The Heirs of Owain Glyndwr

by Peter Murphy

  Gareth stood.

  ‘Good. In that case, go home and pack, and tell Jess that you are going to be away for a few days from Wednesday. You will be back on Sunday evening.’

  Ben stared at him blankly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. Nothing formal, you won’t need to dress up, but you will need warm clothing where we are going, even at this time of year.’

  ‘Gareth, where am I going?’

  ‘You’re coming with me,’ Gareth said. ‘I am going to Wales. We are going to Wales together, and I’m going to try to show you why people like Caradog Prys-Jones and Dafydd Prosser and Trevor Hughes plant bombs.’

  26

  Wednesday 1 April 1970

  Even with an early start at Euston station, the train journey took most of the day, and by the time they had settled into their rooms at the Gwesty’r Castell, the Castle Hotel, they were tired and hungry. The hotel’s dining room was quiet, and they relaxed with a hearty plate of lamb casserole, washed down with a bottle of a quite respectable French vin ordinaire.

  ‘A good decision not to venture out tonight,’ Ben smiled. ‘I think I might have fallen by the wayside if we had tried to do any sight-seeing now.’

  ‘We will have plenty of time tomorrow,’ Gareth agreed. ‘Caernarfon is not a big town. You can see it all in an hour or two. But we are not here as tourists. I want you to get a feel for the place. If you can begin to see the case through Arianwen’s eyes, or Dai Bach’s, it may help. My vote is that we get a good night’s sleep and venture out early tomorrow. I want you to see the Menai Strait in the early morning light.’

  ‘That sounds good. Actually, I’ve noticed one thing already.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You booked us into our rooms, and ordered our drinks in Welsh. Everybody here really does speak Welsh, don’t they? Arianwen told me, of course, but somehow, you don’t take it in until you hear it.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I mean, obviously, if you go to France it seems natural to hear people speaking French, but if you don’t go abroad… or are we abroad?’

  Gareth laughed.

  ‘Well, now you’re asking the question. To you and me, no, we are not abroad. We crossed no national border today, we haven’t been asked for our passports, we can use the same money here as we use in England. We think of ourselves as being in the same country. But the Welsh see Wales as a nation. I’m not talking about nationalists now, Ben, I’m talking about Welsh people in general. There is no hostility to England or the English, or anyone else. The waiter didn’t mind you ordering dinner in English just now, and he spoke to you perfectly politely in English, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but obviously, the language is an important part of the national identity,’ Ben said. ‘It’s something you are proud of – quite rightly.’

  ‘Yes, and of course, you will find a few people in Caernarfon who will pretend they don’t understand you, and will insist on trying to make you feel uncomfortable by speaking Welsh, knowing you can’t understand a word they say. But that’s not peculiar to Wales. You find that sort of behaviour the world over, don’t you? It’s not nationalism; it’s just rudeness, and fortunately, in Wales at least, it’s a minority sport. So, my answer would be: no, we are not abroad, but we are in a different nation, and as long as people respect that, I am satisfied.’

  They stood and left money for the bill and the tip on the table.

  ‘Though if I had my way, I would do away with the use of the words “Wales” and “Welsh”, at least while I am here.’

  Ben looked at him blankly.

  ‘You’re going to have to explain that one to me.’

  ‘“Wales” and “Welsh” are English words derived from Germanic sources, and they mean “foreign” or “foreigners”. In our language, we call the nation Cymru and our language is Cymraeg. Those are words which signify members of a community, family, friends and colleagues. Much better, don’t you think?’

  ‘Much better,’ Ben smiled.

  ‘Right, well, sleep well. I’m going to knock on your door early tomorrow morning. We will have a walk to get some fresh morning air, and then come back for breakfast.’

  27

  Thursday 2 April 1970

  It was a fine, brisk morning, and they set off at a good pace, turning left outside the hotel and making their way along the same side of the town square, the Maes. The Castle confronted them immediately, and Ben stopped dead in his tracks to stare at it.

