‘Damn the clothes, Hywel, they’re not important. She’s sick. We need to see that she’s cared for.’

‘No… She’s not sick. She’s just making me pay. She’s trying to turn you against me and send you back to France on your own. In her mind, she’s just making things even between her and me.’

‘Hywel, believe me, that’s sick! What do you think she’ll do if I don’t go? Is she going to come and shred me, like she shredded my clothes?’

‘That’s ridiculous, Etienne. She wouldn’t hurt anybody.’

‘Don’t be so sure, my love. Remember that I work with people who do things like this.’

It seemed as though there was blood everywhere. The trail went from the kitchen to the hall and on up the stairs. The mirrors in the bathroom dripped blood and his mother’s old cloth-cutting scissors lay in the washbasin stained red. Hywel felt the vomit rising and heaved into the toilet bowl.

‘She’s in the bedroom,’ Etienne said. ‘You’d better not go in there…’

‘She’s dead, then?’ Hywel asked, kneeling in his sister’s blood.

‘Yes… Perhaps she thought we’d come back last night, after we’d found my clothes… Maybe that was her intention; that we find her and get her to a hospital.’

‘Or maybe this was her last instalment on my debt for stealing Marc from her.’

Later in the day, the police officer handed Hywel the note that Lowri had left, neatly folded in an envelope bearing his name. He read the few words she’d written in her small, neat handwriting: ‘My mother’s sons were angry with me, they made me keeper of the vineyards; but, my own vineyard I have not kept…’ Take care of Etienne’s vineyard!

Pocket Sprung and Nested

‘What about this one then?’ Tom asked, the impatience of his tone cutting between them across the cluttered, Saturday morning breakfast table. Realising reluctantly that Tom wasn’t going to let it drop this time, Dafydd put down the already dishevelled Travel section, poured himself another cup of coffee, and forced a smile that puffed out his ruddy cheeks above an already greying beard.

‘All right,’ he said, without much enthusiasm, ‘you’ve got ten minutes to convince me.’

Tom smiled, knowing he’d won the initial assault, but not yet sure he’d win the battle.

‘This one’s ideal; it’s got cashmere and lambswool in the top layer, a woven damask cover, and over fifteen hundred springs nested in individual calico pockets.’ It was a month since Dafydd had said he thought their bed wasn’t as comfortable as it used to be, and Tom’s concern for him was evident in the brochures that littered the table.

‘And what does all that sales-speak mean?’ Dafydd asked with grudging attention, his thoughts still immersed in the once opulent spa resorts of Central Europe.

‘Well, it says here, ‘The purest cashmere from Asia…. The softest lambswool from New Zealand…. These natural upholstery materials, which include cotton felt from America’s Deep South and horsehair from Europe, are healthier and safer to sleep on. They won’t sag….’ Now, isn’t that exactly what we want? You did say that your side of the bed was sagging, didn’t you?’