The Dylan Thomas Murders

by David N. Thomas

  “You did the right thing calling me,” she said when I explained what had happened, “but I have to leave for the railway station right now.”

  “But I need help. God knows what Rachel’s walking into.”

  “My cab’s here.”

  “This is a nightmare.”

  “Do you have a mobile? Okay, give me the number. Start walking towards Fern Hill, and I’ll call you back in a minute.”

  My mobile rang as I was crossing the bridge. “I’m in the cab,” she said. “Let’s start with Waldo. Why hasn’t he been coming to meeting? Been ill? Busy on the farm? Lost interest? Not at all. He’s stayed away to check out that they’ve missed him. So Rachel’s calling will reassure him that he’s valued and he’ll be back next Sunday. Where are you now?”

  “Walking past the pub.”

  “Tell me when you get to the farm gate.” Cressida paused as the signal weakened. “I’ve no idea what state of mind Waldo is in,” she continued, “and neither have you. Let’s be cautious and assume it’s fragile. We mustn’t do anything that makes him angry with Rachel or with you.”

  “You make it sound as if we have a bomb to defuse.”

  “I’m at the station, hold on while I pay the driver. Are you there yet?”

  “Couple of minutes more.”

  “Okay, I’m hanging up whilst I get my tickets. Call me in five minutes.”

  When I reached Fern Hill, I stood in the shade of a holly tree, next to the parked car. It was almost early evening but the sun was still hot. Midges were gathering around my head. My back ached with tension. I took out my phone again and rang Cressida’s number. “I’m at the gate,” I said.

  “What can you see?”

  “Just a gate for God’s sake.”

  “Martin, please, you have to be my eyes. Now look carefully.”

  “The sign is gone.”

  “Which sign?”

  “Loose dogs, no callers.”

  “That’s encouraging, that’s something in our favour.”

  “What shall I do?”

  “I’m in the train, and I may lose you now and again.”

  “I can hear you fine.”

  “I want you to walk up the track, there’s another gate I think you said.”

  I reached the second gate in seconds. I knew what she wanted to know: “It’s been unchained but the dead birds are still here, or what’s left of them.”

  “But no new ones?”

  “No.”

  “Can you hear anything?”

  “Completely quiet.”

  “No birds...”

  “Nothing.”

  “That is strange. Just going in....” I lost her again. “Sorry, a tunnel. I want you to come off the track and come in sideways to the farm. I don’t want him to see you.”

  “You have a plan?” I asked, as I climbed over the wire fence into the field.

  “I want you to get close enough to the farmhouse to tell me what they’re doing, but without being seen.”

  “I’m not a Marine.”

  “Regress, go back, it’s cowboy and indian time again.”

  “I’m half-way across the field. There’s a small coppice ahead, and the farmhouse is the other side of it. I can smell something burning.”

  “Any smoke?”

  “No. There’s a dog barking somewhere.”

  “What’s that awful noise?”

  “Jet plane overhead. I’m on the edge of the farmyard.”

  “I want you stay there, don’t go any further.”

  “I’m going up to the house.”

  “That’s too much of a risk. Any sign of Rachel?”

  “No, the place feels empty.”

  “Just stay where you are.”

  “I have to see what’s going on.”

  “If Rachel’s in trouble you’ll hear about it soon enough.”

  “Not if Pugh the Poisoner’s in there.”

  “Your trouble is...”

  “That I love my wife too much just to...”

  “...that you can’t stand not being in control. Sounds like a lot of unhealthy macho stuff to me. Rachel wouldn’t like it.”

  “I’m going to have a look.”

  “It’s against my advice, Martin...”

  “I’m almost across the yard.”

  “You’re risking a lot...”

  “I’m underneath the window. I’m just taking a look inside. They’re sitting round the table...”

  “What’s changed?”

  “The table’s been tidied up.”

  “Is the wren in the bottle?”

