Simon Jones is dead.
I don’t entirely understand why this is my problem, but here I am anyway. Exiled to this backwater town, in Wales of all places. A town where nothing has ever happened or will ever happen – until now.
It’s supposed to be a punishment, I think. I managed to piss off the chief once too often, and he sent me out here till he cools off. He knows how much I hate not being in on the action.
Well, now I’m right in the thick of it. Small mercies.
I’m given an assistant. A local boy, far younger than I’d like, obviously moving up the ranks by dint of there being no one above him. It’s the same everywhere – not enough experienced coppers – but here, it’s especially exaggerated. The boy briefs me in the car, as I try to make sense of the signs. What the hell does “Fford Ymlaen ae Gau” mean? I shrug and drive down it anyway. The boy doesn’t notice, concentrating on the files as he is. I think this is his first case, and he’s as nervous as a tight-rope walker without a safety net.
“The only two people in the house were the sister and the daughter of the deceased,” the boy says. I think I may have gotten us hopelessly lost.
“Names?”
“Ceri and Angharad Jones.”
“Any motives?”
“Well, the daughter will inherit everything if he dies. Unless she murdered him, of course.”
“What about the aunt?”
“She’s not named in the deceased’s Will.” He says. I must learn what his name is. “It seems that her brother supported her. With him dead, she’s reliant on Angharad.”
"Do they get along?”
“Ceri and Angharad?”
I roll my eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“What’s your name, lad?”
“Ioan.”
“Yo-ann?”
“Ioan.”
“YowAN?”
He gives up on correcting my pronunciation. Instead, he asks to drive. We swap places, and I read the case files as he attempts to get us to the crime scene.
A thought occurs to me as I flick through the notes.
“Eye-o-ban?”
“Yes?”
He responded. Therefore, my pronunciation is close enough.
“They do speak English, don’t they?”
“Angharad was educated in England.”
“That’s the daughter, right? What about the aunt?”
“Oh, she’s never left the village.”
I groan inwardly.
“She speaks English about as well as I do,” the boy adds. I cheer up. “Are you finished checking those case files?” He asks. “We’re here.”
I groan again.
*
I’m briefed properly before meeting the suspects.
Simon Jones is – was - an eccentric millionaire. A self-made man, although I’m not entirely sure what his business was. Something Welsh. Salt mines, maybe.
Anyway, Jones retired at a fairly young age – forty-six according to the information I’m given. His wife was much younger – in her early twenties at the time they married, when he was thirty-seven and his business was flourishing. English, too. Not in the picture anymore.
I gather from the files that she divorced him, shortly after the birth of Angharad, and ran away back to London. Since she claimed custody of Angharad at the time, she got half of his fortune. Then, when Angharad became a troublesome teenager, she shipped her back, and headed on to Paris.
Reading over my shoulder, the boy comments, “Ast. It’s not really surprising that Simon hated the English after that.”
“Oh?”
“Never left Wales again. Didn’t even speak English anymore. Simply refused to.”
“The female Joneses don’t have such strong feelings, do they?”
“With all due respect sir, relax. They both speak English. Even if they didn’t, I could translate.”
I make a non-committal sound. I’m not conducting a homicide investigation in a language I don’t understand, thank you very much.
I continue reading. After the divorce, when the deceased became, more or less, a recluse, his sister, Ceri, moved in to take care of him. Before then, she’d been a school teacher, but after moving in, she retired as well. All her bills were paid by her generous brother. She was currently fifty-six, a few years younger than the deceased – sixty-three at the time of death – with no discernable source of income, following the death of her brother. She wasn’t named in his Will, which left everything to his daughter. It seemed she’d have to rely on Angharad’s generosity, or struggle through the years until she got her pension. That is, unless Angharad was shown to have murdered her father, in which case his entire fortune went to his next of kin – Ceri.
Angharad, although now twenty-six, still lived at home. She travelled widely, much as her mother had, but, as far as I could gather, stopped in every so often, to check up on her father. Possibly to see how much longer he had before she had access to the entire fortune, rather than the generous amounts of pocket money that daddy doled out regularly. Angharad was the sole benefactor of the Will, which didn’t lead to a motive. After all, all she had to do was wait until her father died of his own accord.
Now for the man himself. Simon Jones, although only sixty-three, wasn’t in the best of health. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that the man, following years of alcoholism and saturated fat, would soon have died of his own accord. He’d already suffered two strokes, according to the notes. In fact, it was a miracle that he was alive at all. But, alive he was, and spending the remainder of his days tucked up in his bed, strapped to various machines.
Despite his ill health, his doctor was of the opinion that he shouldn’t have died just yet. Although in pain, the man was still relatively alert, still somewhat talkative. Weak, but not dead yet.
This opened up another theory. Perhaps the man’s sister or daughter had taken pity on him.
