“Who was she with?”
“Her boyfriend.”
“Daryl Allen?”
“Yeah. His dad owns the garage in town.”
“How did they seem?”
Another shrug. “Oh, you know. Not happy. They had a few drinks and a bit of an argument.”
“Violent?”
The barmaid shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Just, you know, words. Then she barged out.”
“And Daryl followed her?”
“No, he had another drink first.”
“What was he drinking?” Holly’s eyes strayed back to that bottle of whiskey in its shaft of sunlight.
“Lager.”
“And her?”
“Pineapple juice, I think.”
“And then he went after her?”
For the first time, the girl behind the bar looked worried. She didn’t want to get anybody into trouble. “I don’t know. He left about fifteen minutes after she did.”
“And he was driving?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Thank you.”
Holly turned on her heel and left the way she’d entered. As soon as she was outside, she closed her eyes and inhaled, savouring the smells of warm tarmac and wild hedge flowers. It felt as if she’d been holding her breath the entire time she’d been inside. By the time Scott caught up with her, she’d regained her composure.
“Well,” she said. “This all seems pretty straightforward.”
“Guv?”
She straightened up. “Lisa and Daryl argued. She walked out and he had another drink. Then he went after her.”
Scott mulled it over. “That would have given her enough time to walk as far as she did,” he said.
“He was angry and drunk. He went after her with the only weapon he had at his disposal.”
“His car.”
“Bingo.”
She scuffed the toe of her boot in the gravel at the edge of the road. She could already hear her new apartment in Carmarthen calling to her.
“Put out an APB for Daryl,” she said.
2.
HOLLY HAD A ROOM booked in the Royal Hotel on the seafront. It was the kind of hotel whose corridors you could imagine being stalked by disappointed Victorian ghosts. She hadn’t bothered unpacking. With luck, she hoped to be out of there and on the road back to Carmarthen as soon as Daryl Allen confessed to intentionally hitting Lisa Hughes with his car. While they waited for the uniforms to locate the young man, she and Scott took a break in the Royal Hotel’s front bar. Scott took his coffee black, with no sweeteners, while Holly had her tea heaped with enough sugar to support a modest plantation. Across the street, waves rushed and hissed over pebbles. Gulls wheeled in the air.
“So,” Scott said. “Do you think the boyfriend did it?”
“With any luck.” Holly stirred her tea and placed the spoon on the edge of her saucer. A carriage clock ticked on the mantelpiece.
Scott chewed his bottom lip. When he finally spoke, he said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Have I done something to piss you off?”
Holly raised her eyebrows.
“No, not at all.”
“Are you sure?” He scratched his cheek, not quite meeting her eyes. “Because I was starting to wonder.”
Holly glanced out at a pair of elderly women in headscarves and raincoats dragging their wheeled shopping baskets along the front. She could have snapped back a one-liner, but it would have been like kicking a Labrador. Scott was young and keen. His suit wasn’t expensive, but it was clean and pressed. His hair was smart without being overtly stylish, and his fingernails were neat and dirt-free. His build suggested he played sports, but his complexion suggested he tended to avoid the alcoholic binges that tended to follow team matches. If she had to come up with two words to describe him, she’d probably go for honest and ambitious.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling something unwind in her chest. “I don’t mean to be short with you. It’s just strange being back here again.”
Scott looked relieved. “How long has it been?” he asked.
“Fifteen years, give or take a couple of months. I went away to college in London and never came back.”
“Do you still have family here?”
The question was well intentioned, but hurt. Holly clasped her hands. “No, not anymore.” She let out a breath. “My mam died when I was a baby. My dad went into a spiral. Gave up on everything, including me. Died a couple of years later.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t pry.”
Holly shrugged. “You’re a detective. You like to know people’s stories. It comes with the job.”
Scott’s cheeks reddened. “I guess I was curious.”
“To find out why I requested the transfer back here to Dyfed-Powys?”
“Yes, guv.”
Holly sucked air through her teeth. Through the window, she watched the flags flap on the promenade.
“There was an incident in a school,” she said, not looking in his direction. “It didn’t end well. And after that, I decided I wanted to get away from the city for a while.”
In fact, she hadn’t slept properly in six months. Not since the day a recently laid-off teacher named Ben Clarke walked back into the school where his ex-girlfriend still worked as a secretary. He’d been wearing a black baseball cap and a white T-shirt. He’d also been carrying a pistol and a carving knife. During the resulting standoff, he’d killed two teachers, the girlfriend, and three students before finally turning the gun on himself. Holly remembered each and every one of their names and faces. During the train journey from Paddington to Carmarthen, she’d had time to run through the list at least a hundred times.
“Ah.” Scott fiddled with his teaspoon. “I’m sorry, guv.”
“These things happen.” She heaved out a sigh. “So, tell me about yourself. What brings you to Pontyrhudd?”
Scott leant back in his chair. His eyes were the same colour as the sea, his hair the colour of sand.
“There’s not much to tell.” He said it with an easy smile. “My family comes from just up the road, in Llanfarian. I went to university in Aberystwyth and then joined the force.”
“Are you married?”
