The Cold Light of Mourning (4 page)

“I’ll sleep on it, Jennifer, and do what I think best in the morning. You’re right about one thing, though. If I don’t do something, he will ruin this wedding, and I’m not going to let him do that. He’s only here because of my mother. And I’ve promised Emyr that this is the one and only time he’ll ever be invited here. I don’t want him anywhere near me, ever again.”

She moved into the bathroom to change into an oyster-coloured satin nightgown and emerged a few minutes later.

“Well, thank you both very much for everything you did this evening. I have to get my face ready for bed now, but before you run along, let’s just go over the arrangements again for the morning. I’m getting my nails done at nine, so I should be back here by about ten, and the hairdresser is coming at eleven, so why don’t we all meet here at, say, ten-thirty to start getting ready? But we’ll change later.

“I’m having an early breakfast in my room because I want to go running. Be sure to bring the checklist and all the planning details, Jennifer, so we can make sure everything is buttoned down.

“Right, off you go. Emyr’s going to ring any minute now to say good night, so I’ll see you in the morning.”

She started to turn away, but remembering the burgundy leather case, held it out to them.

“You’re still dressed … would you mind awfully walking this downstairs and asking them to put it in the safe? And here,” she added, handing them another small box, “might as well keep everything together and give them this one, too. It’s the hair clip.”

Jennifer and Anne closed the door quietly behind them, just as Meg Wynne’s mobile rang. They smiled at each other and started to make their way down the hushed corridor. But as Meg Wynne’s voice from behind the closed door got louder, they stopped and looked at each other.

“No, I don’t want to do that,” they heard her say in a raised voice.

As she broke off, apparently to listen to her caller, Anne and Jennifer, uncomfortable with overhearing what was obviously a private conversation heading into confrontational territory, set off again on their errand, each holding a small box of Meg Wynne’s jewellery like magi in a Christmas pageant.

Five

M
eg Wynne woke early and stretched luxuriously under the light warmth of a summer duvet. She had slept soundly, and was enjoying the sense of well being that a good night’s rest often brings until the real world intrudes. This morning, however, felt different and after a moment, she smiled as she remembered it was her wedding day.

Dressing quickly in her running gear, she let herself out of her room and quietly made her way downstairs. The night porter was sitting sleepily behind his desk with a cup of tea and a morning paper as she dropped off her key and made her way out into the cool freshness of a June morning.

After stopping briefly to do a few limbering stretches, she struck off at a fast walk across the square in the direction of the old three-arched bridge that spanned the River Conwy. Forty minutes later, damp with exertion and her face flushed from the intensity of her exercise, she passed by the desk, picked up her key, and returned to her room.

As she stepped out of the shower, a light tap at the door announced the arrival of her breakfast: vanilla yogurt, tea with lemon, a slice of unbuttered whole wheat toast, and half a grapefruit.

Bundled in a soft white towelling robe, her long legs tucked under her and a towel wrapped turban-style over her wet hair, she sipped her tea while looking over her list of things still to be done. She and Emyr had assigned tasks to every member of the wedding party, and the morning would be busy for all of them. She crossed off a few items, added a few more, and then sat quietly for a moment. As the expression on her face changed from one of contemplation to troubled determination, she walked over to the desk, picked up a yellow notepad, and returned to her chair. She began to write, confidently and quickly.

When she had finished, she re-read what she had written and gazed thoughtfully in the direction of the window. Then, with a small, resolute sigh, she folded the paper in half and tore it into small pieces as she walked over to the wastepaper basket. Opening her hand above it, she released a short shower of jagged pieces of yellow paper that fluttered gracefully into the bin. After a quick glance at her watch she began to get dressed and at twenty minutes to nine she set off to keep her appointment.

Promptly at nine the door to the Happy Hands manicure salon opened and Penny looked up as a beautifully groomed young woman entered. Penny smiled, stepped forward to greet her customer, and ushered her into the shop.

“You must be Miss Thompson. Please, have a seat. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

While Meg Wynne had been nibbling on her toast, the groom and his supporters had been tucking into a rather more substantial breakfast at the Hall. Gwennie, who had been working for the family for years and was stopping over for a few days to help out with the wedding, had left cold cereal, yogurts, and juices on the dining room side table, along with a tempting spread of kippers, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, and hot buttered toast in silver warming dishes. One by one the men had arrived downstairs, hair still slightly damp from the shower, and lifting the heavy covers of the warming dishes, eagerly helped themselves.

