The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(6)

Leo does as he’s told, finding himself in a small L-shaped waiting room. The clock on the wall reads ten thirty-five. Sensing he isn’t alone, he turns, and his mouth drops open. Standing in the corner of the room, her face flushed and uncertain, is a woman.

Harriet.

‘What are you doing here? Did you . . .’ Leo can barely find the words. ‘Did you follow me here?’

The woman gives a bark of laughter. ‘I was here first! If anything, you must have followed me.’

Holy crap. Harriet. Harriet Jones, or Johnson or something. A primary school teacher from Bangor, a detail Leo only remembers because he did indeed bang her.

He’s about to interrogate her further when a door opens on the far side of the room, and a woman in a white lab coat brings with her the unmistakable smell of death and Dettol.

‘Leo Brady, I presume? I’m Izzy Weaver, the pathologist handling your man. Shouldn’t be here, to be perfectly frank, but my mortuary technician’s gone AWOL. He’s on borrowed time, that one. I’ve already told your SIOs I can’t do the PM till the day after tomorrow, but if we can get an ID on him, that’d be great.’

‘Leo?’ Harriet says loudly.

There’s a brief pause, as the pathologist looks keenly at Leo, then at Harriet. Leo coughs. Okay, so this is awkward. But Leo isn’t the first man to give a fake name to a girl he’s met in a bar, and he won’t be the last. In the three years he’s been divorced, Leo has found dating an uncomfortable experience. Eighteen months ago, he had enjoyed what he’d understood to be a mutually agreeable one-night stand, only to find himself stalked – no, hounded – for several months afterwards. He hasn’t used his real name since.

But this still doesn’t explain what Harriet Jones – or Johnson, or whatever – is doing at the mortuary.

‘I take it you haven’t met,’ the pathologist says. Leo and Harriet look at each other.

‘Well—’ says Leo.

‘No,’ says Harriet, firmly.

The pathologist looks baffled. As well she might: Leo is struggling to understand, himself. Has Harriet been following him? Intercepting his messages? For one wild moment Leo imagines her bugging Crouch’s office, keeping meticulous notes on Leo’s movements.

‘Harriet . . .’ Leo says warily. He’ll be firm with her, but not too firm. She’s quite probably mentally unwell – this is not the action of a sane woman.

‘Harriet?’ says the pathologist.

‘Um . . .’ says Harriet. There’s a long pause.

‘Shall we crack on?’ There’s a note of frustration in Izzy Weaver’s voice. She waves a hand in Leo’s direction. ‘Detective Constable Leo Brady, of Cheshire Constabulary.’ Then waves the other in the opposite direction, towards Harriet. ‘Detective Constable Ffion Morgan, from North Wales Police.’

Leo raises an eyebrow. ‘Ffion?’

‘Ffion,’ Harriet says, quietly. Or rather, Ffion says. Leo’s head spins. At the same time, quite unexpectedly, his groin recalls the previous night. It’s an unsettling combination, helped little by the waft of disinfectant.

Harriet – Ffion! – Christ – had taken forever to leave this morning. Leo had been desperate to pee, and instead he’d had to lie there, pretending to be asleep while she fidgeted next to him, clearly waiting to be taken for breakfast. Leo never knows what to say the morning after, and staying asleep is infinitely easier than negotiating a conversation. She’d thumped out of bed eventually, crashing about in the bathroom in the hope he might wake up, before giving up and going home.

Detective Constable Ffion Morgan. She doesn’t look like a Ffion. Harriet suits her better. Perhaps it’s a middle name, and she only uses Ffion for work. So, by introducing herself last night as Harriet, she wasn’t giving a fake name, exactly, just—

‘Not Marcus, then?’ Ffion raises an eyebrow.

‘Who the hell is Marcus?’ the pathologist says. ‘I was told there were only two of you coming – it’s a morgue, not a séance.’

‘Sorry,’ Leo says, on behalf of both of them, although Ffion doesn’t look remotely sorry. Her expression is amused – a little quizzical – as though waiting for Leo to expand.

As Izzy Weaver ushers them into the depths of the mortuary, Leo feels a sense of misgiving come over him. He hopes to hell this turns out to be an accidental drowning, because Ffion Morgan looks like trouble.





THREE




NEW YEAR’S DAY | FFION


Well, this is awkward. In the twelve months since walking out on her marriage, Ffion has successfully avoided bumping into a one-night stand after the event. It’s one of the reasons she spends her social life away from Cwm Coed; that, and the fact that, when you live and work in the village in which you grew up, you remain forever a child in the eyes of everyone who knows you. Look at Sion Ifan Williams: sixty-five if he’s a day, yet known by everyone as Sion Sos Coch, on account of a schoolboy enthusiasm for tomato ketchup.

Ffion herself has tried, and failed, to shake off the moniker of Ffion Wyllt.

Wild Ffion.

‘It’s only because of your hair,’ Mam used to say firmly, wrestling Ffion’s frizzy mane into a plait; refusing to acknowledge that an entire community considered her young daughter untameable. Elen Morgan had grown up thirty miles from Cwm Coed, and, despite a long marriage and two children through the village school, there are many who still consider her an outsider. A place like Cwm Coed needs four generations in the graveyard before you can call yourself local.