The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(74)

‘The lodges are identical, darling,’ Rhys says. ‘I hardly think the Charltons need to see—’

‘Identical?’ Blythe laughs. ‘They couldn’t be more different!’

Yasmin shakes her head, exasperated. ‘We went for Shadow White in our bedroom, darling. Jonty and Blythe have School House White.’

‘And our accent colour is lemon,’ Blythe says, as though explaining to a small child.

‘And ours is citron.’

The men traipse after their wives; through the Charltons’ lodge, to admire Blythe’s scatter cushions, and down the drive towards the Lloyds’.

‘Is that someone arriving already?’ Jonty says.

Through the trees, Rhys catches a glimpse of a dirty white Fiat with pink lettering, bouncing across the drive leading up to The Shore. ‘It’s just Mia, the cleaner.’ Once The Shore is finished, it will have its own housekeeping team – smartly dressed and properly trained – but for now they’re making do with the local girl. ‘I’ll have a quick word.’

The others continue walking to number five. Music plays loudly through the open windows of the Fiat, as Mia the cleaner reverses into a visitor space. She waits for the track to finish, before getting out and taking a long, flirtatious look at Rhys. ‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t Ysgol Crafnant’s head boy.’

Rhys was never head boy – he doesn’t even think the school went in for that sort of thing – but he dips his head in acknowledgment of what he supposes is a compliment, of sorts. Schools like to claim ownership of alumni successes. One summer, fifteen or sixteen years ago, the teachers had persuaded Rhys back to run a music camp at the school. By that time he already had six albums and a tour under his belt, but the guilt-trip – and the fee from the Welsh Arts Council – had dragged him back.

‘And it was thanks to the Urdd Eisteddfod and our very own music teacher, Mrs Hughes, that Rhys Lloyd was discovered!’ the headteacher had said, in her introduction. It’d rankled a bit, the suggestion that without the youth competition – without the rehearsals at school – Rhys would be nobody.

‘We didn’t book you for today, did we?’ he says now to Mia. ‘You were supposed to do all the lodges before everyone arrived.’

‘Chill, they’re all done. The Staffords have got a Waitrose shop coming and they want me to unpack.’ The list of supermarkets which deliver to The Shore is on the FAQs section of the website, along with whether Deliveroo covers the area (it doesn’t) and how far owners are from a Marks & Spencer (an hour and a half). All the essentials.

Mia walks up the path to number three. She’s wearing denim shorts and a vest top, under a pink cleaning tabard a centimetre or two longer than the shorts. Long brown legs end in scruffy white trainers. She turns around, catching him looking.

‘Was there something else?’

He could suggest a few things, Rhys thinks, with a private smile. He goes to join the others at number one, stopping to take a picture of the row of lodges, the lake glistening behind them, so he can ‘check in’ to The Shore on Facebook. Almost instantly there are two likes, and Rhys glows inside. He switches to Twitter and posts the same photo. Arrived at #TheShore for a much-needed break before my next recording session. There is no recording session, but no one on Twitter knows that. It’s all about generating the right impression. Creating a brand.

He catches up with the others in his study, where Yasmin is telling Jonty and Blythe what they already know. ‘We didn’t incorporate office space into the design,’ Yasmin says, ‘because – well, we’re all supposed to be on holiday, right? But by stealing a little from the master bedroom, and the same again from the two back bedrooms, we’ve ended up with quite a usable space.’

‘Where did you find those gorgeous drawers?’ Blythe says. ‘Is it Perch & Parrow?’

Yasmin runs a playful hand over the filing cabinet. ‘How much do you think it was? Go on, guess.’ On its corners, and around the handles, the red paint has worn off, exposing bare metal. Dents and scrapes cover the sides. It is the perfect industrial foil for Yasmin’s Scandi-themed interior. Rhys knows this because Yasmin has told him. Several times. Never mind that the drawers are locked and the key long lost, as long as it looks good.

‘Oh, gosh,’ Blythe says. ‘Four hundred? Five?’

‘It was free!’ Yasmin says gleefully. ‘Rhys’s dad had it in the old shed that was here before The Shore was built. Isn’t it fabulous?’

‘Fabulous,’ agrees Blythe. ‘I love how you’ve used the same red for these shelves.’ She admires the awards displayed above Rhys’s desk. A bunch of regional trophies, two Echo awards, the Olivier he won for West Side Story.

‘I wouldn’t have brought them,’ Rhys says. ‘Yasmin insisted.’

‘She’s proud of you.’ Blythe squeezes Rhys’s arm. ‘And gosh, is this all fan mail?’ She looks at the stack of post on the desk. Yasmin opens her mouth, but Rhys jumps in. He doesn’t want the Charltons to know he’s effectively paying people to like him.

‘Total ball-ache, really, but what can you do?’

‘I can’t imagine having strangers writing to me,’ Blythe says. ‘It must be extraordinary.’

‘Well . . .’ Rhys opens his hands, as though shrugging it off.