Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By: A Penny Brannigan Mystery (13 page)

“So did you contact him?” Penny asked. “Why isn’t he our accountant, then?”

“I did contact him, but he wasn’t available. His office said he handles a lot of work for British ex-pats in Spain and travels there often. So he wasn’t available just when we needed him, so we went with someone else.”

“I see.”

“Most of his clients are corporate, I believe, but from what Mrs. Lloyd said, as a favour to her he continues to look after her personal finances. Because of the relationship with her husband and his father, I guess.”

“And apparently he also looks after the accounting for the diocese,” said Penny. “You don’t think of churches as being the kind of organizations that would need insurance and legal and accounting services, but I guess they are.”

“Well, they do have assets and money, payrolls and outgoing expenses, like every other organization.”

“Hmm. Something to think about. Anyway, thanks for giving me breakfast. Best get on.” Penny rubbed her hands together. “Oh, that reminds me. My poor, rough, dry, chapped hands. I could use some of Dilys’s magic hand cream. I meant to ask, how are you getting on with the hand cream licensing?”

“Well, that didn’t go so well, either.” Victoria glanced at Penny. “The papers were all ready to sign, but Dilys didn’t turn up. We’re hoping she’s just gone walkabout and will turn up in a day or two. I didn’t want to bother you with that while you were at the Library. You had enough on your plate, I thought.”

Penny frowned. “What do you mean Dilys didn’t turn up? Did you go up to her cottage to see if she’s okay? She’s getting on. She might have fallen.”

“Take it easy. I asked Emyr to check up on her. He went down to her cottage, had a look round, and said everything seemed in order but there was no sign of her. He had no idea if anything was missing. So we’re just going to wait and see and hope she turns up.”

“Wait and see! Hope she turns up!” Penny reached for her phone.

“Who are you ringing?”

“Gareth.”

“You can’t ring him over this.”

“Just watch me.”

A moment later Penny pressed the button on her mobile to end the call and put the phone back in her bag.

“He’s going to send someone to look into it.” She frowned at her friend. “I must say I’m a little surprised that you didn’t do more.” She settled back in her chair. “Oh, I know what it is. You just don’t like Dilys very much, do you?”

Victoria shook her head. “No, I don’t. There’s something about her I don’t trust.”

After living away for many years, Dilys Hughes, now in her seventies, had returned to Llanelen a few months ago when her brother had become ill. Although the brother had died, Emyr Gruffydd, the local landowner, had allowed Dilys to stay on in her brother’s tied cottage while plans were completed and planning permission obtained to convert the cottages on his property into holiday lets.

Dilys’s hands were remarkably youthful and although she always wore gloves to protect them from the sun, she had also been caring for them for decades with a special botanical cream she made herself. She would not sell the formula to Penny and Victoria for their new spa line, but had agreed, after much coaxing and negotiating, and the women suspected, after taking sound legal advice, to license the rights to the product to the Llanelen Spa for production as a private-label product.

“What concerns me,” said Penny, “is that she stood to make a lot of money from this deal we offered her. So why would she not sign the papers? Emyr’s not going to let her stay in the cottage for much longer and she’s going to need a place to live. The money from this hand-cream deal could provide her with a nice little income.”

“I wondered about that,” said Victoria. “I thought perhaps she found the legalities too complicated and overwhelming and decided to just ignore it. People deal with things in different ways. And you know what she’s like. She comes and goes. She’s probably off somewhere and when she’s good and ready, she’ll come back.”

“Well, we’ll see if the police turn up anything.” Penny checked her watch. “I keep thinking about Minty Russell. The look on her face. There was something else in there with the fear, too. Disbelief? Surprise?” She shook her head. “I can’t put my finger on it, but it was almost as if … as if…”

“As if what?”

“I don’t know. Almost as if she was surprised, but not completely, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t really.”

“And then, oh, I didn’t really explain the part about the notebook properly. She had a shorthand notebook that Gareth thought might contain something important, so he asked Florence to come to the Library and translate it.”

“Did she find anything interesting or useful?”

