She took a deep breath and banged on the front door. The face at the window vanished then reappeared as he pulled the door open.
“Mr Jones - ”
“That’s my bloody parkin’ spot you’re in. Tight they are in this street.”
She turned around to look. “Where is your car?”
“Not here at the moment. It’s being done at the garage. Some soddin’ vandals broke the windscreen. Now, what is it?”
“I wanted to ask you something, about someone who used to live here.”
He looked only vaguely curious, still angry. “Well, come in then, won’t you? No need to stand on the doorstep. I expect you’ll have some tea.”
Tea was a delaying tactic Megan usually avoided, but in this case she accepted and waited while he shuffled around in the kitchen, boiling up a kettle and pouring milk painfully slowly into a jug, rattling cups and saucers before shuffling back into the sitting room and placing a tray on an oak dining table which stood at the back. It was a dark, old-fashioned room, stuffy with the musty scent of stale tobacco. The focal point was a beige-tiled fireplace at which burned slowly and without enthusiasm a few lumps of dusty coal.
“So what can I do for you? This isn’t one of those elderly health checks they keep offerin’ me, is it?” He gave a thin smile.
“No.”
“So?” He sucked a long, greedy sip of tea, his eyes not leaving her face. “Get to the point.”
“How long have you lived in this house, Mr Jones?”
“All of my life.”
“Do you remember the school teacher? The one who disappeared in the early seventies? Bleddyn Hughes.”
“I do. My wife and I took him in as a lodger when we was first married. It was slack down the pit and we were down to a three day week. My wife didn’t earn much doing people’s hair and we badly wanted to keep the house. His money helped, you see.”
Megan searched Jones’ wrinkled face for some knowledge, some emotion but she would have sworn there was nothing. He stared back at her, the only expression on his face irritation.
“He disappeared.” She hadn’t meant it to sound so much like an accusation.
“I know. The police. They came looking for him, turned the house over from top to bottom they did. Couldn’t find nothin’. He’d just gone.”
“Where?”
“London, they said.” For the first time she heard doubt in his voice.
“What do you think happened to him?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“I said think, Mr Jones. Think.”
The aggression blazed back. “I don’t know what it’s got to do with you. It was years ago. You probably never even knew him. Whatever happened to him it’s all dead and forgotten. The papers said - ”
“I know what the papers said. What do you say, Mr Jones?”
“I say he was a bad influence. Better that he went. Though he owed us rent and never said he was going I was still glad we was rid of him.”
“Did he have,” Megan hesitated, “boyfriends?”
“Not here. We would not have tolerated that.”
“But - ”
“But nothin’. The man was a rotten apple. And he was busy convertin’ others to his ways. Not safe to leave near children. Better he went. He was gettin’ …”
Megan’s interest quickened. “He was getting what?”
“Noticed. Picked on, a couple of times.” She had a feeling this had not been what he had planned to say but she let Jones plough on. “Unnerved him something terrible. Came home one night shivering and his nose bleeding.”
“Did you tell the police all this?”
“They didn’t want to know,” Jones said simply. “They’d already made up their minds well before they came here. They knew, you see.”
“How do you explain the fact that Hughes has never been found?”
Jones shrugged. “Don’t know and I don’t care neither. And neither should you.”
There was a silence.
“Other people have gone missing,” Megan said quickly. “Children.”
He dismissed the vanishings. “They aren’t important. But now there’s this other little boy.”
Megan smiled. She wasn’t quite sure how Stefan Parker would have reacted to hearing himself described as, “This other little boy.”
But the phrase sobered her too. For all his illegal tattoos and piercings Stefan was or had been a child of ten years old. If he had been hurt or threatened, his reaction would soon have crumbled from Rambo bravado to a childish terror. Children were children. Only their veneers were different. Cheap copies of designer clothes, earrings, tattoos, foul language and the air of fake sophistication that streetwise kids of the valleys wore like a suit of armour. Put them against the little sweeties from the Howells School in Cardiff or the Llandaff choir school. Underneath they were the same. Children.
“You’re a mining engineer, Mr Jones. You must know the place. Could he be lost in the mines?”
“It’s possible.”
“And not found by the police?”
“Oh for goodness sake. Have you any idea what’s underfoot at Llancloudy? It’s a rabbit warren. There’s no way you’d be able to explore all that’s under the ground of this valley.”
“But the mines were deep. How would you …?”
“There’s access points all over the place. Holes for inspection. They have to make sure they aren’t flooding. The engineers, we have to go down to inspect. I did - until I retired.”
“But - ”
“But nothing.” He stared back at her, defiantly and she was intrigued. He struck her as an intelligent man. Yet he had worked all his life underground. She wondered whether he had trod the path of many here, supporting his family, unable to afford the expensive and unearning luxury of higher education. She wondered what he thought about the vanishings, whether he might know something about Geraint Smithson. He had spent enough time at Triagwn.
“There have been a few accidents or disappearances lately. Bianca drowned.”
“Oh, Bianca,” Jones said contemptuously. “She was a nutcase. A nuisance. Well rid of her we are.”
