Yasmin stands. ‘I can’t bear it.’
‘Let them be,’ Glynis says, but Yasmin’s already leaving the room. Convenient, Ffion thinks. She isn’t interested in what Yasmin said about the drugs – all run-of-the-mill stuff – but she is interested in the way the woman’s hand shook as she read the list, and in the intentionally offhand manner with which she rattled through her explanations. Something on that list is significant. Ffion looks at Leo and knows he’s thinking the same.
Upstairs, Rhys’s voice cuts off, mid-note.
‘I keep forgetting,’ Glynis says quietly. ‘Then it all comes back and . . .’ Tears brim over her eyelashes.
‘It must be very difficult for you,’ Leo says. ‘I’m sorry if we’re making it harder, asking all these questions. We just want to find out what happened to your son. Did he ever talk to you about his harassment case?’
‘Yes, I was very worried for Yasmin and the girls.’
‘Not for your son?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You said “Yasmin and the girls”。 Were you worried about Rhys?’
‘Of course I was worried about him!’
‘He received a number of abusive messages online,’ Ffion says. ‘Do you have any idea who could have been sending them?’
‘None at all.’
‘Had Rhys fallen out with anyone?’
Glynis’s hands are shaking. She looks nervously at the ceiling. There’s no sign of Yasmin.
‘Mrs Lloyd?’ Leo prompts.
‘People locally were very upset when The Shore was built,’ she says, eventually. ‘With Rhys, and with me, too. There’s been a lot of ill feeling.’
‘You’ve been stuck in the middle,’ Ffion says. It’s a statement, not a question, but Glynis answers it anyway.
‘Yes. It’s been very unpleasant.’ Her voice cracks.
‘So why do it?’ Leo says. ‘Why let Rhys develop the land, if there was so much resistance to it, locally?’
‘The land was passed to Rhys in my husband’s will.’ Glynis shrugs helplessly, then drops her eyes to her lap. ‘And besides, my son could be very persuasive.’
Ffion looks out of the window. They’ve been forecasting snow for days, and a tiny flake tests the waters, drifting down on to the high street.
‘I brought it on myself,’ Glynis says. She follows Ffion’s gaze, staring out of the window, talking more to herself than to Ffion and Leo. ‘I spoiled him. I’d have loved a big family, but it didn’t happen, and so I poured everything I had into Rhys. He got used to getting his own way.’
Leo leans towards Glynis. ‘Did your son ever hurt anyone? Did he ever hurt you?’
‘No! He would never . . .’ She shakes her head, over and over.
‘But he intimidated you? He was a bully?’
‘No! Stop it! He wasn’t – I mean, at school, maybe, as a child, but . . .’ Glynis starts crying again, tears streaking her cheeks.
‘I’m sorry,’ Leo says.
Ffion feels a rush of anger. Why does Leo have to be so pathetic? He’s doing his job; he shouldn’t apologise for it. ‘What do you mean, he was a bully at school?’
She doesn’t think Glynis is going to answer, but the woman stands and walks to the window.
‘It’s a store room now,’ Glynis says, looking down at the summer house. ‘But for years it was Rhys’s music room, and where he spent time with his friends. Teenagers don’t want to be around their parents, do they?’
Ffion doesn’t answer. She looks around the room, at the photos of Rhys as a boy, then as a man, and then she pictures his corpse on Izzy Weaver’s slab.
‘I should have been a better mother,’ Glynis says. She’s still staring out of the window, and it’s as though she’s forgotten Leo and Ffion are there. ‘Checked in on them, made a nuisance of myself.’
‘Mrs Lloyd.’ Leo’s frowning. ‘Did your son do something when he was at school? Something bad?’
Glynis gives a little shake, turning away from the window. She glances at Ffion. ‘There was some unpleasantness with a local girl. Ceri. I feel terrible about it, looking back, but—’
Ffion interrupts. ‘Ceri Jones?’
‘She was very troubled, the school said. Rhys teased her, but I’m sure he wasn’t the only one – some children are picked on more than others, aren’t they?’
Ffion doesn’t trust herself to answer.