Candlenight, page 29
Beyond the drawn curtains it grew brighter still, blue-white like constant lightning.
"Ernrmph," George rolled over.
Elinor forced herself lo pull buck the curtain a little, and she looked down into the village street.
The street was blue with cold.
Radiantly blue. A mat of frost the colour of a midsummer sky was rolling out over the river-bridge towards the inn.
Along this chilly carpet a figure moved.
He had a long overcoat of grey, falling lo the frosted road, and a wide-brimmed hat which shadowed his downcast face. He moved like a column of smoke, hands deep in the
folds of his coat.
She could not see his feet or hear his footsteps, only a sharp, brittle sound, perhaps the frost itself. He left long, shallow tracks behind him but, as she watched, the marks in
the frost healed over and the bright blue ground shone savagely cold and mockingly untrodden.
The figure advanced towards the door of the inn, and with each of his steps the temperature dropped around Elinor, as if the radiators were shutting down in great shudders. Her body began to quake, her teeth to chatter, and the fingers holding back the curtain were numbed.
Reaching the door of the inn. the visitor paused, the cold rising from him like steam, brought a hand out of his pocket as if to knock.
It was not a hand but the yellow, twisted, horny talon of a bird of prey.
"Shut up! Stop that screaming, you stupid, bloody drunken bitch!"
Her body arched at the waist, her neck extended as if she were trying to vomit.
"Are you totally insane, woman? Shut up! Do you hear me, you bitch?"
On his feet now, between her and the window, George grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her down on the bed. "Stop it!"
She looked up into her husband's bulging, sleep-swollen eyes.
Hands clenched around her bony shoulders, he lifted her from the bed then slammed her down again.
And again.
This time her skull crashed sickeningly into the head-
board of Victorian mahogany.
George's eyes were opaque.
He smashed her down again, lifted her up, smashed her down, a rhythmic motion, grunting "Stop it."
Stop it.
Stop it.
Stop it.
Part Eight
THE RED BOOK OF INGLEY
Chapter LIII
They watched each other over the breakfast table, different people now. She wore yesterday's black cowl-neck sweater and the big gold earrings; his sweatshirt still identified him as an American werewolf in London. But they were different people.
The Rhos Tafol's dining room overlooked the estuary, shining cobalt in the chill morning, there were perhaps twenty tables in the room, all stripped bare except for the
one where they sat, by the window.
December.
"We could just walk away from it." Berry spread marmalade on dry toast. Bethan looked down into her boiled egg. He loved the fall of her eyelids; it was what put him in mind of the women in Renaissance paintings.
"Or not," Berry said.
They'd lain and talked about it until the dawn streaked the Dyfi. She'd told him about Claire in the river Meurig, washing away the English. And about Claire's photos; the tree that vanished, whatever that meant.
He'd told her about old Winstone—whatever that meant.
Also about Miranda. Who was funny and diverting but belonged to the person he used to be before last night.
"So." Crunching toast.
Bethan said, "When I came back from Swansea to be head teacher—less than six months ago, I can't believe it—I thought I was going to change everything. Let some light into the place. It was pretty hard to do coming back."
"I don't know how you could."
"The way I rationalised it, it was going to be a kind of memorial to Robin. Modernising the school, changing the outlook of the children. It was a mission. But—"
"—You didn't realise what you were taking on."
"I was very determined. Nothing left to lose. Ready to fight centuries of tradition. And Buddug."
"Buddug's this other teacher?"
"The name Buddug," Bethan said, stirring the tea in the pot lo make it blacker, "is Welsh for Boudicca, or Boadicea."
"The hard-nosed broad who took on the Romans," he remembered. "Drove this chariot with long knives sticking out the wheels, relieving whole legions of their genitalia."
"I had never thought of it quite like that, but the way you depict it, it does seem horrifyingly plausible, yes."
"She's like that, this Buddug?"
"She's worse." Bethan said.
"And what you're saying is you think you might accomplish now what you couldn't when you came back from Swansea?"
