Four British Mysteries

by Thomas Brown

  “OK, but Sergeant Rees has just taken Helen into Heron House. He’s armed. She’s bleeding badly.”

  “You’re not to take any unnecessary risks, Mr Robbins. Understand? Leave everything to us.”

  Sod that. I’ll take every risk.

  “Monty Flynn’s armed too, and highly dangerous. Call us if you see him. Before going to London on Saturday, he killed Miss Griffiths, and just recently Llyr…”

  Call ended.

  ***

  Rage spiced by fear took Jason first to the Escort where he salvaged Helen’s filthy pink rucksack from the boot, then to the back of the house where he knew a rotting door lay half buried by years of grassy neglect. He’d seen the gardener use it to sneak in and out. The oddball who’d tried to kill him then save him.

  Ajar.

  The rain followed him in.

  Despite the large, dripping cellar’s deepening gloom, he checked out the rucksack. What he found made his eyes sting. No money in her purse and a basic model Nokia, with nothing stored on it at all.

  No time to waste.

  He threaded his way towards a distant door through all kinds of discarded junk. Old, stiff bridles, fishing gear, rotting croquet mallets, but more usefully, broken window glass, all shapes and sizes. With each step, the smell of death reached his marrow.

  He grabbed the piece to best fit his pocket and wrapped his unusable handkerchief around the end before slipping it deep out of sight. Then stopped to get his bearings. To listen. A repetitive banging noise, coming it seemed, from Nantymwyn Forest. Nothing like tree-felling, sawing or shooting. Now came footsteps overhead and the sagging ceiling groaned as they passed. Jason guessed he was under the kitchen and, if so, hadn’t he once seen Idris Davies appear from the larder?

  He climbed six stone steps to the door. Metal this time, with a section of fly-clogged mesh set in the top. He could hear his heart. Rees was leaning over the Belfast sink, ducking his head under the tap for a drink. Helen still attached to him by handcuffs.

  So near and yet so far. Her protests just a muffled blur. He mustn’t blow it. The coward might panic. Reach for his gun.

  “I want my rucksack now. And my purse,” she mumbled.

  “You won’t be needing them. Upstairs we go,” said the animal. “No need either to clear your mess. We’ll be private up there, and no tricks either, not like those them two fuckers who wouldn’t drown. ’Sides, there’s someone we’d like you to meet.”

  “Wait till Jason Robbins finds out about me. And your bosses.”

  Hearing his name was the trigger.

  He tested the metal door. It was almost too easy. With her rucksack snug against his back, he crept past shelves of boot polish, silver polish, old floor cloths and sagging cartons of Daz – everything except something edible – into the kitchen where he trawled its walls and ceiling for any sign of a hidden camera. No joy, and he couldn’t hang around.

  With his right hand feeling the cloth-bound edge of his makeshift weapon, Jason followed the blood up the stairs. They were going to the very top of the house.

  ***

  She was screaming. Must have pulled off the gag. Jason soon reached that darker world of the second floor where a trail of gas and roses led to his room. Margiad’s nameplate, luminous in the gloom, was back in place over the half-open door. A complete bunch of keys hanging from the keyhole.

  He covered his nose, pushed his way in and almost passed out.

  Chloroform.

  This was no bedroom but a morgue, judging by what lay outstretched on the carpet. A man he barely recognised. Monty Flynn. Naked and yellowing just like St. Peter. His startled eyes scrolled upwards.

  And then, with a jolt, Jason noticed the man was still breathing.

  Jesus.

  Nothing he could do. Helen was still handcuffed to Rees, standing in her own pulsing blood thicker than the adjoining darker stain. Her eyes red and swollen from the effects of the gas. She was priority.

  While the Sergeant was busy checking Flynn’s pulse, Jason charged. “Undo these,” he kneed him in the groin, making the cop double up in agony. “Now!”

  With his glass weapon hovering close by, those silky hands soon got busy on the cuffs and once unlocked, Helen collapsed into Jason’s arms. Her blue fleece still wet, her whole body shaking, but his at last. The Fuzz tried to stand, but the sharp, glass point prodded him back. “What’s going on?” shouted Jason, “Flynn’s still alive.”

  “Leave him be or you’ll be next for the cross.”

  “The cross?”

  “Careless waste of skin, him.”

  Jason felt bile burn the back of his throat. “You sicko. You tried to top me as well with that car.” He kicked again and felt better, but Helen was trying to reach her ex-boss. He pulled her away. “Let’s go while we’ve a chance.”

  Together they somehow made it down to Flynn’s empty study. Having slammed the door behind them, Jason heaved open the sash window opposite. Seconds later, Rees was advancing into the room like a crazed buffalo. His Glock’s muzzle pointing their way.

  “You first,” Jason hissed to Helen. “I’ll hold you. Come on! He might shoot.”

