The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(92)

Felicia thinks she might be sick.

‘Because I had no idea what he was really doing – what you’ve been doing. It’s – it’s criminal!’

‘You’re overreacting,’ Rhys snaps. ‘It didn’t do her any harm.’

‘How do you know? It could be in her system – a build-up, over the years, and one day it’ll come out—’

Rhys gives a bark of laughter. ‘Sixteen years later?’

Felicia claps her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.

‘They’re talking about us,’ Tabby whispers.

‘One of us,’ Felicia adds, darkly.

‘And now you’re risking the life of those two precious babies – it’s beyond awful. I shall tell Blythe, I can’t keep it from her.’

Felicia is lost. What has Dad done, and what does it have to do with Woody and Hester?

‘Oh, no – you’re not pinning that on me,’ Rhys says. ‘That’s all Jonty’s doing.’

‘You gave him the sleeping pills! You gave him the idea!’

‘I simply told him it had worked for us when Felicia was a nightmare going down—’

‘For you, Rhys! You drugged my baby for three years without my knowledge. You could have killed her!’

Tabby turns to Felicia in horror, but Felicia’s eyes have filled with tears and she runs up the stairs. Her mother’s affair with Jonty is the least of her worries, now that she knows what Rhys has done. It’s child abuse, that’s what it is.

Her dad is a monster.





FORTY-FOUR




JANUARY 8TH | FFION


‘Still think she did it?’ Ffion turns to Leo as they pull out of Ceri’s street.

‘I don’t know what to think any more.’ Leo manoeuvres slowly through the snow. The weather’s worsening, and, as they drove into Cwm Coed earlier, flurries of white had whirled against the windscreen, bright white against the darkening sky.

Burned from Yasmin Lloyd’s fruitless hours in custody, Crouch had refused to allow them to hold Ceri a minute longer than they had to.

‘Stick bail conditions on her and let her go,’ he said, and Leo and Ffion had had no choice but to comply. Ceri had arrived at the party at eight and was gone at ten-thirty, when – she said – she’d had enough of all the bullshit. They’d bailed her for two weeks; enough time to seek advice from the Crown Prosecution Service, and to follow up the lines of enquiry generated by Ceri’s interview – including the conversation she’d overheard between Huw and Steffan.

‘She could have gone back to the party,’ Leo says now. ‘She says she was tucked up in bed by eleven, but there’s no partner to corroborate that.’

‘She’s never—’ Ffion stops herself. She was going to say that Ceri had never had a girlfriend; thoughtlessly repeating what she’d heard others say. But isn’t that precisely what Ffion hates about Cwm Coed? The gossip that becomes folklore, the cap made to fit you so well you wear it your whole life.

Ffion Wyllt.

Rhys Lloyd turned an entire generation against Ceri. Was it any wonder she felt she had to keep her love life private?

Ffion’s phone rings and she frowns at the screen. She can count on one hand the number of times Seren has rung her. The younger girl prefers to WhatsApp and, even then, only ever when she wants something. A late pass, when Mam’s said home by nine. A lend of Ffion’s jeans.

Ffion answers. ‘Ti’n iawn?’

There’s no reply. Ffion moves the phone away from her ear, checking the line hasn’t dropped.

‘Seren?’

She hears a jagged intake of breath; a rough, angry sob. And then, finally, Seren speaks.

‘Tell me it’s not true.’

Ffion’s heart splinters. Her whole world crashes about her feet. ‘What?’ she whispers, even though what else could it be?

Seren’s voice rises, hysterical, pleading. ‘Tell me it isn’t true!’

‘What?’ Ffion says desperately, because if there’s a chance Seren hasn’t worked it out, Ffion won’t be the one to— ‘You’re my mam, aren’t you?’

Years ago, Ffion had sometimes allowed herself to imagine what it would feel like to be called Mam. She would slip into a parallel world – one in which Ffion had been older, able to keep her baby – and she would picture them at the park, or walking to school, Seren’s hand in Ffion’s.

Mam.

She’d never once imagined it sounding like this.

‘Seren, where are you? We need to talk.’ Ffion tries to stay calm, knowing Seren feels out of control; hoping she sounds like the mam she’s never had the chance to be.

‘You’ve had sixteen years to talk, and instead you’ve lied to me!’

Leo puts a hand on Ffion’s arm, but she shrugs him off, fighting to focus.

‘You had me, and you gave me to Mam like I was nothing!’

Ffion stares out at the whirling snow. ‘How did you find out?’

‘Caleb nicked a photo from Glynis. He thought it was funny – said the girl in it looked like me.’

Ffion closes her eyes. She wants to press pause; to rewind. She wants to find Caleb and shake him, ask what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, interfering in something he knows nothing about.