“I’ve inherited a house down this way.” Leonard nodded to the photograph in Adrian’s hands, and he placed the sheet on the table. “A farmhouse called Bryn Bach in—”
Leonard noticed the slight surprise in Mrs Llewellyn’s eyes as she finished his sentence.
“Bryn Bach in Disserth? Yes, I know the place well. The owners—previous owners now, I suppose—used to come up from Bristol every summer. Sometimes at Easter, too. Mike and Millicent Darlington. Had three young-uns, one older boy and a twin boy and girl. They relatives of yours?”
“Mrs Darlington is my aunt, my late father’s sister. After my grandfather died—he was the rightful owner—he left the house to my father, and Dad left it to me. We’re going to look the place over tomorrow, so if you can help point us in the right direction, that would be really helpful.”
Mrs Llewellyn got up, waddled to the bar and brought back a small tourist map.
“Good job you asked. The place is a nuisance to find unless you know what you’re looking for.”
“We’ve got GPS,” said Adrian, holding up his phone. Mrs Llewellyn glanced at the phone and snorted.
“Good luck with that, dear. You’ll be lucky to get a phone signal down that way, let alone directions. Look, I’ll write you out the route with landmarks. That should get you close enough. It’s the only house on the lane so once you find that, your there.”
As she wrote on the map and marked a few prominent spots along the way, she also talked about the Darlingtons.
“Loved this part of the world, they did. If not for the husband’s sales job back in Bristol—they often came here without him because he was so busy—I think they might have thought about settling here. Every Sunday, they’d go to church and end up in here in the pub afterwards for a roast lunch. Her eldest came here a couple of times on his own. Loved the place, he did. Such a shame what happened to him.”
“What did happen?”
“You don’t know? Maybe it’s not my place—”
“My mother said he took his own life, but she didn’t know any details. Mainly because my father and his sister—my aunt—didn’t get along. So I know very little about any of my cousins. I only met her and my cousin Matthew for the first time at the funeral for my father.”
“Did you know your grandfather?”
“Grandpa George? Yes, I met him when we were kids. Not often, because we lived so far away. I think Dad felt guilty after Grandma passed away. So we’d go see him at least a couple of times a year.”
“George and Rene Day. Yes, they used to own the house in Disserth. My mum used to talk about them. So your dad would have been Colin?”
“That’s right.”
Leonard realised Mrs Llewellyn, rather than being curious, was testing him, to make sure she had the right person.
“Your cousin, Luke, hanged himself. His father and brother Matthew found him. Terrible business. Twenty something years old, bright as a new star and everything to live for. Came as a huge shock to all of them, as you can imagine. Not much happens around here, so the incident touched everyone.”
The same oddly detached grief he had experienced when his mother first told him rippled through Leonard again. Luke, his own flesh and blood, would probably have been less than ten years older than him. And something had driven him to take his own life. As a child he had always believed he came from an unremarkable family. Yet something terrible had happened to his cousin to make him end his life. While he grappled with the notion, he barely heard Adrian ask a question.
“Did he leave a note or anything?”
“Of sorts, according to his father. A piece of paper with a few words written in Luke’s hand. Taken from the Bible, we think.” She recited them slowly and solemnly. “Funny the things we remember, isn’t it?”
Leonard felt a deep sadness. Clearly, the words had meant something to Luke.
“Those words are not from the Bible,” said Adrian, surprising Leonard. “Although I can understand how you might think so. The line was penned by Wilfred Owen, one of the war poets. It’s from a poem called ‘At a Calvary Near the Ancre,’ in which he likens the battlefields of the Great War to the crucifixion of Christ. The last verse has those lines which, I believe, are about the soldiers in the Great War who selflessly laid down their lives.”
“You’re a religious man?” asked Mrs Llewellyn, an eyebrow raised at Adrian.
“Not so much. But my father was a minister, and I had an old friend I used to read to because of his failing eyesight. He loved the war poets. And even though I wouldn’t call myself a religious person, there are certain passages from the Bible that resonate—”
“But why?” Leonard heard himself say. “Why did he do it?”
Mrs Llewellyn’s attention returned to Leonard and she appeared genuinely moved.
“Nobody knew, dear. To this day the whole thing’s a mystery. Last time I saw them all together was the year before I got married and moved abroad, and everyone seemed in good spirits, especially Luke, who would have been around fifteen. Of them all, he was the most friendly and charming. And a handsome lad, too. Whenever they came into town, many a young girl in the village only had eyes for him.”
“Did he have friends here? Or did he mainly stick with the family?”