  “Can’t see. It’s in the other side of the room. Waldo’s eating, Rachel’s talking.”

  “What’s he eating? Don’t argue. I know what I need to know.”

  “Looks like bubble and squeak with...Jesus!”

  “What?”

  “Kippers!”

  “Anything else?”

  “Some sort of salad, could be watercress, and a bottle of Guinness. Three different types of brown sauce on the table.”

  “It’s Mister Waldo’s food.”

  “Is that good?”

  “It’s not bad.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He’s in his bride-making phase. Why should he harm her?”

  “He’s getting up. I can’t see him any more. He’s back. Christ! He’s got the wren in the bottle. He’s giving it to Rachel.”

  “She mustn’t accept it!”

  “She’s angry, she’s really upset.”

  “Will she take it?”

  “What’s the harm?”

  “She mustn’t take it!”

  “She will. She’ll want to set it free.”

  “He’s banking on it. She’ll be setting him free.”

  “She’s standing up, I think she’s leaving.”

  “That bottle is the vilest thing he could give her. He knows that. If she accepts it, she accepts him, in his wholeness. That’s how he will see it, an act of love, accepting the good and the bad.”

  Before death takes you, O take back this.

  “She’s taken it.”

  “Get home as quickly as you can.”

  I ran back across the fields, slowed down at the pub and by the time I reached the cottage I had regained much of my breath and most of my composure. I went in nervously. Rachel was sitting in the kitchen. The bottle was on the table in front of her. I stood at her side and put my arm around her shoulders. “Did he give you that?” I asked. She nodded and burst into tears. I sat down and held her hands.

  “It’s evil,” she said, “but I had to take it.”

  “He knows you’ll let it free.”

  “But it won’t survive.”

  “We have to keep it alive,” I said, trying to hide the desperation in my voice.

  “It won’t have any strength.”

  “We’ll build it up. I’ll look after it.”

  “Chicken soup can’t cure everything.”

  “It mustn’t die, for God’s sake!”

  “We can put it in the spare coop in the barn.”

  “You could take it back to him before...”

  “No, it’s done now. There’s no before.”

  I brought my glass cutter from the tool shed. We took the bottle out to the table on the terrace and laid it on its side. Rachel held the bottom and I started cutting. “Why on earth did you go to see him?”

  “It was pleasant enough before he gave me this.”

  The movement and noise was distressing the wren but there was nothing we could do about that. I was cutting as slowly and as gently as I could. “What did you talk about?”

  “Dylan’s poetry mainly. A bit of Quaker stuff. He wanted to know about formal things, how you joined, marriages, deaths, that sort of thing.”

  “Is he coming to Meeting again?” The wren was quiet now, as if all its energy was needed to absorb the fresh air that was rushing into the bottle as the cut grew larger.

  “He expects to come next Sunday
.”

  “Would you be willing to accept him after this?” I asked, pointing at the wren.

  “What we have to do and what we want don’t always coincide.”

  “There’s that of God in everyone, right?”

  It took almost an hour before I was able to separate the two halves of the bottle. I lifted the piece with the wren at the bottom and gently tipped it on the table. The bird came rolling out in a cloud of droppings and feathers. Rachel picked it up and stroked its back. There were tears in her eyes once more. “Must the wren die to save the hawk?” she asked.

  Before death takes you, O take back this.

  “Let’s climb Cader Idris tomorrow,” I suggested. “We’ve always said we should.”

  “Before we get too doddery...”

  “Yes, before.”

  Fast Forward 3

  The thirst is quenched, the hunger gone,

  And my heart is cracked across;

  My face is haggard in the glass,

  My lips are withered with a kiss,

  My breasts are thin.

  The Inspector came striding into the room waving a piece of pink paper. The Sergeant looked up from the typewriter and wondered what was in store for her now. “It’s a D33/CONT-FX,” said the Inspector, pulling up a chair beside the metal desk.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Official notification of a departmental interest in an on-going investigation.”

