Bronwen said, ‘You’re very quiet. Cat got your tongue?’
‘No. Just thinking.’ Nostalgically now, of Whitey. Cat might not have his tongue, but the beast had some part of him. Nice to be back home in his flat on the Rasselas with a night in front of the telly in prospect, instead of a night with the snooty High Master and his chums, the Haggards, who were probably a pair of white supremacists who’d burnt down their own cottage for the insurance …
Shoot! Prejudice like this could get him done under the Race Relations Act. And rightly too. Also he knew he was just evading the issue.
Had he heard anything that he ought to pass on to Ursell?
Not really. OK, that was what he wanted to think, but what in fact had he heard? Bunch of barroom hotheads, shouting their mouths off, mainly in a language he didn’t understand. So they were rude about the English. Should listen to the lads in the pub back home when England were getting beat on the telly. Now that really was abuse!
‘Thinking ‘bout what?’ Bron persisted.
‘Things,’ he said vaguely.
‘Ooh, my man of mystery. So where’m I taking you? Or is that a mystery too? Back to the college, is it?’
‘Yeah. The Lady House. Mr Lewis asked me for dinner.’
He saw her look surprised, and went on, as if excusing himself, ‘Wants me to meet the Haggards and tell them about last night.’
‘Here the conquering hero comes,’ she mocked. ‘Not that you’re not entitled, Joe, but you don’t strike me as the ticker-tape welcome type.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Rather have an early night with a good book.’
‘That what they call it in England?’ she said pertly.
Joe wondered how real all this sexy been-there-done-that line was. Maybe there wasn’t all that much else to do round here. Or maybe like a lot of kids she was just reaching forward into what she imagined the sophisticated grown-up world would be like.
He said, ‘So what do you do for fun round here? Goat the hot nite-spot, is it?’
‘You seen it,’ she said gloomily. ‘And I need a lift out there if Da won’t lend me the pick-up. You’re from Luton, is that right? What’s it like there?’
‘Like every night’s mardis gras night,’ said Joe, with slightly hyperbolical nostalgia. ‘Lots going on, something to suit everyone, and you can be down in the Smoke in a jiff if that’s your fancy.’
‘Sounds great,’ she said enviously.
‘Well, maybe your father will move to town eventually. I didn’t get the impression he was mad keen on his job here.’
‘No, not him,’ she said with force. ‘Keeps on moaning, but if me and Mam mention moving, he changes his tune and says that at least we’ve got security here. Like in jail, you mean? I say. And he says that he doesn’t know what I’m moaning about as I’ll be up and away in a year or so. And then I see Mam looking at him funny as if she’s thinking what it’s going to be like just the two of them stuck out here.’
‘So what do you do, Bronwen? Got a job?’
‘No, I’m still at the comp. I help Mam out in the hols. Thought I might fancy being a physio, something like that, but I’m not sure.’
‘Massaging people, you mean?’
‘Right.’ She grinned at him slyly. ‘Hope I didn’t get you in bother with your girl.’
‘No way,’ he lied. ‘Hey, I thought you said it was dead round here. Looks lively enough to me.’
They had reached Llanffugiol, which was bustling with life.
‘Isn’t like this normally,’ said Bron. ‘Not seen so many people here since they stopped burning witches three or four years back. Festival’s put it on the map for a couple of days, I suppose.’
‘Just as well. Didn’t seem to be on no map yesterday,’ said Joe.
‘Sorry?’
He explained their difficulty in getting directions and she laughed.
‘You must have asked the wrong people, Joe.’
‘So who are the right people?’
She hesitated. Wondering whether she should be washing dirty linen in public, Joe guessed. He made no further attempt to prompt her verbally. He’d learned that a man could make up a lot of deficiency in the incisive questioning department by being a very good listener, so he put on his good-listening face, like an affectionate dog hoping for a walk.
She said, ‘The festival’s caused a bit of bother locally. There’s half a dozen villages round here, Llanffugiol and Llanffaith the biggest, and when the idea first came up about three years ago, it was going to be the whole area involved. Musical side of things was going to be looked after by this guy from Llanffaith, Glyn Matthias. He teaches music at the comp., used to do some here at the college.’
