In his sets, Kraig tended to deliver apocalyptic insights – a dark hodgepodge of watered-down Aleister Crowley with a pinch of Anton La Vey – as part of the sonic mix. The few who liked it liked it a lot; to the ordinary clubber it was a bit of a buzz-kill. Less than a decade after he had made his name, Kraig found it hard to get bookings. He told his few followers he didn’t care: the best raves were like the best magic. They weren’t found in cities, but in nature.
He led his people to a new promised land, where they indulged in an orgy of drugs, drink, food and sex, to the thump of psychedelic techno. It was into this tempting bacchanalia that a seventeen-year-old local boy named Glyn Thomas wandered.
Things might have been different if Sara’s brother had not been a casual acquaintance of Glyn Thomas. At first meeting, they appeared to have little in common. Where Rhodri was known for his edgy intelligence, Glyn had a reputation for sullen rebellion: living off his father but refusing to help with the family farm, and occasionally being arrested for minor crimes. They were always committed incompetently, and usually while drunk. In the beginning, the two boys had simply killed time together, but their comradeship deepened when Glyn introduced Rhodri to Duncan Kraig. Suddenly, Rhodri discovered a bizarre new world that excited him and appealed to his desire for new sensations. In that cottage in the woods, he was initiated into the adult world of sex with a vigour and diversity that few adults ever experience. He also discovered the pleasures of mind-altering drugs, which took him to places he had never seen, but recognised nonetheless.
Rhodri Jones began to spend a lot of time in the Artists Valley.
Nobody on the outside knew about the excesses of the Kraig’s loose acid cult; nevertheless, when Mr Jones discovered his son playing truant with a group of adults in the woods, it worried and infuriated him. He ordered Rhodri to cease going there immediately, and tried to pressure the Aberystwyth police into investigating the ‘English hippies’.
Mr Jones blamed Glyn Thomas for his family’s problems. Decrying the older boy’s influence over Rhodri, he insisted the two end their friendship. Glyn refused, and defiantly visited Gefail nearly every day, engaging in obscene shouting-matches with Rhodri’s father. Sara remembered them well, witnessed from her vantage point at the living room window: Glyn, a small figure with a defiant stance, his chest puffed out, hands on hips, standing on the gravel driveway. Her father, always in a cardigan, crisp trousers and leather house slippers, glowering impotently at the door.
‘I told you, he isn’t home.’
‘Rhoddo’s old enough to decide what he does and who he does it with.’
‘If you come to my house one more time, I’ll have you arrested.’
‘If you so much as try, I’ll kill you! You understand me?’
Meanwhile, in the Artists Valley, Duncan Kraig cautioned calm, and advised everyone to ignore the outside world: if Rhoddo’s old man wanted to give himself an aneurysm, that was his business.
Then everyone’s life changed forever. Rhodri and Sara’s parents were murdered. Glyn Thomas disappeared, and the police launched a manhunt, declaring him their chief suspect. And, after their first interrogation, Duncan Kraig and his followers hastily parted company and drifted their separate ways, some returning to the mundane life of the outside world, others looking for ne ways to escape it.
‘You found your father upstairs,’ Jamie said, squinting clinically up at the loft window. ‘In his study.’
‘When I got home from school,’ Sara said. Her head was buzzing; she was finding it difficult to stand. ‘I found my mother first, right there – in the hallway.’
Her mother had been lying with her head towards the door, her blood drying on the mosaic tiles. She had been to the greengrocer’s: a split paper bag lay, absorbing blood, with fruit and vegetables spilling from it. Sara had not screamed – she had simply frozen. Her mind had started turning over like a machine, systematically registering the grim new data: her father’s car was outside, and that most likely meant that he was upstairs. Her mother was clearly dead, so calling the police could wait ...
Jamie hopped up the single step to the portico, and cupped his hands against the stained glass window of the front door. He peered in through one of the clear squares, treating the house with the sharp interest he displayed at any crime scene. Sara sat down on the concrete step.
