False Friends

by False Friends (retail) (epub)

  On the day before Lowri was to return to Badgers Brook, they went into the cluttered room and began. Several piles threatened to topple over as they made decisions on what needed to be kept and what could be discarded. The discard pile seemed reluctant to grow. Everything seemed to have either relevance to the future or to be a part of Jimmy’s past life he might want to revive. Lowri found a book of poems her father had loved, copied out in his own hand. Afraid of it upsetting her mother to see it, she tucked it away to read later.

  ‘What time are you leaving tomorrow?’ Emily asked, as they put the last of the boxes into the loft-space. ‘Mam, don’t be angry, but Dic Morris is coming to take me back. He offered, guessing there’s be a lot for me to carry.’

  ‘Nonsense. You can take some of it and leave the rest till your next visit. I don’t want that man here. His father ruined our lives with his accusations.’

  ‘His father, Mam, not Dic. That’s the same as when people blame me because my father’s in prison.’

  ‘It was Dic found the evidence of theft.’

  ‘Yes, but Dad asked him to look for it.’ She hugged her mother. ‘I do understand, Mam. It helps to have someone to blame, I do it myself. Although Ellis Owen is dead, I blamed his wife for making him steal, I thought she must have been demanding and greedy. Now I know she wasn’t any of those things. Ellis wanted a divorce. He’d found someone else.’

  ‘Ellis was leaving Terri? But that didn’t come out at the trial! It might have changed everything. Lowri, we must inform the police and they’ll make her explain why she kept crucial information from them. This might be the break we’ve been looking for.’

  ‘Don’t build your hopes, Mam, please. And don’t tell Dad and give him hope of an early reprieve. It might be nothing, she could be inventing it. Until we know more we have to stay calm.’

  ‘Who was she? Perhaps she’s the one who will help us find the truth.’

  ‘Terri doesn’t know, and I doubt whether the woman will come forward, would you?’

  ‘But that could be where the money is. Lowri, we have to find her.’

  Lowri told her mother the little she knew and it was with less resentment that she welcomed Dic when he arrived the following morning at midday.

  Aware of Emily’s attitude towards him, Dic walked around the house, admired the rooms and discussed the garden, careful not to mention anything that could be misconstrued. Emily was clearly convinced that it was only a matter of a couple of months more before Jimmy rejoined her now they knew about Ellis Owen’s affair with a young woman.

  Dic joined in the pretence and wished it had a basis in reality and not fantasy. Where would they find the woman, and would she talk if they did? It was all very unlikely and he wished he hadn’t told Lowri what he had learned by talking to Terri Owen. It had just made everything worse.

  Piling all her chosen treasures on the back seat, Lowri turned and waved until her mother was no longer to be seen.

  ‘I hate leaving her there,’ Lowri said as they settled into the journey. She told him about Stella’s plan to leave more of the running of the post office and shop to her. ‘So I seem to be putting down roots. Rightly or wrongly, my life seems to be in Cwm Derw.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ was all Dic said in reply. She seemed unaware of the disappointment in his voice.

  Six

  For Lowri it had been a long emotional day, starting early to sort out as much as possible before she left, and with the tension of her mother’s attitude towards Dic making things worse. Then the long journey home. Dic didn’t suggest coming in when they reached the front gate of Badgers Brook, aware of how tired she was. Before they unloaded the car of its assorted boxes, Lowri walked up the path to open the door. She stopped, her hand on the handle as the sound of an argument met her. She waved an arm to stop Dic from bringing the first of the boxes and walked back to meet him.

  ‘I think Marion and her mysterious boyfriend are having an argument,’ she whispered with a smile. ‘Shall I make a lot of noise, so he can sneak off without being seen? Or go around the house and in through the garden door and hope not to interrupt them?’

  Without another word, grinning like conspirators, they crept around the side of the house into the garden and through the lit window they saw Marion walking towards the hall with the shadowy figure of a man in front of her. They couldn’t hear the words but from the pitch of her voice and the gestures, they knew she was still in the throes of a row.

