On Deadly Tides

by Elizabeth J Duncan

  “The truth can remain hidden for years,” Bethan continued, “and then something happens that leads to a fresh murder being committed to cover up an older one. Sadly, this was one of those times.

  “Seven years ago, Sarah Spencer and Bill Ward killed Sarah’s husband, Mark Currie, so she could inherit his money, Yes, we checked the terms of his will, and he disappeared before he had a chance to change it. And then, just when the seven years were almost up, and Currie could be declared legally dead, along came Jessica, a curious and smart reporter, here to reopen the story. Naturally, they were afraid she would discover what happened to Currie.”

  “This is what upset Sarah during the meeting on the Thursday before the murder,” chimed in Penny. “The meeting that Llifon told me about. During that meeting, the hotel manager advised her that a reporter from New Zealand would be staying at the hotel, and on the Friday night, when she overheard Jessica telling Colin and me that she was here to investigate a murder, well …”

  “Poor Jessica’s fate was sealed,” Bethan finished the sentence. “And Bill found a way to use all this to his advantage. Although the two of them had killed Mark Currie, Sarah was the one who insisted Jessica had to die. And since he’d been having problems getting Sarah to move out of his house when they broke up, now, in return for his helping her with Jessica, she agreed to go.”

  Bethan nodded at Penny. “You’re the one who put all the pieces together, so why don’t you take over from here, Penny? Start with the events in the hotel bar on the Friday night.”

  Penny and Bethan switched places. As Bethan lowered herself into a wing chair, Penny, holding her wine glass in both hands, stood and faced the rapt, expectant faces of her friends.

  “While Sarah was collecting the used glasses in the bar, she overheard Jessica telling Colin and me that she, Jessica that is, was here to investigate a murder. Sarah realized she had to do something to stop her, and for that, she needed Bill’s help. The two of them were seen and heard arguing in the bar, and later, around midnight, after the bar had closed and Sarah was in the coffee shop, Bill shouted at her from the parking lot. This was the confrontation I overheard from my room. Bill had been drinking that night and should not have been driving, and this is what they were arguing about. Drunk, he was practically useless to her. She’d have to drive but she would have had to go along in the Land Rover anyway, because Jessica would never have got into the car with Bill Ward. We saw for ourselves how he creeps women out. But it was reasonable on Jessica’s part to think she could trust them. One was a well-known actor and the other, a woman who worked in the hotel, so they weren’t exactly strangers.”

  “But why on earth did she get in the car with them?” Alwynne asked.

  “I wondered about that, too,” said Penny. “It made no sense that she would conduct an interview with Bill Ward at the edge of a cliff in the dark, so it couldn’t have been for the feature story. And then Louise said something that made me realize what it was. What was there that Jessica would have wanted to see?”

  Louise raised her hand to cover her mouth.

  “The lighthouse.”

  “Exactly,” replied Penny. “They offered to show her the lighthouse by moonlight. They would have explained it was too far to walk. How lovely it must have seemed. The crashing waves, the flashing light, the strange, mournful tolling of the bell.

  “And we come now to the difficult part, so Louise, if you want to step out now …”

  “Nothing you can tell me could possibly be worse than what I’ve already imagined,” said Louise. “I want to know the truth. All of it.” Bronwyn reached over and took Louise’s hand.

  “It would have happened quickly, and Jessica wouldn’t have suffered,” said Penny.

  “They pushed her,” said Louise. Penny looked to Bethan, who nodded. “She wouldn’t have suspected anything.” Louise buried her face in her hands, but then indicated she wanted Penny to continue.

  “And then, because Bill was in no fit state, Sarah scrambled down to the beach, probably on the easier path, and although she tried to move Jessica’s body closer to the water, she couldn’t,” said Penny.

  “If the body had been moved any distance, we would have found forensic evidence of that,” said Bethan. “There would have been sand and pebbles in the clothes, and so on.”

  “So because the body was too far up on the beach, the tide took longer to get to it,” said Penny. “And this time, it didn’t have enough time to claim the body, as it had done seven years ago with Mark Currie.”