“No, that’s the thing. It’s what wasn’t there that’s interesting.” Victoria raised a well-shaped eyebrow. “And what was that?”

“We don’t know, do we, because it wasn’t there. But some pages had been torn out of the notebook and Gareth would very much like to know what’s on them.”

“I guess he looked in all the usual places. Her handbag, room, flat, office, desk, and so on?”

“Yes, they’ve all been searched and so far nothing.”

“Well, if she hid them at the Library, it might be easy enough to find them.”

“What do you mean?”

Victoria responded with another question. “Well, think about it. Where’s the best place to hide something?”

Penny tilted her head.

“Group like with like, of course,” said Victoria with a hint of triumph in her voice. “Let’s say for example, I had a bottle of rare and precious nail varnish, if there is such a thing. Where would I hide it?” Penny thought for a moment.

“On our shelves with all our nail varnish?”

“Exactly. No one would take any notice.”

“So you’re saying that if Minty wanted to hide the pages from her notebook, she’d probably hide them…”

“If the police have searched everywhere else for them, then one of two things must have happened. Either she threw them out or she hid them in the Library. And if she hid them in the Library, she probably hid them…”

“Between the pages of a book,” said Penny. “Great. Now we’ve narrowed it down to, oh, 250,000 or so volumes.”

Victoria shook her head. “No, it’s much smaller than that. Think about it. Let’s assume she wrote the notes in shorthand, then she could have hidden the pages in a shorthand book. But if she didn’t, then you’ve got to find out if she borrowed any books from the Library while she was there.” She raised her hands and then opened them in an expansive gesture.

“Hmm. Well, you’ve certainly given me something to think about.” She stood up. “I’d best get on. Lots of e-mails to get through.” As she stepped into the corridor, Rhian, the receptionist, handed her a slip of pink paper. “It’s a phone message, Penny,” she said, pointing at it. “She’d like you to call her.” Penny glanced at the message:
CALL BRONWYN ASAP
.

Half an hour later Penny waved good-bye to Rhian and pushed open the door of the Spa. A warm breeze gently rippled the surface of the River Conwy, and she paused for a moment to enjoy the way it sparkled in the spring sunshine. She crossed the town’s famous three-arched Inigo Jones bridge and arrived at the Ivy teashop. The doorway was low and she almost had to duck as she entered. When her eyes adjusted to the lower light, she spotted Bronwyn waiting for her at a corner table.

“I know you’re probably busy, Penny, after being away for a few days, so I’m very glad you were free to meet me for lunch.” Penny slipped off her jacket and sat down. Bronwyn smiled as the server placed menus on the table and then retreated.

“What is it, Bronwyn?” Penny asked. “You look worried. Is everything all right? It’s not Robbie, is it?”

Bronwyn laughed lightly and her face lit up the way it always did at the mention of Robbie’s name. “No, Robbie’s fine, but I was that happy to see him again after our time away, I can tell you.” She settled back into her seat. “Let’s order first and then I’ll explain.”

They studied the menus and then Penny looked at Bronwyn and raised an eyebrow. “Do you know what you’re having?” Bronwyn nodded as the server arrived to take their orders. After she had left, Bronwyn folded her hands on the table and leaned forward.

“I wanted to talk to you, Penny, because Thomas has had a very worrying e-mail from Graham Fletcher. You know, our old friend the warden at Gladstone’s Library,” Bronwyn began.

Penny nodded. “Yes, I know who he is.”

“Right, well, we didn’t get to spend as much time with him as we would have liked, because he was new in his job and working and then those two dreadful things happened. Minty Russell and Reverend Shipton. We understand that. But in the past couple of days Thomas has been getting the most worrying e-mails from Graham. They’re long and ranting. We can’t even always make sense of them. All about how he worked so hard to get the post and how angry he is that Shipton had to go and get himself killed in the Library and cause him, Graham that is, so much bother. And he thought the police had wound up the Minty investigation and things could get back to normal and now they’re back. And how the bishop has it in for him now and thinks he killed Minty Russell. We think poor Graham is going off the deep end and we’re terribly concerned about him. But what’s really bothering us is his saying the bishop thinks he killed Minty.”

