The Cold Light of Mourning (11 page)

Twelve

E
veryone who attended the funeral was glad to get to the Red Dragon for a cup of tea and a sandwich, although for those who had been there just two days earlier after the wedding that never was, it was all uncomfortably déjà vu.

Penny, who hadn’t been at the wedding, had no such feelings and was anxious to talk to Bronwyn Evans about the music.

“Bronwyn, was it you who arranged for the harpist?” she asked.

“Yes, Penny, I cannot tell a lie. It was. Did you like it?”

“Oh, it was magnificent—absolutely perfect! It made me cry when I thought how much Emma would have loved it. You know how much she loved music, and to think that you did that for her. She would have been so honoured,” said Penny. “Oh look at me! I’m getting all soppy at just the thought of it!”

Bronwyn laughed lightly, put her arm around Penny, and said, “I really should have consulted you, Penny, but I wasn’t sure that Victoria would be able to make it. Look, why don’t you come and tell her yourself how much you enjoyed her music.”

She steered Penny toward a woman in a lavender silk dress who was standing alone looking about her with uncertainty.

“Victoria, I’d like you to meet Penny Brannigan,” Bronwyn said, smiling at her. “Penny wanted to tell you herself how much she enjoyed your music. Penny, this is Victoria Hopkirk.” She smiled at both of them as if she had just found one solution to two problems. “I’d better see to the coffee, so I’ll just leave you two to get acquainted.”

The two women smiled shyly at each other. They were about the same age, but Victoria was slightly taller, with a somewhat serious, anxious look about her. Her blond hair was pulled back and held at the nape of her neck with a large black bow that matched black leather court shoes that looked expensive, and well cared for.

Penny held out her hand, which Victoria shook warmly.

“Yes,” said Penny. “I did enjoy the music, but more than that I want to tell you how much your playing would have meant to my friend, Emma. She loved beautiful music.”

“Thank you, Penny,” said Victoria. “I’m often asked to play at weddings, but not at funerals, and yet, if you think about it, a harp at a funeral would seem to be a natural thing.” She started to smile, and then hesitated.

“I’m curious to know how you came to be here,” said Penny. “I mean, how did Bronwyn ever find you?”

Victoria’s large brown eyes clouded for a moment.

“It’s a long story, but I’m staying for a bit with my cousin, who happens to be an old friend of Bronwyn’s,” said Victoria. “I’ve been coming to this area all my life, and I know it pretty well, so when I needed a change of scenery, I came here.”

The two women chatted for a few more moments and then decided to get a cup of coffee from the refreshments table. Penny looked around the room and suggested that they sit on the chairs that had been arranged along one wall, underneath the windows overlooking the square.

“Bronwyn told me that you and Emma Teasdale were very close friends,” said Victoria when they were seated, their knees turned toward each other. “She was very dear to you, and I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Penny smiled at her and then looked down at her coffee cup.

“Thank you,” she said simply and after a few moments added, “she was a wonderful woman, Emma was. Very accomplished and generous. I do miss her. Something strange has been happening here that I really wish I could discuss with Emma. Have you heard about the missing bride? Apparently she was last seen in my manicure shop. There’s just something about—”

She broke off and looked up as Alwynne Gwilt from the Stretch and Sketch group approached.

“Penny, sorry to interrupt, but I have to get back to the museum and wondered if I could have just a quick word with you. I’ve got some photos I’d like you to look at, if you don’t mind. Took them up on the high pastures, and just not sure which point of view to use for my painting. I like the one with the sheep, but the other one, the one with the dog taken from higher up, is rather good, too. Would it be breaking the rules, do you think, if I blended the two views, as it were? Do you think the two focal points would work?”

She peered anxiously at Penny.

“I’d be so grateful if you would just take a look at them and let me know what you think. No hurry.” She handed the packet of photos over to Penny, who tucked them in her bag and then introduced Alywnne to Victoria.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” said Alwynne. “Must go. Have to get back to the office. We’re working a new exhibit for fall. Photos taken during World War Two. So sorry about Emma, Penny, but it was a lovely service.”

Penny and Victoria watched her leave and then sat together in companionable silence as the room began to empty.

“Have you ever noticed that when one person leaves, it seems to give everyone else permission to go, too?” Penny asked. “Funny, that.

“Anyway, if you’re going to be around a bit,” she said, handing over a business card, “why don’t you give me a call and perhaps we can meet up for a coffee or lunch.”

