Eleven
“Well, that tells us something, then, doesn’t it?” said Victoria on Monday morning as they prepared to open the salon. “Someone who didn’t want us to find out the truth must have got in somehow and removed those books from the cottage. It goes to show that there’s something very wrong here. I think it confirms our suspicions that Alys’s death was no accident.”
“Hmm,” said Penny. “Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe Emma got rid of them herself.”
“Could be,” agreed Victoria. “But why would she do that?” She thought for a moment. “I don’t think she would. I think it’s more likely to be the other way round—she’d get rid of all the others and keep just the ones that covered the Alys years.” The sound of knocking on the salon door ended the discussion. “Anyway, we’ll have to leave it at that for now,” she said as she stood up to open the door. “That’ll be Eirlys, right on time, ready for her first day at work. Are you free for dinner? Let’s get together later and I can fill you in on my meeting today at the new site with the surveyors.” She looked back over her shoulder at Penny, who nodded.
A moment later, ponytail bobbing and sporting a bright smile, Eirlys bounded confidently into the salon clutching a large brown envelope.
“I wanted to show you my certificate,” she said to Penny. “See, it shows I passed the course and am qualified now to do the manicures!”
“Well, that’s wonderful, Eirlys.” Penny smiled. “Let’s put you to work, shall we? I thought we’d start with a little bit of orientation to the shop so you can get to know where everything is.” She pointed to the appointments book. “Let’s start here. Our first client should be here in about twenty minutes, so we need to make sure everything’s ready for her. You’ll find that we leave the shop tidy before we close for the night so everything is pretty much ready to go when we open in the morning. That’ll be your last job of the day. Still, there are always a few last-minute things to do in the morning.
“And your first task can be to put the kettle on. Mine’s a coffee with a little bit of extra milk and a sweetener, and you can ask Victoria if she wants one. You won’t mind brewing up for us and the clients, will you? And yourself, too, of course! You’ll find everything in the little pantry just beside the supply cupboard. Oh, the supply cupboard! Well, we’ll get to that later.”
Penny smiled to herself as Eirlys bustled off on her first task. If Eirlys did as well as she thought she would, Penny was glad to give her the work, and as soon as Eirlys was able to take on more responsibility, she’d have more time for what she really wanted to do. Victoria’s time, of course, would soon be totally taken up managing the renovations for the new spa building, and she would be spending very little time in the salon. After a quick welcoming word with Eirlys, Victoria had already left on the short walk to the site to meet with the surveyor who would be doing the building inspection.
Penny had wanted to discuss the Gareth situation with Victoria, but there’d been no time this morning, and after the call from Thomas last night, she’d had other things to think about.
Penny planned to show Eirlys the ropes and then, if she was doing well, leave her for an hour or so while she went upstairs and made a few phone calls.
The September morning was just about perfect. A few wisps of fluffy clouds swept across a bright blue sky. A gentle breeze played with the hem of Victoria’s scarf as she walked across the cobbled town square on her way to the riverfront building that she and Penny hoped would soon become their new spa. Both felt somewhat apprehensive at the amount of money the conversion would cost, but they were confident that the numbers in their business plan would hold. Of course, one couldn’t plan for a recession or other economic downturns, but all things considered, with the recent revival of tourism to North Wales and the increased demand for spa treatments, they believed in their future.
As she passed the Red Dragon Hotel, Victoria considered popping in for a moment to say hello to Mrs. Geraint, the day desk clerk. In a few weeks Victoria could well be approaching the hotel manager to ask if he would consider partnering with them to provide light meals and overnight accommodations for the spa’s out-of-town guests. She thought he would probably leap at the chance, and now might be a good time to begin softening them up because she and Penny would also want the hotel to refurbish guest rooms for spa clients.