  “And Jessica’s backpack?” asked Victoria.

  “She left it in the car, and Ward and Sarah didn’t discover it until they were back in Beaumaris. Of course it contained Jessica’s research notes into Mark Currie’s disappearance, so Sarah told Ward to get rid of it, and he thought since the kitchen was being renovated, that would be the perfect place to hide it, so he stuffed it in the cupboard and fitted a false back panel. Job done, or so he thought.”

  “Why would he do that, though?” asked Rev. Thomas. “Surely it would have been better to—oh I don’t know—toss it out with the hotel rubbish or chuck it in the sea.”

  “Actually, blocking it off in the kitchen cupboard was a reasonably smart thing to do,” said Bethan. “If they’d tossed it in with the hotel rubbish, there’s a good chance someone would have found it because scavengers go through those bins all the time. And if someone found it, realized its significance, and handed it in to the police, that could spell trouble for them.

  “And the same thing goes with tossing it in the sea or the strait. It might have washed ashore, or someone fishing could have snagged it and managed to retrieve it.

  “And besides”—her face softened with the slightest hint of a smile—“they were acting under a lot of pressure and had to make critical decisions quickly. Criminals get sloppy and make mistakes because they’re not thinking clearly, and it’s lucky for us that they do.

  “A colleague of mine in England recently had a case where the mother of a lad who committed murder hid his blood-stained clothes in the chimney, and the police discovered them when they were searching the house on a warrant related to another offense. You’d think she would have found a better way to dispose of the clothes, but the truth is, people in desperate situations panic.”

  “Ward and Sarah definitely panicked,” said Penny. “And that’s why they went after Jessica’s suitcase, drugging Louise to try to get it.”

  “How exactly did they do that?” Louise asked.

  “Sarah took your sleeping tablets while you were out, crushed them up, and mixed them into a little pot of Marmite that was on the tray she had sent up to your room that evening. She was quite certain, from having being married to a New Zealander, that you’d be partial to it,”

  “Ah. Well, that’s true. But we love our New Zealand kind. The British version is different, and she probably counted on the difference in the two to disguise the taste of the sleeping tablets,” said Louise.

  “But they had access to Jessica’s suitcase in the hotel when they got back from Black Point,” said Colin. “Why didn’t they go through it then?”

  Bethan took a sip of wine. “Because they didn’t think of that until it was too late. They’d got the backpack, been through it, and thought they were safe. And then later, the ‘what if’ questions started to creep in. What if there’s something incriminating in the suitcase? What if, for example, she’d made backup copies of her research documents and put the second set in her suitcase, as insurance in the event that something happened to the backpack?”

  “The suitcase was in the custody of the police until Louise arrived at the hotel,” said Penny, “and they decided to drug her to get it. But when they saw it, with the police seal on it, they realized they couldn’t go through it in the hotel. Nevertheless, they were determined to have it, and the act of trying to steal it from my cottage shows how desperate they were by then.”

  “So which one of them entered Penny’s cot
tage?” Bronwyn asked.

  Bethan hesitated, then said, “Bill Ward has admitted that he entered your cottage looking for Jessica’s suitcase, so we’ve added that to his list of charges.”

  “And Mark Currie?” asked Rev. Thomas. “What happened to him?”

  “Colin’s scientist friend was right. We’ve received confirmation from the Irish garda that an unidentified male body recovered from the sea almost seven years ago is that of Mark Currie. So now he can be returned to his family for a proper burial.”

  Louise’s eyes filled with tears. “And Jessica, too,” she said. “I can bring her home now. I’m so grateful to all of you for everything you’ve done for her and for me. But I will never stop thinking about all her unlived years. The stories she never got to write, the man she never met, the love she never found, and the children she never had.”

  Chapter Forty

  “How are the wedding plans coming along?” Victoria asked the next day as she, Penny, and Colin enjoyed a picnic lunch on the favourite bench in the churchyard.

  “We’re still working on details,” said Penny. “If only you could be in two places at once. I want you to be my bridesmaid, but it would be lovely if you could play the harp at the service.”

