Bruno and Suki helped themselves while Jasmine asked, ‘Given that his bike is here and he hasn’t borrowed the Land Rover, does anyone have any idea where Afan might be?’
A general shaking of heads.
‘He does go for long walks.’ Suki had poured cream into her spoon and was sipping it through neat, rosy lips. ‘But not when he’s working — in the evenings, or at weekends.’
‘What if he’s had an accident?’ Bryn turned towards Jasmine. He was stocky and tall, and he radiated warmth, as if he’d been absorbing the cooker’s heat. Swift could smell garlic on his breath, mixed with the wine.
She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s getting on for nine. That has to be a possibility. What to do? We’d better all check the site carefully. There’s no point in going further afield on foot. It’ll be dark soon and visibility will be hopeless in this weather. I’ll call on the Brinkworths and ask them to help. Ty, you can come with me.’
Stumbling around in the dark would be pointless, and he had no wish to follow Jasmine’s orders in the rain. He asked, ‘How far from here to get a phone signal?’
‘Couple of miles, as the road climbs to Holybridge,’ Kat told him.
‘I’m going to drive that way, then. I’d like to check my phone, in case Afan has sent me a text or email. His phone is missing, so presumably it’s with him. If he’s in trouble, he might have used it.’
‘If that was the case, he’d have tried the landline here,’ Peter Merchant said.
‘Maybe. When I rang it to tell Afan I was coming, no one replied, and it didn’t take a message.’
‘The answerphone’s unreliable and sometimes we forget to switch it on,’ Jasmine told him.
‘I checked it just before supper, because I was worried about Afan. The answerphone was on and there were no messages,’ Kat replied. She nodded at Swift. ‘That’s a good idea of yours. I’ll drive you, if you like. Then you can scan the roads for any sign of Afan as well as checking your phone. I’ll just get the keys to the Land Rover.’
Bryn chuckled, and Jasmine eyed Kat shrewdly but said nothing. The others donned their coats while Jasmine allotted them each an area to search. They all had torches in their pockets, used as they were to walking through the country darkness. Swift put his waxed jacket on and watched them file out. Jasmine’s ringing voice was still issuing orders as she opened the outer door.
Suki was bringing up the rear and turned. ‘I’m sure Afan’s okay, Ty.’ She smiled up at Swift, touching his arm lightly, but he glimpsed concern in her dark eyes.
* * *
Kat Glover was a terrible driver, the kind who clutched the wheel too hard and used the brake erratically. The rain was driving hard against the windscreen, and she had the wipers on at full speed. This weather fitted Afan’s description of throwing it down. He glanced across at Kat as the Land Rover lurched. She was mannish, with a dumpy, muscular shape and although she must have been in her late thirties, she wore her hair in two juvenile pigtails tied with dark red ribbon. He’d observed that she had a slight limp and a built-up left shoe as he’d followed her to the car park. She’d had to pull her seat as far forward as it would go so that her feet could reach the pedals.
‘What’s that place?’ Swift pointed to the low stone building near the entrance gate.
‘That’s St Finnian’s chapel, believed to date from the fifteenth century. It’s not used for formal worship these days. It has another name locally — the Serpent’s Chapel. Local lore has it that it was once used for satanic worship or rituals of some kind. I’ve no idea if that’s true. We patch the place up as best we can, as it’s ancient and part of this estate. People from around here call in occasionally and tourists visit. The windows need repairing. We discussed it at a colloquy, but the summer months have been a bit busy. Can you hop out and do the gate?’
Swift pulled his hood up and ran to the gate when Kat stopped. The wind stung his face as he gripped the cold metal bars. The headlights illuminated the silver needles of rain and he glanced up at Kat, hunched at the wheel, a cushion wedged behind her back. She was like a child who’s taken her parents’ car for a joy ride.
She drove slowly to the road, concentrating on the track. Now and again, she took the end of a pigtail and sucked it. Swift stared out at the wild, hostile night. A line of hawthorn trees were swaying, their branches dancing and dipping, illuminated and then cast back to dark shadow as the Land Rover’s lights caught them and moved on. Afan could be lying in any of these hedgerows and you’d never see him. He kept recalling Afan’s first email: there is a sour note that troubles me and plays on my mind. Nobody would be out in this weather without good reason. It was a night to head for home. He held his phone in his hand and as the road started to climb towards Holybridge, he saw that he had one bar of a signal, creeping up to two. He had no text messages, but he was relieved to see an email from Afan.
