Don’t Cry For Me Aberystwyth

by Malcolm Pryce

  ‘By all accounts he was surprisingly co-operative, almost pathetically eager to please his captors. It was hard to believe that this polite, well-spoken, respectful man was the same one who had sent millions of innocent people to the gas chambers. They had to keep reminding themselves that the man before them was a monster. They asked him about a document they were interested in. He told them it had been stolen from him by a woman he met in the reading room of the Buenos Aires public library. He said she seduced him and they spent a night in a pension nearby. He had left the document in his coat pocket and she stole the coat after their night of passion. A classic honey trap, he said. His captors were dubious; it seemed like he was just spinning a yarn. But they managed to track down the woman and she confirmed his story. She said she had sold the coat to a soldier on leave from the front, and had never once looked in the pocket. The soldier was called Caleb Penpegws. Now, there’s a funny thing about spooks: for people who spend their lives veiled in secrecy they’re hopeless at keeping secrets. At any given time you can guarantee half of them will be working for both sides. The other half forget which side they’re working for and swap; after a while they swap back. It’s a merry-go-round; and the secrets in which they trade are the like the prize in the kids’ parlour game Pass the Parcel. Sooner or later everyone gets to hold it. That’s what happened to the story of the coat; it got passed around, and soon everyone was looking for Eichmann’s coat.

  ‘It just so happened that Odessa got to Caleb first. They wanted the document, too. They tortured him for a week and he told his interrogators that the coat had been stolen from him while he lay on a hospital bed recovering from surgery. Stolen by Hoffmann. Who was Hoffmann? No one knew, but they started looking for him, in all the usual places. East Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Moscow, Peking, even Hanoi. And no one got so much as a sniff. Then one of the smarter spooks asked himself, how did Hoffmann know about Caleb and the coat? Answer: the woman must have tipped him off. So then they started searching for her, the beautiful Mata Hari who had sprung the honey-trap. All they knew about her was contained in the transcript of Eichmann’s testimony. He met her in the public records room of the library. They didn’t even exchange names, he said, because of the tacit understanding that existed between two lonely strangers who became lovers but knew in their hearts it would be but for one night. In the morning they would go their separate ways never to meet again on this earth. To introduce the sad wrecks of their lives into the romance would have spoiled it. Or so he said. It seems a bit convenient to me, and maybe his interrogators thought so, too. But he stuck to his story, and what sanction can you bring against a man who is going to the chair and knows it? But though he couldn’t give her name he did say one interesting thing: she was researching her family tree. Her grandparents had been outlaws hiding out in Patagonia. Their names were Mr and Mrs Harry Place, names which meant nothing to anyone at the time. South America has always been full of fugitives of all colours and persuasions, including ex-Nazis. She showed him a newspaper cutting from the turn of the century about her grandfather and grandmother. The headline was Pistoleros Norteamericanos.

  ‘As I said, the names didn’t mean much at that time in the early sixties. No one apart from a few specialists had heard of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Then in 1969 the movie was released. It won four academy awards and the whole world went to see it, including a young Mossad agent called Elijah. You’ve met him, I know. He had been present when they interrogated Eichmann, and during one of those sessions Eichmann had used a certain Spanish expression. Years later, sitting there in that darkened movie theatre, Elijah heard the phrase again. Pistoleros Norteamericanos. It made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Suddenly he realised the woman who stole the coat from Eichmann must have been the granddaughter of Etta Place and Sundance. And, just as suddenly, he knew exactly what he must do. He had to seek out the world’s leading expert on Butch and Sundance. Me.’

  The man paused and refilled his glass. ‘Bored?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you think we should be going?’

  ‘Let them come. Carry on.’ I stood at the window. Across the street two medics threaded their way through the crowd of gawkers towards the back of an ambulance. The body on the stretcher was too small to be the Pieman. It was probably Erw Watcyns, but I couldn’t be sure; there was a sheet covering his face.

