‘Phone calls? A knitted hat? Come on, Miss Jones.’ Richards was smiling again now. ‘I think you need to tell me all that happened, don’t you? And this time, we won’t leave anything out. Right?’
They went back to the shop and his first words were to extract a promise that she would not mention the hat to anyone at all. She willingly agreed. Then, while Stella served a surprisingly steady stream of customers, and Annie claimed she was being ignored, Richards took her through everything that had happened. As she talked she had the increasingly alarming sensation that she was placing Glyn firmly in the front of a line of suspects.
Even when she insisted she had never seen him wearing the hat, he went on about Glyn.
‘I’m sure it wasn’t Glyn who pushed me out of the way that night when the body was found,’ she insisted as the questioning became closer and closer to an accusation against Glyn. ‘The man who ran out of the bushes and pushed me down the slope was a heavier man. Taller than Glyn and, although I don’t remember even glancing at his face, I’m sure I’d have known if it was Glyn. I’ve known him all my life,’ she added.
‘And expected to marry him, I hear.’
‘Yes, well, things change. We grew up together and it was nothing more than that really.’
‘No bitterness then?’
‘Friends we are and nothing more. It took us a long time to realise it, that’s all.’
‘You’re still fond of him,’ he pressed.
‘Of course.’
‘Fond enough to protect him if you thought he might be in trouble?’
‘I don’t need to protect him against this! Glyn was never in trouble as a boy. He wouldn’t have changed that much. Whoever killed Rosie Hiatt, or buried her body after she died, it wasn’t Glyn or Tomos.’
‘What about Matthew? He was a bit of a lad when he was young. You accept that he has changed a great deal.’
‘I don’t remember much about Matthew when he was a boy. I wasn’t very old when he went away. But he’s a respectable man now, don’t you allow for wild children to change and settle down?’
‘Oh yes. Tearaways change. Grown men can change too. But only some of them,’ he added as he stood to leave. ‘Not all.’
* * *
When Glyn called to pick up Annie and Lydia the following morning, he was white-faced with anger. Lydia didn’t really look at him as she gathered the things she wanted to take to the shop; her knitting and some patterns she had been browsing through the previous evening. Standing at the foot of the stairs, a hand on the banister, she was suddenly aware of his stillness.
‘Go on then, go and fetch Mam, she’s all ready.’ She looked at him then and saw the anger in his eyes. ‘Glyn? What is it?’
‘What have you been telling the police about me? Making up stories and giving them the idea that I was involved in burglaries and burying Rosie Hiatt! That Detective Richards believes I killed her when she came upon me as I was hiding stuff I had stolen!’
‘I told him about someone coming into the house and stealing Matthew’s jacket. But only after they’d found it half hidden on my father’s allotment fire. Nothing I said could have given them the idea you were involved. But finding the coat and the hat—’ She stopped, seeing from his expression that he was unconvinced. ‘It was Matthew who seemed to be involved,’ she said sadly, ‘and I can’t go and talk to him about it because he’s gone off walking again and won’t be back until Monday.’
‘Do the police know that he’s missing again?’
‘He isn’t missing. He’s staying at a small guest house, and the police have his address. I have it too and I’ve tried to phone him but he was out.’
On the following Friday Matthew returned.
‘I couldn’t stay away any longer,’ he said after kissing Lydia with a passion that surprised and delighted her. ‘I missed you. The solitary walks I’ve always enjoyed have lost their charm. I kept thinking of two lovely blue eyes smiling at me, and the soft hair I want to run my fingers through, and a slim, stunningly tantalizing body that I want to…’ he abandoned that sentence with another kiss. ‘And,’ he went on softly, ‘I had to come home.’
They went for a meal, after Stella promised to attend to Annie and Billy and stay with them for the evening. Afterwards they went to a cinema, and while the advertisements were shown she returned to the subject they had discussed over the meal; the jacket and the hat found on Gimlet’s allotment.