  ‘Yes, it makes quite an impression, doesn’t it?’ Gareth said.

  ‘It’s incredible. It’s so massive. It dominates everything.’

  ‘Yes, and that’s today, in a modern town. Imagine what it was like in an early mediaeval settlement where there was nothing else even approaching that kind of scale. It wasn’t just a castle in the military sense, to provide a defence to the area, and give warning of impending attacks, and so on. It was a statement, an assault on the psyche, designed to convey the idea that the local people were powerless to resist an invader capable of building a fortress like that. And, you know what, I bet it worked.’

  ‘I bet it did,’ Ben replied.

  ‘And it wasn’t the only one. Edward I built them all over North Wales.’

  They walked on, more slowly, as Ben took in as much detail as he could.

  ‘Statue of you-know-who,’ Gareth smiled, gesturing to his left as they were leaving the square.

  ‘David Lloyd George,’ Ben replied. ‘Even I know that one.’

  ‘We will do a tour of the Castle after breakfast,’ Gareth said. ‘For now, we are going to walk right past it and head out of the walled town towards the docks.’

  ‘This is magnificent,’ Ben said, as their walk took them outside the ancient walls. ‘I didn’t know that Caernarfon was a complete walled town. I knew about York and Chester, but I had no idea.’

  ‘It’s every bit as fine as York or Chester,’ Gareth replied, ‘even if on a smaller scale, obviously. It compares with anything I’ve seen, here or in Europe. You can’t walk around town on the walls, sadly. They are in a state of disrepair. Hopefully, someone will do something about that, eventually. It is a shame. You would get a wonderful, panoramic view of the town from up there.’

  He put a hand on Ben’s shoulder and stopped him.

  ‘Oh, since we are here, let’s go back a few yards just for a moment.’

  They back-tracked for a short distance, and stopped outside a building with a faintly ridiculous Greco-Roman frontage supported by pillars in the classical style, the dimensions of the frontage out of all proportion to the size of the building as a whole.

  ‘This rather silly building here, on the corner of Shirehall Street,’ Gareth said, ‘is used as a court. Whoever had this entrance built just opposite the Castle must have had an inflated idea of his own importance, don’t you think? But more to the point for our purposes is that the name of the street in Welsh is Stryd y Jel, which I’m sure I don’t have to translate.’

  ‘Jail Street.’

  ‘Yes. The jail is attached to the court, a not uncommon arrangement and a convenient one, of course. It was in there that DCI Grainger and his colleagues beat the living daylights out of Dai Bach, if you believe him – which I do.’

  ‘And where Arianwen was separated from Harri and cried her eyes out for days,’ Ben added quietly.

  ‘Yes.’

  They walked on towards the dock. It was fully light now, the soft, tentative mixture of light grey, light blue and light gold ushering in a new day. They stopped at the dock and looked out over the Strait. The water was calm and unhurried, with no tell-tale sign to show where the River Seiont ended and the Menai Strait began, its course gentle enough to suggest that it might have required no more than the light itself to evoke the ripples on its surface. Gareth pointed to the mass of land in the n
ear distance, where they could clearly see light green fields, woodland copses, and a few cottages scattered along the shoreline.

  ‘You know what we are looking at, of course?’

  ‘Anglesey.’

  ‘Yes, Ynys Môn in Cymraeg.’

  ‘It’s…’

  ‘No. Don’t say anything yet. Just take it in.’

  They surveyed the sight in silence for almost ten minutes before Gareth resumed their walk, eventually turning right to take them back into the walled town.

  ‘Many people feel that Ynys Môn is the heart of Wales,’ he said. ‘It’s always been a mysterious place. There are many legends about it. It is felt to be a place of magic; it has many druidic associations and so on. It is the heart of Cymru as far as the language is concerned.’

  Ben nodded. He looked back towards the water as they turned the corner.

  ‘That’s how it feels this morning,’ he said. ‘Mysterious. Even to me. Why is that?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Gareth replied enigmatically.

