The Case of the Missing Morris Dancer

by Cathy Ace

  Carol nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘He’ll enjoy spending those thousands then,’ said Carol, trying to fish for information about how much money Aubrey might have withdrawn.

  ‘He certainly will,’ agreed Sharon, just as the little bell rang out and David plopped into the shop, dripping, smiling and ready to go.

  ‘Thanks, Sharon,’ said Carol as she picked up the one bag she was allowed to carry and followed David out into the rain.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ replied Sharon with a smile, oblivious to how happy she’d just made Carol.

  Once she’d slithered into the seat beside her husband and buckled up, Carol said, ‘Right, drive away from here, quick as you can, then park up behind the market hall, will you, love? I have to phone Mavis and report in. It’s important, and it might mean that I have to duck out of the Welsh cake thing today. So, if you don’t mind hanging on for a little bit, maybe I’ll drop you back home and take the car.’

  ELEVEN

  Annie and Mavis had met at the office at eight thirty and were well into their second pot of tea when Carol rang. As Annie had noted, it wasn’t as though they’d been skiving; Mavis and she had read the report Christine had sent through at some ungodly hour the night before, and they’d been discussing what it might mean for their enquiries. All of which meant that when Carol phoned they were easily able to come up with a plan of action, and they agreed she should join them.

  Fifteen minutes later all three women were hunched over their desks undertaking their allotted tasks, and, within an hour, they were all in a position to reconvene around a fresh pot and nibble bourbon biscuits as they shared information.

  ‘I’ll speak first,’ said Mavis, thereby calling the meeting to order. Annie and Carol settled back on the sofa ready to listen and learn. Mavis hooked her hair back, straightened her shoulders and began: ‘Following up on a lead I obtained from Althea, I have now established there is someone we can speak to about Aubrey Morris’s early years in school. A Mrs Lewis was the head teacher at the infants’ school in the village when he attended, and she still lives in Anwen-by-Wye. Carol, she’s your next-door neighbor, in Rose Cottage. I understand she’s now quite elderly, somewhat hard of hearing and, if Althea is to be believed – and I suspect she is – then the poor woman might be having a few challenges when it comes to differentiating between yesterday afternoon and ten years ago. As we all know, this would usually be my area of specialism – the old and infirm having been my main responsibility as a nurse, especially in the latter part of my career at the Battersea Barracks. But I am more than happy to take a back seat if you’d like to step up and build some connections with your neighbor, Carol. She’d need to be seen without delay.’

  Carol paused as both Annie and Mavis raised their eyebrows in her direction. Carol disliked the smell of old age, and was immediately apprehensive about how she might deal with a woman who wasn’t quite with it. She knew it wasn’t her strong suit. ‘To be honest, Mavis, we all know you’re really good at that sort of thing, and I think you should do it. Let’s stick to our strengths for this one.’

  Mavis nodded. ‘Very well, I shall make my way to the village as soon as we finish up here. I have also established that Christine and Alexander are indeed heading off to Brighton today, that she will deliver the invoice to the design house tomorrow and she’s sorry there’s nothing specific to report after she and Alexander met up with that chappie last night. I must say the fact she was able to tell us, through this contact, that there is no news of the Anwen Morris equipment being available for sale within the parts of the underground antiques business with which he’s familiar is good news, rather than no news.’ Mavis looked at Carol and Annie as she added, ‘Alexander seems to know some quite extraordinary people. We’re fortunate to have his knowledge at our disposal.’

  Annie grinned. ‘Yeah, and that’s the only reason Chrissy keeps seeing him, innit?’

  Mavis shot her a warning glance, and Annie bit into a bourbon biscuit with such determination that it disintegrated.

  ‘Since Annie’s making a mess over there, what about you, Carol? What have you discovered?’