In the days after the murder, the police would piece together what they thought had happened to Sara’s parents. Mr and Mrs Jones had been killed with Mr Jones’ own shotgun, which had sat undisturbed in an outlying building for years. The building, a sizeable brick structure behind the house, had once housed the original blacksmith’s forge, and Sara’s father had always kept it locked. The murderer would have had to enter the house through the unlocked conservatory, remove a cluster of keys from a hook in the kitchen, and retrieve the gun from the barn. Then he had climbed to the first floor, and stood at the bottom of the stairs leading to the loft study. Mr Jones had emerged from his study at the top of the stairs, and the killer had gunned him down. Police speculated that, as he tried to leave, he had been discovered by Mrs Jones, returning from the shops in Bow Street. He had shot her before fleeing the same way he had entered.
The killer would have had to have known where Mr Jones had kept the keys to the barn, and where his shotgun was stored. These were things that Glyn Thomas, a frequent visitor to the house, undoubtedly knew.
Once the police had secured the scene, Sara had sat with Constable Ceri Lloyd in the house across the road, trembling as the horrible reality sank in. She had been there for about an hour before she heard the whine of Rhodri’s motor scooter approaching. She and Ceri had broken the news to him together, and he had turned deathly pale, and spent the next two hours in the neighbour’s bathroom, with the door locked, refusing to speak.
‘Did the police know about Rhodri’s involvement with Glyn Thomas?’ Jamie muttered, as he moved towards the conservatory.
‘They knew about him and his group,’ she replied, rising to follow him, ‘because Daddy had complained.’
Jamie peered through the window of the conservatory, and Sara felt like grabbing him by the shoulder, spinning him round to look at her. ‘They must have known about Glyn,’ she continued, ‘but I’m not sure whether they thought of him as a suspect just then –’
Suddenly, a woman’s voice called out sharply from behind the conservatory: ‘Helo! Allai’ch helpu chi?’
Sara started, as a middle-aged woman with greying brown hair emerged from the back garden. She wore a canvas apron, and soiled gardening gloves.
‘Er ... na,’ Sara replied, in her halting Welsh, ‘’ni jyst yn edrych.’ They didn’t need help, she said, they were just looking around.
The woman frowned, and looked them up and down. ‘O, be chi’n ’neud?’ She wondered what they were doing on her property.
Jamie, who spoke no Welsh, caught the gist of the conversation and extended his hand.
‘Hello, madam,’ he said. ‘Lovely day. Perhaps you could help us? My wife and I saw a house in an estate agent’s window in town, and we’re trying to find it.’
Sara looked at Jamie sharply and he suppressed a grin. The woman removed a glove, and accepted Jamie’s hand. ‘A house?’ the homeowner said, switching language in deference to the Englishman. ‘For sale in Gefail? No, I don’t think anyone is selling a house. Unless it’s one of the new ones down the end.’
She gazed down the road with undisguised contempt. ‘Newcomers,’ she added.
Making their apologies, Sara and Jamie returned to the car. As they drove, the only sound was a jazz radio station that Jamie had chosen out of deference to his passenger. When they passed through Bow Street, Sara searched for the greengrocer’s, the last place her mother had ever gone. It was now a fish and chip shop.
‘Jamie,’ she mumbled, her eyes fixed on the passing buildings, ‘this isn’t right.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What we just went through, b
ack there. It didn’t help.’ She pulled her eyes away from the passing scenery and bit her lip.
Jamie tapped his fingers against the leather cover of the steering wheel and then said, ‘We were interrupted. The mood was wrong.’
‘No,’ Sara interjected, ‘that’s not it.’ She shifted in her seat, and looked at him for the first time since she had got in the car. Her eyes were red. ‘I don’t think I can marry you,’ she said quietly.
Jamie remained silent for several moments, then slowly switched off the radio and waited.
She sighed. ‘I know you mean well, but I have to be honest. Your concern has become a bit ... cloying.’
Jamie’s mouth twitched, as if for a moment he was tempted to fall back on his defensive grin. Either he decided against it, or was unable to summon it. ‘Cloying?’ he repeated.
