From Aberystwyth with Love an-5

by Malcolm Pryce

  Footsteps echoed up the stairwell, we both looked expectantly at the open door. A small man appeared.

  ‘Mr Knight and Calamity! I’m so glad I caught you, I was afraid you might be out.’ It was Mr Mooncalf. ‘I have some good news for you.’ He opened his briefcase and pulled out a folder. ‘A very old and dear customer of the firm Mooncalf & Sons living in Romania has requested I courier a certain item to him. If you were to agree to undertake the task it would so defray the cost of your trip to Hughesovka that you would be able to go for about . . . er . . . nothing.’

  ‘Where in Romania?’ I asked.

  ‘I believe the town is called Sighisoara.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it take us out of our way?’ I said.

  ‘A short detour through a most beautiful landscape, dotted with perfectly preserved medieval villages and abounding in wolves and bears.’

  ‘Sighisoara is in Transylvania, isn’t it?’ said Calamity.

  ‘Is it?’ said Mooncalf with feigned innocence.

  ‘We did it in school for a project.’

  ‘Who’s the client?’ I asked.

  ‘Mr V. Tepes,’ said Mooncalf darting a worried glance at Calamity.

  ‘That means “impaler” in their language,’ she said. ‘It’s pronounced tsep-pesh.’

  ‘It’s just a name,’ said Mooncalf. ‘Like Smith.’

  ‘Is he any relation to Vlad the Impaler?’ She turned to me and said, ‘He was the original Dracula.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Mooncalf. ‘It’s just a name, like Smith. If someone is called Smith it doesn’t mean they shoe horses, does it? Same with Tepes. It doesn’t mean you are an impaler.’

  ‘They used a sharpened stake,’ said Calamity showing off her knowledge, ‘and stuck it up your bum.’

  Mooncalf looked worried. ‘Did they teach you that in school, too?’

  ‘Yes. Sometimes they used a horse to haul you on to the sharpened pale.’

  Mooncalf put the folder on the desk and stood up with a slightly dejected air. He clutched the briefcase close to his chest. ‘Marvellous what they teach the kids these days,’ he said mournfully. ‘We never had the opportunities when I was young.’

  After he left we both stared for a while at the empty doorway as if half expecting him to come back.

  ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you,’ said Calamity. ‘There was a message for you slipped under the door when I came in. It’s from Arianwen, the girl we saw out at Mrs Eglwys Fach’s cottage.’

  ‘What does she want?’

  ‘She wants to see you about a business matter. Doesn’t say what. She works in the witches’ wholesaler on Chalybeate Street.’

  I arranged to meet Calamity later at Sospan’s and walked through town to Grimalkin’s.

  There was not much room in the shop, just an aisle through piles of stock rising up on shelves. On the left there were building materials: chocolate roof tiles, gingerbread bricks with marzipan cement, and a liquorice hod. Cauldrons in varying sizes hung from the ceiling; and all around there were chalices, gargoyle moulds, wands, crystal balls, candles, toadstool seeds and bric-à-brac for the altar. A sign announced familiars were down in price.

  The counter, too, was an untidy profusion of wares: a display of Rune Letraset next to glass jars containing black feathers, quartz, amethyst, agate. There was a stand selling fairy traps and the injunction to bait with shiny things or children’s milk teeth. For pixies, there was a larger trap with a bigger snap spring. Customers were warned not to use them for trolls, except minors. There were phials of blood in a variety of grades: dragon, bat or strangled dove. Behind the counter, through a hanging partition of amber and bloodstone beads, there was an aquarium tank in which newts stared out disconsolately and pondered their fate.

  A girl stood with her back to me on a stepladder sticking up a hand-lettered sign with Blu-tac. It said: ‘If you can spell it, we probably sell it.’ She wore a long cloak of midnight-blue velvet surmounted by a red riding hood. Behind her were arrayed tiers of wooden drawers neatly labelled with their contents: dust of tomb, venom of toad, flesh of brigand, lung of ass, blood of infant, corpse grease, bile of ox and finger of birth-strangled babe. Everything for the weekly groceries. They sold things separately, neatly wrapped in plain brown paper; you could buy individual coffin nails in a variety of sizes and cobweb by the yard, from free-range spiders rather than the farmed stuff.

  I picked up the bell on the counter and tinkled politely. The girl looked over her shoulder and smiled. It was Arianwen.

  ‘Oh! Hello! The spinning-wheel salesman.’ She climbed down the steps. ‘How can I help?’ She stared up into my face and smiled.

  ‘I’m looking for a cage with a childproof lock.’

  ‘Might I ask Sir what he intends to use it for? I must warn you, I’m very good at escaping cages.’

