A Small Hill to Die On: A Penny Brannigan Mystery (6 page)

“Such as?”

“Well, for one thing, we could have tried to find her using her cell phone to pinpoint her whereabouts. We can track signals from the relay towers. Gives a pretty clear idea of where someone is. Or at least, where the phone is.”

He set his beer glass down.

“The mother did ask a very intriguing question, though.”

“What was that?”

“She asked why someone would want to kill her nineteen-year-old daughter. We’re going to need to know the answer to that, too.”

He gave Penny an apologetic look and then rested his head against the back of the sofa.

“Sorry to be going on so long about this. You know, I was hoping you and I could get away at Christmas, just the two of us, but then the Harry Saunders case came along, and now I was hoping maybe we could take a few days at St. Dwynwen’s Day. Go somewhere nice. Warm, maybe. And now this.”

“I couldn’t leave anyway,” said Penny. “Not with Victoria away. We agreed that one of us would always be at the Spa.”

Davies nodded. “Oh, right. I forgot she’s away. How’s she doing? Enjoying herself, is she?”

“She’s fine. She wants to stay on in Florence for another week. She’s being very coy about her reasons, but Eirlys thinks she’s met a man.” Penny took a sip of wine. “Funny that. For one so young, Eirlys can be remarkably perceptive about many things and she might just be right about this. But Victoria hasn’t said anything to me about meeting a man, and if something like that was going on, if she’s met someone, she’d tell me.” She paused. “At least, I think she would.”

Davies picked up his glass and took a sip. “I’d like to go back to Ashlee. Tell me about the manicure.”

“Right, well, it was Eirlys who suggested we get in the snakeskin manicure kit. When I saw the hand with that manicure, I knew right away it was Ashlee—it had to be.”

Davies set his glass down, leaned back, closed his eyes and stifled a yawn.

“Enough for one day?”

He nodded. “But we don’t know for sure yet that it is Ashlee,” he said in a flat, tired voice. “Her mother will have to identify the body in the morning, and then if it is her, I’ll interview the family. We’ll start with them. The young lad, the brother, didn’t have much of a reaction. He didn’t seem too upset, but maybe that’s just him being a teenager.”

“Neither one of them was happy here, apparently. Ashlee or her brother. They weren’t settling in very well. They missed home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Birmingham.”

“Birmingham. Ever been?”

“Yes, of course. I went to a charming little jewelry museum there once.”

Davies gave her one of his looks.

“Now you’re going to let us handle this, aren’t you? There’s nothing here that involves you, so there’s no need for you to go poking around.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “You’ll give your statement and then stay out of it. Agreed?”

Penny nodded and rose from the sofa. She started toward the kitchen and then turned around.

“Do you think she was killed there or was she killed someplace else and the body dumped?”

Davies grimaced.

“I knew it wouldn’t last.”

“Well?”

“The pathologist isn’t sure and says he won’t know until he’s done the postmortem. He’ll know more then, but he says it looks as if she was beaten somewhere else and died as she was being moved or she died on that small hill.”

Twelve

“Is it my imagination, Penny, or is it just a coincidence that you always seem to be first on the scene when there’s been a murder?” Mrs. Lloyd handed her coat to Penny as they walked down the hall toward the manicure room. “Now you must tell me everything. How shocked you must have been to come across a dead body like that. And while you were out on one of your little drawing expeditions, too. Still, I suppose if you hadn’t found the body, it might have lain there until spring. I did hear tell of a very haunting story once. The police suspected that someone had been killed but it was winter and the snow was very deep and they couldn’t find the body, so in the end they said, well, we’ll just wait until spring, and when the snow melts, the body will likely surface.

“Actually, I’m not sure if I heard that or read it somewhere, but it makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Penny ushered her client into the manicure room, where Eirlys was waiting for her. “There you go, Mrs. Lloyd,” said Penny. “Eirlys will be taking care of you today.”

Penny and Mrs. Lloyd exchanged glances, and Penny shook her head slightly. Mrs. Lloyd understood that there was to be no more talk of the discovery of the body in front of Eirlys.

“Oh, excellent. Eirlys always gets the water temperature just right. You, Penny, tend to make it too hot.” Mrs. Lloyd made a coy little gesture and laughed lightly.

