“Beth ddywedodd—”
“Enough with the bloody Welsh!” Yasmin cuts herself off, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Sore point.” She glances at her mother-in-law. “Glynis was desperate for us to bring the girls up bilingually.”
“It’s part of their heritage is all.” Glynis Lloyd keeps her eyes fixed on the table.
“Perhaps if Rhys had been hands-on from the start…”
“He was touring,” Glynis says quietly. “He could hardly change nappies from Italy, could he?”
Leo intercepts. “What did Rhys tell you about his stalker, Glynis?”
“He said someone was obsessed with him. That they’d made threats.”
Ffion turns to Yasmin. “Is this true?”
Yasmin hesitates, then nods. “Keyboard warriors. We didn’t take them seriously.”
“We’ll look at it again,” Leo says. “In case…” He leaves the sentence unfinished. There’s something in Yasmin’s face he can’t read. From upstairs, the sound of the twins sobbing pulsates through the ceiling.
“I’ll go.” Glynis Lloyd pushes back her chair, the metal legs screeching against the tiled floor. She waits for a second, as though she can’t quite remember why she stood, before crossing the room with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“This’ll break her,” Yasmin says when her mother-in-law has gone. “She hasn’t been the same since Rhys’s dad died, and now this—” She breaks off, shaking her head fiercely, as though something’s trapped. “I’m sorry. It just—it doesn’t seem real.”
“If you don’t feel up to identifying your husband—” Leo starts, but Yasmin shakes her head fiercely.
“No no, I want to see him. I have to see him. I’ll just…” She gestures to her dressing gown.
“Of course. Take your time, Mrs. Lloyd.”
Tears brim over Yasmin’s lower lashes. “Thank you.”
“Have you met them before?” Leo asks Ffion when the door to the lodge closes. From upstairs, they can still hear the twins—or perhaps Rhys’s mother—sobbing.
“The Shore only opened last summer.”
“Is that a no?”
“Yup.”
Leo looks at her, exasperated. He’s had more intel from a no-comment interview. “How about Glynis Lloyd?”
“She owns the hardware store in the village. Lives above the shop.”
“So you know her?”
Ffion shrugs, as though the answer was obvious. “She’s local.” She lifts both hands, fingers pointing in opposite directions. “Do you want lodges three and four or one and two?”
Leo is torn between relief that Ffion doesn’t want to team up and apprehension about setting her bluntness loose on The Shore. This is technically his police area, after all. “Three and—”
Ffion is already striding off.
At number three, Leo pokes a hand gingerly through the center of a door wreath to find the knocker. Inside, a woman is shouting. The words are indistinct, but the sentiment behind them is clear—Leo’s been on the receiving end of similar ones enough times. He raps loudly, earning himself a holly scratch in the process, and the shouting stops. Leo hears footsteps.
“Hi.”
Leo takes a moment to center himself. He grew up watching Bobby Stafford fight, and although Leo’s not into the soaps, Stafford is instantly recognizable as the ne’er-do-well bare-knuckle boxer in the long-running showCarlton Sands.
“Um, hi.” Leo produces his ID, and Stafford raises an eyebrow.