‘No, I mean, why do you think Rhys Lloyd was murdered?’
‘Wasn’t he?’ Mrs Huxley pushes herself upright and makes her way to the kitchen.
‘Mrs Huxley, if you have information relating to the investigation, I need to—’
‘I think I have some fondant fancies, if you’d rather?’
‘No cake,’ Ffion says firmly. ‘How well did you know Rhys?’
‘I’m not sure any of us really know anyone, do we? The chair of my local WI embezzled thousands of pounds every year, and no one suspected a thing, until she turned up to the AGM in a pair of Jimmy Choos. Now: Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong?’
Ffion gives in. ‘Earl Grey.’ Her stomach rumbles. ‘And maybe just a small slice of cake. Were you at the party last night?’
‘Oh, yes, dear. I retired before midnight and listened to the bongs with a cup of tea in bed, which is by far the best way to see in the New Year, don’t you think?’
Ffion briefly allows herself to remember snogging Leo outside the club as one year ended and a new one began. ‘Sounds great. When did you last see Rhys?’
‘I don’t wear a watch.’ Mrs Huxley places a tray in front of Ffion, and begins setting out cups. ‘My late husband gave me a beautiful Cartier wristwatch when we married, and when he died, it stopped. It was as if it knew. Do you think watches have souls, DC Morgan?’
‘Was he still at the party when you left?’
‘I took it to several places to be mended, and no one could fathom it out.’
‘Extraordinary. Were you aware of Rhys arguing with anyone at the party? Anyone with a grudge against him, perhaps?’
‘People bear grudges over the silliest things, don’t they?’ Mrs Huxley cuts two generous slices of fruit cake and pushes one towards Ffion. ‘A friend of mine refused to talk to her brother for years, because he’d said something disparaging about one of her children. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a fondant fancy?’
Ffion should have sent Leo here. He strikes her as the sort who gets on well with old ladies.
‘Can’t you just look at the cameras to see what time Rhys left the party, dear?’
Ffion puts down her cup. ‘There’s CCTV at The Shore?’ She’s been so preoccupied, it hadn’t even occurred to her there might be evidence on camera. Rookie error.
‘Isn’t there everywhere? Jonty Charlton has the key. He’s at number one. Did you know, the lodges were supposed to be named after Welsh mountains?’
Ffion does know – it made the local paper. The names were ‘unpronounceable’， according to a focus group commissioned by The Shore’s investors, who had proposed English versions in their place. Dragon’s Head. Red Ridge. ‘Over my dead body,’ Ffion’s mam had said, when the petition came around. The local Plaid Cymru councillor took it to Westminster, and the lodge names were quietly replaced with numbers.
By the time Ffion manages to extricate herself from Deirdre Huxley’s lodge, her head is spinning. She scans her surroundings for cameras. They’re well hidden, nestled in the trees lining the drive. Ffion rolls a cigarette and walks down towards the edge of the lake to smoke it in private. It’s astonishing how many people feel it’s their God-given right to lecture a complete stranger on their health.
‘Every cigarette takes ten minutes off your life, you know,’ Leo says, walking up behind her.
‘Eleven, actually. Want one?’
‘Go on, then.’
Ffion passes the tin to Leo, who rolls the loose cigarillo of a social smoker.
‘How were your two?’
‘I haven’t done the Charltons yet, and Mrs Huxley is batty. Good tea stop, though.’
‘I’m all done,’ Leo says. ‘No one remembers seeing Lloyd at midnight, but Ashleigh Stafford saw him barfing into a bush at some point before that.’
‘Classy.’ Ffion looks out at the water. The dark clouds that had met them on their arrival have cleared, and the snow tips of Pen y Ddraig are stark against the blue winter sky.
‘Clemence Northcote says there was a group pissing about by the water, late in the evening – daring each other to go in, that sort of thing – but she can’t be certain if Lloyd was with them.’ Leo turns towards the lodges. Between each deck, ladders run down to floating pontoons, shared by the lodges on either side. ‘If he went in the water there, would the current take him across to the other side?’
‘Do I look like the Little Mermaid?’