"I am not alone this time," Bethan said, and his heart took off.
"C'mon, honey," She turned over, coughed. "One more time for Berry." She turned over again, caught.
"She is very old," Bethan said.
"We don't discuss her age. It upsets her. When I'm in London, this guy checks her over every few weeks. You can still get the parts, if you know where to look."
He followed the estuary back towards Machynlleth. "I like it here. I like feeling close to the sea. You wouldn't care to stay another night, think about things some more?"
"I told you last night, I should like to stay here a very long time." She sighed. "Keep driving, Morelli."
"One point," Berry said, pushing the Sprite into the town, towards the Gothic clock tower. "You're a nationalist, right? Guto's a nationalist. This Buddug and all the people in Y Groes, they're nationalists too."
"Why, then, did Guto go down like the proverbial lead balloon?"
"Precisely."
"You have to live in Wales a long time to work it out," Bethan said. "And just when you think you've understood the way it is . . ."
She ran the fingers of both hands through her hair, as if to untangle her thoughts.
"You see . . . There are different kinds of Welsh nationalism. There is Plaid Cymru, which envisages a self-governing Wales with its own economic structure—an independent, bilingual state within the European Community. And there is another sort which you might compare with the National Front, the Ku Klux Klan, yes?"
"Extreme right wing."
"Except they would not think of themselves like that. They are protecting their heritage, they feel the same things we all feel from time to time, but—" She sighed again. "I'm afraid there are some people for whom being Welsh is more important than being human."
"And - let me guess here—this type of person sees Plaid as a half-baked outfit which no longer represents the views of the real old Welsh nation, right?"
"Yes. Exactly. Da iawn."
"Huh?"
"Very good. In moments of exultation, I revert to my first language."
"So that's what it was," Berry said, remembering moments of last night.
Driving south in worsening weather, Berry wondered why neither of them had put a name to what they were up against. Six deaths. Accident, suicide and natural causes. All
English people, no other connecting factor. They couldn't be talking murder. Not as the law saw it
"Bethan," he said. "Can we discuss what happened to Giles?"
Sparse sleet stung the screen.
"Listen to me now," she said, as if this had been building up inside for some while. "There is one thing I haven't told you."
Above the whine of the wind in the Sprite's soft top, she revealed to him the truth about Giles's "fall" in the castle carpark in Pont. Why they'd kept quiet about it.
"Giles himself was particularly anxious people should believe it was a fall. I think he was embarrassed. Does that make sense to you?"
"I guess it does. Say the two guys are arrested, there's a court case. And then everybody working with Giles in London knows he got beat up on. In his beloved Wales. Yeah, I can buy that. No way would he want that out, the poor sucker."
Bethan squeezed his hand on the wheel. "I am so relieved. I was worried you would think we covered it up to protect ourselves."
"Guto, yes. You, no. So who were they, these guys?"
"Just yobs. Troublemakers. Guto threw one in the castle ditch. I would know them again. We all would."
"If it came out," Berry wondered, "is there any way we could use it to turn the heat on this thing? This guy, Inspector Jones—"
"Gwyn Arthur."
"Yeah. Seemed approachable."
"He is a nice man. But Giles did not die as a result of the attack. What could Gwyn Arthur really do now?"
"If only there'd been an inquest . . ."
"But what would it reveal? The medical evidence says he had an enormous tumour. What I would ask is, why did he develop the tumour? Why did Robin develop leukaemia?
Why did the hiker hang himself by the river? Why did the professor . . . ? It's not something an inquest can go into, is it?"
"Paranoid delusions, Beth. Bethan. Listen, this may seem a distinctly American way of looking at things, and I apologise in advance, but is there anybody we could beat the truth out of?"
"Not my style," Bethan said.
"Naw, me neither."
"I am glad to hear it. But, look, there are still people we can talk to. I know . . . Why don't you stop at the next phone box."
"We aren't gonna see any dead people, are we?" Berry was uncomfortable. He hated these places.