  28

  By the time they had done justice to a hearty breakfast the day had become warmer, and when they emerged from the hotel again on to the Maes, the square was filling up with people criss-crossing it, going about their daily work. The market stalls were open for business, selling everything from fruit and vegetables, to cheap clothing, to office supplies, and a short line of taxis waited for custom outside the hotel itself. Gareth took Ben to the right as they left the hotel, and they walked a short distance away from the Castle.

  ‘We are now on Chapel Street,’ he said, ‘and just ahead, to our left, is New Street. I’m sure you recognise those names.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They crossed the street and stopped on the corner. Gareth pointed.

  ‘That is where Arianwen and Dai Bach came from in the car. They stopped just a few yards from where we are standing, on the other side of New Street.’

  He pointed again, straight ahead, and moved his hand in an arc, left to right.

  ‘The main road to Bangor is just up there, and they were travelling left to right as we look at it. I would guess that they turned off on Stryd y Llyn – Pool Street – which runs parallel to Chapel Street where we are now. Then all they had to do was turn left on to New Street, and there they were, in position. Caradog would have left work at the Castle, timing his walk to coincide with their arrival at 1.15. I suspect he might have taken the route past the back of our hotel along Fford Santes Helen – St Helen’s Road – which would have been a bit quieter than walking the way we did through the Maes, and it would have fitted in with his story of leaving work to join in a patrol of the perimeter of the Castle. He would have turned up towards where we are at the last moment, and he would have come out on Segontium Terrace, where it joins New Street. That would fit in with Dai Bach’s account of it, according to which he and Caradog approached the car from that part of New Street.’

  Ben nodded. ‘That’s what Arianwen said too. And at that point, Caradog gets the shock of his life.’

  ‘Seeing his sister? Yes. But he has no time to react, and Dai Bach has no chance to explain. They have a bomb in the car, and they have to get on with it. The problem is that Special Branch and MI5 are all over the place, lying in wait for them. They must have been parked just along here on Chapel Street, or perhaps on New Street itself to our right, between here and Segontium Terrace.’

  ‘So Caradog probably walks right past them.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And no Trevor Hughes,’ Ben mused. ‘Where on earth did he go?’

  ‘That’s the question,’ Gareth agreed.

  They were silent for a few moments.

  ‘Come on,’ Gareth said. ‘Since we are here, let’s walk up and see where they lived. It’s not far. You can see what a small place Caernarfon is. Nothing is more than a short stroll from anything else. Then we can bring ourselves back into the centre of town.’

  They made their way back to the square, crossed to the other side, and walked up Bridge Street, which within a short distance led them to Penrallt Isaf, and to the house where Trevor and Arianwen had lived.

  ‘If you turn right, you come straight to the Bangor Road,’ Gareth observed, ‘very convenient if you are doing the drive regularly.’

  Ben stood and observed the house for one or two minutes. It was an unremarkable two-storey terraced house, painted in a dark brown. It had once been the centre of an apparently normal and happy family life. Now it stood silent, with no trace of life left in it, deserted. The sight chilled him. Gareth did not rush him.

  ‘Just to complete the picture,’ he said eventually, ‘let’s walk back up in the direction we walked before breakfast, though we are a fair distance from the water here.’

  They walked in silence along Bangor Street until Gareth suddenly prompted a left turn, heading down towards the dock.

  ‘These houses to our right,’ he said, ‘are Rhês Pretoria, Pretoria Terrace.’

  ‘The Prys-Jones family home,’ Ben said.

  ‘Yes. They are rather pretty houses, aren’t they? Much more colourful than Penrallt Isaf. I like the way those small front gardens point downhill towards the water. And they are so well kept, including the family home – at least for now. Somebody must have been looking after the garden, but I imagine some weeds will begin to show before long.’

  They stood together for a while and looked at the house where Caradog and Arianwen had grown up.

  ‘I can almost hear her cello,’ Ben smiled.

