In Guilty Night

by Alison Taylor

  ‘And does he? Carol’s pregnant.’

  ‘But not by him.’ Rhiannon began to pick at a tiny thread disfiguring the perfect hem of her dark wool skirt. ‘A young man from Caernarfon fathered the child, not that it matters. I’m sure she’ll produce a robust and perfect infant. Did you find the photo of our son in the sonata scores? My husband hides them everywhere. When he’s in the music-room, there’ll be a sudden silence, and I imagine he’s staring at one of them the way he stares at the Beethoven portrait. D’you suppose he’s looking for a ghost of the same intelligence in the child’s eyes?’

  ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘No one knows.’ She pulled the thread, frowning when it refused to yield. ‘And the pain’s eaten us up from the inside out, like a cancer.’

  ‘And Arwel?’ McKenna ventured.

  ‘He seemed to break through the foot-thick misery around my husband, but such young brilliance is so fickle, isn’t it?’ Fiddling again with her skirt, she added, ‘Mari doused his light when she told us why he’d gone into care. Her grandmother said everyone in Caernarfon knew he was in moral danger, so my husband walled him up behind the misery with himself and a dead man.’

  ‘And did you ask anyone to define “moral danger”?’ McKenna asked. ‘Arwel’s admission was prompted by persistent truancy. We assume the sexual abuse came later.’

  ‘Ordinary people usually know the truth,’ Rhiannon said. ‘His parents knew, anyway.’

  ‘I’m not sure they did until we told them.’ McKenna lit a cigarette. ‘They’ve been befuddled by jargon, reacting to ill-founded gossip and the huge propensity for misunderstanding at the heart of verbal reports.’

  ‘My grandfather used to tell a story from the Great War.’ She smiled fleetingly. ‘Someone passed a message down the trenches, saying: “Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance”, but by the time it reached its destination, it had become: “Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance”.’ She paused, gazing into the fire. ‘I thought Arwel might’ve confided in Mari, but he didn’t. She was only interested in weighing his potential, creating a seductive dependency.’ Glancing at McKenna, she said, ‘She’s not consciously calculating, just a young woman like any other, weaving savage and erotic dreams around one man, from whom she’s perfectly safe, desiring what another young man would become.’ She frowned. ‘She wouldn’t be safe with Arwel, would she? They’d be a congregation of terrors, clinging together like survivors from a shipwreck. I fear for her, because her native wit won’t help her to live in harmony with herself.’ She fell silent, hands idle in her lap. McKenna noticed her fingernails, ragged and bare of polish, and thought she threatened to fall apart at the seams, like her skirt. ‘What questions will my husband be asked?’

  ‘The deputy chief constable will decide.’

  ‘On your instructions, I’m sure. Why must you be so oblique?’

  ‘It’s a habit,’ McKenna said. ‘Often a necessary one.’

  ‘Obviously. You misled and disarmed my husband very elegantly.’

  ‘No, Mrs Elis, I did neither.’

  She watched him thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you simply touched him. Perhaps he believes you share his darkness. I can’t, but it overwhelms me, nonetheless.’

  ‘You make me very sad.’

  ‘We’re sad people. Two embolisms travelling the vein of life.’ She began to fidget again with her skirt, lifting the hem in search of the rogue thread, exposing a length of pale slender leg to McKenna’s view. ‘My husband was reared in institutions, where the strong preyed on the weak as they’ve always done.’ She let the skirt fall, and leaned forward, hands clasped around her knees ‘He’s very subtle in his seductiveness, isn’t he? It’s the habit of his lifetime, although knowing of his past won’t make the slightest difference. If he killed Arwel, there’s no going back on that sequence of events, because like the sequence of notes making up a piece of music, however much it’s repeated, whatever differences you discern each time, the notes and their sequence always stay the same.’ She paused, then added, ‘My husband’s obsession with Beethoven isn’t healthy or enlightening, you know. He imagines himself chained to a past where they share a common horror, so he plays the same few pieces of music over and over again until my nerves are so tense I want to scream, because he thinks he hears echoes of his own tragedy. His past is more important than our present or future, and it governs his life.’

