The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes (14 page)

“Would David ever go down the up stairs? Your mother seems quite keen on enforcing her rules, and he was apparently found at the bottom of the up stairs, which doesn't make much sense, unless he was planning to use them to descend.”

Rhian swallowed a smile. “Ah yes, Mam's system. A hangover from the old days, that is. To be honest, she's scolded us all about it so many times over the years it's sort of automatic to go down and up the correct stairs. I know I do, anyway, but then I've lived there all my life. David and Mam used to argue about it all the time when he first moved in, and I know he used to use the wrong stairs just to goad her. But I think even he got used to using the right ones in the end. Besides, he didn't usually mean to annoy Mam. Not anymore. They sort of called a truce when she realized I wasn't going to give him up just because she didn't think he was good enough for me. I won't say they ever got on, but they did at least stop nagging at each other. It gets very wearing when people do that, doesn't it? And there's no point to it—it doesn't make anyone any happier, after all. So—would he go down the up stairs? I can't say he wouldn't, but I don't think it's something he did habitually. Maybe if he was in such a rush that he didn't want to go to the other door he would, but that would mean he'd set off from the dining room side of the house to go down. Then it would all depend on where he wanted to end up, and there's not much downstairs.”

“What's down there, other than the two kitchens?”

“There's them, the boiler room, the laundry area, oh—and the cellar.”

“Wine cellar?” I asked, perking up at the thought.

Rhian smiled and shook her head. “No, the coal cellar, of course. All the fires in the house were coal once upon a time. Not now, of course. We only really have two fires any more—the ones in the drawing room and the dining room, logs now, and they're as much for show as anything. Oil-fueled central heating—those dreadful radiators, you know? The bane of David's life, they were. Having to go about fixing them at all hours he was, all over the place.”

“So he wouldn't need to go to the coal cellar?”

“No.” She sounded very certain.

“Why not?” I asked, thinking of the coal dust on David's jeans.

“Well there's nothing there except a few bits of old coal left over from when it was used around the house. I can't imagine anyone wanting to go in there at all. It would be filthy, to start with, and it's just a cellar—you know, a big old room with no windows. Probably an old dungeon in medieval times, I'd say.” She looked puzzled. “Anyway, why do you ask?”

I didn't have a chance to answer, because we'd finally reached the top of the road and the bridge itself. The sorry sight put a stop to our conversation, but I gave Rhian a reassuring wink. “I'll get on it, right away,” I said quietly.

“HERE THEY COME,” ANNOUNCED IDRIS.
He waved his dripping arm toward a dark, unmarked panel van that was making its way, slowly, along the road to the bridge, followed by a Range Rover bedecked in police colors. “I wonder what they'll have to say about all this.”

He sounded deflated as he continued. “Bud and I have had a good look at it, and there's no way a vehicle should cross this bridge. The footings are only just hanging on to the far bank. I think it might take the weight of people walking across it, but not vehicles. Even then it could just wash away at any moment. It would be very risky. I'm so sorry—for all of you. Obviously for very different reasons. Eirwen and I wouldn't have had this happen to any of you. Rhian—all this to deal with on top of David's death. And you—you two are supposed to be the Happy Couple. I can't imagine you're feeling the least little bit happy about any of it.”

He wiped rain from his face, which looked haggard. It seemed that the collapse of the bridge had hit him harder than the death of David Davies, which made me wonder about the relationship between the two men.

Digging into relationships would have to wait, however, because the vehicles had ground to a halt on their side of the raging river, thanks to Idris's frantic waving. I gave my attention to the structure of the bridge. As Siân had said, the raging river was washing over the bridge deck, through gaps in the stone wall that had been tall and secure when Bud and I had driven over it the previous afternoon. Many of the rocks, which had been dislodged by the torrent, were still lying on the roadway, unable to escape the confines of the bridge, because the wall farthest from the direction of flow was more intact than the one facing it, which had taken the brunt of the force of the swollen stream and collapsed almost completely. It was also easy to see that the footings of the bridge had been undermined on the far bank. It looked as though it was the bank itself that had given way, so the foundations had little to cling to and were crumbling.

