by Rhys Bowen
“It’s all right. I can perch on the window ledge.”
“No, don’t do that. Let’s go out for a coffee.”
“I haven’t got long,” she said. “I’m supposed to be picking up Mummy soon, but I’d love a coffee actually. Fortification before I have to face the family again.”
“Is it that much of a strain for you?”
“What do you think?” she asked. “Do you think I like being ‘poor Suzie’ all the time?”
“Do they mean financially? In which case why aren’t they helping you? They all seem very comfortably off.”
“Oh, they are. Very comfortable, except for Mummy, who manages to keep up appearances on the pittance Daddy gives her.”
“But surely your father is rich, isn’t he? I remember the Jaguar he used to drive.”
“Still drives,” she said. “And yes, he’s loaded. He’s also very sharp and he hired the better lawyer. Mummy was too upset at his walking out like that and agreed to pretty much everything as long as she could keep the house. So there was no provision for a cost-of-living increase in the alimony.”
“That’s tough.”
Suzanne picked up her purse, and Evan held the door open for her. They walked down the stairs and through the front hall in silence. The landlady poked her head out as they passed.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Mathias, he’s not arresting me. He’s a childhood friend,” Suzanne said, as she pushed open the glass front door and stepped out into the wind. “Nosy old cow,” she muttered, as the door swung shut behind them. “I had to say that because she’ll obviously find out that you’re a policeman.”
“It’s all right. I told her why I was visiting you. Now she’s sorry for you—” He looked at her and grinned. “Sorry, that probably isn’t what you wanted to hear, is it?”
“I’m used to it by now.”
“So tell me,” Evan said. He opened his car door for Suzanne to get in. “Why are they all sorry for you? Money isn’t everything in this life.”
He climbed in beside her and slammed shut the door. Suzanne sat staring down at her purse. “They’re sorry for me because I screwed my life up, because I’ve never managed to make a go of anything.” Evan waited for her to go on. “I had a baby when I was sixteen, you know. They persuaded me to marry the father, to prevent any more scandal, of course. Well, ‘persuaded’ is an understatement. They pretty much forced me to marry the father—either you accept our offer and we’ll give you some money to set up a home or you’re out on your own, kiddo.” She laughed bitterly. “Of course it didn’t work. I didn’t really have strong feelings for my husband in the first place. He was interested in me enough to take me to bed, and that was all I wanted—someone who was willing to pay me attention. But of course, he wasn’t the greatest husband material. He felt trapped, as I did. He drank, became abusive, and it lasted all of two years before he split and found someone prettier and unencumbered.”
Evan found a parking space and squeezed into it.
“I can’t guarantee the quality of the coffee,” he said, as he steered her toward the Copper Kettle Tearoom, “but they do good Welsh cakes, which you have to have if you’re in the area.”
“Welsh cakes? Those little round scones? Oh yes, I haven’t had them since we were here as children.” She looked almost like a child herself as her face lit up.
They decided on tea rather than the pale gray liquid that passed for coffee, and Evan poured it as they waited for the Welsh cakes. “Tell me,” he said, “why does your father blame you for what happened to Sarah? Does he really imagine you had anything to do with her death?”
She looked startled. “No, of course not. You don’t think—that one of us—?”
“No. I just meant that you and Henry were older, and perhaps he thought you could have looked after her better.”
“Yes, I should have looked after her better,” she said. “But that’s not why he blames me.”
“Then why?”
She looked at him directly this time. “Because she died and I lived,” she said. “He adored her. Everyone adored her—well, who wouldn’t? She was sweet and lovely and she was everybody’s favorite, especially my father’s. After Sarah died, I used to catch him looking at me, and it was so clear what he was thinking—Why are you here, when she’s dead? He couldn’t stand to be in the same room as me. I couldn’t do anything to please him, no matter how hard I tried. When he walked out on us, I was sure it was all my fault.”
There was a catch in her voice and she turned away.
