‘Ffion.’
She will not cry. Not here, not in front of Glynis. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ She turns to the older woman. ‘You said this was where Rhys had bullied Ceri, but you got that wrong.’
‘I knew something bad had happened here. When Jac told me what Rhys had done to that poor girl – Rhys had bragged to his dad, like it was all a big joke – I thought that must have been what I saw that night.’
Ffion looks up at the first-floor window. She’s breathing too fast, feeling dizzy and scared, even though it’s only Glynis. She centres herself. Not Rhys. It isn’t Rhys. ‘You knew. You were watching.’ For years, Ffion has assumed she couldn’t hate anyone more than Rhys Lloyd, but right now, she thinks she hates Glynis more. To stand by and let him . . . She can’t let the thought take shape.
Glynis is crying. ‘Jac tried to warn me about what sort of man Rhys had become – what sort of boy he’d been – but I wouldn’t listen. I didn’t want to hear it. He was my only child, my special—’
Ffion can’t hear any more. ‘You. Saw. Me.’
‘I thought I was mistaken,’ Glynis pleads. ‘I wasn’t sure. I just knew—’ She takes a big breath, covering her face with her hands as the rest of her words fall out in a sob. ‘I just knew they were too young.’ Ffion moves backwards, knocking into a bird table, which judders precariously on its stand. She thinks she might be sick.
‘For years, Jac had worried about Rhys, told me there was a bad seed in him. Towards the end, he said Rhys was trying to take T?’r Lan, that he’d destroy the one thing that mattered to his father. I told him he was crazy, but he was right. I’d been blind.’
She’s found his original will, Elen had told Ffion. She’s going to take legal action.
‘That’s why you killed him,’ Ffion says.
Glynis doesn’t move.
‘We’ve arrested Clemmie. She’s in the cells, right now.’
‘She mustn’t go to prison!’ It explodes from Glynis as though she hadn’t planned to say it, and she claps her hand over her mouth. But it’s too late, and slowly she lets her hand fall. ‘I – I made her help me.’
‘You made her?’ Ffion doesn’t believe Glynis for a second.
‘Her son needs her. Boys need their mothers. They need strong mothers, to keep them on the right track, otherwise they . . .’ She trails off, but Ffion doesn’t need her to finish. Otherwise they turn out like Rhys. Glynis Lloyd is atoning for the sins of her son.
Ffion takes a step towards her. ‘Glynis Lloyd, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder . . .’
This is where it ends.
SIXTY-ONE
JANUARY 10TH | LEO
Leo’s desk phone flashes with the number for the front desk.
‘Someone here to see you. Says she knows you.’
There’s still half an hour until morning meeting, so Leo makes his way downstairs.
At the front desk, Nellie is dunking a Hobnob into a cup of tea. ‘I put her in the side room. Didn’t get a name, sorry – it’s been manic.’
Leo looks around the empty office. ‘Looks like it.’ He raps twice on the door of the small room used for witness interviews, and walks in.
‘What the fuck are you playing at, Leo?’
Leo looks at his ex-wife and feels none of the anxiety she usually instils in him. She’s brandishing a letter, the contents of which Leo is familiar with, as his solicitor shared a copy for approval before serving it.
‘I’m taking you to court,’ Leo says calmly.
‘You’re not having joint access, and you’re not stopping us from moving.’ Unusually, as Allie rarely sets foot outside the house without make-up, her face is bare. Her skin is threaded with tiny red veins, and last night’s wine stains the inside of her lips.
‘I am, and I will.’ It is something of a revelation to Leo, to discover that the calmer he remains, the more irate Allie becomes.
‘It’s all going to come out in court, you know. What you did.’
Leo nods. ‘Okay.’ He could tell her, he supposes, that he finally summoned the courage to speak to colleagues in Child Protective Services, who, in turn, spoke to Social Services. He could tell her that no one has identified a concern over Harris’s welfare from what was a highly unexpected and isolated incident. Leo’s solicitor is a glass-half-empty woman, so when she said she was confident of winning joint custody, Leo felt a surge of optimism.