  “Never seen one before, sir.”

  “From the very top.”

  “Cardiff?”

  “The Home Secretary.”

  “What’s it mean, sir?”

  “It’s come via Special Branch.”

  “There’s a security angle?”

  “I saw the Chief Constable this morning.”

  “I don’t understand...”

  “They’ve asked him to release you.”

  “Special duties?” asked the Sergeant, thinking of the expenses she could claim.

  “They want you on Elba.”

  “Why me, sir?”

  The very same question had occurred to the Inspector when the Chief Constable had spoken with him. Why the Sergeant? He just couldn’t see what she could offer if the security services were involved. “You speak Italian?”

  “Not a word, sir.”

  “Ever been there before?”

  “Never been further than Chipping Sodbury, sir. My niece’s wedding. Married a jockey.”

  “Know anything about Elba?” If something was happening in Italy, he thought, then MI6 was involved, and Special Branch was just a cover.

  “Not to speak of.”

  “We have two mutilated bodies, a case of cannibalism, a slaughtered dog and Nogood Boyo has completely disappeared.” Not to mention that respectable Quakers and Jews were mixed up in the case, and Napoléon, too, by the look of it. What on earth, wondered the Inspector, did they have in common?

  “So why me, sir? Why drop a tiddler in a big pond?” asked the Sergeant, looking perplexed. “My auntie always said...”

  Rising from the chair, the Inspector folded the pink paper into his pocket and walked across the room. He looked back over his shoulder and winked at the Sergeant. “And mind your rear end when you’re out there.”

  “Sir?”

  “Italian men. Surely your auntie’s told you?”

  At Death’s Behest

  Little and much had happened after Rachel returned from Waldo’s with the wren in the bottle. My investigation agency started to grow, though often it was work that I didn’t particularly enjoy like spying on cheating spouses or finding missing pets – Mrs Eynon Maesgwyn had phoned to say that her dog, a plump and happy corgi called Sam, hadn’t been seen for days. She was very upset so I had promised to give it priority.

  Rachel was meeting almost daily with Rosalind. Their friendship had grown, and often they seemed like mother and daughter. Rosalind was very keen to learn more from Rachel about Jewish cooking, something which was neglected by her own mother in the effort to hide their Jewishness. Dylan’s letters and poems were assembled in a format that Rosalind liked, and a publisher was sought.

  Dylan’s shed had not yet been found.

  The police were still looking for the murderer of Ogmore Stillness. O’Malley, who had at last proposed to Ringle, had let it be known that the police wanted to interview Les Prop-Forward for a second time, but there was no-one at his house when they called. Hardly surprising, said O’Malley, since he was with the gardening club in Spain. Not that they would see many flowers there, only the roses behind the ears of the topless flamenco dancers in the night clubs. No, he wasn’t a suspect but one of the lads who hangs out on the square had indicated that Les knew more than he was saying.

  The wren died after two days of shivering in the coop, as though it had too much air and space to live in.

  Waldo came back to Meeting, as he said he would. His behaviour was normal and appropriate. I had had no need to call Cressida Lovewhich again. Rachel’s relationship with Waldo remained polite but guarded after the incident with the wren. Nevertheless, she and the other members of the Meeting were pleased with the progress he had been making. They genuinely believed they had rescued a soul, and perhaps given peace to someone who had experienced a lifetime of torment. I was sceptical about that. Whilst I no longer regarded Waldo as a threat to myself or Rachel, I thought he was using the Meeting to build a relationship with Rachel that was mostly fantasy. Between Meetings, he telephoned to talk about Quaker matters, and sometimes called to borrow a book or pamphlet, reminding me of an adolescent finding excuses to call upon his loved one. Rachel was able to accept that this was happening but felt it was worth enduring if it brought Waldo to the peace and security of Quaker worship.

