The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes

by Cathy Ace

  Tri ar ddeg

  “HERE THEY COME,” ANNOUNCED IDRIS. He waved his dripping arm toward a dark, unmarked panel van that was making its way, slowly, along the road to the bridge, followed by a Range Rover bedecked in police colors. “I wonder what they’ll have to say about all this.”

  He sounded deflated as he continued. “Bud and I have had a good look at it, and there’s no way a vehicle should cross this bridge. The footings are only just hanging on to the far bank. I think it might take the weight of people walking across it, but not vehicles. Even then it could just wash away at any moment. It would be very risky. I’m so sorry—for all of you. Obviously for very different reasons. Eirwen and I wouldn’t have had this happen to any of you. Rhian—all this to deal with on top of David’s death. And you—you two are supposed to be the Happy Couple. I can’t imagine you’re feeling the least little bit happy about any of it.”

  He wiped rain from his face, which looked haggard. It seemed that the collapse of the bridge had hit him harder than the death of David Davies, which made me wonder about the relationship between the two men.

  Digging into relationships would have to wait, however, because the vehicles had ground to a halt on their side of the raging river, thanks to Idris’s frantic waving. I gave my attention to the structure of the bridge. As Siân had said, the raging river was washing over the bridge deck, through gaps in the stone wall that had been tall and secure when Bud and I had driven over it the previous afternoon. Many of the rocks, which had been dislodged by the torrent, were still lying on the roadway, unable to escape the confines of the bridge, because the wall farthest from the direction of flow was more intact than the one facing it, which had taken the brunt of the force of the swollen stream and collapsed almost completely. It was also easy to see that the footings of the bridge had been undermined on the far bank. It looked as though it was the bank itself that had given way, so the foundations had little to cling to and were crumbling.

  Several moments of unproductive gesticulating and shouting followed. The rain beating on our hoods and hats, plus the roar of the river, made it impossible for voices to carry and be comprehensible. I had an idea.

  “Have you got a cellphone with you, Idris?” I shouted.

  “You mean my mobile?” he asked.

  I smiled. “Yes, your ‘mobile,’ sorry. Sometimes I forget the differences in terminology back here in Wales.”

  Idris nodded.

  Eventually, by way of making “call me” gestures and pointing like a madwoman, I managed to make myself understood by one of the policemen, who disappeared into his car for a moment, then popped out holding a makeshift sign bearing his phone number.

  Idris punched the numbers into his own phone and briefly explained the events as he saw them. As it was Sunday, it would be unlikely that anyone would come to assess the reliability of the structure of the bridge until the next day, and it was finally agreed that Idris would liaise with the police about the bridge, the body, and the issue of accessibility. Neither the police nor the driver and his mate in the van from the coroner’s office seemed keen to test the safety of the bridge. They seemed resigned to waiting a day to collect the corpse, having all been up all night working at the crash site on the M4.

  With the matter settled, they began to reverse along the roadway until they disappeared behind the curtain of rain. As I stood there wondering how on earth it would be possible for Bud and me to be married the next day if the registrars couldn’t reach us, my wonderful fiancé walked to my side and gave me a big wet hug. We squelched.

  He must have known what I was thinking. “Come on, Cait, we’ll sort something out,” he said softly, right next to my ear. “I’m not without a few good ideas of my own, you know. So don’t panic yet, right?”

  Idris and Rhian stomped off ahead of us, and I took the chance to talk with Bud. I thought it best to be direct. Bud’s good at absorbing facts and information.

  After I’d caught him up with the conversation between Rhian and myself, Bud cursed loudly. “I know we said we’d investigate a bit, to help out Siân, but this? Now we’re committed to helping a grieving widow. Don’t you think we’ve got our hands full enough with the wedding plans, Cait?”

  “What wedding plans, Bud? I think we should call the register office in the morning and find out what our options are. I never looked into what’s involved with getting a new license, because it didn’t occur to me we’d need one. Bud, I do want to be married tomorrow, but not with the ghost of David Davies in the room. And that’s that.”

