by Rhys Bowen
“I understand.”
“And yet you don’t want to wait for your solicitor to arrive?”
“No. I want to tell you everything that happened in my own words. My solicitor would only try to stop me.”
“Very well, then let’s get started,” the D.I. said. “Would you please describe for us the relevant events this week, leading to the death of your husband on Friday evening.”
“Alright.” She seemed composed and not unduly worried. “I went to London on Tuesday morning.”
“For what purpose?”
“I went to visit my solicitor. I wanted to see about getting a divorce from my husband.”
“Did your husband know about this?”
“I had mentioned it to him. He never thought I’d go through with it. I had made similar threats before when I was upset.”
“And would you have gone through with it this time?” D.I. Hughes asked gently.
“I … I’m not sure. Probably not. Ifor could be very persuasive.”
“So you went to London on Tuesday. When did you see your solicitor?”
“On Wednesday morning.”
“But you didn’t return home until Friday?”
Mrs. Llewellyn looked down at her hands. “I’ve already explained to these officers that I went to visit a friend in Llandudno. I spent Thursday night there.”
“This was a male friend?” The D.I. acted as if this was news to him, which it wasn’t.
“That’s right.”
“And your husband thought you were still in London?”
She nodded.
“Would you answer the question with a yes or no, please.”
“Yes,” she snapped into the tape recorder.
“So you arrived home when?” D.I. Hughes continued.
“Early Friday evening. My … friend drove me as far as Bangor. Then I got a taxi. I arrived home a little after six to find Ifor very drunk. He had been brooding about the divorce. He said there was no way he’d ever let me go.” She paused and brushed an imaginary hair out of her face. “I said if he’d treated me better, I wouldn’t be thinking of leaving him. That was probably a stupid thing to say. He could get belligerent when he was drunk. He said he’d treated me far too well. What I needed was a damn good spanking and he was going to give me one. I’d been knocked around by him before—he didn’t know his own strength. I’d wound up in the hospital once.” She gave a deep shuddering sigh. “He had a glass in his hand. He turned to put it on the table. That’s when I grabbed the whiskey bottle and hit him.”
“You hit him?” the inspector asked.
“Yes. I hit him on the back of his head. I had to stop him before he attacked me, you understand.”
“Did you hit him very hard?”
The words were coming more breathlessly now. “I only meant to knock him out for a while, so that I’d have a chance to get away until he sobered up.”
“But you hit him harder than you intended?”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t think so. He was drunk, remember. He pitched forward and he hit his head on that damned fender. I knew right away that he was dead.”
“Excuse me for interrupting, but why didn’t you call the police right away?” D.I. Hughes asked.
She was playing with her engagement ring, a large square-cut emerald, twisting it round and round her finger. “I panicked, I suppose. I wanted to avoid a situation like this. I just wanted to get away. So I left the house by the back door and hid out for a while up on the hill. When you were all at the house, I made my entry.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Llewellyn,” the inspector said.
Evan noticed she gave an almost audible sigh of relief. The inspector turned to Watkins. “That all seems very straightforward. Any further questions, Sergeant?”
“Just a couple, sir,” Watkins said. He leaned forward in his chair. “Was the whiskey bottle full or empty, Mrs. Llewellyn?”
“I’m not sure. Ifor had been drinking so maybe it was empty. I didn’t notice.”
“It was fairly light then. You’d have to hit someone very hard to knock them out with an empty bottle.”
A spasm of annoyance crossed her face. “Maybe it wasn’t completely empty. I really didn’t notice.”
Watkins glanced at Evan. “You say your husband had been drinking, Mrs. Llewellyn. Was the top on the bottle?” he asked.
“I really don’t know … is this relevant?”
“Only that the whiskey would have splashed all over you if you’d hit him with an open bottle.”
“Then the top must have been on it.”
