MURDER
IN
PEMBROKESHIRE
An absolutely gripping crime mystery full of twists
GRETTA MULROONEY
Tyrone Swift Book 8
Joffe Books, London
www.joffebooks.com
First published in Great Britain in 2021
© Gretta Mulrooney
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Gretta Mulrooney to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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ISBN: 978-1-78931-738-1
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
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For Eve
Prologue
He’d never liked secrets. There had been too many when he was a child — adults murmuring over his head, fragments of sentences, conversations that stopped when he entered a room. Childhood had been a puzzle, an insoluble riddle, and he had never worked out the meaning.
The matron at his boarding school had been keen on riddles. But they hadn’t been fun. She’d used them to tease and bully, choosing her victims at random, belittling her target in front of the others when he couldn’t come up with the answer. He could still remember the one she’d set him the night he’d arrived. He’d been wearing his new pyjamas, their stiff label scratching his neck. He’d stood, lost, in the huge, chilly dormitory with its rows of beds like an army barracks.
Only one colour, but not one size,
Stuck at the bottom, but easily flies.
Present in sun, but not in rain,
Doing no harm and feeling no pain.
What is it?
He’d been ten, homesick and bewildered. He had been aware of dozens of eyes focused on him and had felt like the fox must when the hounds are circling. They were waiting for him to fail. When he did, he’d heard some sniggers. Matron had told him he was as much use as a fart in a jam-jar. The others had laughed, glad that they weren’t in the spotlight. He’d never discovered the answer. Many years later, in his twenties, he’d recalled that riddle one sleepless night and had googled it. The answer was shadow.
Secrets were heavy. If you could touch them, they’d burn you. They could imprison you. He’d thought up a riddle with secret as the answer:
If you have it, you want to share it,
But when you share it, you no longer have it.
He didn’t like secrets, yet he had one of his own. He could still hear those terrible screams. They had shattered a sunlit day. The blood had stained the fissures in the rocks, darkening as it dried. When he’d realised what had happened, he’d begun to shiver, as in deep winter. For months afterwards he’d been unable to get warm. Even on this benign day, the recollection gave him goose pimples.
He’d managed to keep the lid on that chapter in his history. Just. Secrets seemed to follow at his heels like the Labrador that sometimes tracked him up and down the beach. Now someone had breathed yet another unwelcome confidence in his ear. His heart had sunk. He hadn’t wanted to listen but of course, he was a soft touch. Always had been. His defences had never been strong. He was a quiet man, shy and slow to give his opinion. People misread his reserve as wisdom and interpreted his silence as an invitation to speak. And this person had wanted to share the secret so badly, whispering through warm, close breath, setting out their stall, drawing him in. How could he refuse to listen and to help?
Life had been simpler once. Not entirely free of worries, but with room to breathe. He’d done some good, lent a helping hand when it was needed. It was important to heal wounds, try to make things whole when they’d splintered. You had to do your best to put things right. He’d been doing his best since the day that blood was spilled, because he could never make that broken body whole again.
He walked on, contemplating the burden of what he knew. He didn’t want to intervene, although in the end he’d probably have to. But there was a chance that this meeting might bring resolution. He would speak calmly, measure his words, and present the only honourable course of action. Maybe the person waiting for him wanted a way out.
He was almost there.
He put out his hand and brushed the cow parsley that fringed the path, bringing his palm to his nose to sniff its sweetness.
And strode on to meet his death.
Chapter 1
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Tyrone Swift went into the café, slung down his backpack, threw himself into a chair and heaved a sigh of relief. He loosened his tie. Halfway through the court hearing, he’d noticed a crust of dried chocolate on it and knew that Branna, his sticky-fingered daughter, had been rifling through his wardrobe again. She was going through a phase of wanting to try on his clothes, which was fine by him, except for
