She pushed the curtains back. The morning promised to be bright and sunny, the daffodils and narcissi were nodding in a gentle breeze and the apple tree rained pink and white blossom on the lawn. The weather obviously wasn’t aware of the tragedies being played out in Pontygwyn. Fabia dressed quickly and, after a breakfast of black coffee, flung on her coat and left the house.
All was quiet, except for a solitary police constable on duty by Rhona’s front door. Fabia lifted a hand in greeting and, as she did so, wondered what Matt was doing, whether he’d set out for his first call of the day. For a second, doubts crept into her mind about what she was about to do, but she pushed them aside, got into her car, and drove determinedly round to Well House.
The woman who answered Fabia’s knock was Mrs Greaves, the Coles’ next-door neighbour. Fabia had met her a couple of times, but didn’t know her well.
“Oh, Miss Havard,” she said, her expression a mixture of relief and disappointment. “I thought you might be that chief inspector. Murray left a message to tell him Cecily still isn’t up to seeing him, but I thought he might have come anyway.”
“I doubt he’d do that.”
“Maybe not, but still, it is important he speaks to her isn’t it?”
“Yes, but he’ll probably ring and make another appointment.”
“I suppose so.” She didn’t sound too sure. “Do come in. Murray had to go out and didn’t want the poor love left on her own, that’s why I’m here.”
Fabia walked past the woman into the hall. “How is Cecily?” she asked.
“As well as can be expected, still sedated, but she’s awake. She’d probably like to see you, you being a friend and all, but would you mind if I go and ask her if it’s okay?”
In a very short time she returned. “Cecily says she’d like to see you, come on up.”
Fabia followed her up the stairs and into a large bedroom. The curtains were drawn almost completely across the windows, making the light in the room dusk-like and rather oppressive.
“Here’s Miss Havard to see you, love. I’ll pop home now, but I’ll be back later this morning.” She closed the door firmly behind her and Fabia sensed her relief at getting away for a while.
Fabia made her way across to the bed where Cecily lay, her mousey hair untidy on the pillow, her body curled foetal with the covers drawn tight up to her neck. Her face was waxy pale, the eyes enormous and red-rimmed. She looked like someone suffering from some debilitating illness. Not, thought Fabia, that she’d ever been the most colourful person – more inclined to blend into the background than make her presence felt. Not for the first time, Fabia wondered where Amber had got her spectacular dark looks. Must have been from her father, as this frail woman was nothing like her daughter had been. A wave of pity swept over her as she sat on the edge of the bed. She put a hand out to touch Cecily’s fingers where they clutched at the covers under her chin.
“I had to come to say how very sorry I am about Amber, and to see how you are,” she said. “If there’s anything at all I can do, you only have to say.”
The pale blue eyes gazed up at her. Cecily’s lips moved as if preparing to speak, but no sound came out at first, then she said, sounding as if it took a great effort to articulate the words, “Thank you Fabia. I really need to talk to you.” She said nothing else for a long drawn out moment, then went on, “But I feel so... so confused. I can’t remember what it was...” Her voice trailed away as her eyelids slid down. Fabia waited, but before Cecily spoke again, the bedroom door opened, and Murray Cole walked in.
Fabia was shocked at his appearance as well. Gone was the usual assertive charm. He looked diminished, just as Cecily did. In a way, the distressed state he was obviously in made her think better of him.
“Murray,” she said, getting up and going over to take his hand, “I’m so sorry about all this. You must be having a dreadful time, the two of you. I was saying to Cecily, if there’s anything I can do.”
“Thank you. It’s at a time like this one realises who one’s true friends are.” He drew her over to the window and said in hushed tones. “Cecily is completely distraught as you can probably see. Dr Cook has sedated her, but she doesn’t seem to be able to rest at all, and her mental state really has me worried. Half the time I can’t understand what she’s talking about. It’s terrible to watch her suffer so, just terrible.”
“I’m sure it is.”
