At Tir Melys, Afan seemed to have shed everything from his previous life, with just a radio for entertainment. Maybe he had his possessions in storage. Or perhaps, like a man entering a religious order, he’d shed his worldly goods. Swift remembered Afan’s email, telling him to make himself comfy, and wondered if it was ironic.
The sky darkened to a muddy grey. A thin drizzle started. Swift glanced around. In the bleak light, the cottage and garden had a forsaken air. He shivered. He wasn’t disposed to premonitions, but he was uneasy. He went back inside and was just removing a sweater from his rucksack, the first time he’d have worn one in months, when a slight man in brown dungarees and a fleece with the hood up appeared through the door.
‘Who are you?’ A Canadian accent, gruff and flat.
‘Hi, I’m Tyrone Swift, a friend of Afan’s. I arranged to visit, but he’s not here. I’ve been wondering where he’s got to.’
The man stared at him with narrow, dark eyes. ‘So have I. I’ve been out looking for him.’
‘Is he not around, then?’
The man shook his head. ‘Come on, we’d better see Jasmine.’
* * *
The man didn’t speak as he led the way back to the Bivium, breaking into a run as the wind whipped up and rain started to hammer down. Swift ran too — with his longer legs, he could have outpaced him, but he stayed just behind. They were both dripping by the time they entered the shelter of the veranda. Swift was aware of light and a smell like fresh sawdust. From somewhere came the plangent sound of harp music.
‘Wait here,’ the man said, and darted away through central folding doors.
Swift used his sleeve to wipe drips from his forehead and neck. A long, deep shelf ran the length of the veranda. The woodcarvings displayed there were unskilled and some of them were downright clumsy. They were mainly of birds, shaped from oak and aspen: owls on branches, hummingbirds, eagles, gannets, puffins and cormorants. There was also a scowling Green Man with a long beard, and an elephant carved from driftwood. At the far end of the shelf was a collection of attractive baskets, planters, bird feeders and trays made of willow.
Through the inner door, Swift saw a large, square room with an open-plan kitchen and a huge oblong dining table constructed from railway sleepers, with driftwood benches. A burly man with his back turned was working at the massive black Aga cooker, and there was a pungent aroma of garlic. Perhaps the smallholders ate communally, which would explain the lack of a proper kitchen in Afan’s cottage.
Swift realised that the harp had stopped. The man who had found him appeared through a door at the far end of the kitchen, followed by a woman. She wore Birkenstocks that clicked on the floor, and an orange felt hat. Her hand rested on the man’s shoulder. She had a long face, high forehead and hazel eyes with dark brown rings around the pupils.
‘I’m Jasmine Merchant, and this is Bruno Andersen,’ she said to Swift. ‘Bruno tells me you’re Afan’s friend.’ She gave him a languid handshake.
‘That’s right. I’m Tyrone Swift. Afan was expecting me this afternoon.’
‘Yes, he did mention that you’d be visiting. He booked you a guest room. Let’s discuss.’
She made a sweeping gesture with her hand that put Swift in mind of royalty. She led the way back through the kitchen, along a corridor and into a room that had a sign over the door saying ‘The Parley’. It had huge windows patterned with fat raindrops and a floor made of blocks of granite. A tall, elegant beechwood harp stood in the far corner, with a curved, cushioned seat beside it. The dozen or so low stools dotted around were fashioned from sections of tree trunk. Swift felt slightly ridiculous, perched on his stumpy seat, but Jasmine and Bruno were at ease.
‘Now, let’s see what we have here,’ Jasmine said. She was in her early fifties, had a plummy, authoritative voice and was dressed in animal-print yoga wear — high-waisted, grey leggings and a long, shapeless grey sweatshirt with a lime green vest beneath. ‘Bruno, what time were you expecting Afan to join you?’
He spoke impatiently, as if she and Swift should already know. ‘Around half two. We’d planned to reinforce the hives and inspect for disease. When he didn’t turn up, I waited for a while, and then I went to his place, but he wasn’t in. So I searched all over, but no one had seen him.’ He glared at Swift as if he’d caught him up to no good. ‘Then I spotted this guy in Afan’s garden, so I went back to see what was going on.’
Jasmine fiddled with the toggle on her sweatshirt. ‘Well . . . It seems a bit odd, but maybe