*
I examine the crime scene before meeting the suspects. The dead man is still in his bed.
I take in the room. It’s expensively yet simply decorated. There are bookcases, although none of the titles are in a language I can understand. A chair with red cushions on it. The bed of course, made up with blue sheets and pillows, with a darker blue bedspread. A simple red carpet.
I approach the bed, and the cadaver that fills it. The dead man is frowning, as if he’d been in the middle of a tricky logic problem when he died. He is lying on his back.
I’ve never really been one for forensics. People are much more interesting, and easier to puzzle out. It’s far easier just to come up with a theory, and lean on people until one of them breaks.
The boy, on the other hand is on his knees examining the carpet. With a pair of tweezers. I admire his dedication.
He straightens up – it’s probably occurred to him by now that the carpet won’t help much, other than by proving what we already know – that all the suspects have entered the room in the past. Instead, he examines the dead man, tweezers still in hand. After a minute he smiles, and pulls out an evidence bag.
“What’ve you found there, Ivan?”
“Ioan. There’re blue fibres on the dead man’s lips. Possible instrument of death?”
“Well done, lad. Well, that’s enough investigating for me. Let’s go ask questions.”
He looks disappointed.
*
We meet with the aunt first. Her lilting Welsh accent is interesting, but I’m still very grateful that the interview is conducted in English.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to be nice to her.
“Kerry,” I begin. “Where were you last night, before your brother was found dead?”
“I was...I was in the parlour. Playing cards with the cook.”
Of course they have a cook.
I make a note of this. “Where you there all evening?” I ask.
“Yes. It’s...it’s a regular thing. We play every Thursday night.”
We talk a little more, but her alibi seems to be water-tight. The officer on the scene interviewed all the servants in the house the night before, when the death was discovered, and the alibi works out.
Perhaps it’s time to talk to the other Jones female.
*
Angharad is far more fashionably dressed than her aunt. While both have a certain elegance, Angharad’s is accentuated with a large number of glittering accessories. Her accent differs too, probably as a result of her English upbringing.
She smiles at the boy, giving him a Look from under her eyelashes. He blushes.
So that’s how it’s going to be, is it?
She has no alibi for the night before. Claims she was in her room all night, reading. That doesn’t quite gel with what one of the maids mentioned, about seeing her in the corridor outside her father’s room.
I mention this, and her face freezes, then melts. A tear begins to meander its way down her cheek. The boy leans forward, probably wanting to comfort her. From an aesthetic viewpoint, this may be her finest moment of the day.
“I did go to see him,” she admits. “He’s in so much pain these days.”
Her eyes gaze at me, at the lad, large and pleading, exaggerated by the tears that are flowing more freely now. She hides her face in her hands, as if overcome.
“I sat with him, for a while, holding his hand. We didn’t speak. Then I said...I said...”
She sobs for a minute. I wait for her to start speaking again.
"I said...papa, are you in very much pain? And he nodded. And – and I said, I asked him, papa, is there anything I can do?”
“What did he say?” asks the lad. He is enthralled, both by her story, and by the way the sunlight glimmers on the tears highlighting her face.
“He said just one word.” She whispers.
“What was that?”
I hope the lad stops talking soon. In my experience, it’s always better to let them fill any silences.
“Yes. He said ‘yes’.”
The lad is silent now. Good lad. The girl recovers herself.
“And I...I picked up the pillow from the bed. He closed his eyes...”
This case may be easier than I expected.
“...and then I put the pillow back and ran out of the room.”
She looks up at us again, pleading for understand with every inch of her rather shapely body.
“I couldn’t kill my father.”
*
“We’ve found some evidence of foul play,” I say. We’ve gone back to the aunt now. She looks stricken, then bursts into tears.
“Poor Simon,” I make out, amidst her wails.
“We have evidence that your niece killed him.”
I’m bluffing, of course, but it’s worth a try.
“Angharad?” She says, turning her tear-stained face towards us. “Angharad wouldn’t kill Simon!”
Yeah, lady, that’s what she said.
“I wasn’t with the cook all night,” she says, through her sobs. “I went to see Simon.”
Well, this is getting interesting.
“He’s in so much pain.” She buries her head in her hands again. “I can’t bear to see him like that. So, I picked up the cushion from the chair, and I held it above his face. He opened his eyes, and looked at me. And he whispered ‘fy chwaer i’...and that’s when I did it. I killed him. I killed my brother. I killed Simon Jones.”
***
Let's talk about the problems with this story.
Ceri didn't kill Simon. Angharad did. The hint is in the last words they attribute to him - Ceri has him speaking Welsh. Angharad doesn't specify a language, but we know it's not Welsh, because Welsh doesn't have a word for yes. However, my build-up isn't strong enough for the reader to suspect that Ceri's lying. That's why I didn't bother to finish it.
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