Several moments of unproductive gesticulating and shouting followed. The rain beating on our hoods and hats, plus the roar of the river, made it impossible for voices to carry and be comprehensible. I had an idea.

“Have you got a cellphone with you, Idris?” I shouted.

“You mean my mobile?” he asked.

I smiled. “Yes, your ‘mobile,' sorry. Sometimes I forget the differences in terminology back here in Wales.”

Idris nodded.

Eventually, by way of making “call me” gestures and pointing like a madwoman, I managed to make myself understood by one of the policemen, who disappeared into his car for a moment, then popped out holding a makeshift sign bearing his phone number.

Idris punched the numbers into his own phone and briefly explained the events as he saw them. As it was Sunday, it would be unlikely that anyone would come to assess the reliability of the structure of the bridge until the next day, and it was finally agreed that Idris would liaise with the police about the bridge, the body, and the issue of accessibility. Neither the police nor the driver and his mate in the van from the coroner's office seemed keen to test the safety of the bridge. They seemed resigned to waiting a day to collect the corpse, having all been up all night working at the crash site on the M4.

With the matter settled, they began to reverse along the roadway until they disappeared behind the curtain of rain. As I stood there wondering how on earth it would be possible for Bud and me to be married the next day if the registrars couldn't reach us, my wonderful fiancé walked to my side and gave me a big wet hug. We squelched.

He must have known what I was thinking. “Come on, Cait, we'll sort something out,” he said softly, right next to my ear. “I'm not without a few good ideas of my own, you know. So don't panic yet, right?”

Idris and Rhian stomped off ahead of us, and I took the chance to talk with Bud. I thought it best to be direct. Bud's good at absorbing facts and information.

After I'd caught him up with the conversation between Rhian and myself, Bud cursed loudly. “I know we said we'd investigate a bit, to help out Siân, but this? Now we're committed to helping a grieving widow. Don't you think we've got our hands full enough with the wedding plans, Cait?”

“
What
wedding plans, Bud? I think we should call the register office in the morning and find out what our options are. I never looked into what's involved with getting a new license, because it didn't occur to me we'd need one. Bud, I do want to be married tomorrow, but not with the ghost of David Davies in the room. And that's that.”

Bud stood stock still, rain dripping off him in too many places to count. Finally he nodded. “Right. So we need a plan. I suggest that you concentrate on finding out all you can about David Davies and his death. Of course I want to be in on that—I'll do all I can to help you, but it's obvious that you've hit it off with Rhian, and, of course, Siân's your sister. I know very well that your natural desire will be to help them in their time of need, so why don't you take the lead on that?”

“Okay, you do the bridge and the registrars, I'll do death.”

“You know what?”

I shook my head, spraying Bud with droplets of water as I did so.

“Cait Morgan, you have an extraordinary mind. A wonderful ability for understanding why people do what they do, or don't do what they don't do, and for allowing your desire to see justice done to focus your talents. So let's do it.”

“‘The Choir That Didn't Sing,'” I said wistfully.

“Eh?”

“You know, like ‘The Dog That Didn't Bark,'” I replied.

“You mean someone might have killed David to stop the choral performance we'd planned for tomorrow? It seems a bit far-fetched, but I suppose it's one line of inquiry.” Bud didn't sound convinced.

“I didn't mean that.” I smiled. “What I mean is that we must treat this as a proper inquiry. Let's get back and have a sit-down with Rhian. It might be helpful if I could have a look at their apartment. Maybe she'd let me have a poke about. She seemed quite keen on our being involved.”

A gust of wind shoved me down the hill more quickly than I had planned, and I skidded on the roadway, where pea gravel was being washed into little heaps by the downpour.

“Careful, Cait,” called Bud, grabbing at my arm.