She paused while the server placed a Welsh rarebit with a small side salad in front of each woman. They picked up their forks and attacked the delicious melted cheese with Welsh mustard oozing off a thick slice of bread from the local bakery.

“Mmm,” said Penny. “Heavenly. Sorry, Bronwyn, you were saying…”

“Yes, we’re worried about our friend Graham and what he said about the bishop thinking he killed Minty Russell. We don’t know why he would say that, and I wondered if, oh I know if Gareth did say anything to you it would have been in confidence, and I do hate to ask, but I wondered if Gareth had said anything to you that you felt you could share with me about suspects in the case? Is it true, do you know, that the police suspect Graham?”

Penny poked at a tomato slice. “Gareth hasn’t said anything to me. He’s always very discreet and professional about his cases and doesn’t tell me anything that isn’t generally known. It’s the way police officers are at his level. They just keep things to themselves and bottle it all up, even though doing that can cause problems at home.”

“The thing is, Thomas and I don’t know what to do for the best. We hadn’t seen Graham in years, but at one time we were all great friends so I suppose we feel some sense of loyalty to the friendship that used to be.” She hesitated, took a sip of water and then took the plunge.

“We wondered, Thomas and I, if you would consider going back to the Library to try to find out what’s going on. I know it’s a lot to ask, but if Graham is a suspect, we think you might be able to help him.” She opened her handbag. “Thomas printed out Graham’s e-mails so you can read them for yourself. He rambles on dreadfully, as I said, but there might be something in there amongst all the ranting.”

Penny protested: “But Bronwyn, the police will get to the bottom of this. They’ll find out what happened.”

“Yes, but we’re afraid it’ll take too long,” Bronwyn replied. “Graham seems very fragile and we thought if you could get a faster result, then his mind could be at rest. To be honest, we’re afraid that he might, well, do something to hurt himself.”

She gave Penny a pleading look that spoke volumes about her concern. “He couldn’t have done anything to Minty; he’s just not that kind of person. We’re sure of it.”

Twenty-three

“A single return to Chester, please.”

“The train’s on the platform now and leaving in four minutes. You can just make it if you get your skates on.” The railway agent handed over two orange tickets.

Penny hurried along the platform and climbed into the first carriage. Because Llandudno is the first or last station on the line, depending on which direction you’re travelling, the carriage was almost empty. Penny squeezed down the narrow aisle and chose a forward-facing window seat in a configuration of four—two seats facing forward, two facing backward, with a table between them. She set her overnight case on the seat beside her and as the train pulled out of the station, opened a notebook on the table, and drew a line down the centre. At the top of the page on the right she wrote
MINTY RUSSELL
and on left she wrote
SHIPTON
.

Her pen hovered over the page. She scratched her cheek with her other hand and drew lines down the page with the headings
MEANS
,
MOTIVE
, and
OPPORTUNITY
at the top. She made a few notations, but she finally put the pen down and looked out the window. The train was slowing down as it approached Llandudno Junction.

Well, that’s something, she thought. I know absolutely nothing about either of them, except that they both worked for the Church in Wales. What a daft exercise this is. What could I possibly discover at the Library that the police, with their expertise and resources, had not or could not? She hoped Davies was doing better with his investigation.

*

The front door to Gladstone’s Library beckoned as Penny walked up the same pathway Minty Russell had just a few days earlier. As she passed the ornate bronze statue of William Gladstone that stood in the front grounds, she paused to take a closer look. At its base were three figures representing classical learning, finance, eloquence, and one playing an Irish harp. The monument had been created by Irish sculptor John Hughes to be erected in Dublin, but when the city council refused to accept it, it had been donated to the Library in the 1920s. So for the last nine decades, a sober, dour Gladstone, clad in the flowing robes of a Roman senator which he had probably never worn in life but were so beloved of sculptors, had gazed steadily over the stone wall covered in greenery and the metal fence that separated the Library’s front lawn from Gladstone Way.

Penny entered the now familiar reception area of the Library and had a quick word with the receptionist. As she accepted her key, Warden Graham Fletcher approached her.