The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(11)

It would make a nice walk on a sunny day, Leo supposes. If you liked that sort of thing. Maybe by next summer Allie might have forgiven him; might let him take Harris for a whole day – for a weekend, even. They could paddle, or buy one of those fishing nets on sticks and see what they could catch.

Leo is brought up short by a wide turning, flanked by enormous pillars. Vast wooden letters are positioned along the first twenty metres of the driveway.

THE SHORE.

Leo takes his foot off the accelerator. You can’t see the resort from the main road, and a sign to Leo’s left makes it clear the site is private property. Clipped hedging runs either side of the drive, and every few metres rustic posts suspend discreet bulbs to light up the route when dusk falls. This is more like it, thinks Leo, as he follows Ffion’s Triumph into the complex. Stylish, luxurious, and not a sheep in sight.

As he nears the end of the drive, the space widens into parking. On the right, nestled into the trees, are several visitor bays, and Leo pulls in next to Ffion.

‘Hideous, isn’t it?’ Ffion says, as he gets out. Leo is too busy staring at the lodges to answer. They’re built directly on the lakeshore, each with a narrow path leading from the front door to a private parking space marked by more discreet lighting. The lodges are clad in wood, the grain left to weather naturally, and with the pine trees as a backdrop Leo thinks they could be in Switzerland, not north Wales. It feels a few degrees colder here than in Chester, and Leo pulls up the collar of his overcoat.

‘Until the seventies, this was all Wales,’ Ffion says. ‘Then they messed around with the county boundaries and shifted the border. This bit’ – she waves an arm, outlining the strip of land where the lodges lie – ‘belonged to Rhys Lloyd’s dad, Jac Lloyd. There was a fishing shack here, round about where we’re standing, called T?’r Lan. Shore House,’ she translates, seeing the question on Leo’s lips.

Behind them, more trees have been felled, presumably to make way for the other lodges Leo saw on the resort’s website.

‘They’ve done a good job,’ he says.

‘You know what’s under that wood?’ Ffion walks towards the end of the row. ‘Breeze blocks. It’s all pretend, like a film set. A Hollywood director’s idea of what lakeside living should look like.’

‘It’s pretty cool, though.’ It’s an understatement: the place is incredible. A covered storage rack contains half a dozen immaculate mountain bikes in forest-green, with off-white lettering on the frames proclaiming It’s a Shore thing! The front doors to the lodges are painted in the same dark green.

Ffion walks up the path to number five, even as Leo is checking his paperwork to see which lodge is owned by the Lloyds. ‘It got a lot of backs up,’ she says, still filling him in on the history. ‘The locals set up a petition to at least keep the original T?’r Lan name, but apparently Welsh names are too hard for English people to say.’ Ffion’s voice is scathing.

‘They can be a bit—’

‘Manage alright with Cholmondeley, do you?’ There’s a beat. ‘Well, then.’ Ffion looks around. ‘It’s fancy enough on the surface, but it’s all been done on the cheap. The developers promised to use local employment, then bussed in a load of zero-hours contractors. The whole place is fake as a four-pound note.’

Leo pictures his shitty flat and wonders if fake is such a bad thing. He follows Ffion up the path, only for her to stand aside as they reach the door. ‘Your patch, I believe, DC Brady.’

Leo has no sooner lifted his hand to ring the bell than the door is wrenched open by a teenager with such hope in her eyes, Leo almost can’t bear it. A second girl, identical to the first, comes running to the door, stopping short when she sees Leo.

‘It’s not him,’ the first girl says. She starts crying, and her sister – these are presumably the Lloyd twins – wraps her arms around her. They walk back into the lodge, still clutching each other.

Leo glances at Ffion, then follows the girls inside.

Aside from the small hall, the ground floor of the lodge is open-plan. The front of the space, nearest the hall, is taken up with a white leather corner sofa, positioned around a wood-burning stove, and what looks like a projector. In the corner of the kitchen stands a large Christmas tree, its lights switched off, and parallel to the stretch of bifold doors leading on to the deck is a zinc table, artfully scuffed and surrounded by eight metal chairs in different colours.

‘Have you found him?’ A grey-haired woman stands by an open cupboard, a tea towel screwed up next to her. Outside, the sky is darkening, shadow clouds scudding across the deck.

‘Is it him?’ A second woman – younger, with olive skin and long, straight hair – sits at the table, a mobile phone clutched in one hand. She’s wearing pyjamas, a silk dressing gown trailing to the floor.

‘Mrs Lloyd?’ Leo says. Both women nod and Leo is momentarily confused, before realising the older woman must be the dead man’s mother, Glynis Lloyd. She moves to sit next to her daughter-in-law, trembling as she pulls out a chair.

‘I’m Detective Constable Leo Brady, Cheshire Major Crime. This is Detective Constable Ffion Morgan, North Wales CID.’

The crying girl bursts into even louder sobs.

‘Tabby, please . . .’ Yasmin Lloyd’s voice is broken. She stares bleakly at Leo. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ she says quietly.