‘I remember my friend who attended the Grammar there at the time, saying that the murder there was all pretty well hushed up till after the inquest.’
‘When was that?’
‘10th August. Look at this.’
Lucy’s eyes fixed on the screen as the paragraph and its discreet heading scrolled into view.
RAVENSTONE INQUEST VERDICT
On Monday 6th August, the County Coroner for Radnorshire, Dr Walford Hopkins passed a verdict of Unlawful Killing by a person or persons unknown on Mrs Sonia Marcelle Jones (née Ferris) of Ravenstone Hall, Rhayader. Her badly mutilated body was discovered in another property on the estate known as Wern Goch by her husband Hector Meurig Jones, retired Detective Inspector with Cardiff CID. Dr Hopkins advised the jury that the case is now closed and Mrs Jones’s body has been released for burial.
‘This friend of yours. Would she know any more?’ she asked, feeling deflated and disappointed.
‘Rhiannon George?’
‘If that’s the one, yes.’
‘She was in the same class as Richard. She might do.’
Lucy gulped.
‘Richard Jones?’
‘That’s right. He never came back for the rest of the summer term. Talk was that he’d gone a bit, you know,’ she tapped her forehead. ‘Doolally.’
‘You mean, a breakdown?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go on, please.’ Thinking what an oddly jolly word for something so serious.
‘Apparently his father sent him off somewhere to get back to normal. No one’s heard of him since.’
I sent the wrong one away . . .
‘And what about Mark? Was he younger or older than him?’
The other woman looked at her watch, switched off the fiche screen and stood up.
‘Younger, I think, though she never said anything about him that I can recall.’
But Lucy’s mind was once more on a well-muscled forestry worker banging in those fencing stakes . . .
Bang bang bang . . .
‘I’m afraid I must shut up shop now.’ The woman returned to her desk to lock its drawers.
‘Thanks for your help.’ Lucy hovered for a moment. Tomorrow was Sunday with nothing planned. At least up to now. ‘One more favour,’ she began. Have you any idea where this Rhiannon George lives?’
Verity finished locking a nearby filing cabinet, a small frown puckering her forehead.
‘She may well be married with kids by now. Unlike me.’ She smiled ruefully, Lucy thought. ‘We lost touch after leaving school. But I know the family had a smallholding near Crossgates. Gellionnen, if I remember correctly. She used to complain that the other kids called her ‘shitty shoes’ in English, mind. The Grammar here didn’t do much Welsh in those days. Not like my Comp.’
Lucy thanked her again and, having made her way out of the building set off for the hotel car park. The sun felt abnormally hot and just the two glasses of Chianti consumed over an hour ago seemed to dull her faculties just when she needed them most.
She wondered whether or not to roll back the Rav’s soft top. Whether to head for New Radnor and check around that waterfall again, or make a trip to Crossgates now instead of tomorrow. Suddenly her mobile beeped into life inside her bag.
Paul . . .
She grabbed it almost too quickly. Held it hard. It was him. Her pulse changed pace.
‘Hi Lucy. It’s me.’ The voice she’d been waiting for. ‘I’ve just got myself a state of the art Nokia,’ he said. ‘No picture of you yet, which is a shame, but this is the next best thing.’
‘I’m glad you can’t see me.’
‘Rubbish. You’re beautiful. Anyway, are you receiving me loud and clear?’
‘Loud and clear.’ And that was the trouble. It seemed as if he was next to her once more. His lips moving closer . . . ‘Where are you?’ she managed to stay coherent.
‘Llangurig. Going north.’
Then she remembered Dolgellau, his destination, which now seemed a world away. ‘I won’t say break a leg, then.’
‘Better not,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve not climbed for two years now. Hey,’ he added, ‘say we take a trip next Thursday when I’ve been to Bardsey? Unless you’re too busy reading novels, that is.’
