THE SILENCE OF THE STONES: Will the secrets written in the stones destroy a young woman's world? The runes are cast. Who will die?

by Rebecca Bryn

  Harriet looked surprised. ‘Heart attack. Why?’

  ‘Four deaths in one village in such a short space of time seems… unusual.’

  ‘Nothing suspicious about any of them. Bronwen was a heart attack. Siân was hypothermia due to falling outside on a cold night. Non and Mair had a car accident.’

  ‘And the fire?’

  ‘No suspicious circumstances, according to the paper. They suspected the boiler. It hadn’t been serviced in years, apparently. Fires happen.’

  He gripped Maddy’s arm. ‘Thank you. Sorry to have troubled you.’

  ‘Let go.’

  He hissed in her ear. ‘I told you. Nothing suspicious at all.’

  She marched next door and knocked on Alana’s door.

  ‘Maddy…’ She could be infuriating.

  She peered through the window. ‘She’s working. Can’t hear us over the hammering.’ She tapped loudly on the glass.

  Alana looked up and the sound of hammer on chisel stopped. ‘Door’s not locked.’

  Maddy turned the handle and opened the door.

  Safety-glasses hiding her eyes, hammer and chisel in hand, Alana beckoned them in. Stone dust and chippings covered the floor: a fragment whizzed past his head.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No harm done. Did you enjoy the gig?’

  She put down her hammer. ‘It was great. Are you going to do another?’

  ‘We have to get back to London. I have a shift tomorrow.’

  ‘But you’ll come back, Greg?’

  She wanted to see him again. ‘I hope so.’

  Maddy was still in reporter mode. ‘Bronwen Stevens died of a heart attack.’

  Alana had the most beautiful eyes. She smiled. ‘So that’s the end of the matter.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Maddy insisted. ‘She died on January 24th. News of Nerys’ release would have been out shortly before that, Greg.’

  ‘You’re saying she died of shock?’

  Maddy was adamant. ‘If she had a weak heart and a guilty conscience, a shock like that could have killed her.’

  He’d believed his mother guilty once, but now he was losing patience with her implications. ‘Give it up, Maddy. I know I thought she was guilty, at first, but that was before I spoke to James. Nerys isn’t guilty of this murder or any other.’ He gave Alana an apologetic shrug. ‘They’re coincidence… the sort of coincidence that wrongly convicted her, originally. She’s the victim here, not the perpetrator. We should be looking for the real abductor.’

  Maddy threw up her hands. ‘Okay, okay.’

  He changed the subject. ‘We came to say goodbye.’

  Alana pushed back a curl and left a smear of white dust on her forehead. ‘It was nice meeting you.’

  ‘And you…’ He should say something sensible. ‘I’d like to see the unveiling of your sculpture.’

  ‘If it happens.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I should get going, too. Mum has sent me an imperial command. She wants to see me.’

  Maddy smiled. ‘I could write an article about the proposed sculpture, if you like. Text me. Send me photos. Something may come of it.’

  ‘Thanks, Maddy. That would be great.’ Alana glanced at her watch again. ‘I’m sorry but I must get going.’

  He shuffled chips of stone around with his foot. ‘I’ll see you, then.’

  ‘I…’ Alana planted a kiss on his cheek and then hugged Maddy. ‘Take care. Look me up when you come back.’

  The door closed behind them. Greg touched the place on his cheek where Alana’s kiss had landed.

  ‘She likes you, you dumb cluck.’

  ‘She’s not interested.’

  Maddy put her hand on her hips. ‘She told you that?’

  ‘Not as such, and anyway, with all this going on…’

  ‘You’re going to let that stop you?’

  ‘She’s out of my league.’

  ‘You really believe that?’ Maddy was beautiful when she was cross.

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘Same as you are.’

  Maddy shook her head. ‘Any girl would be flattered to have someone like you ask them out.’

  ‘Any girl?’ Maddy confused him. ‘Someone like me? You mean the son of a convicted murderer, with no prospects.’

  ‘There are more important things than prospects.’

  ‘What then? Curiosity value? Or someone to pity?’

  ‘Greg Anderson,’ Maddy huffed. ‘You think that’s all you are to me?’

