“He lied to me.”
Penny pulled a white towel from the stack in the linen cupboard and placed it on a tray. “Who lied to you?” asked Victoria, leaning against the wall.
“Dylan Phillips. Rhian’s grandfather. I asked him if he could remember anything about Gwillym Thomas, the miner who was found dead down the mine in 1971. He was evasive. He didn’t answer my questions.”
“Well, maybe he couldn’t.”
“Oh, I’m sure he could. He’s sharp enough on everything else. He lied by omission.”
“Or perhaps he just chose not to answer your questions, for reasons best known to him. Like, maybe, he thought it was none of your business. And anyway, what makes you so sure he lied to you?”
“I could tell by the look on Jimmy’s face. Jimmy’s really good at reading people and he knew he was lying. He even tried to give him a bit of a prod.”
“Maybe Dylan was exhibiting older person selective memory syndrome.”
“Older person selective memory syndrome? What on earth is that?”
“Something I just made up. My gran used to do that. Ask her a question she didn’t mind answering and her memory would be just fine. Ask her the wrong question, about something she didn’t want to discuss, and it was, ‘Oh, when you get to my age your memory isn’t what it used to be.’”
“That’s practically word for word what Dylan said.”
“Well, maybe he was hiding something, then, but why would he?”
“Because he had something to do with the death of Gwillym Thomas himself or he was covering for someone else?”
“Did you talk to Jimmy about it?”
“No, I couldn’t really and I’m not sure there was any point. I just got up and left.”
Victoria sighed. “Well, I’m sorry, but we’ve got more important things to think about here. If the power isn’t restored by lunchtime, we’ll lose all our afternoon clients, too. You don’t realize how much you depend on electricity until it’s gone. Every two seconds I want to check something on the computer and I can’t. We can’t even access our bookings to know who’s scheduled to come in this afternoon so we can call them. That was one good thing about the old appointment book. At least you could read it during a power cut.”
“And we can’t do hair without a hair dryer or give someone a manicure because we can’t sterilize tools,” said Penny. “It’s getting close to lunchtime now. Even when the power does come back, it’ll take about an hour to get everything up and running and to get the staff in.”
“Well, look,” said Victoria, “There’s no point in both of us hanging around here. If you’ve got other things to do, why don’t you take off and Rhian and I will hold the fort. The minute the power comes back, we’ll let you know.”
“That sounds sensible,” said Penny. “I’ll come back as soon as you ring me.”
“I hope the power comes back soon,” said Victoria, “or all our phones will be dead. Mine’s desperate for a charge.”
As Penny put her coat on, Rhian entered her office.
“Could I have a word, please, Penny?” she asked.
“Yes, of course. What is it? Is everything all right?” Rhian frowned and looked away.
“I’m sorry, but my Mum rang me. She said you’d been asking questions about something that happened down the mine a long time ago and it kind of upset my grandfather. So I just wanted to ask you to not speak to him again about that, whatever it was. He’s old and he doesn’t want to talk about those days.”
“Oh, of course. I’m so sorry, Rhian, I didn’t realize it was a bad topic. I feel terrible.”
“It’s all right. I know you didn’t mean any harm by it.”
“No, of course I didn’t.”
“Right, well…” The awkward, uncomfortable silence swallowed any unsaid words and a few moments later, Rhian left. Penny made a little grimace and picked up her handbag. Why, she wondered. Why did he find it so hard to talk about? What had happened down there?
* * *
Sgt. Bethan Morgan dropped a file on DCI Gareth Davies’s desk. “There’s some interesting reading in there,” she said, tapping the documentation on the old Gwillym Thomas case. “Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything, nobody knew anything. The investigation went nowhere. You have to wonder why.
“But here’s the really interesting thing. The victim had a head wound and it’s described in practically the same way as the wound on Glenda Roberts’s head. But this pathologist back in 1971,” she tapped the file, “was able to suggest what caused it.”
Davies looked up.
“Now you’ve really got my attention. What was it?”
“A slate splitter.”