Swift didn’t reply. He and Afan should have been sitting by the glowing stove, drinking wine and catching up while the weather did its worst outside. This wasn’t right. He couldn’t fathom why his friend would have left on foot to an emergency. He held the door handle as Kat executed an awkward three-point turn and drove into the dismal night. His gut twisted with anxiety.
Chapter 4
After fifteen minutes of lying in his bunk bed, Swift decided that he wouldn’t get a wink of sleep. Not only was it not long enough, but the mattress was so thin, he could feel the slats beneath. There was a proper bed at Afan’s and he might as well use it, given that its owner didn’t need it for now.
He rose, put his clothes back on, fetched his toiletries and his rucksack and headed downstairs. It was just after midnight and the Bivium was silent. He passed through the refec, which was now spotless, with just a tureen of fruit in the middle of the dining table. The digital display on the oven gleamed bright blue in the dark and the fridge hummed quietly. He could still smell lamb juices and garlic. When he’d returned with Kat, Jasmine had declared in a mock military fashion that everyone could stand down.
‘It’s rather inconsiderate of Afan,’ she’d said, ‘but I suppose if it’s an emergency, he has his reasons. Does this email say how long he expects to be gone?’
‘No. It’s vague,’ Swift had told her. And Afan was never vague. He was always clinically precise. ‘Did he ever walk to Holybridge? He must have walked somewhere, as he had no transport — unless someone picked him up.’
Bryn had answered him. ‘The coastal path cuts by the west of Holybridge. Afan used to do that walk into the town sometimes. I’ve gone with him a couple of times, although he usually preferred solitary rambles. It’d take about an hour. There’d be taxis there and the train station.’
Swift had said, ‘Why would Afan have walked for an hour to deal with an urgent matter when he could have asked for a lift or called a taxi?’
‘Good question,’ Peter Merchant had commented, ‘no idea of the answer. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.’
Swift had asked Jasmine if she had any next of kin details for Afan. He’d never heard his friend mention extended family. She’d shaken her head and seemed to have decided to take the question as a criticism, pointing out sniffily that this was a community of independent adult members, not a record-keeping fiefdom. Bruno had grinned at that.
When Swift stepped out of the Bivium, the rain had stopped and the air was chilly. A sickle moon glittered occasionally through scudding clouds. There was a plaintive maah from a sheep, otherwise the darkness was like a silent cloak. He’d borrowed a torch and swept it along the path and clumps of purple foxgloves, making his way over the sodden ground. He came to where the path branched to Afan’s cottage and as he turned with the torch and the beam danced, he thought he saw a shadow, a shape slipping away down the side of the shed. It was gone in an instant. He ran along the path, sliding on wet grass, and walked around the shed, past Afan’s bike. There was no one and when he stood listening, no sound. He looked in the shed, but it was exactly as it had been earlier.
He opened the cottage door, switched on the light and stood on the threshold. The room was the same and when he gazed around, he couldn’t see that anything had been moved. But he recognised a difference, a trace of recent warmth, of human sweat and breath on the air. The photo that Afan had left on the table was undisturbed, and he tucked it into the inner pocket of his jacket.
There was a key hanging above the door, and he locked it before he went to bed. Afan’s bedtime reading was Wolf Hall. A sticker on the front told Swift that it had cost him £2.50 in Holybooks Preloved. The bookmark, a creased postcard of Caerphilly castle, was a quarter of the way in. He read the back. The handwriting was spidery.
I found this recipe for Elderberry and Meadowsweet mead. Sounds yummy. Shall we try a batch? We could go foraging early one morning (just as the sun is rising!) K xx
1 gallon spring water
2 ounces dried meadowsweet leaf and flower
8 ounces dried elderberries
1/2 teaspoon pectin
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1/2 packet of yeast
1 1/2 36-ounce jars of honey
Afan had always been an avid reader, sometimes confessing at work that he was tired because he’d been unable to put a book down until the early hours. Swift lay in the man-sized bed, gratefully stretching his legs and wondering why Afan hadn’t taken his book with him. He was weary but sleep eluded him. He cast his mind back to when he’d been with Afan in Lyon, trying to remember if he’d ever mentioned relatives. He drew a blank.
His eyes grew heavy, but he kept thinking about that email. It bothered him. It didn’t make sense. Why that, and not a phone call or a note? Afan would have realised that he might not see the email for some time. He would surely have left a note on the kitchen table, wanting Swift to find it as soon as he arrived. He wasn’t a man to cause unnecessary alarm
