by Meurig Jones
Wall lights and expensive art deco standard lamps illuminated the spacious room, which was tastefully furnished but a mess. An antique bureau in an alcove had had its drawers pulled right out and the contents were scattered across the thick pile carpet. There was a discoloured empty square above a marble fireplace, indicating that a picture had hung over it.
‘This place has been ransacked,’ Lambert said. ‘Let’s go and see what else we can find.’
At the end of the hallway, near the front door, Lambert saw the light switches for the hall and upstairs landing and switched them on. The front hallway was lit by a chandelier and they both stood still for a moment, surveying the grand, carved oak staircase.
‘Usually,’ Jones said, tilting her head to indicate the staircase, ‘anything of value is in the master bedroom.’
Lambert nodded his agreement and led the way up the stairs. As they rounded the first landing, they saw the remnants of a broken vase on the floor, which had presumably stood on the window sill by the leaded windows looking out on to the back garden.
They started up the next flight to the first-floor landing and stopped. The cream-coloured carpet was splattered with blood, spread out across an area of staircase like an explosion of red paint.
Jones’s mouth suddenly felt parched and her stomach quaked. She stared at her boss, whose expression was fixed, as if he was carved from stone.
‘Tread carefully,’ he said quietly.
Leading the way again, he climbed the rest of the stairs, avoiding the smears of blood, and reached the landing.
‘My God!’ Jones said as she joined him, and saw the dark trail of blood leading to the bedroom.
Lambert now strode purposefully towards the bedroom, just in case whoever had shed the blood was still alive and needed attention.
As soon as they entered they saw her body, lying near the double bed, as if she had tried to escape her killer by crawling underneath. As they stared at the crumpled, bloody figure, they knew there was no way she could still be alive.
It looked as if Rhiannon Lloyd had been shot twice; through the shoulder and then in the back of the head.
NINETEEN
GAVIN LLOYD AND his driver signed in at their hotel. The receptionist, an attractive young Hungarian woman, smiled warmly and brushed a stray wisp of hair away from her cheek.
‘Thank you, sir. Mr Lloyd, you are in Room 342, and Mr Collier, it is Room 356, both on third floor.’
They took their plastic keys and Lloyd said, ‘We’ll just put our bags upstairs and then perhaps you would be so kind as to tell us where the restaurant is.’
‘For breakfast?’
Lloyd looked as if she had asked him to clean the kitchens. ‘No, I don’t mean for breakfast. I mean for now! For dinner!’
‘I am sorry. The restaurant is shut. The last dinner was at nine o’clock.’
‘Well, I’m sure they can rustle us up something. Just show us where it is.’
She began to look concerned, knowing she had an awkward customer standing in front of her desk.
‘Sorry. It is shut.’
‘Look, am I talking gibberish or what? All I asked you for was directions to the restaurant. My driver and I have driven all the way from Cardiff, and it’s taken us over six hours. So the least we expect from a four-star hotel is a meal on our arrival.’
‘There is room service for snacks and sandwiches, or you can enjoy them in the bar.’
Lloyd stared at his driver and raised his voice. ‘Obviously I’m not making myself clear.’
‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’
The man suddenly appeared from behind them. He was dark-haired and spoke with a trace of an Italian accent. ‘I’m the manager here,’ he added.
As if speaking to an imbecile, Lloyd slowed and emphasized his words. ‘We have driven from Cardiff – more than six hours. My driver and I are very tired and hungry. Is it too much to ask you to get a hot meal?’
The manager shrugged. ‘There is only one person in the kitchen, doing sandwiches and room service. The chefs have gone home.’
‘I don’t believe this! A sodding four-star hotel!’
‘If you don’t mind my saying, sir, this is Edinburgh. Just step outside the door and you have many restaurants of all kinds. Whatever you like to eat—’
With a dismissive wave of the hand, Lloyd interrupted him. ‘Oh, forget it! We’re too tired to go walkabout. We’ll have one of your bloody sandwiches.’
