A body is discovered in the reedbeds of the Newport Wetlands.
At first glance, it appears to be a tragic and unusual death. But investigative journalist Gareth Rhys quickly notices something that doesn’t fit - a strange wound unlike anything local police have encountered before.
For Gareth, who has spent decades uncovering the hidden crimes operating beneath rural life in South Wales, instinct matters. And his instincts tell him this death is only the beginning.
As questions spread across Newport and the villages of the Gwent Levels, Gareth finds himself drawn into a world few people ever see, one where exotic wildlife is bought and sold through hidden networks, dangerous animals vanish into the illegal pet trade, and quiet businesses conceal far darker activities beneath the surface.
Working uneasily alongside Acting Detective Inspector Sara Llewellyn, Gareth follows a trail that leads from pet shops and isolated farms to bonded warehouses, abandoned buildings, and whispered rumours moving through rural communities. The deeper he digs, the clearer it becomes that powerful people have invested heavily in keeping certain truths hidden.
But Gareth is not the only one under pressure.
In the village of Nash, elderly wildlife rescuer Bethan “Draenog” has begun facing intimidation designed to force her from her home beside the wetlands she has spent a lifetime protecting. Around her, tensions over land, money, and development are beginning to boil over, exposing long-standing divisions beneath the quiet surface of village life.
As the investigation gathers momentum, Gareth must navigate a dangerous landscape where organised crime, local loyalties, and hidden violence collide, and where asking the wrong questions can have deadly consequences.
Set against the haunting beauty of the South Wales coast and the windswept Gwent Levels, this atmospheric crime thriller combines investigative journalism, rural noir, and environmental crime into a gripping mystery filled with tension, danger, and richly drawn characters.
Perfect for readers who enjoy:
- Atmospheric British crime fiction
- Investigative mystery thrillers
- Rural noir and Welsh crime novels
- Slow-burning suspense with strong sense of place
- Wildlife and environmental crime stories
- Character-driven mysteries with realistic investigative detail
The Gareth Rhys Investigates series follows an experienced Welsh journalist uncovering the hidden crimes operating beneath ordinary rural life - where silence, money, and power often matter more than truth.
Chapter 1
The path narrowed as it dipped between the reeds, the sound of the road fading behind them until it was replaced by the softer, more constant rhythm of wind and water. Gareth walked slightly behind the main group, hands in his jacket pockets, letting the conversation drift around him without fully joining it. The morning had settled into something unexpectedly warm - sunlight breaking clean across the wetlands, catching on the pale greens and golds of new growth. It was the kind of day that felt borrowed, as though spring had arrived early and might change its mind at any moment.
READ MORELowri walked beside him, more engaged than he was, nodding along as one of the others spoke about a recent community event - something involving pottery classes and a charity raffle. The group itself was typical of the local council’s lifestyle initiative: a mix of ages, most of them familiar with one another, drawn together by routine as much as interest. The walks had become a quiet fixture in the week, something Lowri had suggested more than once before Gareth had finally agreed.
“It’s good for you,” she had said. “An hour without chasing something.”
He hadn’t argued. Not properly. And now, here he was - following a line of people along a raised path through reedbeds, listening to the low murmur of conversation and the occasional call of birds lifting somewhere out over the water.
Ahead, one of the group leaders, Carys, he thought her name was, slowed slightly, raising a hand to steady herself as the path curved. She was in her forties, practical, organised, the kind of person who kept things moving without appearing to push. Today, she’d been pointing out early nesting activity, drawing attention to subtle changes in the landscape that most would have missed.
“…if you look just beyond that break in the reeds,” she was saying, gesturing out toward the open stretch beyond, “you can usually…”
She stopped.
It wasn’t abrupt, not at first. More a hesitation, as though she’d lost her place mid-sentence. Then she took a step forward, narrowing her eyes slightly, her focus fixed somewhere out beyond the low wall that marked the edge of the path.
“What is it?” someone asked.
Carys didn’t answer immediately. She moved closer to the wall, resting a hand on its weathered stone, and leaned forward slightly.
“There’s… something down there.”
The group quietened almost instinctively. Conversations fell away, replaced by a shared, uncertain attention. Gareth felt it too, that subtle shift when something didn’t quite fit.
He stepped forward, closing the distance to the wall. Beyond it, the land dropped away into a stretch of mudflat, still exposed at this point in the tide cycle. The surface was uneven, ridged and dark, marked by shallow channels where water had recently receded. Beyond that, further out, the estuary caught the sunlight in a dull shimmer.
At first, he didn’t see it. Then his eyes adjusted. A shape, lying just above the high tide mark. Not large, but distinct enough once you knew where to look. Something out of place against the natural pattern of the mud.
“Is that…?” someone began.
Carys took a breath, steadying herself. “I think it might be a person.”
The words settled heavily. No one spoke for a moment.
Lowri moved closer to Gareth, her shoulder brushing his. “Can you see it properly?”
He didn’t answer straight away. He was already leaning forward, narrowing his gaze, letting instinct take over where uncertainty had been.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I can see it.”
There was a stillness to the shape that didn’t belong to someone resting. No movement, no shift with the breeze. The position was wrong too - angled slightly, one arm out from the body in a way that suggested collapse rather than intention.
Carys was already reaching for her phone. “I’m calling it in,” she said, her voice controlled but tighter now. “Everyone just stay back from the wall, please.”
A few of the group stepped away instinctively, as though distance might make it less real. Others remained where they were, watching.
