”

“Yeah, could do,” said Lane with a nonchalant shrug. “I’m not bothered.” He frowned. “But as for the police lady. Couldn’t you just ask me the questions? I don’t want to talk to her right now.”

“Maybe I could ask the questions and she could listen to your answers,” said Penny, knowing that was highly unorthodox, but as long as Bethan got the answers she needed, and if it was the only way to get Lane to talk, she’d probably go along with it. But Lane shook his head.

“Okay,” said Penny. “Well, what I really want to know is why you didn’t serve the coffee at the dinner. We were all very surprised and disappointed when you weren’t there. You love coffee, and you would have done such a great job setting up your very own coffee station and serving the guests.”

Lane reacted to this praise with a broad, open grin.

“Maybe you’d like to pour the coffee now.”

Lane picked up the cafetière, and when he’d finished filling their mugs, Penny continued, “So what happened? Why did you leave the dinner party?”

Lane did not reply, so Penny pressed him. “Did something happen, Lane? Did you see something? Or maybe you heard something that frightened you?” She added a splash of milk to her coffee and waited for him to reply. His eyes shifted again to the back door.

“I can’t tell anyone,” he said in a low voice. “They made me promise not to tell. They said if I told anyone, I could get hurt.”

Penny’s heart beat faster. “Promise not to tell what, Lane?” When he didn’t reply, Penny took a sip of coffee, her mind racing, knowing that what she said next could determine whether Lane would open up to her or not. But she had to ask, and she had to phrase her questions delicately so she didn’t alarm him, or put words in his mouth.

She relaxed her shoulders and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “No one’s going to hurt you, Lane. You did the right thing coming to see me, and now that you’re here, it would be really good if you could tell me what happened. When you say ‘they,’ who do mean? Who made you promise not to tell?”

Lane’s eyes darted around the room.

“I don’t know who they were. I’d never seen them before.”

“Okay. And what did they make you promise not to tell? Was it something you saw? Is that it? You saw something?” Lane frowned while he thought this over, and then shook his head slightly.

“All right. I’ll take that to mean you didn’t see something. But maybe you saw someone? Maybe you saw someone in the hall who wasn’t supposed to be there? Someone who surprised you? Someone who spoke to you?”

Lane scrubbed his eyes with balled fists but said nothing.

“So let’s just for a moment say that’s what happened. You saw someone. This person, was he a guest at the dinner party?”

Lane shrugged.

“You don’t know. Well, was he dressed like the people at the party? Was he wearing good clothes? You know, like a nice suit?”

Lane’s eyes narrowed, and Penny took that as a no. But then, it was highly unlikely that a dinner guest would have been involved, as Emyr had said that none of the diners had left the room. One of the waitstaff, then. Rhodri, perhaps?

Lane drained the last of his coffee, set the mug down, and stood up.

“I’m tired and I want to go home now. My mother will probably be worried about me.”

“Yes, she will. Look, I think it would be best if I ring her and let her know you’re here, and she can come and pick you up.” Now that she knew Lane was safe, Penny wanted to keep him that way. She didn’t like the idea of his walking into town on his own. “The thing is, you’ve already had a long walk, all the way here from Dilys’s. I know it doesn’t seem far when you’re in a car, but when you walk, well, it’s quite a way. And I doubt Dilys’s spare bed is very comfortable. You probably didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“I didn’t.”

“And then there’s her awful tea.”

Lane managed a sloppy grin.

“Right, well, I’ll ring your mum and she’ll be here in no time, and then you can go home and have a nice bath and sleep in your own bed tonight. What do you think of that?”

“That would be grand.”

“But look, Lane, it would be really helpful if you could try to remember everything you saw and heard at the dinner party last night, and when you’re ready, if you can tell me something, anything, it could be important, and that little bit of information you give us could be exactly what we need to help the police find out what happened to Rhodri Phillips.” Lane’s body stiffened as she said the word “police,” so she corrected herself. “You might be able to help us find out what happened to Rhodri.” When Lane sat back in his chair, she added, “Did you know that something very bad happened last night? One of the waiters died.” He nodded slowly. “Maybe Dilys told you.” His body shifted and his eyes drifted once more to the door. Penny realised he was coming to the end of what he could tolerate, but she ventured one last question. “Did you know Rhodri Phillips, by the way? He was a bit older than you, but your paths might have crossed.”

