Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By: A Penny Brannigan Mystery (3 page)

*

The police station at Llandudno buzzed with the usual noise of police officers going about their business. Officers left the station and made their way to the car park at the back of the red brick building on Oxford Road as the desk sergeant dealt with a steady parade of visitors who came to register a complaint, comply with a bail condition, drop something off, or ask to see a specific officer.

In a temporary office overlooking the car park, Det. Chief Inspector Gareth Davies checked his e-mail and then reached for his telephone and called his sergeant. “Morning, Bethan. Would you come in here for a moment please?” A few minutes later Sgt. Bethan Morgan appeared in front of his desk.

“What’s up, sir?”

“It’s a conference at Gladstone’s Library. Group of clergy from the Church in Wales. One of our colleagues from St. Asaph was supposed to give them a little talk on how they can better protect their churches against the rise in thefts of lead and copper. Now he’s been reassigned to a priority investigation and the superintendent’s asking if we can send someone. So I think this would be a good opportunity for you to practice your presentation skills…”

The ringing of his mobile telephone interrupted him. He glanced at the caller ID and gestured at Morgan to sit down. “It’s Penny. You don’t have to leave, just take a seat. Sorry, but I should just take this.” He turned his attention to his mobile.

“Hello, you.”

He listened for a few moments and nodded.

“Right. Love to. Sounds great. We’ll sort the details out soon.”

He smiled as he pressed the button to end the call.

“Well,” he said to his sergeant, “what are the chances of that? Penny just asked me if I’d like to get away for a few days to Gladstone’s Library at the same time as this conference is on and I agreed, so I’ll do the presentation. We’ll find something else to keep you busy while I’m gone.”

Bethan stood up. She knew Davies had been trying for some time to find the right time and the right place to spend a few days on a break with Penny, but something always got in the way of their plans. But it struck her as odd that Penny had been the one to ask him to go away. The two had been seeing each other since last summer, but Bethan felt the relationship was tilted emotionally in Penny’s favour—that Davies’s strong feelings for her were not returned with the same intensity. She’s just not that into him, was the way Bethan put it. Or maybe she’s just holding back, for some reason. Oh well, nothing to do with her. Leave them to it and she hoped they’d enjoy themselves. There was always plenty to do around the station to keep her busy.

Five

“Well, Penny, and how are things going with that nice policeman of yours?”

“Very well, thank you, Mrs. Lloyd.” Penny finished applying the top coat to her client’s nails and sat back as her client held her hands out in front of her to examine them. Satisfied with the results, Mrs. Lloyd nodded.

“Now I’m only thinking about you, Penny. It’s just that you’re not getting any younger so I hope things are moving in the right direction there.” She gave Penny a sly smile. “Will we have a wedding to look forward to this summer, I wonder?”

Penny did not rise to the bait. “Well, Mrs. Lloyd, you’re done for this week,” she said briskly. “I hope you’ll enjoy your bridge game tonight. It’s still on, I suppose?”

“Oh yes. It would be nice to get some decent cards for a change. Or a decent partner who knows better than to trump my ace. Perhaps tonight my luck will change.”

Penny saw her client out, then headed for Victoria’s office. “I couldn’t believe it,” she exclaimed, throwing herself into a chair. “‘A wedding to look forward to!’ Honestly, that woman.”

Victoria looked up from her computer. “Well, Penny, maybe it’s just as well she brought it up. She does have a point, I think. Have you thought about how you’re going to respond to Gareth when he asks you?”

“Asks me?”

“Yes, when he asks you to marry him. As he surely will.”

Penny frowned. “Marry him? Do you know something I don’t? Do you know that he’s going to? Has he said something to you?”

“Well, you must know how he feels about you. It’s pretty obvious to the rest of us that he worships the bones of you. He’s besotted.”

Penny ran her hands through her hair, leaving one side sticking up. “I know,” she said softly. “I wish he didn’t feel quite so strongly. I think we’re fine as we are. I don’t want things to change. We’re in a good place.”

Victoria tipped her head and raised an eyebrow. “Are both of you in a good place, though? Maybe you are and Gareth not so much. I get the feeling he’d like things to move forward. Relationships can’t stay in one place forever. Not at the stage you’re at, anyway. It has to be going somewhere. Leading to something.”

