‘When you said you were in America, when you sent the presents and the letter, you were here, weren’t you?’
‘Of course I was in America.’
Another lie. Without a word she showed him Barbara’s letter.
‘Shit!’ he said softly. ‘I don’t believe this girl!’ He handed it back to her and nodded. ‘I was still here, I didn’t fly anywhere but my reason, my only reason, was to keep whoever was trying to get at me, away from you! I left, in the belief that they would leave you alone if I disappeared from the scene.’
‘How did they know you were back?’ she asked, her voice still low and depressed.
‘I guess I was kinda careless. I saw Huw watching the car and thought I’d given him the slip, I ducked and dived around the cafes and shops in Aberystwyth like a clockwork 007!’ he joked, ‘but he saw me driving off. I kept my head low but he saw me all right.’
‘You think it might be Huw?’ For the first time she appeared animated, the hope that he could end this by revealing who was responsible gave her hope.
‘I doubt it,’ he admitted. ‘It just that this is such a terrible place for “running off at the mouth”, everyone would have been told within a few hours, and I mean everyone!’
‘You still haven’t told me why you’re here.’
‘And I don’t intend to.’
‘Please.’
‘No way! It’s no good, darling, I still have the uneasy feeling that this house has ears. As we sit here and talk, I can feel the words being whipped away to other ears but ours. Now isn’t that stupid? You’ve gotten me believing in ghosts after all!’ He smiled and pulled her to her feet. ‘C’mon, let’s see what’s to eat. I’m starved.’
They unpacked the shopping but nothing she had bought seemed to tempt them. ‘What say we leave it ’til later and I go for some fish and chips. Dammit, you’re making me more British by the minute! My folks’ll never believe all this! Imagining this is a haunted house, and now, going out to buy fish and chips!’
A few moments later, Henry knocked and asked whether he and Muriel could be included in the fish and chips order. When he went out, the door was slammed back against the wall as a sudden gust hit the row of cottages.
‘Hell, I hope the windows hold! And don’t forget to lock up!’ he shouted as he hurried towards the car.
From the front window she watched as the torch wavered, occasionally showing his faint silhouette as he walked towards the footbridge. Then suddenly the beam of light seemed to rise in the air and falter, to suddenly snap off as he reached the middle of the bridge. For a moment she hesitated, thinking he had dropped it, and even when it didn’t come back on, she thought it had fallen somewhere he couldn’t reach.
She picked up her own torch that was in its usual place near the front door and, grabbing a hooded coat, ran out to give it to him. Walking down from the road was dangerous. The rain was pelting down and a gust of wind made it necessary to hold on to the wall of number five as she made her way to the bridge. She waved the torch about, surprised at how high the water had risen after the day of rain. There was no sign of Larry. On the side of the bridge to the right, the trees were overgrown and formed a barrier that touched the side of the bridge like a wall. Hawthorn and elder, sycamore and hazel, their branches bare of leaves but still impenetrable at the level of her shoulders, were lit by the thin beam.
Then she pointed the torch downward where the branches were less thickly grown, down into the rushing water. There was a bundle. She frowned and stared, then almost abandoned the attempt to decide what it could be. People threw rubbish into the stream all the time, even though requested not to. Then she moved the light across it again and screamed. It was Larry.
He was face down in the water and any moment he would be released by the spurs of branches that held him, to be dragged down to where the stream joined the Dovey, a fast and dangerous, flooded river on its impatient way to the sea.
17
Rosemary didn’t stop to think how she could achieve it, she just jumped down into the swirling water and hauled him to the bank. The banks were mercifully lower than further down, where the stream joined the large river. She found strength she couldn’t have imagined possessing as she tugged at him and took the weight of him, exceptional with the addition of the water-sodden clothes, as he began to flow with the storm-water that almost reached the top of the banks.
