‘How was your brother lost?’ Sally asked. ‘Did he go missing at sea or something like that?’
‘No, he was stolen from his pram when he was only weeks old and I — What’s the matter? What have I said? D’you know something that would help trace him?’ He stared at Megan’s startled face. ‘For heaven’s sake, woman, spill it out, and fast!’
‘Just before Gethyn’s mother died, she admitted to him that he was a stolen child, taken from a pram in Aberystwyth in 1962.’
‘What? Then Gethyn’s my – oh my God!’
Megan hurriedly explained about the entry in the diary.
* * *
Rosemary had looked out of the back window when the voices of Gethyn and Larry reached her ears. What was Larry doing at the back door? What was he discussing so amiably with Gethyn? Why didn’t he come in? If he was there to make up the silly quarrel why didn’t he come in? She watched in disbelief as he walked down the garden and disappeared through the gate.
Some minutes later, standing at the front window looking, hoping, for Larry’s return, she saw Gethyn hurry up the steps to the main road. He was obviously going to catch the bus to town. He didn’t usually go to town apart from market day, but he had his shopping bag in his hand so there was obviously something he needed in a hurry. He looked strained, and in his haste was tripping over the stones on the rough path to the steps.
Over the top of the road bridge parapet, she saw the bus driving past and, realising that the house next door was empty she decided to look inside. She thought of the crashing of furniture and the fury at the graveside and wondered if there was a connection. It was a perfect opportunity to find out. The bus from town wouldn’t bring him back for several hours.
The key to number one was hanging where it had always hung, forgotten for years, inside the cupboard under the sink. She lifted it from its hook and went outside. Guiltily she turned it in the lock and stepped inside Gethyn’s house, feeling like a thief, although all she wanted to steal was his secrets.
The big cupboard was closed but when she opened the door she saw what Larry had seen. The first sight of the black boxes with the digital dials and the cassettes that were visible through clear plastic covers were enough to convince her that Gethyn had been listening to all that went on.
She felt sick: all the conversations and the love and the silliness and the passion, it had all been overheard by Gethyn. She sank down onto a chair, her legs weak with the shock of it. Her heart racing, she stood shakily, holding her head against the giddiness she suffered, and looked again at the recording equipment. She guessed that was what it was. Gethyn had been listening and recording them so he could play their conversations over and over again.
Everything was still among the reels and dials. It all looked benign and innocent, no tape was turning. So far as she could see nothing was working. He had presumed she and Larry had parted for good and there was no further need to listen. He was out of the house, and if he had gone to town on the bus, he’d be gone for hours. It was safe now, to use the phone and call Megan.
There was no phone in Gethyn’s house, she would have to use her own. She had to talk to someone, she didn’t know what to do next. Oh, if only Larry were here, he would handle everything and make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. She always seemed to make the wrong decisions. Supporting herself against the walls, she went out.
She relocked the door, went back to her own house and dialled the library number. Sally answered and said at once, ‘Larry’s here.’ Then Rosemary heard his voice and she knew that somehow everything would all be all right.
‘I’ve been into Gethyn’s house and I saw all sorts of electrical equipment,’ she said, then listened as he almost shouted.
‘Rosemary, get the hell out of there, and fast! Go to Megan’s. I’ll meet you there.’
‘I’m quite safe, Gethyn caught the bus to town, he won’t be back for ages yet.’
‘Thank the Lord!’
‘I wanted to tell you that I believe you, and—’
‘Darling, that’s wonderful news, but get out and we’ll talk when you’re safe. Just get out of there, please baby, I don’t want to frighten you but I think you might be in danger from Gethyn. I know you’ve known him all your life, but believe me, he’s more than a bit crazy.’
‘I’ll drive to Megan’s and meet you there in about an hour.’
* * *
The car slowed to a stop and the passenger thanked the driver for the lift in a vague way and waved goodbye. He stood where the car had left him and looked down on the row of five cottages, sleepy and quiet in the weak sun. The door of the second one opened and he leaned on the parapet to watch as Rosemary closed her door, pushing against it to make sure it was secure. His smile was gentle and affectionate.
‘Sorry I have to kill him,’ he said aloud. ‘But I did warn you that I couldn’t allow him to take you away from me. You should have listened. Your punishment is to lose him. Wicked women should always be punished. The American will understand, he agrees with me. Wicked women who take babies from prams. Wicked women to leave the ones who love them for another.
‘My mother had to be punished, she stood on the edge of that ravine admiring some rabbits at play and I sent her down to join them. One push. My hands were guided, so I know it was the right thing to do. Wicked women, they all have to be punished. The American agreed.’
