Disturbing Ground

by Priscilla Masters

  There is not one. There is no yardstick which proves sanity. Catch 22 had dallied with this concept. Is to question one’s sanity itself an insane process? Or a sane one?

  She wandered towards the back boundary of Triagwn to the point where its own land ended and the dereliction of an old railway line had been transformed into a cycle track. Here a path threaded through the woods. And this was where - quite unexpectedly - she found another piece of the fragmented puzzle. The back wall which marked the boundary of Triagwn was built of stones; large, round stones like the ones found on Southerndown Beach. But over the years they had tumbled and been left where they had fallen. Brambles had adopted the undergrowth and crept along the floor with stinging nettles. They formed an impenetrable barrier.

  No one came here.

  But her attention was caught and held by a tiny bird flittering near the floor. Probably a wren but she was curious and stepped forward. She banged her foot against some heavy, stone object and had something else to excite her curiosity.

  She bent down.

  It must have stood near the wall, a sentry to guard against intruders, a stone carving of a gryphon, the winged monster of mythology, head of eagle, body of clawed lion. Only one of the claws was missing. Megan instantly knew where it was. She had taken little notice of Alun’s description of the contents of Bianca’s pocket - the animal claw. But as she bent down she knew that Bianca must have come here, probably knocked against the fallen statue as she had done, and broken off one of the gryphon’s claws. It was an explanation. The police had believed the claw had been broken off a statue in a church. But they had been wrong. Welsh churches were notoriously Low. They did not go in for rampant gryphons and such High idolatry. Only the owner of Triagwn had. Mythology, devilry, idolatry were all in his repertoire.

  She studied the cruel beak of the eagle. So Bianca had walked this way shortly before she had died.

  Was it significant?

  She did not know. But she did want to see the claw for herself.

  She glanced at her watch. Half past three. She must return to surgery.

  Friday evening surgeries are, traditionally, the worst surgeries of the week. Everyone wants “checking out” before the weekend. Patients suddenly realise if they don’t squeeze into the Friday night slot they will have to manage without for two more whole days. And so they pile in. For prescriptions, sick notes, advice, results of tests. The waiting room was heaving when Megan entered and for two and a half hours she could not afford to think about Bianca. She was even unaware of Gericault’s Mad Woman surveying her critically from the walls.

  But as soon as the last patient had left the room Megan’s mind was again busily working overtime.

  One person might have an explanation to the newspaper cuttings.

  Bianca’s daughter.

  Megan had to park in the pub car park and walk back to Carole’s house, a similar place to her own, small and terraced, cars jammed nose to bumper the length of the road. She could see the television on as she squeaked open the gate. Immediately, someone rose from the armchair and peered out suspiciously. By the size and shape Megan knew it was Bianca’s daughter.

  The door was flung open. “Doctor?” Carole said uncertainly.

  “Yes. I was passing. I wondered how you …”

  “Come on in. Come and ‘ave a cup of tea. I was just about to make a brew. Well. It seems funny to see you here.”

  Megan waited while Carole filled a brown earthenware teapot with teabags and boiling water then briskly stirred and finally poured out two mugs of tea.

  She handed one to Megan and leaned against the units. “We-ell,” she said.

  “Shall we sit down?”

  In deference Carole turned the sound of the TV down and switched the main lights on. Then shrewdly she sat back and waited. Megan’s eyes drifted around the room and fastened on to a large, framed photograph. Carole crossed the room and picked it up. “It’s by far the nicest picture I’ve got of Mam,” she said, handing it to Megan. “She always was at her ease with children. Loved them she did.”

  A terrible thought flashed through Megan’s mind. What if? It was true. Bianca had loved children. She had naturally related to them, playing with their toys, giving them sweets, talking innocent nothing talk. What if? Four of the missing had been children. Might Bianca have abducted them? She stared at the strange face, framed with pink hair which smiled innocently out of the frame and immediately felt ashamed. Bianca could not have done that. Even if she had been at her very worst and had been capable of murder she would not have been able to dispose of a body.

  Not even if her voices had directed her? … And there she stopped. Because Carole Symmonds was staring at her. “Are you all right, doctor?”

  No - not even then.

  “Carole. I don’t know whether you’ve heard, but Esther has been moved to a singles flat.”

  Carole nodded, waiting.

  “She made a great fuss about moving.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “She made a particular issue about some boxes.”

  “Oh yes. The rubbish my mam used to keep.”

  Megan smiled. “Most of it I took to the dump.”

  “Best place for it.” Carole took a long, noisy slurp of tea.

  “Some of the boxes had old newspapers in.”

  “Yeah - I know. Mam used to set great store by them.”

  “They were all about missing people. People who’d vanished from Llancloudy.”

  Carole nodded. “I know.”

  “What did your mother think had happened to them?”

  Carole gave a great chuckle. “Somethin’ different every day. One minute someone had murdered them all. Next thing it was aliens come down in a space ship. Sometimes she’d say there was another city underneath Llancloudy with all the old miners in and they were there. Goodness knows.” Another long slurp of tea. “Why, are you interested then?”

