“And so you see, it was actually Joyce Devlin’s Labrador, Billie, who found the body,” Penny concluded as Victoria slowed her car to a stop in front of Mrs. Lloyd’s house on Rosemary Lane. “I just happened to be there.”
“And not only that, but Billie found Florence’s missing carrot cake,” added Mrs. Lloyd.
Victoria switched off the car’s engine, and before anyone could move, Florence spoke. “It’s been a long, eventful day, and I know we’re all tired, but it would mean a lot to us if both of you would join us for a drink or a cup of tea. You don’t have to stay long, but when something awful happens, you just feel you need to talk it over, don’t you? We’d rather not be on our own at the minute.”
Not keen on the idea of being on her own, either, with no one but Harrison, her handsome grey cat, for company, Penny readily agreed, and Victoria did, too. They all piled out of the car and, arms once again laden with Heather’s flower arrangements, made their way up the path. Florence unlocked the door and led the way inside.
“Go through,” Florence instructed, gesturing toward the sitting room. “I’ll just take the flowers to the kitchen and see to them. Won’t be a minute.”
As Penny and Victoria sank into the comfortable sofa, Mrs. Lloyd adjusted the curtains, then asked Penny and Victoria what they’d like to drink. “Florence will no doubt prepare tea, but if you’d like a glass of wine or sherry, you may certainly have one.”
“Tea will suit me just fine, thanks,” said Victoria. “I’m trying not to have any alcohol at all in my system now when I drive.”
“What about you, Penny?” asked Mrs. Lloyd.
“I’d love a glass of white wine, please.”
Mrs. Lloyd left the room, then returned with a glass of chilled white wine, which she handed to Penny. She lifted the lid off the glass sherry decanter, poured herself a drink, and everyone sat down. By unspoken agreement, no one said anything while Florence remained out of the room. Penny took a sip of wine while Mrs. Lloyd sat poised on her chair, holding her sherry glass by the stem. Every few minutes her eyes wandered in the direction of the doorway, where Florence finally appeared, carrying a tea tray.
“As we haven’t had supper yet, I cut a few sandwiches, and there’re scones I made yesterday,” she said, setting the tray on the table. Florence poured a cup of tea, handed it to Victoria, and then held out the plate of sandwiches.
When everyone had helped themselves to a salmon-and-cucumber sandwich, expertly cut into neat quarters, Mrs. Lloyd took an appreciative sip of her sherry. She licked her top lip, leaned forward, and said, “Now then, Penny, what about this body? You think it might be Gaynor Lewis?”
“Yes, I think it very well could be,” said Penny. “We know Gaynor wasn’t at the show, which you said wasn’t like her. And if it does turn out to be her, what do you know about her, Mrs. Lloyd?”
“She’s the president of the Women’s Guild, as I think I mentioned earlier, and she likes all the homemaking arts, like sewing and baking and cooking. She used to live with her husband, Carwyn, on a farm not too far from Haydn Williams’s. He still lives there, Carwyn does, and raises fancy chickens. Hens. Every now and then, we get eggs from him.”
“Lovely, those eggs are,” added Florence.
“Yes, I met him and his chickens this morning,” said Penny. “He seemed rather charming.”
“Anyway, they separated years ago, Gaynor and Carwyn. I don’t know if they ever got properly divorced. The breakup wasn’t amicable, by all accounts. There were rumours that he was seeing someone else, and sure enough, it wasn’t long after Gaynor moved out that his new lady friend moved in.”
Ah, thought Penny. The other woman. So there is someone.
“And is he still with this woman?” Penny asked.
“As far as I know.” And then, anticipating Penny’s next question, Mrs. Lloyd added, “Elin Spears is her name.”
“Elin Spears,” repeated Victoria. “I just heard that name somewhere recently, but I can’t place it.”
“She won the grand prize at the show for her cake,” Florence reminded everyone.
“Oh, right,” said Victoria.
“The thing is,” continued Mrs. Lloyd, “I don’t really know much more than what I’ve just told you about Gaynor. Our paths rarely crossed, so I just know what I heard through the grapevine. Of course people talked about the marriage breakup at the time, but I haven’t heard that much about her since.”
Penny smiled. The grapevine, she thought. Well, that’s one way to describe it. Mrs. Lloyd had an insatiable appetite for what many people would call gossip. “If you want to know more about Gaynor Lewis, the person you should be speaking to is her sister-in-law, Joyce Devlin. Although, you might take what she says with a grain of salt. The two positively loathe each other, or so I’ve been told, so whatever she tells you is bound to be biased.”
“Yes,” said Penny, “I remember you mentioned that last night. Sister-in-law. So Gaynor is married to…”
“No, it’s the other way around. Joyce is married to Gaynor’s older brother, Daffydd Devlin. Are you with me?”
“I think so. Joyce Devlin is married to Gaynor Lewis’s older brother.”
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Lloyd.
“And why don’t they like each other?” Victoria asked.
“I’m not sure. If I ever did know the reason, I’ve forgotten it. As long as I’ve known them, they’ve been on poor terms. Barely on speaking terms, really. Avoid each other as much as they can, but of course living fairly close, they can’t help running into each other now and then.”
“Christmas must be a barrel of laughs in that family,” remarked Victoria.
