A Small Hill to Die On: A Penny Brannigan Mystery (12 page)

“Nail art?”

“She paints each nail to look like something—she’s done that newspaper one, and the panda bears are utterly adorable! I had to order a dotting tool for that one, but it was well worth it. I challenged her to do a Burberry plaid, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she actually did it.”

“I wonder if we could charge more for her nail art and then give Eirlys a pay rise. We don’t want to lose her and especially not to the competition.”

“No,” agreed Penny, “we certainly don’t. But honestly, I don’t think she’d go. Unless they offered her a lot more money, I suppose…” She shifted in her chair.

“Eirlys told me she’s worried about her brother. He’s suddenly got electronics and those fancy gadgets kids like these days and she’s worried he’s been stealing them.”

“I know him,” said Victoria, “and he’s not that type of lad. He comes from a good family, as you very well know.”

“Yes, but he might have fallen in with the wrong crowd,” Penny pointed out. “Good kids do, sometimes, and they get led astray.”

“Have you mentioned this to Gareth?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he might feel he had to look into it, and I’d hate to get the boy in trouble.”

“Well, there you go, then.”

“What?”

“You don’t see the connection between this and what he’s doing?”

“No.”

“He’s not telling you the details of something he knows and you’re doing the exact same thing.”

Penny ran a hand over her chin. “I didn’t think of it like that, but you might be right.”

She lifted her coffee mug a few inches off Victoria’s desk and then set it down again.

“There was something else. He warned me off the Ashlee Tran case, but he always tells me to stay away from the cases he’s working on, so there’s nothing new there. But there was something different about the way he said it this time.” She sighed. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say here. Of course he always means it, but it was as if this time he really means it, if you know what I mean.”

She gave Victoria an anxious look. “So maybe you shouldn’t go back up there. It could be dangerous.”

“You’re right, and anyway, it’s turning out to be a waste of my time, although I did find it all very interesting, observing the family dynamics. When you’re just a servant, you’re a fly on the wall. Gwennie must have seen and heard so many things at the Hall all those years she worked there. So many secrets.”

“She’s very discreet, though. I don’t think she’s ever said a word about the Gruffydd family to me.”

“Me, either.”

“In the three or four times I was there I overheard some interesting things about the business, though. The mother is really distressed about her daughter’s death and isn’t going to work anymore. They’ve brought in a manager to run the nail and tanning place. Apparently, Derek, that’s the husband, recommended her. The wife of his bookie, if you can believe it. It seems she spends more time on the tanning beds than any of the customers.”

They both laughed.

“But I don’t think they’re a real or ongoing threat to our business, so at least we found that out. Oh, and another thing I heard is that they’re growing strawberries. Maybe they’re going to supply jam makers with berries.”

“You mean they’ll be growing strawberries this summer?”

“No, they grow them indoors.”

“Well, that’s interesting. Pawl Hughes mentioned something about expecting a gardener, so I guess that’s what he meant.”

“Who’s Pawl Hughes when he’s at home?”

“Oh, he used to be the head gardener up there at Ty Brith. He and his sister live in one of the tied cottages on the property.”

Victoria closed the spreadsheet, took off her glasses, and rubbed her eyes.

“Anyway, all this talk’s just reminded me where I left my umbrella. I think I’ll just pop up to Ty Brith in the morning and pick it up, have a word with Mai, and that’ll be the last time I go there. Hopefully, if I ever run into her in the street she won’t recognize me without the pinny and scarf around my hair.

“Right, well, enough chat.” She gestured at a couple of file folders on her desk. “You’d better get out of here so I can review these bids by lunchtime. I’m looking to see if we can generate more income by offering our own range of products or if we should stock well-known brands. I’ll put some figures together and we can discuss later.”

“Just make sure it all smells really, really expensive. And don’t forget candles.”

Penny paused in the doorway. “Oh, and there was something else I wanted to tell you. Dilys is in her seventies, but her hands look decades younger. She makes her own hand cream. I have no idea what’s in it, but if we’re going to offer our own line of products, that would be the one. Mrs. Lloyd mentioned something about our own branded line a while ago, and she might have been right. That hand cream would be brilliant.