“That was wonderful,” said David as Emyr went around the table, coffeepot in hand, offering refills. “Have you thought of doing B and B? You’d look very fetching in your pinny.”

Emyr joined good naturedly in the loud laughter as he sat down again.

“Let’s hope it won’t come to that,” he said as he looked around the lovely dining room. “Somehow I can’t see Meg Wynne running the valley equivalent of a seaside boardinghouse.

“Now listen, you lot,” he said, taking a sheet of yellow paper from his pocket and waving it at them. “Here are our latest marching orders. We’ve got a lot to get done today, and the girls will kill us if we don’t get things right. And they’ve added more things to the list, it looks like.” He studied the page for a moment. “Someone has to get down to the florist to pick up the buttonholes. Oh, and you might as well take the Land Rover. It needs petrol, so you can get it filled up while you’re out. Any volunteers?”

The men looked at one another.

“I’ll do it,” said David. “As the best man, isn’t it my job to do your bidding today?”

“As a matter of fact,” agreed Emyr amiably, “I think it is.”

Tall, blond, and reassuringly well built, David looked like a man who had the money to hire expensive personal trainers, and the time and motivation to follow the regimes they created for him. In contrast, Robbie Llewellyn was short and dark, with the kind of Celtic good looks that had distinguished Welshmen for generations. He had studied law at Cardiff University and after a few years of practice there, had returned home to the Conwy Valley where he was doing well in a general practice.

The men spent the next few minutes dividing up the errands that should keep them occupied all morning, and making plans to meet back at the Hall for a light lunch around one.

“By the way, I heard that Miss Teasdale’s died,” Robbie Llewellyn said as they pushed back their chairs from the table. “Do you remember her? She was a wonderful teacher, wasn’t she? They don’t make them like that anymore. You wouldn’t believe the clerks we get in these days. Couldn’t spell to save their lives and couldn’t care less. She really drilled things into us. Hated it at the time, but I’m grateful now.”

Emyr and David looked at him.

“I didn’t know,” said Emyr. “That’s too bad.”

David murmured sympathetically.

“She was always on at you two,” Robbie added. “Telling David he’d have to change his ways if he was ever going to amount to anything and as for you, Emyr, remember how she used to tell you to stand on your own two feet and that you didn’t have to do everything that Williams boy told you to?” He had mimicked an English accent in a high-pitched voice for the last part of the sentence and they all laughed at his bad acting skills.

“Well,” shrugged David, “what can I say? I guess I’ve done a whole lot better than they thought I would. But enough about me. Let’s get ready to roll.” He reached over to take the last piece of bacon, and then, thinking better of it, withdrew his hand and turned toward his friends.

“If it’s all right with you, Emyr,” said Robbie, “I’ve got rather a big real estate project on at the minute, so I’d just like to pop into the office for an hour or so this morning. I’ll be back in time for lunch, though.”

Emyr nodded and tapped him lightly on the chest.

“Just make sure you get through the things on your list. Everything has to go off exactly the way Meg wants it. Exactly.”

The men left to go their separate ways and a few minutes later Gwennie crept into the room carrying a large tray on which she began piling the breakfast remains.

Such waste, she thought as she scraped the plates. It’s a good job someone in the kitchen knows what to do with that tasty bacon.

Just before ten, as the muted Saturday morning sounds of buses arriving and leaving, parents calling out to children on their way to the swimming baths or library, and shopkeepers greeting customers crept in the open window, Penny began the final stages of the bridal manicure.

“You’re done,” Penny announced a few minutes later. “Your nails are going to be a bit tacky for the next hour or two, so do be careful. But if anything happens between now and then, come back and I’ll give them a quick touch-up. Oh, and good luck, today!”

Penny opened the door, thanked her customer, and stood in the doorway watching as her client started to make her way down the street. A few steps later, the elegant young woman slowed, then turned and returned the way she had come, as if she had forgotten something.

“Was there something else?” Penny asked.

“There is a small thing I’d like you to do for me,” she said, offering her bag to Penny. “Please reach in there and get my mobile out for me. I need to make some calls, and I can’t be digging about in the bag with wet nails.”

“Of course,” Penny said as she reached into the bag, pulled out the phone, and handed it to its owner. “Thank you, Miss Thompson, and good luck, again!”

