The Sin Within Her Smile

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘You swine, Lovejoy! I heard about Rita, Humphrey and Boris. But all the time you were up to something!’

  ‘I give you my word, love. Honest.’ I was thinking, if I could inveigle old Dylan and the luscious Ceinwen into letting me use their croft to hide a few things - gold artefacts manufactured secretly by somebody decent like me - and maybe to ship a few antiques through mid-Wales, why, Dylan Williams would be in clover! Lovely Ceinwen would be grateful! And I’d not exactly starve. I’d need some old Welsh gold, like that mined at Llanpumsaint, second most prolific goldmine in the Roman Empire.

  I said casually, ‘We far from Llanpumsaint, Meg?’

  ‘Oh no! Travvies!’ I looked back - at a little yellow motor that could only be Dolly’s. And a decrepit lorry. The driver looked uncommonly like Cruza. And behind that reeled a bus, smoke clouding the air. Dimity? We were miles from anywhere. I started to sweat.

  ‘Look, Meg,’ I said, desperate. ‘I’ve just remembered a clue I didn’t tell the police. I know how Vana and Sty died.’

  ‘Don’t lie, Lovejoy. Here’s Dolwar Fach.’ She pulled in before an old stone farmhouse. Ceinwen was looking down at us, pretty as a picture. ‘Who’s Little Miss Prim?’ Meg demanded, her voice hard. ‘You said an old man?’

  ‘That’s his daily help.’

  I leapt out and ran towards the lovely Ceinwen.

  ‘Lovejoy?’ Meg called, angry.

  Ceinwen came forward with a smile of welcome. She didn’t yet know me, and might believe my promises. If I could work some out quick.