The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(116)

And Rhys Lloyd plunges into the lake.





SIXTY




JANUARY 9TH | FFION


‘I need to go and check something out,’ Ffion says, after they’ve returned Clemmie to her cell to wait for the duty solicitor.

‘Check what out?’ Leo holds open the door, and they leave the custody block.

‘Just stuff.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘One of us needs to be here when Clemmie’s ready to go back into interview.’ She flashes a smile. ‘Anyway, I’m the Lone Ranger, remember?’

For once, the Triumph eats up the miles between Chester and Cwm Coed all too quickly. Soon, Ffion is dropping down towards the serpentine glimmer of silver in the valley. She pauses by the turn-off for The Shore, the huge letters seeming more of a warning, now, than an invitation. What will become of them all? Of the five owners, only Dee Huxley’s life is unchanged by what’s happened, and Ffion wonders what the old lady has made of it all.

But Ffion isn’t going to The Shore today. She drives on, into Cwm Coed and down the high street, where last night’s blizzard has left sludgy snow on the sides of the road. She parks the car and feels the familiar sense of dread as she walks towards Glynis Lloyd’s shop.

It takes a while for Glynis to open the door. When she does, she steps back in silent invitation, and Ffion doesn’t want to go inside, but they can’t have this conversation on the doorstep.

‘Go on up,’ Glynis says, when they’re standing in the narrow hallway. She gestures to the stairs which lead up to the flat, but Ffion walks straight on, towards the back door. Blood sings in her ears and she sees it all over again, that summer’s evening walk, her hand in Rhys’s. She feels it all again.

Glynis follows her into the back garden. Ffion looks at the summer house, now full of junk and stock for the shop. She remembers the sofabed, the piano, the music stand. She remembers the feel of the woollen blanket, scratchy against her bare skin.

‘Ffion.’

She will not cry. Not here, not in front of Glynis. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ She turns to the older woman. ‘You said this was where Rhys had bullied Ceri, but you got that wrong.’

‘I knew something bad had happened here. When Jac told me what Rhys had done to that poor girl – Rhys had bragged to his dad, like it was all a big joke – I thought that must have been what I saw that night.’

Ffion looks up at the first-floor window. She’s breathing too fast, feeling dizzy and scared, even though it’s only Glynis. She centres herself. Not Rhys. It isn’t Rhys. ‘You knew. You were watching.’ For years, Ffion has assumed she couldn’t hate anyone more than Rhys Lloyd, but right now, she thinks she hates Glynis more. To stand by and let him . . . She can’t let the thought take shape.

Glynis is crying. ‘Jac tried to warn me about what sort of man Rhys had become – what sort of boy he’d been – but I wouldn’t listen. I didn’t want to hear it. He was my only child, my special—’

Ffion can’t hear any more. ‘You. Saw. Me.’

‘I thought I was mistaken,’ Glynis pleads. ‘I wasn’t sure. I just knew—’ She takes a big breath, covering her face with her hands as the rest of her words fall out in a sob. ‘I just knew they were too young.’ Ffion moves backwards, knocking into a bird table, which judders precariously on its stand. She thinks she might be sick.

‘For years, Jac had worried about Rhys, told me there was a bad seed in him. Towards the end, he said Rhys was trying to take T?’r Lan, that he’d destroy the one thing that mattered to his father. I told him he was crazy, but he was right. I’d been blind.’

She’s found his original will, Elen had told Ffion. She’s going to take legal action.

‘That’s why you killed him,’ Ffion says.

Glynis doesn’t move.

‘We’ve arrested Clemmie. She’s in the cells, right now.’

‘She mustn’t go to prison!’ It explodes from Glynis as though she hadn’t planned to say it, and she claps her hand over her mouth. But it’s too late, and slowly she lets her hand fall. ‘I – I made her help me.’

‘You made her?’ Ffion doesn’t believe Glynis for a second.

‘Her son needs her. Boys need their mothers. They need strong mothers, to keep them on the right track, otherwise they . . .’ She trails off, but Ffion doesn’t need her to finish. Otherwise they turn out like Rhys. Glynis Lloyd is atoning for the sins of her son.

Ffion takes a step towards her. ‘Glynis Lloyd, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder . . .’

This is where it ends.





SIXTY-ONE




JANUARY 10TH | LEO


Leo’s desk phone flashes with the number for the front desk.

‘Someone here to see you. Says she knows you.’

There’s still half an hour until morning meeting, so Leo makes his way downstairs.

At the front desk, Nellie is dunking a Hobnob into a cup of tea. ‘I put her in the side room. Didn’t get a name, sorry – it’s been manic.’

Leo looks around the empty office. ‘Looks like it.’ He raps twice on the door of the small room used for witness interviews, and walks in.