The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(15)

‘The New Year’s Day swim. A village tradition, I hear.’

‘Oh, that. Yes. I’m used to it, though – I swim all year round.’

‘Were you there when the body was found?’

Clemmie presses her hands either side of her face. ‘I left right away. Came back to The Shore. It seemed intrusive. And . . .’ She seems reluctant to finish. Leo waits. ‘The locals are a bit funny about us,’ Clemmie says eventually.

‘About The Shore?’

Clemmie nods. ‘I’ve tried – believe me, I’ve tried. I organised a litter-pick, volunteered to help at the library . . . People are polite enough, but it’s . . .’ She sighs. ‘It’s very them and us, you know? Did you see the massive letters at the bottom of the drive?’

‘You can’t miss them.’

‘Well, quite. Before The Shore opened, someone spray-painted letters on the o and the r, so it read The Shite. They had to sandblast them to get it off.’

Leo laughs. ‘The locals aren’t keen on the development, then?’

‘They’re not keen on us. There’s an assumption that we’re all rolling in it; that we’re up ourselves, as my son would say, just because we’ve bought lodges.’

‘I imagine a place here isn’t cheap.’ Leo speaks neutrally. He’s already checked out The Shore’s website, where a three-bedroomed lodge starts at ￡550,000. In tiny font, at the bottom of the page, the annual maintenance fee is listed at an eye-watering ten grand a year.

‘It is a lot of money, I know, but . . .’ Clemmie stretches an arm towards the lake ‘. . . look at it.’

Leo can think of better things to spend half a million quid on than a view.

‘The trouble is, they think we’re all living in mansions the rest of the year.’

‘You mean you’re not?’

‘Some of the others are.’ Clemmie sighs. ‘Well, all of them, I suppose. The Staffords have staff and a swimming pool, and the Charltons live in Kensington and have a place in the Cotswolds. And of course the Lloyds’ family home is beautiful.’

‘You’ve seen it?’

‘In magazines.’

‘So where do you and your son live?’

‘London.’ Clemmie colours. ‘A one-bedroom flat in Zone Five, where I sleep on the sofa and have the bad back to prove it.’

‘But how . . .’ Leo breaks off, not wanting to be rude.

‘How did I afford this?’ Clemmie flushes again. ‘It’s on a private repayment plan. Although the others don’t know I didn’t buy it outright, so I’d be grateful if you’d keep that to yourself.’

‘Of course.’ Leo glances around the room. ‘I assumed the lodges were all decorated the same.’

‘You pay extra for furnished. Quite a lot extra. They really push you into it – I suppose they want a certain look in photos, I do understand how it works – but it wasn’t an option for us.’

‘Rhys Lloyd owned the resort, I understand?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What was he like?’

Clemmie looks at her soup with more concentration than it requires. ‘He was a wonderful singer. I remember hearing him at—’

‘As a person.’ Leo keeps his eyes on Clemmie.

There’s a long silence before she speaks. ‘He was very different from the way he’d been portrayed in the press.’

‘In what way?’

‘The interviews always show him as down-to-earth. They talk about how he walked to school with newspaper in his shoes because they leaked, and how he spent his first West End pay cheque on a holiday for his mum.’

‘And he wasn’t like that?’

‘He looked down on us,’ Clemmie says. ‘Me and Caleb. Because I don’t wear the right clothes, or drink the right wine. I didn’t fit with his vision of The Shore.’ She speaks calmly, but there’s a hint of bitterness beneath her words.

‘That must have been hard to take,’ Leo says neutrally.

‘Not so hard that it would give me a motive for murder, if that’s what you’re suggesting?’

‘This isn’t a murder enquiry,’ Leo says. Yet, he adds, silently.

Clemmie gives a half-laugh. ‘If it were, I think you’d have your hands full.’

‘Why’s that?’

Clemmie looks at him, her expression unguarded and resigned. ‘Because I’ve been at The Shore for six months, and I’ve yet to meet a single person who liked him.’

As Leo leaves Clemence Northcote’s lodge, he feels the familiar fizz of adrenaline. He looks at the lodges, thinking of the breeze block walls under the wooden cladding; of the secrets they house. Leo doesn’t know how Rhys Lloyd died, but he knows this: beneath the glossy surface of The Shore is another story entirely.





SIX




NEW YEAR’S DAY | FFION


Judging by the look on Leo’s face, he’d obviously expected to pair up for the house-to-house, but Ffion prefers to fly solo. Besides, regardless of what she’d said to Leo about forgetting last night’s escapade, it was easier said than done. Never dip your pen in company ink, a sergeant once told her. Patriarchal, but nevertheless sound, advice. Ffion finds herself distracted by flashbacks entirely inappropriate for a potential murder enquiry.