  ‘Sadly, it wasn’t for you. I’m trying to fatten a little boy up for eating.’

  ‘Oh I do love a man who can cook!’

  ‘I’m not very good at it – he doesn’t seem to be putting on any weight.’

  ‘He’s probably just poking chicken bones through the bars, you know what young boys are like.’

  ‘Where would he get chicken bones from? I’m feeding him on gruel.’

  Arianwen giggled. ‘You know, you really are far too handsome to be a spinning-wheel salesman.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘You just don’t look the type.’

  ‘I was brought up to zig when the world zags.’

  ‘And you certainly don’t talk like one.’

  ‘You’re full of surprises yourself. The red riding hood is very . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Provocative.’

  ‘It’s supposed to be emblematic of innocence.’

  ‘That’s what Red Riding Hood said.’

  ‘Surely you don’t doubt her?’

  ‘I’ve always regarded her as a lying trollop who knew exactly what she was doing. You telling me she couldn’t recognise a wolf when she saw one?’

  ‘She was a virgin. We’re easily deceived.’

  ‘She knew what she was about, the murder of the grandmother was an inside job.’

  ‘Men always say it’s the girl’s fault. Did you know, some things went missing from our kitchen about the time of your visit?’

  ‘It was probably that blackbird.’

  ‘Oh, of course. I hadn’t thought of that. Or at least a black-hearted demon. Did you really want a cage? Or were you after a love potion?’

  ‘What would I do with it?’

  ‘Exactly, with eyes like that, what would you need one for?’

  She picked up a pack of cards and dealt three face-up on the counter. ‘Let’s see what the cards say . . . Ooh, the Knight of Wands! And . . . and . . . who will our handsome knight rescue? . . . The Queen of Pentacles . . . and the Lovers!’ She looked at me, eyes sparkling in triumph. ‘It is written.’

  I put the note down on the counter. ‘This is what I really came about.’

  She glanced at it and a puzzled expression stole across her face. ‘I don’t understand . . .’

  ‘You left this in my office?’

  There was a pause for a fraction of a beat and then a smile replaced the look of puzzlement. A smile of sly triumph. ‘Ah! Now I get it! I left the note in the office of a private detective and who should turn up but the spinning-wheel salesman! But then I always thought there was something funny about that handsome spinning-wheel salesman. In fact it looks like he was only pretending to be one. Nice try, Mr Detective! Am I right? No! Don’t say, you’ll only lie.’

  ‘You got it in one, but you mustn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Oh I won’t. Have you been investigating him long?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Meici Jones.’

  ‘Oh yes, a long time, he’s a nasty piece of work.’

  ‘He stole some things when you came round, some stamps. That’s why I came to see you. My brother will be furious if we don�
�t get them back.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to the police?’

  ‘As if you didn’t know! Snuff philately! Imagine reporting that to the cops. How much is it going to cost me to get my stamps back?’

  ‘If you can be patient I might be able to get hold of them for nothing.’

  ‘No payment?’

  ‘I’m already engaged to spy on Meici Jones, it wouldn’t be right to get paid twice.’

  She tilted her head down and looked up through her eyelashes in a slightly awkward attempt to look coquettish. Her voice dropped in timbre. ‘Maybe I could find some other way of paying you.’

  ‘That’s a good idea. Is this shop licensed by the Witchfinder?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Do you know his wife?’

  ‘Mrs Mochdre? Not very well. What’s this got to do with anything?’

  ‘You could repay me by spying on her for me.’

  ‘Why, what’s she done?’

  ‘I don’t know, that’s why I want to spy on her.’

  ‘This wasn’t quite what I had in mind.’

  ‘I know, but you didn’t specify.’

  Arianwen looked deflated. ‘You are such a wet blanket. Or you enjoy teasing me.’

  ‘I’m a wet blanket and I enjoy teasing you.’

  ‘Do you really want me to spy on her?’

  ‘Not for the time being.’ I tipped my hat, thanked her. ‘I’ll see if I can find those stamps.’

  ‘Is it true private detectives always seduce their female clients?’

  ‘The big city boys do,’ I said. ‘But in Aberystwyth we decide on a case by case basis.’

  Chapter 7

  I went to the office to lock up and found Uncle Vanya sitting in the client’s chair. He had a bottle of vodka and two glasses on the table. The merry glitter in his eyes made it clear he had not waited for me to start. There was a copy of the evening paper on the desk folded to a story about three painters sighting Gethsemane Walters. It said they were students.

  ‘You are a hot-shot,’ he said.

  ‘I am not a hot-shot.’

  ‘Thirty-five years no one knew where she was, and you! Two days it took you. Even our best detectives in Hughesovka could not achieve a resolution so quickly.’