I was annoyed with my clumsiness, but decided to ignore it. “What about Siân? What on earth am I going to do about Siân, Bud? I'm at a loss. She seemed so upset last night, but it's as though she's had a personality transplant this morning. And she seems very confused about some things that happened at dinner last night. Forgetting a whole conversation with Owain, and thinking she saw me in her bedroom? It's very strange.”

Bud gripped my slimy hand. “It's probably a mixture of jetlag and shock. Look, it's not going as well with her as you'd hoped this morning, I can tell. You two just don't seem to be able to exchange three words without one of you snapping at the other. I have no idea why. You haven't seen each other since your parents' funeral, so you'd think you guys would have a lot to catch up on. You know, sister stuff. But, if what Siân said yesterday is correct, you two don't have what I'd call a truly close, personal relationship, and I'll grant you you're similar in some ways—you're both as stubborn as each other, for example, which might be fun, but more likely not. But then so different in other ways. I don't know what to suggest. Either you suck it up and start being as polite to her as you would be to a stranger, or you distract her. What about the treasure thing? She seemed pretty keen on that. Could you tell her we'll concentrate on David, and try to sidetrack her with the puzzle plate a bit?”

I gave it a moment's thought. I couldn't come up with anything else.

“Good thinking, Bud. I don't really want to offload her, but she and Mair seem to be getting on like a house on fire. Why don't I encourage the two of them to focus on that? I could poke into it a bit myself, of course,” I added, not wanting to miss out on a chance to solve a riddle. “Not too much, just enough so I can see what Dilys might have meant when she said David was hunting for the treasure. Oh—that reminds me—Rhian said there's a coal cellar in the basement, thought that seems like an inadequate term for what was a medieval dungeon.”

“Really? I'm surprised,” said Bud. “Not so much about the dungeon part, more about the coal cellar. Do you think that's where David's pants picked up the traces of coal dust we saw on them?”

“I think it's likely,” I replied. “Rhian also told me there aren't any coal fires in the castle anymore, so I cannot imagine there'd be any coal dust anywhere else than in the coal cellar. So I'll take a look down there too.”

Bud paused, then said, “You are not to go taking any chances. So, listen, this is the plan: me—registrars and bridge tomorrow; Siân and Mair—treasure; you and me, and whomever else we need to talk to, or poke with a stick, to get information—David Davies's death, starting right away. Got it? You
and
me, Cait. I'm serious.”

Just as we entered the prehistoric stone circle and began to skirt the Roman ruins, Rhian and Idris began to sprint toward the front doors, which I could see were wide open. Idris paused and beckoned to us, pointing toward the private wing, looking panic-stricken.

Bud and I exchanged a glance, but neither of us bothered to say “What now?” because we each knew the other was thinking it.

I picked up my pace to a trot, and we got to the doors pretty quickly. Even before we entered I could hear the wailing—it was loud and primal.
Bonechilling.

WHEN A SOUND MAKES THE
hairs on the back of your neck stand up, it tends to be a sign that nothing good is going to happen in your immediate future. Reaching the doors, neither Bud nor I stopped to get rid of our wet clothes. We just ran inside, which was one of my less good ideas. I skidded on the Victorian tile floor and ended up coming down hard on my bottom. Of course I put my arm out to save myself—the arm I've already broken twice—but, luckily, I was so well padded with layers of clothes, and my own natural fleshy parts, that when Bud pulled me gently to my feet, we were both relieved to discover that I hadn't broken or sprained anything. For me, that in itself was a minor victory.

“You alright?” asked Bud.

I nodded. “I seem to have cut my arm a bit,” I noted, as blood joined one of the little rivers of rainwater running down my arm. Bud pulled a wet paper tissue from his pocket and dabbed at the blood.

“You have to take more care of yourself, Cait,” he said almost angrily.

“My bottom's a bit sore too,” I mentioned quietly, seeking sympathy.

He hugged me to him, and I pressed the wet hanky to my bleeding wrist. After a moment we headed toward the drawing room, where, thankfully, the wailing had stopped. Upon entering, all I could tell was that there were no bodies strewn about the place, and that everyone present seemed to have all their limbs, if not all their wits.