“No, I haven’t heard of him.”

“Well, if you do want to talk about what happened last night, you come and see me, okay? Sometimes we remember things later.”

“I did remember something. I didn’t drop the tray.”

“What do you mean?”

“The tray that spilled on the floor. I didn’t drop it.”

“Okay. Then how do you think it landed on the floor?”

“He knocked it out of my hands.”

*   *   *

When Lane had left with his mother, Penny rang Inspector Bethan Morgan to let her know that he was safe and on his way home. When Bethan asked if he had said anything that might be useful in the investigation of either the theft of the Black Chair or the death of Rhodri Phillips, Penny hesitated before replying, “He wasn’t very clear, but he saw someone or something and said they threatened to hurt him if he told anyone. He used the word ‘they.’ And then he said ‘he’ knocked the tray out of his hands, that he didn’t drop it. But he wouldn’t tell me who spoke to him and threatened him.

“He’s scared,” she added. “Give him a day or two, and he might be ready to open up, but I think it’s really important that you talk to him soon.”

When the call ended, Penny lowered her phone and remained standing, gazing out her front window at the black branches of the apple tree. She thought about the theft of the chair and the death of Rhodri Phillips. Were they connected? The simplest answer, which was always the best, was yes, they were.

Had Lane seen something? The chair being carried out of the library? Who had spoken to him? Was it the person who had organized the theft of the chair, or the person who had actually stolen it? And were they one and the same person, or two people?

The theft could have been planned by one person, she reasoned, but must have been carried out by at least two people, because more than one person would have been required to lift that chair. And it had been removed quickly and quietly, without attracting any attention, so other people would have been needed to act as lookouts and open doors. The thieves had used the bustle and confusion, the coming and going of the dinner party, as the perfect cover to move through the house. The guests were neatly out of the way—first in the sitting room and then the dining room—and the staff in the kitchen were so preoccupied with their work that they wouldn’t have taken any notice of extra people in the house as long as they looked like they belonged to the group working on the dinner party. Waiters, maybe, or tradesmen, perhaps.

Tradesmen? She remembered the white van in the car park, and when she’d asked Gwennie if Heather was still at the Hall putting last-minute touches on the floral arrangements, Gwennie had replied that Heather was long gone and the van probably belonged to the wine merchants making a last-minute delivery. But what if it hadn’t? What if it belonged to the thieves? What was it Gwennie had said? That the wine merchants had made an unexpected delivery of a complimentary case of champagne. Had they used that as a ruse to enter the house?

And the critical thing was, how had the thieves known where the chair would be? And then she realised that someone familiar with the layout of the house must have been involved in the planning.

She opened the dinner party file folder and pulled out the guest list. She went through the list of names, asking herself if each person could have been involved in the theft of the Black Chair.

Mrs. Lloyd? Don’t make me laugh.

The Reverend Thomas Evans? Absolutely not.

His wife, Bronwyn Evans? No way.

The mayor? Never in a million years. He wants to get reelected!

The mayor’s wife? Of course not. She loves that role.

Emyr Gruffydd? What possible reason could he have to steal from himself, as it were? If he wanted to steal the chair, he’d have found a much simpler way to do it.

After working her way through the rest of the names on the guest list, pausing to consider what she knew about each person, she couldn’t imagine any of them being involved in some way with the theft of the chair. She was left with just one name that gave her pause: Jennifer Sayles, Emyr’s new girlfriend. And it wasn’t that she thought Jennifer might have had something to do with the theft; Penny just didn’t know her well enough to exclude her as she had the others.

The whole evening—the guests, the staff, who was where and when—was becoming a big blur. I have to bring some order to this, she thought, and I can start by trying to work out when the theft of the chair occurred.