Lloyd stormed off to the bar, with Collier following a few paces behind. The manager watched them go, fantasizing about this being his last day at work and how he had told that objectionable customer exactly what he thought of him.
While SOCO were busy gathering evidence at the immediate crime scene and the rest of the house, Lambert and Jones, both wearing latex gloves, sifted through the scattered contents of the bureau in the living room.
‘Can you translate Welsh into English?’ Jones asked as she picked up a slim, burgundy-coloured book.
‘Not a chance,’ Lambert replied, looking over her shoulder at the book. ‘On the other hand, the numerals should give us a clue. To hazard a guess, I would think dyddlyfr is Welsh for diary.’
She opened the diary and flicked through to January. ‘It can’t be his diary; it must be hers because the entries are written in Welsh.’
‘Translation won’t be a problem: Dave and several of the SOCO team speak Welsh.’
She turned the diary pages until she came to October. ‘She has an appointment to see someone in Abertawe tomorrow.’
‘That’s Welsh for Swansea.’
‘Yes, thank you, I do know that much. I can read the road signs, you know.’
‘Does it say who she was supposed to meet?’
‘Someone called Morgan Jones.’
‘Any relation of yours?’
‘We’re quite a big family, but not that big. There’s a phone number by his name.’
Lambert produced his mobile and said, ‘Call out the numbers for me.’
He dialled the numbers as she read them out. After it made the connection it switched to voicemail. He listened to the message and hung up. Jones looked at him expectantly.
‘They’ll be there from 9 a.m. tomorrow.’
‘They?’
‘Someone called Francis, Jones and Prosser.’
‘Sounds like a firm of solicitors.’
‘I’ll call them first thing in the morning. Is there an address section in the back of the diary?’
‘There is, but it’s empty. Most people keep their phone numbers in their mobiles now.’
Lambert snapped his fingers. ‘That’s a point: I haven’t seen her mobile phone anywhere, have you?’
She shook her head. ‘Now you come to mention it …’
‘This what you’re looking for?’
They turned towards the door as Jason, one of the younger members of the SOCO team, entered, holding a mobile.
‘Where d’you find it?’
‘It was just under the bed, near to where she was shot in the head. She managed to dial the emergency number but it hadn’t been sent. Presumably the fatal shot got her before she could press “send”. Hughie asked me to let you have it post haste. He said he thought you might want to access her address book right away.’
He handed the phone to Lambert.
‘That’s very useful. Thanks, Jason.’
‘Dim problem,’ Jason said as he exited.
Lambert smiled at Jones. ‘Strange sort of language that uses both Welsh and English in a two-word sentence.’
He found Rhiannon Lloyd’s address book on the mobile and scrolled down to the letter G. ‘Here we are. There’s two numbers for her husband: his office and mobile.’
‘I don’t envy you this call.’
‘Giving a relative the bad news is something I would normally loathe and detest. But in this instance …’
‘You don’t like him, do you?’
‘I wouldn’t go so far a
s to say that. I’ve only met him once. And he seemed like he could be really charming. But if I shook hands with the man, I’d count my fingers afterwards.’
Gavin Lloyd and Jack Collier sat at a table in the centre of the bar, Collier drinking lime and soda and his boss with a half of bitter and a large whisky chaser. They had both just finished eating roast beef sandwiches, with a small salad garnish, and had barely spoken two words to one another since entering the bar. Their small-wheeled suitcases stood beside the table, and Lloyd’s mobile sat on the table next to his sandwich plate. He stifled a yawn and cast his eyes around the bar. It seemed to be fairly quiet, but that was understandable, it being a Monday night. A married couple sat in an alcove, their eyes focused on some distant longing, each separated by years of habitual silence. They didn’t appear to be hotel residents, because the man had an anorak draped across the seat next to him, and his wife was wearing a long woollen coat and chiffon scarf. At the bar a company of businessmen stood laughing and talking loudly about banking and poor investments, and were clearly residents because all their drinks went on their room tabs.
The barman, seeing the empty plates on Lloyd and Collier’s table, hurried over to collect them. Lloyd nodded to him and spoke to Collier.
