The Cold Light of Mourning - By Elizabeth J. Duncan Page 0,45

had drained from it. She couldn’t speak and tried desperately to swallow.

“Good heavens, Penny! Whatever is the matter with you, girl? It’s only a hat from Marks and Spencer—there’s no need to take on like that. What’s the matter with you? You look as if you’ve had a terrible shock! Are you all right? Are you ill? Should I call somebody?”

Penny shook her head and sat down on the small chair beside the appointment-book table. She was trembling slightly and used the edge of the table to steady herself.

“No, Mrs. Lloyd,” she said in a low voice. “I’m all right, but I need a drink of water. I’ll be right back.”

Penny disappeared into the preparation room while Mrs. Lloyd took off her hat and replaced it in the bag.

If she didn’t like it that much, she thought, I’d better get it out of her sight before she returns. She could hear water running in the small supply room, and a moment later Penny returned, looking somewhat more composed, but not herself.

“Mrs. Lloyd, I’m terribly sorry, and I know you aren’t going to be pleased with me, but I’m afraid I can’t do your second coat just now. Something you said has really upset me, and I need to sort it out. Well, not so much upset as made me realize something. I’m very sorry, but I have to ask you to leave. Please forgive me. Look, come back tomorrow morning, and I’ll finish your nails for you and there won’t be any charge to you for this manicure.”

“Well, really, Penny, this is a bit much, I must say,” said Mrs. Lloyd, as Penny scrambled to collect her bags and hand them to her. “Will you not at least tell me what I said that’s made you take on like this? I can’t think what I said that could have upset you. Is it something personal?”

“No, no, Mrs. Lloyd, it’s not personal, it’s just something else,” replied Penny. “I hardly know what I’m doing just now, but I have to make a very important telephone call. I’m so sorry, but I need to be on my own.”

Mrs. Lloyd took her handbag and Marks & Spencer bag from Penny and made her way out of the shop and into the street. As she glanced behind her, she saw Penny turning the shop sign to CLOSED and then switching the lights off.

Making her way across the square, Mrs. Lloyd decided to return home to make a phone call of her own.

“It was simply the most astonishing thing, Morwyn,” she was telling her niece a few minutes later. “And in mid-manicure, too! One minute we were going along fine and the next minute I was being rushed out the door. ‘Here’s your turquoise hat and what’s your hurry?’ she might as well have said. I didn’t know what to make of it. I can tell you, if it had been anyone else except Penny I wouldn’t be setting foot in her shop again anytime soon. But obviously something’s upset her deeply or she wouldn’t have reacted like that. I’ve never seen anyone so flustered. And all because of a hat! A hat! Honestly.”

“Tell me again, Aunt, exactly what you said that set her off,” Morwyn said. “Word for word and don’t leave anything out.”

Penny, meanwhile, after shutting the shop door, returned to the small chair beside the telephone table.

A few minutes later she rose, made her way resolutely upstairs to her flat, and picked up the telephone in one hand as she reached for Davies’s business card with the other.

She picked up the receiver and after a moment’s hesitation, set it down again.

What if he thinks I’m an hysterical idiot, she thought. She looked at the phone for a few more moments, picked it up again, and quickly entered in the numbers.

“It’s me again, Sergeant Morgan,” she said when the call was answered. “Penny Brannigan in Llanelen. Something terrible has occurred to me, and I need to talk to you about it.”

Morgan listened and then thanked Penny and rang off. She knocked on Davies’s door and entered.

“I’ve just had Penny Brannigan on the phone again, sir. She’s asked if we can go around and see her. She doesn’t want to go into it on the phone. She sounds very upset.”

Davies looked at her.

“What’s she upset about?”

“She thinks she might know where Meg Wynne Thompson is. Or, I should say, where her body is.”

Fifteen

Penny was standing on the pavement outside her shop when the police