  The man took another drink and tapped his hat on the desk: I walked to the door and said, ‘Thanks, it was a good story, but I have something to attend to that can’t wait.’ I closed the door and turned the key. There was the expected sound of a chair scraping. The door handle turned and rattled a few times in its socket. ‘Sorry about this,’ I said. ‘The cleaner will be along later.’

  I ran down the stairs and out into the cold December air, my heart pounding as fast as if I were going on a date.

  Llunos was slumped over a pint in the Castle, looking morose. I knew he would be. He was reading the sporting pages and on the seat next to him there was a bag from Lampeter House. He looked up at my approach, pulled out a chair and moved the bag to the floor.

  ‘It’s for my mum, a cardi for when she wants to sit up in bed. They suggested I get it. Not sure about the size, though. Strange isn’t it? Fifty years and I’ve never bought her anything to wear. You don’t for your mum, do you?’

  ‘Is she any better?’

  ‘No, not really. This year won’t be much of a Christmas, I’m afraid. What about you?’

  ‘The way things are looking, I’ll be spending it in jail.’

  He didn’t react. ‘What you done this time?’

  ‘I think I’ve killed Erw Watcyns.’

  ‘Why are you telling me?’

  ‘I’m turning myself in.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you mean, why? I just told you I think I killed a man.’

  ‘I know. Why are you telling me?’

  ‘I thought murder was against the law.’

  He nodded as if the penny had dropped. ‘Oh, right. Murder. And you’re turning yourself in. Very noble. How did you kill him?’

  ‘I was in the garret across the street from my office. There was a guy sitting there, dead. They call him the Pieman. I had nothing to do with that, but Erw Watcyns was going to pin it on me. I don’t know what happened; I panicked and banged his head on the bedstead. I didn’t intend to kill him or anything, just give myself a head start while I got out of there.’

  ‘What do you want me to do now?’

  ‘Run me in, I suppose.’

  ‘Run you in? Trouble is, your story doesn’t ring true. Why would you kill someone and then immediately turn yourself in? You’ve forgotten the bit where you run and hide and we chase you. There’s always that bit. If we didn’t have that I’d be out of a job. We could just have, what do they call it? An honesty system. We leave a book out on the desk at the station, and you fill it in yourself. Just take a key from behind the counter and choose a cell.’

  ‘Hey! I killed someone, let’s all have a laugh.’

  ‘You’re having a bad day, Louie. We all do; get over it.’

  ‘It’s more than that.’

  ‘Is it? Call it a bad week, then. Who cares? So you killed someone. The way you describe it you won’t do the maximum. You’ll get twelve to fourteen. Out after ten. How old will you be then? Fifty-five or so? You’ll be laughing. My mum probably hasn’t got a month – in a cardigan that’s too small or is the wrong colour.’

  ‘As if that matters.’

  ‘That’s just the point, it does. That’s always the worst thing – you go up there and see them wearing clothes that they hate, and would never have worn when they were able to take care of themselves. But they’re too meek to say anything to the nurses who dress them. You can see it in their eyes, though. They know.’

  ‘So why didn’t you get the right size? It’s not hard.’

  ‘Because I’m not a genius like you. I can’t think of everything.’


  He sighed. ‘Louie, I can’t arrest you . . . because of a technical detail; it’s a sort of legal safeguard to protect the innocent. Basically, you can’t arrest a man for the murder of a man who isn’t dead. I’m sorry.’

  ‘He’s not dead?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘He looked pretty dead to me.’

  ‘It’s a trick, Louie. He’s pretending.’

  ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘What makes you think he’s dead?’

  ‘I saw them carrying him out – the sheet was up over his face.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s how we do it with murders. First thing we do is call an ambulance and take the DOA away. Other police forces, they like to do it by the book. You know, all that scene-of-crime forensic shit. Photographers and medics, and guys with latex gloves and little evidence bags picking up snot with tweezers and dating it. Not us. We’re more streamlined. We just take the guy away, dig a hole and throw him in. Doesn’t even have to be a hole. Sometimes we just leave him out with the bins.’

  ‘You’re still blaming me for the newspaper ad, aren’t you?’

