by Rebecca Bryn
He put the carving on the coffee table. ‘I’d want to see the mock-up. Two percent above bank rate.’
She held out her hand and he took it in a firm, reassuring grip. Two years grace was more than she’d hoped for but Minnie wouldn’t pass her next MOT. ‘It’s a deal. Can we make it fifteen thousand, not ten? And, while you’re here, I have a lump of limestone needs moving.’
***
Rain had turned to ice overnight and the roads were treacherous. Rhiannon’s bicycle would stay in the shed unless the ice thawed. She perused the village newsletter Mair had pushed through her door before the fire. She and Dai had recovered from its effects but the stricken house had been condemned. Mair and Dai were living in a vacant holiday let in St Davids. Was the loss of their home punishment enough?
She turned a page. There was to be a chapel outing to Cardiff. Members from all local chapels were invited to meet at the harbour in Lower Solva, where a coach would pick them up. She consulted her calendar, unsure what day it was. The bin men had been this morning, so the outing must be today. Last thing she remembered it was Monday. Where had the week gone? Would the outing go ahead?
The soft crying of a small child interrupted her. I don’t like the dark.
‘It isn’t dark, Lowrie. Look, the sun’s coming out. It isn’t dark now.’
The sobs faded.
Who was that? Don’t go away. Don’t leave me locked in alone.
‘Just Lowrie, Nerys. She’s quiet now. Sleep. I’m here.’ Would they ever find peace? Would she? No, Mair’s home could be rebuilt. Shattered lives couldn’t. No punishment was enough for what the twelve had done.
The familiar squeak of Mair’s Peugeot, outside, made her move aside the curtain. The sound was the water pump, according to Martin Richards: you could hear it coming a hundred yards away. Non was struggling into it, so the outing must be going ahead. According to the village news, the coach would drop them back in Solva at 7pm.
She stroked the ginger cat perched on the window-seat. ‘So, Pryderi. How are we going to make this happen?’
At 6pm she dressed in a long, warm black coat, and a fur hat, and left the house. The roads were slippery where the puddles of the day had frozen. She walked with care, keeping the light of her torch muted between thick gloves. She stepped into an open gateway when headlights shone from around the next bend. The driver didn’t appear to see her.
It took her almost an hour to reach the narrow bend where the valley dropped steeply away only feet from the road. It took mere seconds for the water from her container to freeze into a solid sheet. She pulled her hat down firmly around her ears and settled down to wait, sheltered from the wind by the hedge-bank.
She was trembling with cold when the tell-tale squeak drew closer. Mair’s car climbed slowly up the hill. The lights were on full beam: they bounced off the white walls of the little holiday cottage as they rounded the bend and shone on the patch of ice. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out from the bank and into the road.
The Peugeot swerved, skidded across the ice as Mair attempted to brake, and spun as she jumped back against the bank. It came to rest with its front wheels overhanging the drop. The engine raced, but the wheels spun impotently against a broken branch. No-one would hear: the nearest inhabited dwellings this time of year were half a mile away.
She walked to the driver’s door and pressed her face against the glass. Mair’s eyes were wide with shock, her face pale, her lips moved as she saw her. ‘Help us… help.’
She wrenched open the door.
Mair’s screams sounded like a vixen calling for a mate.
Non’s face was a mask of terror. ‘Help us, please.’
She bent closer as the roar of the engine quieted. ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’
Non’s expression didn’t change. Mair was beyond listening.
‘Nerys Reece. Remember her?’
Non’s eyes opened wide. ‘Nerys?’
‘She lost her daughter, and spent thirty years in jail because of you. They took away her baby son… Nerys was afraid all her life. She’s still afraid.’ She grabbed Mair by the shoulder and shook her. ‘You remember Nerys, Mair.’
Non’s fingers scrabbled at her seat belt release: she was crying with panic, but Mair had stopped screaming. She whimpered beneath her breath and closed her eyes, her knuckles white as she gripped the steering wheel. ‘I’m sorry… Tell Nerys we’re all sorry. We thought…’
‘You condemned an innocent woman. For that you are going to die.’
