Yasmin looks affronted. “Of course he would. Jonty would do anything for me.”
Ffion smiles. “Is that right?”
Too late, Yasmin realizes her mistake. “Notanything. I just mean—”
“The Charltons have a boat, don’t they?” Leo says.
“Yes but—”
“Jonty’s an experienced sailor. Could easily handle a boat in the dark.”
“I—”
“You’re on camera, singing, when your husband died,” Leo says. “But you could easily have poisoned Rhys earlier that day.”
“This is preposterous!”
“And in fact, no one remembers seeing Jonty between eleven p.m. and the early hours of New Year’s Day. I doubt he will be on any footage of your little concert. Where was he?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“That,” Leo says, “is an excellent idea.”
Yasmin breathes a sigh of relief. “Does that mean I can go?”
“You’re under arrest for murder,” Ffion says. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Twenty-Two
Christmas Day
Clemmie
Clemmie Northcote can’t believe this is now her life. It’s nine a.m. on Christmas Day, and instead of staring at the mold in the corner of a kitchen-slash-diner-slash-lounge, she is gazing out on a flat, calm lake. Pen y Ddraig mountain is topped with snow, and the forest gleams with frost. Instead of the thud of downstairs’s bass and the rise and fall of upstairs’s arguments, she hears…nothing.
The lodge is warm and cozy thanks to the log burner she intends to keep going all Christmas. Unlike the other residents of The Shore, who chipped in for a delivery of kiln-dried logs, sized to fit the grate, Clemmie scoured the forest for free wood, which Caleb chopped and stacked on the deck beneath a tarpaulin about which the Charltons will undoubtedly complain.
In the fridge is an Aldi turkey, with all the trimmings, and Clemmie has splashed out on a bottle of prosecco for her and four cans of low-alcohol lager for Caleb. She doesn’t want to think about last Christmas, but it is difficult not to make comparisons. With the court case pending, Caleb had gone out on Christmas Eve and not returned until the early hours of the following morning. Clemmie had spent the day on her own, wondering when to put the dinner on. Caleb had emerged from his pit in the evening, his pupils fathomless pools, barely acknowledging the presents Clemmie had saved for months to buy him.
At ten a.m., she decides she can’t wait anymore. She pushes open Caleb’s bedroom door, realizing, as she does, that her son even smells different here. She sits on the edge of his bed, watching him sleep. Her beautiful boy. How close she came to losing him.
The second Clemmie saw the advert for The Shore, she’d felt a physical connection. It called to her. It wasn’t just the location, the view, the gorgeous lodges. At The Shore, Caleb would make friends with a different set of people, a different class. Clemmie hates the idea of class, but you can’t fight it. Background matters, and Clemmie had known that unless she did something radical, Caleb’s was going to drag him further into trouble.
“Mum, stop staring at me,” Caleb mumbles.
Clemmie’s brimming over with festive cheer. “Santa’s been!” she says with a giggle.
Caleb reluctantly sits up, scrubbing his eyes. “You’re such an idiot,” he says in that peculiar way boys have of showing affection. He lopes downstairs and Clemmie feels suddenly nervous, worried he’ll laugh or think her stupid when he sees what she’s done.
Clemmie stayed up far too late last night drinking wine and making paper chains to hang around the room. Caleb’s old Christmas stocking—the one he had before he got too old for surprises—is hanging by the log burner, packed with small, silly gifts Clemmie has collected all year. Every one is wrapped. She’s “borrowed” a small tree from the forest, keeping it in a pot and vowing to replant it after Twelfth Night. It’s covered with all the decorations she and Caleb made together before adolescence hit and he morphed into someone she hardly recognized.
“It’s silly, I know,” Clemmie says now. “You’re too old—”
She can’t finish, because Caleb throws his arms around her, squashing her face with his shoulder. “It’s amazing, Mum. Happy Christmas.”
They have bacon and eggs for breakfast. Clemmie hears voices on one of the decks, the growl of an engine as someone takes a boat up the lake. Late last night, Blythe put a message on The Shore’s WhatsApp group to say there’d be a group swim at noon. Clemmie wonders if the enthusiasm on the group will be as apparent this morning—as far as she knows, she’s the only resident of The Shore who swims on anything except the sunniest of days—but just before eleven, there’s laughter outside.
Clemmie steps onto her deck in her wet suit. “Merry Christmas!”