A Small Hill to Die On: A Penny Brannigan Mystery (5 page)

Penny and Trixxi walked slowly on up a gentle incline, and a few moments later, slightly out of breath, Alwynne joined them. Penny pointed toward a wooded conservation area known for its wildlife. “How about over there?” Alwynne nodded and the three of them set off. The woodland was surrounded by a waist-high stone fence with large flat stones set on their edges secured on top, giving the fence a jagged, sharp look.

The two women entered the woods through an opening in the fence and walked a few metres to higher ground.

“This looks like a pretty good spot,” said Alwynne, glancing around. “We don’t need to go any deeper into the woods, but should we go higher up the hill, do you think?”

“No,” said Penny, making a sweeping, encompassing gesture at the view in front of her. “This is good. With the fence in the foreground and the snow-covered hills in the back, we can do a nice landscape.” She pulled a field sketchbook and light collapsible stool out of her backpack and unfolded it. She reached in her coat pocket for a dog treat and then unclipped Trixxi’s lead. “All right, girl, off you go. See what you can find.”

Delighted to have her freedom, Trixxi bounded off down the small hill, tail wagging, as Alywynne and Penny set to work.

With a graphite pencil, Penny sketched the view in front of her. Her concentration was broken when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Trixxi racing back to her. She sketched in a few more lines and smiled at Alwynne as the dog reached her.

“Alwynne, watch this.”

Trixxi sat beside Penny and placed her nose under Penny’s right elbow and lifted it. She nudged her a few more times and then sat back and let out a sharp bark.

“She does that at home when I’m on the computer, except without the barking. There’s something about me on the computer she doesn’t like. Sometimes I have to put her out in the hall and shut the door so she can’t get at me.”

Trixxi gave Penny’s arm another nudge, this time stronger and more insistent. Penny looked at her sketch pad and then down into Trixxi’s brown eyes. Trixxi took a few steps backward, crouched down in a play bow, and barked again. She took a couple more steps backward and let out a low, throaty noise somewhere between a whine and growl that sent a message Penny didn’t understand or recognize. “What is it, Trixxi? What do you want?” Slightly annoyed, she finally gave in and rose from her stool. Trixxi barked excitedly and then turned and ran off for a few steps. She looked over her shoulder to make sure Penny was following her and barked again when Penny took a few steps toward her.

Alywnne pointed at Trixxi with her pencil. “Looks to me as if she wants you to follow her.”

Penny gave her a quick nod and set off after Trixxi, who, as soon as she saw Penny coming closer, turned and, breaking into a trot, headed for a large oak tree near the stone fence. As she approached the tree, she veered and ran straight toward the fence, and when she reached it, she began sniffing and pawing at the frozen ground. She gave a couple of shark barks as if urging Penny to hurry.

Under the bare branches of the ancient oak Trixxi reached out with her front paw and scraped at the ground. As Penny approached, she saw that a shallow, dry ditch ran alongside the stone fence and Trixxi was standing in it. She let out a loud bark, looked at Penny with puzzled concern, and then, using both paws, began to dig.

As Trixxi dislodged a loose pile of brittle, frosted brown leaves, a few fell away, exposing a grayish-blue hand, its fingers frozen in a stiff curl. But it was the fingernails, with their snakeskin pattern, that sent a sickening feeling slithering through Penny’s gut.

“Good girl,” she said when she reached Trixxi, and with one hand she reached down and, grasping Trixxi’s collar, pulled her away from her find. With her other hand, she reached into her pocket for her mobile.

Nine

Within ten minutes, flashing blue lights signaled the arrival of the first police car.

“You’ll have to keep well back, now, and leave this to us,” one of the officers said to Penny as she pointed toward the shallow grave. He turned to his colleague. “The DCI should be here in a few minutes.” As he finished speaking, a slow-moving police Land Rover came into view and then stopped near the opening in the fence. A tall man with silver hair got out of the passenger side and a moment later a woman emerged from the driver’s side. With a small wave of acknowledgment at Penny, they approached the scene to be briefed by the officer who had been first to arrive.

In what seemed to Penny like a very short space of time, the scene was transformed from a peaceful rural landscape to something straight out of a television crime show.