But she decided to leave that for another day and kept going. She was almost past the entrance to the hotel when she noticed a familiar figure emerging from the front door. It was Gareth and he was not alone. A smiling woman walked confidently beside him. They were not touching, but there was a certain knowing intimacy in the way she was looking up at him that made Victoria’s stomach clench. She quickened her pace and, ducking into the nearest building, found herself in the local organization that promoted the Welsh language. She picked up a brochure and peeked out the window. The pair walked toward the street, and Gareth helped the woman into her car. He then set off in the direction of the Red Dragon car park, presumably to find his own vehicle.
Victoria gave the young man who ran the operation a weak smile.
“Are you interested in taking Welsh lessons, then?” he asked pleasantly. “We hold them every week in the community centre, and I’m sure there would be a time that would suit you. We do afternoon and evening classes. It’s not as difficult as you might think,” he added helpfully.
Thinking of the endless string of strange consonant combinations and the difficulty she had in pronouncing even the simplest of Welsh words, Victoria declined.
“I’m not very good at picking up languages, I’m afraid. Perhaps in the future,” she said, “but not just at the moment, thank you.”
“Well, feel free to keep the brochure,” said the young man, with a small gesture at the brochure in her hand. “And, of course, we’ll be here if you change your mind. Good-bye.” And then, for good measure, he said it in Welsh, “Da boch,” and gave her an encouraging nod.
“Da boch,” Victoria dutifully replied and left the premises. A minute later she realized she was still holding the brochure with its beautiful cover art featuring a panoramic view of the brilliant green Conwy Valley.
She tried to push the image of Gareth with the woman to the edge of her mind so she could focus on the meeting with the surveyor. The question, of course, was should she tell Penny she’d seen him. Well, she’d think about that over the course of the day. Arriving at the riverfront property, she opened her briefcase, pulled out a notebook, and tucked the Welsh language brochure inside. The building inspector, wearing a high-visibility bright yellow vest with orange stripes and a blue hard hat, was gazing up at the roof with a worried look on his face and a clipboard cradled in his arms.
“Well, should we have good news or bad news first?” asked Penny. They were seated at her dining room table, take-away Thai cartons spread out before them.
“Let’s have the good news,” said Victoria as she passed the spring rolls to Penny.
“Eirlys was absolutely wonderful! Really capable and so cheerful to have around. I can ask her to do anything and she’s happy to do it. It won’t be long before I can leave her to it. I left her alone in the shop for an hour while I made telephone calls and she just carried right on, seeing to everything. Has really good instincts and judgment, I’d say. Knows how to put the customers at ease. So that’s a positive. What about you?”
Victoria took another bite of pad thai and put down her chopsticks.
“The building’s about what we expected it to be, but the roof and guttering will need to be replaced. Still, apparently there’s no major cracking or movement or structural weakness. Based on his preliminary findings, the surveyor says he can recommend that we go ahead and make an offer—but to allow at least thirty thousand for the roof repairs. Oh, and there’s something wrong with the duct work. A blockage of some sort. Could be anything . . . old rats’ nest, maybe. But that’ll need sorting.”
“Well, that’s good news, surely?” said Penny. “You don’t look very cheery about it. I feel a ‘but’ coming. Is there a ‘but’ coming?”
Victoria shook her head and was unable to look Penny in the eye. She picked up her wineglass and inspected its contents.
“What is it?” prompted Penny. “You’ve got me really worried now. Has something happened?”
Victoria set down her wineglass and sighed.
“Look,” she said, “I don’t want to upset you, and I wasn’t even sure if I should mention it, but I know what you’re like and I think you’d want to know.”
Penny’s eyes widened and she leaned forward.
“What? Tell me. Whatever it is, just tell me. Please.”
“Um, well, it’s just that I saw Gareth coming out of the Red Dragon this morning and, ah, I’m afraid he wasn’t alone.”
In the heavy, awkward silence Penny set down her fork, slumped forward, and looked at the table, resting her hands on her queasy stomach.
“That explains Sunday, I guess,” she said finally. “I’d asked him if he wanted to come to Liverpool with me and he said no, he didn’t fancy it. I thought there was something awkward about it—a distance, a chilliness—and I guess I know why now.”
She raised her shoulders in a protective, dismissive shrug.
“That’s that, then, I guess.”