  He held out his hands, palms upwards, in a gesture of confusion. ‘I’ve really no idea.’

  Maddy stalked to the car. ‘Men!’

  ***

  Minnie lurched to halt outside Mum’s home in a cloud of black smoke. Alana wrenched on the handbrake and prayed to the god of old wrecks’ birthdays: Minnie was older than she was, thirty-eight at Monday’s MOT.

  She unlocked the front door and dropped her overnight bag on the floor. ‘Mum?’

  A small figure catapulted towards her. ‘Lana.’

  She picked her up: small fingers tangled in her hair and Saffy planted a sticky kiss on her cheek. One day she would have to be a mother: she’d try not to let Mike ruin that as well. ’Where’s Nana, Saffy?’

  Her daughter pointed.

  Mum was in the conservatory, watering plants.

  ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Oh, you know, coping.’

  ‘Have you seen Dad?’

  ‘Not for a while. Saffy misses him. She misses both of you.’

  ‘How about money?’

  Mum laughed. ‘You’ve come to help towards keeping your daughter?’

  ‘Dad wouldn’t leave you short.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he?’

  ‘I’m not broke, though I will be once I’ve bought stone. I could give you a couple of hundred if it would help.’

  ‘She’s growing out of everything. Your Dad has another home to keep now. We’ve had to make cuts.’

  She put Saffy down and handed over a wad of dog-eared notes from the back pocket of her jeans. ‘I might be able to let you have some more, once I know what the stone’s going to cost.’

  ‘Stone?’ The tone of Mum’s voice suggested a proper job that put food on the table would be more fruitful.

  The way the sculpture was going, she was probably right. She needed to spend time on the moors, re-absorb the atmosphere of the stones and re-connect with the past. Incorporating that feeling of history into children, and making it contemporary, wasn’t going to be easy. ‘I’m hoping to get Arts Council funding for a stone circle, shaped like the ancient symbols on the stones up on the moors but looking like stylised children playing. I want to erect it on the green at Coed-y-Cwm, in memory of Bethan and Cadi.’

  Mum missed the plant pot and splashed water onto the floor. ‘You know about the children?’

  ‘Siân kept newspaper cuttings. Why didn’t you tell me about Siân and Cadi? Why does Dad think Siân’s to blame for everything? I don’t understand.’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Mum, I’m not going to leave this until you tell me. I’m living in Siân’s home. Cadi was my half-sister.’

  Mum sighed and put down the watering can. ‘Sit down. I suppose you’ve a right to know, but don’t let Dad know I’ve told you. It’s always been a bone of contention between us.’

  She sat opposite Mum. ‘Go and find Bunny, Saff.’

  Mum waited until Saffy’s feet sounded on the stairs, slowly, one by one. She drew a deep breath as if garnering strength for a deep unburdening. ‘Siân couldn’t have children. She and Dafydd had been trying for some time and it was affecting their marriage. Dad and I couldn’t afford a family at that time. I couldn’t bear Siân’s misery. She was my sister.’

  Mum stared out of the conservatory window at the garden and she followed her gaze. Snowdrops were peeping through amongst the shrubs. A lone yellow crocus braved the winter sun and hazel catkins shuddered in the wind.

  ‘And?’

  ‘T
he maternal urge is the most powerful force a woman can feel. I understood that. I wanted children, too.’ She turned back to look at her. ‘No good will come of your repressing it, Alana.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’

  Mum rubbed the back of her hand. ‘Test-tube babies were rare and cost tens of thousands of pounds. Siân and Dafydd didn’t have that sort of money.’

  ‘But they must have raised the money. They had Cadi. Are you saying you and Dad lent them the money? They couldn’t pay you back?’

  ‘I wish it were that simple. I agreed to have a baby for her. Surrogacy was very controversial back then. Your dad was dead set against it.’

  ‘I can understand that. It would have been difficult for him.’

  ‘It was difficult for us all. Siân wore padding so people who knew her would think she was pregnant. I had to prepare myself for telling my friends I’d lost a baby.’

  ‘So you and Dad had a baby, and gave it away? Cadi's my full-sister?’

  Mum bit her top lip. ‘She wanted it to be as close to her and Dafydd’s as possible. We were sisters.’

  ‘That would be pretty close.’