  ‘You and the Queen of Denmark. She’s in it up to her ears as well. Get out of here, you fool, before Erw finds you. He doesn’t believe in legal safeguards to protect the innocent.’

  I went over to the bar and fetched two pints. Sometimes quarrels are like that: if you leave halfway they’ll never get sorted out.

  When I returned he was calmer. He said, ‘How’s your dad?’

  ‘Seems to be doing fine.’

  He nodded. ‘What about Calamity?’

  ‘I’m not sure. She . . . er . . . she . . .’ It wasn’t easy so say. ‘She’s trying things on her own for a while.’

  ‘I had a complaint against her from Mrs Dinorwic-Jones, the art-teacher. Says Calamity’s been shining torch beams into her bedroom window. What the hell’s she playing at? You’re supposed to be watching over her.’

  I paused and wondered. Llunos twisted slightly in his chair. ‘That’s another thing I turn a blind eye to: kid not even eighteen acting as your sidekick. But I thought you were having a good influence on her.’

  ‘She was doing some sort of scene-of-crime ballistics thing she found in a book. Stick knitting needles in the bullet holes in the wall; shine the light along them and you find out where they came from. That’s the theory. She said it didn’t work.’

  Llunos’s brow furrowed. ‘That’s interesting. The shots came from Dinorwic-Jones’s apartment. Funny, she never mentioned hearing shots; you’d think she would if they came from her apartment.’

  ‘Some people are hard of hearing.’

  ‘Something about her has been bugging me for a while. It’s not right all this trauma she says she’s been suffering on account of the mutilation. She teaches life drawing and stares at naked men all her life. She draws the outline at the scene of crime and has been seeing chopped up bodies half her life. How come she’s so upset now?’ He paused and we drank in silence for a while. Finally he said, ‘So, who’s the Queen of Denmark?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m not wearing my copper’s hat.’

  ‘I know that. I’d tell you if I knew. All I know is, she sends real money; at least, it fools the people at the post office.’

  ‘You really don’t know?’

  ‘I’ve got two theories. One is . . . One is she’s the Queen of Denmark. And the other . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve got one theory.’

  ‘Kind of hard to believe you don’t know a thing like that.’

  ‘You’d be amazed at the things I don’t know. I don’t know who Hoffmann is. I know who killed Santa but I don’t know why. I don’t know who killed the men who killed him. I don’t know who the Pieman is or why he did what he did. I don’t know who paid him or who killed him. It might be the guy in the fedora hat who’s been following me but I don’t know why he would kill a Pieman. And, to be honest, I don’t know for sure if he really has been following me. Maybe he’s just an ordinary Joe in a fedora hat. After all, someone has to be. I don’t know who Elijah is; and I don’t know who Erw is or was or what his role in all this is or was; but I know he has a role in it somewhere. I don’t know why a dying man should write “Hoffmann” in his blood, or why he should say his life was fulfilled after seeing a movie about a dog. I don’t know what happened at the Mission House siege. I don’t know why the priest went nuts. I don’t know who my client is, or even if I’ve got one. I don’t know what I am going to do about Calamity. I do know Myfanwy is leaving, but I don’t know what I’m going to do about that. That’s why I’m here, I guess. I was hoping to spend a quiet Christmas behind bars and forget about it for a while.’

  ‘Do you know what the drill sergeants say? When a man is done in, when he’s reached the end of his tether and can’t take any more, doesn’t have an ounce of strength left in him, they say when he reaches that point he’s usually got about another twenty per cent in the tank. Get your coat.’

  ‘Where are we going?

  ‘We’re going to see the art teacher.’

  Mrs Dinorwic-Jones sat clutching a mug of cocoa, dressed in a pale lemon housecoat, her grey hair in curlers beneath a hairnet and on her feet slippers crowned with a woolly bob. She stretched her feet out towards the gas fire.

  ‘I don’t mind telling you,’ she said, ‘it was a heck of a shock to me.’

  ‘Yeah, we heard that,’ said Llunos with a tinge of sarcasm that went undetected.

  ‘I’m still a bit upset.’