“You know now that wasn’t true,” Evan said. “When people have been hurt, they have to blame somebody. Your parents obviously blamed each other. That’s why they couldn’t live together any longer.”
“Maybe, but I was the last straw—having me alive, knowing how much better Sarah would have done everything. Henry was fine because he was a high achiever, and he went to boarding school. I stayed home with Mother after Daddy left us. He had to take me at weekends, but it was clear he didn’t want me around. Then, of course, getting pregnant only confirmed what he’d been saying all along—that I was no good.”
The Welsh cakes arrived, warm and dipped in powdered sugar. Evan offered her the plate. She took a bite, then finished it before she went on. “Strangely enough, having the baby was the one thing I’ve done right so far. Charlie is a great kid. He’s turned out okay. Apart from him, my life has been pretty much of a mess. A steady downhill slope, winding up with this job as Sir Toby Handwell’s assistant. You’ve heard about that, presumably. I’m sure the others will have told you.”
Evan shook his head. “They’ve told me nothing, and it’s none of my business.”
“Another reason to pity me, you see. More than assistant, of course, and he’s never going to divorce his wife, but he’s kind and he’s funny and I like the attention he gives me. I know he’s so much older than me … .”
“The father figure you never had?” Evan suggested.
She nodded. “Probably. Mmm. These are delicious, aren’t they?”
Evan watched her as she ate a second Welsh cake. She looked much younger than her thirty-something years and now he saw why. The long, blonde hair, the fresh-scrubbed look, the jeans and T-shirt—she had spent her life trying to re-create Sarah. He felt a wave of pity for her but tried not to show it.
“This must be really hard for you,” he said. “Hard for the whole family, but especially you.”
“Yup.” She sighed. “But if they can find out how she died and who killed her, at least we can put her to rest.”
“We’ll do our best, I promise you,” Evan said.
Suzanne drank her tea in silence; then she looked up. “It’s funny about what you just said—remember how Henry and Val liked to win?”
“At capture the castle. Oh yes, they liked to win all right.”
“They didn’t win that day,” Suzanne said, toying with the powdered sugar on her plate. “I did. I was surprised when I got to the top and found I was the first one. I beat Henry and Val by quite a lot actually. I was really pleased with myself. I couldn’t wait to get down and tell Mummy, but then Sarah was missing and I never got the chance to tell anyone.”
She continued drawing lines in the powdered sugar with the tip of her fingernail.
Then she pushed her cup away and stood up. “I really should be getting back if I’m to make myself presentable before I pick up Mummy.”
Evan dropped Suzanne back at her B and B then drove to Bangor, up and over the mountains by way of the Nantgwynant Pass, and then down the Nant Ffrancon, past the Thomases’ farm. As he passed the farmhouse, he slowed and pulled off the road to stare up at the mountains. He couldn’t see the exact rocky outcropping where they had played capture the castle from here, but he could still picture it clearly in his mind. Had Suzanne really been dropping a hint that she suspected Henry or Val? He remembered how fiercely competitive Henry especially had been. And he had been tied for first place at that moment that day. H
ow could he possibly have let Suzanne, of all people, win?
But Henry had been Sarah’s main protector and bodyguard. He had watched over her every minute, until that one afternoon when he had sent her down to wait at the tree because the game was too important to quit. And then he hadn’t won. Evan wondered if he’d have a chance to talk to Henry again, and if he did, what questions he could ask him.
Chapter 23
The woman who opened the door of the plain, terraced house in a back street of the city of Bangor had that archetypal Welshwoman’s face from which caricatures of witches are usually drawn: long and thin with pointed chin, high forehead, and long nose. The fact that she was looking at Evan as if he was something the cat had dropped on her doorstep made her look even more objectionable.
“I’m not buying anything,” she said in Welsh.
“That’s good because I’m not selling anything,” Evan replied. “I’m a detective with the North Wales Police.” He was pleased at the look of alarm this provoked.
