The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(114)

Clemmie swallows, but doesn’t answer.

‘Rhys Lloyd’s bank records show regular cash deposits,’ Ffion says. ‘Were they from you? Did you have a financial arrangement with him?’

Clemmie shifts in her seat, her expression miserable. She lets out a breath, like a balloon deflating, then she nods.

‘How much did you owe?’

There’s a long pause. ‘Four hundred thousand pounds.’

Leo whistles. ‘That’s a lot of money. Who else knew about the loan?’

‘No one.’

‘How convenient,’ Ffion says, ‘for the only person who knew about the loan to die.’

‘I didn’t kill him!’ Clemmie bursts into tears.

Ffion puts a series of images on the table. ‘These photos were all posted on Instagram during or soon after the party.’ She points to where Clemmie appears in each one: laughing, dancing, drinking. ‘We’ve pulled the metadata from these images, and you know what’s interesting? In this picture’ – Ffion indicates an image of Clemmie doing some kind of jig – ‘which was taken at ten p.m., you have dry hair. Yet in this one, taken at one a.m. on New Year’s Day, your hair is wet.’ Clemmie stares at the photo. In it, she stands in the Charltons’ kitchen, staring into her glass, while the party continues around her.

‘Why is your hair wet, Clemmie?’ Ffion says.

‘I washed it.’

‘Halfway through a party?’

Leo leans his elbows on the desk. ‘You swam out to Angharad Evans’s boat, didn’t you? So you could use it to dispose of Rhys Lloyd’s body. Which suggests to me that you killed him.’

Clemmie’s shaking, her face ashen. ‘I think,’ she says finally, ‘I think I’d like to speak to a solicitor.’





FIFTY-NINE




NEW YEAR’S EVE | CLEMMIE


Is it murder, Clemmie thinks, as she hauls Rhys’s unmoving body through the master bedroom, if someone dies because you didn’t save them? She doesn’t let herself listen to the answer. She thinks instead of Caleb, of the downward spiral he was trapped in, back home, and of his transformation at The Shore. The lodge can be theirs. No loan hanging over their heads, no paperwork, no threats. Gone.

Clemmie grunts as she pulls Rhys on to the balcony, a blast of fresh air chasing away the last vestiges of drunkenness. He’s heavy, but she told Glynis to stay in the study in case someone comes. Clemmie is pretty certain Rhys is too far gone to cause any trouble, but what if he suddenly groans, or moves?

At the far end of The Shore, the party marquee pulsates with music, lights criss-crossing the steamed-up windows. Clemmie’s chest is tight. She waits so long she risks losing her nerve entirely, she has to pull herself together. There’s nobody outside, nobody can see.

The glass surrounding the balcony stops a foot from the floor. Clemmie pushes Rhys under it, sickened by her own actions but in too deep to stop. There’s an awful moment when she thinks his stomach is wedged, and Rhys is hanging off the balcony, but Clemmie puts her foot against him and pushes and—

Thud.

Clemmie gasps. Doesn’t dare look down. The sound was so loud she imagines Rhys splattered across the decking, body parts strewn like the aftermath of a train wreck. But when she peers gingerly over the balustrade he’s lying intact, as though he’s asleep.

Clemmie takes several deep breaths, then returns to the study. Glynis hasn’t moved from the spot in which Clemmie found her. She’s stopped crying, but her face is drained of blood and her jaw trembles.

‘If we put him in the water too close to the shore he’ll be found.’ Clemmie doesn’t recognise herself; the words she’s using. ‘Clean up here – there’s bleach in the bathroom, use lots – and meet me on the pontoon in fifteen minutes. And bring that with you.’ Clemmie points to the trophy, still lying on the floor.

Glynis lets out a sob. ‘I can’t—’

‘You have to.’ Clemmie speaks harshly, but she has no choice. They have to get rid of Rhys, and they have to act fast. Who knows if Yasmin will come back to freshen up, or the twins will tire of hanging out with Caleb. At the thought of her son her heart clenches. I’m doing this for you, she tells him.

Down on the Lloyds’ deck, she doesn’t stop long enough to let the doubts creep in. She drags Lloyd’s body across the wood, grateful for the muscles she’s built up swimming, and lets it fall down the ladder on to the pontoon between the Lloyds’ deck and her own. Only once it’s out of sight of the lodges does she breathe; only then does she stoop to check again for Rhys’s pulse. She thinks at first he’s dead, but there’s a faint flutter against her fingertips – a barely there reminder that she hasn’t – yet – gone too far. His skin looks waxy in the thin moonlight, a dark tinge around his lips. Even if she called an ambulance now, would they be able to save him? And what would happen to her? The police would be called, for certain, and how would she explain how Rhys got outside, what she was doing with him? Clemmie is committed. She hasn’t yet gone too far, but she has gone far enough.

Several guests arrived at the party in motorboats. Clemmie crosses to the next pontoon, but all three of the boats bobbing in the water need keys. ‘Fuck!’ She’s close to tears. Above her, a shadow crosses the Lloyds’ bedroom window and she hopes to God it’s Glynis, that the woman’s doing what Clemmie told her to do. She looks frantically around, as though a boat might materialise from the depths of the lake. Moonlight glints on the water, and, as the dark clouds scud across the mountain, Clemmie has an idea. She shivers.