Chapter Seventeen

Penny pondered that question all morning, and by the end of the day she’d come up with a vague plan. If Lane wouldn’t tell her who had spoken to him, maybe that person would confirm that he was the one who had spoken to Lane. If, of course, that person was who she suspected it was. But to speak to him, she’d have to square some time off with Victoria, and she knew that was going to be a hard sell.

“Now Victoria,” she began. “You’re not to be annoyed with me, but I need a bit of personal time off tomorrow morning.” Victoria looked up from the box of hand cream she was unpacking and arranging in a display of Spa-branded products.

“Oh, really. Must you?” she said. “You know we’re short-staffed. I was counting on you to do reception cover tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll try to be back by lunchtime.”

“Where are you going?”

“Bangor.”

“Bangor? What’s in Bangor?”

“Lane said someone threatened him on Saturday night. On Sunday, I saw Michael Quinn right here in Llanelen, coming out of the pub. At least I think it was him. I didn’t actually get a good look. But he had a limp on his left side.”

“Well, it sounds like something that awful Quinn would do, be in the pub. I’ll give you that.”

“Yes. And Lane won’t tell me who threatened him, but on Sunday he used the word ‘grand’ in that almost cliched Irish way, and I think it could have been Michael Quinn who spoke to him.”

“So let me see if I’ve got this straight. Someone threatened Lane on Saturday night during the dinner party at the Hall, causing him to drop a tray full of plates and glasses. Then, on Sunday, he used the word ‘grand,’ so your theory is he must have been threatened by an Irishman, and out of all the Irishmen in all the world, the Irishman who threatened him was Michael Quinn because you just happened to see a man, who may or may not be Quinn, limping out of the pub at Sunday lunchtime?”

Penny laughed. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds even more ridiculous.”

“I’m not finished yet. So now you want to go to Bangor tomorrow morning and confront Michael Quinn, and say what to him, exactly?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t worked that out yet.”

“I give up. I can’t even say something like, ‘Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing,’ because clearly, you don’t. But I hope it’ll be worth it, and you owe me for this.”

“Yes, I do.”

*   *   *

The next morning, Penny caught the early bus to Llandudno. The little blue-and-white vehicle wended its way down the valley until about forty minutes later it reached the town of Conwy. Through narrow streets, passing under the grey stone arches that formed part of the medieval town walls, it went, until it reached the bus stop at the railway station, where she changed to the Number X5 headed for Bangor. The bus sped along the coast, past rugged hills and green fields dotted with sheep on her left, and the Irish Sea sparkling in the morning sunshine on her right. An hour or so later it pulled into Bangor. She got off at the main bus depot in the town centre and made her way to a well-kept, three-storey, pebble-dashed house within the shadow of Bangor University.

She’d been here once before, when Quinn had been laid up with his injured leg. The semidetached house was painted a light cream, with Wedgwood-blue window frames and door and a slate house sign that said RHOS-GOCH beside the doorbell. Faded red roses clung to trellises on each side of the door. As she walked slowly up the path that led to the front door, rehearsing what she would say if Michael Quinn’s wife answered the bell, the door of the adjoining house opened and a woman carrying a couple of empty shopping bags emerged, obviously on her way to the shops. She locked her front door and pushed on the handle to make sure it was secure, and then, catching sight of Penny, said, “You look lost. Can I help?”

The woman’s eyes had a sharp intensity about them, as if nothing much got past her, and Penny found her presence inexplicably reassuring. “I was just about to knock on Michael Quinn’s door.”

The woman gave her a sympathetic, knowing smile. “Sorry, love, he’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Hmm. Him and his wife broke up, oh, several months ago now, and first she moved out, leaving him here on his own, and then he left a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, I see.”

“The house has been rented. New people just moved in. A couple and two children. They seem like a nice family and he’s something at the cathedral, I believe. But the street’s always changing, and you never who you’re going to get.”

“No, you don’t. Well, if Michael Quinn isn’t here anymore, it looks like I’ve had a wasted journey.”

“Sorry, love. And from your accent, you’ve come a very long way. American, are you?”

Penny smiled. “No, Canadian. But I haven’t come that far. Just from Llanelen this morning. I live there now.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I’m sorry you didn’t get what you were after.”

“It’s all right,” said Penny. “I can always do a bit of shopping now that I’m here.” As they walked down the little asphalt path toward the street together, the woman said, “I’ll walk with you.” She gestured with her shopping bags. “I’ve got to pick up my prescription, and then I’m going to Marks. Want to get one of their Battenburg cakes for my tea.”

As they fell into a comfortable walking rhythm, Penny asked, “Do you happen to know where Michael Quinn moved to? Is he still with the university?”