  “And have you decided where the service will take place?” asked Victoria.

  “We’re thinking about Anglesey. That’s where we met and where we’ll be living, so …”

  “So many details to sort out,” said Colin. “But I’m leaving all the wedding planning up to Penny. Whatever she wants, whatever she decides is just fine with me. Everyone has been wonderful and even though there are a lot of logistics, everything seems to be falling nicely into place. We weren’t sure what to do about Penny’s cottage, but you came up with the perfect solution for that.”

  A composer friend of Victoria’s who’d been looking for a quiet place to work had leapt at the chance to rent the cottage.

  Penny thought about Emma Teasdale, her dear friend who had bequeathed the cottage to her. Emma had loved music and she would be delighted that her cottage would now be home to a Welsh composer, creating within its walls the kind of music that Emma had loved so much.

  * * *

  “Brace yourself, Penny,” said a grinning Rhian two days later. “There’s a delegation here to see you. I’ve left them cooling their heels in the quiet room. But be warned, they’re on a mission.”

  “Mrs. Lloyd?” Penny asked.

  “Oh yes. And she’s brought reinforcements.”

  “Hello,” Penny said as she entered the room. Mrs. Lloyd hovered near the doorway, hands clasped in front of her. Florence, her companion, was seated on one of the chairs facing Bronwyn Evans, the rector’s wife, with Robbie, her cairn terrier, seated on her lap.

  Three solemn faces turned to her, each tinged with a touch of annoyance and something else, although the frowning scowl on Mrs. Lloyd’s face revealed her as being the most displeased. Florence seemed more dismayed, and Bronwyn seemed anxious and upset. Even Robbie looked annoyed.

  “Don’t you ‘Hello,’ me!” exclaimed Mrs. Lloyd. “We’ve heard a rumour that you intend to be married on Anglesey, and I hope that’s all it is—a rumour. But if it’s true, we’re here to tell you that we’re not having it.”

  “Really, Mrs. Lloyd,” said Bronwyn. “That’s coming on a bit strong. Of course Penny can marry wherever she chooses, but we did just think we’d pop along this morning and ask if it’s true, that you are planning to marry on Anglesey, and if it is, we’re here to ask you to please reconsider. You must know how shattered Thomas would be if he couldn’t officiate at your wedding, so we hope you’ll choose to marry in Llanelen.”

  “I was hoping you’d ask me to make your wedding cake,” said Florence eagerly. “I’ve never had the chance to make one, and I’d be utterly thrilled. Please let me do that for you.”

  “Well, we haven’t really decided anything yet,” said Penny. “We talked about Anglesey, of course, because that’s where met and where we’ll be living, but nothing’s been decided.”

  Bronwyn placed Robbie on the floor and stood up.

  “Penny, you’ve lived here with us for so many years. We’ve all been through so much together—good times and bad. We’re your family. We love you, and we want to make your wedding special for you. Please let us do that. Please let us be part of it. It would mean so much to all of us to be able to share your happy day with you.”

  Mrs. Lloyd handed Penny an envelope. “It’s from Emyr. Go ahead. Open it and read it out loud. We all want to know what it says.”

  Penny was deeply fond of Emyr Gruffydd, the local landowner. Over the years, she had worked with him on several special events at his home, the beautiful Ty Brith Hall. Emyr had given Penny her beloved Harrison, rescued as a kitten with his mother from a fire. And when Emyr’s fiancé went missing on the morning of their wedding, all those years ago, it was Penny who had solved the mystery in her first case.

  Penny opened the envelope, unfolded the paper it contained, and did as Mrs. Lloyd asked.

  “Dear Penny,” she read. “I’ve just heard your brilliant news, and I wondered if you’d like to be married from the Hall. It would breathe so much life and happiness into the old place, and bring us all so much pleasure, if you would agree.

  “I thought you and Victoria could spend the night before the wedding here, and I would be honoured to escort you to the church and walk you down the aisle, if you have no one else in mind. After the wedding, we would all return to the Hall for the reception.”