  ‘First of all, just let me tell you that all the photographs I am about to show you on my laptop have been sent to you both, and to Christine, as attachments to an email, so you can each access them on your mobile devices. I have found a photograph of Aubrey’s van, so we all know what we’re talking about when we refer to it.’ She motioned to her laptop screen. ‘This is it. I’ve seen it in the village often, though I know you swear you’ve never noticed it, Annie. As you can see, it’s hard to miss. The letters spelling out his name are two feet tall and bright red. I also have these additional photographs of Aubrey himself – thanks for taking snaps of the photos he had at his house, Mavis, and I can now also show you what the Anwen Morris artefacts look like. Thanks to the information Christine gleaned from the bloke she met in the pub near the Globe Theatre last night, I’ve been able to find these approximations to what’s missing. I still find it hard to believe that no one in Anwen-by-Wye has a photograph of the actual items in question, but, failing that, these will have to do for now. According to Christine’s source, the Morris staff would look rather like this—’ she pointed at her screen – ‘but with a glass knob at the top, covered in a gold cage. The missing sticks look like this, and the bells like this.’

  ‘They just look like ordinary sticks, and a collection of cat bells,’ said Annie, unimpressed. ‘Your Bunty’s got one just like that on her collar, Car.’

  Carol sighed. ‘I know that, but I am doing this for clarity. If items have gone missing we should all know what they look like, just in case we happen upon them.’

  ‘Well them sticks look just like sticks,’ said Annie with finality.

  ‘Come now, dear. They’ve been carved so they have rounded ends, and they are of a particular, standard dimension. We can see that at least,’ said Mavis tartly.

  ‘And they ain’t missing, neither,’ added Annie. ‘They are his, and he’s taken them. That’s not missing, that’s gone. Like him. This is all a flamin’ wild goose chase – when the goose in’t missing, but gorn!’

  Carol sighed wearily, then half-smiled at her friend. ‘The Twyst family has asked us to look into it. We’re being paid to do so. We must be professional, Annie, and we must be able to show what we have done with the time for which they will be billed.’

  Mavis smiled at Carol with pride. ‘You’re learning, girl.’

  ‘Backhanded compliments – her specialty,’ sneered Annie with a wink.

  ‘And how have you spent your time, Annie?’ challenged Mavis.

  Annie cleared her throat and used her most professional tones: ‘I’ve spoken with my contacts in Cardiff.’ She smiled proudly – Mavis and Carol knew she was talking about the people she’d worked with when she was doing an undercover job a little while ago, but they allowed her her pride. ‘And they tell me that, around these parts, the best way to shift such items as we see here—’ she waved at Carol’s laptop – ‘would be for scrap. They also tell me that if Aubrey hasn’t got any paperwork to prove he owns the stuff, which we all reckon might be the case because they’re so old, then he wouldn’t be likely to be able to shift it at all, except to one bloke, and he’s somehow connected with Cardiff Castle and a billiard hall in Cathays.’

  ‘Explain your use of the word “connected”, please,’ said Mavis.

  ‘They say he works at Cardiff Castle as a sort of guide, and when he’s not there he can be found at a billiards hall called the Cathays Billiards Hall, in Cathays. Not all that inventive when it came to the name of the place, it seems.’

  ‘And do we have a name for this man?’ asked Carol.

  ‘Jones the Watch,’ said Annie, rolling her eyes. ‘And before you ask, no, no one knew why he’s called that. He just is.’

  ‘Any chance you could meet up with one of your “contacts” and track down Jones the Watch at either his place of work or this billi
ards hall, Annie? Today maybe? He might be able to tell us if Aubrey Morris has made an attempt to sell the artefacts on the local market,’ said Mavis. ‘After all, although Alexander Bright might be well connected, we have to assume he doesn’t have a path to every dodgy dealer in the entire United Kingdom. Our role as enquiry agents is to make use of every single route toward every single lead and it’s wonderful that we have the connections of a man like Alexander to call upon, but we must not allow that to prevent us from discovering, developing and using our other connections. That’s what this business is all about – knowing where to look for the information we need to lead us to the evidence we require.’

  Annie shrugged. ‘Eustelle won’t be best pleased if I leave her to clean up the cottage ready for Dad’s arrival all alone, but work’s work, so she’ll have to lump it, I s’pose.’ Her colleagues could tell Annie wasn’t enamored of the idea. ‘I’m just not sure what it will achieve, though,’ she added pensively. ‘See, if Tudor can find another musician, and some bits of stuff for them to all use, I don’t see why Henry or Althea would really care if Aubrey’s not there on Saturday, nor his stuff. And it is his, after all. I mean, it’s not like they asked us to track him down as a person, just as someone whose absence could mess up the wedding plans. I think I should see how Tudor’s coming on with his plans to find a back-up before anyone goes off and does anything.’