Hi Ty, I’m really sorry to do this, but something urgent has come up and I’ve got to head off and deal with it. Please accept my apologies and can you tell them at Tir Melys. Hopefully, you can enjoy a couple of days there anyway. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can. Again, so sorry, Afan.
He checked the time it had been sent: 2.15 p.m. He rang the phone number, but it went to voicemail. He left a message, saying that he’d received the email but was concerned, and hoped that everything was okay. He asked Afan to get in touch, via the landline at Tir Melys if possible. Kat slowed, bumped the Land Rover onto the verge and yanked the handbrake. She turned to him, anxious.
‘You’ve heard from Afan?’
‘Yes.’ He read her the email.
‘Hmm. Very strange, but I suppose at least he’s left a message. I wonder what could be so urgent. I don’t understand why he didn’t say anything to me, reach out about this problem, whatever it is.’ She lifted a pigtail and licked the end of it. ‘He’s okay, that’s the main thing.’
‘Are you and Afan close?’ Swift wanted to pull the hair out of her mouth. It was a revolting habit.
‘Well, we get each other. We’re on the same wavelength, we share things,’ she said.
He wondered if she was indicating that they slept together. He couldn’t imagine it. In Lyon, Afan had had a partner called Amira Brodeur, a dark, slim woman, pretty and very feminine. Kat seemed to be expecting him to enquire further and when he didn’t, she wiped the inside of the windscreen with the back of her hand.
‘I’ll head back, shall I?’
‘Fine, yes. Has Afan seemed worried about anything recently?’
She tapped her stubby fingers on the wheel. ‘I don’t think so. We talk pretty much every day and he hasn’t mentioned anything. He had some leaf spot on his early tomatoes and that bugged him, but I don’t suppose that’s what you mean.’
‘No, it isn’t. Would Afan go somewhere and leave his door and a window open?’
‘Oh, we don’t lock anything at Tir Melys, there’s no need. I wish he’d said something to me, I’m sure I could have helped. We’re all there for each other in the community. But you shouldn’t worry too much. He’s clearly okay, he’s just got this thing to deal with, whatever it is. I expect he’ll tell us all about it when he gets back.’
Swift didn’t reply. He and Afan should have been sitting by the glowing stove, drinking wine and catching up while the weather did its worst outside. This wasn’t right. He couldn’t fathom why his friend would have left on foot to an emergency. He held the door handle as Kat executed an awkward three-point turn and drove into the dismal night. His gut twisted with anxiety.
Chapter 4
After fifteen minutes of lying in his bunk bed, Swift decided that he wouldn’t get a wink of sleep. Not only was it not long enough, but the mattress was so thin, he could feel the slats beneath. There was a proper bed at Afan’s and he might as well use it, given that its owner didn’t need it for now.
He rose, put his clothes back on, fetched his toiletries and his rucksack and headed downstairs. It was just after midnight
and the Bivium was silent. He passed through the refec, which was now spotless, with just a tureen of fruit in the middle of the dining table. The digital display on the oven gleamed bright blue in the dark and the fridge hummed quietly. He could still smell lamb juices and garlic. When he’d returned with Kat, Jasmine had declared in a mock military fashion that everyone could stand down.
‘It’s rather inconsiderate of Afan,’ she’d said, ‘but I suppose if it’s an emergency, he has his reasons. Does this email say how long he expects to be gone?’
‘No. It’s vague,’ Swift had told her. And Afan was never vague. He was always clinically precise. ‘Did he ever walk to Holybridge? He must have walked somewhere, as he had no transport — unless someone picked him up.’
Bryn had answered him. ‘The coastal path cuts by the west of Holybridge. Afan used to do that walk into the town sometimes. I’ve gone with him a couple of times, although he usually preferred solitary rambles. It’d take about an hour. There’d be taxis there and the train station.’
