The Cold Light of Mourning - By Elizabeth J. Duncan Page 0,27
and tonic. Taking it to an empty table near the window, she sat down and took a long, grateful sip. It had been an endless, emotionally draining day and she hoped she would never have to go through anything like it again. As she was about to take her second sip, she was hit by the flash of understanding and insight of a sudden idea when she realized that as of tomorrow, things were going to get much worse.
When she returned to the room Jennifer was feeling a little better. She had stopped crying and was in the bathroom trying to repair her red, blotchy face.
“Now the way I see it, Jenn,” said Anne, “we need to call Emyr immediately and get him ready for the time he’s about to spend in the media spotlight. We need to designate a spokesperson, and put together a media plan. And we need to do it tonight, before the police get here.”
The call to the police had been logged in at the small North Wales police station in Llanelen and then passed on to Llandudno. Missing persons cases are always taken seriously, and given the circumstances of this one, the sergeant who took the call gave it a high priority. The case was passed on to a senior officer, who summoned his sergeant, and together they set off for the Red Dragon Hotel in Llanelen.
“Now this case is a bit unusual,” Detective Chief Inspector Gareth Davies told his sergeant as she drove along the narrow country road trying not to scrape the high hedges or low stone fences that seemed to be about two inches from their unmarked car. “Normally, the husband would be the next of kin, but in this case, because they weren’t actually married, we’ll have to start with the parents and see what they can tell us. We’ll ask them to sign the release form in case we need to distribute photographs.”
The detective chief inspector was tall, in his mid-fifties, with a handsome head of grey hair neatly but not fussily trimmed. His face had a kindly, understanding look about it, which made him seem approachable, congenial even, but prime suspects in the past had learned the hard way that he was not the collegial fellow he seemed. His love of cycling kept him fit and his love of gardening meant he had something in common with just about everybody. His companion, Detective Sergeant Bethan Morgan, was considerably younger, and blessed with a head of dark curls and a ready smile which gave her a fresh, uncomplicated look. She was keen to get on in her career and radiated the kind of enthusiasm that her superiors found both endearing and mildly alarming.
Half an hour later they pulled up at the hotel, entered the lobby, and asked at the reception desk for the Thompsons’ room.
Their knock was answered by a distraught, worn-out woman.
“Yes?” she asked anxiously.
“Hello. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Gareth Davies and this is Detective Sergeant Bethan Morgan. We’re following up on a report of a missing person, Meg Wynne Thompson, and we’d like to talk to you. You are her parents? Good. May we come in?”
Mrs. Thompson stood to one side as the police officers entered.
“Please,” she said, “I’m so glad you’re here. If you can find a place to sit, do.”
Accompanied by the sound of a toilet flushing, her husband emerged from the en suite lavatory to find the two officers standing near the window, their eyes scanning the room. Thompson was a big man, exuding bluster and resentment mixed in with the sour smell of last night’s drink. Decades of hard drinking and smoking showed in every line on his face.
“We don’t know anything about this,” he almost shouted at the officers. “We barely know her anymore. She’s got a mind of her own and what she’s done, we don’t know. She could be anywhere. We only know what the bloody bridesmaids tell us and that’s not very much. They’re the ones you should be talking to.”
“Right, well, let me just ask a few questions, so we can see where we are,” Davies said coolly. “Let’s start at the beginning. When was the last time you saw your daughter?”
“That would have been last night at the dinner,” Mrs. Thompson said. “The Gruffydd family had a lovely dinner at the Hall, because Emyr’s father isn’t very well, you see. The wedding party with all the young people were there and the families.”