She nodded softly.
He shook his head, as if trying to assimilate a foreign thought that would not fit. ‘That simply is not true,’ he said.
The firm simplicity of his challenge made Sara’s skin prickle. ‘How can you say whether it’s true or not?’ she snapped. ‘I’m the one feeling smothered.’
He raised his eyebrows speculatively. ‘Then your feelings are wrong. I am trying to help you.’
She let her head fall against the headrest and sighed. They had now passed through Bow Street, and farmers’ fields stretched to either side of the road. The air smelt thick with chemical fertiliser. Sara straightened her posture and snapped the radio back on, and this small act caused Jamie’s calm facade to crumble. He struck one hand forcefully against the steering wheel. ‘God damn it.’
They passed under a railway bridge as a train vibrated overhead. The car trembled.
‘You can’t see it, can you?’ he continued. ‘How self-obsessed you’ve been. If you’re feeling smothered, Sara, it’s because you’ve penned yourself so tightly into your own little world that any other presence seems like an intrusion. You told me that you love me –’
‘I do!’
‘Then you’ve got to open up some space in your life.’
Sara snorted with sad irony, and Jamie’s veneer of anger crumbled away. ‘Is it because ...?’ He faltered. Sara eyed him warily.
‘Is it because we lost our baby?’ he whispered.
For a moment, Sara sat quietly. Finally, she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about retiring as a consultant psychiatrist.’
Jamie sighed and brushed a strand of hair from his eyes.
‘More than that, actually. I’ve already decided. I’m willing to take the stand in this case, Jamie, but I’d rather you didn’t rely on me again.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Please don’t make any hasty decisions. You’ve been upset by this visit to Gefail.’
Sara grimaced. ‘Gefail has nothing to do with it. But since you brought it up, I would also appreciate it if you’d forget about my parents’ murder.’
Jamie stared at the road ahead. ‘Of course,’ he said finally, his words clipped.
‘And it might be a good idea if we didn’t speak about our past relationship, either. Not the baby, not anything.’
Sara glanced at his reflection in the rear-view mirror as Jamie’s studied calm dissolved into shock and confusion. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘Forever?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know what I mean. For now, anyway.’
THIRTEEN
A vicious wind dashed volleys of summer hail against the Centre’s windows; they crackled like pebbles flung into the sea. Sara looked through the streaked window as she rinsed the cafetière, preparing for an early closure. Outside, the bay was bilious green: waves of spume crashed against the sea-walls, flinging spray that dashed onto the prom. Inside, the fluorescent lights gave the Centre a harsh glare. Since her encounter with the killer, Sara felt uncomfortable being in this room alone but predictably, it had become near-impossible to find volunteers brave enough to keep her company.
There was no reason not to go home, Sara reflected. On a day like this, all her regulars would be hiding behind the lace curtains of their warm homes. The less rational parts of their minds told them that if they were to meet a killer, it would happen on a day like this.
Suddenly, the door downstairs banged, and Sara gasped, nearly dropping the wet cafetière. She heard footsteps slosh up the stairs, and an unkempt man appeared at the door. His clothes were so shiny and soiled that they looked like worn leather. He wore a drenched bedroll on his back, and carried a small bag at his side. Sara struggled to place him – he had visited the Centre on the day Aled Morgan had been murdered, but left when he saw Ceri in uniform.
Today, his eyes were wild with fear.
‘Bore da,’ Sara said hesitantly. ‘Come in and take off those wet things. We’ll dry them off next to the fire.’
She moved to the old electric fire and switched it on. It sparked and hummed, and the smell of burning dust rose.
‘No, no,’ the man said, his voice wavering. ‘I just want to tell you something.’
‘Oh?’ Sara said.
‘I want to make a deal with you.’ he continued with pathetic earnestness.
Sara nodded neutrally, and the man took a grave, trembling breath.
‘I am willing to go away,’ he announced. ‘Far away ... if he promises to leave me alone.’
‘Who is it you want to leave you alone?’ Sara asked.
The man stiffened, as if he suspected her of mockery.
