by Rhys Bowen
“And did you?”
“Oh yes. I met her and we dined together at Simpsons.”
“And then?”
“And then I flew back to Milan on Wednesday afternoon, only to be summoned back here yesterday morning. My frequent-flyer account is growing by leaps and bounds!”
“Have you come up with anyone who can verify your being in Italy on Friday, sir?” Watkins asked.
“The servants were there in the morning,” Justin said. “I spent the afternoon alone, reading and relaxing. I ate some bread, cheese, and fruit around seven. I was there when my mother called, absolutely distraught, at nine o’clock. I suppose you could check whether the phone call went through or not. I caught the first train in the morning down to Milan and took the first flight out.”
He was relaxed and confident, as if he sensed that this was the best they could throw at him and there was nothing they could make stick.
Watkins looked at Evan. “Now about your other visit to the house, sir,” Evan said. “I saw you on two occasions, just before your parents arrived here. You were quarreling with a young girl and I heard her yell, ‘bugger off, Justin.’” He watched Justin’s Adam’s apple go up and down, although the young man’s expression didn’t change. “And I saw you again later that day, beside a lake, just before a car went into the water.”
The reaction was instant this time. “A car went into the water? What car?”
“I’m sure you know that, sir,” Evan said. “You were standing right behind it one minute and the next minute it was in the lake.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Justin said. His voice was now high and strained. “She was fine when I left her. I got out of the car because I couldn’t make her see sense. I left her and walked back through the woods. The car was fine when I left it. She’s alright, isn’t she?”
“Luckily,” Evan said. “I pulled her out before the car went into deep water. I couldn’t get her to say what had happened. It was possible she was shielding somebody—shielding you, sir. Because attempted murder is almost as serious as murder successfully carried out. And you’ve got one count of each hanging over you right now.”
Justin sighed. “Okay. I suppose I’d better get this over with and stop all this nonsense. I haven’t been quite truthful with you up to now.”
“No sir?” Watkins’s tone was still pleasant.
A spasm of pain passed across Justin’s face. “Alright, Sergeant. It was me.” He held his wrists out. “Clap on the handcuffs. Book me, read me my rights, or whatever it is that you do. I confess. I killed him.”
* * *
An hour later Justin was shown into the same green-walled room that his mother had occupied earlier. He had showered and dressed before Watkins and Evan had driven him to headquarters in Caernarfon. His hair was still wet and slicked back. He was wearing a black turtleneck and tight black jeans, looking very much like a tragic young poet or a ghost from the Beat Generation.
D.I. Hughes held out his hand. “Please take a seat, Mr. Llewellyn. Let’s try and make this as painless as possible.”
“Oh, not the electric cattle prods, please!” Justin said, with more than a touch of sarcasm.
“This isn’t a game, sir. Life in prison isn’t much fun, I can assure you.”
The Adam’s apple danced nervously again. “Look, I’ve confessed. What more do you want?”
“We’d like to hear your version of how you did it, sir. And before we begin—do you wish your mother’s solicitor to be present? He’s in the building.”
“Good Lord no. That bumbling old fogey would probably manage to get me hanged, even though there’s no death penalty anymore.”
“Very well.” D.I. Hughes switched on the tape recorder and began the official interview. “Mr. Llewellyn, maybe you’d like to tell us the story in your own words. Take your time.”
Justin reached into his pocket. “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked.
“Go right ahead.” The D.I. pushed an ashtray across the table to him.
Justin lit up a Gauloise and the pungent acrid smell wafted across the room. Evan stifled a cough.
“It’s all very simple,” Justin said. “I hated my father. I couldn’t stand the way he treated my mother. I hated watching her suffer with such dignity while he chased anything in skirts that didn’t play bagpipes. Then he cut off my allowance because I wouldn’t take any of the jobs he found for me.
“Recently I got myself in a tight spot financially. I came here earlier this week, to ask him for money. He turned me down. So I waited until my mother was away, so that she wouldn’t be involved. Then I came back to Llanfair and killed him.”