Another hesitation. Time for a prompt. Glyn … teacher at the comp….
‘Was that him in the pub tonight. You were talking to him as you came out?’
It did the trick.
‘Yeah. That’s right. Wasn’t full time at the college. Does a bit here and there, and private tuition. So he was in charge of that side of the festival, Mr Lewis and the Reverend Davies looking after organization.’
‘That would be Dai Bard, Bruce the Juice,’ said Joe, showing off.
It was almost counterproductive.
‘Yeah,’ she said frowning. ‘You got big ears for a little fellow, Joe.’
‘Less of the cheek. That the way they teach you to talk to people old enough to be your father?’
‘No one’s that old,’ she said feelingly. ‘Anyway, there was some bother at the college. There was this boy, he got taken away, and there was all kinds of stories, and the police came out to the college, but like most things round here, just when it looked like getting interesting, everything went quiet. People said Mr Lewis must have had a word with his chum Pantyhose and got things swept under the carpet.’
‘His chum who?’
‘Don’t know everything then,’ she observed slyly. ‘Mr Penty-Hooser, the Deputy Chief Constable, always gets called Pantyhose, but I won’t tell you the joke with you singing in a chapel choir. Him and Mr Lewis are friends from way back, went to the same fancy school together, they say, as well as being GM, of course.’
‘General Motors,’ said Joe, reclaiming some of the high ground. ‘Look, what are we talking here? Some kind of abuse?’
‘Depends who’s talking,’ said Bron. ‘All I know is the Sillcroft boy got taken away, and there was talk, and one or two other boys got taken away, then Mr Matthias got his cards.’
Sillcroft. He was recalling her father’s aggressive question when he’d mentioned the name in relation to the weird inscription in the sickbay: You a reporter?
‘That be Simon Sillcroft?’ he asked.
‘You heard about him already, have you?’ she said. ‘Don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you things when you know more about them than I do.’
It sounded more like time out to regroup than genuine pique. Joe was glad of the time out too. Simon Sillcroft, sadness. It had bothered him a bit when he first spotted the words. Now they were bothering him a lot more.
They passed beneath the mouldering arch which marked the entrance to Branddreth Hall and almost immediately turned sharp left along a bumpy unmetalled track winding through a beech copse which led to the kind of house which would have looked great in an old Hammer movie. It had a timber frame filled with narrow bricks the colour of dried blood and it stood three storeys tall, the top one gabled. The narrow windows looked out blankly like dead eyes and to Joe’s fairly expert engineer’s gaze, the structure didn’t look quite square-built, but gave an impression of sagging, like an old man, or lady, who’s stood in the heat too long.
The track lassoed a circle of desiccated lawn, the hub of which was marked by a magnolia tree that looked like it was missing home. Bron brought the pick-up to a halt at the foot of a flight of incongruously grandiose granite steps which led to a flaking front door flanked by a pair of marble cupids, one headless.
‘This Simon Sillcroft, you knew him?’ h
e asked.
‘A bit. Only ‘cos he was a bit sickly and spent a lot of time in the sickbay, where you are, and sometimes I helped Mam in there. Otherwise Da kept me well away from the collegers. Can’t imagine what he thought they were going to do.’
She spoke with a childish innocence which wouldn’t have fooled a naive vicar. Joe guessed that it was a long time since Bron hadn’t been fully aware what it was the young collegers were dreaming of whenever they caught a glimpse of her.
‘And what did he say happened?’
‘Don’t know. Can’t imagine him saying much at all, to be honest. I never got a word out of him, that’s for sure. He was a bit weird.’
Girl of fourteen or fifteen exerting her charms on a young lad and getting no response would think he was a bit weird, thought Joe. Especially with charms like Bron’s.