  ‘And is your house so tidy because you hope psychological obliteration might follow the physical?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Rhiannon let the ghost of a smile touch her eyes. ‘It hasn’t worked. Life is never so neat.’

  ‘And is this relevant to Arwel’s death?’

  ‘My turn to be oblique, Mr McKenna.’ The smile flickered again. ‘I’ve taken my responsibilities as a councillor very seriously, and read as much as possible. The dysfunctional family is nothing new. Beethoven was the product of one, his father such a drunkard people expected the liquor excise to suffer when he died.’ She fretted again at her skirt. ‘But the psychological impact of an abusive childhood extends far beyond the victim, like a dirty cloud smearing everything with its filth.’

  ‘Are you talking about behaviour patterns people learn and can’t break?’

  ‘My husband learned to seduce when he was a child, and he can’t break the habit, because when he was eight years old, one of the prep schoolmasters raped him.’ She took hold of the end of thread, and pulled viciously. McKenna heard a tiny ripping noise, then saw the curl of fibre pinched between her thumb and forefinger, rolled in a little ball, and tossed in the ashtray. ‘Word travelled like wildfire through the school about fresh meat on the stodgy menu, so people fell on him, wanting a bite. It sounds like a game, some arcane public-school tradition, and I suppose it’s sport of a sort, like boys throwing stones at frogs. But the frogs don’t die in sport, do they? They die in earnest.’ She began pulling at a minute length of loose wool at the cuff of her sweater. Then he realized by seducing what he could accommodate, he could seduce protection to hold the rest at bay. D’you understand me? Those who had him protected him from those who wanted him. It was probably his first business deal.’

  ‘And where does Arwel fit in?’

  ‘I don’t know whether he was victim or predator. Perhaps he was both, preying on my husband with his love and becoming the victim of his love.’ She paused, then said, ‘I think Carol’s the only one who loved Arwel for himself. My husband loved him as a companion in misery, and they went visiting that time which pulls him with its mighty chains.’ Turning back the cuff to look for the root of the thread, she added, ‘My husband can’t break the habit of returning to his childhood, you see, and I fear he took Arwel with him to share the terrible burning pleasure he tells me is like no other, and the pain with a dark beauty all its own.’

  Returning home from servitude for one man, Carol found another wanting more. Her father stood in the back parlour, toes encroaching on the puddle of soot which had flowed down the chimney, over the hearth, and on to the threadbare rug. Blueish flames struggled to burn soot-drenched coal in the grate.

  ‘I told her to get the chimney swept,’ he whined. ‘I told her weeks back.’

  ‘Chimney sweeps cost,’ Carol pointed out. ‘When did it happen?’

  Her father shrugged. ‘How the bloody hell do I know? It was like it when I got in.’

  ‘And how long ago was that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He remained in the soot, and Carol knew his feet would leave little pointed prints on the floors, like the marks of birds’ claws in snow. His mouth hung open slightly, his eyes looked as dull as the soot, and she wondered if, subconsciously, he knew himself too inadequate for the simple task of sweeping soot. She picked up shovel and hearth brush, and began to clean the dingy room, thinking him perhaps too stupid even to own a subconscious. Soot motes drifted among the dust and litter of ornaments and bits and pieces, and wiping her finger on the table and windowledge, she sigh
ed.

  ‘I can’t clean all this and cook the tea.’

  ‘I could go for a takeaway,’ her father offered. ‘If you’ve got any money.’

  Carol massaged the dull pain at the base of her spine, a new pain supplanting the earlier pain of engorged breasts. The child and the pain were like twin parasites, gorging off her meagre resources.

  ‘You’re getting fat round the middle,’ her father said. ‘What’ll we do for money when you can’t work any longer?’

  ‘Social Security, like now. Like ever since I can remember! Go and get the Hoover.’

  ‘Aren’t I going for a takeaway?’

  ‘After. You can help me clean up.’

  He moved away from the soot puddle, and left a trail of pointed prints behind him. Carol thought she should pity his uselessness and hopelessness, then thought not, because default caused so much damage, as Arwel knew. He stole comfort and knowledge from the words and thoughts of others, and shared them with his sister, showing her how to find other truths to counter the brutal reality of the life they knew. She remembered what he said about the unacknowledged heroism of the poor, but watching her father shamble through the door, dragging the vacuum cleaner behind him, Carol searched his dull features in vain for any such nobility.