“It wasn’t on it when we found it,” Evan said. “And there was whiskey spilled all over the carpet. You must have got some on your clothes, Mrs. Llewellyn. Did you change your clothes before you left?”
“No … I … there was no whiskey on me. He pitched forward, you see. Away from me.”
“Which hand was your husband holding his glass in?” Evan asked, then suddenly realized that he was not officially part of this interrogation. “Sorry, sir,” he muttered.
D.I. Hughes waved his hand. “No, go on, Evans. It’s a relevant question.”
“I still don’t see … his right hand, of course. Ifor was right-handed.”
“And he hit his head on the fender knob?” Evan went on.
“He must have. It all happened so quickly and I was in a state of shock.”
“And what happened to the bottle?” Watkins asked.
“I … put it on the floor.”
“With your fingerprints on it?”
“No. I wiped it clean first.”
“With what?” Evan asked.
She was having to look from one to the other and this was clearly upsetting her. “With my handkerchief.”
“And what did you do with the handkerchief afterward?”
“I threw it into a dustbin.” She got to her feet. “Look, I’ve told you what happened. I didn’t mean to kill him. I was defending myself. Why are you hounding me like this?”
“Nobody’s hounding you. We’re just trying to get our facts straight, madam,” D.I. Hughes said. “I’m not quite clear where you hit your husband?”
“On the back of his head.”
“And then he fell forward, striking the front of his head?”
She nodded eagerly. “Yes, that’s right.”
“So there would be two areas that showed trauma?”
This made her hesitate. “You know, I really didn’t hit him hard and Ifor had a skull like iron. Maybe only the wound from the fender was visible.”
During the pause that followed the clock on the wall moved forward with loud one-second ticks.
“Any more questions?” The D.I. looked at Watkins then at Evan.
“Did anyone in the village notice you arriving in a taxi just after six, Mrs. Llewellyn? Was anyone out in the street at that time?” Evan asked.
“I have no idea,” she said sharply. “I know the villagers liked to spy on us, but I had no interest in what they were doing. You’d have to ask them.”
“What taxi cab company did you use, from Bangor, Mrs. Llewellyn?” Hughes asked, glancing up from his notes. “Would you recognize your driver again?”
“Oh really!” She got to her feet. “One taxi looks very much like another; so does one taxi driver.”
“And you picked the taxi up where?”
“At the station, of course. Isn’t that where one always picks up taxis?” She stood up. “Look, I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to wait for my lawyer before I answer any more questions. This is all getting too stressful. You’re treating me like a criminal when no crime was committed. I was only acting in self-defense.”
D.I. Hughes rose to his feet as well. “It is now seven twenty-eight in the morning. This session is now being suspended, pending the arrival of Mrs. Llewellyn’s solicitor from London,” he said into the machine and switched it off. “I’ll take you to the cafeteria, Mrs. Llewellyn. You can get a cup of tea while we wait.”
He escorted her from the room with a chivalrous gesture.
Watkins and Evan were left alone. Watkins let out a long breath like a deflating balloon. “Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it? How long do you reckon it took her to think that one out?”
“Meaning that she didn’t do it?”
“Pretty obvious, wasn’t it?”
“One thing was obvious,” Evan said slowly. “She’d never seen the room with the body in it. She went entirely on what she’d heard.”
“But why?” Watkins asked. “What made her confess, do you think?”
“Two possible reasons,” Evan said. “Either she’s covering up for somebody, or she’s pretending to be stupid and she’s really very clever.”
“How do you figure that one out?”
“She knows she’s a prime suspect so she comes in and confesses, but her confession makes it clear that she knows nothing about the crime. So we dismiss her as a suspect. If we don’t ever come up with the murder weapon and nobody saw her sneaking into Llanfair at the right time, we’d never be able to pin it on her.”
Watkins nodded. “That’s true,” he said. “I always thought she was a clever woman. But what if she’s doing this because she knows who really did it and she wants to save him.”
“Or her?”
“Her?”
