The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(3)

Seren looks at Mam’s back and rolls her eyes.

‘I saw that.’

‘God, you’re good, Mam.’ Ffion lifts the kettle from the Aga, sloshing it to check how much water’s in it before moving it on to the hot plate. ‘Did you ever think of joining the Secret Service? I imagine “eyes in the back of your head” are right up there with jiu jitsu and fluent Russian.’ She plugs in her phone, dead since the previous evening. ‘How was the swim, anyway?’

‘It wasn’t.’ Seren shoots a defiant look at Mam. ‘I was only in up to my knees when they made us all get out.’

‘How come?’

‘Well, if you’d been there, you’d know,’ Mam says tightly.

‘I overslept.’

‘At Mia’s?’

Ffion gives a non-committal mmm. Seren – sharp as a tack – looks between Mam and Ffion, instantly alert to the possibility of drama.

‘Because I’m told she was at the party till late.’

Mia Williams. Two years ahead of Ffion at school: the sort of age gap which gives you nothing in common in your teens, and everything in common a decade later. They are friends by default, rather than choice, Ffion always thinks; who else would they drink with, if not each other?

‘Mam, I’m a grown—’

‘And Ceri left early and saw your car heading out of the village.’

Ceri Jones, the postwoman. Is it any wonder, Ffion thinks, that she prefers to do her socialising away from the town? You can’t fart in Cwm Coed without it making the front page.

‘I had an errand to run.’ The kettle whistles, harsh and insistent, as though challenging Ffion’s lie. She finds a clean mug and drops in a tea bag.

‘On New Year’s Eve?’

‘Mam, stop being—’

‘I worry about you. Is that a crime?’

‘I’m perfectly safe.’

‘That’s not what I mean.’ Elen turns to look at her eldest daughter, voice low; expression loaded. ‘It can’t make you happy, Ffi.’

Ffion holds her gaze. ‘It does, actually.’

Mam settled down too young, that was the trouble. Elen was seventeen when she’d met Ffion’s dad, nineteen when they married. She’d never slept around, never even dated anyone else. How could she possibly understand how good no-strings sex could be? How liberating?

‘Anywaaay . . .’ Ffion changes the subject with a single, drawn-out word, turning to Seren for sibling solidarity. ‘Why weren’t you allowed to swim?’

‘Because someone only bloody died!’ The gossip bursts out of the girl like water from a dam.

Mam cracks the tea towel at Seren. ‘Watch your language.’

‘Ow!’

‘I’d be keeping my head down if I were you, young lady. You know full well you weren’t to go to that bloody party.’

Ffion looks at Seren. ‘You were at The Shore last night?’

The girl’s chin juts out defensively. ‘Everyone was there.’

‘I don’t give a monkey’s if the Queen of Sheba was there – I told you to stay away from that place!’ Mam’s voice rises, and Seren looks as if she might cry.

‘Someone drowned?’ Ffion says quickly.

Mam drags her attention away from Seren and gives a curt nod of confirmation.

‘God. Who?’

Elen dishes up the porridge, mixed with stewed apple and with a swirl of cream on top. ‘A man, that’s all we know. Face-down, so . . .’

Ffion’s phone chirrups into life, the screen flooding with texts and missed calls. She scrolls past the Happy New Year messages, until she reaches that morning’s.


Did you hear about the body in the lake?

Do you know who it is?

Where were you last night???




She presses the blinking icon to listen to her voicemail. At any other time of year she’d put money on it being a visitor who drowned. Someone not used to the cold, or to swimming outdoors; someone who didn’t grow up around water. Cwm Coed sees them every year, pouring out of the campsites and on to the lakeshore as though it’s Bournemouth beach, throwing themselves off the jetty and letting their kids loose on cheap inflatables.

But the New Year’s Day swim is strictly for locals. No one wants incomers, driving an hour or more in anticipation of the smug status update they can post on Facebook afterwards. There’s no advert, no T-shirts, no sponsorship. No official organiser.

No safety measures, Ffion thinks grimly. She knows there’s a faction of the community who will say they’ve been proved right by today’s tragedy; people who refuse to attend the swim because it’s dangerous. All that running and laughing and falling over; the water so cold it’ll freeze your lungs. And all with drink inside from the night before. It’s only a matter of time before someone drowns.

Ffion’s phone is full of drunken voicemails from Mia and Ceri, shouted over a backdrop of fireworks, and one from Mam that morning – We’re leaving for the swim – lle wyt ti?

‘I heard it was old Dilwyn Jones,’ Seren says.

‘In a tuxedo?’ Mam says. ‘In forty years, I’ve never seen that man out of a cardigan.’ She lowers her voice as she turns towards Ffion. ‘They moved everyone away from the body as soon as they could. He was—’ She breaks off. ‘He was in a bad way.’