The Cold Light of Mourning (8 page)

“Well, we each had our own rooms, that is Jennifer, Meg Wynne, and I,” said Anne.

“And Meg Wynne’s parents have a room here, too,” added Jennifer.

“Yes, that’s right,” said Anne. “I just moved my stuff in here today because Jennifer and I wanted to be together, but we’ve kept all the rooms until tomorrow.”

“And Miss Thompson’s room? Did you go in there at all today?”

“Yes, we got the manager to let us in earlier, when Emyr arrived.”

“Did you disturb anything or was anything out of place when you went in?”

“No, the room had been made up and everything seemed to be there. She has some jewellery in the hotel safe. When we got in last night from the party she took her hair clip and earrings and put them in their boxes, and we took those down ourselves and asked that they be put in the safe. But there may be pieces in her room that we don’t know about.”

“Well, that’ll do for now,” Davies said. “Here’s my card. Call me if you think of anything else, no matter how trivial or silly it might seem to you. Let me decide what’s important.”

“There is one thing we wanted to say to you,” Anne said.

The two police officers looked expectantly at the girls.

“It’s just that we work in PR, so we know the value of publicity. If there’s anything we can do to help get the word out that Meg Wynne is missing, we’re only too glad to help. I expect your press office will be taking this up, and they’ll probably want this.”

Jennifer held out a photo of Meg Wynne.

Davies took it from her and held it to one side so Morgan could see.

The photograph showed an elegant woman seated in a period chair with delicate armrests. Her full-length, pale aquamarine dress shimmered under the photographer’s lights but it was to the large diamond on her left hand, as it rested gently on her right forearm, that the viewer’s eyes were drawn. Meg Wynne gazed serenely at the camera, the smallest of smiles at the corner of her mouth. She appeared to be in a grandly decorated room, with a large tapestry behind her.

“It’s her engagement photo,” Jennifer said. “She looked especially beautiful there, we thought. Her father-in-law loves that photo.”

“And where was this taken?” asked Davies.

“At the Hall, at Christmas. She brought the photo back with her when she returned in the New Year.”

Davies nodded as Morgan snapped her notebook shut.

“Right, then, you’ll be around if we need you again, will you?” Morgan asked. The girls nodded and the police officers thanked them and left.

In the hallway, Morgan stopped and looked at the photo again.

“What is it?” Davies asked.

Morgan shook her head.

“I thought you had to be a member of the royal family to get your picture taken looking like that. She must really be something.”

Anne and Jennifer began to tidy up their room. “Jenn, I want to get out of here. I think we should ring the Hall and see if we can go over there. If they haven’t had dinner yet, maybe we can wangle an invitation and if not, maybe Emyr and David would like to go out someplace quiet, to get away from all this.”

As they made their way to Meg Wynne’s room, where the manager was waiting to let them in, Morgan wrapped up a phone call and turned to her boss.

“That was Durham Constabulary, sir. Thompson’s known to them. Got form and lots of it. Mostly bar brawls and domestics going back a long way.”

After thanking the manager for letting them in, they began their preliminary examination of the missing bride’s room.

“This is an odd case,” said Morgan as she gently rummaged through the cosmetics bag on top of the dresser. “It doesn’t feel right. There isn’t enough evidence to classify it as other than a missing person, but there’s something very wrong, and I can’t help but think that we should be treating this room as we would a crime scene. Get the scene-of-crime officers in to document and photograph everything.”

“You might be right, Sergeant, but for now she’s just missing.” He looked around the room. “Still, we don’t want anyone coming in here. I’ll have a word with the manager, and we’ll seal this room. Nothing in, nothing out. We’ll give it a really good going over in the morning.”

Morgan moved away from the dresser, toward the closet.

“Sir, I wonder if I should have a closer look at her dress. It might be helpful later if we knew exactly what was here. We should also have it out just to check and make sure there’s nothing behind it in the closet, or that nothing’s fallen down, don’t you think? Something we’ve overlooked.”

Davies gave her a conspiratorial smile.

“All right, Bethan. Go on, then. Purely for the investigation, you understand,” he said, shaking his head lightly.

“Of course, sir!”

Morgan removed the garment, encased in its heavy transparent plastic bag, from the closet and laid it tenderly on the bed. As she slowly pulled the zipper down, the gown was revealed as a masterpiece of contemporary dress design.

She looked at the label, and gasped.

“Oh my God, it’s by Suzanne Glenton. I’ve read about these, but never dreamed I would actually get to see one. Look at the elegance of it.”