“I thought I might go up to Ty Brith Hall in the morning to see Pawl and Dilys. We’ve got to have a sample of that hand cream. Why don’t I pick up your umbrella while I’m there and I’ll tell Mai you won’t be returning.”

“Oh, would you? That would be great.” Victoria reached for her phone.”That frees up the morning for me to meet with these suppliers.”

“And I think I’ll take the rest of the day off to sketch up there,” Penny said. “I wanted to paint the terraced cottages and the weather’s meant to be good tomorrow, so I’ll see you on Monday, then.”

*   *   *

“Rhian, I’ll be back in about ten minutes,” Penny said as she passed the receptionist’s desk a few minutes later. “Just popping out to the shops.” Rhian looked up briefly, gave a little wave, and returned to her computer.

The weather had turned cold again, but the rain had held off for several days and the air felt wintry light and clean on Penny’s face. The dry pavements had lured shoppers back onto the streets, and the town was bustling with mid-morning activity. She noticed a few customers in the Handz and Tanz, then turned the corner that led out of the town square onto a side street. She stopped as she always did to admire the window display in the bakery. She considered buying a few Eccles cakes to bring back to the Spa but decided to keep going. As she approached the butcher’s, a small white dog tied up outside caught her attention and she stopped. The dog was watching the door of the butcher shop intently, waiting for its owner to return. Keeping the dog in her sights, she slipped into the doorway of a shop two doors down from the butcher and waited.

Across the street, a tall youth in a hoodie that partially obscured his face had also spotted the sitting dog. He waited for the traffic to clear and then, after looking in both directions, crossed the roadway. He reached the dog, and as he bent down to pat it, Penny recognized Eirlys’s younger brother, Trefor. At that moment the dog’s vigilance paid off, and a woman emerged from the butcher’s carrying a shopping bag overflowing with parcels wrapped in brown paper. Wagging its tail in excited delight, the dog strained against its tether, trying to reach her.

Trefor stood up and walked quickly away, passing Penny just as the woman untied her dog and the two set off together in the opposite direction. Penny glanced after Trefor, but he had turned the corner into the town square. Her errand forgotten, she stepped out of the doorway and followed him, but by the time she reached the square, just moments behind him, he was nowhere to be seen. Something about his behavior had seemed furtive, and she felt deep concern that Trefor was involved in the recent spate of dog thefts. That might account for his extra spending money. She wondered if she should have a word with Eirlys. But really, what could she say? That she’d seen Trefor patting a dog in the street? But what if she didn’t say anything and another much-loved pet disappeared? A theft that might have been prevented if she’d told Gareth. Filled with doubt, she bent her head into the wind and returned to the Spa.

Twenty-four

In contrast to the bone-chilling cold outside, the heat and rain forest humidity inside the former stable block of Ty Brith Hall were almost unbearable. Thousands of small plants in square plastic containers sat on tables that stretched from one end of the long stone stable block to the other. Even the old box stalls, which used to be filled with warm, sweet-smelling hay, were crowded with small tables in which thousands of pots of germinating plants were laid out in symmetrical rows. Intensely bright overhead lights, connected by miles of electrical cables, threw long shadows against rough walls that dripped with condensation. A toned, shirtless Asian man walked slowly down the rows of tables, examining the distinctive light green, serrated leaves for signs of blight or infestation. He checked that the timers that controlled the lights were functioning properly so the plants would receive the correct amount of light for the right length of time. He made sure all the hoses that delivered water to the plants were open and flowing smoothly. Here he took a soil sample, there he took a measurement from a wall-mounted thermometer, entering his findings into a tablet.

At the end of the stable he slid open a green metal door that divided the stabling area from what had been the kennels, where generations of black Labrador dogs had been bred and whelped, and he entered the old kennel area.

Suddenly, he let out a roar, and reaching down, he pulled a youth off a low cot. He pulled a lit cigarette out of the boy’s hand and stomped on it hard to extinguish it. Shouting at the boy, he punched him several times in the head, and when the boy crumpled to the stone floor, he kicked him in the back three or four times. The boy curled into himself as the man continued to beat him.