A pair of hostile dark eyes stared into her own. “I can’t understand why you’re asking all these questions. You’re a doctor. What’s it got to do with you? Why are you pokin’ your nose in?”
She produced the lamest of excuses. “The well being of the town.”
Jones chortled. “Don’t make a fool of yourself. Leave all this to the police, why don’t you? It’s their job. Yours is the health of the citizens of this little place. You’ve got enough work keeping it healthy, doctor, while the police keep it safe and leave the locals to weed out undesirables.”
Through Neighbourhood Watch.
She stared at him, sensing the misanthropy of a small town Welsh preacher.
She left soon after feeling chastened and reflective. He was right. It was not her place to investigate disappearances. But no one else was. First-hand she was watching the story of Stefan Parker’s disappearance trickle away to nothing. As she unlocked her car door she saw Jones watching her through the window. As soon as she had vacated the spot she replaced the traffic cone. A police car slid past. She couldn’t see who was in it. It was too dark.
She wanted to be home, alone. She felt shaky and uncertain as she drove towards the top of the valley. She backed her car into the one available space left outside her own front door. Barely large enough for the Calibra. A sense of relief flooded through her as she closed the door behind her, drew the curtains, switched the lamp on, tossed her shoes in the corner and settled in the chair. Her eyes closed but she could see people.
Bianca as she had looked when she had last met her. Heavily powdered, whitened skin, thickly smeared lipstick, an uncomprehending expression on her face. Megan recalled the way she had submitted to the fortnightly injection given without ceremony into her bottom as Bianca held her knickers down. As Megan’s trance deepened, Bianca transformed i
nto the woman in the Gericault. Madwoman inflicted with envy. In the painting the woman was clearly envious. But it was not normal envy; it was a distortion of the emotion. She did not know what it was she coveted. Megan breathed deeper. Sane people recognise, understand, analyse their emotions. Mad people, according to Gericault, do not. Cannot. Their emotions merely add to their confusion. They are inflicted.
Dreadfully staring…
Thro’ muddy impurity
As When with the daring
Last look of despairing
Fix’d on futurity
What had Bianca seen when she had “fix’d on futurity”? What had she heard?
Megan breathed deeply and heard other words.
“A rabbit warren.”
Caspian Driver had been a mining engineer.
Bianca’s urgent words.
“Such a sweet little girl. Always chattering.”
“You’re not so smart as some that are labelled mad.”
“The little girl was going to buy some chips she was.” Smithson who had babbled indiscriminately.
Rumpelstiltskin dancing his dance of fury.
Her mind flicked from Bianca, Smithson and Jones to Arwel Smithson. He would have been nineteen years old when Bleddyn Hughes had vanished. She could picture him, swaggering, bullying, swearing, a drinker even at that age. And a womaniser too. The very antithesis of Hughes, the English teacher. Cultured, gentle, sensitive.
And what had Geraint Smithson been like thirty years ago?
Back to Bianca and the Hood poem, One more unfortunate. Or to shift the emphasis, One more unfortunate.
Alun with his wife, soon to be doting on the new born baby? She squeezed her eyes shut in sudden pain, struggling to blot out the image of pride, achievement, love.
Barbara’s words, “I hate ignorance.”
Megan sat up, her eyes wide open. How much had the teacher hated ignorance? Enough to destroy those who refused to learn?
What was the makeup of Llancloudy?
Chapter 22
She posed the question the following day to her two partners and, as she had expected, each had their own perspective. As a rank outsider, Andy viewed Llancloudy in a very objective way. “I think the people here are friendly but quick to make judgements. Old-fashioned.” His dark eyes fixed on hers with a hint of sadness. “And they can be very unforgiving.”
“What made you choose here?” she asked curiously.
“I had an uncle in Cardiff,” Andy said. “He told me the valleys people would make me welcome,” he said. “He told me they would not even notice my colour.” He gave a great, belly laugh, “because they were blacker than me - from coal dust.”
She chuckled. “And is that true?”
He looked serious. “About the coal dust no,” he said, “but about them not even noticing what colour I am.” He hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally. “That is true. They are not prejudiced.”
Phil looked up from the pile of prescriptions he was signing. “Except against the English,” he said and they laughed.
“So what do you think? How do you find this little place?”
Phil too thought for a moment. “I think it’s hard to be private here. People don’t have a lot of space. And that causes problems.” He grinned. “Sometimes I’m reminded of rats in a cage. If they’re denied enough room they start to bite each other’s heads off. It’s the same here. Didn’t Robert Frost make the comment, Good Fences Make Good Neighbours? Here there aren’t enough fences.”
“There aren’t enough fences,” Megan said slowly.
As she left the surgery she pondered over her partners’ words. They seemed to have great significance. Somewhere, buried in them, was the answer to it all. She could find it if she searched with her eyes wide open, her consciousness attuned.
She drove to Triagwn. And met Sandra in the hallway. who looked startled to see her. “We didn’t expect you today,” she said. “Still. It’s nice to see you. Who have you come to see?”
“You,” Megan answered steadily. “I wanted to see you.”