  It was clear that Annie had given the group some food for thought.

  Mavis nodded. ‘I think you have a point, Annie. Shall I telephone Tudor Evans to establish the state of play?’

  ‘No, I’ll do it,’ said Annie quickly. Almost biting back her enthusiasm she added, ‘We’ve talked for hours about this already so we have a sort of, you know, rapport. I’ll give him a quick bell.’ She uncurled herself from the sofa and picked up the mobile phone on her desk to make the call.

  Mavis and Carol shared a secretive wink and listened intently, while pretending to discuss the comparative merits of bourbons and custard creams.

  Returning to stand beside the sofa, Annie was beaming. ‘Tudor’s found himself a bloke who can play the accordion on Saturday, and he reckons he knows enough of the right sort of songs and tempos for them to be able to manage, and the bloke with the accordion – who’s coming up from somewhere near Somerset – is going to drop into some village in Gloucester and pick up all the bits and bobs they need. It won’t be the Anwen Morris kit, but they’ll have bells and sticks and they’ll make do. He’s done ever so well, ain’t he?’

  Mavis stifled a smile as she replied, ‘That he has, my dear. Your Mr Evans seems to be a very resourceful man.’

  Annie’s expression wouldn’t have been out of place on Scarlett O’Hara’s face as she replied coyly, ‘He’s not my Mr Evans, Mave, and well you know it.’

  ‘We should check in with Althea and Henry,’ said Carol. Mavis nodded her agreement. ‘They might say that’s an end to it. Has Tudor Evans told the Twysts about his new arrangements yet?’

  Annie shook her head. ‘He was just about to phone Henry and tell him the good news. Let’s not steal his thunder? Give it five minutes, then how about Mave phones Althea? Henry’ll probably do whatever she says anyway and I can’t imagine Stephanie gives two hoots.’

  The three women returned to their desks and began to square away all the notes they’d made on the case. By the time Mavis spoke to Althea, Carol had three little bundles ready for billing. They listened as Mavis explained the situation, then held the handset silently, nodding.

  Eventually, Mavis hung up the phone and looked at her colleagues. ‘Well, that’s a turn up for the books, and no mistake.’

  ‘What?’ chorused Annie and Carol, frustrated.

  ‘They’ve found Aubrey’s van. It was parked just off a lay-by on the Builth Wells road. It’s not damaged and there’s no sign of life inside it, or around it. No blood, no signs of injuries at all. The police have had it towed away, but they are still not prepared to act as though Aubrey is a missing person, merely noting he has left a motor vehicle at a lay-by where no overnight parking or unattended vehicles are allowed and they will issue a ticket. There’s no way of telling how long it had been where it was found. Althea is, of course, delighted that Tudor Evans has been able to make arrangements for the Anwen Morris to participate in the wedding, but she now feels she owes it to her friendship with Aubrey’s late grandmother to ask us to continue to try to find out where he’s gone, and now, of course, what’s happened to him if he’s no longer with his van.’

  ‘We need to find out everything we can about that van,’ said Annie.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Carol . ‘It’s more of a priority than the billiards hall lead. But, I tell you what, I could do that – I can find out what the police know about the car, and I can even go to see it at the impound if they’ll let me. I’m the only one of us three with their own transport after all, and, once I manage to get the seatbelt around my middle, I’m quite comfy in the car. If you make the most of your time with Eustelle, Annie, and Mavis goes to see Aubrey’s old teacher – just in case we can get somewhere with identifying who it might be from his old schooldays that he was planning to travel with – then we might understand why the van ended up where it was. No sign of the Anwen Morris artefacts in the van, I suppose Mavis?’