“Has something happened in the neighborhood? I knew there would be trouble when that Pakistani family moved in down the block. Foreigners everywhere nowadays, aren’t they? You’re not even safe walking in Bangor after dark.”
When she paused for breath, Evan said quietly, “Are you the daughter of Rhodri Morgan, who used to live above the village of Llanfair?”
“I am. What of it?”
“I understand that your father was living with you until recently.”
“Still is. Sitting in front of the telly in the sitting room at this very moment.”
“I wonder if I might have a word with him, Mrs.—”
“Jones,” she said. “Look, it’s nothing upsetting, is it? He’s getting rather frail, I’m afraid, and I don’t want him upset.”
“No, nothing upsetting,” Evan said. “I just need to ask him some questions about the cottage he used to live in.”
“That place—not fit for a dog, that hovel,” Mrs. Jones said, almost spitting out the words. “Luckiest day in my life when my mother died and my auntie took me to live with her in this house.”
The daughter seemed to have inherited her mother’s temperament. Evan didn’t envy Rhodri.
“Come on in, then,” she said. “Wipe your feet.”
Evan followed her down a dark, narrow hallway into a living room at the back of the house. French windows opened onto a small square of garden, bordered by high fences. On the telly channel Pedwar C was blasting out the early news in Welsh. An old man sat on a straight-backed chair, bending forward to catch the words. His daughter strode right past him and turned off the set.
“What did you want to go and do that for?” Rhodri shouted.
“Visitor!” she yelled back. “You’ve got a visitor.”
“If it’s that woman from the National Health again, I’m not having my toenails clipped.”
“It’s a policeman.”
Rhodri swiveled in his seat and his gaze fastened on Evan. Evan was surprised to note that the eyes in that grizzled old face were remarkably clear and bright. He stared at Evan and, just as the latter was about to speak, said, “I know you. You’re the young lad in Llanfair.”
Evan smiled. “Good memory you’ve got, Mr. Morgan.”
Rhodri nodded. “Not much I forget, is there, Eiryl?”
“No, there’s not much wrong with your memory, I’ll say that for you.”
“Excellent,” Evan said, pulling up another chair beside him, “because I want to ask you some questions about your cottage long ago.”
“It burned down, so they say,” Rhodri said. “I sold it to some English people and it got burned down—serves them right. Never did like them much, coming in here and talking me to be as if I was a simpleton. But I made them pay a good price. So who’s the simpleton now, eh? I’ve got the money stored away in the bank, and all they’ve got is a few burned bricks.” And he cackled with laughter.
“The time I’m talking about is many years ago,” Evan said, “About twenty-five years ago now. The council came to lay on the mains water. Do you remember that?”
Rhodri nodded. “I remember. It was about time, too. We’d been asking for it for years.”
“I suppose they must have had to dig a trench up to your house?”
“A trench? I’ll say they did—they left a horrible bloody mess—great piles of dirt all over the place, all my plants ruined. I called the council to complain, but nothing ever came of it.”
“So was it a team of men who put in the pipes? How many would you say?”
“I’ve no idea. I wasn’t there, was I?”
“What do you mean, you weren’t there?”
“That was the year I fell and broke my leg. It was very nasty because I didn’t get help right away and then gangrene set in. They thought I might lose my foot for a time. I was in hospital for over a month, and then I stayed down here with Eiryl, recuperating.”
“And a right pain in the neck you were, too,” Eiryl said, making Evan aware for the first time that she had been hovering in the doorway listening to them. “Pacing around the house like a trapped tiger, saying you couldn’t wait to get back to your cottage and your sheep.”
“Well, when you’re used to the outdoors and to walking miles every day, it drives you crazy being cooped up indoors. My old dog felt it too, didn’t she? She’d spend the day running between the back door and the front, whining.”
“You’re lucky I put up with the pair of you. Many daughters wouldn’t have,” Eiryl said graciously.