‘Glyn’s reaction seems to have been that of a guilty man,’ Matthew said, ‘shouting at you for doing your duty. Sorry, love, I know he’s been an important part ofyour life since you were a child, but we never really know anyone. Not even those closest to us. His anger about what you were supposed to have told the police is very suspect, on top of the rest.’
‘On top of the rest?’ she queried.
‘Appearing so conveniently after you’d disturbed someone at the castle, being so desperately in need of cash, and… darling, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I saw Glyn coming out of your house one afternoon before the day you found him hiding those medals.’
‘What?’ she gasped.
‘I didn’t tell anyone. I presumed it was quite innocent and I didn’t see the point of him being grilled by your detective friend over nothing. But I think you should be very, very careful and – I know you won’t like me saying this, but I think you should stay away from Glyn, and from Molly.’
‘What has Molly to do with Glyn?’
‘You tell me. Look down there.’
It took a moment for her eyes to focus but then she saw without doubt that sitting a few rows in front of them, was Glyn and beside him the familiar figure of Molly Powell.
‘It probably isn’t what it seems,’ Matthew said turning her face away from them and kissing her. ‘There’ll be a simple explanation.’
* * *
‘It wasn’t what it seemed,’ Glyn said the following morning when he called for Annie. Lydia refused to listen to his explanations.
‘It wasn’t what it seemed,’ Molly said and she insisted on Lydia listening to her. ‘Tomos and I were almost caught by Melanie and, to save her finding out until Tomos is ready to explain properly, well, we pretended it was Glyn I was with and not Tomos. We went to the pictures and made sure Melanie saw us.’
‘Molly, I refuse to—’
‘I’m sorry, I know you said you wouldn’t cover for us, but this was different and we didn’t have much time to think of an excuse. Tomos said the first thing to enter his head.’
‘And Glyn? Didn’t he mind?’
‘It doesn’t matter any more. His girlfriend, this Cath, she’s coming down to stay with the Howes next weekend.’
‘Then she is real?’
‘It seems so.’
Lydia had been all but convinced herself that Matthew Hiatt was her future. Glyn was a mistake. A different kind of love which they had outgrown. She and Glyn were childhood sweethearts and they grew up, there was nothing more between them than that.
Then Molly’s announcement threw all her thoughts into chaos once more. Knowing she would be meeting Cath, the girl he had chosen to replace her, turned everything upside down. She was jealous with a tearing aching jealousy that made her want to scream and cry. She hated Cath without knowing anything about her, she didn’t even know what she looked like. She might be fat, thin, beautiful or downright ugly. She just hated her for loving Glyn and making him love her.
Chapter Nine
The person who had buried Rosie Hiatt, and the thief who had broken into houses and stolen a variety of valuable items, were considered by most to be one and the same. Matthew insisted they were not.
‘The police are wasting time looking for the wrong man if they think the thief killed my sister,’ he told Lydia on their way home from a meal and a drink at a public house on the edge of the seashore. ‘I want the man who killed Rosie found and I want him found before I have to leave.’
‘The police don’t even seem sure of how
she died, or whether she was killed or died in some other way.’ Richards had told her that evidence on soft tissue would be long gone and there had been no injury to the neck to suggest strangulation, or any other skeletal clues. She said none of this to Matthew, not wanting him to have more mind-pictures to grieve over.
‘Without knowing what they are looking for, how can they hope to find the person who buried her?’ she argued.
‘I know she was killed by someone. I feel it in my bones.’
‘Even if she were murdered, sixteen years is a long time. His tracks must be well and truly covered by now,’ Lydia said. ‘Wouldn’t it be best to forget it, accept that she’s dead but try to forget where and how?’
‘Would you if she were your sister?’ he asked. And she had to shake her head and admit she too would want to know all the answers.
‘Not for revenge, that would hurt me as much as the guilty person,’ she said, ‘I’d be uprooting a man from his life to face prison, and probably ruining the lives of his wife and children who would know nothing of those events. I would want to know why it happened though, as well as who did it.’
‘They say she was killed because she was a prostitute,’ Matthew said looking at her for a reaction.
