A Brush with Death: A Penny Brannigan Mystery - By Elizabeth J. Duncan Page 0,55

Mrs. Lloyd, but I’ve left out a few bottles of nail varnish that I think you’ll like, for you to choose from.”

“Oh, that’s lovely, dear. So thoughtful of you.Thank you so much.” She set down her bag and eased herself into the client’s chair. “Now, then, Penny,” she said eagerly, when Eirlys had closed the door quietly behind her, “you must tell me everything about what’s going on at the new site this morning. I hear a body’s been discovered! Who could it possibly be? Not anyone we know, surely!”

“I’m afraid I really don’t know too much about it,” Penny said as she picked up Mrs. Lloyd’s hand and began to shape her nails. “Victoria is there now, and I expect after she’s spoken to the police she’ll be able to tell us a bit more, so we’ll just have to wait to hear from her.” Mrs. Lloyd pinched her lips together but said nothing.

“And of course, your niece Morwyn will be there for the Daily Post, so I expect she’ll be asking all the right questions and will know more than anybody. She’ll have to, won’t she, if she’s going to write about it.”

Mrs. Lloyd nodded.

Penny got up from the table and returned a few minutes later with the soaking bowl, which she offered to Mrs. Lloyd.

Mrs. Lloyd dipped her fingers in the soaking bowl, and this time, perhaps because her mind was elsewhere, did not complain the water was too hot.

“Mrs. Lloyd, I’d like to ask you about something,” Penny began. “You’ve lived in this town all your life and you know it better than just about anybody. I wondered if you’d tell me what you can remember about our building. The new spa.”

Mrs. Lloyd gave her a shrewd look and then chuckled.

“Have you heard of horses and barn doors, Penny? The time to be asking me about the building was before you bought it, not after!”

“Yes, you’re right as usual, Mrs. Lloyd,” Penny said contritely. “But tell me everything you can remember about it. What it’s been used for and who owned it. And when.”

“Well, let me see.” Mrs. Lloyd thought for a moment.

“When my mother was a girl, and that’s going back a ways, it was some kind of inn or hostelry. It even had stables, I think. And then, during the war they used to billet soldiers there, because they took them up into the hills for training. Then, in the 1950s, I think it was a youth hostel, and in the 1960s and ’70s it was filled with hippies and squatters, and I think it’s pretty much been empty since then. Oh, people have talked from time to time about fixing it up, but nothing ever came of that, until you and Victoria decided to take it on.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, by the way? Did you get some good advice?” She mulled that over and then answered the question herself. “Well, apparently not or you wouldn’t have bought a building with a dead body in it, would you?”

She picked up each of the nail polishes Eirlys had set out for her and, after a bit of wavering back and forth, settled on a rich burgundy.

Penny dried Mrs. Lloyd’s hands and, unwrapping a sterile packet of clippers, started trimming her cuticles.

“I wonder who it is,” Mrs. Lloyd mused. “Or was. It’s sad that, isn’t it?”

Penny looked up at her, the clippers poised in mid-air. “What is?”

“Well, when people go missing. Sometimes their relatives wait in vain for word, but the bodies are never found. Or maybe they’re found years later. Maybe even after a parent has died. Very sad, that, if it’s a young person.” Penny nodded and they sat in silence for a moment until Mrs. Lloyd was ready to continue.

“But sometimes people just disappear, and no one knows they’re gone and no one misses them. People who are estranged from their families and have no friends. They’re dead, but no one knows they’re dead. They might just as well have moved to another city, or even moved to another country, for that matter. Who knows? Who cares? No one.”

Penny felt a chill and shuddered.

“Yes, it’s getting cooler now,” Mrs. Lloyd went on. “Autumn is almost here, and it’ll be Christmas before we know it.” She sniffed and held her arm out to admire her nails, as she always did.

“Looks nice. I guess I do tend to favor the burgundies, especially with autumn closing in. I had that awful pink,