Two hours later the police surgeon had come and gone, and an ambulance had taken away the body. The Astra had been covered with a tarpaulin and fenced off with police tape tied to the oak tree and various fence posts. It would be winched onto a low loader in the morning. PC Ellis, after standing close to DI Morgan in the rain and listening carefully to what he had to say, had driven off alone in the police Land Rover. Morgan, Sian and I had moved into the living room. Though it was cosy and probably much too warm – in that hour I had lit the fire, and flames from crackling logs were flickering and dancing in the dog grate – the atmosphere was stiff and uncomfortable.
‘You see,’ Morgan said, looking pensively into the fire, ‘until this is sorted out one way or another, I have to treat you as a suspect. That being the case, I don’t give you information; it’s the other way around.’
Sian, sitting on the edge of the Chesterfield, shook her head in frustration.
‘All I asked was how long has she been dead.’
‘Impossible to tell until the post mortem.’
‘Then if you want information from me, I’ll repeat what I’ve already said. We flew in from Gibraltar a week ago, yes, but it’s not my car, Alun. I’ve got a Shogun parked behind the house. Calum’s been looking after it for me. Why the hell would I need a bloody Astra?’
‘Then you’re insisting that you travelled from Liverpool, with Jack, in that powerful rally car he runs on public roads?’
‘Yes. How many more times must I tell you?’
Morgan sighed, let his gaze drift searchingly from Sian to me.
‘As far as I can tell, you’ve both been honest and open. To put it another way, you’re sticking to your story – which could mean something else entirely. But, summing up, there were various goings on during your last day in Gibraltar, you spent a week at Sian’s sister’s house and this evening you came here and discovered the Astra and the body in the boot. You’ve handed over that horrible little creature you found in that poor girl’s mouth and told me it could link the crime to an Australian going by the name of Clontarf. But now I need to know more.’
‘There is no more,’ I said.
‘There’s always something, and anyway I’m talking about this end, not Gibraltar. Nowadays DNA can prove guilt but, as you know, it can also prove innocence. So if Sian has never been inside that car—’
‘I have. I slid in, grabbed the steering wheel, looked in the glove compartment.’
‘That’s a pity. Your fingerprints will be all over the place. Be nasty if they’re the only ones there.’
The glare from Sian drew no comment.
‘I got into the back seat,’ I said. ‘I also opened the boot.’
‘Jack, Jack,’ Morgan said chidingly, ‘surely you both know—’
‘It was a car, Alun, not a crime scene. It didn’t become a crime scene until I found Pru.’
The DI had taken off his jacket. His white shirt was dazzling in the room’s soft lighting. He sat back in his deep armchair and shook his head.
‘So, moving on, you found her, and we know from our medical expert that Prudence Wise died from strangulation. Is that something you noticed?’
‘She was wearing a high-necked sweater. I couldn’t see her throat.’
‘Her eyes would have given some indication—’
‘They were looking at me. They were very dead. I felt sick, closed the boot in a hurry.’
‘Understandable, Jack. I also like the symbolic act of making the whole affair a closed book, if you want an analogy. Shutting the boot marks the end of it, as far as you’re concerned.’
‘If only.’
‘Well, ignoring for the moment the question of the car’s ownership, there’s absolutely no need for you to be involved. The body was discovered here, in Wales, and so the investigation will be in the hands of the North Wales police. That koala sounds like a genuine link to the Australian, Clontarf, so I’ll pass the information to your friend DI Romero in Gibraltar. If this Charlie Wise is in Spain, then getting news of his daughter’s death to him is up to the Spanish police. As for the suspected jewel thief, Karl Creeny, well, nothing has changed. The hunt for him began in Liverpool and was being led by your other police friends, Mike Haggard and Willie Vine. Then that girl Pru took her photographs, and no doubt when Creeny discovered what had happened he quickly went to ground.’
‘Good for him, but it still leaves us exposed. Sian in particular.’
‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘What if the people who are almost certainly responsible for Pru’s murder don’t consider our involvement in the affair at an end?’
‘Rickman? His bully boys? Why shouldn’t they?’
‘We told you a good story, but the story was incomplete.’
‘Dammit,’ Morgan said, ‘why am I not surprised?’
It was Sian who answered. She was now stretched out on the Chesterfield, and had been quiet for a while.
‘Without going into details, I can tell you that one bit we left out of our story was that we were threatened,’ she said. ‘Also, if Clontarf murdered Pru Wise, he’s likely to be here, not in Gibraltar. And there must be a reason for the body being dumped here, on Jack’s property.’
‘That being?’
‘I don’t know.’
