The Cold Light of Mourning (6 page)

Seven

E
myr drove slowly through the town before reaching the turnoff that would take him to Ty Brith. He knew that his next task on this terrible, confusing day would be to tell his father that Meg Wynne was missing, and he was absolutely dreading it.

In the final stages of pancreatic cancer, Rhys was so frail, and going downhill so rapidly, that Emyr was afraid of the effect this news would have on his much-loved father. He wondered if he should ask the doctor to be present when he told him, and then decided there wasn’t time.

As he drove up the final stretch to the Hall, he pictured the candlelit scene from the night before. How happy Dad had been, he thought. Everything reminded him so much of the good old days—the women in their evening dresses, the men in black tie, the delicious food so beautifully presented, the way the dining room had been done up. It had been months since Emyr had seen Rhys looking so animated and engaged. The dinner party had done his father so much good and now, just one day later, everything seemed poised to crash and burn.

He parked his car at the back of the Hall and pushed open the door to the back passageway. The familiar slate tiles, the anoraks hanging on hooks with muddy boots lined up beneath them and a jumble of umbrellas jammed into a hideous dog-shaped stand all seemed so familiar and ordinary.

He walked into the kitchen to find Gwennie seated at the table dressed in her day uniform of grey dress with white collar and cuffs, eating a ham and tomato sandwich. His sleepy black Lab rose from her bed by the Aga, stretched, and ambled over to greet him.

“Hey, Trixxi,” he said as he reached under her sporty red and white bandana to ruffle the fur on her neck. “Who’s my good girl, then? No, we’re not going walking. Finish your nap and then someone will take you out.”

Obediently she returned to her bed, turned around in it a couple of times, and with a small sigh, flopped down, and closed her eyes.

“Where is everybody, Gwennie?” he asked.

She looked up at him.

“The boys are in the dining room just starting their lunch and Louise is seeing to your father, Mr. Emyr,” she said. “He’s up in his room, getting ready, I believe. By the way, Trixxi has already been out. Had a good ramble, by the looks of her. I had to pull one or two burrs off her.”

“Right, Gwennie, thanks.”

He opened the kitchen door and entered the long downstairs corridor that would take him to the front hall. When he reached the stairs, he put his hand on the well-worn, well-polished carved banister and swung around it as he had done countless times since he was a child. Slowly he walked up the stairs until he reached the first floor, then headed down the hall toward his father’s room, located at the end of the corridor.

He knocked and then entered.

The room was not only spacious, with the high ceilings of a more gracious era, but it was a corner room, with magnificent floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sweep of the driveway at the front of the house on one side, and a matching set of windows giving a spectacular view of the valley on the adjoining side. The room had recently been redecorated and was masculine, functional, and restful in soft beige tones with dark brown accent pieces.

Rhys was seated in the wing chair beside his bed, wearing a comfortable dressing gown and slippers.

“Hello, Emyr,” he smiled. “I’ve had my bath, and I’ll be getting dressed soon. How are you holding up, then? All right?”

Emyr looked at his father’s nurse, who was busy sorting out cuff links.

“Louise, I wonder if you’d be kind enough to leave us for a few moments,” he said.

The woman nodded, set the cuff links on the dresser, and quietly left the room, closing the door behind her.

Emyr sat down on the edge of the bed, took his father’s hand in his, and looked at him.

“Dad, I don’t really know how to tell you this, and well, to be honest, I’m not even sure what to tell you, but something has gone wrong, and unfortunately, we don’t even really know what’s happened. But Meg Wynne seems to have gone missing, without saying a word to anyone. She didn’t say anything to me. I haven’t spoken to her since last night. She didn’t call the wedding off, she’s just not here. We can’t find her and we don’t know where she is or what’s going on.”

The old man sighed.

“I’m so sorry, Emyr. This must be unbearable for you. She left no note, no word, nothing?”

Emyr shook his head.

“Not with me, not with Anne or Jennifer. Nothing. She went out this morning, and now she’s, well, vanished. She’s just not here anymore. Nobody has seen her, nobody knows anything.”

Rhys seemed to shrink inside himself, as if the news had diminished him.

“So what are you going to do?” he asked.