“Yeah, twelve months now.”
“Kids?”
“Not yet. You?”
Holly clicked her tongue. “No serious relationships.”
“Because of the job?”
“Partly.” They were getting onto dangerous ground now. With one finger, she scraped her coffee cup around until the handle faced the other way. Then turned it back again. “I just never found anyone I could trust.”
And she probably never would. How could she truly trust anyone when she might at any instant glimpse their inner darkness and their sins dragging behind them like Marley’s chains?
She snatched up her cup and inhaled the steam. In the kitchen, she could hear the chef rattling pots and pans on the hob. The smell of frying onions crept under the door. Her eyes flicked to the carriage clock above the fireplace. Only eleven thirty. She desperately wanted a whiskey and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
“That’s an interesting coat you’ve got there,” Scott said. “Is it army surplus?”
Appreciating the change of subject, Holly looked down at the grey lapels and brass buttons.
“Royal Air Force,” she said. “It belonged to my grandfather. He said it brought him luck.”
Scott looked thoughtful. But before he could ask any more questions, his phone buzzed. He held it to his ear and listened for a few seconds before saying, “Thanks, we’ll be right there.”
He pocketed the phone and turned to her with a strange expression on his face.
“Have they found Daryl?”
“Yes.”
“Are they bringing him in?”
“Not as such.” Scott scraped back on his chair. “We . . . we have to go to him.”
Holly frowned. She’d had more
than enough chasing around for one morning. All she wanted was to get the little scumbag in a cell so she could go home and sink into a hot bath with a bottle of Jack.
“Why?”
Scott stood. He rubbed his jaw as if not quite able to believe what he was about to say. Holly resisted the urge to grab him by the collar and shake it out of him. After a moment, he looked at her.
“He’s been murdered.”
3.
PONTYRHUDD STOOD AT THE end of the valley, where the waters of the River Rhudd surrendered themselves to the heave and crash of the Atlantic Ocean. Linked by a fingernail-shaped stretch of pebbled beach, the steep, bracken-strewn sides of the cwm continued out into the surf for a few hundred yards, forming bracken-strewn headlands that tapered into the waves like the petrified tails of sleeping dragons.
The headland to the north had a steep path leading up from the end of the concourse to a small chapel overlooking the town. Holly and Scott were met at the top of the path by a uniformed constable in his midthirties.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“Over here, ma’am.” The constable led them through the ranks of forgotten, lichen-crusted graves to a marker near the back of the graveyard. As they approached, Holly could see a pair of legs protruding from behind the drunkenly leaning stone.
“Best you brace yourselves,” the constable said, removing his cap and dabbing at his forehead with a folded handkerchief. His soul looked tired and grubby. The wind toyed with his thin sandy hair.
Scott made a face.
“Gruesome, is it?”
“About as gruesome as it gets, sir.”
“Okay, thanks, Perkins. We’ll take it from here.”
“Very good, sir.”
Looking relieved, Constable Perkins replaced his cap and resumed his post at the top of the path, ready to deter inquisitive dog walkers.
From up here, you could see the whole town, and much of the sweep of Cardigan Bay, the 150-mile crescent-shaped bite that defined the western coast of Wales, from Bardsey Island in the north to Strumble Head in the south. Local legend had it that on a clear day you could even glimpse the coastline of Wexford in Ireland—but as Wexford lay more than a hundred miles to the west, Holly strongly doubted the truth of that particular tradition.
Her coat flapped around her legs.
“Are you ready?” she said.
Scott’s hands fidgeted at his sides. He blew air through his cheeks. He was trying to be brave and nonchalant but couldn’t disguise his nerves.
“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
They stepped forward together.
Daryl lay spread-eagled on the grass. The handle of a knife protruded from his heart. The top of his head pressed against the worn gravestone. His hands lay at his sides, palms turned upwards. His shirt had been pushed up and his belly slit from hip to hip, exposing greasy blue ropes of intestine. Holly could see where the gulls had tried to pull some free. But the thing that disturbed her most was the state of his eyes. Twigs jutted from the sockets like cigarette ends extinguished in broken egg yolks. They stood without speaking for a minute or so. There wasn’t much to say. The breeze continued to blow in off the sea. Seagulls cried like hungry mourners.
Eventually, Scott swore under his breath and turned away.
Holly swallowed her disquiet and crouched by the body. The gaping stomach wound smelled like a butcher’s window display. Flies came and went. She ignored all that and concentrated on the man’s disfigured face. Occasionally, something lingered after death. The whole body didn’t shut down at once. And sometimes, even with the brain flatlined and the heart stopped, there might still be a fading spark behind those ruined eyes.
Fighting back her revulsion, she reached out and pressed her fingers and thumb to the dead man’s wind-chilled temples.
Daryl Allen wore a white T-shirt, stained blue jeans and a black bomber jacket. His hair had been shaved into neat rows, and he had a gold stud in his nose.
“Come on,” she muttered. She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. But all she could hear were the wind and waves. If any flickering residue of the young mechanic’s humanity remained, it had degraded too far for her to parse.
4.
