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The teenagers are in the water in front of The Shore, and Steffan pulls back the throttle to slow the boat. He spots Elen’s youngest, Seren, and Rhys’s twins on pink flamingos.
Rhys himself is on the deck of number one, talking to two women—one plump, with mad hair, the other gray-haired and leaning on a stick. Rhys looks up as Steffan approaches and then starts walking toward his own lodge. A few meters from the dock, Steff cuts the engine completely, his speed and direction perfectly judged. He’s been bringing boats in since he was eight or nine—he could do it blindfolded.
Steffan throws the mooring rope to Rhys, jumping out as soon as the boat is close enough. “I just finished fixing up this rowboat. I wondered if your girls might like it.” He’s so nervous, he’s just dived right in, and he could kick himself. Rhys looks like he’s been ambushed—Steff should have thought up some small talk, maybe asked after the family. But the rowboat looks good, its green-and-white livery gleaming in the sun. It looks as if it belongs.
One of the twins paddles her flamingo over to inspect the boat. Steffan wants her to find her name on the oar, but she’s looking at Rhys, her hands clasped in front of her. “Oh, please, Daddy!”
“A boat would be marvelous,” Rhys’s wife says. “I’ve seen some cushions that will look simply wonderful in it.”
“How much do you want for it?” Rhys says.
“Nothing. It’s yours.”
“Fair play, Steff. That’s very generous of you.”
Steffan takes a deep breath, then he hands Rhys his mock-up leaflet. It’s taken him every hour he wasn’t finishing off the boat—working out his prices and finding quotes for printing. “The proper ones’ll be glossy, of course, with better photos.” He explains his plan for a partnership between the boathouse and The Shore, and Rhys studies the leaflet as he listens.
“I see. Great! Thanks for the boat.”
Steffan’s flooded with relief. Rhys likes his plans. Now Steff can order the boats he’s reserved and buy more paint. He’ll need more paddleboards too, and buoyancy aids—maybe green ones, with The Shore’s logo. “That’s okay.”
“Great job,” Rhys says, and Steffan’s so fired up with relief and excitement that he grips Rhys in the sort of hug usually reserved for after rugby matches and drunken renditions of “Land of my Fathers.” As he speeds back across the lake to the boathouse, ready for this new chapter in his business, he feels a buzz he never got from booze. There are people in Cwm Coed who won’t give Rhys the time of day since he built The Shore, but Steffan won’t hear a bad word against the man.
Rhys Lloyd is going to save Steff’s business.
Forty
January 7
Ffion
Osian Wynne is thirteen and dangerously overexcited. When Ffion and Leo reach the jetty, he and his mate are standing several meters away from Rhys Lloyd’s trophy as though they’ve dug up an unexploded bomb.
“I said it would be a crime scene.” His mam, Donna, arrived seconds after the patrol car. “Didn’t I say it would be a crime scene?” She looks at the crowd of twenty or so locals, summoned by the power of Facebook.
“She did,” offers Osian. “Will you be putting up some of that blue-and-white tape, Ffion?”
“Do you need some chalk?” someone asks.
Dear God. Ffion blames the government’s rural broadband grants for Cwm Coed’s relatively newfound love of Scandi dramas. Armchair detectives, the lot of them. She turns to the rubberneckers. “Has anyone got a plastic bag?”
“Will there be a reward?” Osian says. “I’m saving for a new rod.”
“Your reward is the warm glow that comes with assisting a murder investigation,” Ffion says, picking up the trophy, which weighs more than she expected. Strands of weeds cling to the golden spikes.
“Great.” Osian is clearly unimpressed.
“This could be the key to the whole job, mate,” Leo says. He fishes a tenner from his pocket and hands it to Osian with a wink. “Good work.”
“You’re too nice,” Ffion says as they head back to the car, the crowd behind them dispersing, disappointed with the lack of spectacle.
“I always think niceness is underrated,” Leo says mildly.
It certainly isn’t something they find when they get to Chester, where Crouch rolls his eyes dramatically at the evidence bag Leo brings into his office. “What have you got there? More wild geese?”
Leo puts it on the DI’s desk. “The murder weapon. Retrieved from Mirror Lake earlier today.”
Ffion watches conflicting emotions cross Crouch’s face. This was a great result—surely the guy would muster aWell done?