“Quite often whatever it is that starts off a row in a family is something small and trivial,” mused Florence. “I know of two sisters who didn’t speak for years because of an argument over a Bath bun. One sister grabbed the last one, the other wanted it, and all hell broke loose. It ended with one sister throwing the bun at the other, and neither got to eat it. Of course it wasn’t the bun they were fighting over; the bun just represented some long-standing issue that had never been resolved. And sometimes these rows go on for so long that nobody can even remember what started it.”
Mrs. Lloyd gave her a sharp look. “My, Florence, listen to you. Aren’t you the family counsellor.”
Florence shrugged off the comment and calmly sipped her tea, while Penny and Victoria exchanged amused looks.
“But Mrs. Lloyd, when you say Joyce and Gaynor avoid each other, they must have to work together on the agricultural show, if Joyce is the president of the show committee and Gaynor is president of the Women’s Guild. I know the Guild isn’t directly involved in the running of the show, but there seems to be a fairly heavy WG involvement in it.”
“Not really. Certainly not officially. A lot of WG members enter their baking and jams in the home-craft classes, because there’s no other real competition around here for that sort of thing, but that’s it. They enter the competitions and that’s all.”
Penny contemplated Florence, who was buttering half of a light, flaky scone before slathering it with some of her homemade raspberry jam.
“Are you a member of the WG, Florence?” Penny asked.
Florence looked up from her task, knife poised. “Me? Good heavens, no.”
“Have you ever thought about joining? I’d have thought with your domestic skills, they’d be lucky to have you.”
Mrs. Lloyd’s eyes narrowed slightly, and as Florence caught a glimpse of her, a sly smile formed at the corners of her lips. Before she could reply to Penny’s question, though, a pinging in Penny’s pocket indicated an incoming text. She pulled it out, glanced at it, and then said, “It’s Gareth. Maybe he’s got news.”
“You’d better read it to us, then,” said Mrs. Lloyd eagerly.
Penny’s eyes flickered over the small screen. “He says the body has been identified and it is indeed Gaynor Lewis’s.”
They reflected on this, and then Mrs. Lloyd said, “Well, we’re not surprised. We’d got that far ourselves. We were almost sure that’s who it was, weren’t we?”
Penny nodded. “He says she was stabbed with a long blade.”
“A long blade,” mused Victoria. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think that refers to something like a bread knife,” said Florence, holding her hands about a foot apart, “compared to, say”—she brought her hands close together—“a paring knife, which I guess would be considered a short blade. At least that’s how I would interpret it.”
“Yes, that makes sense,” said Penny, leaning forward as she placed her empty glass on the coffee table. She caught Victoria’s eye and added, “Well, as Florence said, it’s been a long, eventful day, and it certainly didn’t end the way we expected it to. But it’s time Victoria and I were on our way, so we’ll leave you to your supper.”
“We’re just going to have a bit of cold ham and salad,” said Florence. “There’s plenty, and you’d be more than welcome to stay and share it with it us.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lloyd enthusiastically, “indeed you would.”
“That’s a kind invitation, and another time I’d love to,” said Penny, “but I really must get home to feed Harrison. When I’m late with his dinner, I hear about it.”
“Of course,” said Florence. “When you don’t have a pet, you don’t think about things like that.
“What you were saying before,” said Florence as they all got to their feet, “about the Women’s Guild. Besides the jam, which they made to help with the food supplies during the war, I’m not sure exactly what the WG does nowadays. I was thinking when I saw all the wonderful baked goods and preserves at the show that I might like to attend a WG meeting, just to learn a little more about it.”
“I think that would be an excellent idea,” said Penny. “I’d go myself, but I have to work, so perhaps you could let me know what you find out.” She placed a slight emphasis on the last four words, and Florence gave a slight nod.
“I’ll go, too,” said Mrs. Lloyd. “I used to belong to the WG—although many years ago that was—and for some reason I stopped going. Can’t think why now.”
As Penny and Victoria were leaving, Florence ducked into the kitchen and returned with a jar in each hand. She held up a jar of marmalade in her right hand, and in her left, a jar of raspberry.
“You choose,” she said to her delighted guests. After a quick, consolidating glance at each other, Penny reached for the jam and Victoria went home happy with the marmalade.
When their guests had left, Florence set about preparing supper while Mrs. Lloyd watched the evening news on television.
Over their evening meal, Florence and Mrs. Lloyd discussed the events of the day until they’d squeezed the topic dry and had reached no conclusions.
“We must have Penny and Victoria over for supper one of these evenings,” said Mrs. Lloyd. “That would be fun.”
“I agree,” said Florence. “I’d like that.” She passed Mrs. Lloyd the basket of bread rolls. “You know, Evelyn, what Penny said about having to get home to feed her cat got me thinking. I’ve never had a pet. Never been in a position where I could keep one, but now I’d rather like to have a cat myself. What do you think?”
“Well, we could get a cat, I suppose. After all, the prime minister has one. But it would have to be the right kind of cat, mind. Not some awful creature keeping me awake all night with its yowling because it wants to go outside. Or the kind that sharpens its claws on the furniture and hangs off the curtains.”
“No, of course we wouldn’t want a cat like that. We’ll find a nice genteel cat. A well-behaved kind of cat. I believe Penny got hers from Emyr Gruffydd.”
“Oh, well then,” said Mrs. Lloyd. “That would be the right sort of cat. We won’t do better than that.”