Finally, after delivering three or more heavy blows, panting heavily, he stopped.

Whimpering, the boy crawled back to his cot and burrowed into the filthy blankets. When the Asian man shouted at him again, he threw back the covers and scrabbled about in the pocket of his loosely fitting trousers, which resembled cotton pyjama bottoms, and handed over a cheap plastic cigarette lighter. Then he pulled the blankets over himself once more and turned his face to the wall.

*   *   *

Penny unlocked the back door of her cottage and stepped aside to let Trixxi enter. Like most dogs, Trixxi had her little idiosyncrasies, and one of them was that she always went through a door first. She pushed past Penny and dashed across the kitchen to her bowl beside the Rayburn in which Penny had placed a biscuit before they set off on their walk. Gwennie had left a long list of instructions on how to care for Trixxi, and Rule number 14 said that Trixxi should always find a treat in her bowl when she returned from a walk.

Penny put Trixxi’s breakfast in her bowl, and leaving her to it, she went upstairs to get ready. About twenty minutes later, she put her coat back on and slipped a bottle of water into one pocket and a banana and cereal bar into the other. She had brought down a small manicure kit, and since there was no room in her outer coat pockets, she slid the manicure kit into an inner pocket of her coat. Eirlys had suggested they might want to stock a few kits in the Spa shop, and Victoria had obligingly ordered in a few samples. Depending on how things went when she stopped in to see Dilys and Pawl, Penny thought she might offer to look at Pawl’s fingernails. On the table by the door she spotted a postcard that had been delivered the day before that she wanted to reread so on impulse she slipped it into an inner pocket. She clipped Trixxi’s lead to her collar, and after locking the front door behind her, they set off together for the bus stop. On the way she reached into her pocket, and marveling that she hadn’t lost one or both yet, she pulled on the blue angora woolen gloves Victoria had given her for Christmas.

*   *   *

Penny approached the back door of Ty Brith Hall, lifted the sliver dolphin knocker, and tapped three times. When there was no response, she tapped again. She took a step back and looked up at the windows. She saw no one, heard nothing, and sensed that unmistakably eerie, silent feel of a house with nobody home. She waited a few moments and then turned away, walking slowly with Trixxi in the direction of the stable. Once past it, they would pick up the footpath that led through the small wood to the terraced cottage where she expected to find Dilys and Pawl Hughes at home.

Built of grey stone, the two-storey stable formed a
U
-shape around a cobbled courtyard. Each stall had Dutch-style doors—top- and bottom-opening wooden doors that in the old days could have been opened from the inside or outside. With both halves open, the horse could be led directly into its stall from the courtyard without having to go through the stable proper. With the top open and bottom closed, the horse would have a good view of everything going on in the yard. Now, it looked as if someone had gone to a lot of trouble to bolt the doors shut and reinforce them with metal bars. In days gone by, the second floor of the building would have provided basic living accommodation for the grooms, with most of the space set aside for the storage of hay and straw.

As she reached the stable, Penny imagined the echoes of the gentle, rhythmic ring of metal horseshoes on cobbles as the horses were walked slowly into the courtyard after their morning ride, to be handed over to a waiting groom. Emyr Gruffydd’s mother, the daughter of a blacksmith, had been a great rider; Penny had heard many stories from Mrs. Lloyd over the years on what a good seat she had, how much she had loved her animals, how well cared for they were, and how they always took first place at the annual agricultural fair.

Feeling the empty loneliness of the place, she wished she could have seen the stable yard when it had been bustling with grooms and riders and alive with the scent and sound of eager horses and excited dogs, anxious to be off on their morning run. Instead, the space was quiet, forlorn, and the lack of life gave off a silent feeling of nothingness as if it were waiting for its chance to be useful again and fearing that day might never come.

In front of the last, heavily reinforced door, which opened into the building itself, and just before the smaller, lower addition that had been the Ty Brith kennels, she heard a faint scratching sound. She stopped and leaned against the door, listening. Probably just a rat, she told herself. They soon find empty buildings, and there’s probably leftover bags of animal feed in the storerooms or even leather for them to chew in the tack room.