  “I can’t. Look at how much blood I’ve lost. It’s no good. I’ll never make it. She’s killing me. Maybe Betsan meant her when she said Gwenno’s mouth wasn’t the only one who’d done her harm.”

  “If you start writing it, I’ll stop making her suffer. Your Helen. If not… If not...”

  “Ssshh.”

  He didn’t need to ask who she meant and, holding Helen tight, felt her lightness against him. Saw her lifeblood covering his boots as he lifted her out into the ivy’s wet embrace and slammed the window shut behind him.

  On their way through the ivy, Helen’s ‘Curse’-word crept into his mind like a death watch beetle emerging from a crack in some old piece of wood. He clung to her cold hands even more firmly as she managed to find footholds and made progress downwards. He wanted to tell her he’d never let her go. To say so much, but Sergeant Rees was very much alive and, judging by those continual banging sounds coming from behind the house, Prydderch was probably somewhere out there, too.

  “Just tell that freak you’ll write her sodding story,” Helen begged. “Tell her you’ll spend every minute of every day of your life doing it. That’s what she wants, isn’t it? Margiad Pitt-Rose and you, with me off the scene.”

  ‘Begin now, or I’ll see she never bears children, never…’

  ***

  Helen needed a hospital. Fast. Nothing else would do. How could he explain to her how he’d not had time to appease that terrible voice? How Helen’s possessions had all gone from her room? They could come later. If there was a later.

  And then, while negotiating the last of the ivy’s wet embrace, he spotted a pair of black cars parked side by side along near The Drop. A Porsche Boxster and a VW Passat. Two slugs glistening under the Devil’s rain. That was when the first gunshot from above stirred up a gravel dervish, sending up grit into their eyes.

  ***

  Rees was glaring down from the open window, hurling abuse and firing off target as Jason and Helen finally reached the ground and, with a last, desperate effort, reached the first car.

  Not only was the Passat’s alarm disabled but, by another miracle, its ignition key still lay in the lock. Both front tyres stood skewed away from the edge of land as if ready for a swift getaway. But, who owned it? And the Porsche? Surely the Fuzz hadn’t done that much overtime? His phone was ready. He punched in 999. Would God grant him a third miracle? No.

  In disgust, he chucked the piece of glass away then, hidden by the Passat’s far side, made Helen comfortable on its beige leather rear seat. The plaid rug he’d found in the boot staunched her blood loss as he started the engine and with a sinking heart felt the rear near tyre deflate.

  “Fucking 999.”

  Out of the drive now, the car was listing badly, but still driveable as with terror in her eyes, Helen relayed DCI Jobiah’
s latest message received in Llandovery. How the suddenly determined Sergeant Rees had driven here like a maniac and once they’d stopped, had fondled her breasts before adding his restraints.

  “There’s nothing to worry about any more,” Jason lied to her, feeling ill. Neither he nor DCI Jobiah had warned her about Sergeant Rees. “Try and chill. Shut your eyes.”

  “I can’t. I know Mr Flynn killed Betsan but I keep thinking of his horrible colour, his curled-up feet and what they’ll do to him…”

  “He betrayed you, remember?” Jason finally found the right wiper speed and reached back between the front seats to touch her hand. “Both of us. But we have to move on. Together.” Through the rear view mirror, he saw her faint smile. He slipped into first gear and the car lurched in the direction of the drive. As it did so, the air inside seemed to cool to a sudden chill. His hands felt as cold as when he’d been digging around in that Angred shaft. He blew on his fingertips. Turned the car’s heating to max.

  “I thought you weren’t interested in me,” she announced. “Why I gave up trying to reach you. Your phone was dead every time.”

  “When?”

  “Once I’d reached Bristol.”

  “That’s weird.”

  Like Gwilym’s camera stopped working.

  “It’s her again.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “You must have thought I’d not forgiven you for that stunt in the kitchen.”

  A knot of grief and fear seemed to tighten beneath his belt. In just four days they’d not only been to Hell but upon reaching the still open iron gates, he knew they were unlikely ever to leave it.

  He kept the VW in second gear along the downhill track, praying his driving skills were still OK. He’d not been behind a wheel for years – never needed to in London. The half-full tank would easily get them to Llandovery’s Cottage Hospital, but what about the blown tyre, splat-splatting with every rotation of the wheel? Even more disturbing was that despite the blasting heater, the cold inside the car seemed to be getting worse.

  “They took my best phone,” she added, out of the blue. “While I was asleep.”

  He glanced round at her. “Who did? Where?”

  And by the time they’d passed the pub where Flynn’s computer was now under lock and key, he’d learnt more of her fraught weekend. Realised too, that his normally robust heart had slowed down. Would they both freeze to death in this luxury car? Why else was a growing crust of ice lining the windscreen? And where the Hell was that promised police helicopter?