“I’d love to,” Victoria said. “Actually, I might come around for a manicure. Haven’t had one in ages.”

After saying good-bye to acquaintances, accepting a few condolences, and thanking Bronwyn again, Penny made her way out of the hotel and headed for home.

On the way she stopped into the Spar to pick up a few things for dinner, along with the local newspaper.

A few minutes later she let herself into the shop, checked her telephone for messages, jotted down a couple of telephone numbers, and then made her way upstairs.

She put the food in the fridge and poured herself a glass of water, went to her desk, telephoned the clients who had left messages, and took their bookings.

She then turned to the paper, whose front-page story, written by Morwyn Lloyd, was all about Llanelen’s missing bride. After glancing at the engagement photo of Meg Wynne Thompson, Penny began reading the article, wondering if she had been mentioned.

POLICE SEEK MISSING BRIDE shouted the headline.

Police are seeking the public’s assistance in locating Meg Wynne Thompson, who mysteriously disappeared on the morning of her wedding to Emyr Gruffydd, only son of local landowner Rhys Gruffydd.

“We have absolutely no idea where she is or what could have happened to her,” said Gruffydd’s friend and best man, David Williams. “We are asking anyone who has seen her to please come forward.”

Ms. Thompson was last seen on Saturday morning having a manicure at the Happy Hands salon, Station Road, owned by Penny Brannigan.

“It was straightforward, really,” said Ms. Brannigan. “I did her nails, and she left the shop about ten A.M. I assumed she would be going back to the hotel to complete her preparations for the wedding.”

Thinking that Morwyn had done a good job quoting her accurately, Penny’s eyes drifted back to the photo. She looked at it closely, looked away, and then, pressing her fingers over her mouth, scrutinized it. She took off her reading glasses and held the paper closer to her face. Finally satisfied, she folded up the paper and set it on the table.

She sat back, folded her arms, and thought for a few moments, and then got up and grabbed her handbag off the counter. She scrabbled about inside until she found what she was looking for, and then picking up the telephone, carefully dialled the number on the card she now held in her hand.

Then, she took one last glance at the newspaper.

“Oh, hello, it’s Penny Brannigan here. I did the manicure on Saturday morning for Meg Wynne Thompson, the missing bride.”

“Yes, Miss Brannigan. How can we help you?”

“Well, it’s just that the officer, the chief inspector, Mr. Davies, gave me his card and asked me to call him if I thought of anything else.”

“And have you?” asked Morgan. “Thought of anything else?”

“Well, no, not really, that’s not it exactly,” said Penny. “But I’d like to know if that woman whose photo is in the paper today, Meg Wynne Thompson, is that really her photo?”

“Yes,” said Morgan, “that’s the photo we were provided with. That’s her. Why do you ask?”

“Well, it’s just that I’m pretty sure that the woman in that photo is not the woman who came to me on Saturday morning for a manicure. If that’s the real Meg Wynne Thompson, then the woman I saw was not.”

Thirteen

M
organ was silent for a moment while she considered what she had just heard.

“Now Miss Brannigan, please, let me make sure I understand this correctly. You’re saying that you don’t think the woman who came to you on Saturday morning was Meg Wynne Thompson?”

“That’s right,” said Penny. “They look a lot alike, same kind of haircut, same build, maybe, but there’s something different about the face, around the mouth. And there’s another reason why I don’t think it was the same woman.”

Morgan listened without speaking and then moved to end the call.

“Right. Well, thank you for this, we’ll be in touch. Are you at home now if we need to see you tonight?”

“Yes, I’ll be here for the rest of the evening. But I’ve had a difficult day, and if it could wait …”

Morgan rang off, knocked on Davies’s door, and burst in at his shouted, “Come in!”

With his jacket off and shirtsleeves rolled up Davies looked every inch the busy detective. His office was painted a pale, institutional green, with a window covered in dusty blinds that overlooked the car park. On top of two file cabinets behind his desk stood several limp houseplants that he was nursing back to health. There were no family photos on his desk but a couple of plaques on the wall spoke to his community involvement and dedication to duty.

He peered at Morgan over his glasses.

“Yes, Bethan, what is it?”

“I’ve had that manicure woman on the phone, Penny Brannigan. She has some interesting information for us. She kept your card, apparently.”

“I’m astonished,” said Davies.

“That she has information?”

“No, that she kept my card and actually rang us. How many cards do you think I give out in a year? Five hundred? And the minute I’m out the door, they’re in the bin. Nobody ever keeps them and nobody ever calls back. I wonder why I bother.