  She raised her head to meet her friends’ eagerly hopeful faces. “And then it’s signed ‘Emyr.’” She folded the letter and tucked it in its envelope.

  Penny was deeply touched by Emyr’s offer. She could not think of a more beautiful place than Ty Brith Hall, a grand house situated on one of the hills surrounding the town, with magnificent views over the valley.

  “Well, Robbie, what do you think about that?” He gave a little bark and everyone laughed as the tension evaporated. “Everything sounds absolutely lovely. How could I say no?”

  Chapter Forty-One

  And so, bathed in the splendid sunshine of a bright morning in early June, Penny stepped into the Rolls-Royce under the portico of Ty Brith Hall. With Emyr by her side and Victoria riding in front, they set off down the drive, flanked by beech trees, that would take them to the main road and then the short distance into Llanelen.

  “All right?” Emyr asked as Victoria turned around in the front seat to offer a smile of encouragement.

  “I’m just fine,” said Penny.

  “You’ve been remarkably calm this morning,” said Victoria. “And you look absolutely beautiful.”

  A light, summery haze under a brilliant blue sky graced the tops of the hills as the vehicle drove slowly on, giving Penny time to take in the tapestry of open green fields. An occasional stone cottage, with a stream running alongside it, gave way again to open countryside with retreating ranges of distant green, wooded hills. Everything seemed rich, vibrant, and sharply in focus. I must remember every moment of this day, she told herself, just as the car entered the town and then arrived at the gated entranceway to the church property.

  Bronwyn Evans, wearing a pale blue summer dress with a matching hat, waited on the rectory steps to greet them. When everyone was out of the car, they all fell into step as they walked together through the churchyard, with the River Conwy flowing smoothly alongside. Penny paused for a moment to gaze at the bench where she and Victoria had enjoyed so many picnic lunches. The double doors of the solid grey stone church stood open, and the sound of pastoral organ music, played by Haydn Williams as the wedding prelude, filled the air.

  “Everybody’s in their places,” Bronwyn assured them. “When you’re quite ready, I’ll enter the church, take my seat, and that will be the signal to Thomas that you’ve arrived, and he’ll take over from there. He’ll let Colin know you’re here, and then Haydn. When you hear the tempo of the music chan
ge, you can start your procession down the aisle.”

  “And Colin?” said Penny. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s doing very well, if maybe a little nervous. But bridegrooms always are.” She gave Victoria and Emyr a once-over glance. “Ready?” When they nodded, she touched Penny lightly on the shoulder and kissed her cheek. “I know you’re going to be a very happy woman.” She stepped back and her eyes swept over Penny. “You look absolutely beautiful. I’ve never seen you look so lovely.”

  Penny had insisted she wouldn’t wear anything traditionally white or bride-like. No long gown, no poufy dress, and no veil. She had selected a knee-length dress with a matching coat in the palest shade of green, with a pill box hat in a similar shade, decorated with flowers and netting, set at just the right angle on her red hair. And then, after one last reassuring squeeze of Penny’s hand, Bronwyn disappeared into the cool dimness of the church.

  Penny took a deep, cleansing breath and then tucked her hand through Emyr’s right arm and accepted her bouquet from Victoria. The local florist had made her a simple but elegant arrangement of roses in various shades of pink, tied together with red and white ribbons that fluttered slightly as she moved.

  The tempo of the music changed, and the three took their positions at the entrance of the church. After pausing for a moment to allow their eyes to adjust to the contrasting dimness of the interior, they stepped forward, and all heads turned toward them. After assuring herself Colin was waiting for her in front of the altar, Penny turned her attention to the people she passed who had meant so much to her over the years.

  Seated at the rear, ready to be the first to leave for Ty Brith Hall where they’d look after the catering, were Gwennie and Florence.

  Penny nodded hello to Dorothy Martin and her husband, Alan Nisbett, who had come from Shrewsbury, and at Bethan and Mrs. Lloyd, and then the faces became a blur until she was standing beside Colin, and the ceremony was underway.