Page 110 of The Christmas Retreat
‘I think it would be better if you didn’t make that kind of remark in front of Cariad, Verity,’ said Rhys in a voice so cold it made trickles of ice go up and down my back. ‘If you destroy her happiness in her mother’s keepsakes, I’m really not going to be very pleased with you.’
‘Oh, I really didn’t mean to— I wouldn’t for the world—’ began Verity. ‘It just slipped out … and really, she’d hardly seen her mother for years, had she? So, they can’t mean that much to her,’ she added earnestly. ‘I mean, although Annie was my best friend, I know she didn’t have any maternal feelings. They just weren’t part of her make-up.’
‘She may not have had strong maternal feelings, but I’m sure she loved Cariad, because her name was one of the last words Annie spoke after the accident!’ I said hotly.
I hadn’t meant to say that and in the ensuing silence everyone stared at me. Evie, catching my eye, raised a quizzical eyebrow.
Rhys came to stand next to me and said, ‘We don’t want to tell Cariad right now – she needs to be a little older – but by an amazing coincidence, Ginny came on the scene of Annie’s accident moments after it had happened and was with her at the end.’
Verity gave me a sharp look. ‘Youdid?’
‘Yes. My cottage was nearby, and I was on the way home.’
‘I’d forgotten you said you lived in Bedfordshire. But what a huge coincidence that you were on the scene just at that moment! Rhys, you never mentioned it?’
‘That’s because I had no idea until recently, when I met Ginny again. Ginny recognized Annie, but she didn’t know Annie and I had been divorced for years by the time of the accident.’
Cariad came back in just then, helping Tudor carry plates of scones and sandwiches, and Rhys said firmly that we’d let the whole subject drop with such a forbidding expression that even Verity shut up and assumed the expression of a deeply hurt and misunderstood Madonna.
*
‘Could I have a word with you – privately?’ I asked Rhys, after tea.
He looked slightly surprised, but said at once, ‘Of course! In fact, I wanted to talk to you, too, because there’s something that’s been puzzling me. Something you told me earlier didn’t seem to make sense.’
I followed him into the family sitting room. ‘Is it about Annie’s accident, by any chance?’
‘It is – but you go first. What’s on your mind?’
I sank into one of the comfortable old armchairs. ‘Well, you said this Finn Flint’s cottage retreat was near Old Warden, didn’t you?’
He nodded. ‘It’s on the outskirts, apparently, up a farm track.’
‘Then Anniecan’thave been on her way there, because she was driving in the totally opposite direction.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course! I’m familiar with all the little lanes around there.’
‘Then thatisodd,’ he said slowly. ‘Because according to Verity, Flint said she’d never arrived at the cottage.’ He frowned heavily, dark brows knitted over his amber eyes.
‘So, what puzzledyou?’ I asked.
Instead of replying directly, he said, unexpectedly, ‘Tell me Annie’s last words again, as closely as you can to the way she said them.’
I shut my eyes, conjuring up the scene, and then said: ‘“Tell Rhys … all … very … sorry … Cariad.”’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought you said. But what you don’t know is that Annie always called Verity “Verry”. That could put a whole new interpretation on it, couldn’t it?’
‘It was all …Verry?’ I repeated, slowly.
‘Exactly. And if she meant Verity and she was heading away from the cottage, well, maybe there’s a lot more to the story we don’t know about.’
‘I see what you mean, but it could just as well have been the original meaning I put into the words: that she was very sorry? But then, in that case,’ I added, thinking it over, ‘why was Annie heading away from the cottage?’
‘Why indeed? I think the police should have thought of that one and dug into things a little more.’
‘Since it was obviously an accident, with no one else involved, I shouldn’t think they would go into it very deeply. And if thereisany more to find out, I’ve no idea how we could go about it.’