  Bud stood stock still, rain dripping off him in too many places to count. Finally he nodded. “Right. So we need a plan. I suggest that you concentrate on finding out all you can about David Davies and his death. Of course I want to be in on that—I’ll do all I can to help you, but it’s obvious that you’ve hit it off with Rhian, and, of course, Siân’s your sister. I know very well that your natural desire will be to help them in their time of need, so why don’t you take the lead on that?”

  “Okay, you do the bridge and the registrars, I’ll do death.”

  “You know what?”

  I shook my head, spraying Bud with droplets of water as I did so.

  “Cait Morgan, you have an extraordinary mind. A wonderful ability for understanding why people do what they do, or don’t do what they don’t do, and for allowing your desire to see justice done to focus your talents. So let’s do it.”

  “‘The Choir That Didn’t Sing,’” I said wistfully.

  “Eh?”

  “You know, like ‘The Dog That Didn’t Bark,’” I replied.

  “You mean someone might have killed David to stop the choral performance we’d planned for tomorrow? It seems a bit far-fetched, but I suppose it’s one line of inquiry.” Bud didn’t sound convinced.

  “I didn’t mean that.” I smiled. “What I mean is that we must treat this as a proper inquiry. Let’s get back and have a sit-down with Rhian. It might be helpful if I could have a look at their apartment. Maybe she’d let me have a poke about. She seemed quite keen on our being involved.”

  A gust of wind shoved me down the hill more quickly than I had planned, and I skidded on the roadway, where pea gravel was being washed into little heaps by the downpour.

  “Careful, Cait,” called Bud, grabbing at my arm.

  I was annoyed with my clumsiness, but decided to ignore it. “What about Siân? What on earth am I going to do about Siân, Bud? I’m at a loss. She seemed so upset last night, but it’s as though she’s had a personality transplant this morning. And she seems very confused about some things that happened at dinner last night. Forgetting a whole conversation with Owain, and thinking she saw me in her bedroom? It’s very strange.”

  Bud gripped my slimy hand. “It’s probably a mixture of jetlag and shock. Look, it’s not going as well with her as you’d hoped this morning, I can tell. You two just don’t seem to be able to exchange three words without one of you snapping at the other. I have no idea why. You haven’t seen each other since your parents’ funeral, so you’d think you guys would have a lot to catch up on. You know, sister stuff. But, if what Siân said yesterday is correct, you two don’t have what I’d call a truly close, personal relationship, and I’ll grant you you’re similar in some ways—you’re both as stubborn as each other, for example, which might be fun, but more likely not. But then so different in other ways. I don’t know what to suggest. Either you suck it up and start being as polite to her as you would be to a stranger, or you distract her. What about the treasure thing? She seemed pretty keen on that. Could you tell her we’ll concentrate on David, and try to sidetrack her with the puzzle plate a bit?”

  I gave it a moment’s thought. I couldn’t come up with anything else.

  “Good thinking, Bud. I don’t really want to offload her, but she and Mair seem to be getting on like a house on fire. Why don’t I encourage the two of them to focus on that? I could poke into it a bit myself, of course,” I added, not wantin
g to miss out on a chance to solve a riddle. “Not too much, just enough so I can see what Dilys might have meant when she said David was hunting for the treasure. Oh—that reminds me—Rhian said there’s a coal cellar in the basement, thought that seems like an inadequate term for what was a medieval dungeon.”

  “Really? I’m surprised,” said Bud. “Not so much about the dungeon part, more about the coal cellar. Do you think that’s where David’s pants picked up the traces of coal dust we saw on them?”

  “I think it’s likely,” I replied. “Rhian also told me there aren’t any coal fires in the castle anymore, so I cannot imagine there’d be any coal dust anywhere else than in the coal cellar. So I’ll take a look down there too.”

  Bud paused, then said, “You are not to go taking any chances. So, listen, this is the plan: me—registrars and bridge tomorrow; Siân and Mair—treasure; you and me, and whomever else we need to talk to, or poke with a stick, to get information—David Davies’s death, starting right away. Got it? You and me, Cait. I’m serious.”