  ‘It looks like he’s going out towards the lane; he’ll see the car,’ Lowri whispered.

  ‘Then lets get back and make a lot of noise.’ Dic put an arm around her and guided her back around the side of the house. The kitchen door opened and they heard the low tone of the man and the higher, angry voice of Marion as the argument continued.

  ‘Hi, Marion, it’s me. I’m back,’ Lowri called. The kitchen door immediately closed, and the key turned noisily in the lock, shutting the two antagonists inside.

  ‘Oh dear, now what do we do?’ Lowri groaned.

  ‘We stop hiding as though we were the ones with a secret to keep. Come on, round the back and through the garden door. It’s bound to be open.’

  As they neared the corner with a view of the big garden, they heard a door open and saw a man jump out and run down to where there was a weak part of the hedge. Before she could call Dic’s attention to the man, he had slipped through and his footsteps could be heard running down the narrow lane.

  Lowi was shaking. ‘Dic, did you see him?’

  ‘No, I only heard him pushing through the hedge and running off. I was too late to see him. Why, did you recognize him?’ He laughed. ‘So Marion’s mysterious man is a secret no longer. Who was he, anyone I know?’ He was standing close to her and was aware of her body shaking. ‘Lowri? What is it? Who was he?’

  ‘No one! I didn’t see him properly. I was too late.’

  Knowing from the sharpness of her tone and her obvious discomfort that was untrue, Dic guessed it was someone they knew. Names raced through his mind, people who would cause her distress to be revealed as Marion’s lover. His strongest suspicion was that it had been Ken Hardy she had seen. Ken visited sometimes and on the most recent occasion he called when he had known Lowri wouldn’t be there. How innocent it would seem for him to be there. But the man had run away, and besides, Ken wasn’t married. Although, he thought, that might be a lie to protect his secret. As they walked back to the kitchen door, where Marion waited for them, he wondered why such secrecy was necessary? Did Ken Hardy hurry away because he’d be unable to explain why he and Marion were having such an intense disagreement?

  Still pondering the possible explanations, he left the two girls to talk and carried the boxes in and put them on the kitchen table. Then he left, refusing an invitation to stay for supper. He put down the last box, kissed Lowri lightly, and promised to call again soon. ‘Remember, I’m only a short drive away if you need me.’

  She thanked him and wished he would stay. The vision of the man she had seen running down the garden and through the hedge was as clear as a photograph. Ellis Owen, and this time there was no doubt. But who would believe her? Oh why hadn’t Dic been close enough to see him too? He knew the man well and a glance would have been enough for him to recognize Ellis.

  Logic forced her to question herself. How could Ellis be alive? If he were, then why hadn’t he been in touch with his wife? Perhaps he had and Terri was lying to them all, playing the part of grieving widow while she hid the money and protected him?

  What was Marion’s role in this? Was he her secret lover? Or was she a friend who was helping him to stay free? Whatever the explanation, how could she face Marion and pretend nothing untoward had happened? Surely her face would make it apparent? Taking a deep breath she went back into the living room.

  Marion was clearly embarrassed. She fussed around arranging Lowri’s boxes in the living room, between dashing in and out of the kitchen preparing a light supper. She chatted cheerfu
lly throughout their meal, her nervousness adding vivacity to her conversation as she asked about Lowri’s visit to her mother’s new home.

  She made no reference to the hasty departure of her boyfriend or the argument Lowri and Dic had interrupted. If she noticed how subdued Lowri appeared, she said nothing, presuming it was tiredness and her being upset at parting from her mother after a week together. Lowri said very little, answering her questions in a dull monotone.

  ‘All right, are you?’ Marion finally asked. ‘Tired for sure, all that humping furniture and the long journey.’

  Lowri raised her head and stared at her friend. ‘Marion. Who is he?’

  ‘Who’s who?’ Marion tried to sound flippant.

  ‘Your boyfriend. I saw him leave, and thought I recognized him.’

