Prince said, in a soft and friendly voice, ‘Don’t quite follow you, Joe. What’s all this about me being transferred from Cardiff and you being blacked into breaking the law to help us? All right for these plain-clothes types but you need to spell things out for us uniformed plods.’
For a second, Joe thought he’d got it wrong and that Prince really was the GM loyalist he’d appeared to be. But that didn’t make sense, else Ursell would have said something by now, instead of standing there, looking at him … pleadingly? Yes, no doubt about the expression in those narrow Clint Eastwood eyes. He was being asked for help.
Then he got it. Didn’t matter that it was way-out. Man brought up in a religious household got used to believing three or four way-out things before breakfast every day. Tom Prince might be a uniformed three-striper and Perry Ursell might be a plain-clothes DI, but in this relationship it was the sergeant who called the shots. And Ursell had been pursuing some private agenda when he twisted Joe’s arm to poke around the Lady House, and he’d prefer it if Prince didn’t know.
So what do I owe Ursell? thought Joe.
Here was a perfect chance to get his own back. Except of course there was still Dildo’s future to consider.
And except too (this except took him a little by surprise) he had this feeling that if he had to trust either of these guys with his immortal soul, there’d be no competition.
He said, ‘Hey, man, the thing about your transfer was just a guess ‘cos clearly you’re on the side of the angels, right? As for me breaking the law, that was just about you covering up my out-of-date tax disc so as I’d cooperate, leastways, that’s how it looked to me.’
Prince looked at him doubtfully.
Ursell yawned as if it was all very boring.
A NYT came up to them and smiled longingly at Prince.
‘Sergeant Prince, is it? You’re wanted on the phone.’
Not just on the phone, thought Joe, envious of that smile. Must help looking like the young Richard Burton.
‘Better show me where it is then, girl,’ said Prince jovially. ‘Catch you later, Joe.’
‘Not if I see you coming, you won’t,’ said Joe softly to his retreating back.
Ursell said, ‘Thanks, Joe.’
Joe liked that. No pretending nothing had happened here.
But he still wanted to know what had happened.
He said, ‘Time for a word?’
‘You’ve earned it. But outside, eh? In here a man could go deaf of poetry.’
On the podium, Dai Bard had ended his Welsh declamation, but raised his hand to stay the relieved applause.
‘For those of you who do not have the Welsh, I have essayed an English translation of a few stanzas,’ he said, beaming like one who expects congratulation for his condescension.
Then he coughed and began:
Three birds there are of Rhiannon
Whose songs were heard of old.
One sang the glory of the sun
In notes of molten gold;
‘Is he really a great poet?’ asked Joe.
The second traced across the night
A mighty starry rune
And sang in notes of dark and bright
The magic of the moon.
‘Welsh he may be; English, you tell me,’ said Ursell.
But pain of death and pain of birth
Are music to the third.
She sings the sadness of the earth.
Her song can still be heard.
‘But he certainly got that right,’ concluded the policeman. ‘Come on, Joe. We may not have long.’
And Joe, following the DI out of the hall, asked himself, long for what?
Chapter 25
Outside they moved a little way from the building then came to a halt. It was still light but fading fast. Somewhere a bird was singing, one of Dai Bard’s birds of Rhiannon maybe. It certainly sounded like it had stuff to get off its chest before darkness fell. And Ursell too, Joe guessed. But he was finding it harder to get started than the bird.
‘This to do with you being brought up in a kids’ home?’ he prompted.
‘Real smartass PI, aren’t you, Joe,’ said the DI without heat. ‘But you’re right, that’s what it’s to do with.’
He seemed to make up his mind and took a deep breath.