She dipped and twirled a spring roll in its sauce, took a bite, and then set the rest down.
“You know, I’m suddenly not very hungry,” she said, picking up her napkin and wiping her mouth. “I’m going to put the kettle on. Be back in a few minutes.”
Victoria waited. Some time passed before she heard the sound of water running and the kettle filling. Penny returned, wearing a weak, apologetic smile and wreathed in disappointment. Her eyes were red and puffy and she was clutching a tissue. She glanced at it, then stuffed it in her pocket before she sat down.
“Right, then. Let me tell you what I’ve learned about Alys.”
Victoria smiled and made an encouraging “the floor is yours” kind of sweeping gesture.
“When she died,” Penny began, “Alys and two other artists were getting ready for an art exhibit. She was still young, early thirties, so this would likely have been her first major showing and it was to be held at the Walker Gallery, which would have been a big deal. It very likely would have launched her. I don’t know if the exhibit went ahead or not after her death, but I need to find that out.”
She paused for a moment to jot down a couple of sentences in her notebook and then looked at Victoria.
“It’s hard, isn’t it, to know what’s important and what isn’t? Does it matter whether the exhibit was held or not? I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. But go on.”
“Right. Where was I? Oh yes, the exhibition. Also showing their work were Millicent Mayhew and Cynthia Browning. I found a photo of them in the Echo and printed it off. It’s over there now on the board.” She gestured with her head in the direction of the sitting room. “Cynthia had big blond hair, and Millicent looked quite plain and ordinary. And then there was Andrew Peyton, who was the curator.”
“What’s a curator do, exactly?”
“He’s the person responsible for organizing the exhibit. He decides what pieces will be shown and in what order. He also determines the point of view or theme of the whole thing.”
“Doesn’t sound like that would take very long.”
“They can also be responsible for acquisitions and preservation of collections, so the job can be a bit broader. Anyway, this Andrew Peyton was the curator. So we need to find out about these three. We need to know if they’re still alive, where they are now, and if we can talk to them. I rang the art school today—it’s part of the university now—but the woman I talked to hadn’t heard of any of them.”
“So you had a good day at the library, though?”
“It wasn’t wasted, that’s for sure. But something struck me as I was leaving. The librarian switched off her computer.”
Victoria snorted. “Well, she would do, wouldn’t she? What about it?”
“It made me think back to the old days when women had typewriters, and at the end of the day there would be this little ritual about shaking out the plastic cover and placing it over the typewriter. That would be the signal that you were finished and going home.”
“And in the morning, she’d come into the office and pull the cover off the typewriter, and that would be the start of the day, I suppose.”
“Yeah.”
“So?”
“I don’t know. I was just thinking about it, that’s all.”
“I’d be careful if I were you. You’re starting to sound really old.”
Penny laughed. “Am I? I guess I am. Anyway, what do I care? I’ve never even had a job where I had to use a typewriter. Can barely remember them, as a matter of fact. There was one in the background of that photo, though, and I guess that’s what made me think about this.”
She thought for a moment.
“Alwynne was saying something like that . . . sometimes the value in old photos is in the background details. Things like what people were wearing or what’s on the table.”
She shrugged and then began to twirl her pencil. She did not look at Victoria.
“What was she like, this woman you saw with Gareth? Was she young? Attractive?”
“Not as attractive as you, that’s for sure. Nothing special. In her late forties, maybe. I didn’t have that much time to look at her. But remember, Penny, things aren’t always what they seem. There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. You should be careful not to jump to conclusions.”
“Right!” said Penny. “Like she’d be his sister visiting from Cardiff, maybe.”
“Oh, does he have a sister in Cardiff? I didn’t know.”
A ghost of a smile crossed the corners of Penny’s mouth. “Oh, Victoria, I don’t know if he has a sister in Cardiff. I was just saying that as an example.”
“Oh, right.”
“Maybe it was the sex thing. I think he wanted to, and I wasn’t ready, so I guess he found himself someone who was up for it.”
“Oh, so you two haven’t actually . . .”