There was a lull in the conversation. It was late. The police constable had taken the Land Rover away because I had offered to drive Alun Morgan the short distance to his home on the outskirts of Bethesda. The rain had ceased. Outside, all was quiet. Inside that hot living room, three weary people were gathering their thoughts, trying to make sense out of the bizarre.
I dropped into a chair, kicked off my shoes.
‘No more questions, Alun?’
‘Not just now.’
‘Then it’s a lecture?’
‘And not before time.’
‘Something you’ve been thinking about?’
‘Well, not recently. It’s more a reawakening, if you like, of past concerns that have come bubbling to the surface with your return.’
‘Okay, then let me guess. You’re our friend, Alun, but we have a professional connection too, and that’s crime investigation.’
‘Professional on my side, yes. On yours, it’s strictly amateur.’
‘But is that the problem?’
‘It’s been a concern. For a long time. After all, we first met when Gwynfryn Pritchard came rattling across your bridge in his Land Rover with the belief that his wife had not drowned, but had been murdered – and that was some years ago. Ever since then I’ve believed that you treat such investigations in a cavalier manner. And I’ve worked out why that is.’
‘Cavalier it may be, but we get results,’ Sian said.
‘You go in blind, hoping for the best, and more by good luck than anything else.’
‘We solve the crime. Is that what you’ve worked out? We’re blasé because we know luck’s on our side?’
‘You’re two misfits.’
Sian raised her eyebrows at me. ‘I’m not sure if that’s an insult, or a compliment. I quite like not conforming. Anyway, I think I see what he’s getting at.’
‘Army barmy,’ I said. ‘That’s what he’s saying.’
‘Army conditioned,’ Morgan corrected. ‘Weren’t you both very young when you enlisted?’
‘I was fifteen,’ I said. ‘Sian—’
‘Seventeen.’
‘And, all right, neither of you stayed in for the full twenty-two years, but in my opinion you served long enough to make your return to civvy street feel like stepping onto the surface of Mars.’
‘Mm. There’s a lot of truth in that,’ I said.
‘Look at it this way,’ Morgan said. ‘Someone in their forties or fifties gets picked up by a giant hand and, without any training, is dropped into army life. How would they cope?’
‘With great difficulty,’ Sian said. ‘Or not at all.’
‘There you are then. You were a couple of squaddies, and a giant hand picked you up and deposited you on those mean streets out there. And before too long, there you are, strutting in that cavalier manner after hardened criminals as if you’re God’s gift because that’s the way soldiers think of themselves—’
His mobile phone interrupted him. The ring tone was a sea shanty, and I wondered at the detective’s choice. If we were misfits, what life was it this earnest Welshman was yearning after?
Morgan had picked up his jacket, walked away from the seating around the coffee table and was facing the wall covered with packed bookshelves as he took the call. He paced, spoke little, listened intently then closed the call with a curt ‘Thank you’ and stood for a moment in silence before returning to his chair.
‘Good news?’ Sian asked.
‘The usual answer to that is, “it all depends”.’
‘On whose side you’re on,’ I said.
‘Exactly. That call was from PC Ellis. I asked you which route you took getting here so that he could begin sorting information from CCTV cameras along the way.’
‘Wouldn’t that take weeks?’ Sian said.
‘If all the cameras were checked it would take some time, yes. But there was no need for that. Your Audi Quattro was picked up by the camera on the A55 near the marble church at Bodelwyddan. That same camera also picked up the blue Vauxhall Astra. It was one hour ahead of you. The driver had blonde hair. Almost certainly a woman.’
‘Was it now?’ I said softly.
‘Has to be Françoise Rickman,’ Sian said. ‘She was the one who threatened Pru.’
‘And now she’s over here with Clontarf.’ I nodded. ‘I remember you saying he was the more dangerous of those two men.’
‘Well, at least we have a genuine name to play around with,’ Alun said. ‘I’ll inform everyone concerned; the woman’s name will be flagged at ports and airports and we might just get lucky.’ He hesitated. ‘I can see how you come to all these conclusions, you’re both very credible. But are they genuine, or are you trying to pull the wool over my eyes?’
‘I don’t like that look,’ I said, ‘and I don’t like the tone. What’s up, Alun?’
‘You came along in your rally car an hour after the Astra. The camera was quite clear. Excellent picture.’ Morgan paused. ‘You were alone in the car, Jack.’
‘Rubbish. Sian was with me.’
‘You were driving,’ Morgan said, ‘no doubt about that. But the passenger seat in that Audi Quattro was empty. Empty, I suggest, because Sian was one hour ahead of you driving the Vauxhall Astra we already know is registered in her name.’