The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes (3 page)

I grinned. “This is only for tonight and tomorrow. Then you can leave your cozy groom's room and join me here, where we can snuggle for warmth in the conjugal bed.” I threw Bud an impish grin.

“Two nights is a long, long time,” he sighed.

“Well, two nights it is,” I replied, wagging my finger at him. Then, in a slightly more serious tone, I said, “Okay, Bud, while I try to make myself acceptable for public consumption, maybe you could find out what's happening about everything downstairs. I hope this doesn't mean that we won't be able to eat here at all tonight. It's the best part of an hour by car back into Swansea for food. We're really out in the wilds here—on the edge of civilization to be sure.”

“I'll go and sort everything right now, and you can come find me when you're ready. You'd better get on with it, you've got a lot of work ahead of you.” Bud chuckled as he moved to leave.

“Hey, before you leave us, Bud,” Siân said, “I promised Mattie and Beccie that I'd give you this right away. Go on, open it.” Her face was alight with anticipation, so I took the package she'd thrust toward us, and pulled at the packaging. “Careful,” she warned, watching my every move.

As the paper fell open I found myself looking at a framed photograph of an apple-cheeked little girl with innocent, cornflower eyes, holding an infant in her tiny arms as though it were a doll. Sitting, once again, on the edge of the bed, I felt my face—and my heart—smile. We made a pretty picture, my sister Siân and I, all those decades ago. Unfortunately, the frame surrounding the image was less appealing. Its ugliness belied the undoubted enthusiasm with which Siân's children, Mattie and Beccie, had constructed it in Perth, and the care with which Siân had transported it halfway around the world. Youthful fingers had studded gaudily painted papier-mâché with an array of tiny shells and stones that should have spelled out, in celebratory capitals, the word
family
. Sadly, the items forming the two down-strokes of the letter M had fallen off, so the frame seemed to make an accusation. FAIIILY.

I was aware that Siân was monitoring my expression as I looked at the photograph. When I looked up, I knew my eyes were full of tears.

“I didn't mean to upset you, sis,” she said quickly. “I thought you'd like it. I know you don't have many photos of us from when we were little. You got Mum and Dad's ashes; I got the photo albums. As we agreed after their funeral, you don't really need photos, with that memory you've got. But I thought this would be a nice gesture. And the kids loved making the frame for Auntie Cait. Do you remember when the photo was taken?”

I wiped my eyes. “It was Whitsun Sunday, before you turned one year old. Dad had that new instant camera. It seemed like magic to me at the time. He clicked a box, ripped some paper, counted, and there it was—a color photograph. Magic.” I looked at our faces again, well, my face really, because Siân wasn't much more than a forehead, a cap, and a blanket. “It's faded a lot, hasn't it?”

“Yes, it has,” replied Siân sadly. “But our sisterly love hasn't, right?”

“Absolutely not. Here you go, Bud, what do you think of me when I was a child?”

Bud took the photograph from me and smiled. “I haven't seen one of you this young,” he remarked. “Cute as a button. Yes, cute. Funnily enough, that was what Mrs. Jones said about David Davies . . .” He paused, looking embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn't mean to break the moment by mentioning him again.”

I sighed, then shrugged. “Well, you have now. Mrs. Jones said he was ‘cute'? That's an odd thing to say about a body.”

“I thought that too,” replied Bud.

FIVE MINUTES LATER, I'D MANAGED
to slap on some makeup, jump into my new stretchy-bouncy charcoal pantsuit, tie my hair into a neat ponytail finished with a charcoal silk scarf, and spritz myself with some of my favorite perfume—Coco by Chanel, Bud's Christmas gift to me. The mirror in my delightfully art deco, but woefully chilly, bathroom informed me that I needed sleep. I shoved my reading specs into my evening purse and headed off to see how Siân was doing.

My hesitant knock at her door was greeted with a loud, “Come on in!”

The vast oak door to my sister's room creaked as I pushed it open. Siân was clearly ready.

“You look great,” I said. She did. My baby sister was slim and trim, tanned and toned, and looking effortlessly elegant in a long-sleeved amethyst jersey shift, belted with a gold chain. I sighed.

