by Alis Hawkins
‘Did your brother take out life insurance on Jenkyn Hughes?’
Wil put his mug down. ‘No idea. Wouldn’t surprise me. Careful, Shoni is. Very careful.’
I thought for a bit. What Wil had told me meant that there were suddenly a lot more questions I wanted to ask Shoni Jones. But I mustn’t forget what I’d actually come here to find out.
‘I’ve been told your brother owns a telescope – is that right?’
Wil looked surprised at the sudden change of subject but didn’t ask why I wanted to know. ‘Yes. Bought it off Jenkyn Hughes for ready cash.’
‘Do you know when Shoni’ll be back?’
Wil shook his head. ‘Before Friday,’ he said. ‘That’s all I can tell you. All the fires of hell wouldn’t keep him away from that meeting.’
‘All right then – when he comes back to Penlanmeurig, can you tell him that the coroner would like to see him before the meeting? He can find me or Mr Probert-Lloyd at the Black Lion in Cardigan.’
Harry
In spite of my best efforts, I was unable to leave the house in time to go to Moylegrove with John. My father did not wake till nine, and required help with dressing and getting to the close-stool. To have reached Cardigan in time, a door-to-door railway would have been necessary.
My father having managed to convey that he would like to leave his bedroom – Down. Study. – I accompanied him. Laboriously, two feet to each stair, he hecked his way down, his panted breaths alarming me slightly. I made a mental note to ask Reckitt whether that was to be expected after a stroke.
Assuming that my father’s request to sit in the study arose simply from habit, I had ignored it and asked for the fire to be lit in the morning room. Quite apart from the fact that the study held no particularly fond memories for me, the morning room was a far pleasanter place in which to sit at this time of day; it looked out over the river and the meadows beyond and was filled with light from the rising sun.
I explained my decision to him on the way down the stairs but he resisted me when we reached the hall.
‘Father, this way,’ I pulled gently on the arm I was holding.
‘No,’ he panted. ‘Study.’
‘The fire’s been lit in the morning room.’
‘Study! Papers.’ I heard a flash of his old spirit and knew exactly the kind of glare he would be giving me.
‘Very well,’ I said, allowing him to continue towards the study. ‘If it’s to do with papers, I’ll ask Mrs Griffiths to come.’
I called out for Wil-Sam and sent him scurrying in search of Isabel Griffiths. Then, conjoined, my father and I shuffled to the study, where he disengaged himself from my supporting arm to make his ungainly way around the desk. He half-sat, half-collapsed into his chair and, after shuffling backwards and almost tipping the chair on its side, managed to pull out a drawer from one of the desk’s pedestals.
I could hear his breathing and, anticipating questions from Reckitt, I tried to analyse its quality. Was it more of a wheeze or simply rapid, panting breath? Was it laboured or merely quick? I wondered when Reckitt would come. I would have to ask Mrs Griffiths if he had given any indication of when we might expect him.
My father started withdrawing documents from the drawer. His movements were stiff, clumsy, and I was afraid that, unused as he was to balancing his newly-altered body, he might topple from his chair. However, conscious of a need to restore some of the dignity stolen from him by the stroke, I did not go to his aid, simply watching as best I could while he bent, stiffly, to the drawer, reached in with his one good hand and straightened to put another sheaf of paper on his desk. The drawers were ordered for the convenience of a right-handed person and, as my father now only had use of his left, the whole procedure was awkward at best.
Isabel Griffiths appeared. ‘Is everything all right, Harry?’
‘Yes. My father wants to show me some papers, I think, but obviously…’ I gestured at my eyes.
‘Has he asked for me?’ Her demeanour told me that she wasn’t happy about invading the master’s territory uninvited; her hands were clasped at her waist as if she was seeking reassurance from herself.
‘No, it’s me doing the asking.’
She hesitated but could not deny me for long. ‘Very well.’
My father had finished emptying the drawer of documents and now sat, apparently looking down at the pile in front of him.
I turned back to Mrs Griffiths. ‘Would you mind having a look at these documents, please? Just to see what they are?’ As always, in my father’s presence, I spoke to her in English.
She hesitated but, when I moved towards the desk, she followed. ‘May I?’ she asked my father. Clearly, he gave some visible permission because she drew the pile of papers to her and turned them around.
‘This first one is Mr Probert-Lloyd’s will,’ she said, after a second or two.
I watched as she put it aside, unread. She had been asked only to say what the documents were: she would do that and no more.
‘This one is a deed relating to a property on the estate.’ She placed it on top of my father’s will. ‘As is this. And this. And this.’ Each deed was placed on top of the last until the second pile was taller than the first.
‘And this…’ She moved her head closer to the desk, as if she was having trouble making out the writing. ‘… is …’ She stopped and turned to me. ‘It’s a mortgage document.’
‘A mortgage? On what property?’
She turned back to the document. I heard a page turn before she spoke again. ‘On Glanteifi. The whole estate.’
Involuntarily, my eyes fastened on my father and I had to shift my gaze until the whirlpool moved to one side and I could see him again. I could tell only that his face was turned towards me.
‘Father? When did you take out a mortgage on the estate?’ More to the point – why?