  ‘She wanted the father to be Dafydd.’

  ‘So how…’

  Mum’s expression hardened. ‘Don’t be naïve, Alana. We agreed I would sleep with Dafydd.’

  ‘Dad agreed?’

  ‘No, of course he didn’t. Siân paid me, to make up for not being able to work towards the end. He called me a whore. I did it, anyway, for Siân. He’s never forgiven me or her.’

  ‘But… that doesn’t compute. Cadi is about the same age as me. Unless, Siân got pregnant at the same time. Is that what happened?’

  Mum hesitated for a fraction too long.

  The penny dropped. ‘We were twins!’

  Mum put her hands over her eyes. It was a while before she spoke again. ‘I wanted a baby so much. The moment I held you I knew I could never give you up. But twins…’

  She waited as Mum composed herself.

  Mum’s brow furrowed. ‘Siân was with me at the birth. I remember her joy as she held Cadi up for me to see. ‘Meet Cadi Alana Ap Dafydd. I wanted to tear her out of her arms, punch Siân in the face.’

  ‘But you still had me.’

  ‘You filled my empty arms, Alana. Cadi Alana and Katherine Alana. It seemed right. Cadi is Welsh for Katherine.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ The portrait of Cadi hung in her cottage. Cadi had brown eyes and dark curly hair, as well as Mum’s mouth. ‘Were we identical twins?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have photos of us together?’

  ‘No.’ Mum’s eyes glistened. ‘I only had the one… they were destroyed when we had a burst pipe… water came through the ceiling and ruined the whole album. I’ve no photos of either of you when you were little.’

  ‘That’s sad. Siân has photos of Cadi. I could send you one.’

  Mum smiled through tears. ‘That would be nice. Siân took Cadi. I never saw either of them again.’

  So much made sense now. She’d always felt there was a huge chunk of something missing from her life. She’d had an identical twin sister she knew nothing about. She clenched a fist. ‘You and Siân kept us apart. You kept me from my twin sister.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Alana. Sorry for everything. We didn’t mean to hurt you.’

  She opened the conservatory door and stepped out into icy sunshine. She needed air… clean air straight off the Atlantic, but she still had to talk to Mum about Saffy.

  ***

  Alana stirred her tea. ‘Mum…’

  ‘I can’t tell you anymore about Cadi, so please don’t ask.’

  ‘It isn’t about Cadi. It’s about Saffy.’

  ‘What about Saffy?’

  ‘You want me to be more of a mother to her.’

  ‘And you refuse to be. I do understand, Alana, but Saffy won’t.’

  She hadn’t considered how Saffy might feel in the future. How would Cadi have felt had she grown up to know her birth mother had kept her sister and given her away? ‘I know she tires you out. A toddler would tire anyone, but you’re… well, you’re not young anymore.’

  ‘If you moved back home, you could help out. It isn’t as if you have a job.’

  ‘I do have a job and I’m not moving back.’

  ‘So what do you propose? I can’t afford childcare to give me a break, not now. What you gave me wouldn’t cover a week.’

  ‘Looking after her isn’t going to get any easier. I couldn’t afford childcare either.’

  ‘You wouldn’t need to if you lived here. We could share it. You could still paint.’

  ‘My home is in Wales, now. You have to face that, like I have to face the fact that, ultimately, Saffy’s my responsibility.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Mum, I still owe the twenty percent of Aunt Siân’s bequest to the man the solicitor asked to find me. I don’t want to have to sell The Haggard, but… This house is far too big for two of you. You said it yourself. If you sold up, paid off my debts, and funded an extension to The Haggard… I could offer Saffy a secure home far into the future. I’ll be working mainly from home, after all.’

  Mum’s face was a blank.

  ‘You’re not going to be able to cope with Saffy, forever, Mum.’

  Still blank. She wasn’t making this easy.

  ‘I want you and Saffy to come and live with me.’

  The blank canvas went through a series of impressionist styles before settling on realism, and disbelief. ‘After what happened in Coed-y-Cwm, you want me to go there? Live in Siân’s house? You want to take a child there… An eighteen-month old girl child?’

  ‘What happened to Cadi and Bethan was thirty years ago. The recent deaths… the police say they are totally unconnected. Tragic accidents.’