She tried a different tack. ‘You say you want him to leave you alone. Why wouldn’t he?’
‘Because I know,’ he replied.
‘You know?’
‘About the killings.’
‘I see,’ Sara said.
‘How much do you know?’
‘About the killings?’
‘Yes, about the killings! What else?’
He began to pace the room like a cage fighter, as if Sara’s questions were part of an attack. He choked on frightened sobs. ‘I just don’t want to die!’
Sara edged towards her medical bag.
‘You might wonder, why not?’ the man railed. ‘Seeing what I’ve become. But I hate being this.’
He turned, and looked at Sara imploringly. ‘That’s the only reason I went to him. I was desperate ... surely you understand that.’
With a spasmodic jerk, he flung himself towards her. ‘I didn’t mean what I said! Please, tell him that!’
Instinctively, Sara recoiled, wrenched open her bag, and grasped the pre-loaded syringe of pentobarbital. The bag dropped with a thud, and she waved the needle at him like a stiletto. He stopped, eyes widening in terror.
‘You’re on his side, aren’t you?’
‘Calm down,’ Sara commanded. ‘Stay there.’
She advanced towards him. The man shrieked, ‘Don’t hurt me! I didn’t mean it!’
He stumbled for the door.
‘Tell him I won’t say a word,’ he shouted, thudding down the stairs. ‘Not a word to anyone!’
By late afternoon, the rain had swept from Wales down to the south-east. On the streets of London, it was a persistent drizzle. To avoid a soaking, Jamie had parked directly in front of Rhodri Jones’ house, with two wheels on the pavement and his badge displayed on the dashboard.
He was no longer willing to rely on Sara’s mood swings, and was tired of waiting passively for her. He knew the emphasis she placed on understanding her life; if he wanted to be part of it, he would have to understand it too. For that, he needed someone else to talk to. Ceri Lloyd might have helped, but asking her in defiance of Sara’s wishes would only push his goal farther away. There was only one other choice, and so Jamie had told the Welsh police he had business in London.
It took several knocks before the casually dressed businessman answered his front door and invited Jamie in. Jamie could smell Rhodri’s freshly applied aftershave. In the house itself, however, there were no homely smells, like the cinnamon candles that Sara burned constantly. It smelt little-used, and Jamie wondered
whether Rhodri kept a flat somewhere, possibly near the Hampshire air base where his company did much of its business.
As he welcomed Jamie, Rhodri displayed the same well-known bonhomie with which he graced boardrooms and television interviews, but there was a narrowness to his eyes that revealed suspicion and unease. ‘I wasn’t aware that they’d reopened my parents’ case, Inspector Harding,’ he said, as he led Jamie into the sitting room. ‘I’m rather surprised that they forgot to tell me.’
‘There’s no need to reopen it,’ Jamie replied, taking in every detail of the room’s ornate decor. Professionally decorated, he guessed. ‘The case was never closed.’
‘Ah.’ Rhodri selected a bottle of Canadian rye from the small liquor cabinet, concealed in a large antique globe. He held up a crystal tumbler towards Jamie, who smiled in refusal.
The businessman mixed a drink for himself and said, ‘You’ve been assigned to work on the case, now, have you?’ His Welsh accent was stronger than usual, and Jamie wondered whether this was an affectation like the false bonhomie, or a reaction to unwelcome situations.
‘Not officially, no,’ Jamie replied. ‘It’s still under the jurisdiction of the Dyfed-Powys Police.’
‘I see ...’ Rhodri paused and furrowed his brow, as if confused. Clearly, the gesture was for dramatic effect. ‘Perhaps this is a daft question,’ he said haltingly, ‘but if you are not assigned to the case, why did you request this meeting?’
Jamie smiled with self-deprecation. He did not know Rhodri well, and had no idea how the man had reacted to his relationship with Sara. He understood that the two siblings were close; if Rhodri viewed Jamie as no more than a prying outsider, his suspicion was understandable.
Dead in Time (The Sara Jones Cycle Book 1) Page 12