She smiled and it showed in her voice, until she realised that Thursday was almost a whole week away. ‘I do eat and sleep as well, you know.’ Then, like the maggots who used to invade her Dad’s Cox’s apples just when he was about to pick them, she realised that this academic was at the helm with the wind in his hair. Anna would have said, whoa. Steady up. This is a two-way thing, surely? But then, she reflected rather unkindly, that apart from her latest man, none of her editor friend’s relationships had survived more than a fortnight. ‘Where to?’ She asked, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice.
A pause followed which seemed like an hour.
‘Since you mentioned your Limestone travels I thought of the crystalline variety near Old Radnor. There’s also the volcanic Stanner Rocks which some call The Devil’s Garden, but don’t let the name put you off.’
‘I won’t,’ she lied, suppressing a brief shiver.
‘There’s also the Elan Valley,’ he went on. ‘According to the photos in my guide book, it’s really beautiful at this time of year.’
‘That’s better.’
‘So, how about the Clock Tower at 2 p.m.?’ he suggested.
‘Good idea.’ It was the central point in Rhayader with no risk of missing him.
‘Whatever the weather, eh?’
It could snow for all she cared, but how could she say that?
‘Ciao.’
She listened as he signed off then realised with a sinking feeling that by then, Wern Goch might well be a thing of the past, with the Hall no longer a bed option. She’d probably be back home in Manchester with just Anna’s reading matter to keep her company during the day.
Anna. The girl who’s got it all . . .
Except that now, the gap between them in the Luck Stakes was beginning to close. Nevertheless, she decided she wouldn’t be going anywhere until she’d made some investigations and if that meant giving the Hall a wide berth then so be it. The Larches would do for the time being. In fact for as long as it took.
Chapter Twenty-Two
What is more hateful than lies? – a pretty woman who tells them.
What is more hurtful than loss? –
when the hunter finds his spear is blunt.
MJJ 25/8/01
It was now 3.30 p.m. and decision time. Which mission to choose? Lucy again debated with herself. New Radnor or Crossgates? She unfolded her already crinkly map, realising she could easily kill two birds with one stone if the traffic wasn’t against her. Nevertheless, cow pats first, she decided, and, having set her sunglasses on her nose, manoeuvred the Rav out of the car park.
The A483 was almost deserted and within fifteen minutes she’d reached Crossgates, pulled into its one garage forecourt and was topping up her tank with unleaded behind a filthy Mitsubishi Shogun. Its driver, whom she guessed was a farmer, was just locking his petrol cap when Lucy asked if he’d heard of Gellionnen and then for simple directions there.
‘Sure I have.’ He rubbed his hands on his old trousers. ‘But them Georges don’t farm no more. Foot-and-mouth saw to that. It’s the Coedglasson road you want, then a mile on from the phone box you’ll see it signed on the right. Two things,’ he eyed her Rav. ‘Watch the road there, and,’ he warned, ‘they’ve got dogs.’
Her heart sank.
‘What kind of dogs?’
‘Not the sort I’d want around, that’s for sure.’
She thanked him, feeling daunted already and followed the man’s instructions with an ever increasing pulse. Once the last vestige of human habitation had disappeared, she felt suddenly not just alone but frightened. She thought of knives and blood and those gruesome remains she’d found that morning. It didn’t help matters either that the hills to the east looked oddly misshapen,
threatening even, like something from Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and when the turning appeared leading off the main road, it seemed to disappear to nothing.
The gradient was absurd. and she wondered how the hell she’d get back up it again. Now she knew what the man at the garage had meant. Never mind dangerous dogs. This was proving to be Mission Bloody Impossible. For a moment, she stopped the car and glanced in her rear view mirror where some large black 4×4 was travelling cautiously along the road she’d just left, as if it too was looking for somewhere. Something about its shape was familiar, but so were Land Rovers and the like. Big wheels, high off the road. Radiator grilles with more than a practical function . . .
It was then she decided to leave the Rav on the grass verge and walk to the smallholding. After all, according to the directions she’d been given, it wasn’t far. She wished she’d had a car alarm fitted, then realised no one would hear it anyway.