‘I know you’re the driver, Jack, but after six hours in the car I feel really knackered.’
He knocked back his whisky, and was about to chase this down with a draught of beer when his mobile rang.
Collier stared at his boss, observing the theatrical way he took the call, leaning back in his chair, smiling confidently, his head tilted upwards slightly and projecting his voice.
‘Gavin Lloyd! Inspector Lambert! What can I do for you? I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. It was only this morning you came to see me in Cardiff. I’m up in Edinburgh right now.’
Collier watched Lloyd intently and their eyes met briefly. And then his boss’s face suddenly crumpled and his eyes filled with tears.
‘No! No! This can’t be happening. Please tell me it’s not true. Oh, Jesus Christ! Please! Not Rhiannon!’
The businessmen at the bar stopped speaking as they witnessed this tragic scene unfolding a few feet away.
Lloyd bent over the table, weeping and holding his head in his free hand. ‘I can’t believe this is happening. Oh God, no! Not my Rhiannon. Yes, yes. Please! Just give me a minute. Of course, I’ll come home right away. No, I don’t think there’ll be a direct flight from here to Cardiff at this time of night. Oh Jesus Christ! This can’t be happening. Yes, yes. We’ll come straight back. Hang on a second, Inspector, I need to talk to Jack.’
He held the phone away from his ear and stared tearfully at Collier. ‘It’s Rhiannon. She’s been killed.’
Collier’s normally inscrutable face contorted into an expression of empathic grief. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘How did it happen?’
Ignoring the question, Lloyd said, ‘We have to go back right away. D’you think you’ll be all right to drive?’
Collier nodded.
Lloyd sniffed and wiped his eyes. ‘Jack thinks he’s OK to drive. It’s another six-hour journey. If we have to, I’ll book into a motel halfway and he can get his head down for a couple of hours. We should be back early morning. Oh God! This is a nightmare.’
Lloyd hung up and leant over the table, holding his head in his hands.
Collier stood, reached out awkwardly and touched Lloyd’s arm. ‘It’s a long drive,’ he said. ‘I think we’d better leave.’
TWENTY
SITTING NEXT TO Gavin Lloyd, Mark Powell, his solicitor, shot a frosty look at Lambert, but the slight lisp in his voice tended to kill any attempt at authority.
‘Inspector Lambert, my client has been up all night, and it has been a most distressing and stressful time for him, I don’t think it unreasonable to expect an explanation for—’
Lambert interrupted. ‘Well, how’s this for an explanation? We have concrete evidence that your client had a motive for killing his wife.’
‘That’s bloody absurd, and you know it is!’ Lloyd shouted. ‘My house was burgled … robbed … and you think I had something to do with it? You must be mad.’
Lambert was about to reply but Lloyd’s solicitor jumped in first.
‘My client has already told you he was in Edinburgh, and he can prove he was there with his driver at the time of this terrible homicide.’
Lambert threw a sideways glance at DC Jones, a heard-it-all-before expression. When he turned back to confront the solicitor, he made a point of wiping the cynical smile from his face.
‘Mr Powell, I would appreciate it if I could continue to question Mr Lloyd, and then the sooner we can get all this cleared up, the sooner your client can go home and get some sleep.’ He focused his attention on Lloyd. ‘Assuming, of course, you are able to sleep following these terrible events.’
The solicitor sighed pointedly before reluctantly accepting Lambert’s demands. ‘Very well. Let’s get it over with.’
‘Mr Lloyd,’ Lambert began as he consulted his notes and then looked up again, ‘have you heard of a firm called Francis, Jones and Prosser?’
Lloyd tilted his head sideways, as if trying to recall. ‘Yes, my wife’s solicitors I believe.’
Lambert exaggerated an expression of surprise. ‘You believe? Most families retain the same firm of solicitors. Unless there’s a conflict of interest. Do you and your wife use separate law firms because you don’t see eye to eye about something?’