‘Perhaps, but the reasons for choosing that life aren’t always understood. Earning a living that way doesn’t mean she was bad. I couldn’t see myself ending up that way, but perhaps I’ve just been lucky. It could explain her death though,’ she added softly. ‘Clients can get violent, it’s one of the many hazards of the job.’
‘Profession,’ he said cynically. ‘It’s a profession!’
‘If she was killed by one of her clients,’ Lydia said calmly, ‘we’ll never find him.’
‘Perhaps someone held her down and cut her wrists.’
‘Matthew, love, accept it as suicide. She must have been distressed beyond belief to end her life so young, but surely that’s easier to live with than knowing someone wanted her dead.’
‘I just want to know,’ Matthew sighed.
* * *
Tomos knew the time had come when he had to make up his mind. He and Glyn were sitting in their parents’ living room one Sunday afternoon, waiting for a call to tell them their taxi was needed. The living room was the back room of the house. The front, with its telephones and radio, was their office from which they ran Howes’ Taxis.
‘I know I love Molly,’ Tomos told his brother in a whisper, aware of their mother beyond the kitchen door. ‘I want to be with her all the time.’
‘Why don’t you tell Melanie, then?’ Glyn made it sound simple and Tomos tried to explain.
‘I feel I’m letting Melanie down. Guilty I suppose, after the pregnancy, the rushed wedding, then losing the baby and feeling trapped. I know that the trap was just as horrifying for her. I owe it to her to at least let her down gently. We decided then to make the best of it and stay here, making a home with Mam and Dad. I remember how miserable I was at the prospect of the years drifting on and pretending I was content. I try to imagine how it must have been for her. Giving up and telling her the marriage is over is hard to do.’
‘Are you sure it’s not because you still feel something for her?’
‘No, love and passion didn’t even survive until the wedding. She’s a pleasant and kindly girl and I can’t hurt her.’
They sat beside their mother’s fire, listening to the bumping sounds of her rolling pin as she made the apple pie for Sunday lunch. Even now with everything available ready-made and people no longer obsessively clinging to the Sunday roast, Mary Howe still carried on in the same way. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding followed by rice pudding, or roast lamb followed by apple tart. Tomos and Glyn and Melanie had tried to alter her ways, make life easier for her but Mary still continued with the old traditions.
Tomos glanced across to where his wife’s knitting sat abandoned on a chair. ‘Melanie was never given a chance to try and do things in a style of her own. She’s been swallowed up in the routine of the Howe family, hasn’t she? And I’ve allowed it to happen. No wonder Melanie visits her mother so often. She has to escape from the cloying sameness of her life here with us.’
‘You should have bought a house and started to build your own home,’ Glyn said. ‘You might have made a decent life together in a place of your own.’
‘I know, but the conditions surrounding our marriage made a false start inevitable, and gradually we came to accept the situation without attempting to change it. Perhaps,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘neither of us were sufficiently interested.’
‘What’s that she’s knitting?’ Glyn asked. ‘Something to sell at Lydia’s shop?’
Tomos glanced at the dark blue knitting with little interest. ‘Probably a sweater for my Christmas present,’ he said. ‘I heard her telling Mam that I take so little notice of what she’s doing, she can knit something for me, without bothering hiding it when I appear, and know it will be a complete surprise when she gives it to me!’
‘Dull and boring, that’s you, boy,’ Glyn smiled.
‘If I believed Melanie thought that, I’d tell her I was leaving her today!’
The bang as the oven door closed heralded the entrance of their mother and they sat back in their chairs, like two conspirators caught discussing secrets of the realm.
‘What you two up to then?’ Mary asked. ‘If you’ve nothing better to do, you can set the table for dinner. Your father will be back soon from the allotment and Melanie will be home in a while.’
‘Where’s she gone?’ Tomos asked.
‘Cardiff to see her Mam and Dad, but she’ll be here in time for dinner.’ Mary’s one concession to progress was to have dinner in the evenings and not at midday.
