Murder on the Hour (19 page)

“Yes,” Penny said with a soft smile. “I think I do. He's very charming.”

“He is,” agreed Victoria. “A real charmer. Which makes me wonder … he wasn't seeing anyone when you met?”

“His wife died a couple of years ago. He may have been seeing someone, but I don't think so. It is possible he wasn't, you know. Gareth wasn't seeing anyone when I met him.”

“True. But Gareth's…” she hesitated.

“Gareth's what?” said Penny.

“Well, he's different.”

They continued their journey in silence and Victoria dropped Penny off at home just before dark.

 

Twenty-five

“Where are we going?” Penny asked Michael as they drove along a narrow road enclosed on both sides by trimmed hedgerows.

“Here's a hint,” said Michael as he downshifted in preparation for a sharp turn. “There will be bells, and they will be blue.” He grinned and then turned his attention back to the road ahead. “Not long now.”

“Oh, I know where we are now,” said Penny. “Haydn Williams's farm is along here—we're just approaching it from a different direction.”

“I don't know about that,” said Michael, “but Gwinllan Clychau'r Gôg is just up here on the right. Bluebell Wood isn't very big, and we won't walk far and then I'll treat you to a really nice lunch.”

After passing Haydn's farm they turned off onto a narrow dirt road that led to a small clearing.

“I'm glad I brought my camera,” said Penny as she hung it around her neck. A short walk later and a vibrant carpet of bluish-purple haze welcomed them with a stunning display. A path wound through an ancient woodland of oak trees, and all around them, under a dappled canopy of recently opened leaves, were shimmering bluebells. Their sweet perfume, a combination of cooking apple and freshly mown grass, heady but at the same time delicate, filled the air, and Penny breathed it in deeply. She smiled at her companion and then took a series of photographs.

“I'm sure you've been here before,” he said.

“Not to this wood, perhaps, but yes, I've seen the bluebells.” She thought back to a year ago—or was it two?—when Gareth had taken her to see them. “When the bluebells come I never know if it's late spring or early summer,” she said.

“It's a bit of both,” he said. “The weather this time of year is unpredictable. One day it's spring, the next it's summer, and then we get a cold day and it almost feels like we're back to late winter.”

“Well, at least we've got a lovely day today,” said Penny.

The sun filtering through the waving tree branches above their heads cast a flickering light on the path beneath their feet. They walked on without speaking and then Michael asked, “Have you ever painted them?”

“I have,” Penny replied. “Well, tried. The particular shade of violet-purple-blue is difficult to capture and the colour changes depending on the time of day and the light situation. Everything looks better under a sky full of light. That's one of the reasons I love the Hudson River School so much.”

“I'd like to see your work sometime,” Michael said.

“I don't know if I'm confident enough to show it to you,” said Penny, “although I do sell some of my work through a local gallery. It was quite strange—Victoria and I were doing a consultation yesterday and the client said she had something to show me. It was one of my own paintings! It had been beautifully hung in a charming room and looked very well on her wall, if I do say so myself. It was at the Hughes farm, just down the road. In fact, the woods here is about halfway between the two farms. I never realized that before.”

Michael looked at his watch.

“Getting hungry? I'm starting to give lunch some serious thought.”

“Fine with me,” said Penny. They had reached a crossroads in the path and were about to turn back when she noticed what looked like several dark grey panels. They leaned crazily and crookedly sideways and tipped back, like loose, uneven teeth. “What are those, I wonder.” Michael stayed where he was as she examined them. When she got closer, she saw they were slabs of slate, wired together.

“Oh, they're part of what used to be an old slate fence,” she said to Michael over her shoulder, and then bent down to take a closer look. “This one seems to have something written on it.” She snapped a couple of photos and they strolled back through the bluebells, headed for lunch.