Swift had said, ‘Why would Afan have walked for an hour to deal with an urgent matter when he could have asked for a lift or called a taxi?’
‘Good question,’ Peter Merchant had commented, ‘no idea of the answer. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.’
Swift had asked Jasmine if she had any next of kin details for Afan. He’d never heard his friend mention extended family. She’d shaken her head and seemed to have decided to take the question as a criticism, pointing out sniffily that this was a community of independent adult members, not a record-keeping fiefdom. Bruno had grinned at that.
When Swift stepped out of the Bivium, the rain had stopped and the air was chilly. A sickle moon glittered occasionally through scudding clouds. There was a plaintive maah from a sheep, otherwise the darkness was like a silent cloak. He’d borrowed a torch and swept it along the path and clumps of purple foxgloves, making his way over the sodden ground. He came to where the path branched to Afan’s cottage and as he turned with the torch and the beam danced, he thought he saw a shadow, a shape slipping away down the side of the shed. It was gone in an instant. He ran along the path, sliding on wet grass, and walked around the shed, past Afan’s bike. There was no one and when he stood listening, no sound. He looked in the shed, but it was exactly as it had been earlier.
He opened the cottage door, switched on the light and stood on the threshold. The room was the same and when he gazed around, he couldn’t see that anything had been moved. But he recognised a difference, a trace of recent warmth, of human sweat and breath on the air. The photo that Afan had left on the table was undisturbed, and he tucked it into the inner pocket of his jacket.
There was a key hanging above the door, and he locked it before he went to bed. Afan’s bedtime reading was Wolf Hall. A sticker on the front told Swift that it had cost him £2.50 in Holybooks Preloved. The bookmark, a creased postcard of Caerphilly castle, was a quarter of the way in. He read the back. The handwriting was spidery.
I found this recipe for Elderberry and Meadowsweet mead. Sounds yummy. Shall we try a batch? We could go foraging early one morning (just as the sun is rising!) K xx
1 gallon spring water
2 ounces dried meadowsweet leaf and flower
8 ounces dried elderberries
1/2 teaspoon pectin
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1/2 packet of yeast
1 1/2 36-ounce jars of honey
Afan had always been an avid reader, sometimes confessing at work that he was tired because he’d been unable to put a book down until the early hours. Swift lay in the man-sized bed, gratefully stretching his legs and wondering why Afan hadn’t taken his book with him. He was weary but sleep eluded him. He cast his mind back to when he’d been with Afan in Lyon, trying to remember if he’d ever mentioned relatives. He drew a blank.
His eyes grew heavy, but he kept thinking about that email. It bothered him. It didn’t make sense. Why that, and not a phone call or a note? Afan would have realised that he might not see the email for some time. He would surely have left a note on the kitchen table, wanting Swift to find it as soon as he arrived. He wasn’t a man to cause unnecessary alarm and especially to an expected visitor.
He drifted in and out of sleep through the night. He had vivid dreams. In one, Ruth sat by the Rhône in Lyon with him. She wore a wedding dress and a circlet of flowers in her hair. He went to take her hand, telling her how happy he was to be her husband, but she frowned and told him he’d got it wrong. She’d married Emlyn, they were on their honeymoon and he would be here any minute.
* * *
Swift woke just after half six and peered out of the bedroom window. The rain had cleared, and the sky was an intense, cloudless blue. Somewhere, a cockerel crowed loud and long. He went to the bathroom and listened to the toilet make its loud, sinister groan. Bruno had explained that it was a macerating system, as the waste had some way to go to the main drain. He showered under a slow trickle of lukewarm water and dressed, then he made a cup of tea and wandered barefoot into the garden. He picked and ate tomatoes and loganberries. Jasmine had told him that he should help himself to breakfast in the refec. He decided to walk around the site first and get his bearings properly. He donned his jacket, closed the windows, locked the door and set off.
The dwellings all had turfed roofs and chimneys but had been constructed in different styles. There was another cottage like Afan’s, two hexagonal structures, painted bright pink with porthole windows, a cabin with a triangular front and a house that resembled a Viking longhouse, made of varnished timbers and with oregano, sedum and sea thrift growing on the roof. He passed several long polytunnels and a large, fenced area with henhouses inside.