‘No, please…’
‘And you will see death coming.’ She jammed her foot hard against the broken branch. The passenger door opened a crack. Beware your dark side. She stamped on the branch again and it snapped. The car lurched. You can accomplish anything. Putting her shoulder against the door pillar, she pushed with all her strength. Non’s screams joined Mair’s as the Peugeot rocked forward. They were still screaming as it rolled over and over, crashing from rock to rock, and tree to tree, as it disappeared into the darkness.
The silence, when it came, was pure and absolute. Frost haloed the spent hogweed seed-heads and thickened the cobwebs spun between gorse twigs. Stars sparkled like crystal and a sliver of moon appeared from behind a cloud. Into the silence, from across the valley an owl answered its mate. It was a beautiful night.
Chapter Ten
The block of limestone perched on its pedestal in the garden. Alana surveyed it critically. It was only for a tiny prototype before she bought the stone for the mock-up she needed to do for Mr John. She had to get him to part with his cash, and he’d promised he’d be back to check on her progress.
She lowered her safety glasses and let the hand saw follow the first chalk mark, already thinking ahead to the large-scale work. Mr John’s cash would fund a chain-saw, essential if the job was to be completed within the two-year deadline. If the half-scale mock-up was too large for her garden, she could probably site it on the village green, if no-one objected. She made several tentative cuts and then began chipping away with hammer and chisel.
Tap, tap, tap. The noise brought back her dream but she pushed the memory away. The tapping had been hail on the Velux, and explainable. She hadn’t heard the sound since the night when the eye had peered through her window. Neither had she found a cause for it. She’d spent hours lying awake listening for it. And if she stayed awake, she didn’t have nightmares.
‘What on earth are you doing?’
She straightened. The face that had appeared over the bank was round, heavily powered and made-up, and surrounded by immaculate waves of peroxide hair.
‘I’m carving a sculpture. Is the noise bothering you?’
‘I didn’t sleep much. Didn’t you hear the cars coming and going, late last night?’
She’d been too deep in her nightmare to hear anything. ‘I must have slept through them.’
‘Are you going to be much longer?’
‘An hour or two… I could take it into the shed… if I can make room. I’m Alana, by the way.’
‘I’m Elin, Elin Davis.’ Elin paused as if not sure how to phrase her next question. ‘Are you renting the cottage?’
‘No, I own it.’
‘I didn’t know it had been sold.’
‘It hasn’t. My aunt left it to me in her will.’
‘Your aunt?’ Elin appeared to consider this and then her eyes widened. ‘You’re Siân's… niece?’
‘Yes.’
Elin’s hand went to her mouth. ‘You’re not… not Katherine?’
‘Yes… how did you know?’
‘Lord, preserve us. Siân, how could you do that?’ The face disappeared behind the bank.
‘Nice to meet you, Elin.’ There was no answer.
Mum had warned her against coming here but she hadn’t expected a reaction like that. Did the whole village know about her mother’s affair with Dafydd? That must be the meaning of the odd signs on her door. She was the unclean: the sins of the father visited upon the daughter. Sh
e shrugged away a feeling of unease and angled her chisel for the next hammer strike; she wouldn’t be judged by her mother’s generation’s chapel morality.
Raised voices made her put down her hammer and chisel: news of what Siân had done had spread on the village grapevine? She’d face her persecutors now, let them see she wasn’t going to be intimidated. She strode to the side gate. Harriet was standing in the road, crying. Elin was screaming. Infidelity didn’t deserve such panic.
She pushed open the gate. ‘Harriet, what’s wrong?’
‘The signs… This village is cursed.’
Not Harriet, as well. Was the whole village against her? ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s Mair and Non… They didn’t come home last night. The police have been out looking for them. They’ve just found Mair’s car. It must have gone off the road on the ice yesterday evening, went right down into the valley. They’re dead. Mair and Non are both dead.’
