The Cold Light of Mourning - By Elizabeth J. Duncan Page 0,95

an old friend. I’m sure we can clear all this up.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it,” said Bethan, who, wearing glasses and a blond wig was unrecognizable as the policewoman who had interviewed him.

As she produced her warrant card Williams tried to stand up again but was pushed back into his seat by the fit young visitor at the next table. He, too, produced a warrant card and ordered Williams to sit down and put his hands on the table.

“We’re going to start by giving your car a good forensics once-over,” Bethan told him.

“You can’t do that!” he shouted.

“Oh, I think you’ll find it says in here,” she said, sliding a piece of paper across the table, “that we can. In fact, we’ve already started.

“But don’t worry, sir, we’ve arranged a comfortable ride for you. Of course, you won’t be going home, sir. No, probably not for some little while. But as you say, sir, we’ll get this cleared up.”

As the other prisoners and guests prepared to leave, Bethan signalled to a guard to take Williams away.

“It’s over, David,” she said. “Doesn’t it just feel over?”

Thirty-one

Everyone in the room was a police officer?” asked Penny at dinner that night in the Red Dragon Hotel where they had all gathered to go over the events of the day.

“Yes,” said Gareth as he offered Victoria a second glass of wine. “It was an idea I got from something I read once about the Queen Mother wanting to have dinner at a certain restaurant in Paris. When her security detail told her it couldn’t be arranged in time, she said nonsense, she wanted to go anyway. So the royal party went, she had a lovely time, and afterward told them all, ‘See, I told you, nothing to worry about.’

“But what she didn’t know was that the police had arranged to close the restaurant for the night to the public and everyone dining there was actually a police officer, so she was surrounded by security.”

Penny and Victoria exchanged glances and smiled.

“Not the Queen Mother!” said Victoria.

“What?” said Davies. “What about her?”

“Nothing,” said Penny. “Don’t mind us. Do go on.”

“With Williams, I thought it best not to take any chances. People involved in narcotics will do whatever it takes to protect their investment, so this way, we were prepared for anything.”

He looked across the table.

“And you, Bethan,” he said, “were wonderful when the pressure was on. Well done!”

Penny offered the bread basket to Gareth, took one for herself, and then passed the basket on.

“Is he a psychopath, do you think?” she asked.

“Probably,” Davies said. “He’s smart enough, but they have one fatal flaw that trips them up every time. They’re very arrogant, and think they’re that much smarter than us poor plods. It’s always their undoing.”

“Have you put all the pieces together yet?” asked Victoria. “Can you tell us how it all happened?”

“Scotland Yard’s looking into Williams’s business affairs, but it looks as if he’s one of the biggest up-and-coming drug lords in Britain. Got operations all up and down the UK, Ecstasy, meth labs, grow ops, heroin, and cocaine importing and distribution. There’s not much he isn’t into. It’s going to take some time to unravel everything, but not only have we arrested a murderer, it seems we’ve uncovered a huge drug operation. That’s apparently where his money came from—and there was lots of it, I can tell you.

“Now, from talking to Meg Wynne’s mother, we learned that her son—Meg Wynne’s younger brother—died last year of a drug overdose at one of those rave parties. Meg Wynne found out about Williams’s business and was blackmailing him. We think they’d had a falling out and she might have been planning to turn him in but the timing was dead wrong—she just wanted to get the wedding over with, so as not to upset Emyr and more importantly, his father. But Williams knew that he had to act.

“This Gillian Messenger—the woman who came to your salon the morning of the wedding—was his business partner, and while she was taking Meg Wynne’s place at the manicure Williams simply lifted his victim off the street. They knew all the details of the appointments because Williams had heard the bridesmaids making the plans.

“He was one cold killer. He drove her out to the woods, presumably to find out what she intended to do, and then he killed her.

“He tried to inject her with a lethal drug, probably in the car, but she wrenched away from