DESPITE THE MISGIVINGS OF the hotel’s owners, Holly commandeered the hotel’s business suite. She needed somewhere to set up her incident room, and that seemed as good a place as any. Despite its inherent shabbiness, the hotel was situated in the heart of town and had reasonably decent Wi-Fi and passable tea and coffee facilities. She laid claim to the whiteboard that had been screwed to the wall at one end of the room. This would be the focus of her investigation—the master record of her thought processes. The rest of the space was given over to cheap Ikea desks and folding chairs, which would serve as workstations for the rest of her staff.
In addition to Scott Fowler, she now had an office manager, responsible for the smooth running of the investigation; an enquiry team, made up of three uniforms and two CID officers; a scientific services manager, in charge of the gathering of forensic evidence; and an exhibits officer, whose job it was to bag and label every fragment of evidence. Aside from DS Fowler and Constable Perkins, she didn’t know any of them personally. She hadn’t been here long enough. But they all came recommended by her senior officers at HQ in Carmarthen—and for now, that would have to be enough.
Their first assembly took place at six in the afternoon. It had taken that long to gather them all together. Briefly, Holly laid out the circumstances of the case as she saw them.
“A pair of young lovers argue,” she said. “The girlfriend storms out. Fifteen minutes later, the boyfriend goes after her. He has a temper and several drinks inside him. He hits her with his car and leaves her to die.” She held up an evidence bag. “We found Lisa’s missing mobile phone in Daryl’s jacket pocket, which places him at the scene.”
“Why do you think he took the phone?” asked one of the uniformed officers. His name was Morgan, and he was built like a partially shaved bear.
“Daryl knew she was dying,” Holly answered. “He couldn’t bring himself to finish her off, so he left her there. But he took her phone because he didn’t want her calling for help.”
“What a bastard.” Morgan flexed his big hands, as if wishing he could have wrapped them around the kid’s windpipe. Beside him, Perkins gave a snort.
“I reckon whoever killed him did the world a favour.” He wiped a stray lick of sandy hair over his poorly concealed bald spot.
Holly rapped a knuckle against the whiteboard.
“You’ve seen these photos. They didn’t just kill him. They slit him open and poked out his eyes and stabbed him in the heart. To me, that looks an awful lot like a revenge killing.
“I want you to check Lisa Hughes’s friends and family,” she said. “Find out if any of them might have had the means and opportunity to do this.”
* * *
As the rest of the team filed out, Scott joined her at the whiteboard. She tapped a fingernail against her teeth.
“I figure Daryl must have been killed by someone he knew,” she told him. “Someone he arranged to meet in the graveyard. I can’t imagine anyone dragging a corpse all the way up there in broad daylight without being seen.”
Scott loosened his tie. It bore a rugby club emblem. Judging by his build, Holly guessed he’d been a fly-half, or maybe even a winger. He looked as if he could move quickly when he needed to.
“Trouble is, guv,” he said, “in a place like this, everybody knows everybody else. And word got around fast about Lisa Hughes. Almost anyone could have done it.”
Holly considered this. Despite her hopes for a quick resolution, it seemed she would be stuck in Pontyrhudd for the duration. From the corner of her eye, she caught Scott sneaking a glance at his watch.
“Do you need to go?” she asked.
He gave a guilty start. “I was on the early shift,” he said. “And the wife’s on nights at the hospital. I’d like to get hom
e and see her before she goes to work, if that’s okay with you, guv?”
Holly pursed her lips. Sometimes she forgot her colleagues had personal lives beyond the confines of their jobs.
“Go,” she said. “Get some rest. Be back here first thing tomorrow.”
He smiled. “Thanks, guv. Nos da.”
And with that, he was gone, leaving her standing alone in an empty room, in an out-of-season seaside hotel.
For half an hour, she continued to stare at the photos of Daryl Allen, but however hard she scrutinized them, she remained no closer to a revelation regarding the identity of his killer. Finally, with a sigh, she decided to call it a day. The hotel bar was in the next room, and she was long overdue a drink. She turned out the lights and walked through.
The bar featured a large bay window that looked out over the sea. The sun was lowering towards the horizon. This early in the evening, no other drinkers were in evidence. A handwritten note on the cash register instructed her to ring a bell for service.
When she pressed the buzzer, the receptionist came through from the desk out front. She was a young lady with half-moon spectacles and a glass eye. The name tag pinned to her blouse said SYLVIA. Holly tried not to stare but couldn’t help noticing the colour of the glass eye didn’t match the real one.
“What can I get you, Officer?”
“A double Jack Daniel’s, please.” She pulled out a ten-pound note, but the girl waved it away.
“We’ll put it on your room,” she said. She turned and filled a glass from the row of optics on the back wall. Packs of peanuts and bags of pork scratching hung from promotional cards. Pickled eggs bobbed in a glass jar.
“You were looking at my eye,” she said over her shoulder.
Holly winced. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any offence.”
“Oh, that’s quite all right.” The girl seemed airy and unconcerned. “Everybody knows about it.” She plonked the glass on the counter between them. “Some say it’s lucky. Do you want ice?”
“No thanks.”
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