  ‘Where’s Mam?’ she asked.

  ‘Gone out. The social worker’s been.’

  ‘What did that bitch want?’

  ‘She came to say Arwel can be buried.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Arwel can be buried, so Mam’s gone to the social to ask about money. Don’t they have to give you money to bury people?’

  McKenna sat in the meeting which followed upon their trespass of Bedd y Cor, marvelling that assault upon the integrity of the beautiful car should cause such greater distress than upon its owner’s.

  ‘Who’ll pay for any damage to that fancy car?’ Owen Griffiths demanded. ‘We will! How much do they cost?’

  ‘A lot,’ McKenna said. ‘I’m sure Forensics will be extra careful.’

  ‘They’d bloody better be! I’ve seem them rip a car apart like a lion stripping a carcass.’

  ‘The quest for knowledge can be like a lion’s gorging. Tearing the flesh from the bones, sucking out the marrow.’

  ‘Oh, you do talk crap at times, McKenna! I’m glad you managed to keep your mouth shut for once in front of the higher-ups.’

  ‘I didn’t particularly want to share my knowledge.’

  ‘You might have to, however indigestible it is. Rhiannon’s put her husband well and truly in the shit, though he’s been very co-operative, for somebody having yards and yards of the poshest carpet pulled out from under him. He’s giving blood for analysis first thing in the morning. Why d’you think he didn’t argue?’

  ‘It’s easier not to go through the enforcement rigmarole.’

  ‘D’you think the press’ll get on to him?’

  ‘Probably, and they’ll crucify him.’

  ‘They love the mighty to fall, don’t they?’ Griffiths commented. ‘Mind you, the media lost interest pretty quickly.’

  ‘The media generally share the common view.’ McKenna lit a cigarette. ‘Arwel alive was a bad lot and a drain on society’s scarce resources. Arwel dead is one less parasite.’

  ‘We’d only need a tiny shift in perspective to be back where Hitler left off, wouldn’t we? The government’s redefining one lot after another as unworthy, and expendable’s the next stop down the road. Who’d miss young Mandy, for instance?’ Griffiths coughed. ‘The solicitor says she’s a risk to herself, at risk from others, and depressed as well. Her social worker told us to take her back to Holyhead, and stop encouraging the attention-seeking.’

  ‘So why is she still occupying the detention cell?’ McKenna asked. ‘When I looked in, she was stuffing herself with a Chinese takeaway, and between mouthfuls of bamboo shoots and God-knows-what, demanding to know why Dewi Prys, or “him with the sexy eyes”, hadn’t been to see her.’

  ‘I’m indulging in lateral thinking.’ Griffiths smiled. ‘Going to my retirement with a bang. I’m asking her Nain to take her in.’

  ‘Social Services must’ve tried already.’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? She’s never been asked. Social Services snatched the child, and she’s been crashing from pillar to post ever since.’

  Before he fell sick, Jack had woven strings of coloured lights around the porch and through the bare branches of the trees in the garden, and walking up the path, McKenna trod through puddles of warm colour, his figure dappled with pinks and blues and golden yellow.

  The twins answered the door, smiled their beautiful smiles, and pulled him to the sitting-room, where they sat beside him on the sofa, his arms imprisoned by their own, their bodies yielding and loving.

  ‘Daddy’s in bed, drugged up with cough medicine and paracetamol.’

  ‘Asleep.’

  ‘And where’s your mother?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘She’s gone out with Mrs McKenna.’

  ‘We’re the nurses tonight.’

  ‘I’m sure your father’s in good hands,’ McKenna said. ‘Did the doctor leave a medical certificate?’

  One twin left the sofa, foraged inside an old bureau, and handed McKenna the certificate. ‘He’ll be off at least ten days.’ She sat down and retrieved his arm. ‘Have you found Gary yet?’

  ‘No, but we found the missing girl.’

  ‘Will she go back to Blodwel?’

  ‘I hope not,’ McKenna said.

  ‘Daddy said he wouldn’t wish that place on his worst enemy.’