The downward trek took her over a rough earthen surface embedded with potato-sized stones. There wasn’t a soul around but by the time she reached the bottom, a growing panic had replaced any earlier sense of peace. The silence was too deep, too intense. The very air seemed to line her throat. Not the pure blown variety of the hills but a rank distillation of weeds and decay, while overhead, nothing obstructed the glowering sun. She’d always hated those Rupert Bear illustrations of countryside, with their creepy sense of foreboding. The bare hill, the foreground bush hiding unseen terrors.
She listened hard for the slightest sound. Some grazing creature, water even, however, all nature here seemed comatose with only her breathing to prove she was at least alive. Even though this sense of unease made her glance over her shoulder several times, she pressed on, willing herself not to give up, reminding herself what the librarian had said.
Soon, with relief, she came across the expected telephone box, surprised to find its old-fashioned contours encased in fluorescent tape. Closer inspection showed that most of its glass was missing.
Vandals? she thought. Here of all places?
And then she noticed a cracked concrete driveway, and next to it a wooden sign bearing the words GELLI ONNEN CHAMPION FRIESIANS with a faded picture of a black and white cow underneath. Lucy ventured towards a dormer bungalow just visible ahead, and the closer she got, realised that like Wern Goch, the place was uninhabited. Where were the supposed dogs? she asked herself, keeping a wary eye out for them. Where was anybody?
Patches of breezeblock showed through the front wall’s rendering and the windows were hung with grey net curtains. She then noticed a satellite dish protruding from one of the chimneys and a line of washing in the waste ground to the side. Children’s clothes. All the same size.
She knocked on the front door with her fist and waited, wishing she’d bought some bottled water for a drink because her throat was on fire. Heat and nerves.
‘Yes?’ called a woman’s voice from an opened upstairs widow set in the one gable. Lucy stared up at the dirty glass to see the pale anxious face of someone possibly in her late twenties.
‘My name’s Lucy Mitchell,’ she began. ‘I’m buying a property the other side of Rhayader. I just wondered if you’d any info on the people who are selling it. Verity at the library suggested I try here.’ That wasn’t strictly true. It had been her idea, but a week of unsolved mysteries had given her scruples a fresh make-over.
‘Which people?’
‘I can’t shout any more.’
‘Wait there.’
In the meantime, she had the distinct impression that she wasn’t alone. She stepped back off the mangy door mat and looked around, but no. It was just her and the junk and the washing.
‘Are you Rhiannon George?’ she asked the frightened young woman who finally opened the door. A rusted chain strained tight, kept them apart.
‘Yeah. So?’
‘Please, I won’t keep you a minute . . .’
‘That’s what he said. Crafty bastard.’
‘Who?’
‘I dunno. Some bloke. Sneaked up on me yesterday tea time while I was getting the washing in. Said he wanted to look at my kids . . .’ Here she stopped, still clearly distraught by the incident.
‘Why on earth would he want to do that?’ Lucy checked her surroundings again, with that same sense of being watched. It was eerie. She wanted to get indoors, even if it turned out to be a rat-infested dump.
‘I dunno. Told me I’d once been his girlfriend.’
‘Did you recognise him?’
‘No.’
‘Did he give his name or did you ask who he was?’
‘It wasn’t like that. I was scared for the kids. They were indoors . . .’
‘Have you told the police?’
‘They’re crap.’
‘Look,’ she glanced round yet again. ‘Let’s talk inside because we might be able to help each other.’
A barefoot Rhiannon George dislodged the chain and she entered a gloomy flag-stoned hallway strewn with children’s well-used toys and various discarded garments. The smell of cigarettes and recent meals thickened the already stale air. At least so far, there weren’t any rats.
‘Here, this’ll do,’ said the mother, indicating a kitchen whose lime green walls made Lucy blink. In the middle of a tiled floor stood a table covered by a stained waxed tablecloth, and surrounded by an assortment of unmatching chairs. ‘I don’t bother with the other rooms now, and the kids sleep in the front parlour. At least, that’s what it used to be.’