Officers donned pale blue Tyvek suits and shoe covers and erected screens around the body. And then white-suited scene-of-crime officers arrived and disappeared behind the screens.

Penny stayed where she was for a few minutes, watching, and then rejoined an anxious Alwynne, who was holding Trixxi on her lead.

After discovering the body, Penny had climbed back to where Alwynne, unaware of what Trixxi had uncovered, was still sketching. “Alwynne,” Penny had started to say but found she couldn’t speak. Alwynne glanced at her face, and then, startled, jumped up. “Penny, what is it?”

“Trixxi’s found a body. I’m pretty sure it’s the daughter of that Vietnamese family that just moved to town. I recognized her from her manicure. I gave her that manicure.” Penny pointed to the oak tree. “She’s down there, in that ditch, under a pile of leaves.”

“Well, should we uncover her?” Alwynne asked. “Is there a chance she could still be alive?”

Penny shook her head. “No, she’s dead. All I saw was her hand, but it’s blue and looks frozen. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it to try to check for a pulse. Anyway, it’s probably best if we don’t disturb the remains any more than Trixxi already has.”

Alwynne sat down again. “I don’t think I want to go and see.”

“No,” agreed Penny, “you don’t.”

After handing Trixxi to Alwynne, Penny had gone back down the hill to await the arrival of the police team, led by Detective Chief Inspector Gareth Davies. She described how she’d found the body and told him that she thought she knew who the victim was. The girl with the snakeskin manicure. The manicure she herself had given the dead girl.

*   *   *

Although there was nothing much to see, the two women watched the police activity from their vantage point higher up the hill. A gazebolike structure had been erected around the body and the scene had been cordoned off. The stone fence provided a natural barrier, and uniformed police officers kept the few curious townsfolk who had turned out to see what was happening on the other side of the road.

Eventually, Davies and the woman police officer he was with climbed the hill and joined them.

“You two should head home now,” he said. “There’s nothing more for you to do here, and we can get your statements in the morning. It’ll be dark soon and it’s getting cold.”

Davies pointed to a police car.

“PC Jones’ll drive you home.” He bent down and gave Trixxi a pat. “And you, too.”

He squeezed Penny’s arm.

“How did she die?” Penny asked.

“Blunt-force trauma the pathologist says it looks like,” he replied, “but we’ll know more after the postmortem. I can tell you, though, it’s not pretty. So I’m not going to ask you to look at the body to see if you can identify it. What you told me about the manicure is enough for us to be going on with. How long ago did you do it, by the way?”

“Let’s see. Five or six days. I can’t remember if it was Monday or Tuesday. We can check the appointment book now if you need to.”

The woman police officer jotted down a few entries in her notebook. “No, we don’t have to do that now. It can wait.”

Davies reached in his pocket and pulled out a little plastic evidence bag. “When she came for the manicure, was she wearing these?” He handed Penny the bag. She flattened it out so she could see better what it contained. She smoothed down the plastic, revealing a drop earring, a silver hook with a teardrop-shaped purple stone. Alywnne, standing beside Penny, leaned in to look at it.

“No, she wasn’t. I don’t recognize this.”

“Did you take that off the body yourself?” Alwynne asked.

“No, the pathologist removed it.”

“Didn’t he take both earrings?” Alwynne looked puzzled.

“There was just the one. We’ll ask her family about it, then. See if her mother recognizes it.”

“Her family?” Penny asked.

“We’re on our way there now.”

The four of them walked together down the hill, with Trixxi bounding along at their heels, past the place where the body lay under cover of the gazebolike structure.

“I’ve often wondered,” Davies remarked conversationally, “how many bodies would remain undiscovered were it not for ‘a local woman walking her dog.’”

*   *   *

Penny and Davies had met the summer before, as he investigated the disappearance and death of a missing bride. Their friendship had deepened and now there was no doubt in his mind that he loved her. But he sensed there was something in her past holding her back emotionally, keeping a precious part of her unavailable to him. He hoped that one day she would love him and trust him enough to open that part of herself to him.

“Ring me later,” Penny said, as they reached the police car. Jones opened the door and Trixxi jumped in, settled herself on the backseat and, looking around, panted slightly. She seemed very proud of her afternoon’s work. It’s not every day a dog does something that attracts so much attention and makes people really sit up and take notice.

