‘Of course.’ Leo glances around the room. ‘I assumed the lodges were all decorated the same.’
‘You pay extra for furnished. Quite a lot extra. They really push you into it – I suppose they want a certain look in photos, I do understand how it works – but it wasn’t an option for us.’
‘Rhys Lloyd owned the resort, I understand?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What was he like?’
Clemmie looks at her soup with more concentration than it requires. ‘He was a wonderful singer. I remember hearing him at—’
‘As a person.’ Leo keeps his eyes on Clemmie.
There’s a long silence before she speaks. ‘He was very different from the way he’d been portrayed in the press.’
‘In what way?’
‘The interviews always show him as down-to-earth. They talk about how he walked to school with newspaper in his shoes because they leaked, and how he spent his first West End pay cheque on a holiday for his mum.’
‘And he wasn’t like that?’
‘He looked down on us,’ Clemmie says. ‘Me and Caleb. Because I don’t wear the right clothes, or drink the right wine. I didn’t fit with his vision of The Shore.’ She speaks calmly, but there’s a hint of bitterness beneath her words.
‘That must have been hard to take,’ Leo says neutrally.
‘Not so hard that it would give me a motive for murder, if that’s what you’re suggesting?’
‘This isn’t a murder enquiry,’ Leo says. Yet, he adds, silently.
Clemmie gives a half-laugh. ‘If it were, I think you’d have your hands full.’
‘Why’s that?’
Clemmie looks at him, her expression unguarded and resigned. ‘Because I’ve been at The Shore for six months, and I’ve yet to meet a single person who liked him.’
As Leo leaves Clemence Northcote’s lodge, he feels the familiar fizz of adrenaline. He looks at the lodges, thinking of the breeze block walls under the wooden cladding; of the secrets they house. Leo doesn’t know how Rhys Lloyd died, but he knows this: beneath the glossy surface of The Shore is another story entirely.
SIX
NEW YEAR’S DAY | FFION
Judging by the look on Leo’s face, he’d obviously expected to pair up for the house-to-house, but Ffion prefers to fly solo. Besides, regardless of what she’d said to Leo about forgetting last night’s escapade, it was easier said than done. Never dip your pen in company ink, a sergeant once told her. Patriarchal, but nevertheless sound, advice. Ffion finds herself distracted by flashbacks entirely inappropriate for a potential murder enquiry.
Deirdre Huxley, the owner of lodge two, is of indeterminable age, with sharp eyes that are at odds with the wrinkles around them. She wears a pale pink cardigan with mother-of-pearl buttons, and straight-cut trousers with a sharp crease down the centre. On her feet, velvet slippers are topped with tassels and a swirl of gold embroidery. Her hair is more silver than grey, expertly coiffed into a smooth shoulder-length bob. Well-preserved, Ffion’s mam would call her.
Mrs Huxley examines Ffion’s warrant card through tortoiseshell glasses strung on a chain around her neck. ‘You don’t look like a burglar, but one never knows, does one?’
‘I’m not a burglar,’ Ffion promises.
‘Then come in and warm up, and you can tell me I might want to sit down because the body that washed up on the other side of the lake earlier today is almost certainly Rhys Lloyd.’ She turns, leaving Ffion standing in the open doorway with her mouth open. Talk about getting straight to the point.
Ffion steps inside and closes the door, before following Mrs Huxley into the lodge. The older woman walks with a stick, a beautiful-looking dark-wood affair with a polished metal handle the size of a small fist. She leans it against the sofa and sinks into the cushions with a contented sigh.
‘You’re quite the detective.’ Ffion joins her on the sofa. The lodge has the same furniture she saw at the Lloyds’， but configured differently, so the long table is at the back of the open-plan space, and the corner sofa by the sliding doors on to the deck.
‘One missing man. One body in the lake. We hardly need Miss Marple, do we?’
‘You’ll be telling me how he got there next.’
‘I imagine he was murdered. Would you like a slice of fruit cake?’
Ffion looks up, startled. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘I always have one about this time.’