Gethyn watched as Rosemary, carrying a small case, went to her car. She drove off and Gethyn guessed she had gone, not to Larry but to stay with Megan. He waited until the sound of the car had faded and went into number two to begin his preparations. He knew exactly what he needed to do and his fingers worked fast as he rewired the pair of switches above the kitchen units. The coffee percolator was now on the other switch of the pair. To the switch previously used by the percolator, he connected the contraption he had prepared, and which he hid inside a saucepan. The first thing Larry always did when he came in, was to go into the kitchen and make a cup of coffee.
Using Rosemary’s phone, he rang the library and asked for Sally.
‘Is Rosemary there?’ he asked.
‘No, but – wait a moment.’ Sally muffled the voice-piece and told Larry, who was sitting near her, who it was. Larry elected to speak to him.
‘I’ve no idea where Rosemary is, can I help?’
‘I’ve fallen, I’ve done my leg I think, it’s very painful. I seem to be unable to get up, can you come and help? I’m in Rosemary’s house, a parcel came and I brought it in for her and slipped on the mud on my shoes.’
Larry didn’t know what to do. He frowned, undecided whether to be harsh with the man or try to reason with him. The risk to Rosemary had to be the greatest priority. He hesitated only a moment, then said, ‘Tough luck fella! Call yourself an ambulance!’ and dropped the phone into its rest.
He looked thoughtfully at Megan.
‘I won’t be happy until Rosemary is safely locked in your house. If the queer fellow phones again, tell him she’s on her way to London or something, will you? I’ll go to your house now and wait for her, if that’s okay with you?’ Megan handed him the key and he drove to her home at the edge of the town.
He had been gone less than ten minutes when Rosemary arrived at the library.
‘I thought I might have found Larry still here,’ she exclaimed in disappointment.
‘He left a minute ago!’ Sally explained. ‘There was this call from Gethyn saying he’d fallen and was hurt, then Larry told him more or less to get lost, and went to my place to wait for you.’
‘Forget about it and go to where Larry is waiting for you,’ Megan almost shouted.
‘Gethyn was hurt?’ Rosemary asked. ‘What happened?’
‘Said he’d fallen but Larry told him to get himself an ambulance. In your house he was, mind. So he could have phoned for help.’
‘But why speak to Larry?’ Rosemary frowned.
‘Wanted you, he did, but Larry took the phone and was told he�
��d fallen, was in a lot of pain and couldn’t get up.’
‘Megan, I have to go and see if he’s all right.’
‘Don’t be a fool! The man can call for help, you can’t go back there! — Rosemary!’ she called as her friend turned and made for the entrance. ‘At least go and find Larry first!’ But Rosemary was running and already holding the keys to her car.
People looked up from their books in surprise; the silence of the library had been broken but no one complained. This was a very interesting conversation to liven their day.
Frantically, Megan ignored the people waiting to have their books stamped and dialled her own number, but there was no reply. Larry couldn’t have reached there yet. She allowed it to ring, willing him to be quick and not to have stopped for anything on the way.
Larry slammed the receiver down when he heard what Megan had to say. He ran out of the house to find that someone had parked across the drive and the Citroen was blocked completely. He shouted his rage then ran to the road staring left and right, hoping to see someone whom he could persuade to take him to the cottages.
Further up the road he saw a man about to get into a Rover and he ran to him and asked, begged, for a lift. The man was about to refuse and Larry wasted no more time. He pushed the man aside after grabbing the keys and drove off before he had even closed the car door, leaving the man shouting for someone to call the police.
The Rover swerved around the corner, the driver’s door swinging open, Larry leaning out with his hand reaching to close it, his foot pressing the accelerator and the tyres squealing.
* * *
Gethyn was sitting beside his cupboard. He had heard the car arrive and heard Larry enter number two. Smilingly, he waited. The second car arriving puzzled him and he stood up then and went to the front window. He saw the door of the Rover open and Larry striding across the footbridge and he stared at the shared wall as if trying to see through it and find the explanation.
If Larry was just arriving, then who was inside?
‘Rosemary!’ he gasped.
He ran out of the front door and reached it just after Larry had gone inside. Gethyn ran after him and, the door being open, saw him put an arm around Rosemary and lead her towards the kitchen. He heard Larry say, ‘First a cup of coffee, then you’ll explain why you won’t ever listen to me.’ As he stepped towards the percolator, there was a shout from Gethyn, making them aware for the first time of his presence.
‘No! Don’t touch it!’ Gethyn warned.