Lucy took in the cobbled-together units, the old Belfast sink and what looked like job-lot crockery. Clearly the recent epidemic had dealt this enterprise a devastating blow and seeing this poverty sent out a warning bell for herself. How risky farming was. If not the weather and the array of possible infestations, then a wipe-out such as the George’s had experienced.
The woman brought over a chunky Guinness ashtray and sat opposite her visitor and Lucy saw how she was still pretty, in a fragile way. She was, however, seriously underweight and her man’s shirt and leggings bagged off her skinny frame. Her once pink nail varnish showed more nail than varnish on her strangely childlike hands.
‘The boys are having a kip now,’ she explained. ‘Thank God. Twins they are. Four years old.’
‘They must be a handful,’ Lucy wondered where their father was and couldn’t imagine never having known hers.
‘Tell me about it.’ Rhiannon reached for a cigarette and stuffed it unlit between her lips. ‘Anyway, you mentioned Verity. Lucky cow, she is.’ She dug in her shirt pocket, produced a cheap lighter and lit up. She aimed the first plume of smoke at the ceiling. ‘Nice job, nice town, not stuck out here like me. Grammar School, College, now look.’
‘I think she envies you really.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘So where are your parents? I was told they were here too.’
‘That’s them.’ Rhiannon pointed to a black and white wedding photograph propped up on the mantlepiece above an old Aga, then withdrew her cigarette to cough. ‘Buggered off to Calais to look at a farm there. My dad lost all his herd, see. All the milking . . .’
‘And the dogs?’
‘Boom boom.’ She imitated gunfire, and immediately Lucy felt a sinuous chill touch her skin. ‘Too expensive to keep, see,’ Rhiannon went on. ‘And me? I’m only here so people can view the dump. It’s not with an agent and there’s no sign, so it’s hard for me to tell who’s genuine and who’s not. And I’m telling you, him yesterday certainly wasn’t.’
Two more hefty pulls on her cigarette before it was squashed into the ashtray.
‘Why would he turn up like that. Out of the blue? I don’t get it.’
‘Neither do I. Been trying to make sense of it ever since.’
‘He could have been lying about wanting to see the kids. Maybe he planned to distract you and nick what he could.’
She shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘I dunno. Before I met Gary, the kids’ father, I’d loads of boyfriends. It was the only wa
y I could get out of here. You know, get dressed up, put some slap on. Into the pubs . . .’
Shitty shoes . . .
Lucy looked out beyond the net curtain, held to one side by a piece of faded ribbon. All she could see was the slope of a bare hill against the sky.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Rhiannon suddenly. ‘What the hell is there to do in this poxy hole? But you get to know this and that and anyway, I used to sleep over at my friends’ houses – the ones who lived in Rhayader, that is. I really envied them, living there. Even though it’s hardly bloody London . . .’
Hardly, thought Lucy, feeling more sorry for her with every minute that passed. And how like herself with James Benn, one false move can change it all . . .
‘And, according to Verity, Richard Jones of Ravenstone Hall was a boyfriend of yours.’
‘Is that what she said?’
‘Yes.’
Rhiannon seemed to tense up all over and lit another cigarette.
‘Please. It’s important you tell me whatever you can about him.’
‘Why’s that then?’
And why so defensive? deciding now to tell her straight.
‘I’ve put an offer in for the house where his mother was murdered. I need to know if I’ll be safe . . .’
‘Are you barking?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He loved his mam. Thought the bloody world of her he did. And he was beautiful. Dark hair. Kind of luminous grey eyes. My God, I could hardly concentrate on my lessons when he was in the same room . . .’
A wistfulness altered her whole expression. And because she’d met Paul, Lucy understood.
‘Go on,’ she encouraged her.
‘Well, it was this Twmpath Dawns which set it all off. At the start of the summer term it was. To raise money for something or other . . .’
‘What’s a Twmpath Dawns?’
‘Kind of Barn Dance. Different partners all the way through, but at the end, it was me he chose for the slow dance. I could see the other girls round the edge of the hall, all green-eyed. But I didn’t care.’
‘And then what?’ Lucy suddenly turned towards the open door to the hallway, convinced she’d heard the sound of a car nearby.
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