“Or maybe that’s just me getting old and I can’t tolerate hot water the way I used to.”

Knowing what was expected of them, Penny and Eirlys both protested. “You? Old? Don’t be silly!”

Penny stood for a few moments to chat with Mrs. Lloyd while Eirlys began shaping her nails. “How’s Florence?” she asked. Mrs. Lloyd had met Florence Semple a few months earlier and invited her to live with her as a companion and lodger.

“Oh, she was in one of her moods when I left this morning,” replied Mrs. Lloyd. “She can be very negative, that one, so I just left her to get on with it.” Florence loved cooking, and as the waistbands on her skirts and trousers could attest, Mrs. Lloyd was enjoying all the freshly baked scones and home-cooked meals.

“You know we have our hairdresser in place now,” said Penny. “Maybe you should give Florence a gift certificate for a day’s pampering at the Spa. She could have a facial and get her hair done with Alberto.”

Mrs. Lloyd thought it over. “You know, that might not be a bad idea. But I doubt Florence would go for a whole day—she’d think that a sinful waste of money—but she does need to get her hair cut anyway, so maybe a hairdo and a facial and a manicure might be a nice treat for her.” Mrs. Lloyd nodded. “Yes, we’ll arrange that for her before I leave today. I think her birthday’s somewhere around Eastertime, so that would be a nice gift for her.”

“Good,” said Penny. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy it.”

“I just hope she won’t think it’s all a waste of money,” said Mrs. Lloyd. “You know she’s never had very much and I think she cuts her own hair.” Eirlys looked shocked.

“Eirlys, love, you grew up in a time of plenty. You don’t have to worry about money. But women like Florence, who had to scrimp and save just to scrape by, well, life’s different for them.”

“Yes, Mrs. Lloyd.”

“Oh, Penny, speaking of scraping by reminds me. I just heard today that someone who used to live here has apparently moved back to Llanelen. I don’t know where she’s been all these years, but apparently she’s been spotted wandering through some fields outside town looking for ferns or bracken or whatever.”

Mrs. Lloyd paused for a moment as Eirlys placed her hands in the warm, fragrant water of a soaking bowl.

“So that got me thinking. This woman, Dilys Hughes her name is, used to make all kinds of lotions and soaps and what have you. Have you thought about creating a line of beauty products for your salon? Oh, what’s that called? Private label? Yes, you could have your own line of all-natural beauty products, sourced from fresh, local ingredients, with Llanelen Spa right on the bottle.

“You’d need a fancy label, but that shouldn’t be too difficult for you. You could sketch a picture of the spa and include that in the design. Maybe Dilys could even make something up for you. She had a soap made from rose petals that was quite nice, as I recall. Lathered up a treat, it did. You could see the bits of crushed pink and red petals right in it. And not only that, the rose petals came right from the gardens at Ty Brith Hall.”

Eirlys glanced at Penny, unsure what her reaction would be.

“Well, it was very thoughtful of you to think of us, Mrs. Lloyd, but beauty products and cosmetics have a lot of restrictions on them. You can’t just sell products someone whipped up at home. They have to meet a lot of standards to guarantee they’re safe.”

“Yes, I hadn’t thought of that,” said Mrs. Lloyd “That’ll be all those damned EU regulations. We got along just fine when we ran this country for ourselves without those Brussels boffins telling us how to do everything. We did manage to win the war, after all, with precious little help from them. Still, I do see you’d have to be careful. You wouldn’t want to sell a skin care product and have the ladies break out in hives and red rashes or end up covered in welts.”

Eirlys made a little grimace, accompanied by a soft
eew
and Penny laughed.

“No, it wouldn’t look good on us.”

“Wouldn’t look good on them, either,” muttered Eirlys.

“She also used to mix up love potions, as I recall,” said Mrs. Lloyd. “You know the sort of thing. Two drops of this, a bit of chopped-up that, shake well, slip into his drink, and he’s guaranteed to fall in love with you.”

Penny and Eirlys laughed.

Mrs. Lloyd hesitated for a moment and then joined in. “Well, she always was a little bit away with the fairies. Some folks thought she was as daft as brush. Daft Dilys some folk used to call her.” Mrs. Lloyd hesitated for a moment. “Me, I always thought there was something rather sly and secretive about her.”