“You look lovely too,” said Siân lightly.

“Thanks, sis, but I know I don't.” I couldn't help but sound down.

“Oh come on, Cait, I'd give anything to have your curves,” she said almost kindly as we left the room. “No matter how I exercise, I can't make myself look as good as you could. I mean, yes, you could lose a few pounds, but who couldn't?”

“You,” I said, a little enviously.

“So do something about it then,” she replied sharply.

Our entrance into the drawing room meant I didn't have time to utter a single sisterly expletive, which also meant I wasn't in the best of moods when Idris Cadwallader greeted us. I forced a smile as I shook hands with Idris, and then his wife, Eirwen.

I'd expected the tone of the room to reflect the seriousness of a recent death on the premises. Once it was clear that, surprisingly, this wasn't the first topic of conversation, I tuned out of the general chitchat between Siân and our hosts. It meant I had a chance to take in the rest of my surroundings.

Upon entering the room, the fire that roared and crackled in the massive carved-stone fireplace had been the first thing to catch my attention. It glittered in its surrounding of gold-backed tiles, filling the space with light and warmth. It was certainly a grand room. The oak paneling reflected the glow of the flames, the eclectic furnishings looked as though they'd lived together for decades, lamps added subtle pools of light throughout the space, and the ornate plaster ceiling danced with shadows. Watched over by the dead-eyed portraits with which the room was hung, Bud was warming himself beside the hearth and seemed to be enjoying a joke with a woman who, from the back, looked to be about seventy, with stooped shoulders and short, grayish hair. She was wearing a wooly black cardigan spotted with black sequins, atop a black jersey skirt, which skimmed her unfortunately thick ankles. I wondered who she was.

Idris Cadwallader, who stood no more than a couple of feet from me, was a pleasant-looking man of average size, about thirty-five years of age. He was an animated speaker, making liberal use of his hands as he spoke. His coal black curls and even white teeth weren't so unusual for a Welshman, but the darkness of his chocolate eyes was remarkable. Bud and I had met Idris during our visit in October, and he'd also been the one who'd welcomed us when we'd arrived earlier that day. Castell Llwyd wasn't a hotel by any means, and we'd known to not expect many staff. He'd graciously welcomed us into his home, and he'd given Bud a hand with the bags. He'd led us to our rooms, reminded us that there wasn't any room service, and shown us how to operate the beautifully chromed, if temperamental, bathroom fittings.

We'd learned in October that Idris was the person who ran Castell Llwyd as a business, much against the wishes of his grandmother, Alice Cadwallader, who hated having paying guests in her home. While we walked through the gardens on a crisp autumn morning, he'd told us it was a choice between selling up or accepting paying guests and holding events at the place, so Alice had withdrawn to the west wing of the house, where she was able to maintain her privacy, and the rest of the place had been “commercialized.” He seemed to be an amiable young man, with a winning smile and a head for profit, which wasn't entirely surprising, given the family's background of making its fortune from mining and minerals, in the days when Swansea had been known as “Copperopolis.”

Standing beside him was his wife. When I'd told Bud her name, and he'd tried to pronounce it, he'd ended up growling like a pirate. He's not that good at rolling his Rs, so to push “Eye-rrr-wen” out had been a struggle for him. I suspected he would be doing all he could to avoid having to say the poor woman's name aloud throughout our entire visit.

Compared with her husband, Eirwen Cadwallader seemed almost insubstantial. Her straw-colored hair blended with her pallid skin, making her look very drab. Though short, she also seemed bowed, which, for a woman who I guessed was also in her mid-thirties, was interesting. Sometimes tall people will develop a stoop, particularly when they've sprouted as teens, because they are trying to fulfill a psychological need to, quite literally, “not stand out from the crowd.” In short people, like Eirwen Cadwallader, I've grown to suspect that stooping is a posture they've adopted in order to meet a psychological desire to “disappear.” I wondered who in her life had made her feel that she had to.

“Isn't that exciting, Cait?” asked Siân.

I tried to not give away the fact that I hadn't been listening to a word the three of them had been saying by replying, “Absolutely.”