“Well, it’s too late to call the wedding off, because people are driving in from all over the place, and we can’t get in touch with them. They’ll most likely go directly to the church, so what we’re doing is just carrying on.”

“I think that’s all you can do,” Rhys agreed. “By the way, have you told the rector? He needs to know.”

“Oh, God, I didn’t think of that,” Emyr said. “I’ll get David to do that. He can sort out some of the details. We’d better call her parents again, too, unless Anne or Jennifer already did that.”

Rhys sat quietly for a moment, and then looked at his son.

“Have you called the hospitals? What about the police?”

Emyr shook his head.

“Dear boy, I think I’d like to lie down now. I’m not going to get dressed and go to the church. I’ll stay here and you can let me know what happens. But, Emyr, I think you should call the police sooner rather than later.”

He sighed and reached up to touch his son.

“This has really knocked the stuffing out of me and although I would have made the effort for her, not now. Not for this. Ask Louise to come back in now. I’m very tired and I need to lie down. You get on and do what you have to do. Forgive me.”

Emyr patted his father’s shoulder and nodded. He left the room to find his father’s nurse, and then went in search of his reliable, trustworthy old friend.

It was rumoured that David had made a lot of money in the booming London real estate market and although he had apparently held down no real job for years, he lived very well in an understated mews house in Devonshire Place, from which he was unself-consciously building a reputation as a dedicated man about town. Celebrity-studded charity events and dinner parties or nightclubbing into the wee hours with the drunken daughters of a viscount seemed to take up more and more of his time. Impossible-to-get front row seats for opening nights and backstage passes at sold-out rock concerts were no problem for him. But amongst the people in his set, dark whispers were starting to circulate of long nights spent at exclusive gaming tables with careless wagering costing him astronomical sums.

David was in his bedroom, talking on his mobile as he mixed a whisky and soda from the drinks tray.

“How many?” he was saying. “We need three times that many. Tell them to get their fingers out and get it done.” He pressed the button to end the call, set the mobile down on the windowsill, and looked up as Emyr entered.

“You all right, old son? You don’t look so good. Getting nervous? Here have a drink with me, and then we’ll get changed. Get you to the church on time and all that, eh?” He sipped his drink.

Unable to meet his gaze, Emyr looked around the room and then out the window at sheep grazing in the lower field.

“David, it’s bad news, and it’s getting worse, I’m afraid.”

He told his friend that Meg Wynne was missing, and then asked him to help sort out the logistics of informing the people who needed to be told.

“You can get the numbers from the directory in the estate office downstairs. You’ll have to call the rector—he might already be at the church—or leave a message with his wife. And call Meg Wynne’s parents at the hotel and then check in with Anne and Jennifer. Tell them my mobile’s switched on. I think they’re in Anne’s room now, maybe Jennifer’s, I can’t remember. Reception should know. Or try both. Do whatever you have to do. Oh, and for what it’s worth, I tried calling Meg Wynne in London but there’s no answer and her mobile isn’t switched on.

“I’m going to ring the hospitals, and you’ll just have to try to stay on top of everything else, David. I’m sorry to dump all this on you, but I can’t think what else to do. And I can’t handle all the details. And speaking of details, you might have to cancel the photographer and the disc jockey—all that. The girls will know what to do, and they’ll help you. Ring them.”

David gave his friend a sympathetic look and put his hand on his arm.

“I’m really sorry it’s come to this, Emyr. But maybe she just decided at the last minute marrying you wasn’t right for her. Maybe this is for the best.”

“For the best! What the hell are you saying? How could not turning up for her own wedding possibly be ‘for the best’? Best for who?” He shot a look of pure anger at his best man and then exhaled softly. “Look, I don’t think anything would have prevented her from marrying me. As awful as it is, I’m starting to think that the only reason she’s not here is because she can’t be. I think something’s happened to her.”

He ran his fingers through his hair and turned to look out the window.

“If she’d just been delayed, held up somewhere, see, she would have called by now. This is serious.”

He gestured to David’s phone.

“Now, please, make the calls, there’s a good lad.”

Emyr turned to go as David reached for his mobile.