It was a futile question. How could he answer me?
‘Kerr,’ he said.
Llewelyn Kerr was Glanteifi’s solicitor; he handled all the legal business of the estate and would, undoubtedly, have drawn up most, if not all, the documents on the table.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think I’d better pay him a visit.’
Kerr’s Newcastle Emlyn office was at the top of town, on Water Street, near the recently-rebuilt Baptist chapel. That it was a more prosperous office than Mr Schofield’s was evident from that fact that, whereas Schofield’s had one bow window looking on to the street, the building occupied by Mr Kerr’s practice was double-fronted and set back from the street a little. The brass plate on the wall had not just Kerr’s name and title engraved upon it, but two others as well – that of his brother-in-law Edward Jervis and his late father-in-law’s original partner, the venerable Joseph Evans. Three lawyers and at least six clerks, some of them articled. No wonder Charles Schofield had been adamant that there was room in his practice for only one solicitor; with Kerr, Jervis and Evans sitting at the opposite end of town, it was quite surprising that Mr Schofield managed to find enough business for one.
Having announced myself and relinquished my coat and hat to an attentive clerk, I was asked to wait and shown to a rather grand sofa in the spacious hall. No walking straight in off the street into a front office here.
Llewelyn Kerr had been my father’s solicitor for most of the last decade but I would have been hard put to it to recognise him, even had my sight not been compromised. Fortunately for me, I was not required to do so.
‘Mr Probert-Lloyd! Good morning to you. Come through to my office, will you? It’s this way. Can you see sufficiently to follow me?’
I was glad to be spared the tedious business of explaining my anomalous sight and grateful that Kerr had handled it so adroitly, acknowledging my condition without assuming that it disabled me in any significant way.
‘Thank you. As long as you don’t require me to read or recognise faces, my sight is adequate to my needs.’
Kerr closed the door of a largeish office decorated i
n a rather unusual style. As far as I could see, no paintings of any kind hung on the walls; instead the solicitor had opted for wallpaper in a florid design of red and yellow on a royal-blue base, something geometric, or regularly repeating. It pulsed in my peripheral vision and made me feel slightly dizzy.
‘Please, do sit down. I assume you’re here, in your capacity as acting coroner, about Jenkyn Hughes’s will?’
Providentially, we were both still in the process of sitting down, which allowed me a second or two to master my expression.
‘Actually, I wasn’t going to begin with that but, now you’ve brought it up…’ I smiled.
‘Yes. I probably should have come to you.’ I heard a note of doubt in Kerr’s voice. ‘But you’ll understand that it’s a slightly delicate matter. I have to confess, I’ve been in a quandary.’
He seemed to be waiting for a response. ‘How so?’
‘I understand that the police have taken a man into custody. I have no idea how compelling the case against him is…’ He petered out, inviting me to formulate the other half of his quandary for him.
‘But the will offers a motive that might be compelling in its own right?’ I speculated.
‘Quite so.’ Mr Kerr sat back in his chair, as if he felt that he had been altogether too forthcoming. But he had set himself upon the course of disclosure and he could not very well backtrack now. ‘It’s my understanding,’ he said, ‘that Mr Hughes’s body was not found until some while after his death. Is that correct?’
I was finding it difficult to swap mental paths from my father’s business affairs to Jenkyn Hughes’s murder. I took a long breath, both to compose myself and to snatch a few seconds to order my thoughts.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s possible that he’d been dead as long as a fortnight before his body came to light.’
‘And the discovery took place a week ago?’
‘Approximately.’
Kerr took an audible breath. ‘And therein lies the motive,’ he said. ‘On that estimation of timings, Mr Hughes made his new will less than a week before his death.’
A week? Was this the will in favour of the cousin, or a new one writing him out of it?
‘Mr Kerr,’ I began. ‘I am not a policeman. I am not even the elected coroner, merely a temporary stand-in. However, I have already expended considerable energy and resources in investigating this case and I do not believe that the man currently in police custody is Jenkyn Hughes’s murderer. I would consider it a great favour if you would tell me who stood to benefit most from Mr Hughes’s death. I am quite sure, from your earlier remarks, that it is not Theophilus Harris.’
‘No. It is not.’ Even in confirming this much, Kerr sounded reluctant and I realised that I would have to help him tell me what he wished me to know.
‘If I hazard a guess, will you tell me whether I am correct?’
There was a short hesitation. ‘Yes, very well.’
If taken to task by his partners, Kerr would now be able to claim that he had simply confirmed what, apparently, I already knew.
‘Is it his cousin, or near-relation, Mr Shoni Jones of Moylegrove?’
There was an exhalation. ‘No, it is not.’
No? ‘But I was given to understand, by persons who might reasonably be expected to know, that Shoni Jones was Hughes’s heir.’
Kerr leaned his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands. ‘Indeed. In the strictest possible confidence, I can tell you that he was the major beneficiary of Mr Hughes’s previous will.’
‘Go on.’
‘Mr Hughes made that will on November the third. It left all his personal effects to his mother, to be returned to her at the executors’ convenience. But all residual property and moneys were bequeathed to John – commonly known as Shoni – Jones of Penlanmeurig, Moylegrove.’
