“Right,” he said, ending the call. “Let’s hope she comes up with something.” Penny held her spoon carefully and pushed it away from her through the soup. “This is delicious.”
Davies pulled a bread roll apart. “We heard from a woman in response to the appeal last night,” he said. “Lives in Chester. Apparently she and Saunders had been courting, as she put it. She was wondering why she hadn’t heard from him lately.” He added a dab of butter to the bit of bread roll in his hand. “She was pretty upset.”
“Harry’d been putting himself about, then,” said Penny. “Why am I not surprised?”
“It always amazes me when intelligent women fall for a guy like that,” Davies agreed. “And they usually pay a very steep price. A smart, independent woman meets a man on holiday, a waiter, in Tangiers or Morocco or some such place. She’s at least twenty years older than he is, and you’d think she’d hear those alarm bells ringing, but-” From his pocket came the sound of a a buzzing cell phone. He glanced at it, then pointed at it and said, “Bethan. Sorry, better take it. She knows I’m with you and she’d only be ringing if it’s important.”
He pressed the green button.
“Yes, Bethan.”
He listened for a moment, his gaze slowly leaving Penny’s face until he was looking at the sugar bowl. Although he displayed no emotion, Penny’s stomach began to churn and she felt her appetite disappearing.
“Right. On our way.” He ended the call.
“What’s happened?
“It’s Brian Kenley. He’s dead.”
Davies pulled a few bills out of his wallet and set them down on the table. “Sorry, love, looks like our dinner’s over.” He signaled to the waiter, who hurried over. “Sorry, but we have to leave. I’ve left enough here to cover it, I think,” he said.
The waiter looked flustered for a moment and then, looking from one to the other, asked, “Would you like us to wrap it up for you? It’s ready and I was just about to bring it to you.”
As Davies hesitated, Penny replied, “Yes, but hurry.” The waiter turned immediately and headed toward the kitchen while Davies called the station. He spoke to the duty sergeant and then led Penny to the front of the restaurant. As they scrambled into their coats, the waiter held out a paper takeaway bag to her.
She smiled her thanks, and she and Davies opened the door to find a police car waiting for them. Davies helped her into the backseat and then went round and eased himself into the front passenger seat.
“Llanelen, is it, sir?” Davies nodded and gave him Kenley’s address. “But first we’ll be dropping this lady off at her home. It’s on the way.”
“Like hell!” came a determined voice from the backseat.
They arrived to find a small knot of curious neighbours clustered outside Kenley’s house, attracted by the flashing lights of Bethan’s police car. With a stern warning to Penny to stay where she was, and telling their driver to see to the gathering crowd, Davies got out of the car and walked up the path to the front door where Bethan was waiting for him.
“Forensics are on their way and the pathologist, too,” she said.
“How did you get in?” Davies asked.
“I knocked, but there was no answer, so I went round the back and looked in the kitchen window. Saw him lying on the floor, so I tried the back door and it was unlocked. Went in and there he was. Looks as if he’s been hit on the head. There’s some trauma there but not a lot of blood.”
Davies nodded slowly and tucked his hands in his pocket. “Right, well, let’s not touch anything until the scene-of-crime boys get here.” And then remembering that he had to be mindful of gender and wasn’t allowed to refer to team members as boys or men, he corrected himself. “The scene-of-crime team.”
He looked around the kitchen and then peered down the hall.
“Nothing seems disturbed in here.” He inclined his head toward the back of the bungalow. “Have you had a chance to look down there?”
Bethan nodded.
“I think that’s where our motive is.”
A few minutes later Davies returned to the police car and opened the back door. Penny shifted her bag of sketching materials and put the bag of takeway food on her lap to make room for him as he slid onto the seat.
“What happened to Brian?” Penny asked.
“We don’t know yet. But somebody was after something.”
He reached into his pocket for his notebook. “His computer’s been smashed to smithereens.” He nodded at her. “Yeah. People have figured out that just deleting something doesn’t get rid of it. Anything that’s ever been on a hard drive can easily be recovered.”
Penny thought for a moment and then patted Davies on the arm. “Right,” she said decisively, swinging her legs to one side. “I’m off. You’ll be here for ages, so I’m going to go now.”
“Well, the sergeant here can drive you home,” Davies said.
“I’m not going home,” said Penny. “I’m going to Victoria’s.” She gestured toward the bag of takeaway dinner containers. “If she hasn’t eaten, we’ll just heat this up. You don’t mind, do you? By the time you get around to it, it’ll be well past it. And I don’t need a ride, thanks. It’s not far and I want to walk.”
Davies got out of the car and reached back to take a couple of bags from Penny.
He looked longingly at the bag of takeaway. “I was so looking forward to that,” he said, “but you’re right, it looks as if we’re going to be here for a good while. I don’t know how long we’ll be.”
“Well, let me know what you find out.” She looked past him to where Bethan stood on the front steps making a waving, summoning gesture.
“DCI Davies, I think you’re needed.”
He bent over and gave her a brief kiss and pulled her closer to him for a moment. Then, releasing her, he returned to the bungalow. Penny pulled on her gloves and, as she did so, felt the memory stick Kenley had given her yesterday in her pocket. She wrapped her fingers around it and was about to call out to Davies but changed her mind. He wouldn’t be able to deal with this right now. She stood for a moment watching as Davies reentered the house and then, gathering up her bags, headed off in the direction of the bridge.
Skeletal trees with boney, bare branches stood starkly silhouetted against the night sky, as the River Conwy flowed darkly by. She heard it splashing beneath the bridge as she hurried across. A few moments later she was on Victoria’s doorstep, ringing the bell to be let in and shifting from one foot to the other as she waited for the sound of approaching footsteps as her friend came to let her in.
Twenty-one
A few moments later the door opened, casting a pool of pale light onto the front step. Penny handed Victoria the bags of takeaway food and stepped inside. “I’ve just left Brian Kenley’s place,” she said. “He’s dead and it looks suspicious. His computer’s been all smashed up. We were just starting our meal when Gareth got called out, and we didn’t have time to eat, so I thought I’d bring the dinner over here.”
“What?” exclaimed Victoria. “Slow down. This is terrible. Brian Kenley’s dead? But you just saw him, when, yesterday, wasn’t it?”
She hung up Penny’s coat. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you?” Penny asked. Victoria shook her head. “Right, well, let’s heat that lot up, and while that’s happening, we can check out these photos.”
She reached round Victoria and into her coat pocket, producing the memory stick containing the photos that Brian Kenley had taken at Conwy Castle on the afternoon of the art group’s outing.