In the palest of ivory, with a beaded bodice, it was a strapless confection worthy of a princess.

Morgan gave a little shudder and looked up at her boss. The excitement of being so close to something so utterly beautiful had been replaced by a chilling thought.

“I can tell you one thing for sure. Seeing this dress makes me think that Meg Wynne did not choose to miss her wedding. What woman would pass up the opportunity to wear this dress, I ask you?”

Davies’s eyes narrowed slightly and he nodded.

“And there’s something else,” Morgan continued, gazing down at the dress. “We need to determine what jewellery she had, and where it is now. We have to make sure all the important stuff’s accounted for.”

Davies looked at his watch and nodded again.

“Good work. Well, leave the dress on the bed, and let’s get the tape and seal this room. I’ll leave word for the manager that no one is to enter until we come back in the morning. Of course, there’s still a chance, I suppose, that she could come back.

“Still, we should brief the press office, and get that side of things moving. And before you leave Llanelen, could you ask uniform to let us know where the CCTV cameras are and get the tapes to us in the morning?”

With one last look at the dress, Morgan turned to go.

“Would you like to get a coffee before the drive home?” Davies asked.

“No, better not, thanks, sir,” Morgan replied. “It’s getting on and I’ve still got lots to do. I’d really been looking forward to an early night,” she added wistfully.

Davies accepted this, and the two made their way down the stairs and out of the hotel. He hated going home to his empty house in Llandudno. But then, he hadn’t much liked going home to it when his wife had lived there, either.

Nine

O
f course, Llanelen being the kind of village where everybody knows everybody and nothing ever happens, word spread like wildfire that something
had
happened at the Gruffydd-Thompson wedding. And Evelyn Lloyd, the former postmistress who prided herself on keeping well abreast of village affairs, had been thrilled to have a front-row seat at what would surely turn out to be one of the most sensational turn of events ever to take place in the town. Well, not exactly a front-row seat, but she had been right there in the third row on the groom’s side of the church when the rector made that stunning announcement that the bride had gone missing.

Practically trembling with excitement, she was already going over in her mind how she would recount the details of the day, from her own personal vantage point, and with whom she would share them. It was at times like these that she dearly missed the late Mr. Lloyd, who had always been there with a lovely cup of tea in the morning, a willing spirit, and outstanding listening skills.

As the wedding guests carefully picked their way along the river walk to the Red Dragon Hotel for the refreshments that had been laid on for them, Mrs. Lloyd was considering whom she should call first and one name came to mind, for several reasons.

Her niece, Morwyn Lloyd, would want to know everything Mrs. Lloyd could possibly tell her, not only because she was a former girlfriend of the bridegroom, but because she worked as a feature writer on the
Daily Post
. There had been some discussion among the paper’s senior editors whether or not the wedding should be covered as a news event. In the end, it was decided that the days of newspaper reporters and photographers attending society weddings were long gone unless the bride or groom happened to have serious social standing, such as being a drug-addicted model, an up-and-coming actor with a scandal brewing, or a junior royal. So readers of the Monday edition would see only a brief write-up and a formal photograph of the newly married couple.

Now of course, everything had changed and Mrs. Lloyd knew that Morwyn would want her to get as much information as she could from her fellow guests while they were doing their best to get through their tea.

The hotel had been booked months earlier to cater the wedding reception dinner: Welsh roast beef with duchesse potatoes and a medley of fresh vegetables, followed by a lemon sorbet, white chocolate mousse wedding cake, with an impeccable selection of fine wines and Veuve Clicquot Rosé. All that would now likely never be served, with so many guests arriving early, peckish, but with nothing to celebrate.

The kitchen was in turmoil, but under the head chef’s direction the staff had managed to put together platters of fresh-cut sandwiches, small cakes and biscuits, carrots and celery, along with tea, coffee, and cold drinks. The refreshments were really for the benefit of the out-of-towners, who had made long journeys that day, and then, with the unexpected turn of events, would have been left wondering what to do next and where to go for their dinners.

As she loaded up her plate with sandwiches, Mrs. Lloyd looked around the hotel’s special event room, which did duty for dances, wedding receptions, and large meetings. She saw a few familiar village faces along with some well-dressed young people she did not know. She thought it unfortunate but understandable that there was no one from the wedding party or either family. The rector wasn’t there, but his wife, Bronwyn, was doing her best to help everyone feel a little more at ease. The atmosphere was subdued and awkward. No one knew quite what to do or say, and yet, because they were all dressed in their wedding finery, there was no mistaking the reason they were there. Most of the women, including Mrs. Lloyd, had removed their hats.