Fabia looked over her shoulder at the woman in the bed. She’d pushed herself up from the pillows and was looking across at them, extreme anxiety in her face. Her lips moved soundlessly, and a moment later Fabia heard her own name. She went back to the bed, took Cecily’s hand.
“What is it dear?”
“Amber, my baby, where’s Amber?”
Fabia’s heart went out to her. She put an arm round Cecily and felt her flinch, as if she’d been hit, then she clutched at Fabia’s sleeve.
“Don’t let them send her away. Please, please, don’t let them send her away.”
“Cecily, my love.” Cole was on the other side of the bed, his eyes full of concern. He straightened the cardigan his wife was wearing, gently doing up the top two buttons, then he picked up a small bottle, shook some pills into his palm and took up a glass of water from the bedside table. “Take these. The doctor said you should take two every four hours. They’ll help you sleep.”
Fabia watched as Cecily swallowed the pills down, realising there was no point in trying to find out what it was she’d wanted at the moment. It’d have to wait until she was more coherent. She glanced up at Cole, shrugged and smiled, “I’ll leave you alone now. But please don’t hesitate to give me a ring if there’s anything I can do, anything at all.”
“You’re very kind,” he said over the top of his wife’s head as he settled her back on to the pillows.
As she went down the stairs to the front door, Fabia wondered how long it would be before Cecily was in a fit state to see Matt. In that drugged state, there was little he’d be able to get out of her. But at least now she knew she’d been right on one point. She must tell Matt. She thrust her hand into the bag over her shoulder for her mobile and selected his number.
* * *
“That’s useful.” Matt sat holding his mobile to his ear while he leafed through some papers on his desk. “I’ll follow it up. And thank you for feeding me last night.” He knew it sounded stilted, but there were still barriers that had to be negotiated. He wondered how long it would be before he could feel completely at ease with Fabia again. His guilt over the past wouldn’t leave him easily and, until that was resolved, he supposed there’d still be this shadow hanging over their relationship. “I’ve got a desk piled high with junk,” he said, “and no time to sit and sort it all out. Plenty of info coming in, but nothing I can act on yet, and a whole load of loose ends with not enough time to tidy them up. Other than that, I’ve nothing to do.” He heard her laugh and had a sudden urge to go round and see her. “Will you be home later on today?”
“I should be.” He thought he could hear caution in her voice. “My agent’s moaning about deadlines, and since it’s the first really good commission I’ve had, I really must get some work done.”
“I won’t come round if it’s not convenient.”
“No, no. I’ll probably be glad of the break.”
“If you’re right and trying to interview that poor woman is a waste of time, I’ll cut it short and come at about one. Oh no, I can’t then. How about early evening? Would that be okay?”
“Sure.” Now he was almost certain she was laughing at him. Rescue came in the form of a knock and Dilys’s head appearing round the door. He nodded and flapped a hand at her. She came the rest of the way in, followed by Chloe Daniels, who closed the door quietly behind them.
“Got to go, Fabia. I’ll see you later.” He ended the call with a regretful sense of relief. “You two look full of news,” he said.
“It’s mostly Chloe that’s done the work,” Dilys told hi
m. Chloe Daniels’ cheeks flushed up in gratification. “She’s turned up some tidy bits and pieces. Trouble is, some of them might not go down very well with him upstairs.”
“I see. Have a seat and fire away.”
Chloe Daniels settled in a chair, her face glowing with enthusiasm. “You know I pointed out that contribution to Labour Party funds in the run-up to Neville Breverton getting elected?” Chloe said. “Well, I’ve got confirmation now that it came from the Vasic clan, perfectly legal, but still, it establishes a connection. That’s one thing. And there’s this about Paul Vaughan’s involvement with the Golden Monkey.” She leant forward and handed Matt a piece of paper. “Gareth got it for me. This here is the holding company, they’ve got three nightclubs, the Golden Monkey in Newport, Club 59 in Cwmbran and the Blue Banana in Caerphilly. It seems Vaughan stepped in and rescued the company when it was facing some financial problems, and now he’s the major shareholder. Now, this is a list of directors. You see that name by there? He’s been up for dealing in class A drugs in the past, but he got himself some fancy London lawyer and the case was dropped, and down here, we have our friend Tony Vasic.”