He recovered sufficiently to crawl out, dazed and, once he was clear of the cleansing water, blood-spattered, from a cut on his temple. He sat up on the slippery bank in the pelting rain just clinging to her and catching his breath. His first words were, ‘Don’t tell anyone about this, Rosemary. Not a soul.’
‘But Larry, why not? What happened?’
‘Not a soul. Promise me. Someone pushed me with a swipe on the head for emphasis. I want whoever it was to look surprised to see me.’
‘Don’t let’s talk about what happened at the moment,’ she said, not believing him but recognising the need to humour him. He had simply fallen. The wind, that was still behaving like a hooligan on the loose, was probably the cause. The wind must have tossed a branch over the bridge. He just imagined there was someone wielding it.
‘Go and get the stupid fish and chips, will you?’ he said. ‘And get something for Henry, Muriel, and the queer fellow, it doesn’t matter what. Bring it to me and by that time I’ll be changed and ready to deliver it. Someone will be extra surprised and I want to see that surprise.’
‘Let me at least help you to the house?’ She didn’t try to argue with him, although she couldn’t believe that the Hughes’s and Gethyn could be in league against him. She put her arms around him. ‘Come on, it won’t take a moment to get you inside, I’d be happier if I knew you were safe.’
‘No. I’ll creep around the road and down the steps and try not to be seen. Hell, this is getting better than a James Bond movie,’ he joked, but there were no laughter creases on either of their faces.
She watched as he began to move away from her.
Taking a deep breath, she stopped dithering and decided to do as he asked. She turned away from the spot where he had been lost to her view and at which she had been staring, and fought her way through the storm to his car which he had parked near the road.
* * *
There was a sense of unreality as she stood in the queue in the steamy shop and waited for her order. Fish and chips, when Larry had just almost drowned? What was she thinking of, standing here as if nothing had happened? If he had been correct and someone had been waiting for him in the darkness, they were still there and would try again! Why had she left him? She must be going mad!
She stepped away from the counter as if to run. She was stupid, her brain wasn’t functioning properly. She stood poised to run, unable to decide whether to believe Larry or not. If she did believe him then she shouldn’t have left him.
‘What would you like, cariad?’ the smiling assistant asked and she obediently abandoned her intention to flee and gave the order she had been chanting in her head like a child learning the times-tables.
With the paper-wrapped bundles on her arm she ran back to the car. The rain and wind were relentless and she felt the car roll as she negotiated a junction.
The cut on Larry’s temple was a swollen, angry lump, but he seemed to have survived without serious harm. He had showered and dressed in a comfortable tracksuit and his newly washed hair was darker than usual and flattened to his head. She threw herself into his arms, wet as she was and he laughed.
‘Goddammit, woman, I’ve spent the last half-hour drying myself and now you—’ Her lips silenced his mock complaint.
‘I want you to come with me and watch as I walk in. Check? We’re looking for a surprised look, a disappointed look, or perhaps an angry look. I’ll just get an anorak.’
When Muriel opened the door and saw Rosemary’s bedraggled state there was no opportunity to walk in and surprise the others. She shrieked with laughter and called the
others to come and look.
‘Orphan of the storm!’ she shouted and the others came to look through the door and share the joke, their faces only shadows with the light from the living room behind them, their expressions hidden. If anyone hadn’t expected him to return, they would have had time to recover from the surprise and disappointment by the time they were able to see their faces.
Larry showed himself, his hood pulled across to hide the bruise and Muriel laughed even louder.
‘Thank goodness it isn’t halloween! You two would have put the fear of God into me! What happened to you both? You didn’t have to go and catch the fish, did you?’
They refused an invitation to go in, wet as they were, and the door closed on their laughter.
‘That was a washout!’ Larry snorted, back in the cottage, taking off the wet clothes and helping Rosemary out of hers.
‘But there was only Gethyn and Henry and Muriel there. You can’t think one of those – ?’
‘Who else knew I was going out and what time I was going?’