  Just as we entered the prehistoric stone circle and began to skirt the Roman ruins, Rhian and Idris began to sprint toward the front doors, which I could see were wide open. Idris paused and beckoned to us, pointing toward the private wing, looking panic-stricken.

  Bud and I exchanged a glance, but neither of us bothered to say “What now?” because we each knew the other was thinking it.

  I picked up my pace to a trot, and we got to the doors pretty quickly. Even before we entered I could hear the wailing—it was loud and primal. Bonechilling.

  Pedwar ar ddeg

  WHEN A SOUND MAKES THE hairs on the back of your neck stand up, it tends to be a sign that nothing good is going to happen in your immediate future. Reaching the doors, neither Bud nor I stopped to get rid of our wet clothes. We just ran inside, which was one of my less good ideas. I skidded on the Victorian tile floor and ended up coming down hard on my bottom. Of course I put my arm out to save myself—the arm I’ve already broken twice—but, luckily, I was so well padded with layers of clothes, and my own natural fleshy parts, that when Bud pulled me gently to my feet, we were both relieved to discover that I hadn’t broken or sprained anything. For me, that in itself was a minor victory.

  “You alright?” asked Bud.

  I nodded. “I seem to have cut my arm a bit,” I noted, as blood joined one of the little rivers of rainwater running down my arm. Bud pulled a wet paper tissue from his pocket and dabbed at the blood.

  “You have to take more care of yourself, Cait,” he said almost angrily.

  “My bottom’s a bit sore too,” I mentioned quietly, seeking sympathy.

  He hugged me to him, and I pressed the wet hanky to my bleeding wrist. After a moment we headed toward the drawing room, where, thankfully, the wailing had stopped. Upon entering, all I could tell was that there were no bodies strewn about the place, and that everyone present seemed to have all their limbs, if not all their wits.

  Alice Cadwallader was in the center of the room in her wheelchair, much as she had been the night before, but now the portrait of her that had hung above the fireplace was propped up against two occasional chairs. It had been slashed to shreds. It was clear that the damage wasn’t the result of an accident—unless it’s possible to “accidentally” cut into an object about twenty times, in different directions, and over the whole piece. The canvas clung to the frame in tatters. Although she’d stopped wailing, Alice was still visibly distraught, and the people crowding around her were all shocked, but trying to pacify the old woman. The whole scene was chaotic.

  Bud and I stood just inside the room, dripping. I quickly realized we couldn’t do anything practical to help, so I suggested we at least dump our outer clothes in the entryway, thereby saving the wooden floorboards and rugs from a further soaking. It looked as though Idris and Rhian had already caused quite a few stains, though Dilys was ignoring them for the moment, fussing over her employer as though she were the only person in the world.

  As Bud and I pulled off our borrowed wellington boots and rain slickers in the hall, Rhian appeared with a few towels. As we mopped at ourselves, she said, “Alice is in a right state. I’m sorry if Idris and I alarmed you when we called you in, but we had no idea what was going on—all we could hear was that ungodly screaming. Then we came in and found her moaning at her lost portrait. I’m just glad there isn’t an actual person hurt. There’ll be hell to pay over this. What do you two make of it?”

  Bud was finished with his hair before I was with mine—he has a bit less than I do—and he replied, “There’s no question it was deliberate. And it looks like the work of a very angry, spiteful person. Any candidates?”

  With the ball firmly back in her court Rhian shook her head. “We might seem like a strange group to outsiders, but we all rub along quite well, usually. But with this coming on top of David’s death, I’m not feeling as comfortable as I usually do here. It’s such a big place. Someone could be hiding out here, or even living here I suppose, and we wouldn’t necessarily know. There are parts of the castle no one ever goes to. It’s got to be an outsider. It can’t be one of us.”

  I wondered whether Rhian was trying to convince us, or herself. Either way, I wasn’t going to be persuaded by a “passing tramp” theory.