In her flat above the shop, Penny reached for her jacket. She’d planned to spend the afternoon painting, an escape she normally looked forward to, but this afternoon she felt unsettled and out of sorts. At first, she thought her sense of unease and anxiety had to do with Emma’s passing but as she picked up her field painting case, her thoughts returned to that odd incident in the shop just before closing when the bridesmaid had rushed in, panting slightly, asking after Meg Wynne Thompson.

There’s something not right there, she thought. Still, it’s probably all been sorted by now.

She shrugged off the feeling as she let herself out of the flat, locking the door as she balanced her portable easel, folding stool, and painting case filled with brushes, papers, and paints.

To supplement her income, she sold watercolour landscapes in the small art gallery above the village tea shop. Views of Llanelen, nearby Gwyther Castle, Bodnant Gardens, and neighbouring towns were always popular with tourists and, in the summer, she had trouble keeping up with the demand.

She had lived on her own for a long time. There had been boyfriends along the way, a serious involvement even, but no permanent man in her life. She sometimes felt a deep sadness about that, thinking about all she had missed and how much easier her life might have been if she had not had to rely so much on herself. But she had had a difficult, complicated childhood in Nova Scotia, in and out of foster homes, and found affection hard to give and harder to receive, although she certainly tried to be kind and considerate in a genuine, sincere way. Several of her boyfriends had wondered vaguely why she always seemed to sell herself short, and why she had apparently settled for so little. But her life was what she had made it, and by not asking for or expecting very much from anyone, she hadn’t been given very much. Still, at some point she had recognized that when she was on her own, she was in pretty decent company.

Everything she had, she had earned herself. With no encouragement or support from anyone, she had determined early on that what she needed above all else was an education and she had put herself through Mount Allison University, earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. The summer after she graduated she worked endless hours in a downtown bar, earned enough money for a plane ticket to Paris, and set off to see the magnificent collections in the great art houses and museums of Europe. It was a life-changing experience and she knew by the end of that summer that she would not be returning to Canada.

She felt she belonged in Britain, telling herself that she would recognize her home when she found it, and it had almost happened that way. The reality was that Llanelen had seduced her. The true beauty of the valley, Penny had come to realize over the years, lay in its ever-changing timelessness. It had been what it was for centuries, and yet, somehow, depending on the season, the weather and even the time of day, it was constantly renewing itself. She had never tired of it or taken it for granted.

But if the magnificent, constantly changing views had attracted and held her, it was the welcoming warmth of the Welsh people she had come to love.

She had been sketching and painting in the area for so long that a few years ago, when her greatest challenge became finding fresh ways to look at familiar scenes, she had started the Stretch and Sketch club and invited other local artists, with varying degrees of expertise and enthusiasm, to join. The members rambled and painted together and turned to one another for support and suggestions.

“Have you been up to Ffridd Uchaf,” one artist would ask another. “The leaves are phenomenal in the pasture at the moment. You should try to get up there before the rain brings them down.”

The group invited a guest speaker to join them every other month or so at a breakfast meeting held in the small meeting room of the Red Dragon Hotel. A favourite speaker had been a botanist from nearby Bodnant Gardens who described in great detail the secret lives of plants. Another time, a representative from an artists’ supply company who recognized a target-rich audience when he saw one, had cheerfully driven a few miles out of his way to demonstrate the benefits of his company’s new and improved lines of papers and paints.

As she trudged along, the day’s crowded thoughts gradually fell away, leaving her mind free to focus on the painting to come and as she entered the woods, with its sun-dappled canopy of leaves, she felt energized and refreshed by the soft squelching of leaves underfoot and the summery sound of birdsong. Before long, she reached a clearing with a view of the river and in the distance, a neighbouring village. She paused for a moment to take in the boundless blue of the sky, embellished with a smattering of fluffy clouds. She unpacked her gear, set up her stool, unfolded her easel, and put up a piece of rough watercolour paper. The afternoon sun slanted down the valley and as the subtleties of light and shadow changed from minute to minute, she gazed at the scenery through her homemade viewfinder. After choosing a small group of grazing sheep as her focal point, she began a quick sketch of the sheep and the trees and hills that surrounded them.