‘I’m curious about Henry and Muriel knowing about the fish and chips we’d just decided to have,’ she said. ‘I know coincidences happen all the time but this, it’s hard to accept as pure chance.’
‘My thoughts too, honey.’ He was thoughtful for a while. They undressed completely and put on night-clothes and settled before the fire. It was almost out, only a small area of redness was visible far back in its grey ash.
‘The fire’s gone next door,’ Rosemary laughed. ‘That’s what my Gran used to say.’
‘Next door where the Hughes’s live? I wonder if other things go next door too? Rosemary, I looked around that house when I broke in there that time, but meeting Huw discouraged me from a proper search.’
‘Huw,’ she mused, ‘he keeps popping up unexpectedly, doesn’t he? And it was he who reported seeing your car in Aber, when you were supposed to have been in America.’
‘And he’s studying electronics!’
‘Could he be involved?’ she wondered. ‘We don’t know him, do we? Only as a temporary neighbour.’
‘Or what about the queer fellow?’ he whispered. ‘Although I’d have difficulty in believing in him as a present day private eye!’
They both laughed, muffling their laughter guiltily. ‘What about the Hughes’s?’ he went on. ‘D’you think they could be involved in all this?’ he asked.
‘All what, Larry?’ she asked. ‘You haven’t told me, remember?’
He moved close, holding her in his arms and spoke in a low whisper.
‘After tonight I don’t intend to. This maniac – whoever he is – has changed from hurling rocks at me and means business. He wants me out. Sorry, but I can’t tell you why I’m here, not until I’ve sorted out what I want to know, what I came all this way to find out. Darling, tonight, someone tried to kill me. It’s no use trying to wrap it up in softer words. He wants me dead. Whatever I’m seeking must be goddamned important to someone. And that someone seems able to read my thoughts, know exactly what I’m going to do next. Someone is behind it all and I sure as hell know it isn’t you or me! So, what do we do next?’
‘The police again?’
‘I’d rather play this cool, pretend nothing happened tonight. You never know, it might unnerve whoever pushed me, make him careless and give us a clue. Seeing me about and uncomplaining, he might think he pushed the wrong man.’ His voice was barely audible, the breath of the words touching her ear and it added to the creepy sensation of being overheard.
‘Do you remember anything about who pushed you?’
‘Only the impression of someone large, but who wouldn’t look large on a night like this, bundled up against the weather?’
Rosemary shivered and looked around her at the familiar room. It was no longer friendly. What was happening?
‘Please, Larry, you must tell me! I can face anything if you’ll let me into your life and allow me to face it with you. Please. I want to know. Whatever it is I want to know.’ He looked at her then, as if he had made up his mind, he took a notebook from his pocket and wrote:
‘I know this sounds melodramatic, but I think someone can hear everything we say. Tomorrow, we’ll leave together, early, before it’s really light, and I’ll come back, hopefully without anyone seeing me and wait here, watch and listen. Perhaps, if the gods are with us, I’ll discover something.’
She stared at him, began to reply but was stopped by his finger on her mouth.
‘Come on, let’s go to bed.’
‘We haven’t eaten,’ she said, looking at the packet of fish and chips still wrapped in the white paper, ‘but I’m no longer hungry, are you?’
‘Only for you,’ he said, taking her arm and leading her to the stairs.
In an obvious attempt to cheer her up, Larry whistled and sang an accompaniment to a ‘Beach Boys’ record as he prepared toast and coffee the next morning. He made a flask of coffee and packed some sandwiches and biscuits for his vigil in the loft, which was where he had decided to hide.
At six, when the light was still poor and the wind still howled around the houses, he left the house with Rosemary, talking loudly in case someone was watching for them. Taking the two cars, they kissed goodbye on the footbridge and Rosemary drove off. Larry walked to where his car was parked, up near the road then drove off after her.
He drove the Citroen down a narrow lane, turning in through a farm gate and rolling it down behind the hedge. The leafless hawthorn didn’t give much cover, but it was unlikely that anyone would be passing such an unlikely spot, on a lane which led only to a farmhouse.
