Murder on the Hour (16 page)

Alwynne gave him a quiet moment and then spoke. “Shall we see what it says on the back of the photo?” She examined the frame. “I'm going to need a knife or small screwdriver to pry up these little nails that are holding the back on.” Haydn fetched a knife and she inserted it carefully under a nail and gently prised upward. When all four tacks were loosened, she slid the back off and eased the photograph out of its frame.

She turned it over as Penny set a couple of mugs of tea on the table and the three of them moved in for a closer look. No names or date were written on the back, but there was an oval stamp in faded ink. T R HAMMOND, ROSE HILL, CONWAY, NORTH WALES it read.

“The town was spelled Conway, then,” Alwynne remarked. “I'm disappointed there aren't any names on the back. That's too bad.”

She picked up the photo and scanned it closely. “From the cap badge, I'm pretty sure they were in the Royal Welch Fusiliers,” she said. “It was a fine old regiment, even then, and most of the boys from North Wales who joined up enlisted with them. I saw a recruiting advertisement once that said something like, ‘Why enlist with an English regiment when you can join a Welsh one?'” With a small sigh, she replaced the photo in the frame, bending the tacks back into place as carefully as she'd removed them. “Well, thank you, Haydn. We can name your great-grandfather now in our display, and we'll keep digging until we discover the identities of the other two. I expect they were all friends who joined up at the same time.”

“What about the photo?” Haydn asked. “Why was it taken in a Conwy studio?”

“It's a practice that I think started during the American Civil War. Wherever men were preparing to go off to war, professional photographers would show up, set up little makeshift studios—often in tents—and offer to take their photographs.”

“Something they could leave behind for their wives and girlfriends,” said Penny. “Exactly,” said Alwynne, “and their mothers, too, of course. Many of the photographs were signed by the soldiers. ‘To Nellie, my own sweetheart,' is one I saw. Conwy was a staging area for some the of Royal Welch regiments, so these young men might have reported there for basic training and decided to have their photograph taken. And again, because these three had their photo taken together, rather than as individuals, that's another reason I think there was a special bond among them.”

“My great-grandfather never came home,” said Haydn. “I wonder what happened to the other two.”

“We'll see what we can find out about them,” said Alwynne, as she wrapped the photo in its protective covering and tucked it gently in her satchel. “By any chance, did your great-grandfather Wilfred write any letters home that your family kept? The soldiers often mentioned their closest comrades in their letters, especially if the families knew one another, as would probably be the case here. It's likely that Wilfred's parents would have known who these other two young men were, so he would have let his parents know how his chums were doing. That way, parents shared the news of their children.”

She paused. “You'd be surprised how many heartbreaking letters from soldiers I've read that started, ‘Dearest Mother…'”

Haydn shook his head. “No,” he said, drawing the word out. “I've never seen any letters from him. But wait, there might be something.” He retrieved something from a drawer in the Welsh dresser and returned with a piece of paper that he held out to Alwynne.

“That antiques fellow found this in the clock when he was here for the appraisal. Look at the date in the corner.”

Penny leaned over Alwynne's shoulder to look at the map. In the lower left corner was printed 7/00.

“Now I lived here in 2000,” said Haydn, “and this had nothing to do with me, so I'm thinking it must mean July 1900.”

Alwynne checked the dates she'd written on back of the envelope. “Wilfred would have been ten years old at the time.” She and Penny exchanged a puzzled glance and then examined the map again. “The drawing is definitely child-like,” said Penny, “but there is perspective and scale. This could have been made by Wilfred or one of his friends. But it's only half a map. I wonder what happened to the other half.”

*   *   *

Some hours later, after a lovely dinner with Alwynne and her husband, Penny walked the last stretch of road that would take her home. Although they'd wanted to drive her, she'd insisted on walking as the evening was fine and she wanted the exercise and time to think.

A pale quarter moon, partially obscured by fast moving clouds, was just starting to rise as she turned down her lane.