"Don't be a wimp. They cannot harm you."
He shuddered. "Bad enough seeing those pictures of Giles."
"I know," Bethan said quietly. "I was there when they were taken."
"Jesus, I'm sorry." He kissed the top of her head. "Forgive me?"
"I shall think about it." she said.
"Bethan, is that you?"
"Hello, Dai. Where are you?"
"In the embalming room, come on through."
Berry felt his legs giving way.
"Only kidding," the bald man said, pushing through the purple curtains. "Oh, I'm sorry, Bethan. I thought you had Guto with you. Bugger won't go within a mile of the
embalming room, see." He chuckled.
Bethan said, "This is Berry Morelli. He and Guto have a similar attitude to death."
Dai shook hands with Berry. The undertaker's hand was mercifully dry, no traces of embalming fluid. "Morelli. Italian, is it? You want to go to that pizza place next door, show the buggers how to do it properly."
Berry shook his head. "No way you can teach an Englishman to make a pizza."
"This could be true." Dai said. "The trouble with an Englishman, however, is he doesn't believe there is anything he cannot do. Come through to the office."
The office looked out over a cleanly swept, white-walled yard. Over the top of the end wall they could see a segment of Pontmeurig castle.
There were four hard chairs with purple velvet seats and a desk. It had a phone on it and a diary, four brass coffin handles and a thickset man with crinkly grey hair.
Bethan said, "Berry, this is Idwal Pugh. He is the mayor of Pontmeurig."
"Hi, Mayor." Berry said, shaking Idwal's hand. "Berry Morelli. Don't get up."
"I can never quite bring myself to sit on a chair in here," Idwal Pugh said, short legs dangling over the side of the desk. "Don't want to feel I'm here on business, see."
"One day," said Dai, "we'll bring you in feet first, you bugger. Now, Bethan . . ."
"This is difficult." Bethan said. "And in confidence, please."
"Of course," Dai said. "Sit down. I have told Big Gladys to make some tea."
"Idwal, you remember that night at the Drovers . . . Well, of course you do."
"Oh that night," Idwal said. "I told you, we should have gone to—" He looked at Berry in alarm. "Not police, this chap, is he?"
"He's a friend of Giles," Bethan said. And of mine. No, he's not police."
"Only, I thought, with this, you know—"
"Idwal, relax." Dai said. "I am not so short of work that I want you to have a stroke."
"And we were talking," Bethan said, "that night, before the trouble, about Y Groes, if you remember. Dai was annoyed that Giles Freeman had managed to secure a house there when he could not. And you said—"
"I suppose I said I would not want to live there myself."
"Correct," Bethan said. "You said I think, that it was ungodly. Why did you say that?"
"What are you getting at here. Bethan?"
"Just tell me why you said that."
"Well, I suppose . . . I'm a chapel man, see. Always been a chapel man."
"Yes, and the only chapel in Y Groes is Dilwyn Dafis's garage before it was converted."
"Well, see, it isn't just that . . ." Idwal began to fill his pipe. "This is only my own thoughts, Bethan."
"Yes, fine. Go on."
"Well, this is a non-conformist area. Every village has at least one chapel."
"At least," Bethan said.
"But I remember, when I was a youngster, my dad telling me how they almost had to have a missionary expedition to take the Chapel to Y Groes. Known as Y Groesfan then, the crossing place. And the only village without a chapel. Only the other side of the Nearly Mountains, but it might have been some pagan place in Africa, the way they campaigned and raised the money."
"Who campaigned?" Berry asked.
"Ah, well, see, this is the point. There was a farmer—I forget his name—who moved up towards Eglwys Fawr for a bigger farm and became a convert to the Chapel. And he still kept a field in Y Groesfan, on the edge of the village there. And he said, I will give this field for a chapel to be built there, and everybody began to raise money, in Eglwys,
in Pont, in chapels down as far as Lampeter and Cardigan. It became a . . . how do you say it in English . . . ?"