Rosemary saw him then, running toward her as if to murder them both with his bare hands and she tried to close the kitchen door against him. As the door closed, Gethyn burst through. Larry ran for Rosemary and threw her to the ground as the flash and roar of the explosion disintegrated the room around them.
Rosemary came to her senses with the belief she was deaf and blind, as fire burned, giving a deafening roar and filling the destroyed room with smoke. The weight resting on her was Larry, she knew that. She thought from the heaviness and stillness of him that he was dead. Confused, she couldn’t begin to imagine what had happened, she only thought that they were going to die together. Then she remembered Gethyn, an enormous, flying figure coming towards her, his face distorted and wild, and exploding into this, fire and pain and grief and despair.
Then Larry’s weight was lifted from her, and gentle hands came and moved her out of the hell that had been her kitchen, and she was carried outside into the cool, sweet air, with the sound of the stream and dazzling bright light from the sky.
‘Larry?’ she called, and a strange voice said, ‘He’ll be all right. He has a nasty cut on his shoulder from some jagged debris, metal it was, but he’ll be fine.’
‘Gethyn?’ she asked, slowly opening her eyes and seeing a policeman bending over her, wiping her face with a cloth dampened in the stream.
‘Now don’t you worry about a thing, he’ll be all right, for sure.’
‘The maniac!’ another voice said.
‘Go easy with the poor guy,’ Larry whispered, raising his head and looking across at the figure of Gethyn.
Gethyn’s clothes were torn into shreds, blood seeped from numerous cuts, a blood-soaked bandage covered a gash on his head and his face was one black bruise. He wasn’t moving.
‘Don’t treat him roughly, guys,’ Larry whispered hoarsely. ‘He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s my brother, stolen from my mother when he was only a baby.’
* * *
When Muriel visited them in hospital, almost invisible behind a huge bouquet of flowers, she said, ‘Rosemary, Larry, I blame myself for this. I had a strong feeling that Gethyn was more than just upset by his mother’s death. The story of her accident just didn’t ring true. I knew he was unbalanced by something and suspected all along that he had pushed her to her death. I knew he was like an unexploded bomb and I didn’t warn you. Couldn’t face the truth I suppose. A dangerous sort of loyalty. I’m sorry.’
‘How could you believe that Gethyn, whom you’d known all your life, was dangerous?’ Rosemary comforted her. ‘He’s one of us and immune from such things as murder. That’s what I thought, that’s what we all thought. Who would have believed that a neighbour, someone we’d known all our lives, was bugging our homes and learning how to make bombs?’
‘I won’t keep things to myself any more.’ Muriel leaned closer to Rosemary and whispered, ‘New Year’s resolution – a bit early but never mind. There’s something else I’ve been holding back. I know where Mrs Priestley’s son is and I’m going to tell her, now, today. He’s just around the corner from my daughter, in Bala, he never went abroad at all. His first wife died soon after their daughter was born and he never found happiness with the second. Divorced he is, with one son and a daughter who was adopted. Very unhappy he’s been and he blames his mother for interfering all those years ago, between him and Megan. I’m going to ring him and tell him the time has come when he should forgive his mother for her interference and come home.’
‘I’m glad. She’s so lonely. And for Sally! She’s got a brother, or half-brother. Oh, Moo, there’ll be a wonderful reunion!’
‘Sally? What’s Sally go to do with it?’
Rosemary explained Sally’s relationship to Mrs Priestley and they excitedly planned how the news of Leonard would be told, Muriel imagining a huge party to which all members of the new family would be invited.
‘Lovely it’ll be.’
* * *
The tapes Larry had taken from Gethyn’s collection were quite revealing. One was a recording of their conversation during which Rosemary told Larry she had decided to sell her house. The conversation was followed by the sounds they had heard, much later that same evening – presumably when he had listened to the recording – of him using his axe on his furniture in rage. The day following, they had witnessed him burning the remaining evidence of his fury and anger.
‘What now?’ Rosemary said when they were home again, bandaged and bruised but safe.
‘Well, baby, I don’t think I could face much more of the peace and tranquillity of the Welsh countryside! What say we go to New York and get married there? It’s a darned sight safer!’ While Rosemary stared at him he went on, ‘I tried to ask you once before, but you seemed to sense what I was about to say and you put me off.’
‘I remember the moment,’ Rosemary said slowly. ‘I thought you were trying to tell me goodbye. Darling, Larry, that’s a word I never want to hear from you.’
‘Then it’s yes?’
‘After we’ve sorted out some help for – the queer fellow?’
‘You’d better believe it.’
First published in the United Kingdom in 1995 by Severn House Publishers Ltd
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © 1995 by Grace Thompson
T
he moral right of Grace Thompson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781911420279
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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