“How?” D.I. Hughes asked.
“What?”
“How did you kill him, sir?”
“I—I hit him over the head with a blunt instrument when he wasn’t looking.”
“What kind of blunt instrument, sir?” D.I. Hughes asked.
“A golf club. His golf clubs were on the hallstand. I took one out, hit him over the head with it, then I wiped it clean and put it back in the bag.”
“Whereabouts on his head did you hit him, sir?” Watkins asked.
A spasm of annoyance crossed Justin’s face. “I didn’t exactly stay around to look. I swung my blunt instrument. I made contact. He fell. I got out of there in a hurry.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Evan interrupted, “but that’s just not possible.”
All three men looked across at him.
Evan turned to the D.I. “Could I have a word with you, sir?”
“If you insist.” He leaned forward and switched off the machine. Then he followed Evan out into the hall. “Alright Constable, what is it?”
“Justin Llewellyn couldn’t have killed his father, sir.”
“Oh? And why not?”
“I didn’t realize until now, watching him sitting at the table,” Evan said. “I watched him light his cigarette. He’s left-handed. If a left-handed person had struck Ifor Llewellyn, the blow would have been behind the other ear. There’s no way he could have swung a golf club and hit his father where the wound was.”
“By Jove you’re right, Evans,” D.I. Hughes looked almost approving, for once. “That’s why it makes so much sense to have an observer at these sessions. You were able to notice that from where you were standing. I was too close to him and too involved with the tape recorder, or I would have seen it, too.”
Evan stayed wisely silent.
“So now the question is what made him confess?” D.I. Hughes asked, almost rhetorically.
“He thinks he knows who did it and he’s covering up for whoever it was.”
“That much is obvious, but the question is who? The mother?”
“But we know she didn’t do it.”
“I wonder.” Again the D.I. seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Evan. “Is it possible that this is a well-thought-out conspiracy between them? What if they both planned his death together and they agreed to take it in turns to confess and then be proved to be lying? All they needed to do was to tell stories that didn’t jibe with the facts. And until we turn up the weapon, we can’t prove otherwise.”
“We will test those golf clubs, won’t we, sir?” Evan asked.
“I’m sure that’s already been done, but I’ll get the lab to go over them again.” He stared out past Evan. “We may have to start playing games, Constable. Maybe if we let the mother think that we believe the son and we’re arresting him … or the other way around?
“So you got nothing more out of the mother this morning then, sir?” Evan asked.
D.I. Hughes frowned. “Not after the bloody solicitor got here. He wouldn’t let her say a word without interrupting.”
“I suppose it is his mother that Justin is covering up for?” Evan said thoughtfully.
“Who else do you have in mind?”
“Well, it’s just possible that—” He broke off at the sound of voices on the other side of the swing doors.
“If my mother and brother are here, then I want to see them right now.” A young autocratic voice with the same arrogance as Justin’s. “I’ve been dragged here from Milan because you had to see me and I’m not going to sit in a bloody waiting room and drink tea!”
The swing doors were pushed violently open and a young girl swept through them. She stopped short as she saw Evan and D.I. Hughes blocking the hall in front of her.
“Can I help you, miss?” the D.I. asked.
“I bloody well hope so,” the girl said in an annoyed voice. “I’ve just arrived here and I understand my mother and my brother are both in jail. I’m Jasmine Llewellyn.”
Evan stared at her, taking in the chin-length black hair, the very white face, the mouth like a red gash, and the black-lined eyes. He realized he was looking at a stranger, a person he had never seen before in his life.
Chapter 20
“You’re Ifor Llewellyn’s daughter?” Evan blurted out.
“I just said I was, didn’t I?” The same confident arrogance of her brother. A definite look of her father in the toss of her head.
“Ah, Miss Llewellyn.” The D.I. extended his hand to her. “So good of you to come. My condolences on your father. Detective Inspector Hughes. I am an opera buff and I can tell you that the world has lost one of its greatest—”
“If you’re so sorry about it, can you please tell me why you’ve thrown my entire family in jail?” Jasmine demanded.