With some uncertainty, unusual for her, she made her way over to Bronwyn Evans.

“I’m sure I speak for all of us, Bronwyn, when I say how unfortunate all this is,” she began. “But I think your husband did a splendid job of holding everything together at the church. It must have been very difficult for him. Gone home, then, has he?”

“No, Mrs. Lloyd,” Bronwyn replied stiffly. “He’s gone up to the Hall to see if he can be of any comfort to Rhys. This is going to be difficult for him.”

Sensitivity not being her strong suit, Mrs. Lloyd pressed on.

“Yes, I see that it is. It really is too bad. What on earth could have happened, do you suppose?”

Bronwyn looked levelly at her and drawing herself up, prepared to deliver, what was for her, a blistering riposte.

“Really, Mrs. Lloyd, I have no idea. I know as much or as little as you do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must just pass these sandwiches around.”

As she watched the rector’s wife move gracefully from one person to another, offering a sandwich here and a reassuring smile there, Mrs. Lloyd reached her decision. There didn’t seem to be much more to be learned here, so she would just finish up her sandwiches, perhaps take one or two for later, and make her way home to telephone Morwyn.

As Saturday evening drew on, the village braced itself for a Llanelen Saturday night. The Leek and Lily was unusually crowded and everyone had an opinion on what had happened.

At the Hall, Anne, Jennifer, David, and Emyr were discussing how to answer questions about Meg Wynne’s disappearance. Reporters were bound to hear about it and then ring up asking invasive, insensitive questions. Although he always had business to attend to in London, David had agreed to stay until mid-week to act as the family’s spokesman and to provide support for Emyr. As a group, with Anne taking the lead, they drafted a statement that David would read to the media when they began clamouring for information or comments.

Rhys had taken the news of Meg Wynne’s disappearance very badly, and he seemed to have gone downhill over the course of the evening.

“The pain waits for me,” he had told Emyr. “When it has stopped, even for a little while, I know it is still there, watching and waiting.”

In the peace of his bedroom, Rhys lay back on his pillows. His once robust body was now wasted and frail, his skin sallow and pale.

“I am so very sorry, Emyr,” he said. “About Meg Wynne.”

“I know you are, Dad,” Emyr said. “Now get some rest. I’ll see you later.”

“Be sure to come and tell me if there’s news,” replied his father, as Louise, his nurse, arrived with fresh bedding and Rhys’s prescribed medication.

Emyr made his way downstairs just as the telephone began ringing.

Oh God, he thought. It’s starting.

It was. The first reporter to call was Morwyn Lloyd and as agreed, David Williams took the call.

“Yes, I can confirm that Meg Wynne Thompson did not arrive for her wedding as planned, and that the police are treating this as a missing persons case,” he said, reading from the statement Jennifer and Anne had prepared for him.

“Both families are distraught and praying for her safe return.”

When Morwyn pressed him for more details, he told her that as far as he knew Meg Wynne had kept an appointment in the morning, and no one seemed to know what had happened to her after that. If anyone had seen her, or could provide any information on her whereabouts, it was hoped they would come forward and contact the North Wales police who were looking into her disappearance.

“And one more thing, Mr. Williams. Do you have a recent photograph of Ms. Thompson I could have? I would be happy to come up to the Hall and get it within the hour.”

Arrangements were made for Morwyn to collect a copy of Meg Wynne’s engagement photograph, and then the little group decided they should get something to eat. They opted to stay in, and settled for a simple meal of Gwennie’s lentil soup from the freezer followed by a cheese omelette that the girls whipped up and fresh, crusty bread, all accompanied by a crisp white wine. But nobody was very hungry and most of it went uneaten.

Gathered around the kitchen table, they tried to reassure one another between the long silences broken only by the occasional snuffling and whining from Trixxi who went from one to the other, touching her nose on their knees to offer comfort but always returning to Emyr’s side.

Finally, emotionally shattered from the long day, they decided to call it a night. Under the last rays of the setting sun, Jennifer and Anne drove slowly back to the hotel, leaving the Hall to settle into the coming darkness of sleep.

“She’s out there somewhere,” Anne said softly. “She’s out there. And we haven’t got a clue where she is.”

Back at the Red Dragon Hotel, Meg Wynne’s mother was asking the same question.

“What could have happened to her? Where can she be? Why would she disappear like that?”

“For the last time, woman,” shouted her husband. “I don’t know. She’s got money and lots of it by all accounts. She can go anywhere she goddamned well chooses. And look at the bother she’s caused. The bloody police all over the place, with their questions and mucky looks.”