  And suddenly Megan realised that Bianca’s own daughter, much more familiar with her mother’s delusions than her doctor, had discounted any logical connection between the disappearances. Megan drank her tea, explained that she had inherited the boxes only because the dump had been closed and she had made a promise to Esther, and made her escape.

  She hardly even glanced at the fourth box, still unopened, on the kitchen floor. She had less than half an hour to shower and change before Alun arrived. And now she was nervous. She had a favour to ask him. She wanted to see the claw, to hold it in her own hand. Maybe she would divine something from the object. More likely it was just silliness. At the same time she already knew that Alun mistrusted her interest in Bianca’s death. He interpreted her obsession as a sign of her own mental instability. And she didn’t know how best to handle this. She didn’t know what he expected of her - or what she expected or asked of him. She almost retraced his number on her mobile phone and cancelled the entire evening.

  But she didn’t.

  Chapter 14

  She’d deliberately dressed down in black jeans and a white fleece, brushed her hair and applied very little make-up, mascara, a tiny amount of blusher, lipstick. She drew back her front curtains and waited for the headlights.

  Half eight, he’d said.

  At nine o’clock she saw the lights sweeping up the road, and she jumped up, locked the door behind her and walked towards them. He threw the door open. Even in the dimmest of car lights she could sense he felt awkward. He was not naturally a dishonest type.

  “Just one drink, Alun,” she said. “Then we’d better call it a day.”

  And as he pulled out of the road she knew he was relieved. That this was setting the parameters for the evening, a quick drink, no awkwardness, no involvement. Simply friendship. An old friendship. Comfortable and warm as a pair of slippers.

  He drove silently to the pub at the head of the valley. Little used, old fashioned, quiet except for three men sitting in the corner, playing dominoes. The swingers of Llancloudy did not visit here
. No music, little company, a scruffy, old fashioned bar. But it was quiet. The domino players hardly looked up as they entered. They were far too engrossed in their game. And even the landlord kept his eyes on his paper while he poured a pint for Alun and some lager for her. He took the five pound note and handed over the change, still saying little, except one word of explanation. “Crossword.”

  Megan smiled. They took the drinks and settled in the corner, Megan opening the conversation.

  “How’s your wife?”

  “Gettin’ bigger,” Alun said sheepishly.

  “How long does she have to go?”

  “Six weeks, four days. One hour.” He grinned.

  “I expect you’d like …”

  He knew what she was about to say. “Yes - another little boy,” he said. “Then I can coach them both in the Minis.”

  She laughed, terribly at her ease with a man who saw everything through the perspective of a rugby ball. Alun reminded her of her father. He laughed too, knowing what would strike her as funny.

  “But girls can play rugby too,” she teased lightly.

  He almost choked on his beer.

  Heartened by the detante between them, she leaned forward. “I had to visit Triagwn today.”

  “Oh? The old people’s home?”

  “The old people’s home where Bianca used to work. I think I know where the piece of stone came from.” She sensed she needed to remind him. “The claw that you found in her pocket.”

  His eyes scanned her over the cream froth.

  “I was wandering through the grounds of Triagwn. Near the back boundary I found a statue of a gryphon. It must have fallen from the wall. It was missing a claw. And it looked as though it had been broken recently.”

  He put his beer down. “Well - there’s an explanation then. I did wonder where it had come from.”

  “She must have been wandering through the garden some time before she died. I’m surprised she wandered up there. She was a woman who stuck to regular routines.”

  She took a deep breath and plunged in. “Alun - is there any chance I can I see the claw? I’d love to know if it did match.”

  He ran his fingers round the top of his beer glass. “Still on about that then, are we?”

  “Aren’t you interested?”

  “Now, Megan.”

  “I don’t think you’ve reached a satisfactory answer, have you?”

  Alun pushed his finger round his shirt collar as though he was having trouble breathing.

  She leaned forward. “I know you think my interest is strange - unhealthy even.”

  He said nothing.

  “Did you know she collected newspapers about people who have vanished from this town?”

  “Yes - you already said.”

  “What if there is something in it? I mean - people did disappear.”

  “What are you suggesting, Megan?” He sounded bored.

  “I’m not really suggesting anything, Alun.” She tried a tentative smile. “But what if she had stumbled on the fact that there was a connection between the people who had vanished. Wouldn’t that give someone a motive for wanting her out of the way? She was beginning to talk about it, you know.”

  “Well as it happens I do know. She was in the habit of ringing the station practically every week. Sometimes four or five times a day.”

  “But you weren’t listening to her.”

  “You can bet your bottom dollar we weren’t listening.”

  “You weren’t. What if someone else was? Someone who did take her allegations seriously?”

  “Like who?”

  “Geraint Smithson?”

  Alun started laughing. “Another lunatic. An old man confused, senile, living in a nursing home. Anybody sane, Megan?”

  He was mocking her. There was a clatter of collapsing dominoes in the corner.