Gareth didn’t move back. He studied the drop beyond the wall. It wasn’t sheer, but it was steep enough to require care. The mud below looked firm in places, softer in others -unpredictable.
“Gareth,” Lowri said quietly, recognising the shift in him before he’d even acted.
He glanced at her briefly. “I’m just going to take a closer look.”
“The police are on their way.”
“I know.”
There was a pause, familiar, unspoken.
Then he turned, placing a hand on the top of the wall. The stone was warm under his palm. He swung one leg over, testing his footing on the other side before committing his weight. The drop was awkward rather than dangerous, but the mud shifted slightly as he landed, forcing him to adjust quickly to keep his balance.
Behind him, he heard Lowri’s voice, sharper now. “Gareth…”
But he was already moving.
He picked his way across the mudflat carefully, placing each step with intention, avoiding the darker patches that might give way under pressure. The air felt different down here -closer, heavier, the faint scent of salt and decay rising from the exposed ground.
The body lay ahead, unchanged. As he drew closer, details began to resolve.
A man. Mid-forties, perhaps older. Dressed in everyday clothing: jeans, a jacket, nothing immediately distinctive. He was lying on his side, one arm bent beneath him, the other stretched slightly forward as though he’d tried to steady himself before falling.
Gareth slowed as he approached, stopping a short distance away. He didn’t touch the body. Didn’t kneel immediately. Just stood for a moment, taking it in.
There were no obvious signs of injury. No blood visible. No disturbance in the mud around him that suggested a struggle. The surface nearby was marked, but not in a way that told a clear story.
He crouched slowly, lowering himself into a more stable position.
“Gareth.”
He turned his head slightly. Lowri was making her way toward him, more cautiously than he had, testing each step before committing. He watched her for a moment, a flicker of concern crossing his expression, but said nothing.
She reached him and stopped just behind his shoulder, her breathing slightly uneven from the effort of the descent.
“You shouldn’t have come down,” he said quietly.
“Neither should you.”
There was no heat in it. Just fact.
They both looked back at the body.
“What do you think?” she asked.
Gareth didn’t answer immediately. He shifted slightly, adjusting his position to get a clearer view without getting too close. “Look at the ground,” he said.
Lowri followed his gaze. “There’s not much disturbance.”
“No.”
“Could have been carried?”
“Possibly.”
He leaned forward slightly, careful not to let his shadow fall too heavily across the body. His eyes moved methodically: face, clothing, hands.
Then he stopped. “Lowri,” he said quietly.
She leaned in slightly. “What is it?”
“His hand.”
The man’s right hand lay partially turned upward, fingers slightly curled. The skin was swollen, discoloured - an unnatural darkening that stood out even against the general pallor.
Lowri frowned. “That doesn’t look right.”
“No.”
Gareth shifted his position again, angling himself to see more clearly. He didn’t touch the hand, but he leaned close enough to examine it properly.
The tissue around the centre of the hand was blackened, dead. At its core, a puncture mark. Deep, clean, unmistakable once you knew what you were looking at.
He felt a quiet certainty settle into place. “Do you see it?” he said.
Lowri nodded slowly. “Yes.” There was a pause. “What do you think it is?” she asked.
Gareth lowered his voice, instinctively, as though the reeds themselves might carry the words. “I think it’s murder.”
Lowri didn’t react outwardly. She didn’t step back or draw in breath sharply. She just looked at the hand again, then back at Gareth.
“Murder?” she repeated, quietly.
He nodded once. “That didn’t happen naturally,” he said. “Not here.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “What caused it?”
Gareth hesitated for a fraction of a second, not because he didn’t know, but because saying it would make it real in a different way.
He pointed, subtly, to the centre of the damaged tissue. “That,” he said. “That’s a bite.”
Lowri looked again, more carefully this time. “An animal?”
“Not local.” He straightened slightly, shifting his weight back. “I’ve seen similar before,” he said. “Not often. But enough.”
“Where?”
“Investigations. Africa, mostly. Once here….” He paused. “Illegal collections”
Lowri’s gaze flicked back to the body, then out across the wetlands. “A snake?” she said.
Gareth met her eyes. “Yes.”
She held his gaze for a moment. “You’re sure?”
He shook his head slightly. “No. Not yet.” A beat. “But it looks like one. And not just any snake.”
Lowri glanced back toward the wall. The group was still gathered there, smaller now against the wide openness of the landscape. Carys stood slightly apart, phone still to her ear.
“The police will be here soon,” Lowri said.
Gareth nodded. “They should be.”
He looked back at the body, the stillness of it, the quiet wrongness of its placement. “It’s dry,” he added.
Lowri followed his line of thought. “So it hasn’t been washed in.”
“No. If it had, there’d be more disturbance. Debris. Movement.”
“So it was put here.”
“Yes.”
He let the implication settle between them.
Lowri folded her arms loosely, not from cold, but from something more instinctive—containment. “This wasn’t random,” she said.
“No.”
“And whoever did it thought the tide would take it.”
Gareth nodded again.
“But they misjudged,” she added.
“Or ran out of time.”
They stood in silence for a moment, the breeze moving lightly through the reeds behind them, the distant sound of birds carrying faintly across the water.
From somewhere above, a voice called down - Carys again, strained but steady.
“The police are on their way! They’ve asked everyone to stay where they are.”
Gareth didn’t look up. His attention had already shifted beyond the body, beyond the immediate. A man, brought here. Left in the open, but not quite exposed. Killed in a way that didn’t belong to this place.
He felt it then - that familiar, quiet pull. Something didn’t fit. And whatever had brought it here… Wasn’t finished.
COLLAPSE