*   *   *

“Oh, Penny, come in,” said Alwynne Gwilt later that afternoon as she held the door open and welcomed Penny into her comfortable kitchen. “Have a seat. I was so pleased when you called.” She opened the refrigerator door and took out a bottle of wine, with a raised eyebrow. Penny smiled her thanks and she placed the bottle on the worktop and reached into the cupboard for two glasses.

Wine poured, she joined Penny at the table.

“Not with Michael this afternoon?” she said.

“No, we had a nice walk and lunch and then he dropped me off and headed home. He's driving to Holyhead later to meet the ferry. He's got a relative coming over from Ireland this evening.”

“Did he say who this person is?”

“No, just a relative. That's all. But his son lives in Dublin, so I expect it'll be him.”

“But he didn't ask you to go with him?”

Penny gave her a blank stare.

“No. Why would he? I wouldn't have expected him to. I haven't really known him long enough to meet his family. I'll see him again in a day or two, I expect.”

Alwynne started to say something, and then lowered her head to avoid direct eye contact and so Penny couldn't see the lines in her forehead as a frown spread across her face.

“Anyway,” said Penny brightly, “I can't wait to show you what we found today. Michael and I had a lovely walk up at Bluebell Wood before lunch and I saw an old piece of slate fencing. It had some figures scratched into it, and they looked familiar.” She showed Alwynne the photo on her camera. “Do you recognize anything here? Does anything seem familiar?”

“Can't really tell on the camera view,” said Alwynne, squinting at it. She then turned her face directly to Penny. “Why, what does it remind you of?”

“It puts me in mind of the map we saw at Haydn's farm. The one hidden in his clock.”

“Really?” Alwynne took a sip of wine. “Well, it's possible, I suppose. If his great-grandfather Wilfred John Williams created the map, he might also have carved that on the slate. The path through the Bluebell Woods is ancient and back in his school days, young Wilfred and his friends would have walked through those woods back and forth to school. They could have carved this into the slate. It's the sort of thing boys do, for no particular reason. One of them gets a new knife for his birthday, and he wants to try it out.”

“And I've learned something about the photograph,” said Penny, “and something's occurred to me.”

They examined the Haydn Williams family photograph of the three soldiers and Penny named them and told Alwynne what she'd learned about each one.

“I‘ve been thinking about the way they're seated,” said Penny. “And from their body language, I wonder if these two,” she pointed to Wilfred John Williams whose hand rested lightly on the seated Herbert Bellis's shoulder, “weren't closer friends. It's almost as if they have an emotional bond that excludes Sydney Wynne. Three can be a difficult number, relationship-wise. One is often left out, if only just a little.”

Alwynne examined the photo. “Hard to say. You may be right.”

She gave Penny a questioning, half smile. “Is there something you aren't telling me?”

Penny looked taken aback. “No, I've told you everything I know.”

“No, I didn't mean about this. I meant about you.”

“I'm not sure I know what you mean.”

“Well, you're very, oh, I don't know what the right word is, sparkly this afternoon. Bubbly. Excited. You seem very happy. Your eyes look as if they have diamonds on them.”

“I did have a lovely day out with Michael,” Penny said. “It's early days, of course, but who knows what might happen?”

“Well, it's good to see you looking so happy and enjoying yourself.”

 

Twenty-six

“I've brought your invitation to DCI Davies's retirement party,” said Det. Insp. Bethan Morgan a few days later, standing at Penny's front door and handing her a beige envelope. Her mouth tipped down at the corners.

“Can you come in?” Penny asked. “You don't look very happy. Have you got time for a cup of tea or coffee?”

“I'd love one.”

“Would it help if we talked about it? Just in very general terms, of course.”

“What's making this case so difficult,” said Bethan, “is that there are no real suspects. We've interviewed everybody who knew her and everyone seems to have liked this lady, if they thought about her at all. No one can give me any reason why someone would want to kill her. There's just no clear, obvious motive. She lived a quiet life. Kept herself to herself for the most part. Had very few friends. Had a part-time job that she liked and was good at. She had no enemies that we've been able to find. Usually when someone's killed it turns out suspects were practically queuing up to kill that person.”