She glanced at her front door involuntarily. The signs… A knot tightened in her stomach.
***
Greg picked up his post. The only letter bore a Swansea postmark.
Dear Gregory,
Your letter came as a bit of a shock after all these years. I don’t know how much you know about the circumstances of your birth, but it isn’t something I can explain in a letter. I did what I felt was best for you at the time and I hoped you would never feel the need to know about your mother. It hasn’t been easy, not knowing where you were and whether you blamed me for letting you go. If you want to meet, please ring me…
His father had cared. He wiped his eye with the back of his hand. He had thought about him all this time. He grabbed a box of stuff he’d packed ready to take to Maddy's and shut the door behind him.
He let himself into Maddy’s flat but there was no sign of Maddy. Where did she go on a Friday? Was she seeing someone? He made himself a coffee and switched on the television.
The door opened. ‘Greg, is that you?’
‘Yes.’ He raised his voice to be heard over the television. ‘I’ve had a letter from my father. He wants to meet me.’
Her voice came from the hall. ‘That’s great. I’m so pleased for you. I’ll go and change ready for the gig.’
‘Hey…Maddy, come and look at this. Quick.’
The face on the TV screen was sober. ‘Two women have been found dead after their car went off the road near Coed-y-Cwm, St Davids, last night in icy conditions. The victims haven’t yet been named but their families have been informed. The deaths follow other tragedies in the village people are calling the Village of Death. Last week, a fire gutted the house of one of the victims but police, investigating the scenes of the incidents, say there don’t appear to be suspicious circumstances. During the freezing weather last November, an elderly woman from the village also died when she froze to death after a fall in her garden.’
‘Three deaths and a fire can’t be coincidence, surely.’
‘Accidents happen, especially in this freezing weather.’
The news reader continued. ‘Thirty years ago two children disappeared from Coed-y-Cwm, launching a huge search. Their bodies were never found. Local woman, Nerys Rees, was convicted of the children’s murder after two of her own infants died from unexplained causes. Nerys was released from prison a year ago, after appeal, when her conviction was considered unsafe due to new research into infant cot-deaths, and forensic science proved the evidence that convicted her could be circumstantial.’
He sat down with a thump.
‘We have to go, Greg, this weekend. Something odd’s going on here.’
‘I do want to speak to my father, and Coed-y-Cwm isn’t that far from where he lives. We could go and look at the place, I suppose.’
***
A lone figure on the station platform held out his hand for the train to stop. Clynderwen was a request stop and Greg had already told the conductor this was his destination. He and Maddy were the only people to alight from the carriage.
The man, looking oddly uncomfortable in a suit, walked towards them but made no attempt to board. ‘Are you Gregory?’
He nodded.
‘I’m James… James Reece.’
He shook the outstretched hand. It was as clammy as his own. ‘This is Maddy, a friend.’
‘Pleased to meet you. I brought the Landrover. Irene… that’s my wife… she’s gone out to give us space to talk. It’s only a mile.’
Maddy’s hand found his and he gripped it as they followed James up the ramp to the waiting vehicle.
James started the vehicle. ‘Now that you’re here, Gregory, I don’t know how to begin.’
‘How did you meet Greg’s mother, James?’
He smiled gratefully at Maddy. He hadn’t known how to begin either.
‘We grew up together in Coed-y-Cwm, Maddy. She worked in a hotel in Tenby for a while, but moved back when the cottage in Coed-y-Cwm came up for sale and we got married. Nerys was a shy girl but so pretty. I can see her in you, Greg. You have her eyes.’
He said nothing. He wasn’t sure having Nerys’ genes was a good thing. Maddy squeezed his hand: she understood how he was feeling and he loved her for it.
‘How much do you know about what happened?’
‘We know she was convicted of the murder of two of your children.’
‘It broke her heart when Angharad died. When I found Tom dead… she had a complete breakdown. She said she must be wicked or it wouldn’t have happened. She blamed herself.’