Siân's eyes rounded with annoyance as she said, “Cait was probably off in her own little world, Idris, or she'd have sounded much more excited to know there's a hidden treasure here at the castle, wouldn't you, Cait?”

“I had no idea,” I said truthfully. “There's no mention of it on your website, is there?”

“Oh no,” said Eirwen quickly. “Imagine what would happen. There'd be people poking around the place, damaging the ancient ruins in the front, or the gardens at the back. It would be a disaster. Alice would probably have a stroke. She'll be here any minute, I expect. Are we ready, Idris?” The woman looked twitchy and seemed to hunch even more. I suspected I had discovered whom it was who made her so keen to be invisible.

“I can understand your concerns, Eirwen,” I said, resigning myself to the conversation about the castle. “I read that the stone circle surrounding the Roman ruins, just outside your front door, was put in place at about the same time as the bluestones and sarsens at Stonehenge. So about forty-five hundred years ago,
and
with stones from the same bluestone quarry in the Preseli Hills in Pembroke, no less. You wouldn't want those being damaged or disturbed, nor the remains of the Roman temple to Neptune. I understand the layout of the temple is either unique, or puzzling, depending upon whose opinion one believes.” I noticed Eirwen's eyes begin to glaze over.

“That's Uncle Owain's field,” Eirwen said. “He's just over there.” She waved toward a gloomy corner of the room. “He'll know everything you could ever want to know about the ancient history here, and even more about the modern stuff. He's a real fount of knowledge, is Owain.” Her tone told me she didn't think that was a good thing.

I meant it when I said, “I hope I get the chance to have a good talk with him. History fascinates me, always has. And here? Well, you have layer upon layer of it—quite literally.”

“That's a very transatlantic accent you've developed there, Cait,” said Idris, anxious to change the subject, I thought. “I know I shouldn't say ‘American,' because you're Canadian, but it's hard for us Brits to tell the difference.”

I smiled pleasantly as I replied, “It's funny you say that, because back in Canada, most people think I've still got a noticeable Welsh accent, though I often have to tell them it's Welsh—they just know it's British. But you don't have a very strong Swansea accent yourself.”

Idris nodded. “My father sent me off to an English public school when I was a small boy, which is a shame, because I think this castle would have been a great place to grow up. It's why Eirwen and I have decided that our children, Eleri and Hywel, will attend local schools. They're both at a Welsh medium school—you know, everything's taught in Welsh. It's not far from Gowerton, so it's a bit of a drive for poor Eirwen every day, but it means they have a real home life. Of course, they still speak English here at home, because Eirwen and I are just learning Welsh, and other than Mrs. Jones, our cook, and Rhian, no one else here speaks the language.”

“Tell me more about the treasure,” said Siân, seeming to want to regain control of the talking points. “Cait, there's even a big dish, from the Swansea Pottery, with a set of clues painted on it. A set of clues about a hidden treasure. Isn't that wonderful? We could have a treasure hunt. A very careful, non-invasive one, of course,” she added, looking at a panicked Eirwen.

“Really?” I was surprised. “Is this true?”
I love puzzles.

Both Idris and his wife nodded. “If you believe what Uncle Owain says, that is,” added Idris. “He's spent most of his life following his passion for researching this place, the ruins in the grounds, and the stories about the ‘Cadwallader Cache,' as he calls it. Personally, I think it's a load of rubbish, but he's happy, and he's harmless, so we just let him get on with it. I'm sure he'll tell you more than you could ever wish to know about the plate and what he thinks the clues on it mean.” Idris glanced in his uncle's direction with an indulgent expression softening his face.

“It's because of him choosing to never earn a living, and Mair never having been allowed to, that Idris has to work so hard to make this place pay,” said Eirwen as quietly as though she were uttering a blasphemy.

“Oh, come on now.” Idris hugged his wife to his side and smiled broadly. “We're doing just fine. In fact, we might even have a film crew coming here for a couple of months in the spring. I can't say too much about it, but we could end up with our home being seen around the world on
TV
before you know it. They don't want it for a whole series, or anything like that, just a few episodes where they can make use of the fact that the castle looks like three different places. I expect it would save them a great deal of money—so I think that means I can charge them more for the time they want to be here. The negotiations are at a delicate stage.”