The darkness was weakening as he ran across the fields, his sneakers squelching in deep mud, the wind flapping his anorak hood like a torn sail. He tied it around his chin and hurried on. He wanted to get in place before anyone was up and prowling around.
Passing well south of the wooden footbridge he made his way in a large circle to the back of the row of cottages. There were lights in all but number two and through the uneven hedging at the end of the gardens, he could see people moving about in both number five and number three. He kept to the shadows and made his way to the back door of number two and slipped inside. They had left the door open so he needn’t make a sound.
He collected his bag of food and added a couple of cans of beer before hauling himself up into the roof-space and pulling the door-flap up after him. It was cold. He had not imagined it could be so bitterly cold. The wind, although not so fierce as the day before, was still gusting occasionally and the draught between some of the ill-fitting slates was as cutting as a knife.
Thankful for the blankets Rosemary had insisted on, he zipped himself firmly into his anorak and settled into a wig-wam made of the thick, Welsh woollen blankets. For a long time he didn’t move, allowing the warmth to build up around him. Then, he carefully lowered the door-flap using a string loop which he fastened around a convenient nail. By moving only slightly, he could see anyone coming up the stairs and hear quite clearly if anyone entered the house. But the draught was bitterly cold and cut into him so that he doubted if he could stay there.
He tried to think of a place that would do as well. The closet under the stairs was a possibility, hardly much warmer but at least out of the cruel wind that whipped through the door-flap and caught him as it made its escape between the slates. But he was reluctant to move. A sudden noise when someone listening believed the house to be empty would be a disaster; both in warning any intended intruder off and letting him know that they were aware and trying to catch him out.
* * *
In the library Rosemary was unable to concentrate on her work.
‘Your friend’s just come in,’ Sally called, and at once she ran into the main room, expecting to see Larry. But it was Gethyn who stood there. She forced herself to hide her disappointment.
‘I hope you didn’t mind my asking for you,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see if you were all right after the soaking you had last night.’
‘Soaking?’ She frowned. ‘Good heavens, Gethyn, I only went out in the rain.’
‘Covered in mud you were. How did it happen. Did you fall?’
She felt her shoulders droop and the fear and anxiety for Larry overwhelmed her.
‘Oh, Gethyn, someone pushed Larry into the river. Don’t tell anyone, will you? Someone was standing on the footbridge, hidden in the darkness, and hit him with a stick or something and sent him into the river.’
‘What? Are you sure he didn’t make up a story to impress you?’
‘No mistake, he almost drowned.’
‘How did you get him out?’ he asked. ‘The stream was deep and very fast yesterday with all the rain.’
‘I don’t know how. I went out to find him when the light from his torch disappeared and he was – Oh, Gethyn, it was terrifying. If I hadn’t been able to haul him to the bank he’d have – I would have lived with the memory of watching him drown all my life.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘At home.’
‘That’s what he’s telling you. There was no sign of his car when I left. You really can’t trust him, believe me.’
‘He’s moved the car and he’s hiding,’ she defended at once. ‘Up in the loft he is, hoping whoever is doing all this will come in and show himself. I’m so afraid for him.’
‘Would you like me to go in and keep him company? If he really is there,’ he couldn’t resist adding.
‘Larry is telling the truth,’ she said hotly.
‘He hasn’t always told you the truth and I bet he hasn’t told you the whole story even now.’ He saw from her expression he had hit a sore point and added softly, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t help mistrusting him. He’s a stranger and I worry for you, I care for you,’ he added softly, ‘far more than you know.’
It was the strongest hint yet of how much he cared and he looked at her anxiously, waiting for the reaction to his words. There was none. She continued to stare into space and there was such despair in her lovely eyes that he felt a churn of guilt at the way he was warning her against the man who obviously meant a great deal to her. But, he reassured himself, all that would change once she had realised where her happiness lay.
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