‘OK, here goes. I was born round here, Joe, and brought up in a Home. Funny. Home to most people brings a nostalgic tear to the eye. Not to me. Home is the original four-letter word. Anyway, I won’t bore you with details, but I was taken into care when I was four. Care! There’s another double-edged word. Can mean being looked after or being worn down. I got both, but a lot more of the latter. By the time I got to twelve, I was care-worn, I tell you, boy. Close to being care-worn away. Then I had one bit of luck. I got fostered to a woman in Caerlindys. Madge Cullingham. Temporary, it was, between Homes. But something in me saw the depths of the pit I was sliding into. I was well down already, but not so far I couldn’t still tell the difference between up and down. And I knew this might be my last chance to cling on and climb out. So I clung. By God, it can’t have been a pretty sight, an awkward, uncouth, loutish lad inspired by nothing but selfish self-interest, but Madge saw through to the desperation, and she hung on to me, and when it got near the time for me to go back, she asked if I’d like to stay. I said, How long? A week? A month? She said, Forever.’
He paused, contemplating, Joe guessed, the single most important moment in his life, with gratitude that it had happened, and sick horror at how things might have been if it hadn’t.
He said, ‘My ma died when I was real young. My pa couldn’t take care of me, so my Aunt Mirabelle brought me up. Was a time though when I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. Only a day, probably, but I’ve never forgot that feeling. Then Mirabelle took over.’
When a guy offered you stuff like this, you gave him what you had to give in return.
‘She seems a good lady,’ said Ursell. ‘But you didn’t come damaged goods, did you, Joe? I mean, not seriously damaged.’
‘We talking abuse, no, I didn’t,’ said Joe. ‘That what we’re talking?’
The DI nodded, as if saying yes was beyond him.
‘Lot of it came out about the Home I’d been in a few years later,’ he said. ‘I said nothing. There were plenty of old boys talking without me, and I knew the pain it would bring Madge. Me too. That was a door I’d shut behind me, or so I thought. Only you never really get it shut, no matter how hard you lean on it.’
‘Right,’ said Joe. ‘Right.’
‘OK, onward and upward,’ said Ursell, shaking off his introspection with a visible effort. ‘Thanks to Madge, I grew up normal as I could, went to school, passed some exams, and decided for reasons I’ve never understood to become a cop. I joined the local force, but when the time came for me to start moving forward, CID, promotion exams, that kind of thing, I decided I didn’t want to stay round here to develop my career.’
He paused again and Joe said, ‘Not much going on? Too quiet for an ambitious lad?’
‘Something of that. But something else too. It was all a bit too – how shall I put it? – too structured. Not what you had in yourself, but how your face fitted, who you drank with …’
‘What lodge you belonged to?’ suggested Joe.
‘Bit of that too. Well, it happens, not just in the police either. But I’d had enough of people hanging close together, whatever their reasons. This wasn’t the kind of pond I wanted to swim in, so with Madge’s blessing I headed out to the open sea.’
Deep down they’re all bards, thought Joe.
‘And I did well enough,’ he continued. ‘Came back for visits as often as I could. Never thought I’d come back to work. Then Madge took ill. Cancer. The medics couldn’t say how long, but not long. Could be over a year, could be six months. I got myself transferred back here. Told them if I didn’t get a transfer I’d resign and move back anyway. Madge kept going for twenty-one months. I like to
think me being there got her the extra time. Not that the last three months when she was in the hospital was extra time I’d wish on my worst enemy. Know why she went into hospital, Joe?’
‘Because she was too ill to stay at home?’ offered Joe.
Ursell shook his head.
‘Because she could see what it was doing to me and she got frightened I’d do something to help her out of her pain. Not frightened for her sake, you understand. Think she’d have liked that. But frightened for what it would do to me, to my career, if I got mixed up in a mercy killing. That’s the kind of woman she was.’
‘And would you have?’ Joe had to ask.
‘I think so,’ said Ursell softly. ‘I think so.’
‘But after it was all over, you stayed on,’ said Joe. ‘Didn’t head back to the big time. Why was that? Pond life changed?’
‘Oh yes. The waters had become a lot murkier,’ said Ursell grimly. ‘Before, it had just been a bit of back-scratching, looking after your mates, that sort of thing.’
‘GM,’ said Joe.