  ‘These things take time.’

  ‘I’ve seen a few bad things in my time, doing the chalk outlines for the police, but this – the mutilation – well, that was different.’

  ‘I expect the noise would have upset you as well.’

  ‘Noise? What noise?’

  ‘Gunfire. It never fails to shock me how damned loud a gun shot is. You, not being used to it, must have jumped out of your housecoat.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know what you mean!’ Her grip tightened on the mug of cocoa.

  ‘Yes you do,’ said Llunos. ‘Those two goons, the Moss Brothers, were your nephews. They shot the guy from this room.’

  ‘No they didn’t.’

  ‘Yes they did.’

  ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree. There were no guns fired from this house.’

  Llunos picked up his trilby and spoke to the hatband. ‘You know my mother, don’t you? She’s in Bronglais—’

  ‘Yes, I heard. I’m terribly sorry.’

  ‘You never liked her much, did you?’

  ‘I . . . I . . . That’s not true—’

  ‘Yes it is. You never liked her. In fact, you were always sniping at her, weren’t you? Always a bad word to say. I know all about you, you see. You’re a bit of a busybody on the quiet. We’ve got quite a few in this town. And you’re the Queen, the Queen of Fucking Busybodies. I see you in the early-morning queue at the butcher’s or the baker’s, when I drive past. I see you gossiping with the rest of them; and even though I can’t hear, I know what you’re saying isn’t good. You see, that’s the difference between you and my mum. She never has a bad word for anyone. Doesn’t mean she likes everyone, she just doesn’t say it, keeps it to herself. It’s called manners. You don’t need to pull a face, Mrs Jones, and you don’t need to tell me it’s not a crime to say bad things about your neighbour; even though you spend half your life sitting in church professing to love him. I agree it’s not a crime; it’s just a moral failing, I suppose, and I am the last one to lecture anyone on that. In fact, I’m only saying it now because she’s dying, a good woman with a heart full of kindness who you have badmouthed for as long as I can remember. I never said anything before, but today I’m telling you. I’m here to ask some questions and I don’t want you to lie to me or you’ll find out what twenty years of pent-up contempt can do. Do you understand?’

  Mrs Jones regarded Llunos with a look of defiance. ‘I won’t
be intimidated into confessing to something that didn’t happen.’

  ‘I’m not trying to intimidate you,’ said Llunos. ‘I’m just clarifying the matter. I don’t want you to be under any illusions that you have a friend in this room. You haven’t.’

  ‘Tell us about the phoney leg routine, Mrs Jones,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You spotted it straight away, didn’t you? That leg facing the wrong way. After forty years drawing them in class and chalking round them on the tarmac, I guess it was pretty obvious.’

  ‘You’re talking in riddles.’

  ‘Maybe, but I’ve got a hunch. It’s been growing inside me, ever since I met a man called Elijah at the Wishing Well on the Prom. My hunch is this: the dead Father Christmas didn’t plant a picture of Butch and Sundance in that alley. At least, not just a picture. Why should he? Elijah already knew about that angle – everyone did since the day the movie came out. He must have planted something else and someone switched it. But who could have switched it? My money’s on you.’

  ‘I didn’t switch anything, I haven’t a clue what either of you are talking about.’

  ‘Would you care to take a polygraph test on it?’ asked Llunos.

  I looked at him in mild surprise, but fought it back so Mrs Jones wouldn’t notice.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A lie detector. We could sort this out in a few minutes.’

  ‘I didn’t think they were allowed in this country.’

  ‘The American sort aren’t, but this is a traditional type, the one they used to use to test witches. What we do is fill the bath with water and hold your head under. If you drown it means you’re innocent and you will have our sincere apologies; if you survive it means you’re guilty. It will only take a few minutes. I do it all the time; it saves paperwork.’

  Mrs Jones’s face drained of colour. ‘You wouldn’t do that to me!’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any choice; it’s my job.’

  ‘But I can’t swim.’

  Llunos turned to me. ‘Go and fill the bath, will you?’

  ‘Hot or cold?’ I said.