The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(20)

It isn’t too late to be a better person, he tells himself.

As he reaches the front door, he hears the opening bars of ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’, and he’s grateful he didn’t stay. Outside, the icy air brings a moment’s relief, but the clarity is short-lived. His stomach heaves and he lurches from the path, vomiting violently into the bushes. He thinks of his cool sheets, of the bottled water in the bedroom minibar.

The driveway is pooled with lights from the lodges. Despite the cold, there are shapes huddled in the trees – teenagers, perhaps, skulking out of sight with the cider they think they stole unseen.

As he staggers towards his own lodge, Rhys sees movement upstairs in Dee’s place; at number three, the Staffords’ door is wide open. He stumbles on, past Clemmie’s lodge, to number five. He’s glad to find the front door unlocked – he can’t remember where his keys are – and he pauses only to throw up again, beside the ornamental grasses.

He doesn’t take off his shoes. He doesn’t turn on the light. He grips the banister and grits his teeth as his guts churn. He reminds himself he is seconds away from privacy, a clean loo, crisp white sheets. Seconds away from the oblivion he craves, and tomorrow will be a new start, a chance to make good the mistakes he’s made. When he wakes up, everything will feel better. He will be better.





EIGHT




JANUARY 2ND | FFION


‘Did he kill himself, then?’

Ffion looks at her watch. She’s going to be late to meet Leo. ‘Mam, you know I can’t talk about the case.’

‘Not even to your mother?’ Elen’s folding laundry, a mug of tea going cold on the side. Elen isn’t built to sit down. Occasionally Seren makes her watch something on Netflix, but after twenty minutes Elen starts twitching, looking for a job to do.

‘Especially not to my mother. Everyone knows I’m job, and they’ll all be asking you what you know.’ Ffion balances her toast on her hand, spreading marmalade awkwardly with the other.

‘Plat, Ffion!’

‘Saves washing up.’ Ffion eats the toast in four bites and brushes the crumbs into the sink.

‘I’d tell them I didn’t know anything.’

Ffion snorts. ‘You’re a terrible liar, Mam. Your ears go pink.’

‘You’d be surprised what I know and haven’t told you.’ Elen folds the last piece of washing and picks up the basket. ‘People are saying he had a stalker. From London.’

Ffion puts on her coat. ‘People can say what they want.’

‘So that means you’re not looking for someone round here, doesn’t it? If it was the stalker who killed him?’

‘Bye, Mam.’ Ffion closes the door firmly. God, she has to find somewhere else to live. She could have rented somewhere when she walked out on her marriage, only it had been so easy to go back home, and the couple of weeks she planned to stay have somehow turned into a year. It is, she’s ashamed to admit, nice to be looked after, but . . . well, turns out you can have too much of a good thing.

Ffion has arranged to meet Leo at the lake, so she leaves the Triumph parked outside the house. She’s barely out of the gate when Elen hollers after her. She turns to see her mam in her slippers, legging it down the path. Either side of her, the husks of verbena lean like skeletons, last summer’s colour long since faded. Rewilding, Elen calls her approach to gardening.

‘Mam, really. I can’t tell—’

‘Glynis just rang. She’s got reporters asking questions.’

‘So?’ Ffion winces at her instinctive response. What is she, fourteen? She’ll be whining for a Juicy Couture tracksuit next, and refusing to tidy her room. ‘Tell her I’ll get uniform to send someone round.’

‘They’re banging on the door, Ffi. She’s really scared.’

Ffion sighs. ‘Okay, I’ll go now.’

‘Diolch, cariad.’

This is the trouble with living on your patch: you’re the go-to police officer for everything from lost property to murder. Not that the latter’s too common, so no wonder the press are sniffing about. And Rhys is – was – the golden boy, of course. Yesterday, his name trended on Twitter, fans sharing stories of when they saw him live.


@BigCSurvivor: #RhysLloyd sent this signed sheet music for our charity auction.

@WestEndFan68: I asked @RhysLloydSings for a cheeky backstage tour for my Mum’s birthday. He invited us to the after-show party!

@Nat_Strict: Here’s the amazing @RhysLloydSings when he surprised the children’s ward with a Christmas concert. RIP #RhysLloyd – you were one in a million.


If only they knew.

Ffion has read every tweet Rhys has received for the last two years. The tech team are all over this, she knows, but she wanted to see them for herself. She checks Twitter now, as she walks down the high street to Glynis’s hardware shop, scrolling back to the last abusive tweet Rhys received, on the morning of New Year’s Eve. It’s short and to the point.


@RhysLloyd5000: I WISH YOU WERE DEAD.


The location of Glynis’s shop would have been obvious, even if Ffion didn’t know it as well as her own home; even if she hadn’t spent most weekends dragging her heels on one of her dad’s missions to fix the lawnmower or fit a washing machine. She hasn’t been inside for years and as she draws nearer, her feet slow of their own accord.