  “Meggie,” Alun’s hand was on her arm. “This has gone far enough. The inquest has come to its conclusion. Everyone’s happy. The coroner, the police. Even Carole Symmonds. Everyone except you. For some unknown reason you’re still harping on about Bianca’s death as though it was the unsolved murder case of the millennium. You’re making some of the wildest allegations. Now then. Just between you and me your theory about Joel Parker was more likely than any other notion. But he was away. And that, I believe, is the truth. Nobody killed Bianca because she was collecting newspapers or because she was always ringing us up making various allegations.” He was remaining assertive and calm. He needed to be. Megan was boiling over, her interest refusing to sleep.

  “What exactly were her allegations? Against whom?”

  “I can’t say. It wouldn’t be … There was no truth in any of it.”

  “What if there was?”

  “There wasn’t,” Alun said firmly. “Believe you me. There - was - not. I can’t discuss all the cases that she got so obsessed with, but I do know about the two boys who disappeared at the same time.”

  “The fourth box.”

  “George Prees and Neil Jones.” Alun smiled. “Must be eight or nine years ago that those two vanished from Llancloudy. Neil was one of the ugliest little tykes I’ve ever seen. Red hair, great big front teeth, ears that stuck out like Dumbo the elephant’s. Father worked up North somewhere - on the oil rigs. Mother - goodness knows. Bit of a bicycle she was. George Prees had a dad who never sobered up. And his mam had vanished a year or two before her son. We never found her to tell her he’d gone missing.”

  “You never found the boys either?”

  “Mavis Prees had gone off with one of the itinerant workers who tarmac the roads. Irish chap he was. We alerted the Guarda but we didn’t have much detail on ‘im. She’d been seen various places in Ireland.” His face turned a sudden fiery red. “The newspapers were full of the story of the missing boys. She must have seen something or someone must have told her. But she never contacted us. Some mother.”

  He sucked his lips in almost piously. “The boys - neither of them - they didn’t have much of a life.”

  “So what happened to them?”

  “We don’t know,” Alun said. “All I can tell you is this. It was a Monday morning in June. They were due to sit their end of term exams. Boilin’ hot day it was. And they were spotted near the bottom of the valley, hitch hikin’, school bags on their backs. We wasted months of police time lookin’ for the runaways. But who knows. They could easily have taken a ride off to Coney Beach.”

  Faint tinkles of fairground music reminded her of how such places tempted children.

  “There’s lots of itinerant workers hangin’ around that place. They could have gone off with them, joined the travelling people. Nothin’ was found, Meggie. Not ever. The two little buggers weren’t seen again. And there’s many that would have said ‘good’. Like I said to you. Every case in Bianca’s little boxes was different. You can’t lump them all together because they vanished from one village. They are not the same. It isn’t one unsolved case but four. Every one’s got a different explanation.”

  Megan nodded, for the first time seeing the disappearances through a more balanced viewpoint.

  This was the voice of reason. She drained her glass and stood up. “Thank you,” she said. “I see now why the police did not connect the cases. There was more than simply a time span. There was no pattern.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “You should get back to your wife now, Alun,” she said gently.

  They were both quiet in the returning car. As they sped down the valley, Megan felt disorientated by the passing lights. Rain was falling in heavy sheets so she confused pavement with road, walls with sky, shops with houses. She closed her eyes to blot it all out.

  Alun pulled up at the end of the road and again she leaned over and kissed his cheek. It was soft. He must have shaved just before he had come out. And splashed some aftershave on. In the darkness she smiled at her private knowledge, knowing he would take her comment the wrong way.

  “You are a simple fellow,” she said and felt
him stiffen. “I don’t mean that you are stupid but you are uncomplicated.” She stared ahead, through the windscreen constantly being washed with rain. “This is something I love about you. When I was younger I didn’t value this quality enough. I do now.” She drew in a deep breath. “I wanted you to know that.”

  Without waiting for an answer she slipped out of the car and hurried along her street.

  She had reached her front door before she saw his lights pull away.

  She had realised months before what a luxury it could be to live alone. She poured herself a glass of wine, switched the heating up and pulled her book of poetry from the shelf. She wanted to read Hood’s poem right through. The rhythmic phrases soothed her, the picture as clear as ever it had been of a desperate woman, unhappy, hopeless, driven to suicide and the sympathy of the poet who had translated her plight into such beautiful words. Lulled, she stared into the fire. Gas and fake coal but the heat was real enough. She half closed her eyes and recalled one of the many curious consultations she had had with Bianca.

  “I wonder about those UFOs, doctor. I don’t think they’re flying objects at all.”

  One could be fooled by Bianca’s face when she made these statements. It never held the crazy emotion of Gericault’s woman but looked serious and considering, intelligent even. Had it not been for the diagnosis of schizophrenia and the pink hair which made her look different Megan might have thought the statement an invitation to discuss science. There had been a subtle but elusive intelligence about Bianca, something fly-by-night that vanished as quickly as it had appeared, to be replaced by something unmistakably weird.

  So when Megan had asked her, out of curiosity, one day, what she meant by not being sure about the UFOs Bianca’s reply had been. “They come down. They land. But they are with us all the time. They stay.”