“Oh?” It was not welcome.
“Can we go into your office?”
Sandra led the way silently, shooting swift glances from side to side. When they reached the office door Megan closed it behind them, crossed to the window and picked up the photograph that stood on the coffee table.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.” Sandra looked nervous.
“You didn’t like Geraint Smithson, did you?”
“I don’t need to like my patients, Megan. I simply have to nurse them. But since you ask, no, I didn’t like him.”
“Why not?”
“Look - what’s this got to do with anything?”
“Please - answer the question.”
Sandra stared back at her, vaguely hostile.
“All right,” Megan said, “I’ll answer it for you. Your grandfather. He worked down the mine?”
Sandra took the photograph from her, held it and stared down. “And it cost him his life. He was barely sixty when he died. And he’d been on oxygen for the last four years of his life. While Smithson lives to be ninety-four. My grandfather had no choices in life. There weren’t any other jobs. It was the mine or education in South Wales. Most families couldn’t afford to educate more than one youngster. And everyone had to contribute towards their education. In my grandfather’s time he went down the pit at fourteen. No. I didn’t like Smithson. I couldn’t separate him from what he’d done - exploited the people of the Welsh Valleys and got rich.”
Megan eyed her defiantly. “And what did you think he died of?”
Sandra’s answer was guarded. “I don’t know what they’ve put on the death certificate. Heart failure?”
“The pathologist rang. He …” Megan was aware she must tread very carefully. There was no proof Smithson had died of anything other than natural causes. “The post mortem was inconclusive,” she said finally.
Sandra let out a short breath. “Well,” she said calmly, “that’s often the way with old people. Difficult to tell what they’ve died of. Multiple pathology.”
Megan nodded. She could say no more. An accusation without proof would land her up in the courts. And she knew it.
She returned to her evening surgery, her mind tussling furiously with the ever growing questions.
Gwen Owen had decided to drag her long suffering husband along to her Friday evening’s consultation. And as usual she had a stream of complaints. Her arthritis, her pain, her headaches, her depression, her tiredness. She couldn’t sleep and her stomach was playing her up - again. Her husband sat back, his eyes half closed and Megan wondered how on earth he could put up with her.
Surprisingly, Carole Symmonds had been pushed in as an extra, apparently demanding to see her. Megan was prepared for another long list - depression, anxiety - but here she was in for a surprise. Carole winked at her and asked for the “morning after pill”. Obviously her grief had faded. Her life had picked up again. Megan wrote out the prescription, gave her some further advice and then was struck by another question.
“Who cut your mother’s hair?”
Carole looked astonished.
“Mam’s hair,” she said. “I don’t know. Years ago it used to be Muriel Jones. But she died two - three years ago. Since then I don’t know. But it always looked tidy, didn’t it? Apart from the colour. I think she did that herself.”
She grinned and sallied out of the surgery clutching her prescription like a trophy. And now Megan had finished for the weekend. It stretched ahead of her with promise.
She drove home passed Bethesda Street and noticed an aged yellow VW Golf pulled up outside Mervyn Jones’ house, parked next to the blue Celica, with the Cariad numberplate.
She was forced to pull in to let another car thread through as the street had been reduced to one lane by the close parking. A woman came out of a door, descended the steps and unlocked the Toyota.
She was a you
ng woman in her late twenties with long, brown hair and she was heavily pregnant. She turned and waved to someone in the house before climbing into the car and turning over the engine. Megan drove off.
There must be plenty of pregnant women in Llancloudy. The woman who drove the Cariad car was not necessarily Alun’s wife.
She’d had plans to go to a concert in Cardiff that night; the Manic Street Preachers were playing in the Millennium Stadium. But there was a message on her answering machine that her friend had the ‘flu and she didn’t want to go alone. It was a bit late to ring round other friends. She tried two or three, got no answer and gave up. She glanced through the paper but there was nothing she wanted to watch on the TV.
She felt fidgety. She would walk down to the video shop and rent a film.
Ryan and Mark were hanging around outside, both of them dragging away at cigarettes. They eyed her warily.
“Hi,” she said. “How are you?”
She ignored their fags. This wasn’t the time for Health Education. They wouldn’t have taken any notice anyway.
“We’re all right.”
“No news then, about Stefan?”
Both of them looked at the floor and she knew their friend’s disappearance had cut very deep. She also knew that it had frightened them, unnerved them.
“Heard anything from the police?”
They shook their heads in unison. Mark chucked his cigarette away. It fizzed in a puddle.
Megan jerked her head towards the lurid posters in the video shop window. “Recommend any good films?”
“Hannibal. ”
“Texas Chain Saw - ”
“Not my cup of tea. Too gory.”
“But you’re dealing with blood all day.”
She laughed. “Not in the quantities Hollywood use.”
They laughed too. Mark mumbling, “Anyway, it’s just fake.” Ryan gave him a swift glance.
She broke the taboo.
“Did Stefan have a row with anyone?”
Mark looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Did someone threaten him? Did he make anyone angry?”
Disturbing Ground Page 21