  ‘What recent deaths?’

  ‘They were on the news… well, the local news. Siân had a fall and died of hypothermia, as you know. Mair and Non had a car accident… skidded on ice.’

  Mum’s face had lost all colour. ‘All three are dead? Three deaths…’

  ‘Four. Someone called Bronwen, had a heart attack about a year ago.’

  ‘I…’ Mum swallowed. ‘I forbid you to take Saffy there.’

  ‘I’m her mother. You can’t stop me.’

  ‘Alana, please… Don’t do this.’

  ‘So come with us… I can’t look after a child of her age alone, and work. I need to paint and sculpt, Mum. It’s in here.’ She put a hand over her heart. ‘I’d be miserable if I couldn’t let it out.’

  ‘Miserable… You don’t know the meaning of misery.’ Mum stood up and faced her. ‘Nothing will induce me to set foot in that place and no way are you having Saffy, not if you want to take her to Coed-y-Cwm. I’ll get a court order. Show you’re an unfit mother… I mean it, Alana. You try to take her away and I’ll fight you every inch of the way.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The sign on the girl’s door had faded, washed away by the rain. Rhiannon held out a jar of orange marmalade. ‘I wondered if you’d like this. I can’t abide the stuff.’

  Alana appeared surprised. ‘Thank you.’ She looked back into the room and waved a hand. ‘If you don’t mind sitting in a quarry, I’ll put the kettle on.’

  The room was covered in pale dust, punctuated with lumps that varied in size from cornflakes to the large bright chunks Gwyn the Coal used to bring in coarse hessian sacks, and her father broke with a coal hammer. The vivid picture made her pause. She and Nerys and Lowrie had talked of these things far into many nights: coal wasn’t the only thing he used to attack with a hammer. Was this her memory or Nerys’… or Lowrie’s? Her own life consisted of a series of holes, as if peppered by shotgun pellets, and childhood was one aimed at close-range.

  She shrugged off the disquiet of the past and sat in the space Alana indicated. Cadi smiled at her from the wall, bringing a lump to her throat and a thud to her heart. ‘If you like it, I’ll
bring you some more. I’ve got jars of the stuff. Do you like cheese and onion crisps?’

  ‘Err, yes, thank you.’

  She studied the room carefully: knowledge was power. Canvases leaned against the walls, their square shapes mostly covered by dust sheets. Lumps of stone, half-carved stood in every corner. She couldn’t make out what they were supposed to be. Alana returned with mugs before she could investigate a pile of what looked like sketches.

  ‘What are you making?’

  ‘A mess, mainly.’ The girl waved a disparaging hand. ‘I’ve reduced several hundred pounds worth of quality limestone to rubble. It’s supposed to be a mock-up of a project I want to unveil in the village. It’s a surprise, a gift to the village.’

  ‘That’s very generous.’

  Alana laughed. ‘We could always use it to fill the pot-holes.’

  She had a nice laugh. She nodded towards the canvases. ‘You paint?’

  Alana moved a couple of canvases so she could see them better.

  ‘You have talent.’ One was of Cerrig o’ Týr. Artists didn’t just look at things, they saw them: suppose she’d noticed the runes. Suppose she found out what they meant. She pointed to a coastal scene. ‘I like that one. Caerfai, isn’t it? You’ve captured the spirit of the place.’

  ‘Thank you. I haven’t had time to explore the coast much, yet. I have a deadline for finishing the sculptures.’

  ‘I could show you the bits the tourists don’t often get to. The wilder places would make wonderful paintings.’

  ‘I’d like that. Thank you. Next fine day that I’m not up to my elbows in stone dust?’

  ‘I look forward to it.’ She was still Siân’s niece and she needed to know if Siân’s sister was likely to interfere with her plans. Pretend she knew nothing. ‘Were Siân and your mother brought up in the village?’

  ‘They were born here, I think, but Mum hasn’t been back for years.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Gweneth. Gweneth Williams. She’s Harper now.’

  ‘I know a Williams in St Davids. Are they related?’

  ‘Mum’s never mentioned relations here. She never mentioned Aunt Siân.’

  ‘Shame they had a falling out.’ She waited, hoping for an explanation.

  ‘Yes, it is.’