She blushed.
“Sorry! None of my business.”
Penny shook her head.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, I do, I mean I did. But I’m a lot older now and my body isn’t what it used to be. Doesn’t look the way it used to. There are things I’m self-conscious about. That doesn’t seem to matter as much for men, but, well, you know.”
Victoria nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I don’t think it matters too much if you’ve been with the same old guy for years and the two of you are comfortable together, but with someone new and for the first time, at our age, yes, I can see exactly how you’d feel.”
“And not only that, but there’s the business of where. I wanted it to be nice for us. Romantic, even. Not his place where he used to live with his wife—not that I’ve ever been there; it might be quite nice for all I know—and not here, not yet, not with all these memories of Alys and Emma and their stuff everywhere you look. I wanted to wait until the place was all done up nicely and looking the way I want it to. I’d even thought, maybe a hotel, and then you see him and that’s exactly where he is. So he and I were thinking along the same lines, only it just wasn’t me he wanted, apparently.”
Her eyes began to swim and she reached in her pocket for a tissue as Victoria crept into the living room and returned with a box of them.
“Here. Treat yourself. Have a new one.”
After a moment Victoria put her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. “What will you do if he rings? Will you see him?”
“The way I feel now, I think I’d be too embarrassed. How could I?”
“Maybe you should give him the chance to explain.”
“I don’t think so.”
And then she started to gather up the remains of the meal, indicating that as far as she was concerned, the subject was closed.
“I’ll give you a hand,” said Victoria as she picked up the cutlery, and together they cleared the table.
“Do you want me to stay and help with the dishes?” she asked when the leftovers had been scraped into plastic containers and stored in the fridge.
“No thanks,” said Penny. “I’m going to watch a bit of telly and then an early night. But there is something you can do, if you don’t mind. Please call Alwynne and Thomas and Bronwyn and see if they can come over on Friday night. I want to hear about the visit to the vet. I hope they learned something that will help us.”
“And what about Bethan?” asked Victoria. “Or is she out of the picture now, too?”
“Hmm. We need her, and anyway, we like her, so if we can, let’s keep in with her.”
They stood there awkwardly for a few moments, and then Victoria turned toward the door.
“Well. Good night, then.”
“Good night. And hey, thanks for telling me. What was that expression I read once and liked so much? Oh yes, ‘the uglier the truth, the truer the friend who tells you.’ ”
“It’s just amazing the difference in him,” Rev. Thomas Evans was saying to his wife, Bronwyn. “Look at him sitting there looking at you.”
The difference in the dog was remarkable. His beige coat had been brushed, his body was filling out, and his eyes had become bright and joyful. He walked easily on his lead, gobbled up every morsel in his bowl, and once he was strong enough to go outside, barked at the door to be let out. He played in the rectory garden but, Bronwyn noticed, never strayed into the cemetery. The first few nights she had placed his basket beside her bed and now, without being asked, as soon as he saw them begin their bedtime routine he had his own. While Thomas checked to make sure the door was locked, the dog had a final drink of water. When Bronwyn turned off the lights in the sitting room, he waited at the bottom of the stairs. As the couple headed toward the stairs, he bounded up ahead of them and greeted them at the top. Then he scampered down the hall and led them to their bedroom.
“Well, he’s getting along splendidly,” Alun Jones said the next morning. “He’s gaining weight and looking much better in himself. How have you been finding him?”
“Oh, he’s the best little dog anyone could ask for!” Bronwyn replied. “So eager to please and such a dear, good boy.”
The vet and the rector exchanged a quick glance.
“Well, I’m going to suggest that he stay with you a few more days, just to be on the safe side, and then, if you’re sure you wouldn’t be able to keep him yourself, we’ll see about finding him a forever home.”
The couple looked at each other.
“Yes, that would be best,” said Thomas. “It’s the time, you see. All that walking.”
“Of course,” agreed the vet. “But while he’s here, we’ll just make sure his immunizations are up to date. If you could hold him just there, I’ll get these into him.”