  The cat, however, was thrown among the Quaker pigeons. Waldo formally applied to become a member of the Society of Friends. Quakers form a very broad church. The majority of Friends are refugees from other religions, or travellers who have been on a variety of spiritual journeys but found no satisfactory destination. People become members because they subscribe to the Quaker’s opposition to violence and war. Would-be members are also attracted to the Quaker belief in a just and caring society. But what of Waldo?

  Most people attend a Quaker Meeting for several years before applying for membership. Waldo’s application after less than a year was exceptionally early. On this score alone, it posed difficulties for Rachel and her colleagues. Then there were the questions about his past behaviour and mental state. These on their own would not necessarily be a bar to membership. On the contrary, here was a drowning soul who had been pulled on board a passing Quaker vessel and who was now declaring he wanted to join the crew. But a wish to join the crew was not on its own a good reason for granting membership. The person had to agree with the destination of the ship, and the values and way of life of the crew members. Being at Meeting was proving to be of great therapeutic value to Waldo, but this alone could not be the basis for allowing someone into membership.

  I was at home writing a report for a neighbouring farmer who had hired me to find his missing muck spreader. Rachel had been out for a couple of hours at a special meeting called to discuss Waldo’s application. I heard the car drive up, followed by Rachel’s footsteps across the farm yard. Bedwen was already waiting to meet her. I opened the door, and the rain blew in, scaring the dog for a moment and lifting my papers from the table. She looked tired and strained, and I wasn’t surprised when she said that they’d decided Waldo’s application was premature. They would recommend he wait for at least another year.

  Rachel poured herself some wine, and sat in the bath for an hour planning what to say to Waldo. He knew that they were meeting, and was expecting a phone call with the decision. I became more and more anxious thinking about Waldo’s reaction, and at one point I felt tempted to ring Cressida for some guidance. Rejection is depressing, and I was extremely worried about how it might affect Waldo.

  We ate dinner in silence. I cleared
up the plates and Rachel went to the office to phone Waldo.

  She was back within a couple of minutes. “How did he take it?” I asked.

  “He said ‘Thank you for nothing.’”

  “Is that all?”

  “Then he started humming.”

  “Humming what?”

  “‘Abide with Me’.”

  “Let me ring Cressida and see what she thinks.”

  * * *

  Two days later, Rachel received a letter from Waldo, apologising for his churlish behaviour. He had been surprised and upset at being rejected, but, of course, he accepted the decision and would certainly pay attention to the recommendations. And, indeed, that is what duly happened.

  He became a diligent participant in the life and work of the Meeting and within six months he had signed up for a number of study groups on Quaker faith and practice. And then, out of the blue, came an invitation from Waldo, one that had been sent to all ten of the regulars in the Quaker Meeting. It came in a small lilac envelope. The paper inside was yellow, and bordered in black. The contents were unlike anything I’d seen before but Rachel said I didn’t know my Welsh folk customs well enough.

  I, Waldo Hilton, am desired to act as messenger and bidder for a meeting of true minds on November 2nd next, the day of All Souls of all kinds, here in my house to have clean chairs to sit upon, some ale, turnips, leeks and not a little song. As is usual for us, meaning those who know verse from Laugharne and yet more from Talsarn, we will recite with knowingness the sad death of Dylan, Son of the Wave. A great many can help one, but one cannot help a great many, so bring food and wine that the least amongst us may dine.

  The invitation caused great interest at the next Meeting, and Waldo, reported Rachel, was clearly moved by the joy with which people looked forward to the occasion. It wasn’t just a Quaker do, he mentioned, but he’d also invited one or two members of the writers’ workshop that he’d met at Rachel’s launch. The evening, he hinted, would lead to a better understanding of Dylan’s death. That single sentence made me anxious. I did not like the proximity of Halloween and a memorial party on All Soul’s Day when police were still looking for the killer of Ogmore Stillness. Fates were being tempted, I warned Rachel, but she took no notice.