that time, do you remember? It looked like a strawberry milkshake! This is much more suitable. I don’t know how you let me choose that pink!”
She sighed and watched as Penny went on with her work.
“Well, I’ve been wondering how you’re getting on with fixing up Emma’s cottage. You must miss her. Emma wasn’t the soft lady everyone thought she was, you know. She had quite a head for business and investments, and you didn’t want to argue with her. She always liked to have the last word, Emma did.”
Penny nodded. “Yes, and she was usually right. She knew a lot about a lot of things. As for the cottage, I’m afraid I’ve been very slow with it. Cleared out a few things, but not her bedroom, yet.”
She gave a little gasp. “Oh, no. I promised Bronwyn things for the jumble sale, and I haven’t even started the bedroom. I’ll have to get to that this weekend.”
She finished applying Mrs. Lloyd’s topcoat.
“There you go! All done.”
Just as Mrs. Lloyd was about to reply, the door opened and her face lit up.
“Oh, hello!” she said. “Look, Penny, it’s that nice policeman of yours. He’ll have some news for us, no doubt. I’d better just sit here if you don’t mind, while my nails dry. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.”
Fifteen
“Hello, Penny.” Detective Inspector Gareth Davies smiled at one woman and then the other. “Mrs. Lloyd.” Penny had turned in her chair and, in the awkwardness of the moment, started to rise.
“Now, Penny,” said Mrs. Lloyd, “why do you look so surprised to see the inspector? He’s investigating a dead body that’s been found in a building you own, so of course he’s going to come and talk to you.”
But before coming to the salon, he had had a word with Victoria. Victoria had watched as he ducked under the yellow police tape and started walking toward his car. When she’d called his name, he turned round and, seeing who it was, smiled and waited for her to catch him up.
“Oh, Gareth,” Victoria said, “before we get into all this business”—she tossed her head in the direction of the building—“I just want to tell you I’m so sorry about what’s happened with you and Penny. Listen, I think she cares about you, but she’s confused. You need to talk to her and get things sorted out.”
“I did talk to her and she pretty much told me to get lost.”
“Well, from what I’ve heard, you haven’t talked about everything,” Victoria said, making little quotation marks with her fingers around the word “everything.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look, I might as well tell you. I saw you coming out of the Red Dragon Hotel about a week ago early one morning with another woman.”
“And you told her this?”
“I thought she would want to know.”
“So she thinks that I . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Yes, she does.”
“Oh, God! That was . . . never mind. Where’s Penny now, do you know?”
“At the salon,” Victoria replied.
“Right.”
“But before you go,” Victoria said, “please tell me what’s happening here.”
“We’ve processed the scene and we’ll be removing the remains soon.” He looked at his watch. “It’s getting a bit late in the day now, but I would think that your workmen should be back on the job by tomorrow afternoon. We don’t want to hold up work any longer than we have to.”
He smiled and touched her arm.
“Thanks for telling me. I need to go and see her. I can put this right.”
And so, a few minutes later he found himself in the salon, anxious to speak to Penny, but faced with Mrs. Lloyd, he knew that what he was aching to say would have to keep.
“Yes, we found skeletal remains in the building,” he told the two women. “No, we don’t know who or even how old they are. They’ll be examined and we should know more soon. As far as the renovating goes, we should be out of your way by tomorrow, and work can resume.”
“Is that it?” a disappointed Mrs. Lloyd asked. “Is that all you have to tell us?”
Davies lifted a shoulder slightly and turned over his hand in a deprecating gesture.
“That’s all I have at the moment,” he said, and let it go at that. Mrs. Lloyd, an experienced gossip, knew that if she kept silent, sooner or later he’d start talking to fill the silence. But she was no match for him. The silence stretched on while Mrs. Lloyd looked at