Penny sighed. “But does it, though? I don’t want to hurt him but I’m really not sure I have anything more to give.” She met her friend’s gaze.

“Do you love him?” Victoria asked. “Because if you don’t by now, maybe you never will.”

Penny said nothing as the silence between them grew thicker and heavier. She raised her shoulders a little and then sank back in her chair.

“I’m not sure what I feel for him. I want to love him. I find him very attractive and he’s a wonderful, decent, kind man, but there’s just something. Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know how to put it.” Her voice trailed off and then she tried again. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel at my age. I feel comfortable with him. I like talking to him. I like going out with him. I enjoy his companionship. He’s fun to be with. But when I’m not with him I don’t feel that aching longing, that intense need to be with him. So am I in love with him? Do I love him? I don’t know. Maybe I do, but it’s a different kind of love. It’s not the grand passion we feel in our twenties or thirties; it’s calmer and more settled.”

She cupped her chin in her hand and thought for a moment.

“What I do know is that I don’t want to marry him. That much I do know. And it isn’t just him, I wouldn’t want to marry anybody and to be honest, I don’t think I ever will. I like my life as it is. I love the cottage. It’s my home and for the first time in my life I’ve got everything just the way I want it. I don’t want to share it with anyone and I don’t want to move. But at the same time, I don’t want to lose him.”

Victoria let out a little sigh and nodded. “Well, hopefully you’ll have a chance to sort things out while you’re at the Library.” Penny stood up.

“And you’ll look after Harrison while I’m away?”

“Of course. I assume he’s just like every other cat I’ve ever known. Once he works out that I know how to use the can opener we’ll get along just fine.”

Victoria leaned back in her chair and looked at Penny’s retreating back. She saw a slim woman in her early fifties who dressed well and took good care of herself. Her carefully shaped red hair, cut and coloured after hours in the Spa’s hair dressing salon, was all one length and curved in neatly below her ears, almost reaching her shoulders.

I don’t think that relationship is going in the right direction, Victoria thought, feeling anxious for Penny’s happiness.

A few weeks earlier, Victoria had met a cello player in Florence and had got caught up in a passionate affair that ended abruptly when Victoria discovered he was married and still living with his wife. But she thought about him often and longed for him, or at least longed for the single man she’d thought he was and wished he’d been. Penny’s got it wrong about there being no place for passion in a middle-aged romance, Victoria told herself with a small shrug. But everyone’s different and maybe she and Gareth will find what works for them and settle for that, whatever it turns out to be.

With a sigh, she turned back to her computer and started printing off the documents she’d need to set up the meeting with the lawyer. A local woman, Dilys Hughes, had created a hand cream that promised extraordinary results. In her seventies, Dilys had the hands of a woman decades younger. The skin was taut with no blemishes or brown spots. She’d used the hand cream almost all her adult life and the results were impressive. Penny and Victoria wanted to sell it as a private-label product for their Spa, but first they had to get legal access to the formula. She had a feeling Dilys wasn’t going to be easy to work with.

Six

Araminta Russell, the bishop’s secretary, glanced up from her computer as her employer entered the large office suite they shared on the ground floor of the house where the bishop and his wife had lived since their marriage. Minty’s white hair was all one length and fell to just below her ears from a centre part. Her glasses were rimless, and while trendy, gave her a curiously old-fashioned look as if she might have been the headmistress of an exclusive ladies’ college in the 1930s. She wore a dark purple pleated skirt with a lavender twin set and a graceful three-strand pearl necklace that her mother had left her.

“Good morning, Bishop.”

Blaine nodded as he strode past her into his office, indicating that she should follow him.

“Arrangements for the conference coming along well?” he asked as he settled in his chair and reached for the papers Miss Russell had placed in his in-tray.

“Well, the North Wales Police have been very accommodating,” she replied. “They’re sending a replacement for the first officer who was supposed to speak to us and then got reassigned.” She glanced at her notebook. “A DCI Gareth Davies will be speaking to the group so that seems in order.”