“I can assure you that they’re not in jail, Miss Llewellyn,” D.I. Hughes said, flushing at her belligerence. “They are here, in this building, helping us with our enquiries.”
“That’s what the police always say when they’re about to get a confession out of some poor bastard,” Jasmine Llewellyn said. “He was helping police with their enquiries, and now he’s inexplicably dead.”
“We don’t use strong-arm tactics here, Miss Llewellyn. You’ve been living in Italy too long!” D.I. Hughes gave her a patronizing smile. “Your mother was reading the Sunday papers in the cafeteria when I last saw her. But we’ve been having an interesting conversation with your brother. He just confessed to killing your father.”
Jasmine threw back her head and laughed. “Justin? He couldn’t kill a fly without throwing up. He probably thinks that Mummy did it and he’s being noble on her behalf. The Sydney Carton of Lake Como! He worships her, you know.”
“Before we go back to your brother, Miss Llewellyn, maybe we could ask you a couple of questions.”
“Of course. Fire away.”
“You live in Milan—is that correct? And you were in Milan all this week?”
“No, I wasn’t, actually.”
“Oh, where were you?” Evan noticed the D.I. tense up.
“I work in the fashion industry, Inspector. I coordinate shoots. I was up in the Alps for a fur coat shoot on Tuesday. I was in Tunisia for bathing suits on Thursday. We got back Friday afternoon. Late Friday afternoon.”
* * *
“That pretty much rules her out, doesn’t it, sir,” Evan ventured after they had escorted Jasmine to the cafeteria and left her with her mother and the solicitor. “She wouldn’t have had time to catch a flight over here and get to Wales to kill her father.”
“If she really was in Tunisia. That will be easy enough to verify. I’ll get someone onto calling Milan right away. I’ve established personal contact with the chief of police there, so it should go smoothly. He’s only too willing to help us in any way he can.”
Evan remembered the lawyer’s letter that must still be in Sergeant Watkins’s pocket. He decided to say nothing for now. Better let him find out the truth about his Mafia hit man from Watkins! Evan had already one-upped him on the left-handedness and the D.I. didn’t take kindly to that. This was confirmed when the D.I. said, as they reached the interrogation room, “Well, I shouldn’t keep you from your duties in the village any longer, Constable. I expect you’ve got a whole slew of lost tourists and missing car keys waiting for you up there.”
“It’s Sunday, sir. My day off,” Evan said innocently. “I’ll be happy to assist in any way I can … and you might need me to drive some of the Llewellyns home—whichever of them ends up not confessing to the murder, that is.”
The D.I. managed a tight little smile. “Ha ha. Very droll. Quite. Very well. I suppose you could hang around for a while, just in case we need a driver. Go and get yourself a cup of tea.”
“Thanks a lot,” Evan muttered, not loud enough to be heard as D.I. Hughes headed purposefully back in the direction of the interrogation room. Evan watched him go, then sighed, and walked in the other direction, toward the cafeteria.
Mrs. Llewellyn, Jasmine, and a bald-headed man, presumably the solicitor, were sitting at a table by the window. They looked up when he came in.
“Well?” Mrs. Llewellyn asked. “What’s happening with Justin? When will we be allowed to see him?”
“I’ve no idea, madam,” Evan said. “I’m just an ordinary P.C. I don’t make any decisions.”
“Yes, but any idiot could see that Justin didn’t do it,” Jasmine said. “He’s not the head-bashing type.”
“I can’t understand why he doesn’t want me in there with him. It’s most dangerous to be in these situations without a solicitor present,” the elderly man said. “I hope he doesn’t say anything he regrets later. He always was impetuous, Margaret.”
“I’m sure the inspector will come to the right conclusion fairly quickly now,” Evan said. “You’ll probably be able to go home soon.”
“Home,” Mrs. Llewellyn said with a sigh. “Doesn’t that sound wonderful. Lake Como, sun, fresh peaches. Soon this will all seem like a terrible nightmare.”
