Megan Llewellyn even sidled up to Adrian during the afternoon to ask if Lenny might consider selling. Adrian already knew the answer without having to consult Lenny. The house would be staying in the Day family for now.
While most of the guests were polite to one another, Lenny’s mother was, perhaps not unexpectedly, the exception to the rule.
“Mum. This is Mary, your niece. Mary, this is my mother.”
“Lovely to meet you, Aunt Geraldine. My own mother won’t be coming,” said Mary, shaking Mrs Day’s hand.
“I should hope she wasn’t invited,” said Mrs Day.
“Mum,” said Lenny, with a gentle reprimand.
“What, Leonard?” said Mrs Day, more than a little hostile. “The woman deserves to be locked up and the key thrown away. Trying to get my son killed. If your cousin Matthew were here with her right now, I’d make them both a nice pot of tea with some of your father’s more exotic mushrooms. They’d never know what hit them.”
“I’m sorry, Mary,” Lenny began.
“Please don’t be. I would happily help you pour the brew into their cups, Aunt Geraldine,” said Mary.
After that, the two of them chatted like old friends.
“Oh, my goodness,” said Lenny to Adrian, looking mortified as they moved away. “Apparently homicidal tendencies run in the family. Are you sure you want to associate with me, Mr Lamperton?”
Adrian pulled him around and kissed him full on the lips.
“I’ll take my chances.”
* * * *
At one point later in the afternoon, Lenny managed to steal Mary, Freya and Pippa away. He sat them down in the front of the room on the leather settees, talking about the oil painting and handing around some small Polaroids Luke had taken, the ones that hadn’t made the walls. Between them, the three ladies talked happily about the times they’d spent together. Mary had fewer recollections, having spent most of her time with her mother and Matthew. When Lenny passed around the letter from Max to Luke and the extra photos that hadn’t made the walls, Pippa read the letter first but then Mary and Freya read together, both teary by the time they refolded the paper and handed the letter back. Eventually Lenny told them the whole story of him and Adrian finding the dresser behind the wall, of the day Matthew arrived at the house with the shotgun, and how he had only just found the photos and read the letter from Max when Matthew had appeared. The police had told them each very little during their interviews.
“Now things make more sense,” said Mary. “The last summer we ever came here was the year Mr Williams drowned. Luke had done some decorations around the house, including painting the walls and covering those alcoves. Honestly, I didn’t even notice the dresser had gone. My mother had arranged with Matthew to have the house furniture sold off earlier in the year, and they would have collected everything after we’d left.”
“That’s right,” said Freya. “After Dad’s funeral. I let the clearance men in, before my grandmother and I came in and gave the place a good clean. And then you didn’t come back the next summer.”
Everyone fell silent again, processing this information.
“You said there were two letters,” said Mary. “What was in the remaining one?”
“Kind of a goodbye note,” said Lenny, going over to the dresser and pulling open the top drawer. “Meant for whoever found the dresser. In case Luke never could retrieve the furniture himself.”
Lenny settled himself back down and began to read aloud.
To Whom It May Concern. If for any reason I am prevented from following my dream, if I am unable to restore this beautiful piece of furniture to its rightful place in this beautiful house and this letter remains unopened, then I am lost. I have been kept from living out my life as I want with my love (and I know there’s a member of my family who will try to stop this from happening). If that is the case, then I bid you allTy Adar, which in Welsh means farewell. Luke.
Everyone except Freya fell silent.
“That’s not right,” said Freya, surprising them all. “Ty Adardoesn’t mean farewell. And Luke would never get something like that wrong.Ty Adarmeans birdhouse or aviary in Welsh. Don’t you have a bird box in the garden?”
“Yes, you do,” said Adrian. “In the apple tree. But I don’t know if it’s the original or if it was replaced with a new one. Any idea, Pippa? It certainly looks old enough.”
“It’s the original. We only cleaned the thing up a little.”
“Let me go have a look,” said Adrian.
Adrian went out to the apple tree at the end of the garden. A couple of the guests smiled as he went past but soon went back to their conversations. The old bird box sat towards the back fence, within easy reach, fixed by wire from a thick branch of the tree. Made entirely out of sheets of beech, the bird house had a couple of large holes drilled into the front and a single perch installed inside. At the back, Adrian found a panel which could be lifted up and used to clear the mess from the interior.
He found nothing out of the ordinary but then thought about how Luke had hidden the photographs and letters in the dresser. Using his fingers, he reached into the box—which was thankfully relatively clean—pressed the floor inside and pulled, which also slid open a panel. Inside he found a tiny pack wrapped in thick plastic. After a second, he replaced the other parts of the bird box and returned to the room.
Everyone fell silent as he unwrapped the package. Inside he found a single TDK cassette tape with nothing written on the label, just left blank. He handed the item to Lenny.
