‘Oh.’ The woman’s in her sixties, her face lined but soft. ‘The man before you, he was never there, so . . .’ She bends down, using the sleeves of her jumper as gloves to pick up the smoking tins. ‘I put inside.’
As easy as that, Leo thinks. Why didn’t he do that three years ago?
Back in his own flat, he stands for a while at the doorway of the second bedroom. No harm in at least trying to make the place look a bit nicer, and, since Ffion’s mum had been good enough to pass on Seren’s old bed, he may as well put it together.
By eight p.m., the room is, if not transformed, at least getting there. A lick of paint, and a chest of drawers, and he’ll be done. Leo sits on the little bed and imagines reading his son a bedtime story. He thinks about having Harris to stay for the weekend; about decorating a tree next Christmas.
He opens his laptop again. A year ago, he found a solicitor who specialised in custody claims. He was too edgy to take it further, unclear what obligations family lawyers might have. If Leo levelled with them, and admitted leaving Harris on his own in a locked car, would they be duty-bound to report him?
Leo writes an email. I would like to make an appointment to discuss my ex-wife’s decision to move to another country with my son. He can’t live like this any more. He’s Harris’s dad, and he has a right to be in his life. After he’s pressed send, he fetches himself a beer. The data from Lloyd’s phone has come back, and he plans to spend the rest of the evening looking over it.
Triangulation has confirmed that Lloyd – or his phone, at least – remained within a fifty-metre radius of The Shore on December 31st, which tallies with the accounts given by Yasmin and the twins.
Call and message data has been retrieved for the twenty-eight days preceding the murder, and the analysts have already identified and traced the most popular numbers. Lloyd’s agent features heavily on the incoming calls, as does Yasmin, both daughters – Tabby more than Felicia – and Jonty Charlton. On December 29th the same number rang Lloyd seventeen times; the lines are highlighted in blue and carry a note: Huw Ellis. There are pages and pages of text messages, retrieved from Lloyd’s iCloud account, including increasingly threatening emails from Ellis, demanding the money Rhys owed him.
Leo scans the texts. Lots from the twins, asking for money or Can we have chips tonight? Mum says it’s okay. On New Year’s Eve Lloyd had a quick-fire conversation with someone about the party’s dress code. It’s a bit short, reads the message from an unknown number. Wear the dress, was Lloyd’s reply. Leo looks at the list of calls made to and from Lloyd’s phone, but the number doesn’t appear there.
In fact, Lloyd hardly made calls on his phone at all, and Leo works his way through the list, knowing he’ll be able to square away that job, at least, this evening. Then his gaze lands on a number Lloyd called around lunchtime on December 31st. Leo doesn’t have a great recall for numbers – he hates parking meters requiring him to enter his car registration – but there’s something about this particular number which triggers a memory. He unlocks his phone and scrolls through the contacts, not wanting to be right, yet at the same time knowing he is. He stops and stares at the screen.
The number Rhys Lloyd called on New Year’s Eve belongs to Ffion.
THIRTY
MID-AUGUST | SEREN
Seren is definitely getting a tan, even though Cwm Coed is literally the hardest place in the world to get one. It rains for, like, three hundred days a year, and even in the summer – if there’s a heatwave, as there is now – you come down to the lake and the beaches are all in shade from the trees. And she’s a redhead, with the sort of skin which looks like she’s actually dead. Except when she goes for a run, when she goes so red she’s basically purple.
But her arms are definitely a tiny bit browner than at the start of the summer. She found a sunbathing spot on the other side of the lake, where they’ve cleared the trees, ready for more lodges, and every chance she’s had she’s been catching some rays. Let’s face it, there’s fuck all else to do. Most of her ‘friends’ – if you can call them that – are away, and Ffion’s always working. Seren can’t wait till her birthday, when she can learn to drive and get the fuck out of this place. She literally doesn’t know how Ffion stands it. The only thing that makes Seren put any effort in at school – and she knows it’s uncool to brag, but her grades are shit-hot – is the thought of getting a job far away from Cwm Coed.