“Well, maybe it wasn't that kind of murder,” said Penny.

“What do you mean ‘wasn't that kind of murder'?”

“Well, maybe the person who killed her didn't hate her. Maybe hate didn't come into it at all.”

“Go on.”

“Well, as you know, people kill for all kinds of reasons. Somebody knows something or somebody said something. Or somebody's got something that the killer wants. Doesn't it look to you as if the killer wanted whatever was in that quilt? Why else would the killer take it from the house, rip it open, and then dump it in Mrs. Lloyd's front garden? Doesn't the fact that it was dumped tell us the killer wasn't after the quilt itself but wanted whatever was hidden in it?”

“That's about the only scenario that makes sense,” admitted Bethan. “We haven't been able to come up with anything more plausible. People usually kill for very basic emotional reasons. Hate, jealousy, anger, greed … that sort of thing. As I said before, we haven't been able to establish a motive.”

“But somebody must have had one,” said Penny, “unless…” her voice trailed off while she contemplated a spot somewhere above Bethan's head.

“Unless what?” Bethan prompted.

“Unless you're right and there wasn't a motive. Not a motive in the usual sense, that is. What if it just happened? What if the killer had no intention of killing her—just wanted what was in the quilt, she wouldn't give it to him, they fought, and in the struggle, Catrin got killed.”

“Well, that would mean that the motive was the theft of whatever was in the quilt. She had something he wanted.”

Before Bethan could continue Penny excused herself and ducked into the kitchen. She returned to the sitting room a few minutes later with a cafetiere of fragrant coffee.

Bethan's shoulders relaxed as she took a reviving sip and sank back into the sofa.

“Even just talking it through with you helps,” she said. “I feel as if I'm just spinning my wheels and getting nowhere. The DCI says there's always a moment in the case when things start to open up. When you crack it and everything comes spilling out. But I'm not there yet, and I don't know how to get there. I don't know what to do that I'm not already doing.” Her voice had taken on a slightly plaintive pitch that made Penny laugh.

“Careful, there, Bethan,” she said. “You're getting dangerously close to a whine. Inspectors aren't allowed to whine.”

“Sorry. I'm so frustrated. There's just nothing to go on.” She placed her mug on the coffee table beside the envelope containing the retirement party invitation and stood up. “Well, thanks for the coffee and chat. I'd best be off. I really hope you'll come to his party.” She gestured at the envelope. “It should be a good night out, if nothing else.”

“Of course I'll come. Oh, and there's a couple of friends of his from Sherebury that I'm sure he'd want to be invited, too, if they haven't been already. Alan Nesbitt and his wife, Dorothy Martin. I can give you their address. He's retired from the police. His rank was about as high up as you can get.”

She saw Bethan out and then checked her phone. Nothing from Michael yet today. She sent him a quick text and then picked up a book and settled in for a quiet read. After reading the same paragraph several times without it making any sense she put the book down and with a creeping sense of anxiety, checked her phone again.

 

Twenty-seven

“I haven't heard from Michael in a couple of days.” Penny placed both hands on Victoria's desk and leaned on them. “Do you think I should be worried?”

“Not if it's just been a couple of days,” Victoria replied, her eyes fixed on her laptop. “You know what men are like. He's probably just got tied up at work. It'll be a conference or something.”

But Penny had thought of that and checked the university Web site. No conferences or art exhibits listed.

“It's been so long since I've done this dating thing, I forget how it works,” said Penny. “Am I supposed to wait to hear from him, or should I text him again?”

“Again?”

“I texted him last night.”

“Then I would think the ball's in his court. If I were you, I'd wait to hear from him. Let him come to you. And anyway, what do you mean it's been so long since you've done this dating thing? You were dating Gareth.”

“Well, yes, but he was different. I was always comfortable with him. He was just…” She shrugged. “You know. There. Steady, solid Gareth.”