Bronwyn cleared her throat.
“I’m sure this is going to sound very strange,” she began, after an anxious glance at her husband, “but I wondered about your sister, Alys, who died all those years ago.”
Jones looked shocked, and then a wave of quiet sadness washed over his face.
“Alys?” he said uncertainly, as he began to fill two syringes. The name sounded frozen in time, as if he hadn’t said it in years.
“Yes, um, I was wondering, that is, a friend of ours has recently inherited some property that seems to have a connection to Alys, and we, that is, Thomas and I, were wondering if you remembered anything unusual that happened around the time she died. Our friend, you see, is curious about it.”
Jones said nothing and the silence was deafening.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Bronwyn. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“No, you’re all right,” said Jones, looking at the rector, who looked uncomfortable but very interested at the same time. “It’s just that I hadn’t thought about all that in a long time. I was away at school in Scotland when it happened, and she was a good few years older than me, so I wasn’t that involved in her life. I came home for the funeral, of course. My parents, especially my mother, were devastated. In some ways, I don’t think she ever got over it. There was one thing that really upset her, though, that she did think strange, and that was that Alys left so little work behind. My mother would have loved to have had more of her paintings, but there was just the one, as far as I know, and my brother has it now.
“I know my mother always wondered about that. To be honest, she also didn’t think the police did as much as they could have to find out who did it.”
He rubbed the dog’s fur where he’d given him the injections.
“Now, about our little friend here. Would you like me to ask around to find a new owner for him? We won’t have any trouble finding a home for him.”
Thomas lifted the dog down.
“Yes, that might be best,” Thomas said.
Bronwyn’s face tightened as she bent over to clip the lead on the dog’s collar.
“And this friend of yours who wants to know the details of my sister’s death,” Jones said. “May I ask who that is?”
“It’s Penny Brannigan, the manicurist. She recently inherited Emma Teasdale’s cottage.”
They thanked the vet and led the dog from the surgery. Jones folded his arms and watched them go, knowing that no one else would be getting this little dog anytime soon. As he turned to enter notes on the computer, a dark look of grief and anxiety passed across his face as an unfamiliar emotion surged through him.
And then he ripped a page off a prescription pad, wrote Penny’s name on it, and slipped the paper into his pocket.
When the Evanses returned home, Bronwyn lifted the little dog out of the car and smiled as he scampered up the path to the kitchen door.
“His tail never stops wagging, does it?” she commented as Thomas put the key in the door. “I’ll put the kettle on, and then we’re going to have a little chat, you and I.”
“Of course, my dear,” said Thomas as he hung his jacket on the back of a chair, then pulled it out and sat on it.
Bronwyn filled the kettle, set it on the stove, and then joined him.
“Thomas,” she began. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Have you, dear? What about?”
“About you. And your health. We both know it would be very good for both of us if we were to take more exercise. Perhaps you could do more walking on your parish visits.”
Thomas cocked his head and smiled at her. “Go on.”
“Yes, and if you were to have a little companion to take with you, I’m sure that would cheer up some of your elderly shut-ins.”
“A little companion, such as . . .,” said Thomas, with a warm glint in his eye.
“Oh! You know what I’m saying! I’m saying that this dear little dog belongs right here with us. We’ve become that fond of him and he of us, we can’t give him up now. I’ve worked it out and we can easily manage his food out of the housekeeping, and he won’t be any trouble at all.”
“Come here, darling,” said Thomas, pulling her onto his lap. “Of course, he’s staying with us. I was going to ask you today if it would be all right with you! Now, we need to have a name for him. Do you have any thoughts?”
“Let me think. Do you have any ideas?”
“Well, there is one,” said the rector. “In fact, I had this made up for him in Llandudno when I was there a few days ago. I hope you’ll agree to it.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dog tag in the shape of a bone. On one side was a little Welsh red dragon and on the other a boy’s name.
“Oh, it’s perfect! I love it!” said Bronwyn.
“Robbie.”
“Woof!”
The sound of laughter filled the bright, sunny kitchen.