Wishing she had put more thought the night before into what she was going to wear, and after much trying on, groaning, and tossing of discarded clothes onto a pile on her bed, Penny finally chose a beige pantsuit with a crisp white blouse. The jacket made a small change from what she usually wore and dressed the outfit up a bit, she thought, but not so much that it looked as if she were making a big deal out of the lunch or attaching more significance to it than it probably deserved.
But she did feel oddly nervous and was looking forward to seeing Davies with a mix of excitement and apprehension. She wasn’t sure why he had asked her, but assumed he just wanted to talk to her in a neutral environment, like he said, and then, when she was feeling comfortable and relaxed, poke around to see if she could remember any more details about the woman who had visited her salon on the morning Meg Wynne disappeared.
She busied herself all morning with customers, glancing out of the window from time to time as the sky became darker and a soft, warm drizzle settled over the valley.
By noon, she was dressed and ready to go, hovered over by an approving Victoria, who had suggested at the last minute that she needed some jewellery and loaned her a necklace made of large brown beads, with small gold pieces scattered amongst them.
“I thought we’d just pop over to Betws-y-Coed,” Davies said when he picked her up. “I have in mind a rather nice restaurant where we can sit outside but from the looks of things, we’ll be better off indoors.”
“Sounds great,” said Penny, smiling at him. “I love picnics but my problem has always been finding other people who like them, too. I think you either like eating outdoors, or you don’t.”
After a few moments driving in silence, Davies asked Penny how long she had lived in Wales.
“About twenty-five years. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s been that long.”
“And what part of Canada are you from?”
“Nova Scotia,” replied Penny, and then after the significance of his question had sunk in, she had a question for him. “But how did you know I’m Canadian? Most British people ask me what part of America I’m from.”
“Oh, my nephew went out to Canada to join the Mounties,” Davies replied easily. “And there’s something about the way Canadians say ‘about’ that gives them away every time.”
Penny laughed, fingering her necklace.
“People have told me that before but I don’t hear it myself.”
“It’s true,” said Davies. “Canadians say it so that it sounds like ‘a boot’. Actually, I rather like a Canadian accent, but the really funny thing is that most of you don’t think you’ve got one. You think the British do, and the Americans do, but you don’t.”
“That’s right! We don’t!”
Davies laughed and a few minutes later they pulled into the car park.
The restaurant had a wonderful view of the Conwy River and Penny could see that on a fine day it would indeed be a pleasure to have lunch outdoors on the terrace.
By the time they had settled, ordered their meals—soup and salmon for him and salad and salmon for her—and handed the menus back to their server, Penny found her initial nervousness was wearing off and she wondered if it would seem rude to ask him why he had invited her to lunch.
“You’re probably wondering why I asked you here today,” he said.
She smiled and nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” she said, “and I was trying to decide if it would be rude to ask.”
“No, no, certainly not,” he said. “But I hope you know I don’t usually invite witnesses to lunch. It’s just that you’ve been very perceptive and I had hoped that if we chatted a bit more, in a friendly, casual environment, we might jog your memory a bit.”
Penny hesitated. “I’ll try, but if nothing else has come to me yet, I may not know any more, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I think you do,” Davies said with an encouraging smile. “It’s my job to help you seek out and recover those memories.”
As the server appeared with a basket of warm bread rolls, Davies reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.
“I’d like to start by asking you to take a look at this and tell me what you think.”
“What is it?” Penny asked.
“It’s a photocopy of a scrap of paper we found in Meg Wynne Thompson’s room. Sergeant Morgan and I aren’t sure what it means, and she suggested that I show it to you.”
He handed it to Penny and then broke a bread roll in half, buttered it, and sat back while she looked at the document.
“Hmm,” she said after a few moments. “Is it MOMA? Could it be a reference to her mother? Or, what about the Museum of Modern Art? That’s in New York and one of the bridesmaids—sorry, can’t remember which one—told me Emyr and Meg Wynne were going there on their honeymoon. The bridesmaid said she was green with envy that they were going to New York.”
“Did she now?” said Davies.
“The handwriting is interesting, though,” said Penny. “Very stylized, like something an architect would do. A very fine hand, as they used to say.”
Davies nodded. “She was a graphic designer so I guess she would write in that ornamental way. Well, you might be right about the museum. That’s probably what it was.”
Penny handed the paper back to him, and then took a bread roll.
“I love bread,” she said. “I have to really watch it, though, or I’ll eat too much of it. I used to bake my own. There’s nothing like fresh bread.”