  Marion was startled but recovered swiftly and shook her head. ‘He’s not from round here and there’s no way you two could have met. No, you don’t know him and I can’t tell you who he is, not yet. Not until his wife has agreed to the terms of a divorce. Demanding ever so much, she is. Bitter and angry, even though they haven’t lived as man and wife for almost five years.’

  Lowri said nothing more. If he was discussing divorce with his wife, then how could it be Ellis? Confusion and disbelief vied with the picture she still held in her memory of the man pushing his way through the hedge. Was she going mad?

  Unless she were a very fine actress, Terri Owen was convinced she was a widow. She was having to sell the house and find a job to support herself. She couldn’t be so convincing if it was all a pretence. Lowri fiddled with the piles of boxes for a while, then went to bed, bidding her friend a cursory ‘Good night’.

  Marion sat for a while, anxiety clouding her eyes, and it was after midnight before she filled a hot-water bottle and went to her bedroom, but still sleep wouldn’t come. The temptation of an empty house in which to meet had been irresistible. In fact, that was one of the reasons she had agreed to share the tenancy with Lowri; the luxury of a comfortable, albeit an occasional, place to meet. The other reason had been a need to keep an eye on Lowri, stop her becoming too obsessed with wasting her life trying to find proof of her father’s innocence. She longed to be able to discuss her situation with someone, hated keeping it all from her friend, but there was no alternative. This was how it had to be.

  Before going to the post office the following morning, Lowri carried all the boxes up to her bedroom. Some, containing papers and files which had been returned by the police, she locked in the wardrobe. She didn’t know why, there was nothing other than the mundane day-to-day minutiae of running the business. Any papers that were important would have been held by the police or taken by Dic’s father, Jack Morris, who still ran the factory. She wished she had listened to her mother and burned it on the garden fire they had built to discard so much that was of no use. Trawling through it only added to her unhappiness.

  She browsed briefly through the books and personal notebooks she had brought back. More poems and observations on birds and wild flowers he had written out for her when she had been young. Words of a few songs and nonsense verses. She was tearful remembering how happy they had all been before Ellis Owen had ruined it all.

  She shook off the shock of seeing Ellis Owen and the sadness of her father’s memories, and later cheerfully told Stella and Colin all that she and her mother had achieved. ‘Three rooms furnished and ready for lodgers. A smart bathroom and the lovely kitchen – we bought a table that’s big enough for six people to eat in comfort.’

  ‘What about a sitting room, they won’t want to stay in their rooms, will they?’ Colin asked.

  ‘There are two rooms downstairs and Mam will have one and the other will be for the lodgers, or paying guests as she will call them.’

  ‘She’ll make them comfortable, for sure. She’s the motherly type,’ Stella said nodding wisely, even though she had never met Emily.

  On that first day back the customers all wanted to talk, wanting to know where she’d been and asking questions about the house her mother had bought.

  ‘It’s got a big mortgage, mind,’ Lowri told them, even though it was untrue. ‘Mam didn’t have much money – she and Dad had sunk it all into the business.’

  ‘Pity ’elp her. She’s so brave, making a new life for herself,’ several commented. ‘And a place for Dad for when he’s released,’ she would add.

  Needing to wallow further in nostalgia, she planned to look through the rest of the books and notes that evening. With Marion out, supposedly visiting her parents, she looked forward to a quiet evening in which to do it. She bought a corned beef pasty and some bits of salad for her meal and she had just opened the first of the notebooks when there was a knock at the door. Kitty and Bob came in and they were quickly followed by Connie and Geoff, who arrived at the same time as Ken Hardy. Accepting the inevitable, Lowri put aside the first box of papers she had begun to examine, and put the kettle on for tea. She brought out a cake her mother had given her, and Connie, true to type, unpacked a few small cakes and everyone made themselves comfortable.

  They were all interested in Emily’s plan to keep lodgers to help pay her way and praised her resourcefulness. Pushing aside her own concerns Lowri made light of the problems her mother had overcome and made it sound like a great deal of fun.