  She looked worried as she added, “I don’t think either Owain or Mair would ever do that to their mother, nor would Idris or Eirwen. Gwen’s a bit clingy, and she can be a bit, you know, over the top, but that’s just her way. She means well. Always doing little things for me and David. Nurse Janet? I don’t know her that well, though she seems to cope with Alice pretty adequately. She and I don’t really see a lot of each other, because of our different duties. Got the patience of a saint, Mam says, and I can’t argue with her on that one. So that only leaves Mam, who, as I said, has a bark that promises much, but she hasn’t got the real anger it would take to do that.”

  Rhian paused and a strange look of doubt crossed her face. “I know I’ve asked you to look into David’s death, and I suppose you’ll have to consider whether this incident is somehow linked to it too. Nothing like this has ever happened before. You know, not before you three arrived. But none of you three even knew David before this weekend, so I don’t see how there’d be any reason for you to hurt him. It’s why I felt confident about asking you, in fact.”

  I cleared my throat as I said, rather sheepishly, “By way of full disclosure, Rhian, my sister, Siân, did know David before this weekend. In fact they were boyfriend and girlfriend when she was a teenager. I’m telling you this because the topic came up in front of your mother, in the early hours of this morning, when we examined David’s body. Maybe she’s told you already, but I thought I’d better mention it.”

  Rhian sat down, hard, on a carved oak settle that stood just inside the doorway, beneath the head of a stuffed ibex. She looked as though all the wind had been knocked out of her. She dropped her head. “Mam never said. I had no idea,” she said.

  The silence that followed lasted for a few moments.

  The next time she looked at me, Rhian’s eyes were ablaze. “So let me get this straight. I’ve just asked a woman who was once arrested for killing her ex-boyfriend to investigate the possible murder of my husband, who, it turns out, is her sister’s ex-boyfriend. Lovely!”

  I was at a bit of a loss for words because she was right. It didn’t sound good.

  “Rhian, listen to me for a minute, eh?” Bud was using his calming, professional voice. I hoped it worked. “This is a very difficult time for you, Rhian, I know that. Cait knows it too. And that’s why she’s been very open with you about her sister’s connection to David. But you need to understand that it was a very old, long-dead connection. It was a teenaged fling. Siân’s married with children, and happily living the perfect life in Australia nowadays. She had no idea that David was even here, until she found out about his passing. But even if she had known, she wouldn’t have had a reason to do him harm. Besides,
I don’t believe she’s the type to kill a person, whatever the circumstances. And Cait? You told her you’d looked her up online, and that Gwen told you all about what she went through at the time, so you know she was exonerated of any blame whatsoever in the death of Angus, her ex-boyfriend. It’s just . . . a coincidence, that’s all.”

  As Bud used his least favorite word I knew how much it must have cost him to do so. Even as he said it I could hear his mantra about connections not being coincidental, but, on this occasion, I chose to back him up.

  “Bud’s right,” I said. “And you’ve done a very sensible thing, asking us to look into David’s death, because, between us, we have a range of skills and abilities that we can put to good use on your behalf.”

  Rhian was crying, wiping away her tears with a towel. Eventually she nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that your family had anything to do with David’s death. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Stress and grief,” I said. “It’s perfectly understandable. And this business with the portrait must be adding to your concerns, worry, and maybe even anger.”

  “Whoever’s doing this, I don’t like it,” said Rhian, sounding worried again. “It’s unsettling, and sad, and a bit creepy. Alice loved that painting of herself. The way she went on and on about it was a bit strange. She was very connected to it. I only have vague memories of the other one. She took it down when I was little. But this one? Mad for it, she was.”

  I’d felt it appropriate to give my hair a final rub, and wondered if I’d missed something. “Are you saying there were two portraits of Alice?”

  Rhian looked tired. “No, no, that’s not what I meant, though it might well have been what I said. What I meant was that, originally, there was the portrait you saw last night, and that was on the wall in the alcove to the right of the fireplace, then there was one of Alice’s husband, Gryffudd Cadwallader, done by the same artist at the same time, hung on the wall in the alcove to the left of the fireplace. A sort of matching pair.”