“I’m surprised I haven’t heard about this Dilys or even run into her,” said Penny as Eirlys applied a top coat to Mrs. Lloyd’s nails. “Where does she live?”

“Do you know, I’m not really sure,” said Mrs. Lloyd. “But she’s quite likely staying with her brother. He used to be one of the gardeners up at Ty Brith Hall back when it was a going concern. Emyr’s mother used to say what he didn’t know about gardening wasn’t worth knowing. And then when he got sick last spring, Alzheimer’s maybe, or something like that, Rhys Gruffydd let him stay on in his little cottage up there, even though he couldn’t work anymore.”

Mrs. Lloyd took a sip of the tea Penny had asked Rhian to bring her.

“As for running into her, if Dilys doesn’t want you to see her, you won’t. She keeps to the back ways and stays well out of sight. She was always like that, as I recall. Creeping about in the woods and sometimes by moonlight, too.”

Mrs. Lloyd looked at her watch.

“Anyway, if you’re all that interested in these two, why don’t you have a word with your Gwennie? She worked up at the Hall practically her whole life and her mother before her. She’ll know as much about that pair as anyone would.”

Thirteen

A few minutes later, her manicure finished, Mrs. Lloyd prepared to leave. “I wasn’t sure if I should mention this or not, Penny, as I’m sure it’s a bit of a sore spot with you, but I noticed the new nail bar and tanning salon has opened. I do hope it won’t impact your business too much, really I do.”

She smiled at Penny. “I hope you know you’ll always have my support. I won’t be setting foot in that place. I hear some of those nail bars run by foreigners don’t clean their tools very well and you can pick up all kinds of nasty infections.”

She gave a little shudder. “No, don’t bother. I’ll see myself out. I know the way.”

Penny and Eirlys exchanged glances and Eirlys nodded.

“I’ll be sure to sterilize them properly, Penny. I always do.”

She gathered up the tools, set them on a tray and then, using a disinfectant cloth, she wiped down her work surface and laid a clean white towel over it.

“You know, Penny, what Mrs. Lloyd just said got me thinking. If you weren’t a nice person and you wanted to hurt your rival’s business, you could—”

Penny held up a hand to stop her. “Eirlys, I’m surprised at you, to even think such a thing.” I’m surprised at myself, too, then, thought Penny. For thinking the same thing.

“But, Eirlys, that gives me an idea. Let’s check the schedule, and if you haven’t got another customer booked just now, I’d like you to do something for me.”

Twenty minutes later, Eirlys pushed open the door to the Handz and Tanz salon.

Unlike the Llanelen Spa, which was decorated in calm, soothing pastels, giving it a sophisticated air of clean tranquility, Handz and Tanz was a riot of hot neon pinks and lime greens that glowed garishly bright under fluorescent lighting. Loud rock music played in the reception area, where an unsmiling Asian receptionist looked up as Eirlys entered.

“I’d like to book a manicure, please,” Eirlys said, raising her voice to be heard over the music.

“When you like to come in?” the receptionist asked.

“How about tomorrow?”

“What time?”

“Two o’clock.”

Eirlys looked around the salon while the receptionist made a show of thumbing through an appointment book with very few entries in it. Two young Asian girls dressed in bright pink smocks smiled shyly at her.

“What your name?”

“Eirlys.”

“How you spell?”

As Eirlys spelled her name, the receptionist printed it slowly in her appointment book. She then handed Eirlys a card with the date and time written on it.

“You want tanning?” the receptionist asked. “We have opening special.”

“No, no thanks. No tanning.”

“You want pedicure? Opening special.”

As Eirlys was about to reply, raised voices coming from a back room caught their attention. All eyes turned toward the door as a woman, swiping at her eyes with her hand, emerged and, without looking at them, pushed her way out the front door. A small Asian man glared at the women in the pink smocks and then said something to them in a language Eirlys did not understand. They lowered their eyes immediately, and with one last hard stare he disappeared into the back room. No one spoke in the brief embarrassed silence he left in his wake, and then Eirlys asked the receptionist, “Could I have a price list, please?”

The woman handed her a photocopied list of services. After thanking her, Eirlys added, “I was wondering, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but are you Chinese?”

The receptionist shook her head but didn’t look up. “Vietnamese.”

The two young women in the pink smocks nodded and smiled and began talking excitedly to each other.

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