‘And the executors of that will were?’
‘Myself and the said Shoni Jones.’
‘So Jones was aware of this will’s existence? The one leaving everything to him?’
There was a small silence during which I wondered whether I had made some kind of faux-pas. Then I heard Kerr draw a breath. ‘Not only did he know it existed, Mr Probert-Lloyd, but he sat where you are sitting now when it was being drawn up. Obviously, as a beneficiary, he could not be a witness to it but he watched as it was signed and notarised.’
‘And the beneficiary of the more recent will? Is that person to inherit Hughes’s share of the Cardigan and Ohio Emigration Company?’
‘Yes.’
‘And are they aware of the fact?’ Surely it was not possible that a second would-be legatee had sat in Kerr’s office watching as their prospects were substantially increased?
‘I have not yet sought to inform the beneficiary,’ Kerr said ‘because, until the inquest has formally pronounced Jenkyn Hughes dead, probate cannot legally be initiated. As to whether the beneficiary is already aware that they have been named as Hughes’s heir, I couldn’t say.’
‘Mr Kerr…’ I controlled my voice, though I felt far from calm. ‘My assistant is, even now, riding out to speak to Shoni Jones, convinced that he had a motive to wish Mr Hughes dead. If somebody else has a more compelling motive, I must know of it before the inquest.’
I paused but he said nothing. My mouth was dry as I asked my next question. ‘Is the beneficiary Mr Hughes’s partner, James Philips?’ Who knew what convoluted legal arrangements the two of them might have put in place in each other’s favour in settlement of gambling debts?
Again, an indrawn breath. ‘No. Not that partner.’
John
I left Wil Camlaw and rode back to Cardigan. My head felt stuffed with everything he’d told me and I couldn’t sort it properly. Did it make any difference that Shoni Jones had bought his way into Hughes’s will? Did it give him more of a motive than if Hughes’d made him his heir voluntarily? Had he decided that he’d make sure Hughes couldn’t change his mind?
With Hughes out of the way, Shoni would’ve been in the perfect position to step into his shoes and take over as agent to the Ohio scheme. He’d definitely moved up to the position of suspect number one in my mind.
But what had he seen on Tresaith beach?
I didn’t want to, but I was going to have to speak to the big sailor again.
By the time I crossed the bridge in Cardigan, I had a plan. Problem was, I wasn’t sure it’d work and there were about a hundred bees buzzing around in my guts as I paid a boy to look after Seren and walked onto the crowded quay.
I picked my way around, ducking under the seagulls that swooped on bits of God-knows-what on the ground and dodging between hand barrows and piles of crates until I saw what I was looking for. A sailor sitting by himself minding his own business. The tide was in and he was perched on one of those tying-up bollards, puffing on his pipe and looking up the river towards the stretch of river they called the Netpool where the ship-building docks were.
I walked up to him, hoping I was right and he was a sailor. If he wasn’t, he probably wouldn’t be able to help me. But he looked the part. He was wearing a knitted cap and those canvas trousers sailors wear. Must dry out better than wool. Nobody’d wear canvas for warmth.
Feeling like a pheasant on a duck pond in my office clothes, I said good day to him and asked if I could have a minute of his time. He was nothing like the big sailor, thank God. Just a little whip of a man with curly black hair sticking out from under his cap.
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, matey. No speako the lingo.’
‘Oh, well then,’ I said, in English. ‘Good morning to you.’
He nodded. ‘Tha’s be’er. What can I do for ya?’
‘Do you know a big sailor with a bald head who carries his pipe behind his ear?’ My finger went up to the side of my head and I snatched it down. He knew what an ear was.
‘Yeh, I know ’im.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Dunno. They just calls him the Whaler. About somewhere, ’e is.’ He began peeri
ng about.
‘No, don’t look for him! It’s more than my job’s worth to be caught speaking to him,’ I lied. I dropped my voice, as if I didn’t want anybody else to hear. ‘It’s a private matter, see. Can you tell him it’ll be worth his while to come up to the Blue Bell in Pwllhai in half an hour?’
‘An’ who wants him?’
‘John Davies.’ I hoped the big man would remember my name. But, most likely, if he was ‘about somewhere’ he’d’ve noticed me by now.
‘An’ why should I bother?’
‘Come with him and I’ll make it worth bothering.’ I wasn’t going to pay him now – if I did, he’d have no incentive to pass the message on.
‘Summink up front’d be a gentlemanly gesture – token o’ good faith kinda thing.’
Harry’d given me what he called contingency money and I pulled some out now. Enough – I hoped – to interest the sailor but not enough to satisfy him. ‘You’ll get the same again if I see you with him at the Blue Bell. Come in half an hour. And don’t tell anybody but him.’
I walked quickly back up from the docks to the area between the high street and St Mary’s known as Pwllhai. Hopefully, the Blue Bell’d be far enough from the docks for the Whaler not to worry about being seen with me.
Trouble was, I’d been so busy thinking about him that I hadn’t stopped to think about what it’d be like having to walk into a room full of strangers. I turned from closing the door against the cold outside and found every eye in the Blue Bell’s taproom looking at me.