“I don’t think we should rule out the daughter until we’ve heard her story.”
Watkins frowned. “The daughter? But she was in Milan.”
“It’s easy enough to pop across to Europe and back these days. They don’t even check your passport most of the time, do they? In fact you don’t even need a passport between here and Italy.”
“But why would the daughter want to kill her father? By all accounts she adored him.”
“That’s what Mrs. Llewellyn wants us to believe. She’s told us several times.”
“So you mean she might not have been that fond of him?”
Evan shrugged. “We’ll know when she gets here. I’m anxious to see her again. I’ve got a feeling we’ve met before.”
“The girl whose car went into the lake?”
Evan nodded. “It would tie in, wouldn’t it? She pops over to scout out the place before her old man arrives. So did the son.”
“If it wasn’t the daughter then it would have to be the son, wouldn’t it?” Watkins asked. “I’ve got my suspicions about him. He’s very wound up, isn’t he?”
“He’s certainly jumpy,” Evan said. “When will we get confirmation that he was actually in Italy, do you think?”
Watkins grinned. “I don’t think the Italian police work at our speed. Maybe next year. If we don’t hear something soon, you and I will just have to drive to Italy to get statements.”
“I can see the D.I. authorizing that,” Evan chuckled. “We’ll know more when she gets here. It will be interesting to interview them separately and see where their stories differ.”
“That would explain why Mrs. L. was lying, too,” Evan said. “A mother will do anything to protect her kids, won’t she?”
“Even go to jail for them? I suppose it’s possible.” Watkins nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, come to think of it, my wife would throw herself in front of a speeding train to save our Tiffany. But then so would I, so that doesn’t explain anything.”
He grinned sheepishly at Evan. “Come on,” he said, opening the door. “I’m dying for a cup of tea. The wife wouldn’t get up on a Sunday morning, so I had to leave without breakfast.”
“Tough life,” Evan said dryly.
They walked down the empty hall.
“You know what,” Evan exclaimed as they reached the swing doors leading to the waiting area. “One person we haven’t really looked into yet—her boyfriend. He had the motive and the opportunity. She admits he drove her as far as Bangor. What if he came all the way here—maybe to confront Ifor and tell him she was getting a divorce. He and Ifor quarreled and he hit Ifor? Gladys said she heard voices, didn’t she?”
Watkins got out his notebook. “It’s definitely worth a try. I had him on my list for today anyway, to see if his story backed up Mrs. L.’s alibi. Okay. I’ll put him down for this afternoon but let’s get the two children out of the way first. We don’t know how fond they were of each other, do we? Maybe they’ll each be happy to incriminate the other to save themselves. And you know what else?” He turned back to Evan as he pushed open the swing door to the cafeteria. “I wouldn’t mind taking another look at that house. I know it was searched once and they didn’t come up with a possible weapon, but I wouldn’t mind looking again, especially through the wife’s stuff. Perhaps she’s got an incriminating letter or two?”
“Will the D.I. let you do that?”
“I’ll ask him now, because I’d like to see how Mrs. L. reacts to her home being searched. Order a cup of tea and a bun for me, will you?”
Chapter 18
The smell of Sunday morning breakfast frying wafted through the open windows along Llanfair’s high street as Evan parked his car outside the police station. He sighed deeply. A few weeks ago that would have been him enjoying bacon, egg, sausages, and even fried bread sometimes. Now there was no point in popping home to Mrs. Williams. She’d be feeding the Reverend Powell-Jones his presermon prunes and muesli.
Evan wondered if the two ministers would be holding their normal services this morning, since they were both competing at the eisteddfod later in the day. Perhaps they’d both want to save their voices for their bardic efforts.
Watkins’s car drew up in the parking space beside him.
“That smells bloody good, doesn’t it?” he asked as he got out. “Reminds me of the days before the wife went on a health kick. They don’t seem to mind about cholesterol up here do they?”