  ‘Yes. It’s strange the way we can imagine what must have been going on in places we hear about in our cases, isn’t it? And now, if we turn left, we will arrive back inside the walled town. You can see how compact it all is, can’t you?’

  ‘That’s why they chose Bangor for the place to build the bomb, isn’t it?’ Ben asked suddenly. ‘It wasn’t just because Dai Bach was living there, was it?’

  Gareth shook his head. ‘No, I’m sure you are right. It’s too small here, too much risk of someone making the connection between the various addresses. Bangor gave it some distance. And they knew there would be a heavy police presence by the time the day of the Investiture arrived.’

  They walked back to the gate leading into the walled town.

  ‘The Black Boy Inn,’ Gareth smiled. ‘Sixteenth century, and the most famous hotel in Caernarfon by a long way.’

  ‘Which, I take it, is why we’re not staying here?’

  ‘Yes. I thought the Castle would be a bit more low profile. That’s not to say someone won’t make the connection from our names in the hotel register, but there’s slightly less chance that anyone will try to ask us questions we don’t want to answer. When we visit one or two hostelries later in the day, I will be surprised if we don’t overhear some conversation about the case.’

  ‘I won’t know, will I?’ Ben smiled.

  ‘I will translate for you,’ Gareth said.

  They walked on.

  ‘We are on Palace Street now,’ Gareth said, as they crossed the High Street, ‘so coming up on our right is the Tywysog book shop.’

  The shop was locked and dark. Trevor’s final display of books could still be seen dimly, gathering dust, behind the now grimy windows, and again Ben had the sense of desertion he had felt at the house in Penrallt Isaf.

  ‘It’s a pity we can’t go in,’ Ben said. ‘I would like to look around, and I would especially like to see the basement.’

  ‘We would have to ask the police,’ Gareth said, ‘and that would blow our cover here once and for all. It’s probably still a crime scene, technically. In any case, there won’t be anything to see. They would have seized anything of any possible interest on the day of the arrests.’

  ‘I wonder if he came back here that night,’ Ben mused. ‘I wonder if there was anything he hid – anything he took with him.
’

  ‘The elusive note for Arianwen? It’s becoming a bit like the quest for the Holy Grail, isn’t it?’

  ‘I can’t believe he didn’t leave her something to give her some clue about where he was.’

  ‘Ben, if he had left a note, the police would have found it. They would have left no stone unturned. He might have left something more subtle, I suppose but, as things turned out, she had no chance to find anything, did she?’

  ‘That’s what I mean. I’m wondering if we should ask the police to let Eifion in to take a look around.’

  ‘That could be very dangerous,’ Gareth said.

  ‘Why? The worst that could happen is that he finds nothing.’

  ‘I disagree. Remember, Ben, the police have no evidence that she knew anything except for her presence in the car at the time of her arrest. The last thing you need is something which might create additional suspicion.’

  ‘But still…’

  Gareth laughed.

  ‘There’s a French saying, Ben. Les absents ont toujours tort.’

  Ben grinned. ‘The absent are always wrong.’

  ‘Yes. Or “the absent are always to blame” may be a better way of putting it. I heard it in French from Amélie, Lady Wesley as she now is. I think, in America, they call it the empty chair principle. But the idea is as old as Demosthenes or Cicero.’

  ‘So, contrary to what I have been thinking all this time, I may actually not want Trevor Hughes at trial. Is that what you are suggesting?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t go that far. If we give Trevor the benefit of the doubt, if we assume that, given the chance, he would do the gentlemanly thing and tell the jury his wife had nothing to do with it, your first choice would be to have him there. No doubt about that. But your second choice is not too bad. While he is missing, presumed to have flown the coop, he can’t say anything bad about her, and he can’t be cross-examined by the prosecution – not to mention that his leaving her in the lurch is bound to buy her some sympathy with the jury. Meanwhile, you can blame him all you want, and he can’t say anything to contradict you.’