“Except that Daddy’s gone,” Jasmine pointed out.
“Yes, except that Daddy’s gone,” Mrs. Llewellyn repeated.
Evan bought a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich, only realizing as he ate it that he had missed breakfast and it was now close to lunchtime. As he ate he tried not to look too obviously at the Llewellyns. Jasmine was relaxed and laughing now. Even Mrs. Llewellyn’s face had lost the pinched, strained look of earlier that day. Was it possible that the D.I. had been right for once? Had it been a family conspiracy, cleverly thought out to confuse the police and make them all seem innocent?
A disturbing picture was still nagging at the back of Evan’s mind—the figure on the shore, the car in the lake and the defiant young girl, so like Jasmine that she could almost be her double.
Double … he spun the word around inside his head. Was it possible that Jasmine Llewellyn had needed a double for some reason? He had to find the truth.
He had just finished eating when Sergeant Watkins came in. He motioned Evan to the door.
“Justin’s changed his tune now,” he muttered to Evan. “Now he’s not saying another thing until the lawyer’s in there with him. It was when the D.I. started probing into why he’d lied that he became very defensive. He’s covering up for someone, sure enough.”
“It can’t be the sister. She’s got a pretty watertight alibi.”
“Then who?”
“Listen, Sarge,” Evan said. “Is there any way you could arrange to let me have a private talk with Justin? It’s about this car-in-the-lake business. It has to tie in somewhere. I have to find out who the other girl really is and what she was doing here. If I could just sort it out, it might solve a lot of things. But I can’t ask the D.I.”
“I’m not really sure what you’re getting at,” Watkins said, “but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks,” Evan said.
“It shouldn’t be too hard. I can’t imagine the D.I. would want to keep Justin Llewellyn around much longer, especially now he’s not willing to talk. What we have to do is arrange that the others leave without him and you can give him a ride.”
“Brilliant.” Evan nodded. “This might be the missing link we need.”
“And now I’m going to check up on our other missing link,” Watkins said.
>
“Mrs. Llewellyn’s boyfriend?” Evan asked.
Watkins nodded. “We still can’t rule him out, can we? It could be him that she’s been covering for all along.”
Evan nodded. “Or he could be part of the family conspiracy.”
Watkins sucked air through his teeth. “I get the feeling that this whole confession nonsense is all a series of misunderstandings. Mother thinks lover or son did it and confesses to save whoever it was. Son thinks mother did it and confesses to save her. Bloody heroic either way.”
“Or clever,” Evan pointed out. “By the end of today we might even know the truth.”
“Or we might be back to step one and looking into Mafia hit men again.” Watkins sighed. “I wish we could come up with the weapon with a nice set of prints on it, or a friendly shopper who saw Gladys pushed under a car. The photos have gone down to the computer center in Colwyn Bay, by the way, just in case we’ve missed something. Oh well, on with the next round.”
He went into the cafeteria and Evan watched him talk to the elderly solicitor, who then followed him out again.
“They are going to release Justin soon, aren’t they?” Mrs. Llewellyn asked Evan.
“I expect so, ma’am,” Evan said. “At least for the time being.”
“I just wish this was all over.” Mrs. Llewellyn ran her fingers through her hair. “Any idea when we can go back to the house and get our things packed up? I’d like the children there when I have to go through Ifor’s effects.”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything, ma’am,” Evan said. “As soon as the case is solved, you’ll be free to arrange the funeral and get on with your lives.”
“Unless you decide that one of us did it,” Jasmine said with biting sarcasm.
“Jasmine, that isn’t funny,” Mrs. L. snapped.
“Oh lighten up, Mummy. Where’s your sense of humor?” Jasmine sounded ridiculously like her father. Evan suspected that raising her had been no piece of cake for Mrs. Llewellyn.
They looked up as the solicitor came back into the room. “They’ve decided no more questions for the present,” he said. “Justin is free to go.”