Aberystwyth Mon Amour

by Malcolm Pryce

  The job of a private detective in Aberystwyth was full of ironies. If you asked people politely for information they would normally clam up and begrudge you even the time of day. But if you stood on the other side of a garden hedge to them you couldn’t shut them up. And sometimes the simplest way to find out what you wanted was to ask the lady at the tourist information kiosk.

  ‘Well you can’t be too careful,’ she continued, ‘can you? What with all these overseas students we get now? I mean, look at those girls we get from Brunei, wearing those things over the face that’s like looking through a letterbox. Imagine it!’

  I thanked her and wandered off down the Prom shaking my head sadly at the cruelty of Lovespoon. All his life Iolo Davies had served at that Museum, with never a blemish on his record. But he helped Brainbocs with his school essay and so he had to be punished. The method chosen was breathtakingly effective: a rogue semen stain found on one of the exhibits in the Combinations and Corsetry section. I didn’t need to know the exact details to know how it was done. All very hush-hush, but not quite. Nothing crudely dramatic. Just a minor detail that would do far more damage than any gross slander. Plant the seed – ha! the cruelty of the phrase – and allow the gentle winds of scandal to blow. Everything would follow with a bleak inevitability: allegations of impropriety, rumours of extra-curricular loans of the exhibits … and in no time they would be removing the portrait that had hung in the Museum café for a generation. And what struck me with the most force was this: the sheer artistry of Lovespoon’s evil. Because the truth was, Iolo probably had been involved in something pornographic with the combinations. Such things were commonplace. A select group of trusted high-ranking townsfolk. Envelopes of money passed discreetly under restaurant tables. He’d probably been doing it for years and they probably knew all about it and let him do it. But when they moved against him the allegations would have been impossible to refute.

  Where was he now? There was one man in Aberystwyth who would know: Archie Smalls. But of course he wouldn’t tell me. Not unless he was forced to. I sighed. To make him squeal I would need to find someone else; someone most people went out of their way to avoid. Her name was Siani-y-Blojob, probably the most unpleasant girl in the whole of Wales. But first I would need to get drunk.

  *

  It was one of those occasions which strike you as a mistake the moment you walk in. You just don’t have the strength to listen to the voice in your heart and turn round and walk away. But I needed to talk to Siani and to do that I needed to go to the Indian, and to do either of those two things I needed to get drunk. So I went to the Moulin.

  * * *

  Myfanwy was sitting and laughing with the Druids and looked up when I entered and quickly looked away. I was shown to a table further back than previously, squashed up against a pillar with a bad view. I ordered a drink and told the waiter to tell Myfanwy I was here. He gave me a look of scarcely concealed derision. Bianca came and joined me instead.

  ‘Hi, handsome.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Don’t I even get a little smile?’

  I turned to her and smiled weakly.

  ‘Can I have a drink?’

  I shrugged.

  She stopped a waiter and ordered a drink.

  ‘I bet I know why you’re sad. It’s Myfanwy. You’re angry because she’s talking to the Druids.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘You have to understand, Louie, she really likes you but this is a job.’

  ‘I do understand.’

  ‘I know how you feel. Believe me she’d much rather be here with you.’

  ‘You couldn’t even imagine how I feel.’

  Bianca shrugged and we both sat in silence for a while. Then she stood up without a word and left. As soon as she went I started to wish she hadn’t. I picked up her glass and sniffed it. Genuine rum – no coloured water. In the Moulin that passed as a real compliment.

  I ordered more drinks and thought unhappily about Siani-y-Blojob. Every town has its hard cases just as every town has its whore and its bore. They come and go like the bluebells. And if, as some people suggest, there are good and bad years, like wines, then Siani represented one of the finest vintages in the history of the châteaux. A girl about whom people would tell fireside tales to their children in years to come, vainly trying to convey the essence in the same way some fathers try to give their children an appreciation of the glories of Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews.

  After a while, Myfanwy came over. I’d been watching her out of the corner of my eye the whole time.

  ‘Hi, Louie!’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m busy with clients.’

  I took a drink.

  ‘You don’t mind do you?’

  ‘No.’

  She looked uncertainly and then offered brightly: ‘I tell you what, why don’t you take Bianca home with you tonight?’

  It was as if she were suggesting I stop off for a takeaway.

  ‘It’s on the house.’

  I looked up into her face. She was smiling happily.

  ‘How can you say that?’

  Her jaw dropped and the happy grin seeped away. ‘I mean, I thought …’ She sat down and interlinked her arm with mine. ‘Oh Louie, don’t get like all the others.’

  ‘All what others?’

  ‘You’ll be calling me a tart next.’

  The word hit like a meat hook.

  ‘How can you accuse me of that and in the same breath tell me to go home with Bianca?’

  A look of exasperation crossed her face.

  ‘No one’s forcing you.’