As she approached the path in front of her cottage something stirred on the other side of the hedgerow that flanked the road. Her heart beat faster as she called out, “Who's there?” When there was no response, she thought perhaps she had disturbed a nocturnal creature setting off on its night hunt. And then a dim figure emerged from the deepening shadows and walked toward her.

“I've brought you something,” the apparition said. A moment later she revealed herself, reaching out to Penny with an outstretched arm.

“For God's sake, Dilys, what are you playing at? You practically gave me a heart attack, lying in wait and creeping up on me like that.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. But I figured you had to come home some time.”

As they turned up the path to Penny's cottage the motion detection sensors came alive, bathing the area in a bright white light. Although the evening was warm for mid-May, Dilys was wearing a long grey cloak which she pulled tightly around her slim body. She held out a cloth bag to Penny. “Here. I brought you this. For your friend.”

“What is it?” Penny asked.

“Dried comfrey. You should make a warm compress with it and apply it to your gentleman friend's bruises. It will speed the healing.”

Penny took the bag from her.

“And how do I make this warm compress, exactly?”

“You pour two cups of boiling water over a small handful of the comfrey leaves and let the mixture sit for ten minutes, then strain. Soak a gauze pad or a washcloth in the solution and apply it to the bruise for an hour.”

“How do you know about his leg?” Penny asked.

“I heard all about what happened to the two of you on my travels,” Dilys replied. “People talk up and down the valley, you know. And they seem to like talking about you.”

Why is that, I wonder, thought Penny.

“What were you doing up at Lake Sarnau?” asked Penny. “Looking for something, were you?”

“I was gathering hemp agrimony, if you must know. Butterflies love it, so I've planted some outside my little cottage.” She nodded at Penny. “Yes, I have a place of my own now.”

“Where is it?” Penny asked.

“I'm not telling you that. You'll only send the police round and Dilys doesn't want to talk to them.”

“Well, they want to talk to you. They want to know more about that quilt you found.”

“I've got nothing to say to them.”

“Well, I'm sorry to hear that because I think you are in a very good position to help them find out who killed the lady who owned the quilt.”

“I've been thinking about that,” said Dilys. “It troubles me. I'm sorry she died.”

“Well, why won't you help the police then?”

“I said I wouldn't talk to them. But I will talk to you, and you can tell them. I know you're friendly with them, although maybe not as friendly as you used to be.”

Penny smiled to herself. Not much got past Dilys.

“Do you want to come in the cottage and have a cup of tea?” she asked.

“I wouldn't mind sitting down. I've walked a fair distance today. My feet are feeling it.”

Penny opened the door and invited Dilys in. “We'll sit in the kitchen, I think,” said Penny.

When Dilys was seated with her hands wrapped around a warming cup of tea, Penny took the chair opposite her and set down a pad of paper and a pen in front of her. “Two things, then, Dilys. First. Where did you get the quilt?”

“I didn't steal it, if that's what you're thinking.” Her grey eyes, set wide apart, gave her a perpetually curious look.

“No, that's not what I'm thinking. I think you found it and you couldn't resist its pretty colours.”

“I liked the pattern. It reminded me of the dress on a doll I had when I was a girl.”

“So just tell me where you found it. And I'm going to write down your answer.”

“I found it in Evelyn Lloyd's front garden.” Penny hesitated a moment, then wrote that down. “What time did you find it?”

“I don't remember.”

“This is important. Try to remember.” Penny looked at Dilys's wrist. She wasn't wearing a watch. “How do you tell time, by the way?”

“I don't really need to. I know when it's morning, I know when it's afternoon. That's good enough for me.”

“Well, approximately what time was it, then?”

“It was approximately afternoon.” Realizing that was the best answer she was likely to get, Penny moved on.

“Now then. Here comes question two. When we picked up the quilt, the side seam had been split open. Did you do that or was the quilt like that when you got it?”