‘That’s right. GM. Keeping the wheels oiled. I didn’t really pay much attention till after Madge died, but then I began to sit up and take notice. And it felt like there was something else, something different, here now. But it was the business with the boy, Simon Sillcroft, that really focused my mind. Landed on my desk like a sort of initiation test, I think. Tuck this away quietly and we’ll go on from there. Nothing said directly, of course, but it was never presented as a case to investigate, much more as a conclusion to reach. Disturbed and sickly child, unstable background, in need of special care, no one at fault.’
‘What about Glyn Matthias? Didn’t you investigate him?’
‘Nothing to investigate. No accusations were ever made. Not overtly. Just quietly removed without any fuss which said it all for some people. Like telling the world we, that is school and police authorities, had our suspicions and even though there was nothing that could be done in law, we made damn sure the chief suspect was put out of harm’s way.’
‘Poor sod,’ said Joe.
‘Maybe,’ said Ursell indifferently. ‘Don’t have much sympathy for people of his persuasion. OK, I know that’s not the correct attitude these days, but it’s the way I feel. A boy gets savaged by Rottweilers, he’s never going to be crazy about dogs, is he?’
Works both ways, thought Joe, recalling Matthias’s instinctive distrust of the police.
He said, ‘You still got him in the frame then?’
‘No,’ said Ursell, frowning. ‘I spoke to him. Wanted to think the worst but didn’t come away feeling there was anything there. And he’s got a lot of friends who stuck by him despite the GM rumour machine, people who wouldn’t know political correctness if you gave it tight trousers and called it Tom Jones. But when I let it be known I didn’t think Matthias was in the frame but I still had a frame, I found myself being eased off the case. I failed the test, see, and Mr Penty-Hooser found other things for me to do. And remember, there really was no evidence that was going to stand up in court.’
‘But you still suspected Simon Sillcroft had been abused?’
Ursell said quietly, ‘I didn’t suspect, I knew. Remember that door I told you about, the one I’ve been leaning against all these years? Soon as I saw the boy, it flew wide open. Oh, in many ways, most ways, we were completely different. I was wild and rebellious and always in trouble, which was what made me vulnerable, while young Simon was an odd and sickly child which was what put him in harm’s way, I suspect. But sadness calls to sadness, Joe. And there was something deeply sad at that boy’s heart which I recognized because I’ve lived with it most of my life too …’
‘Sadness,’ said Joe. ‘You’re right, Perry. He knew all about sadness.’
He told Ursell about the inscription scratched on the sickbay locker. And at last he took the chance to tell him too about spotting the cameras in the clocks.
‘So that’s what Lewis and Electricity were on about,’ exclaimed Ursell. ‘They spotted you spotting the hidden cameras and got their explanation in before it was asked for.’
‘So what is going on?’ asked Joe, hoping that narrative was over and they could get down to some facts.
‘It all fits the investigation. Boys in showers and bathrooms and changing rooms and toilets, God help us. Boys doing the things that boys herded together like this tend to get up to. Get them on video, put them on the Internet, oh, there’s a big market for this kind of stuff.’
‘But it’s not abuse, is it?’ said Joe. ‘I mean, it stinks, but in law it’s a long way short of actually touching and doing that sort of stuff, isn’t it?’
‘Watching’s not a substitute, Joe. It’s a stimulant,’ said Ursell grimly. ‘As for the really bad stuff, never doubt it happened. Lewis would generally speaking be very careful not to foul his own nest. But just think of the temptation. All these boys, all those images. So when one came along who was separable from the others, and didn’t communicate much with them, and wasn’t being visited by doting parents all the while, and was known to be a strange, repressed and depressed child, the chance must have seemed too good to pass up on.’
Joe had known this was where they were heading, but hearing the policeman say it brought it out of his mind and into his heart.
‘The bastard,’ he said passionately. ‘Oh, the foul bastard. What’s he doing still walking around free? What’s he doing still walking at all? I’d like to break his legs myself.’
He meant it. It took a lot to bring his peaceable, tolerant make-up within hailing distance of violence, but this revelation took him there in a single stride.