  I’ve thought about that night many times in the years since. Wondering whether, had I altered certain details of it, certain phrases or order of words, or even if I’d been in a better mood, it might have changed the course of subsequent events. It’s an easy trap to fall into – the habit of parcelling up the past into a series of neat turning points; to load incidents with a power to alter the course of events which they never possessed. Not seeing that a moment which appears pivotal in the context of an evening is really only reflecting a process which has been unfolding unseen for many months. Like a heart seizure is just the sudden outward manifestation of a lifestyle. Sometimes I ask myself if I really believe that and I realise I have no choice. The alternative scenario: that my actions that night might have made a difference, is too painful to examine in view of how that evening ended. I took Bianca home.

  Maybe it was simply the power of the phrase ‘on the house’ that did it. Words that initially filled me with contempt, but which became less offensive and more attractive with every drink. Or maybe it was just the drink. My original plan of going on to the Indian to find Siani had lost all appeal. And it didn’t have any to start with. What for anyway? I already knew where Evans was: at the bottom of the harbour or somewhere similar. There could be no other explanation. It was just a matter of time before he floated to the surface. I didn’t care anyway. Or maybe it was something to do with Bianca. She was a sweet girl. Not just pretty. But something else, which I only really came to understand long after she died. She was more honest than Myfanwy. She wasn’t very smart, and that was probably why. But she was a lot nicer for it.

  For a long time we sat in my car, parked on the Prom just across from the mosaic of Father Time. The windows were wound down and out in the blackness we could hear the ocean throbbing; roaring and shuddering and gnawing at the boulders of the sea wall. I asked her why she hung around with Pickel and she shrugged.

  ‘It’s not like you think.’

  ‘But he’s horrible, isn’t he?’

  ‘He repairs the clocks for the pensioners for nothing. You wouldn’t believe how shy he is about it; they have to leave them on the back step and in the morning they’re fixed – like the tooth fairy.’

  She shifted in the seat, the shiny black plastic coat crackling as she moved. ‘And if they get locked out, he opens their door for them. He can open any lock … bes
ides, you don’t know what it’s like for him.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘He spent his childhood waiting for his mum to come home from the pub. I know what that’s like.’

  In the darkness the glare from the streetlights glistened on the pillar-box red of her lips and the whites of her eyes.

  ‘You make things so difficult.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘You know I like you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I do.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘Nor did I.’

  She looked across at me and smiled weakly. ‘I know you’re a nice guy.’

  ‘Don’t get carried away, I’m not that nice.’

  She squeezed my hand in the darkness.

  I asked, ‘Why did Myfanwy tell you to come home with me?’

  ‘She didn’t. I wanted to.’

  ‘I just don’t get it.’

  ‘Does everything always have to be something you can get?

  I pondered that one for a while. Then she put her hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Can we talk about something else?’

  But we didn’t talk; instead we drove round the block to Canticle Street and climbed the bare wooden stairs to the scrap of destiny which seemed so like a turning point but was probably nothing of the sort.

  The following night I stayed home and drank half a bottle of rum and booked a table at the Indian restaurant.

  ‘Do you have a reservation?’ Two dark eyes studied me through the Judas hole in the door.

  ‘Yes, Kreuzenfeld.’

  The waiter nodded and pulled back the bolts.

  ‘We’ve been expecting you.’

  The door opened and I was shown past a sign saying ‘Please guard your artificial limb against theft’ and into a lounge packed with tables. The air was foggy with sweat, body odour, beery breath, hot curry spices, vomit and disinfectant. Most of the tables were full; a mixture of locals and nervous tourists. I sat down and the waiter held out a menu, regarding me with a mixture of anxiety and interest. I smiled at him. ‘What’s good tonight, then?’

  He stared at me. ‘Good?’ he said in a flat Midlands accent.

  ‘Yes, what does the chef recommend?’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny?’

  ‘No. I mean what should I have? What’s good?’

  It was plainly a request he’d never had to deal with before. He narrowed his eyes and looked at me, suspicion and confusion swimming in his eyes.

  ‘You mean on the menu, like?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Nothing of course, it’s all shit.’ And then, perhaps feeling a trace of guilt inspired by my guileless expression, he added:

  ‘I mean look at this lot, what’s the point?’

  I looked round at the screaming hordes and nodded in sympathy.

  ‘No point at all. You might as well open up a few tins of dog food and stir in some curry powder.’

  ‘We do!’

  I looked at him startled, and he burst out laughing. ‘Just kidding, mate, but it’s not a bad idea. They wouldn’t know.’

  I put the menu down on the table.

  ‘Look, I’ll tell you what I can do, mate, I’ll ask the chef to do you some egg on toast or something?’

  Before I could answer, a fight broke out in the corner of the room and the waiter strode off wearily and without any sense of urgency to attend to the situation. I looked around. On the table next to me a man lay face down in his curry. And over in the bay window, among a group of bikers, sat the girl I was looking for. Siani-y-Blojob: dirty and frayed sleeveless denim vest over the standard-issue leather jacket; hair like wet straw and a pudgy pasty face.

