Chapter Twenty-Three

Heavy rain lashing her windowpanes, accompanied by the howling of high November winds, awakened Penny during the night. She got up and looked out the window, but unable to see anything, she went back to bed, where she lay in the dark, snug in her cozy cottage, thinking. By morning the rain had stopped, and when she set off for town, all that remained of the night’s storm was the dripping trees that flanked the road and dark branches brought down by the wind littering the verge. Through the light mist that drifted over the fields, she could just make out a fire in the travellers’ encampment and shadowy human shapes moving toward it. The mournful barking of an unhappy dog disturbed the silence.

Not long after she passed the encampment, a small figure came toward her. As they neared each other, the girl’s eyes darted anxiously in the direction of the encampment and then turned to Penny when they both stopped.

“Hello,” said Penny with a gentle smile. “We meet again. How are you?”

“Grand, I guess,” said the girl in the small voice that Penny remembered from the ferry. She wore a pair of trainers with holes in the toes, plaid trousers made of a flannel material, and a wooly jumper. Penny, in a lined, waterproof anorak, was warm enough, but not too warm. That child must be freezing, Penny thought. The two jugs of milk the girl was carrying hung loosely at her side.

“Are you staying at the encampment?” Penny asked. The girl nodded.

“Oh, sorry, I should have introduced myself. My name’s Penny. Would you like to tell me yours?”

“Riley,” said the girl. She gave no sign of wanting to move on and remained planted firmly in front of Penny. “When you saw my drawings on the boat, you said I’d give someone a run for his money. Redouté, I think you said.” She pronounced the French name hesitatingly but correctly. “Who is he? Or she?”

“Oh, that’s Pierre-Joseph Redouté. He was a French artist who lived a couple of hundred years ago and painted the most beautiful watercolours of flowers. Lilacs, carnations, and roses. Lots and lots of roses, in every colour imaginable. If you pop into the library in town, one of the librarians would be happy to show you a book filled with his paintings.” As she warmed up to a topic she loved, Penny’s smile was genuine, and for a moment, the girl returned it. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared, replaced with a lowering of her head and a slumping of her shoulders. Realizing the girl might not be allowed to go to the library or might never have had the chance to visit one, Penny added, “Actually, I’ve got a small book of his paintings at home, and you’d be welcome to drop in to look at it. I live in the cottage just back there.” She pointed behind her, and the girl raised her head to see where Penny was pointing. “I get a sense you really like drawing. Am I right?” The girl nodded. “I was really impressed by the work in your sketchbook. You have a great gift. You know, we have a little art group here in Llanelen. Sometimes we have a lecture by a visiting artist and sometimes we go rambling together, just to enjoy the fresh air and sketch. If you’re stopping in Llanelen for any length of time, you’d be so welcome to join us. We’re all older, of course, so it would be wonderful to have a young person join us. You seem to enjoy sketching botanicals, so we could go to Bodnant Garden. It’s beautiful all year round, and even in winter there’s lots of colour and I think you’d really enjoy it. We’d be happy to take you, if your mother agreed. I hope you wouldn’t find us too boring.”

“Oh, I’m sure I would love it,” Riley replied. “I know I would. But my mother, she wouldn’t let me. She thinks art is a waste of time. Well, you heard her.”

“Sometimes people do think that,” said Penny, biting her tongue before she could add, people who don’t know any better. “But when it’s something you love to do, well, you just have to do it, don’t you? It’s not even really as if you have a choice. It’s so much more than just what you do, it’s who you are. And we should all do what we’re good at.”

“That’s it exactly!” exclaimed the girl. And then her face dropped. “But that’s not what they have in mind for me. We’re here meeting with other traveller families to see if there’s a potential husband for me.”

“A husband! But you’re only …”

“I’m fifteen,” said the girl. “Traveller girls are supposed to get married when they’re about sixteen. But I don’t want to. It’s an awful life. You’re expected to clean and then have babies. I want to go to high school. And then I want to go to art school. At least I think I want to go to art school. Maybe a university where I could learn everything there is to know about plants. Where they grow, how they grow, all their names. Oh, that would be so wonderful.”

“I … I don’t know what to say,” Penny said. She found herself in an awkward, uncomfortable position. While she didn’t want to make a disparaging comment about the girl’s traveller culture, at the same time she wanted to let her know that she supported her and found the concept of such an early marriage, and the denying of fundamental women’s rights that most Western women took for granted, remarkable, to say the least, in the twenty-first century. “I’ve seen you walk by,” the girl said. “I do know where you live. The cottage with the charcoal door.”

“That’s me. I can never decide what colour it should be, but fortunately I have a friend who’s a painter—that’s the decorator kind of painter, not the watercolour or acrylic kind, like us—so he changes the colour for me every now and then. One day, maybe, I’ll find a colour I really like and stick with it. I’m thinking of a sage green next.”

“That would work!” said Riley.

