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

stared through his pale lashes. ‘Now, I’m a busy man and I need to make the most of Elinor’s absence. Once she’s back, her stream of consciousness will no doubt resume. I have ear defenders for when she’s at work, but somehow, her verbal onslaught still distracts me and Fwankie always has to join us. Sometimes I come to work and find that she’s entertaining Caris and her friend Gwyn. Her coven of gossips. Much as I’m enjoying this chat, have you seen anything you like?’

Swift pointed at random to a garnet brooch. ‘Could you make that, but in an otter shape?’

‘Certainly. I assume you’re leaving us soon, so you’d need to pay up front before you do and give me your details. There’s no great rush, as it’s a Christmas gift. I’ll make sure you have it by the beginning of December.’

‘I might not be leaving that soon. Afan had no next of kin, so I’d like to do what I can regarding his death and the aftermath.’

Guy picked up his LED headband. ‘Please yourself. Can you make sure the door’s closed properly on your way out? It sticks sometimes.’

Swift went back to Afan’s. He found a note from Suki slipped under the door.

DI Weber rang the landline and said can you contact her.

He made a coffee, mulling over his conversation with Guy. The encounter had made him want to have a wash. The man interested him in an appalled kind of way. He appeared to dislike his wife intensely, and most of the people he lived among. He didn’t even like his wife’s dog and the way he had mimicked Elinor’s use of Fwankie was vindictive. Swift suspected that he felt deeply inadequate, and his sneering was a form of defence. He hid his fears by bullying and undermining his wife, and claiming intellectual superiority and artistic talent.

He finished his coffee and decided to drive to find a phone signal. He didn’t want anyone at the Bivium overhearing his phone conversation with Sofia Weber. He drove to the nearest headland where he’d noticed a small car park and saw that he had a reasonable signal. Sofia answered and said she’d ring him back in a few minutes. He took his binoculars from the glove compartment and watched the sea, but there were no seals or dolphins visible today. The wind was high, buffeting the waves restlessly. He pointed his phone at the sky, took a photo of the delicate, wispy shreds of cloud chasing across the deep blue and emailed it to Ruth for Branna.

Lovely, silky cirrus clouds. The whitest cloud in the sky, which rhymes with you’re the apple of my eye.

When Sofia rang back, she said, ‘Sorry about that. I was talking to Spence and I needed to get rid of him. He came up with something useful, though. He’s a local, so he has handy contacts, which occasionally compensates for his lack of initiative.’ She groaned. ‘Sorry, had to move my sling. Spence had a chat with a mate of his who’s on ticket sales at the station. The sales guy remembered Afan buying a return to Cardiff on two occasions recently. He couldn’t recall what day of the week. He asked a couple of his colleagues as well, and one of them was certain that she’d at least twice sold Afan tickets to Cardiff. She remembered it was on Fridays because she was doing the weekly shop after work. Also, she mentioned that Caris Murray had travelled on the Cardiff train on one of those evenings. She knows Caris from school. They had a brief chat and Caris said she was going to spend the weekend with an aunt.’

‘It could be a coincidence that they were on the same train, except that there’s no such thing.’

‘I agree. I’m going to talk to Caris again. I’ll give her a sweet invite to come to the station, see if I can rattle her.’

‘I saw her after you left last night, and I followed her on my bike to where she lives.’

Sofia laughed. ‘I’m not sure you should be telling me that you stalk women on a bike.’

‘I don’t do it habitually, so you needn’t bring me in for questioning. It didn’t do me much good. I asked Caris about Afan going to Cardiff, and she said she knew nothing about it. Then she told me to mind my own business about the loan he gave her. I had a slightly more useful encounter with Guy Brinkworth this morning. He made it clear that he disliked Afan, although he extends that antipathy to most people at Tir Melys.’

‘Yeah, including his wife.’

‘He’s very wound up about the adoption. He seems to resent the intrusiveness of the process, and he’s doing his best to sabotage it. There’s something about his behaviour that puzzles me.’

‘I sensed there was something else under the surface too,’ Sofia said. ‘Given that he dictates to his wife about most subjects, why not just put his foot down and say he doesn’t want a child?’

‘A couple of people have commented that Guy was wary of Afan, who openly criticised him for bullying Elinor. Maybe Guy was jealous of the fact that Afan was supportive to Elinor, and his spite and annoyance boiled over. He was out and about that afternoon, he had opportunity.’

‘It’s a scenario. But just conjecture for now. I wish the bloody forensics would come back to me. There’s a gastric bug going around the lab, so everything’s been delayed.’

She rang off, saying that she had to get checked out at the hospital and might be there for hours. Swift watched the wind teasing and driving the sea for a while longer. It was congenial, working alongside Sofia, even if he had concerns about how pain was affecting her. That cut and thrust, the exchange of ideas and information with a colleague