Maddy’s hand gripped his harder. ‘I think any mother would.’
‘It was more than that. She never spoke much about her parents, but I remember her father as being very strict. He was very religious, used to say Nerys was possessed of the devil. I think he used to beat both the girls. Nerys was always convinced she was wicked in body and soul… didn’t deserve happiness.’
‘Girls?’ He had an aunt, too?
‘Nerys had a sister… Annie. They were very close as children, but she left home as soon as she was old enough. I don’t know what happened to her.’
‘Were Annie and Nerys born in the village?’ Maddy had her investigative journalist’s face on.
‘They move in… Coronation year. I thought they were princesses.’
‘What about the children that went missing?’ He could see her taking mental notes.
‘Our daughter, Bethan, went missing first… on the Thursday. Cadi a couple of weeks later. Beth had survived babyhood… we took it in turns to sit up with her for the first six months, watching her every breath. Then one night we both fell asleep, but she was strong by then. She’d survived without us and we began to relax. I suppose that’s why Tom’s death was such a shock. Beth had just had her second birthday...’
‘What happened?’
‘She was playing in the front garden. Nerys popped inside to fetch her a cardigan, and when she came out again the front gate was open.’ James stared ahead at the road, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. ‘She was such a lovely child. Mass of dark curls, big brown eyes. Beautiful… happy. Nerys wasn’t the only one who lost her children.’
The sister he’d never know. ‘I can’t imagine what you went through.’
James stopped the Landrover outside a grey-rendered farmhouse. ‘The worst part is not knowing what happened to her. She was too pretty, you see. If I think of her as dead, I can’t get the terror of her last moments out of my mind, or the fact that she may have called for us and we weren’t there. But if I think of her alive… Maybe sold to a paedophile ring… abused or hooked on drugs. What sort of life would she have?’ He put his hands over his face. ‘No-one could have prevented the cot deaths, but it was my job to protect Beth.’
James got out of the Landrover and helped Maddy down. They followed him into the farmhouse. He moved a newspaper and plumped an already fat cushion. I’ll put the kettle on. Make yourselves comfortable.’
The room had portraits of cows on the walls. Judging by the lo
ng names on the mounts, they were members of his herd and champion Welsh Blacks. James returned with a tray.
Maddy frowned. ‘You mentioned Cadi?’
‘Yes. She was a bit older than Beth but they played well together, until Siân stopped letting her come to the house. She lived across the green. The police search went on for months: the whole village turned out to help and every inch of ground was searched. Lead after lead went cold. They never found a trace of either girl. We were questioned, of course, as were Dafydd and Siân, Cadi's parents, but it was Nerys they homed in on.’
‘Because of the cot deaths?’
‘I know they were only doing their job, but we were given no time to grieve. Can you imagine what it’s like to be accused of killing someone you love, when you’re frantic about what’s happened to them?’
Maddy’s fingers tightened on his again. He shook his head. ‘No, I can’t. You hear of these things, and you always suspect those closest to the victim. It must have been a terrible strain on both of you.’
James nodded. ‘Nerys… she never admitted to murder, but she insisted it was her fault. Well, four children in one village couldn’t be accidental, could it? The forensic science of the time decreed it must be murder and Nerys was the one to be convicted. There were enough witnesses willing to testify she was, well, unhinged at best, and psychotic at worst.’
‘And you believed in her guilt or you’d have appealed… stood by her.’ His tone was harsher than he’d intended.
James gave him a pained look. ‘I did stand by her. It was she who divorced me. She made me promise I’d get on with my life, forget her… as if I ever could. They’d put her into a mental institution, with no release date. As far as we knew then, that meant four life sentences. We didn’t expect she’d ever be released.’
Maddy deflected James’s stare. ‘So you re-married.’
‘I met Irene about six years later.’
‘Does Greg have siblings?’
‘Irene would have loved a family but I couldn’t go there again. The pain of losing you all was too great. She understood but she was another victim of the system, wasn’t she?’
