“I forgot.”
The woman who answers the door at number one has the sort of frame that looks as though it might blow away in a light breeze. Her blond hair is fine, the skin across her cheekbones so tight it’s almost translucent. She wears yoga pants and a loose top that hangs from shoulders thin as a coat hanger, with huge scrunched-down leg warmers pulled over her feet, making her look like a child borrowing her father’s socks.
“Come in, come in. It’s all so awful! Darling, there’s a detective here to see us.”
Ffion is ushered into a large open-plan room, and two children, a boy and a girl, are shooed out. The same zinc table as in the other lodges dominates the space nearest the bifold doors, but where the others were bright and airy, this place is gloomy, the tent on the deck stealing both the light and the view.
Jonty Charlton—at least Ffion assumes this is Jonty—sits on the short end of an L-shaped sofa in the other half of the space, where a log burner pushes out suffocating heat. An open bottle of red wine stands on the table next to him.
Jonty rubs his hand across his brow. “What a mess, eh? Can I get you something? A glass of wine, perhaps. Blythe, could you find another glass?”
The kitchen surfaces are covered with drying glasses and stacked foil platters. Ffion spots a streamer hanging limply from the curtain pole and a single shoe abandoned in a corner.
“I’m fine, thank you. You’ve heard the news?”
“Ashleigh Stafford put it on the residents’ WhatsApp group,” Blythe says. “I just can’t believe it. He was justhere.”
“How long have you known the Lloyds?”
Blythe puts her hand in the air like a schoolkid. “Yasmin came to one of my yoga classes about five years ago. It’s amazing really. I wasn’t going to teach on a Tuesday—everyone’s chakra’s always a bitoffon a Tuesday—but I did, and she did, and the rest is history.”
“The girls became friendly,” Jonty says. “Blythe told me Yasmin’s husband had inherited a patch of land and needed investors for a development.”
“And you saw an opportunity?” Ffion says.
“It’s what I do.” Jonty takes a slug of wine. “Match projects to investors. It’s rare for me to invest personally, but I find it hard to say no to my wife.”
“North Wales is on the cusp of regeneration,” Blythe says. Ffion suppresses a snort. Wait till the lake floods and it rains solidly for three weeks. “And the energy here is extraordinary. You can really feel it pass through you.”
The only thing Ffion has felt pass through her in Cwm Coed is a dodgy kebab. Maybe thechakrahad been off. “Is it a good investment?”
Jonty makes a weighing motion with his hands. “Property’s like the stock market. To make real money, you have to hold your nerve. Play the long game. Once the whole development’s been rolled out, this place’ll be a gold mine.”
“I’d like to take a look at the CCTV, if I may?”
There’s a moment’s hesitation. “Of course! Anything to help. Hang on. I’ll get the key.”
Ffion follows Jonty across the drive to a stone building. Inside, a vast circuit board lists every external light, and a generator stands in silent anticipation in the corner.
“In case of power cuts,” Jonty explains. “It’s quite the selling point. Heaven forbid our owners should be without Netflix.” He shows Ffion a computer in the corner, then logs on in a blur of keystrokes. “I’d have had cameras at the back too if I’d had my way—would have brought the insurance down no end—but apparently it’s an invasion of privacy?” He adds a question mark, the thought preposterous. “Anyway, there’s a camera on the main entrance”—he presses a key—“here, and two others covering the driveway:hereandhere.”
“Nothing pointing directly at the lodges?”
“Just the drive and the parking bays, I’m afraid.”
“Great. You can leave me to it, if you like. It’ll take me a while to work through it.”
“I’d better stay. It’s an expensive setup.”
Ffion smiles. “Honestly, I’ll be ages.”
Jonty glances toward the lodge, the bottle of red and the warmth of the wood burner calling to him.
“Hand on heart,” she says, placing her palm flat on her chest and looking up at Jonty through her eyelashes. “I promise I won’t break your fancy generator.” Jesus. She’ll have to hand in her membership of the North Wales Feminists’ Action Group at this rate.
Just kidding. There is no North Wales Feminists’ Action Group.
“Okay then. Give me a shout if you need anything.”