*   *   *

Sergeant Bethan Morgan steered the Land Rover onto the wide gravel drive that swept around the front of Ty Brith Hall. A few moments later she switched off the engine, but neither officer made any move to get out. Davies looked at the front door.

“This never gets easier.” He turned to her as he opened the car door. “I’ll take the lead and you offer support. But remember, we’re just preparing them to expect the worse and letting the mother know we’re going to have to ask her to make a formal identification. The earring might help.”

Bethan nodded and a few moments later they were standing on the front step, each one thinking about what they would say when the door opened. They exchanged a quick, conspiratorial glance as if to make sure they were on the same page just as Bethan knocked. Then, as if at an unspoken signal, both reached into their coat pockets and in unison pulled out their warrant cards and held them up at the same moment that Derek Grimstead opened the door.

Ten

Twenty minutes later the two police officers walked slowly down the front steps. When they reached the last step, Derek closed the door behind them and returned to his wife and stepson in the kitchen.

Mai looked at him, her face an ashen mask of disbelief and fear.

“What do you do,” she asked, “when the police come to your door and tell you they have reason to believe that your child has been murdered? How do you get through the first hour, and the hour after that? What are we supposed to do now?”

The three of them looked at one another.

“Well, look, love,” said Derek finally. “He said the body they found still had to be positively identified, so we don’t know for sure it was her. And she was wearing that earring that you didn’t recognize. Maybe it’s someone else. Another girl, not our Ashlee.”

“Nice try, Derek,” said Tyler in a low voice.

Mai ignored Tyler’s remark. “Positively identified. And who did they ask to do that? Me. And the policewoman said the body they found had a snakeskin manicure. Do you know any other girl with a snakeskin manicure? The police said the manicure lady told them she did only the one. One. And that was for Ashlee.” Her voice was becoming louder. “And why on earth did she get that snakeskin manicure in the first place, I’d like to know.” She turned on her husband. “Derek?”

Tyler, who looked shaken, stood up.

“I’m going to my room. I won’t want any dinner,” he said. A few minutes later the vigorous slamming of the door to his room echoed through the house.

Mai buried her face in her hands as tears, suppressed by shock and disbelief, finally came. At first she wept quietly, but soon her body was racked by loud, gulping sobs. Derek stood behind her, afraid to touch her, afraid not to touch her. “Who would have had it in for her?” she wailed. “Who could have done this? She was only nineteen. She didn’t even know anyone here.”

“What would you like me to do?” Derek asked as she wiped her eyes with her hands and used her sleeve to mop her dripping nose. “I’d better ring your brother. He’ll need to know.”

Mai did not reply.

And then Derek did the most useful thing he’d done since they got married. He went off in search of a box of tissues.

Eleven

“How did she take it?” Penny asked. With the scene processed and the body dispatched to the morgue, Davis had sent his sergeant, Bethan Morgan, back to Llandudno to begin the paperwork. Instead of ringing Penny once the family had been informed, as he’d promised, he’d driven over to see her.

They were seated on her living room sofa—he holding a glass of beer as Penny sat turned toward him with one leg tucked under her. Between them was a plate of Brie cheese with oat biscuits and sliced apples. He reached for a piece of apple and bit the end off it.

“She was exactly what you’d expect. Disbelief at first. No, it couldn’t be her daughter. Shocked, shaken up. Blamed herself. Too busy with the store opening to pay enough attention to her daughter.” He shrugged. “The girl was nineteen. It’s difficult for a parent to manage their children’s lives at that age. You can’t control them. Technically she was a teenager, yes, but really more of a young adult.” He took another bite of apple, and then a sip of beer.

“There was one thing, though. The mother said she was worried when Ashlee didn’t come home last night because she doesn’t have a boyfriend and it wasn’t like her to stay out. She thought of calling us but decided not to because the police are so bloody useless. We’d just tell her the girl’s nineteen, she’s old enough to stay out all night if she wants to…” His voice trailed off and he sighed. “Unfortunately, she got all that wrong. We would have tried to find her. There are things we could have done.”