  ‘Not a sausage,’ she replied, shaking her head.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t said that,’ groaned Annie, ‘now I’m going to want a sausage sandwich for lunch. With lots of HP, and a dash or two of Eustelle’s special hot sauce for good measure.’ Annie beamed as she spoke, which made her colleagues chuckle, though the thought of pouring what she thought of as the equivalent of battery acid into her tummy made Carol’s insides quake.

  ‘Perhaps they serve sausage sandwiches at the Lamb and Flag,’ quipped Mavis. ‘Maybe you could drop in to congratulate Tudor Evans on his achievements.’

  Annie looked thoughtful, oblivious to the tone of Mavis’s remarks. ‘That’s a good idea, Mave. I might just do that.’

  ‘Go on, away with you,’ said Mavis smiling, ‘I’ll phone Christine and tell her what we’re all up to.’

  TWELVE

  ‘People will start to talk you know,’ mugged Carol as, for the second time in as many days, Annie Parker once again emerged in a tangle of arms and legs from Carol’s little car in front of the Lamb and Flag before it was open to the public.

  Annie grinned. ‘Think I in’t used to that, Car? Every time I walk anywhere round here there’s a stiff breeze whipped up by all the net curtains that get twitched. But don’t worry, I’ll get used to it, or they’ll get used to me. Anyway, I’m not going straight in there, I’m going to get Eustelle first, then me and her can have a bite in the pub together. Not in the snug, mind you, but sitting in the proper bar.’

  Carol shrugged, not understanding the distinction. ‘So why did you let me drop you off here? I could have taken you to your own front door.’

  ‘Exercise,’ said Annie blithely, and began to stride the hundred paces or so she’d need to cover with her long legs before pulling out her front door key.

  Carol drove away, bemused. She loved her friend dearly, but had no misconceptions about how unpredictable Annie could be. As she headed away from Anwen-by-Wye along the B roads that wound through the lush countryside of Powys she felt she should hug herself, she was so happy. It was wonderful to be living in Wales again, having left it behind in the belief that her only hope of finding herself and growing into a complete person was to leave it and her family and head out into the world, specifically London. Of course, if she hadn’t taken the job as the head of programming at the Swiss conglomerate she’d grown to hate, she’d never have met David.

  When he’d been recruited to the team that reported to her, she’d immediately spotted him as being the brightest spark in the group, and it hadn’t taken long before she’d noticed a good few other things about him too – like how funny he was, and how he was always ready to help out when someone needed an extra ha
nd or a chance to get away early. They’d ended up working on some big projects together, and the late nights in the office had led to respect, friendship, the odd drink and then proper dates.

  If only for the reason that she’d met David, Carol knew that moving from her family’s farm in the Carmarthenshire countryside to the chaos that was London had been worth it. But she knew she was back where she belonged; the verdant countryside wrapped itself around her like a comfy old Welsh tapestry blanket, and she was happy to cwtch in for all she was worth.

  The first set of traffic lights she encountered made her pause in her journey. As she hummed ‘Cwm Rhondda’ she allowed her gaze to wander up the hill which mounded beside the road. Sheep dotted the dappled green, almost-vertical pastures, and she could see the tracks carved into the hillside over countless generations of both sheep, and farmers. A thought popped into her head and she reached up to hit the button on her earpiece; she put a call into the office.

  ‘Mavis, is that you?’ she snapped when the ringing stopped.

  ‘Aye, I’ve not set out yet. Everything alright?’

  ‘Yes, but a quick question – have we got an address for the Morris sheep farm? You know, Aubrey Morris’s grandfather’s farm. Do we even know if it’s still owned by a Morris family member?’

  ‘Now that I can tell you. Hold on.’ Silence. ‘Here you go. Morris Farm, Ty Gwyn Fawr, Builth Road, Powys. Not the most informative of addresses. Althea says that Aubrey’s grandfather’s brother still lives there. Does that help?’

  As Carol resumed her progress along the narrow road she smiled. ‘Yes Mavis, it does, ta. Listen, I’ll give the van and the police my attention first, but I might well stop by the Morris farm on my way back to the village. Given that the address is “Big White House” in Welsh, I think I might have just spotted it up on top of the hill here. Looks like it might be the place, anyway. I’ll let you know. I think it might be worth checking face-to-face if they’ve had any contact with Aubrey.’