"Cause célèbre?" said Berry.
"Exactly. A cause célèbre. Everybody gave money for the new chapel in Y Groesfan. And I am asking myself why. What was there in the history of this village that everybody should instinctively put their hands in their pockets to raise the money for a chapel, when there was no demand from the inhabitants. No demand whatsoever, even though many doors were knocked upon and Bibles proffered."
"But surely, it's a church village?"
"Pah!" said Idwal, puffing contemptuously on his pipe.
"So they raised the money and they built the chapel." Bethan said. "What happened then?"
"Oh, it went very well for a time. Like, as I say, a missionary conquest of some pagan place in Africa. People travelled from miles around to attend services at the new chapel. Like a pilgrimage, see. The first motor coach outings from Pont were to Y Groes—they'd got the name changed now, as well, to reflect its new status. The Cross. Oh, it was wonderful, for a while."
"And what happened?" said Berry.
Idwal shrugged. "Some say it was the war. Or that it was like everything that burns so bright. Soon extinguished. But myself, I think there is something in that place that needs to be cleaned out before the Lord can enter in. It seems to me . . ."
There was a loud tap on the office door, and it was shouldered open by a large girl whose hair was streaked in gold and purple like the curtains in the chapel of rest. She was carrying a tea tray.
"Thank you, Gladys," Dai said.
"Will you be going over to Y Groes, Mr. Williams, because you've another appointment at twelve. Do you want me to put them off?"
"I'm not going anywhere, girl. Why would you think that?"
"Well, no, I just thought, with the murder. Put it down here, shall I? If Mr. Pugh will move his legs."
"Murder?" Berry said.
"Oh hell, Gladys," Dai said. "Murder is a different thing altogether. Police do their own fetching and carrying with a murder."
"Only they've found something else now, Jane was telling me from the café. More police cars gone chasing up the Nearly Mountains."
"Bloody tragic," Dai said, and it was not clear whether he was talking about the death or the fact that, because it was murder, he had not been called in to remove the body.
"Poor girl," Idwal said. "First she loses her husband, and now . . ." He shook his head.
"No," Bethan whispered. "Oh, please, no-"
"Oh, Christ," Dai said. "I thought you knew—I thought that was why you were asking all this?"
Chapter LIV
The police car pulled in behind Gwyn Arthur's Fiesta. Detective Sergeant Neil Probert got out and looked down to where his chief was standing, at the bottom of a steep bank, about twenty yards from the road.
Probert, the Divisional natty dresser, was clearly hoping Gwyn Arthur would climb up and join him at the roadside. But when the Chief stood his ground, Probert wove a delicate path down the bank, hitching up his smart trousers at the waist.
"Thinking of joining the Masons, are we, Neil?" inquired Gwyn Arthur. "Come on, man, the mud's all frozen!"
"Except for that bit," he added with malicious relish as Probert squelched to a halt in a patch of boggy ground, where all the ice had been melted by the heat from the Volvo's engine.
The big blue car had gone down the bank and into a tangle of thorn bushes. Three police officers were cutting and tearing the bushes away for the benefit of a female Home Office pathologist who was rather attractive - certainly the best thing they could hope to encounter on a December morning in the Nearly Mountains.
"I spoke to the garage, sir," Probert said, squeezing the brackish water from the bottoms of his trousers. "He picked up his car at just after nine-thirty. Appeared quiet and preoccupied but not otherwise agitated. Inquired at the garage about a hardware shop and they directed him to Theo Davies, where he bought twenty feet of rubber pipe."
"Not dissimilar, I take it," said Gwyn Arthur, "to the hose we see here affixed to the exhaust pipe."
"Indeed, sir," Probert said.
"In that case, Neil, it looks like a wrap."
"Yes, sir."
"Would you like to have a look at him, in case anything occurs to you?"
"No thank you, sir."
"He doesn't look bad. Pink and healthy. Kind it is, to a corpse, carbon monoxide."