The woman shook her head. “Not this one here in Bangor. That fancy one in Dublin, maybe, the one with the library and the book everybody wants to see. I heard from her at number thirty-six on the other side that’s where he moved to. Dublin. Well, it makes sense, I suppose. Him being Irish and all.” The woman shifted her bags to her other hand. “But it’s funny you should be here asking after him now, that Michael Quinn.”

“Oh, why’s that?”

“Because I heard nothing about his wife after she left—nobody came asking after her—and now here you are asking after Michael Quinn and you’re the second one.”

“Oh, really? That’s very interesting. If you don’t mind telling me, who was the other person asking after him?”

“Not a person. Three of them, there were. And that’s the strange thing. I’d just watched a crime prevention program on the telly—you know the sort of thing, lock your doors and windows—presented by a lovely lady officer from the police, it was—and she said be on your guard because gangs of thieves are operating in the area, so when I saw these three lads out my lounge window, loitering about, I thought they were thieves. What’s that American expression? Casing the place?”

“Casing the joint?”

“That’s it. I thought they were thieves, casing the joint. By all accounts Michael Quinn had some nice artwork, so I thought they might be after that. I was only in their house a couple of times, see, and can’t remember that much about how it was decorated, although they had it done up really nice, I do recall that.”

I was only in it once, thought Penny, and I can remember every detail, from the sage-green sofa with the pretty lemon yellow–and–white pillows to the expensive-looking art books on the coffee table. And the woman was right. There had been original artworks, and prints, too. “So I decided to confront these lads, and out I come, even though I was only in my house slippers, and I said, ‘May I help you?’ like I said to you just now. And I thought they’d make some lame excuse and clear off. But they didn’t. I was that surprised when they asked after Michael Quinn by name.

“So then, because they were young, I wondered if they might have been students of his from the university. Anyway, I told them he didn’t live here anymore, like I told you just now, and they said thank you very much and left.”

“And how long ago was this?” Penny asked. “When were they here?”

“Oh, not that long ago.” She thought for a moment. “Two or three weeks, maybe?”

“And had you heard that he was planning to move out, or did it seem to happen in a hurry?”

“Now that I couldn’t say. I wasn’t close to them.”

“And these lads … if you thought they were university students, they looked young, did they?” Penny asked.

“Well, youngish, I would say. Definitely not teenagers, early twenties, maybe. I’m not great at estimating people’s ages. People from about twenty to forty all look the same to me. Young.”

“Right, so early twenties, let’s say. And they were dressed in what, jeans and trainers?”

“Jeans, yes, I think so. Don’t know about trainers, but probably. It’s just that look practically everyone has now. Everybody wants to be comfortable, nobody wants to look smart. These fellows, now, they just looked a bit rough, if you know what I mean. That’s the only way I can think to describe them. Unshaven and not very clean.”

“Well, they could have been just about anybody, I suppose,” said Penny, her mind racing back to the young men Eirlys had described, friends of Rhodri Phillips, as “rough.”

“Is there anything else you can remember about them?” Penny asked as they reached the shopping precinct.

“There was one thing that amused me,” said the woman. “It was the way he said ‘thank you.’ He said it as ‘Tank you.’ Made me smile because my mother had an Irish charwoman when I was growing up who spoke like that.”

“Oh,” said Penny. “That’s interesting. So you think they were Irish, do you?”

The woman nodded. “Well, it was lovely chatting with you.” She frowned. “You asked a lot of questions. You’re not from the police, are you? He hasn’t done anything wrong, has he?”

Penny smiled. “No, I’m not from the police. If I were, I’d have said so right at the outset and shown you my warrant card.”

A flicker of relief crossed the woman’s face. “Well, that’s all right then.” She shifted her shopping bag to the other arm. “I hope you find him.”

I do, too, thought Penny, as the woman walked away. Bangor railway station was so close, and it would be so easy to walk over there, buy a ticket to Holyhead, and from there catch the next ferry to Dublin. But the practical, responsible side prevailed, and she reached into her handbag and pulled out her bus day pass. She tucked it in her coat pocket, entered the Marks and Spencer food hall, and picked up a few treats and some good things for dinner before boarding the bus for home.

She gazed out the window, unseeing, as she sifted through the information the former neighbour of the Quinns had given her, trying to piece it together with what she already knew. And then two pieces clicked together, with such clarity and precision she started in her seat. Without thinking or hesitating, she pressed the button to indicate to the driver that a passenger wanted to get off. The bus slowed, then stopped near the entrance to Penrhyn Castle, but she had neither the time nor the inclination today to admire its elaborate stone walls. As she crossed the road, an idea came to her as to how she could make this work, and while she waited for the next bus that would take her back to Bangor, she pulled out her phone.