  The fight had developed from shouts and abuse to flailing fists as the two protagonists fell heavily on to a neighbouring table, occupied by a group of lads. Paradoxically, it was one of the few things you could do to someone in this restaurant that wouldn’t cause offence. Brush their sleeve, look at their girlfriend, or just stare in the wrong direction for a second and you would be issued with a challenge. But throw a body on to a stranger’s food and it was OK, the sort of forgivable mistake that could happen to anyone. The only danger was if you spilled their pint of lager and there was no danger of that because it would have been whipped out of harm’s way the moment the fight broke out. It was a spectacle of synchronisation and choreography that put the wonders of the natural world to shame. A shout, a scream, the splintering of glass – and suddenly, to the accompanying shouts of ‘incoming!’ – thirty right arms shot forward like the tentacles of a sea anemone to remove the pints. What made it even more amazing was this: they all knew the difference, like veterans from the trenches in the First World War, between the real and the false alarms. Only the tourists embarrassed themselves by reaching for their pints at the wrong moment.

  The fight rolled off the table and on to the floor and the waiters moved in to disengage the flailing limbs. Another late night in Aberystwyth. Over by the window Siani-y-Blojob, like a human oil rig, lit one of her farts with a plume of flame. As she did so a waiter brought three curries on a tray and scraped them all on to one plate for her. Reckoning that this gave me at least an hour’s grace, I stood up and left.

  I drove fast through the empty streets, along the one-way system which took me past the station, along to the harbour and over Trefechan Bridge out towards the council estate. Calamity had written down the address for me and I found it easily enough: a semi-detached house in a nondescript row with those metal gates and railings which council houses seem always to have painted either blue, red or yellow. There was a small patch of garden to the side and the underwear hung from one of those merry-go-round washing line contraptions. I put on a gardening glove.

  *

  I knew I would find Archie Smalls at the all-night diner on Llanbadarn Road. It was situated on a patch of waste ground set away from the road with room for the long-distance lorry drivers to pull up for bacon sandwiches and mugs of tea. The other customers – and there were never many at any one time – were the usual misfits you find in the early hours: burglars and drunks sobering up; night-shift workers going home and early-shift workers on their way. And people like Archie who like to start late in the night, long after the rest of the town has fallen into a drunken sleep. There was one waitress on duty in a stained pink tunic and a cook playing cards at the back. The night was hot and all the windows were open, but there was hardly any movement of air to take the edge off the heat from the kitchen. Archie was sitting morosely, staring into a cold mug of tea at a table just inside the doorway. I sat down opposite him. I could see he didn’t want company.

  ‘Morning!’

  He looked up sourly, but said nothing.

  ‘Fancy a chat?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you will.’

  He looked up again and stared at me.

  ‘I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time in this neighbourhood.’

  ‘If I have, it’s my business, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not now I’ve made it mine.’

  He put a grubby index finger in his mouth and gnawed at it and spoke without taking it out. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I was just wondering what Siani-y-Blojob would say if she caught you stealing her knickers.’

  He became convulsed with contempt. ‘You think I’m stupid?’

  He stood up to leave but stopped halfway when I put the panties down on the table-top.

  ‘They’re from her garden.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘I was there about half an hour ago.’

  ‘She’ll tear your bollocks off.’

  ‘Why would she suspect me?’

  He sat down, slowly, as if there was an egg on the seat beneath him.

  I started speaking to no one in particular. ‘About an hour ago she was in the curry house; she had three curries. I reckon she’d be on the third by now. Mayb
e after that she’ll go for a few more pints. Maybe she won’t, maybe even she has early nights now and again. You’ve probably got about an hour to put her knickers back. Otherwise, you might as well start packing your suitcase.’

  For a while he sat and looked at me without saying anything. I could see he was working it out. I could be lying, but why would I bother? If I wasn’t lying, he was in trouble. I hated doing it to him.

  ‘What do you want?’ he said finally.

  ‘Iolo Davies, from the Museum.’

  He shot up and started to leave again but I grabbed the sleeve of his coat. The waitress looked over and then quickly away again.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I hear he left the Museum.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Bit sudden wasn’t it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe he wanted a change of career.’

  ‘Did you do any business with him?’

  ‘Yeah. Some.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Archie looked sadly at the panties, thought for a while, and then said, ‘That thing with the semen stain was bollocks. He’d never get caught like that. He was a pro; we all were.’

  I nodded.

  ‘We had a well-run group – you know, respectable people, vicars and school teachers and the like, none of your riff-raff. Everyone was clean. No stains, no mess. Everyone used protection. It was understood. If anyone got caught we’d all go down. The authorities had known about it for years; they didn’t care as long as they all received their fat envelopes of cash at the beginning of every month. Then one day they went for Iolo.’

  ‘What about the rest of the ring?’

  ‘That was the funny part. It was just him. Whatever it was he’d done, it wasn’t the underwear.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘I heard he managed to get out of town; or maybe they let him, I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you know where he went?’

  He shrugged.

  I placed a hand on the panties. ‘Don’t force me to do this, Archie.’

  He shook his head. ‘I really don’t know where he went, but it’s not hard to guess … I mean the man’s got to make a living hasn’t he?’