“So you were away when the pipes were put in?” Evan asked.
“I just told you, didn’t I? They’d been in for a month when I came back. That’s why I was so annoyed to find those great heaps of earth and my plants all dug up.”
“And the trench was all filled in by this time?”
“Oh yes. They’d done a good job with that. All nicely tamped down.”
“So who were you working for at that time, Rhodri?” Evan asked.
The old man frowned. “Let me see. That was before I went to work for Bill Owens, wasn’t it? Yes, that’s right. Mr. Thomas sold him the land the very next year, so I went to work for him instead. But at that time, I’d have been working for Mr. Thomas of Maes Gwyn. He owned land right up from Nant Ffrancon, over the Glyders and down to Llanfair at that time.”
“So why did he decide to sell? Was it getting to be too much for him?”
“Too much? He was in his prime in those days, like I was,” Rhodri said.
“So much in your prime that you had to fall and break your leg,” his daughter commented from the doorway.
“So what made him sell?” Evan persisted.
“Bill Owens was keen to get more land. I expect he made him a good offer. And Mr. Thomas sort of lost heart after the family tragedy.”
“Family tragedy?” Evan asked.
“Mr. Thomas had lost a granddaughter the year before. She went up into the hills and was never seen again. Terribly cut up about it, he was.”
“Yes, I heard about that.”
“He sold me my cottage at the same time,” Rhodri said. “Before then I’d just been renting it from him, but he offered me a really low price and good terms. It seemed stupid to refuse.” He looked up at Evan. “So what’s happening to it now? Burned to the ground, so I heard? Are they just going to let it lie there and go to ruin?”
“Not at all,” Evan said. “As a matter of fact I bought it. I’m just waiting for the planning permission before I put a new roof on it. The walls are still sound.”
“Well, I never. Good luck to you then, young man. May you be as happy there as I was.” He took Evan’s hand and shook it. Given the rumors of terrible fights and the sour-faced daughter, Evan wasn’t sure if this counted as a blessing or not.
“So you got on well with old Mr. Thomas, did you?” Evan asked.
“What’s all this about?” Eiryl Jones interrupted from the doorway. “Don’t tell me the old man has died and left
him money?”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but he’s just celebrated his eightieth birthday and he’s still hale and hearty.”
“That old bugger will live forever,” Rhodri muttered, “and why shouldn’t he? He’s still got his farm, his freedom, hills to go walking in. Not like me, trapped down here with these four walls.”
“I like that! After all I’ve done for you, all you do is complain,” his daughter said. “You should consider yourself lucky. It’s a lot better than the old people’s home, and you get three square meals a day. You can always go there if you want.”
“I didn’t mean that, did I? It’s just that after a life outdoors, it’s hard to take bricks and concrete.” He looked at Evan, appealing with him to understand. Evan did.
“I can’t say I’d want to live in a city myself,” he said, “but at least you can see the mountains when you go out.” He looked around the room. “You don’t have your dog anymore?”
“No, she’s not with us anymore,” the old man said. There was something in his voice that made Evan suspect that maybe she had died before her time. He got to his feet.
“Well, thanks for your help, Mr. Morgan.”
The old man’s handshake was still firm. “Thank you for coming, young man. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to have helped with.”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Evan said. “They found a child’s skeleton buried under your front path.”
There was a gasp from Rhodri’s daughter.
“A skeleton, you say? From long ago, like?” Rhodri asked.
“We think it was from the time those water pipes were put in. It could be Mr. Thomas’s missing granddaughter.”
“Then I’d ask those blokes who left all that mess in my front garden,” Rhodri said. “I’d ask them a few questions.”
Eiryl Jones escorted Evan back to the front door. “Lucky he was with me all summer, wasn’t it?” she said, with a smirk on her face that somehow made her look even more unpleasant. “Otherwise you’d have him handcuffed and locked up by now, wouldn’t you?”
As Evan pulled out from the curb, his mobile phone rang.