‘So nothing happened in the end?’ he said.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she laughed. ‘Nothing happened to bother folk in Luton maybe, but round here a lot happened and it’s still happening. Don’t you listen when someone talks to you, then? Everyone was up in arms one way or another when Mr Matthias got his cards. It was like pointing a finger at him, see? Mr Lewis had to do it to reassure the parents, some said, but that wasn’t the point, said others. You don’t point the finger at an innocent man just to stay in business. So who’s innocent? the first lot asked. No smoke without fire, and it’s Mr Matthias himself who lit the flames, not making any secret he’s queer as a chocolate chafing-dish. That’s in his favour, said the others. It’s the secret ones you’ve got to watch out for, and in any case, what’s supposed to have happened? It’s all in the mind of that DI from Birmingham, only got transferred back here because his foster mam was sick in Caerlindys, and when she died they wouldn’t have him back on his old patch, so he’s always looking around for some big scandal to make his name …’
Joe cleared his throat noisily, partly because it needed clearing, partly because he felt that if he let Bron get fully into her stride, he was soon going to see the smoke from his burnt dinner rising from the kitchen chimney of the Lady House.
And partly too because he liked to keep things clear.
‘This DI wouldn’t be called Ursell, would he?’ he croaked.
‘That’s him. You do know everything … hey, you’re not from the papers or the telly, are you?’
The question came across very different from the way her father had put it, less snarling accusation and much more dewy-eyed hope.
‘Sorry,’ said Joe. ‘Just nosy. So Mr Matthias is gay and everyone knows about it? And him getting the sack meant that he wasn’t involved with organizing the festival any more, but the others went ahead anyway, only now there was an opposition party.’
‘That’s right. Mainly it’s those who live around Llanffaith who are anti and those round Llanffugiol who are for, and that’s why it’s just the Llanffugiol Festival now …’
‘And why there’s a lot of people altering signposts and giving misdirections,’ concluded Joe. ‘Bron, I gotta go. Thanks a lot for the lift. And for filling me in.’
‘Didn’t seem to me you needed much filling,’ she said.
‘Well, my stomach certainly does,’ he said, laughing. ‘Maybe we’ll get the chance to talk some more later.’
‘Sure,’ she said.
He got out of the car, and groaned as his straightening body reminded him of the beating it had taken last night.
‘You OK?’ she said through the open window.
‘Nothing that a good nosh won’t cure.’
‘Maybe you should have brought a doggie bag,’ she said.
‘Big helpings, you mean?’ he said hopefully.
‘No. I mean, maybe you should have brought a full doggie bag.’
She laughed at his expression, then said something in Welsh.
‘Sorry?’ he said, stooping to the window.
She said, nice and slow, ‘Sugnwch fy nhethau, bachgen bach.’
‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘You’ll have to translate.’
‘Oh, it’s just something we say when we leave someone,’ she said vaguely. ‘Like, thanks for your company.’
‘Thanks for yours too,’ he said, touched.
She stretched up to him and brushed his cheek with her lips, then drove away.
He watched her go. Interesting girl, he thought. Sixteen going on thirty, depending how you caught her. And very attractive whatever age you caught her at. He knew he liked her, though he knew equally well he didn’t understand her. As for fancying her, Joe was too much the realist ever to confuse fantasy and fact.
Don’t box outside your weight, and what can’t be puzzled can always be postponed, were the twin pillars of his social philosophy.
Now it was showtime. He turned to survey the forbidding facade of the Lady House. Not just the door could do with a lick of paint, the window frames too, plus the main timbers all had a worm-eaten look, and a bit of pointing wouldn’t come amiss either. He caught a movement behind one of the first-floor windows, then a brief glimpse of a pale face in a nest of black hair. As he looked, it vanished. Wain Lewis, most like, now off to warn his dad there was a dodgy character casing the joint.
Joe marched up the granite steps.
‘Consider yourself cased,’ he said to the complete cupid. And to the headless one he said, ‘As for you, seems to me you need your head looked at, hanging around outside a joint like this.’
‘Good evening, Mr Sixsmith. Welcome to the Lady House.’
Joe jumped so high that for a moment he was almost at eye level with Leon Lewis, who had quietly opened the front door and was standing on the threshold, smiling benevolently at him.