Blaine nodded as he turned a page of the document he was scanning. “Good. Anything else?” He did not look up.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m working on the overview of all the parish activities, and I’ll have all the reports printed and ready for you in good time.”

Blaine made no reply and kept reading, his chin resting on his hand.

“And then there’s the speaker who is going to explain how we can use mobile telephones to bring in more donations,” Minty said as she lifted a page of her steno book. “That speaker is lined up and ready to go. In fact, he seemed quite keen.”

The bishop groaned.

“Well, that’s the reality today,” Miss Russell said. “Studies show that people would be happy to donate more if they could use modern technology to do so. Hardly anyone carries cash. And coins and bills are so tiresome to count after the service when the sidesmen just want to be off home to their Sunday lunches. So there’s the convenience factor and if the new system would appeal to a younger congregation and bring in more money, then it would seem to be a very good thing. The way of the future.”

The bishop made a noncommittal kind of unhappy, whining noise and Miss Russell remained standing in the doorway but said nothing.

“Well?” he asked, finally raising his eyes to meet hers. “Is there something else?”

“Yes, sorry, there is one thing,” Minty said. Blaine continued to maintain hard eye contact.

“Well, go on, then. What is it?”

Minty hesitated, looked away, and then said, “It’s a personal matter. It’s just that my sister is not well. She found a lump and they ran some tests and now she’s scheduled for surgery. I wondered if I might have a few days with her. Her husband’s next to useless; he can barely make a cup of tea, let alone put a decent meal together. It’s a good job he works in a pub because that’s where he’d be spending all his time anyway. Constance, that’s my sister, she’ll need help while she recovers. I’ll just be gone for a few days before Easter and I’d arrange to be back Easter Monday to make sure everything’s ready for the conference.”

“Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose,” Blaine said with a frown. “Just make sure you’re back in time for the conference and everything’s nailed down and ready to go. No loose ends.”

Miss Russell gave him a grateful smile. “Yes, Bishop. I will.” She had wanted to ask him if she might have a few days off after the conference to spend with her sister but the timing didn’t seem right to put it to him. She’d make sure the conference went off without a hitch, and then put in her request at the end of it when he was bound to be in a better mood. As her sister and brother-in-law lived in a small village a few miles from Hawarden, where Gladstone’s Library was located, it made sense to go to her sister directly after the conference had wrapped up. She might even be able to get a ride with her brother-in-law, Montel, who worked in the pub across the street from the Library.

“Right, well, I’ll just put the kettle on. I expect you’d like a cup of tea.” The bishop had returned to his reading and did not reply.

*

Hywel Stephens, the accountant who handled the church finances, was also thinking about the conference. Good looking in an obvious way, he was tall and kept himself in shape. He appreciated nice things and his taste showed in the fine cut of his suit, designer cologne, and expensive haircut. This morning he’d arrived early at his office, met with a couple of clients, sorted out a tax problem, and now had about an hour before lunch to work on the diocesan accounts. The bishop had asked him to present a financial report at the upcoming conference and he had to prepare for that. He wouldn’t be attending the whole conference, but would join the group for lunch on the Wednesday and then walk the group through the financial situation in the afternoon session.

He called up a spread sheet and worked his way up and down the rows and columns of figures. Everything seemed in order. Like the curate’s egg, it was good in parts. Some parishes were doing better than others but combined they were showing enough to cover operating costs with some left over to put a bit aside for a rainy day or, God forbid, a new roof. The bishop would be pleased about that, the accountant thought, and hopefully wouldn’t ask too many questions. He tapped his keyboard to close the document.

Seven

In the early evening of Easter Monday, the night before the conference, Minty let herself into the bishop’s house. The office suite was separated from the rest of the house by a locked door and she moved about quietly, so as not to disturb the bishop and his wife. She could vaguely hear a television playing somewhere in the house. She knew the timing of her sister’s illness had annoyed the bishop, who saw it as a personal inconvenience, but it could not be helped. Constance was recovering much more slowly than the doctors had predicted, and although Minty had desperately wanted to stay longer, she’d returned to get ready for the conference. She had assured the bishop she would and he expected nothing less.