The climbing sun was drying the drenched earth and the air smelled rich and loamy. Past the Bivium and through a wooded area of hornbeam and larch, he saw an elevated, handsome period farmhouse, fronted by a paved courtyard. It was stone-built, weathered grey and brown, with pargeting on the plaster around the sturdy oak front door. The courtyard was dotted with lemon trees in blue earthenware pots. Dark green willow planters containing purple fuchsias stood under the windows. Peter Merchant was standing in the centre of the paving with his back turned, his bare right foot against his left calf, arms reaching up with steepled hands. He wore a T-shirt and baggy tracksuit bottoms — a scrawny scarecrow. It seemed that the Merchants lived in the big house. Swift was puzzled about how this place fitted together.
He decided to walk as far as the chapel and hoped it would be open. The rutted path towards the entrance gate was deep in puddles. Swift was regretting his lack of wellingtons. He should have borrowed Afan’s, which he’d seen near the front door. He brushed the back of his hand along the tops of drenched ferns as he walked. His back was to the sun and he was glad of its warmth on his neck.
The chapel door had a simple latch, and it was open. On the right of the doorframe, Swift saw that a fish symbol had been carved into the stone. Inside was a shadowy space of about fifteen feet square with a vaulted roof. The walls were limestone, the earth floor dry and caked. A wooden collection box was fixed to the back wall with a laminated card above.
Welcome to St Finnian’s chapel
The Tir Melys community cares for this holy place
Please leave a donation towards its upkeep
He put a pound coin in the box. There was just a small stone altar with two wooden benches before it. Swift walked around the bare altar and then sat on one of the benches. The air was chilly but not damp. The chapel had a benign atmosphere, not particularly holy, but calm. He heard the door open behind him and turned to see Bruno entering, his dungarees tucked into wellingtons. He was carrying a bunch of wildflowers. He halted abruptly when he saw Swift, and then came and sat beside him.
‘You’re an early bird,’ he said softly.
‘So are you.’
‘I call in here now and again. It’s peaceful. A bit gloomy, and freezing in the winter, but peaceful.’
‘If you want to be on your own, I can go.’
‘No, no, stay as you are.’ Bruno seemed friendlier this morning. ‘No sign of Afan?
‘No, but if he’s had to deal with an emergency, I wouldn’t expect him to be back yet. I’ve been wondering why this is called St Finnian’s chapel. Wasn’t he Irish?’
‘He was trained in a Welsh monastery, in Glamorgan, in the fifth century. There’s no evidence that he ever actually hung out here. A handful of hermits used it over the centuries, I believe. There’s a cleft in the stone to one side of the altar, leads to a small chamber. It’s supposed to be a hidey-hole where hermits used to conceal themselves if they heard someone coming. The chapel isn’t in use anymore. Just a bit of interesting heritage.’
‘Kat told me it’s also called the Serpent’s Chapel.’
Bruno laughed. ‘Kat likes a bit of drama and embellishment. There’s some local stories that satanic rites were enacted here, possibly in the seventeenth century, but it’s all a bit vague. Might have been the teenage Goth equivalents of the time, having a bit of fun.’ He stretched his legs out, crossed them at the ankles. ‘Afan comes here sometimes to meditate.’
‘He was a private kind of man when I knew him in Lyon. Is he religious?’
Bruno said, ‘Not religious in any formal sense. I used to work with horses back in Alberta. Sometimes, Afan reminds me of a nervous horse, skittish if you get too close.’ He pulled a face and tugged at his beard. ‘He probably comes here to hide away from Kat.’
‘Because?’
‘Kat’s a bit keen on Afan. She’s laid siege to him ever since she arrived. He’s too kind to tell her straight that he’s not interested, and she’s not the type to take a subtle hint. He’s sensitive about her damaged foot, doesn’t want her to think that puts him off. She’s convinced that they have an attraction. She makes him little carvings and bakes him cakes, buys him books on bees, pops up when he’s off for a walk, to keep him company. It’s a source of some amusement to us all.’
MURDER IN PEMBROKESHIRE an absolutely gripping crime mystery full of twists (Tyrone Swift Detective Book 8) Page 4