“Nice colleagues our Mr Vaughan’s got,” said Dilys dryly. “Interviewing those kids about their involvement with the Golden Monkey doesn’t seem nearly so urgent now, that part of the investigation has gone way beyond that.”
“You could say so, maybe set it aside for another time?” suggested Dilys.
“Good idea,” Matt said.
But Chloe hadn’t finished. “And then there’s this,” she went on. “I came across it by chance, thought it might be useful.” She pushed a newspaper cutting across to Matt. It was a report in one of the tabloids, dated the day before, of one Mel Franklin, famous model and budding singer, and beside her was a dapper man in pinstripes. She was holding up a hand as if to shield her face from the cameras. The man was scowling into the lens. The report said he was her solicitor. Another photograph showed Paul Vaughan getting into a car and glaring at the camera as he did so. “She’s up on a charge of possession, cocaine, and the reporter implies she’s dropped her boyfriend in it, says he got her onto drugs and he’s the one who supplied her.”
“That’s that relationship down the drain then,” Dilys said, her tone acid. “He certainly made no mention of anything like this when we saw him.
“Well he wouldn’t, would he?” said Matt. “Maybe he didn’t even know she was going to drop him in it, would have stopped her otherwise.”
“He denies knowing anything about it,” Chloe said. “Says she’s so drugged up she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and he’s been trying to get her off the drugs, not put her onto them. Anyway, he’s not been taken in for questioning yet.”
“It’d be worth our having another word with him, now we know about this; for future reference if for no other reason. Maybe he did the same sort of favour for Amber Morgan. I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge of the case against Mel Franklin. Fix that up, Dilys, would you?”
“Will do.”
“Is that all, then?” Matt asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow at Chloe.
“Just one more thing.” She paused for effect, her eyes bright with zeal. “It turns out Neville Breverton’s connection with the Evening News isn’t with the editor. Apparently, he’s big butties with the owner of the paper, they were at school together and have been close as,” she crossed two fingers, “ever since, so that’s tidy, isn’t it?”
“Good God, this whole business is so bloody incestuous.”
“Par for the course, sir,” Dilys said wryly, “after all, this is South Wales.” Matt grinned at her as she went on. “You asked me to have a word with the sergeant who heads up the domestic violence unit. There’s no record of our friend being reported at any time, but that doesn’t mean anything really, only a tiny percentage of hitters ever come to our attention.”
“We’ll just have to go about it another way. Good work, Chloe, and I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, this is strictly between the three of us.”
“No, sir.”
“You’ve done very well. I won’t forget this.” When she’d left the room, Matt turned to Dilys, frowning. “She is completely safe, isn’t she?”
“Safe as houses, I’d say. Anyway, she’s not going to blot her copybook where you’re concerned. Can’t you tell she’s taken a shine–”
“Piss off, Dilys,” he said amiably. “I think I’ll put Chloe on to Craig Evans, let her have a quiet word and see if anything else comes of it, he might open up to her.”
“Why not ask Miss Havard to have another word with him? You said she was willing to do so.”
“I could, I suppose.” But he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to involve her even more. It went against his old habit of never bending the rules. But Chloe’s researches weren’t exactly by the book, were they? Maybe he was getting to be more of a rebel. Fabia had always said you had to be to get results. Exasperated, he ran his hand through his hair. He didn’t want to believe it, but he was beginning to think she’d been right all along.
And now he had two murder investigations on his plate. Which one should he concentrate on? The answer was obvious. Both, since he had a very strong feeling they were connected. “You’re right, we should chase up the Evans boy, find out what it was he was going on about when he met Fabia. I really don’t want him to clam up completely, but I’d prefer to keep it official. It’s getting the balance, that’s the problem. We’ll try Chloe first and keep Fabia in reserve.”
Dilys gave him a curious look and he was sure she was dying to ask about Fabia but, much to his relief, she didn’t.