  ‘Can I see him?’ McKenna asked. ‘Just for a few minutes.’

  In the rosy bedroom lamplight, Jack’s flesh gleamed with a bluish tinge, like incipient post-mortem lividity. ‘Scum rises to the top, like Hogg rose to the top of his profession. Elis’s been floating with the scum since he first drew breath.’

  ‘Don’t be so sour,’ McKenna chided.

  ‘I feel sour. If I had the energy, I’d be bloody seething.’ Jack struggled to sit up, breath rasping, clammy sweat on his forehead. ‘It looks as if Hogg hit the nail on the head, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Never mind Hogg or Elis. Concentrate on getting better.’

  ‘I don’t like leaving you in the lurch. Getting caught in that blizzard caused this.’

  ‘You’re being well looked after. Enjoy the rest while you can.’

  Jack grinned lop-sidedly. ‘You wouldn’t credit how fast peace broke out when I took to my bed. The twins’re falling over themselves to help.’

  ‘You’re a focus for their energies.’

  ‘Denise called earlier. She likes sick-visiting, doesn’t she?’

  ‘I suppose it gives her a focus.’

  ‘She thinks you’re avoiding her, so I said you’re up to your eyes in work.’ Jack coughed. ‘She’s wittering about Christmas arrangements. I thought she was angling for an invitation here, but Em says not, ’cos Denise is flying out to the Canary Islands four days before Christmas.’

  ‘Who with?’

  Jack coughed again, and massaged his throat. ‘Maybe the man with the yacht? Em won’t tell me, but she might tell you. Why not ask her?’

  McKenna twisted his hands together. ‘I don’t particularly want to know.’

  ‘Well, it lets you off the hook. You could come to us for the day. You’ll be quite safe with Denise out of the way, won’t you?’

  McKenna took a stack of files and reports home, and found solutions and endings to all but Arwel’s death and Gary’s whereabouts. Mandy had gone to her grandmother, perhaps giving hope and purpose to the woman’s remaining years. Darren Pritchard remained in South Wales, doing his time, while the remains of Tony Jones would eventually return home, dust and ashes. David Fellowes, dust and ashes already, drifted on the Irish Sea, according to Dewi’s note.

  McKenna knew he was terribly depressed, but the struggle to feel any different was futile, the darkness within densely compressed by darkness
without. Carol’s flickering brilliance lit the misery a little, yet raised other shadows, and Rhiannon’s perceptions had shed their own light, letting some of McKenna’s pieces fall in place, like the pattern of a kaleidoscope. But like that pattern, the pictures changed shape and focus each time he moved the angle of view.

  As the cathedral clock struck ten, the cat ventured outside. The wind had turned, bringing scents of snow, and the distant lands in the east. Shivering, he waited by the door until she scuttled indoors and slumped before the fire, twitching when the doorbell pealed.

  She had changed her clothes, McKenna thought, and dressed her hair, and clawed back from the edge of loss of control. Even her nails were filed and polished. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you so late. I want to talk to you, and I don’t know what might happen tomorrow.’

  ‘I can’t discuss your husband,’ McKenna said. ‘But I’m sorry you face such dreadful uncertainty. How’s Mari?’

  ‘She’ll survive.’

  ‘I’ll make coffee.’ He hurried to the kitchen, clattering cups and saucers and spoons while the percolator seethed. She followed, trembling like a new leaf in cold April wind, then took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  ‘Forgive me, I’m not usually so distraite. I usually hide my feelings. They’re such unseemly things, aren’t they?’

  ‘Only for other people,’ McKenna commented.

  Rhiannon sat at the kitchen-table. ‘We had a visit from Carol. I’ve just taken her home.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You mean: in what?’ She smiled. ‘We’ve leased new cars, of course.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I wanted to discuss money with you.’ Rhiannon took her coffee. ‘I’d like to pay for Arwel’s funeral, but thought I should ask you first.’ She spooned tiny crystals of brown sugar into her cup, and stirred the mixture. ‘My husband won’t be involved.’ She gulped the scalding coffee. ‘I’ve never seen Carol so upset. She hides her feelings better than me. Grief must be getting the better of her at last.’