And probably, thought Joe, laughing like a drain inside.
Chapter 8
Things didn’t get better, not immediately anyway.
‘Just admiring the statues,’ said Joe lamely.
‘So I noticed. There are many to admire around the grounds. Some Victorian squire was a collector. All copies, so far as I can ascertain, though I do not doubt he was occasionally conned into paying for an original, and of course they have suffered the depredations of many Welsh winters, plus latterly the slings and arrows of adolescent schoolboys. I do what I can by way of repair; indeed, it has become quite a hobby of mine and I think I can say with all modesty that when I’m finished with this young fellow, you will not be able to see the join.’
He caressed the disfigured cupid lovingly, then stood aside to usher Joe through the doorway.
‘If you too are an enthusiast of the plastic arts, perhaps you might care to look at my little workshop later,’ Lewis went on.
Joe, who during this long-winded welcome, had suddenly become very aware of the three pints of beer he’d consumed during his honeymoon period at the Goat, said, ‘Thanks, but I wouldn’t mind looking at a toilet first.’
With only the slightest crinkling of the silvery eyebrows, Lewis directed him upstairs.
By the time his aching limbs had borne his heavy bladder up the long staircase, he’d forgotten the directions. The first door he opened revealed a bedroom so chaotically untidy that at first he didn’t notice Owain Lewis lying on the bed.
‘Sorry,’ said Joe. ‘I’m here for dinner.’
It was, he realized, not a complete explanation, but in the circumstances it would have to do.
The next door revealed a bathroom in much the same state of chaos as the bedroom, but Joe was in no state to be choosy.
He couldn’t recall having drunk quite as much as that, but some evidence there’s no arguing with. Relieved, he pressed the flush handle and discovered it was one of those specially designed to embarrass strangers. After three clanking wheezes loud enough to alert everyone in the house to his dilemma, Joe removed the cistern lid and peered in.
He spotted the cause of the problem straight off. A plastic bag, rolled into a tight cylinder and secured by two elastic bands, had got wedged against the plunger.
Joe
removed it and pressed the handle. Perfect. Now replace it and go eat your dinner. This was high-class advice even though he had no one but himself to give it to. It was his experience that things hidden in toilet cisterns were not good news. On a case, it might be different. This knack he had of making discoveries by accident, which had some long word to describe it, often came in useful and his lawyer friend Butcher claimed it was the nearest thing he had to a qualification. But off the job, it could sometimes be a pain.
Still, it was a gift of God and, as Mirabelle said, you should never kick a gift horse in the teeth.
He removed the elastic bands and opened the bag.
It contained another sealed bag. He opened this one too.
It contained several Cellophane bubble strips of small lozenge-shaped pale-blue tablets.
‘Oh shoot,’ said Joe, wishing he hadn’t started this. But no point stopping now. From his wallet he took a piece of clear plastic the size of a credit card and held it an inch over the lozenges. This magnifying aid was one of his few PI devices. He’d got it out of a packet of breakfast cereal.
On one side of the lozenge he read DECORAX. And the bubble strip had the name Charon printed on it.
He made a note, then rewrapped the packet, put it back in the cistern, pressed the handle again for the benefit of Lewis who must be getting very impatient down below, washed his hands, and set off to be the perfect dinner guest.
He walked straight into Wain Lewis.
‘That’s my bathroom,’ said the youth accusingly.
‘Yeah? Ever thought of tidying it up?’ retorted Joe. ‘Or do you think your ma’s got nothing better to do?’
This response, whose tartness covered up his sense of guilty unease, was a great tribute to the conditioning effect of growing up under Mirabelle’s strict regime. It clearly took the young man by surprise.
He stepped back and said, ‘None of … I don’t … what’s it to …’ then broke off and went back into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
‘Mr Sixsmith, there you are. Thought you’d got lost.’
It was Lewis senior, halfway up the stairs.
‘Everything OK?’ he went on. ‘Good. Come down and meet the others.’
Singing the Sadness Page 8