  ‘Yes they could, trust me. She escaped.’

  ‘Such charming modesty!’

  ‘We don’t even know if it really is Gethsemane.’

  ‘Who else could it be?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  He slapped the newspaper with the back of his hand. ‘According to this a passer-by found her hat and handed it in. Her name was written on the label inside her hat.’

  ‘That passer-by was me.’

  ‘How could she be wearing her hat if it was not her? The case is almost closed. We celebrate. We drink to the hot-shot.’

  ‘Even if it is her, we don’t know how she got there, or where she has been all these years. The case is not closed, not by me anyway. I haven’t earned my sock yet. Anyway, the cops are all over it now, so expect a visit from them.’

  He slid his index finger across his lips to indicate that they were sealed as far as volunteering information to the authorities. ‘Tonight, my friend, we drink!’ he declared in a manner that would brook no denial, even on the remote chance that a denial was offered. ‘Please,’ he added. ‘No buts.’

  ‘OK, tonight we drink but in return you must help me.’

  ‘Of course I will help you.’

  ‘I want to go to the railway station buffet and speak to a man called Rwpert Valentino about this case.’

  ‘Who is Rwpert Valentino?’

  ‘He is a star in the TV soap North Road. According to the scandal sheets he hangs around the station buffet because he is in love with the girl there. He interests us because he was once in the same nativity play as Gethsemane.’

  ‘Is he so very difficult to talk to?’

  ‘Just pretend the case is still open.’

  ‘Say no more,’ said Vanya. ‘The case is still open and tonight we drink. Tonight we test the limits of that puny vessel, your Welsh heart.’

  We remained in the office for a while, and drank in silence; a mute and intense seriousness as each considered his own thoughts. For many years I had been unaware of the void in my office. It was the calling card of my trade as a crime-fighter, a caped crusader. It went with the territory along with the dents in the tarnished armour, and the liquor and the Bakelite fan. Just like Sospan had his vanilla. There had been a girl, for a while, called Myfanwy, whom all the town loved but none more so than me. She was the singer at the Moulin Club and as much a part of our town as vanilla and donkey droppings and neon and heartache. She sang of them all. And then she lost her voice and the town hall clock lost its tick. In January of this year she went away to a sanatorium in Switzerland where the doctors say she would over time regain her voice. She sends postcards, but not often. And the townspeople ask about her in ways that I find painful. I smile and say in a falsely jovial voice that she is doing well and will be back soon, but she hasn’t said she will. We feel her absence almost as keenly as her presence.

  I opened the drawer and took out the envelope that had contained the séance tape. I lifted it to my nose and sniffed. It was not a scent in the ordinary sense of the word, not the stuff you buy from Boots and dab behind the ears. And yet it was a scent of sorts, a fragrance from long ago that evoked an image I had seen once in my dreams: I look up from the bottom of a well, staring at blue sky framed by elm trees; the whistle of a steam engine shrieks; there is a shower of sparks and sweet smoke billows through the leaves; a woman in a cream two-piece outfit appears in the frame against the blue; she exclaims in mild dismay and says, ‘Oh sugar!’ She removes a spot of soot from her cream jacket sleeve. I do not know this woman but she has a young gentle face.

  The level of the vodka began to approach the halfway mark. All true drinkers know that the second half of the bottle, like the second week of the summer holiday, passes much quicker than the first and this thought alone can induce a queasy form of angst. At times a summer night is a wide landscape to cross and a wise man provisions well before setting out. We walked to the off-licence on Terrace Road and I bought a supplemental bottle, this time of Captain Morgan rum.

  We emerged from the off-licence with spirits buoyed by the knowledge that whatever befell us there was still alcohol. The actors in the drama of the coming night were putting the finishing touches to their grease paint, some were already to be seen emerging furtively from doorways, testing the night air with their whiskers like rats; in the orchestra pit the police cars were tuning up their sirens; already in some remote part of town there came that intimate and familiar ululation of the klaxon, denoting the first arrest or perhaps the first man carried on a stretcher into the back of an ambulance. By the end of the evening the medics would be throwing them into the back like an engineer shovelling coal into the firebox of a runaway train.

  We walked along Terrace Road towards the railway station. Troops of girls, smeared with make-up, already drunk, lurched from side to side along the pavement, into the road, cars swerved and pipped their horns eliciting rude gestures from the girls. ‘We have such girls in my country too,’ said Uncle Vanya.

