3

"Who found the body?"

Ianto stepped forward. "That would be me."

"Your name?"

Ianto stared at the constable. "Gwen, we've known each other since school. You know my name."

"Police Constable Cooper." She didn't look up at Ianto but stood with her pen poised over his notebook. "Name?"

"Jesus Christ the Saviour." Ianto folded his arms and glared at her. "Or is it Ianto Jones, don't remember right now. Shock and all."

"Can you tell me what happened here this morning?"

"No."

She glanced at him. "I thought you found the victim?"

"I did."

"Then what happened?" Impatience rang in her words.

"I don't know what happened," Ianto replied. "I came to work this morning and simply found him there."

"Ianto?" a voice called, and he turned in relief to see Jack striding towards me. "Oh fuck, you poor bugger. What a dreadful thing to happen to you."

"It hasn't been Roger's best morning either," Gwen retorted.

Jack looked at the body in the doorway and nodded. "It's a terrible thing to happen. Especially in our quiet little village."

"Now, I need to know everything that happened this morning until the moment I got here."

"The alarm went off at six fifteen—"

Gwen stared at Ianto. "Let's start when you arrived at Dragon's Den."

"He's in shock." Jack wrapped an arm around Ianto's shoulders. "Ianto doesn't usually tend to babble. Quite obviously, seeing our neighbour brutally murdered has had a terrible effect on him. Perhaps we can go sit inside?"

"I have to stay with the body until the detectives arrive." Gwen looked doubtfully at them. "I'm not sure I should let either of you out of my sight."

"Well, he's not going anywhere, is he?" Toshiko marched up and flapped her hands, ushering Jack and Ianto away from Gwen, and Roger's body. "But Ianto is. The captain is right. Ianto has had a quite dreadful shock. He needs hot sweet tea and a blanket."

Ianto hated sugar in his tea, and he was pretty certain that if his body temperature got any higher, I'd throw up. Despite the fact he was an ex-solider, everyone was acting like he was a fucking wilting flower. Why were they all acting like this? Was he that pale? This was not exactly his first body ya know, even if it was rare to see one without his own calling card attached.

Gwen pointed at him "Don't leave the village!"

"You're being ridiculous." Jack pulled Ianto closer to his side reassuringly. "You've known us your whole life. Why would we go anywhere?"

"For all I know, you could be on a yacht heading to Montenegro or some other country that we don't have an extradition treaty with, while my back is turned." She scoffed, "after all… he IS a killer!"

"It is true that we do now have the money to do that, but why on earth would we?"

"Guilty people always flee the scene of their crimes."

Toshiko walked up to Gwen until she was so close to her, the tips of her red high heels were almost touching Gwen's shiny black boots. "You always were as thick as mince. Stay there and guard your dead body while we go inside and wait for the real police to arrive."

Morwen took one last look at Roger's poor dead face before hurrying to catch up with them. "I can't believe he's really dead."

It didn't matter how many times people said it, Ianto was struggling to accept what had happened, even when the proof was literally staring him in his face. Toshiko's heels tapped on the pavement as Jack led them to the front of the shop.

"My biggest problem is with Gwen," Morwen said. "How dare she speak to Ianto as though he's a common criminal? She can't really suspect him."

"I found the body." Ianto shuddered as he said the words. OK, that was the problem. This was the wrong place for a body. This was not a battlefield, not a crime area…hell… this was home "I think the person who does that is almost always a suspect."

"Perhaps," Morwen replied. "But Gwen should know better. She's known you since nursery school."

"Gwen is an idiot." Toshiko unlocked the front door of Dragon's Den and pressed the button so the shutters over the windows rolled upwards. "We should just ignore her."

Ianto hurried behind the counter to busy himself in the kitchen while the rest of them took seats around the tables they had hoped would be full of paying customers. Even if people wanted to come to Dragon's Den after finding out Roger was killed on the premises, Ianto couldn't imagine the police would allow him to open.

Blinking away a sigh of frustration, Ianto glanced at Jack. "Coffee Cariad?"

"Who do we think did it?" Sarah asked, pulling her tablet out of her bag and turning it on. For a moment, it surprised him that she asked that question as she was by the far the quietest of them all. However, it shouldn't have because there wasn't a single mystery programme Sarah didn't love. From Grantchester to Death in Paradise to rewatching old episodes of Murder, She Wrote while she worked, Sarah was an afficionado of crime shows.

"In situations like this, it's always the wife, isn't it?" Toshiko asked as she effortlessly carried a laden tray while balancing on her sky-scraping heels. "As silly as Elaine is, Roger was rather awful to her."

"You can't judge everyone by your standards." Morwen giggled. "You may well have killed Roger, if you were married to him."

"I never would have married such an uptight, arrogant, pain in the a—" Toshiko glanced at Jack. "Sorry, Sir."

"For fucksake sake, Toshiko. I have heard you use word before. On occasions, I may have even uttered it myself." It infuriated Jack that Toshiko treated him with such uncharacteristic reverence. He was still the same person she had known for years, despite his job, which for some reason, she constantly drew attention to. So he had saved her from something bad, gave her a job… she acted like he was god.

Sarah clinked her teaspoon against the side of her cup. "I have a blank document on the screen. Let's pool our knowledge, and maybe we'll have this whole thing solved before the detective chief inspector arrives."

Morwen raised an eyebrow. "Will they send a DCI for this?"

"I'm sure they will," Sarah replied. "It's a village murder. The DCI will definitely want to come out and see the scene for themselves. Afterwards, they will probably run the investigation from their office, but I'm certain they will want to be here this morning."

Ianto had no reason to doubt Sarah's words—she was the expert when it came to things like this. Jack's silent nod backed that up.

Ianto drew in a breath.

At some point today, the police would interview him about a murder. It was so fantastical, it seemed like a plot from one of the shows Sarah enjoyed, yet somehow, this was happening in our little town.