‘Evidence, Joe, evidence. What the kid said was too vague and got marked down as the ramblings of a disturbed child. Could be he said something to his sister and that’s what brought her along here to find out for herself. She talks to Lewis, he sweet-talks her back, she’s not sure whether there was anything going on or not, he offers her a bed in the cottage – he had a key, remember – and then he torches it. How’s that sound?’
It didn’t sound very good, thought Joe. And he guessed that, much as Ursell would like it to be true, it didn’t sound all that good to him either, else he’d not have been trying it out on a passing PI.
‘He looked genuinely surprised to me when you told him the girl’s name,’ said Joe. ‘Also when you told him Simon was dead. Pleased, maybe. But certainly surprised. And as for killing Angela by setting fire to the cottage, seems a bit hit and miss for the High Master.’
The High Master’s son was a different kettle of fish. It felt like a good time to pass on his info about Wain’s visit that night.
But before he could, Ursell said, ‘Maybe there was another reason he wanted to torch Copa Cottage. Simplest way of disposing of evidence, a good fire. If it’s a really good fire.’
‘Evidence …? Oh shoot. The Haggards. They in on this too?’
‘We believe so.’
‘We?’
Ursell took his arm and turned him so that their faces were close.
‘Joe, don’t know what it is about you, but I’ve already told you ten times more than I intended. It must be your honest face, which I personally will rearrange if ever you open your mouth about any of it without my say-so.’
‘Hey, no need to get heavy,’ said Joe, genuinely taken aback that suddenly they were back in hard-nosed-cop land.
‘Heavy?’ Ursell stepped back a pace. ‘Sorry if I sound over the top, Joe, but you’d better believe me, this is light as a butterfly’s kiss compared with the steroids-for-breakfast boys down in the Smoke.’
Joe took this in, digested it, then said, ‘This is something to do with you jumping when Prince cracks the whip, right?’
‘You’re not just an honest face, are you?’ said Ursell. ‘Joe, you kept quiet about our little arrangement back there without knowing what was going on, for which I’m grateful. Now I’m telling you what’s going on for your own good, OK?’
‘OK,�
� said Joe, who thought that little arrangement was a pretty vague way of describing Ursell’s arm-twisting threats but didn’t feel that now was the time to be picking nits. ‘So tell me.’
‘Well, after I got sidelined from the Sillcroft case, I felt pretty pissed off and I was getting the feeling that there were people upstairs in my own force I couldn’t altogether trust …’
‘Like Pantyhose,’ said Joe.
‘He’s one of them. Not because they are necessarily mixed up in Lewis’s little games, but because they think looking after each other’s backs is the best way of making sure their bread’s buttered on the right side.’
‘That from one of Dai Bard’s poems?’ wondered Joe.
‘Watch it! No feeling for language, you English. Anyway, I talked to friends in my old force, people I could trust. They put out feelers. And a few months later, I’m being invited to an informal meeting with some people in the National Police Squad. Not because they liked the cut of my jib but because they wanted to be sure I wasn’t going to step on their toes in an ongoing investigation into a national paedophile ring. It was the Haggards’ connection with Llanffugiol that rang their alarm bells. The High Master wasn’t in their frame at all. And just how the Haggards were involved they weren’t sure. Porno movies, yes. That’s where the woman made her name. Could have got an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress from what I’ve seen. But the paedophile thing, the connection wasn’t too clear. And Haggard’s home and business premises were clean …’
‘They were searched, you mean? So he knew he was in your sights?’
‘Not exactly. Pointless going in and giving the game away unless you’re sure you’re going to find something. So a sort of unofficial preliminary survey was done …’
‘Like you got me to do on the Lady House?’ said Joe indignantly. ‘You pick up bad habits easily.’
‘Sorry. But ends and means … all right, no need to look all self-righteous. I know that bad things can happen when cops start thinking like that. But sometimes there’s such bad things happening already, Joe, you’ve got to do anything you can to put them right.’
Singing the Sadness Page 26