  She was aware of Ken watching her as the chatter gathered pace around them and when their eyes met, his crinkled with amusement. He stayed after the others had gone and helped stack the dishes in the kitchen. He leaned against the sink and stared at her before asking, ‘What’s wrong, Lowri? Your laughter lacks the true ring of happiness tonight. Is everything really all right with your mother?’

  ‘My mother’s fine. She has chosen those who she’ll have as paying guests, and everything will be fine.’

  ‘And you? Are you “fine”?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Tell me, Lowri. I might be able to help. I’ll certainly try.’

  He was still wearing that smile and laughter showed in his eyes, almost black now, in the distorting light from the gas lamp. She saw beyond the smile and knew he was serious. Taking a chance, prepared for ridicule, she said sharply, ‘All right, call me stupid, but I believe I’ve seen the man who my father’s suspected of murdering. There, now you’d better hurry off before I embarrass you by coming out with even more nonsense!’

  ‘Where did you see him?’

  She stared in surprise. ‘You believe me?’

  ‘Of course I don’t believe you! I’d need more than your say-so to convince me a dead man is walking around Cwm Derw! Tell me where, and when.’

  ‘It was in the field beyond Colin Jones’s allotment. He saw me and quickly changed direction and ran off. I know it was him; he had a distinctive way of walking and besides he was startled when he saw me watching him and reacted so fast, he was obviously as shocked as me. I tried to follow, it was when the snow was on the ground, but his footprints were lost when he reached the road.’

  ‘Have you seen him since?’

  ‘Well, I’m almost convinced he was here, having a furious argument with Marion. How stupid is that?’

  ‘You asked her of course?’

  ‘I asked her to tell me the name of her boyfriend, but she refused.’ She began filling the kettle to wash the dishes, turning away from him to hide her tears. ‘How could it have been him. I must have been mistaken. It’s too fantastic. If Ellis Owen is Marion’s secret lover, then this would be the last place she’d bring him. Besides, Marion says he’s asked his wife for a divorce, so that doesn’t add up, does it? I can talk myself out of believing he’s alive, but the hope sneaks back and catches me unawares sometimes.’

  ‘So you know it’s nothing more than a dream?’

  ‘Most of the time,’ she admitted.

  He stepped closer and put his arms around her. ‘When you feel unable to cope without the dream, talk to me. I’ll listen for as long as you need to talk.’

  She relaxed
against him, not wondering what had changed his mind from unwillingness to discuss her father’s situation, just thankful for it.

  *

  Dic was concerned about Lowri, afraid that the person she had seen running away from Badgers Brook was Ken Hardy. If Ken was Marion’s secret boyfriend, then Lowri must be feeling dreadfully alone, Dic thought to himself. Yet he didn’t want to put his suspicions into words. When she was ready, Lowri would tell him and until then he had to be patient. He phoned her at the post office and called a few times but although he tried to persuade her to talk about Ken, she avoided discussing him, and she also refused to talk about the man she had seen running away from Badgers Brook, so both suffered their doubts in silence.

  Dic called at Jake Llewellyn’s boatyard a few miles inland from Barry’s pleasure beach from time to time. He went to look at boats and sometimes sketch them for the models he made. He also begged pieces of old wood from the repairs Jake carried out, using the odd shaped pieces for his work. On a Wednesday at the end of May, he took little Katie and went to see if there was anything of interest.

  Jake saw them parking the car and filled the battered kettle and placed it on the primus stove. As they entered the office, he took out a bottle of Tizer and with a cursory wipe of a mug, poured a drink for the little girl. ‘Hello, beautiful girl,’ he said handing her the mug, ‘and who’s this ugly old man you’ve brought along?’

  Katie giggled, her eyes sparkling, her face half hidden by her first sip of the fizzy drink. ‘It’s my dad, silly,’ she said.

  ‘So it is! Kind of you to bring him along.’ Still joking and teasing, Jake waved a hand towards the corner, where he had thrown a few pieces of wood he thought Dic might use.