“A lot of people up here work on the farms. I don’t think it matters so much if you’re out in the fields at five every day, come rain or shine,” Evan said. He glanced up into the sky, which was heavy with cloud. The peaks were hidden and cloud fingers came down deep into the valley. The air was moist—what some of the older villagers called “a soft morning.” If he wasn’t wrong there would be rain later.
“I’m feeling a bit peckish myself,” Watkins said. “There’s no cafe up here, is there?”
Evan shook his head. “They serve food up at the Everest Inn, but not at prices you or I would want to pay.”
“Pity. Oh well, let’s have a quick look around the house and then I’ll stop off at that roadhouse beside the roundabout in Bangor. They do a good fry-up.”
“I might come down and join you,” Evan said.
“You’re alright. You’ve got a tame landlady.”
“Not since our local minister moved in. It’s all low-fat and natural now.” His face lit up. “Now that’s the one good thing about this murder. The Llewellyns will move out and the Powell-Joneses can move back to their own house … and I can go back to my old room and my old breakfasts.”
“Now I come to think of it, you look a mere shadow of your former self,” Watkins chuckled.
Evan chose not to reply.
“Looks as if the press have finally given up,” Watkins commented as they stepped over the police tape and walked up the driveway to the Powell-Joneses’ house.
“They’re camping outside the Everest Inn now,” Evan said. “Let’s hope they aren’t watching this place or they’ll all come swarming back. What a life for that poor woman. You could understand it if she cracked, couldn’t you?”
Watkins nodded. He put the key in the door. The house smelled cold and damp, with a lingering overtone of the chemicals used to collect the blood samples.
“Dreary place,” Watkins muttered. “I can see why they turned the heat on. It feels like a bloody tomb in here.” He looked around. “Let’s start upstairs in the bedrooms, just in case the lawyer arrives.”
“We’ve got a search warrant, haven’t we?”
“Yes, but you know what lawyers can be like. Talk the hind leg off a donkey. Alright,
you take the rooms on the left, I’ll take the right.”
There were four bedrooms on the main floor upstairs. Two were untouched. One had clearly been the domain of Ifor Llewellyn. It was decorated liberally with framed photos of Ifor in various operatic roles as well as with heads of state, film stars, and other public figures. Tapes and CDs were littered over the tables and dressers. Evan scanned the titles: Ifor Llewellyn sings Wagner … or Verdi … Llewellyn and Pavarotti, The Paris Concert. There were also piles of personal tapes with bold scrawled headings: “Rehearsal, May 28th, including good version of Aria-Rigoletto. May 30th, rehearsal before Pagliacci.” He certainly liked listening to himself, Evan decided.
The desk in the room was a jumble of papers. Evan started to go through them methodically; fan letters, theater programs, bills from tailors and a shirtmaker, letters from an accountant—all unincriminating. Ifor didn’t seem to owe anyone a large sum of money. There were no letters from women, in fact the only feminine touch was a framed child’s drawing of a house, family, and rainbow with the words “I love you, Daddy,” printed on it in black crayon.
Then Evan noticed the envelope with an Italian stamp. He opened it and a smile spread slowly across his face. “In here, Sarge,” he called. “I think we’ve got something.”
Watkins appeared at his side and Evan handed him the letter. Watkins nodded as he read it.
It was from a law firm in Rome.
Esteemed sir, It has come to the attention of our client, La Signorina Carla Di Martini, that you intend to write your memoirs. La Signorina wishes me to convey to you in the strongest terms that her name is not to be mentioned in this proposed work. I am sure you understand that any reference to my client would be potentially damaging to her career and her international reputation. It is hoped that you will behave as a gentleman should and not attempt to embarrass the lady in question.
Should you decide to proceed with the mention of our client in these memoirs, please be assured that we will take all legal steps to block publication and seek damages against you for defaming her good name. I need not remind you that such a legal process would be both detrimental to your career and financially devastating to you.