When Melanie returned, Tomos knew there was something on her mind. The cheerfulness was there but forced as if she were holding back a secret worry.
‘Mam and Dad all right, love?’ Tomos asked.
‘They’re fine. Asked after you and hoped you’ll come with me to see them soon,’ she replied, the words artificial, rehearsed.
Melanie was subdued during the meal, and although Tomos felt her gaze on him on several occasions, she turned aside when he looked her way. Something was troubling her but he couldn’t decide whether it was making her angry, or just excited. He prayed silently, asking that it wasn’t a bombshell like her wanting to buy a house, have a child, or rebuild their marriage.
As soon as they had finished, Melanie stood up, volunteering to see to the dishes. Tomos followed her, closing the door behind them leaving Gimlet, Mary and Glyn sitting over coffee. ‘Now, Melanie,’ he asked, ‘what is it?’
‘I think you know.’ She rubbed the plate she was holding with unnecessary force.
‘I don’t know what you’re thinking, do I? Not that clever, although I can see something is bothering you. Your Mam and Dad upset you have they?’
‘No. It’s nothing to do with them, it concerns you and me. Come on, Tomos, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!’
He felt like he’d been kicked. She knew. She must have found out about him and Molly. Oh, damnation! Why hadn’t he told her before this happened? Guilt made his voice harsh as he said, ‘Time we talked properly, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Melanie, I’m so angry that—’
‘No point in being angry, Tomos,’ she interrupted sharply. ‘It’s happened and nothing will change it.’
‘You’ll leave me, then?’
‘I’m leaving you now, tonight, after I’ve dried the last dish.’
‘But shouldn’t we talk?’
‘Since when have we solved anything by talking? Always leaving it until tomorrow, that’s your way of dealing with anything, leaving it till tomorrow!’
‘I did mean to talk to you. I’ve tried time and again, but the moment was never right.’
‘You knew then? About me and Geoffrey?’
Tomos stared at her. ‘You and… Geoffrey? Who is Geoffrey?’
It was Me
lanie’s turn to stare. ‘Geoffrey is the man I’m leaving you for. You mean you hadn’t guessed? Then what were you talking about?’
‘I think we should start again,’ Tomos said throwing down the dish mop and sitting down. ‘I knew there was someone, all those visits to your parents,’ he lied. ‘Tell me everything, about you and Geoffrey. Start at the beginning.’
Tomos felt quite light-headed. This was a way of keeping Molly out of the divorce. Perhaps this Geoffrey had given him a chance to bow out of this farce of a marriage gracefully and even with a bit of sympathy.
His feeling of elation stayed with him as he took two lots of revellers to Sunday night parties and he was still bubbling with excitement when a third call was made.
‘You can take this one,’ he said to Glyn as he picked up the receiver. ‘I have to talk to Melanie.’
‘Late for that isn’t it?’ Glyn said cynically, having been told of the strange turn of events.
‘Fair play, I want to help her pack, see what she needs now and what she wants me to send on later. And make sure she has enough money and all that,’ Tomos said. ‘I don’t feel proud of the way this has ended, you know. But,’ he added with an irresistible grin, ‘I can’t help thanking my lucky, lucky stars!’
The call was from Molly. Glyn offered the receiver back to his brother. ‘It’s Molly,’ he mouthed.
‘Oh, I’d better not talk to her now,’ Tomos whispered back.
Glyn spoke then listened again. ‘It’s Mr Frank,’ he explained. ‘He’s fallen and she wants you to go and stay with Mrs Frank while she goes with him to hospital. Go on. I’ll see that Melanie gets her cases packed and make sure she doesn’t leave before you get back. Right?’
Without further words, Tomos hurried to the cottage where Molly lived with the Franks.
Molly was scarcely holding back tears when Tomos arrived at the front door where she stood waiting for the ambulance. There was time for no more than a few words before the medics were gently taking the half-conscious man out to the ambulance; soothing Mrs Frank and Molly, asking questions, acquiring information, dealing with the patient with a haste that was disguised by their capable and calm efficiency.
The Homecoming Page 15