“Well, I’m sure those milk jugs are heavy, so I mustn’t keep you, and I have to get to work,” said Penny. “It was lovely to see you again.” She hesitated, then added, “I hope you’ll find a way to get the education you want and deserve.”

As the girl moved away, something in the hedgerow caught her attention, and she set down the milk jugs and picked a late-blooming white flower, held it close to her face, and then tucked it in her pocket.

*   *   *

“Have you seen this?” Mrs. Lloyd placed a copy of a national newspaper, open to an inside page, on the manicure table.

WELSH TREASURE STOLEN

NO LEADS YET ON BARD’S CHAIR

Eirlys, who was seated across from Mrs. Lloyd, peered at it, then handed it up to Penny, who was standing behind her. After reading the headline and scanning the rest of the article. Penny returned it to Mrs. Lloyd. “It doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” she said.

“This article is not complimentary to our local police,” said Mrs. Lloyd. “The reporter makes it sound as if the police aren’t trying hard enough.”

“Oh, they’re trying hard, all right,” said Penny. “The problem isn’t though, as the headline suggests, that there are no leads. They’ve still got people they want to interview.”

“They haven’t interviewed me yet,” said Mrs. Lloyd.

“They paid more attention to the waitstaff than the guests because no one left the dining room.”

“What do you mean, no one left the dining room? Who said no one left the dining room?” said Mrs. Lloyd.

“Emyr did. When we were still in the library, just after we discovered the chair was missing, he said that to me, and then he said it again to Bethan later, in the sitting room. She was annoyed that he allowed the dinner guests to leave before the police could speak to them. He said none of the guests left the dining room during dinner service, so he assumed they couldn’t have seen anything.”

“I wish I’d heard him say that. I would have spoken up, because it’s not true. I was in that dining room, and I ought to know. Someone did leave the room.”

“Who? Who left the room?”

“Jennifer Sayles. Sayles? Is that her name? Emyr’s lady friend, or whatever she is. I assumed she’d gone to the cloakroom.”

“How long was she gone?”

“Oh, not very long. About as long as a woman would need to go to the cloakroom. Not so long as anybody would notice. I mean, nobody said, ‘Where’s Jennifer got to? She’s been gone a long time, hasn’t she?’ So there was nothing out of the ordinary and nobody took any notice. Why would they? It was a dinner party and everyone was enjoying the delicious food and having a wonderful time.”

“This could be really important. Can you remember when Jennifer Sayles left the room? At what point during the dinner?”

“I’m not sure, really.”

“Was it during the starter, say, or …”

“Hold on a minute. Let me think.” Mrs. Lloyd pulled her hands out of the soaking basin and held her wet fingers to her temples while she closed her eyes. A moment later she opened them and, with a quick apology to Eirlys, slipped her fingers back in the basin. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve got it now. It was at the end of the starter course. The plates were being cleared and she wasn’t in her seat, and the waiter asked me if he should take away her plate. I wasn’t sure what to do, because what if she came back and wanted to finish her salmon? But then I thought, well, if that did happen, and she was that desperate for more salmon, Florence would have made extra servings, so I told the waiter he could take her plate away. And a couple of minutes later, back she comes, that Jennifer Sayles. And she didn’t mind at all that her starter was gone. And then we moved on to the main course.”

“And Emyr didn’t notice she’d left the room, or he would have said,” mused Penny.

“Well,” said Mrs. Lloyd, drawing out the one-syllable word. “He was busy at his end of the table with the lady mayoress. She can talk the hind leg off a donkey, that one, and just try getting a word in edgewise. So he probably didn’t notice Jennifer leave the room. Or if he did notice, maybe he told the police nobody left because he wanted to protect her? Maybe he was covering up for her, for some reason? Oh, I’m not saying he’d think she’d done anything wrong, nothing like that, but he might just want to save her the bother of the police asking her questions, and holding up her return to London. You know what the police are like.”

“Oh, I do know what they’re like,” said Penny. “Mrs. Lloyd, you’ve been very helpful. I don’t know just how helpful, but I’m going to call Bethan, and she’ll likely want to speak to you soon.” Penny dashed from the room.

“Look at her,” grumbled Mrs. Lloyd to Eirlys. “I didn’t even get a chance to reply.” She shrugged. “Oh, well. I should be used to that by now. She always runs off when she’s just had a brain wave. And to be fair, she’s right a lot more times than she’s wrong. I shudder to think of all the murderers who’d be roaming the streets of Llanelen today if Penny hadn’t sprung into action. Right, then. If Bethan wants to talk to me, she knows where to find me. Now then, Eirlys love, what colour should I have today? You’re always so good at helping me choose just the right shade.”

“This is new in,” said Eirlys, holding up a bottle of fuchsia-coloured nail varnish. “What do you think of this one?”

“It’s a bit daring for me,” said Mrs. Lloyd. “Oh, well, go on then. Let’s live a little!”