  The streets cleared of the few remaining tourists, they were hurrying to their cars now, eager to return to the safety of the caravan and tonight’s Ludo ration. We walked towards the railway station, that iron lung that breathed in the people fed with the oxygen of hope, and exhaled them later, bitter, soul-weary, disbelieving; and all exemplifying Sospan’s assertion that belief in promised lands is defeated by the fact that we take our pain with us in our suitcase. Character is fate, as both Sospan and Heraclitus have said.

  The coaches of the midnight train to Shrewsbury lay stretched out beside the platform in a maroon ribbon. Along the side were rectangles of electric light in that heartbreaking deep yellow that comes only from bulbs belonging to railway companies. Uncle Vanya behe
ld the train with glittering eyes. ‘Ah, my friend Louie! I can never look at a train without tears. Come, we must drink!’

  We went into the buffet. On the counter a tea urn shone, the array of tubes and flasks and steam reservoirs evoked the innards of a ship’s engine room, or a lost property office in which had been deposited the instruments of a silver band. We took teas and sat at a shaky wooden table next to the window that looked out on to the platform. Sitting on an adjacent table was a group of actors from North Road. They were smoking and talking theatrical shop. Traces of foundation cream and paint still lay in the crevices of skin around their eyes. I never watched the programme but I could intuit easily enough that the young innocent-looking girl was a new recruit in the scullery and the rat-faced, grey-haired man was her master and predator. The other one, with the slicked-down hair and central parting, the big eyes and film-star looks from the 1930s studio portrait, was Rwpert Valentino. He spoke with a squeaky voice and threw his arms around in gestures that were flamboyant and self-consciously phoney. He smoked a cigarette held in a long holder and I knew for a fact there wasn’t a shop between here and Shrewsbury that sold such things.

  Uncle Vanya poured the last of the vodka into the tea and we drank. ‘So much of my life has been spent in train compartments. Those of the Stolypin car were no bigger,’ he pointed to the train. ‘Ten people would share it if you were lucky; but it could be twenty or even thirty. On my way to Kolyma I spent two months in a train compartment like this, and that was by no means a record.’

  ‘Why did they send you to the camps?’

  ‘Which time? I was sent two times. The last time for murdering my wife. And the first time, who knows? The question is meaningless; it implies there was a “why?”. There was no such thing. They threw the dice, your turn came, you went. In the early years, when the secret police came, a man might naturally ask for a reason. What have I done? But soon we learned not to ask because the question was stupid. It rested on the old-fashioned bourgeois belief that one must do something wrong to be arrested. You see? Of course, there is always a reason written down on your file, and through the endless interrogations you will eventually agree to it, whatever it is, even if it makes no sense. I was twenty, I had been working for a year as a junior card-typist in the Museum Of Our Forefathers’ Suffering. And then I was denounced for being a diversionary wrecker. I got ten years. Denouncing was a very useful method of getting rid of someone you didn’t like. Or who was perhaps a rival, not that I was a rival to anyone. Men were denounced by their adulterous wives in order to remove them from the scene. Neighbours were denounced so others could move into their apartment. One day someone did it to me and still to this day I do not know who, nor why. But it does not matter. I say this merely as a register of fact. I do not complain. No matter how bad one’s fate, there is always someone with a worse one. Throughout my time in the camps I was haunted by the fate of a woman whose story I heard. She had been suckling her baby one afternoon when she received a visit from the NKVD. They told her to get her coat and come down to the police station to answer a few questions. She asked what about the baby, and they told her to leave the child since she would only be gone ten minutes. She tried arguing but they were very insistent; they assured her the questions were a formality and would not even last ten minutes. They refused even to let her take the baby round to a neighbour. So she put the child in his cradle and went with the policemen. In the station she was charged as an enemy of the people and shipped off to Lubyanka for further questioning. From there she joined the long rail caravans to eastern Siberia. She left her baby that afternoon in an empty apartment in Hughesovka and never saw it again. Throughout my years of servitude I meditated upon this story, and wondered: is it the most tragic of all? As a cartographer of the human heart would she have been the greatest? But who is to say? In the monastery of Slovetsky they had a crooked cupboard inside which it was impossible for a man or woman to stand up or sit down, impossible to find any position of ease or comfort; whichever position you adopted you were forced by the crooked walls and low ceiling to adopt a pose that quickly became unbearable agony. They would lock a prisoner in this cupboard overnight. In the morning he would be completely insane. How can one measure the extent of his suffering during that night? An entire lifetime of agony condensed into the space of a single interminable night. Is it worse than the unending nightmare, spread out over many years, of the little girl of eight who was so demented by hunger that she ate a grain of rye from a cowpat? Stealing from the Collective, even its dung, is a terrible crime and grievously did she answer for it: ten years’ penal servitude. Is that night in the cupboard worse than those ten terror-filled years for the uncomprehending girl?’