“Really?” said Davies. “You baked your own bread? That’s really amazing.”
“My fiancé loved it, too, actually,” said Penny. “It was great fun to bake for someone who really appreciated it.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you were married,” said Davies. “But you’re not now, though, are you? I see you’re not wearing a ring.”
He smiled.
“Not much gets past me!”
Penny shook her head. “He died many years ago in a very sad accident, before we could get married. He was a police officer, too, so maybe that’s why I know a little about your work and what you have to do here.”
“I’m sorry to hear he died,” Davies said simply. “I lost my wife a few years ago.”
“Oh,” said Penny. “Now it’s my turn to be sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” said Davies. “Don’t be. I wasn’t much of a husband and we didn’t have much of a marriage left. We’d grown apart. If she hadn’t got sick, I probably would have moved out, but as it turned out, her cancer wasn’t discovered until it was too late and she died within a couple of months.”
The two sat in silence for a moment.
“Well, now that I’ve put such a damper on everything,” said Davies, “I wonder if can find something a bit lighter to discuss. Murder, for example.”
Penny smiled at him and as their soup and salad arrived, decided she was rather enjoying herself.
He took a few spoonfuls of soup and then looked at her.
“Sorry, but I’m curious to know. Did your fiancé discuss his work with you?” he asked.
“Oh, all the time,” said Penny airily. “I loved hearing everything that he did—what he felt he could tell me, of course. I think it takes a really special kind of person to be a police officer. After all, you’re not usually mixing with the nicest people, are you?”
“No,” agreed Davies. “I always thought my marriage would have gone better if she’d taken more interest in my work but she just didn’t want to know. It’s often hard for police officers to see the kinds of things they see, and leave it all behind when they head home. But often the people at home don’t understand what we’re up against, and so we turn to other officers for comfort and support—and that can lead into dangerous territory.
“There was certainly an element of that in my marriage. I was hardly ever home, and just left all the domestic things up to her. She looked after the house and the kids and I paid the bills. And in the end, there wasn’t much left of the two of us.”
Penny murmured sympathetically.
“With my fiancé, it was just the opposite. We enjoyed sharing everything and were very close. I was devastated when he died. Relationships don’t come easy for me. It took me a long time to get close to him and then a long time to come to terms with his death. He was only thirty-two.”
“I have to ask,” said Davies. “What happened?”
“He’d managed to rescue a child who had fallen into the Conwy River,” said Penny. “But the current was too strong and Tim was swept away before the fire brigade could pull him to shore.” She shook her head.
Davies reached out to touch her hand and although she welcomed the warmth of the gesture she felt uneasy with it.
“Now then,” said Penny. “I’ve been giving some more thought to this murder of yours and wondered if you’ve been able to exclude the father.
“It seems to me that he might have had a financial motive, but I can’t help thinking there’s something else going on here. Something we don’t know about yet. Something really big and nasty.”
“I think so, too,” said Davies as their salmon arrived.
“But you’re right—we’ve pretty much eliminated the father. He was either with the mother or at the off-licence when she disappeared. And frankly, I don’t think he had the resources or intelligence to pull off something like this. We’re focusing on the people who were at the Hall but with the funeral coming up, we’ve got to be sensitive.”
They ate in silence for a few moments, and then Penny abruptly changed the subject.
“This salmon is delicious,” she said. “And such a beautiful colour. With the glaze, it’s almost red. How’s yours?”
“Excellent,” said Davies. “And speaking of red. Can you think why a curved piece of red plastic about this long,” he held his thumb and forefinger about two inches apart, “would have been found in Meg Wynne’s hair?”
“Well, I think we can safely say it wasn’t a hair slide. She wouldn’t wear anything so tacky, I’m sure of that.”
“No,” said Davies. “It was a jagged piece of plastic, came off something else. Can’t think for the life of me what it could have been.”
Penny looked at him intently.
“Was it from the murder weapon, do you think?”
“Could have been,” Davies said carefully. “There was blood and hair on it. But people don’t usually try to kill someone with something made of plastic.”
“Unless that’s all there was to hand,” said Penny.
Davies started forward slightly, and then, as if reaching a decision, leaned forward in his chair.
“Look,” he said. “To be honest, we’re at a bit of an impasse here, and I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts. Why don’t I tell you what I think happened and when you know a bit more, you might start to see something that you’d overlooked, or didn’t think was important, in a new light.
“But first, how about another glass of wine?”