Penny stood on the pavement and watched as she set off in the direction of the hotel. A few moments later she turned the corner and Penny stepped back into her shop.

By eleven, when Meg Wynne was at least half an hour late and there was no response to their repeated knocking on her door, Anne and Jennifer began to feel the first pangs of rising anxiety.

“This isn’t like her,” Anne said. “Still, anything could have happened. Maybe the manicure lady was backed up and she had to wait. She could have bumped into someone, Emyr maybe, and gone for a coffee and forgotten about the time, or maybe it slipped her mind that we were supposed to be meeting up now. Maybe she’s with her parents. She could be anywhere.”

The two girls looked at each other and Jennifer shook her head slowly.

“It doesn’t feel right, Anne,” she said. “You know Meg Wynne. She’s meant to be getting married today, for God’s sake. Forgotten about the time? I don’t think so. She would have phoned if she was going to be late. You’d better ring her and see if you can raise her.”

Anne reached into her pocket for her mobile, pressed a key, and listened. After a few moments she shook her head, and began speaking.

“Hey, Meg Wynne, it’s Anne. Where are you? You’re late and we’re getting worried. Ring me. Bye.”

She ended the call and replaced the phone in her jacket pocket.

“Right, then, Jennifer. Let’s start at the desk and see if anyone’s seen her, or maybe she left a message for us there and they forgot to deliver it. Maybe it’s as simple as that.”

As relief flooded their faces they headed down the stairs and made their way quickly to the reception desk. The night porter was long gone and the quietly efficient Mrs. Geraint, who had been daytime receptionist at the hotel for years, looked up at their approach from behind her official nameplate. Her stiff, heavily lacquered black hair, rigorously applied blue eye shadow which had not changed in decades, and uncompromising navy suit gave her a grave air of respectability left over from an earlier era when unmarried couples, barely able to keep their hands off each other, would sign the register as Mr. and Mrs. Jones for the sake of appearances.

“Yes, hello,” Anne began. “We’re wondering about our friend Meg Wynn Thompson. We think she went out earlier this morning but she should have been back by now. We can’t find her and she doesn’t seem to be in her room. We wondered if perhaps she left a message for us?”

“Just a moment, please, and I’ll check.” Mrs. Geraint riffled through a couple of pink message slips, and then looked up at the two anxious faces.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said sympathetically. “There’s nothing here for you. No one really leaves messages much anymore; they just ring everybody up on their mobiles. Shall I check and see if her key’s here?”

“Yes,” the two responded together.

“Her key is here, so she must have gone out.”

Anne and Jennifer looked at each other, and then back at Mrs. Geraint.

“She was down to have a manicure at nine,” Anne told the receptionist. “Please, just give us a minute,” she added as the two friends stepped away from the desk.

“Look,” whispered Anne, “there’s bound to be a simple answer to this. We’ll see if her parents or Emyr know anything, and if they don’t, the next logical thing would be for you to leg it around to the manicure shop and see if she’s still there. If she isn’t, find out when she left and where she was headed. A few more minutes won’t make any diff erence either way but I must say I’m starting to feel a bit uncomfortable with all this.”

Jennifer nodded and two stepped back to the reception desk.

“Mrs. Geraint, the hairdresser should be here any minute. If he arrives, please ask him to wait. And the flowers might come, too. If they do, could you just put them away in a fridge and we’ll sort them out later, when we know where we’re at?”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Geraint. “I’m sure she’ll turn up. Maybe she just stepped out to pick up a new pair of tights, and it’ll have been something and nothing.”

Clutching at that new straw of hope, the two girls made their way back upstairs. Moments later they were sitting in Anne’s room, as Jennifer tried to fight back the increasing sense of panic that was rapidly turning to fear.

“I’m going to ring her parents’ room, just to make sure, but after last night, I imagine that’s the last place she would be. On the other hand, she could have dropped in to sort out her dad, I suppose,” said Anne, “and it could have taken longer than she thought it would.”

She placed the call, asked the question, and listened to the reply.

“Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. Yes, of course, we’ll let you know right away if we hear anything.”

She put the receiver down and looked at her friend.

“I take it the answer is no,” said Jennifer flatly.

“Meg Wynne isn’t there, but her dad isn’t, either, and Mrs. Thompson doesn’t know where he is. He went out a while ago.”

“Probably at the off license, getting in his supply of Dutch courage,” said Jennifer.

They looked at each other in silence, each girls’ mounting concern mirrored in the other’s face.