“But never mind. What did she want?”

“Well, sir, if she’s right, the case has just gone in a different direction. According to Brannigan, we’ve got a ringer here. She says the woman who came to her for a manicure on Saturday morning couldn’t have been Meg Wynne Thompson. Or at least the woman she saw is not the same woman whose picture was in the
Post
today.”

Davies held his pen at both ends and looked levelly at his sergeant.

“Could she be wrong? After all, that was a formal kind of photograph. She would have been wearing fancy makeup … maybe had her hair done differently.”

Morgan nodded. “Right, but she said there was something else, and it really rang true for me. She said in the photo Meg Wynne’s hands are resting in her lap. She said she could be wrong about the face but she does know hands, and those aren’t the nails she worked on that morning. And she spent almost an hour looking at them. Everybody’s hands are different, she said, and so are their nails.”

Davies gazed thoughtfully at her, and then rose slowly from his seat.

“Is she in? We’d better get around there and interview her again.

If she’s right, there are all kinds of implications. Everything we’ve done so far has been misplaced because we’ve got a whole new timeline here. Meg Wynne could have gone missing at least an hour earlier than we thought she did. And then who the hell is the woman in the surveillance video? What’s her connection with all this? See if you can get them to enlarge and enhance an image from the video so we’ve got something to show her. That Penny woman.”

The two set off for Llanelen where Penny, tired and emotionally drained from the funeral, was reluctantly ready to talk to them.

“I’ve been down to the shop and picked up the client card I wrote that morning. It’s really all I have. Of course, I thought I was writing it for Meg Wynne, but whoever she was, that other woman, here’s the card.”

Penny gave them the small card with the details of the service she had provided to the woman she had thought was Meg Wynne Thompson on Saturday morning.

Davies turned it over slowly, and then looked at Penny.

“I’m sorry, Miss Brannigan, but we’re going to have to ask you to go over everything that happened once again. But before we do that, would you please take a look at this photo and see if you think this is the woman who came to your shop on Saturday morning? Take your time.”

He handed Penny a photo lifted from the grainy surveillance video. She looked at it carefully, and then nodded.

“It’s a bit difficult to tell about the face, but the clothes are exactly right. I would say that’s her.”

Half an hour later, after having heard Penny tell her story again, the two police officers left.

“She was remarkably true to the first version, her story didn’t change at all. Not in any detail,” remarked Morgan as they made their way to their car.

“I wish all our witnesses were so good,” agreed Davies.

“But it looks as if we’ve got something much worse on our hands now than a simple disappearance. I think she’s right, that there was another woman. And that means, well, I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I?”

Finally alone, Penny sat down on her sofa, put her feet up, leaned back, and closed her eyes. Her body was tired, but her mind was not.

She needed to reflect on the events of the day, starting with the funeral and the beautiful music in the church. She smiled as she recalled it. There was no doubt Victoria was very talented and Penny wondered if she had made a CD. What would that be like, Penny wondered, listening to a CD of harp music in the evening, say. Would it be peaceful and comforting or just terribly depressing?

As her thoughts turned to Victoria, she was glad they had met and looked forward to getting to know her better. Maybe she would stay in the area for a bit longer.

With that, Penny felt tears welling up. Her friendship with Emma, as unlikely as it might have seemed to others, had been dear to her. She found it hard to accept that the clever, dedicated teacher whom she had known as a caring friend was gone. And while she was giving herself over to long-forgotten emotions that felt strange and uncomfortable, she finally recognized them for what they were. She was grieving.

The funeral, though, had been lovely and exactly as Emma would have wished it.

But as she thought about it, Penny realized again that something about it hadn’t been quite right. Something she couldn’t put her finger on had been out of place. Shaking her head, she told herself to leave it alone, and whatever it was, it would come to her when she least expected it. Or maybe it wasn’t anything important, just one of those niggling details that don’t seem right at the time, and are forgotten the next day in the business of everyday life.

For Morgan and Davies, the disappearance of Meg Wynne would take up a great deal of their time over the next few days as they checked bank account and credit card activity, and re-interviewed everyone who had been connected with the wedding. Their search took them to London where they searched her flat, talked to her colleagues at the design firm, and interviewed her neighbours.

They came up empty.

“I think we’ve reached that point in the investigation,” observed Morgan, “when we need a really good break. I hope something turns up soon.”

Meg Wynne, it seemed, had simply vanished.