‘Of course not. My wife used the same solicitors as her parents did. As you yourself said, most families retain the same firm.’
‘Would it surprise you to learn that your wife had an appointment today to see her solicitor?’
Lloyd hesitated. ‘Well, yes, that’s news to me.’
‘I’ve already spoken to a Mr Morgan Jones at the firm. When I explained the gravity of the situation, and that it was a murder enquiry into the death of his client, he was quite open about why she was going to see him. It was in order to obtain a divorce from you.’
‘What?’
Lambert and Jones studied Lloyd’s reaction, whose glassy stare of incomprehension seemed genuine.
‘I really had no idea. None at all. This has come as a complete shock. Did he say why she was seeking a divorce?’
‘You mean you don’t know?’
The solicitor butted in. ‘My client has already told you he didn’t know, Inspector.’
Ignoring him, Lambert continued. ‘Did you know your wife was having an affair with another man?’
Lloyd’s mouth opened slowly as he was forced to confront the truth. His eyes misted over and he looked like a helpless forlorn youth. It was impossible to know if he had genuinely not known of his wife’s affair or was giving an Oscar-winning performance.
‘I can’t believe Rhiannon was having an affair.’ Lloyd looked straight into Lambert’s eyes. ‘Was she leaving me for another man?’
‘No, she wasn’t, Mr Lloyd.’
‘But I don’t understand.’
‘The man with whom she was having an affair died last Saturday night. Mark Yalding, your ex-employee.’
Not a muscle moved in Lloyd’s face.
‘It was a serious affair that had gone on for quite some time. No doubt she was planning to leave you for Mr Yalding. But someone got to him first. Did you really not know how close she was to Yalding?’
‘No, I had no idea.’
‘And did your wife never do anything to arouse your suspicion?’
‘Well … no….’
‘Why did you hesitate over that answer, Mr Lloyd?’
‘I didn’t think anything was wrong with our relationship. I suppose I just thought our marriage had gone the way of most marriages after twenty-five years. Now that you’ve told me about the affair she was having, I can see … yes … with the benefit of hindsight, she had been acting a little strange in recent months. Nothing I could put my finger on. It was mainly her moods.’
&nb
sp; ‘And how is Green Valley Productions doing?’
The abrupt change of subject seemed to catch Lloyd out for a moment. He turned towards his solicitor as if hoping for support. But Powell sat stony-faced, avoiding eye contact with his client. Lloyd clearly expected his solicitor to intervene, to perhaps challenge the relevance of the question. But, unlike his client, the solicitor couldn’t see where Lambert’s questions were heading now.
‘It’s a simple enough question, Mr Lloyd. How is your production company doing financially?’
Lloyd shifted uncomfortably in his chair and fiddled with his wristwatch.
‘Well, just lately we’ve had one or two setbacks.’
‘Such as?’
‘We pitched some projects and none of them were taken up.’
‘It must be difficult to keep your company afloat when you have no income. Did your wife agree to bail your company out of financial difficulties the same as her father did twenty years ago?’
Alarm flickered in Lloyd’s eyes briefly. ‘My father-in-law didn’t bail me out of difficulties, as you put it; he offered to finance the company when I first set it up.’
‘So was this a long-term loan?’
Lloyd murmured something incomprehensible.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lambert said, ‘I didn’t catch that.’
‘Yes, I think it was a loan.’
‘And was this ever paid back?’
‘I’m afraid he died before the production company was in a position to pay back the loan.’
‘So, as his beneficiary, your wife would be owed the loan from your company. And, according to her solicitor, the amount involved meant that if she divorced you, and the proceeds of the properties were divided, once the loan was paid back you would receive nothing. Did you ever argue about finances?’
‘Occasionally. What married couple doesn’t?’
‘Mr Lloyd, you have two motives for killing your wife—’
Panic in his eyes, Lloyd interrupted. ‘But I swear to you I didn’t know about my wife and Mark Yalding! And I wouldn’t have done anything to harm Rhiannon. I loved her. You’re not suggesting I’d kill her for money, for Christ’s sake….’