Dilys did not hesitate. “It was like that. I wondered why. I thought there must have been something valuable hidden in there that somebody wanted.”

“One last question,” said Penny. Dilys took a sip of tea and puckered her lips slightly. “That's awful tea, your store bought stuff. Why do you waste your money on it when beautiful herbal teas are all around you, just for the picking.”

“Because I don't have your expertise in wild plants,” said Penny. “I'd probably brew up something lethal. And anyway, I like that tea. Now what I'd like to know is why did you leave the quilt on the wall for us to pick up?”

“You said two questions and I answered two,” said Dilys with a mournful, put-upon sigh. “But I'll answer that question anyway. I left it for you so you would leave me alone. I'm old and I don't like being chased. And I thought if the quilt was all that important to you, well, you could have it.”

“Oh, it's important, all right,” said Penny. “We just don't know how important yet.”

Dilys finally gave up on the tea, setting down the cup.

“I'll be on my way now.”

“It's getting late, Dilys,” said Penny. “Will you be all right to walk home?”

“Of course I will, but thank you for your concern.”

She stood up, wrapped her cloak around her, and headed for the door. “But what if I need to speak to you again?” Penny asked. “How will I find you?”

“If you need me, I'll find you,” said Dilys. Penny opened the door and Dilys vanished into the night.

And just as in that awful instant when you realize you don't have your keys at the very moment the door locks behind you, just as she closed the door Penny thought of the all-important question she didn't ask.

 

Twenty-three

Detective Inspector Bethan Morgan examined the lab report and then closed the file. She rested her head on her hand while she mulled over what she had just read. Fiber samples taken from the quilt that Penny and Michael had recovered from Dilys matched fibers found under the fingernails of the dead woman, Catrin Bellis. Had some kind of struggle taken place over the quilt, or had she clutched at it, trying to save herself when she went down?

Bethan sighed and not for the first time thought, be careful what you wish for. This was her first investigation in her new role as a detective inspector, and although she'd thought this was what she wanted, now she wasn't so sure. Investigations had always seemed to move ahead so smoothly and logically under the direction of her boss, DCI Gareth Davies. But now, with his retirement approaching, he'd been taken off this case and the reins had been handed over to her. He would be available if she asked for his advice, he said, but he had every confidence in her ability to lead this investigation to a satisfactory conclusion. She asked herself what he would do at this point. He'd probably do what he called churn the file. He'd reread everything because the answer, he always said, is in the file somewhere. It might be a chance remark made during a house to house, a piece of DNA from a criminal in this file that needs to be matched up with the victim in another file, or it could be something ordinary but out of place—someone who should have been somewhere but wasn't, a door that shouldn't have been locked, but was.

And the other thing he did when he wasn't sure where the case was going was stick pins in a map. Somehow, the visual representation of a crime in a geographic way helped him tie things together. She picked up the phone and requested a large map of the area.

When the police constable brought one in, they pulled all the notices off the bulletin board in the office Bethan had recently been assigned and hung the map. Then she picked up the little box of coloured pins and began to stick them in.

Catrin Bellis was here, at Ty Brith Hall, at the Antiques show. Bethan pushed in a yellow pin. Then she made her way home, here, where her body was found. Bethan stuck in a red pin. Now what?

Well, something else Davies would do is return to the scene, absorb the atmosphere, and think. And try to listen to what the walls could tell him, if only they could talk. She stood up, slipped on her jacket, and walked through the station, almost empty at this time of day.

The police officer outside Catrin Bellis's home was gone, but the crime scene tape remained. She ducked under it, then let herself into the house. The forensics team had finished their work and the quiet, still house had a mournful feel to it, as if it knew the emptiness was permanent.

Bethan sat on the sofa and eyed the slate hearth where Catrin's body was found. What happened here, she asked the silent room. Before the walls could answer, her phone rang. She checked the number. Penny. She listened for a moment.