MURDER IN PEMBROKESHIRE an absolutely gripping crime mystery full of twists (Tyrone Swift Detective by GRETTA MULROONEY (free reads .txt) 📗

Bryn sat back with his forearms stretched on the table. ‘I wonder where Afan’s phone is.’

‘In the sea, I expect. It would be the obvious place to chuck it. And the weapon, whatever it was. I doubt the police will ever find either.’ Guy turned to Swift. ‘You haven’t told us much about how you found Afan. Was he right on the path? Could you see the stab wound?’

‘The police have asked me not to discuss it.’

‘It’s just as well I didn’t find him,’ Elinor said. ‘I’d have been a nervous wreck, wouldn’t I, Fwankie? I’d probably have collapsed on the path and then I’m such a blabbermouth, I’d have told everyone the details. I can’t keep anything to myself.’

‘Yes, you do prattle on,’ her husband said. ‘Emotionally incontinent Elinor.’

‘How quickly things change,’ Bruno said softly. ‘If Afan was here, you wouldn’t be speaking like that to Elinor. Better be careful, Guy. The police might think you had a strong motive for not wanting him around.’

A silence fell. Elinor folded in on herself, stroked Frankie’s ears and kissed his forehead. He looked up at her adoringly and then settled his head on his paws. Swift wondered if he was keeping a low profile this evening because Jasmine was present.

Peter filled his glass with water and said, ‘I was wondering if maybe someone, a tourist or a walker, no one local at any rate, met Afan on the path and they had an argument for some reason. It might have been someone on drugs, or perhaps a schizophrenic person who should be in hospital and whose medication wasn’t controlled. You do hear of such random things happening.’

‘And this random person just happened to be carrying a weapon?’ Bryn laughed.

‘Interesting that you should choose someone with a mental illness as the murderer, Peter.’ Bruno stared at him. ‘Not that you’re into stereotyping. Mad, bad and dangerous.’

‘I didn’t mean it in that way,’ Peter said hastily.

‘Really? Putting it more politely than Guy, which is no great effort, maybe you should think more carefully before you theorise.’

Kat banged a hand on the table. ‘Can’t you all just shut up! Stop going on about things that don’t matter and being nasty to each other. Afan’s dead, he’s never coming back and all you can do is squabble!’ She shoved her chair away from the table and stomped out of the room.

Guy broke the silence. ‘Kat won’t be wanting pudding, then.’

Suki glared at him. ‘You’re embarrassing yourself and the rest of us. What must Ty make of us?’

‘I should imagine he’s used to witnessing the tension created by a murder,’ Guy told her. ‘It’s not a time for worrying about social graces.’

Suki fired back, ‘Not that you’re blessed with those.’

‘Hush, everyone, please! You are too much sometimes, Guy,’ Jasmine said to him. ‘We need to be kind to each other at a time like this. I suggest we finish eating and all get an early night. It’s been an arduous day. I’ll call on Kat and make sure she’s okay. Remember, DI Weber said that we should all start locking our doors, especially at night, until this investigation is over. It goes against the grain, but best to do as she asked.’

‘I wonder why she spells her name Weber and not Webber?’ Elinor said. ‘What do you think, Fwankie?’

‘She’s from a German family, hails from Haverfordwest,’ Bryn told her. ‘Her Dad came here from Hanover in the Eighties, something called an Erasmus scholarship, and he decided to stay. You’ll like her, Guy, what with her coming from an educated family and being a graduate herself. She’s trilingual and speaks proper and all, not like some of us dunces. She’ll make sure your statement is typed up with no spelling or grammar errors. I heard her swear in German. Impressive, eh?’

Guy folded his arms and sighed.

‘I hope she’s more professional than her dress suggests,’ Jasmine said. ‘I’d say she gets her clothes from a charity bin and those Doc Martens are the kind of boots teenagers wear. At least the sergeant had a suit on.’

Apart from Elinor, they’d eaten little of the main course. Bruno carried it away to the fridge and brought back the plum crumble. Most people took just a spoonful and they ate in silence. Frankie fell asleep and snored softly. Swift enjoyed the sharpness of the fruit and realised that the shock of finding Afan was starting to wear off. The residents were all preoccupied and weary. This community had suddenly found itself in peculiar circumstances, and that stress could bring out the worst in people. Yet the more he saw of them and listened to their backbiting, the less he understood why Afan had wanted to make his home among them.

He glanced at the Merchants. Jasmine was staring into space, chewing at her bottom lip and Peter seemed to have aged ten years in a day. He wondered what they were up to and why they were concealing it from their tenants.

* * *

At Afan’s cottage, the stove was still glowing. Swift fetched logs from the stack by the shed and fed them in. Flames were soon dancing. The police had searched neatly, and the books were in two straight piles on the table.

Swift went through the cottage carefully, searching in the dresser and the wardrobe and the bookshelves in the bedroom, unsure what he was hoping to find. Anything that might indicate what Afan had been concerned about, although the police would probably have got to it first. It didn’t take him long, with such sparse possessions.

The wardrobe contained a couple of pairs of jeans and jumpers, half a dozen T-shirts, two waterproof, fleece-lined trousers, a long coat similar to DI Weber’s and half a dozen cotton shirts from Marks and Spencer. No Louis Vuitton. On