“I’ll arrange things with Chloe.”
He changed the subject. “Did you check on Neville Breverton’s movements?”
“I managed to speak to a friend of mine who’s working on security at the House of Commons. I used to be at college with him. He checked, and apparently Breverton was in the House all day, went straight to the dinner from there, and left about midnight. The security was pretty tight, as per usual, so there were plenty of people who saw him there. He stayed in the flat the Brevertons have in Dolphin Square overnight. One of the security men there saw his car return about 12.30, and he left at crack of dawn Monday morning. So that looks like he’s out of the picture so far as Rhona Griffiths is concerned.”
“Unless she was killed a bit later Monday morning, but Pat Curtis thinks she’d been dead for well over twelve hours when the vicar found her.” Matt grimaced, then brightened. “Okay, so maybe we won’t get him for murder, but we might well be able to rock his boat on the contributions to party funds, and his dodgy friends, ex-Assistant Commissioner Vivian Sligo included. The old bastard was retired with a golden handshake before anything could rise to the surface, but that doesn’t mean we can’t stir things up a bit now. I owe that much to Fabia at least.”
Dilys’s eyebrows lifted, questioning, but Matt didn’t elaborate. As he got up and shrugged on his jacket all he said was. “As far as I’m concerned this is payback time.” Slightly embarrassed at his own vehemence, he glanced up at Dilys and surprised a look of complete understanding on her face. She grinned at him. “Go for it,” she said.
He gave a rueful laugh. “There’s not much I can get past you, is there? Come on, we’ll get out to the Coles’ now, see if Mrs Cole is up to being interviewed.”
“I checked on that conference Mr Cole was at,” Dilys told him as she followed him out of the room. “It’s all legit. It wound up after lunch on Thursday, so he would have set off for home about mid-afternoon I suppose, which tallies with what he’s already told us.”
“I thought it would. We mustn’t forget to ask him about the phone call Rhona made, and have you found out what church do Cecily Cole was at that afternoon?”
“Doing the flowers for a wedding on Thursday morning.”
“Thursday? Do people get married on a Thursday?”
“Seems like it.”
“Ri
ght. Let’s go.” Matt stopped suddenly as they went through the main office and Dilys nearly cannoned into him.
“Get someone to check if Mr Vaughan is at home, or if not, where his office is. I’d like another word with him as well, see if we can squeeze anything out of him about this drugs business. If he was supplying Amber and her friends, it might well be relevant. We don’t want to get locked into one idea too soon and then end up with egg on our face. And after that, we tackle that bloody MP again. This time we’re going to put the wind up him, no mistake.” And sod the chief, Matt thought.
Chapter 27
In spite of the message from Cole, Matt and Dilys drove up to Well House at lunchtime on the off chance they might finally manage to interview Cecily, but without success. Cole told them she was still sedated and, although outwardly helpful, added little to what they knew already. Yes, he had arrived home early on Thursday evening; no, Cecily was not at home at the time; yes, he had had a phone call from Rhona Griffiths.
“She wanted to speak to my wife, and when I told her Cecily was out, she proceeded to go on and on about some set to she’d had with Amber.”
“When did she say this was?” Matt asked.
“God knows. Sometime last week. That woman, well, one doesn’t want to speak ill of the dead but–” He paused, obviously reluctant to go on.
“Anything you have to say can hardly harm her now,” Matt said. “Please go on.”
“I suppose that’s true. I’m sorry to say it, but in my opinion she was dangerously unbalanced. Her preoccupation with the young, and with Amber in particular – all I can say is her attitude was thoroughly unhealthy, a mixture of fascination and repulsion. She was always phoning Cecily, or stopping her in the street, to complain about Amber’s clothes, her behaviour, her language, and she had the temerity to suggest that Cecily was not a fit mother. I have to say, I was very angry about that. There was nothing about our poor Amber that she didn’t find to complain about. It really was very unpleasant.” He frowned at Matt, hesitant again. “I have to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if you find she had something to do with Amber’s death.”
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