  With one hand he rubbed away just enough to see through the glass, then leant over to open the glove box. Beneath a packet of Murray mints, travel tissues, some loose cigarettes, lay a small, white envelope already torn open. The details on the front made him swerve too close to the overgrown verge.

  R. D. Prydderch,

  Hafod Wen

  Cilycwm. Carms.

  “What’s the matter?” Helen mumbled.

  “Nothing. We’ll soon be there.”

  “It’s so… o… cold.”

  “I’m doing my best. The heating’s kaput.”

  He pulled out the enclosed invitation to Geoffrey Powell QC’s address in Dinas Powys this coming Friday at 7 p.m. for a new members’ meeting and investiture.

  Investiture?

  60 m.p.h was too fast but right now, not fast enough. If that flat tyre fragmented, they’d be toast. And then, to add to the chill, she relayed yesterday’s frightening encounter with her enemy in the play park. The new threat; how he was now ‘my Jason.’

  ***

  “Where’s my car?” Helen again, shivering, and this time, trying to sit up. “Sergeant Rees said you’d taken it to Heron House for me.”

  Toe rag.

  “Look, you’re priority at the moment, OK? We’ll get it returned for you.”

  She lay back as if reassured, but her normally expressive face bore the colour and rigidity of chalk. Her eyes blankly staring his way. “Hurry,” she urged him. “Can’t you see what she’s doing?”

  Meanwhile, his hands had lost all feeling. Likewise his nose and lips. That ice now thicker than ever, harder to scrape away. His nails left angry, dark loops on the glass that too quickly reverted to white. Archie Tait hadn’t come to him. But someone had. With a different purpose. To destroy.

  “She won’t. She can’t,” he said. “I love you, Helen Myfanwy Jenkins. From the moment I first saw you in your little black suit on the platform at Swansea Station.”

  “That’s why she hates me.”

  “Not true.” But he wished he could believe it.

  “Tell my mam and Heffy, won’t you? She’s pregnant. Something I’ll never be…”

  “And your dad?” he interrupted, unable to hear the rest.

  “Never mind him. Just start writing that story the way she wants it…”

  “You mean now? How the Hell do I do that?”

  “Just try.”

  Her voice faded as more sleety spray hit the suddenly malfunctioning wipers slowing down to match his pulse. The stench of early decay closing in as they entered a dripping holloway of still-bare trees where it took too long for him to find the headlights’ switch.

  He soon wished he hadn’t, for the beam picked up something green and chrome butting out from theundergrowth way above the Towy Valley. A Nissan Patrol’s back end. The driver’s door hanging open over the abyss.

  Don’t look. Keep going. Maybe it’s not him after all and this is all just a dream…

  ***

  Once through this eerie tunnel, the frozen road opened out to a world of frosted brown fields and hills as though photographed from a long-ago time. Jason’s right heel met the floor, but in his frightened heart, knew everything was too late. The stricken tyre flapped away into the verge as Paper Planes eked from his jacket pocket. In his haste, he let the phone slip between his knees.

  “Yo, bro,” Colin was shouting against a heavy traffic background, the din of a chopper hovering overhead and the grating wheel hub. “How you doing?”

  “Fine. Bit on the nippy side, that’s all.” Nevertheless, Jason’s teeth juddered together as he retrieved the phone. His tongue too stiff for his mouth. His tears freezing against his cheek. But would Colin notice? No way. The one thing that hadn’t changed.

  “Me and Lisa fancied a change of scene for a few days,” said the financial adviser. “We’ll even have a crack at some writing. You never know. Might be me who pens the best seller. So, any spare beds up there? Double or single, no worries. We’ll make do.”

  Jason glanced at his rear view mirror, but its crusty whiteness was keeping Helen invisible. “Sorry mate,” he managed to say as the Passat began its own heaving dance from side to side of the narrow strip of tarmac to the other. Out of control now, and on to the far verge, tipping, tipping, beginning to fall.

  “Why?”

  “I wouldn’t want to lose you as well.”

  41.

  Friday 10th April 2009 – 12.15 p.m.

  Bad Friday because Helen was sore and starving, with just the faintest whiff of hospital food making her nauseous. Good Friday because Jason whose farewell kiss was still hot on her cheek, had not only managed to keep the big VW from skidding off the icy road last Monday, but also, during three-night time vigils at the Cottage Hospital in company with her mam, he had written the first twelve pages of Margiad’s story.

  No title yet, but what mattered most was that as the snow outside had thickened, he’d recorded faithfully each word that sing-song voice had delivered. How when her loving mother Joy had died, her depraved father Edmund, and the other crazed incumbents of Heron House, made life for their two children a misery. Especially dear little Charles who’d been so much younger. How all she’d wanted was his happiness…

  “Thank God,” Helen had hugged him. “She’ll leave us alone now, won’t she?”

  “Course.” Then he’d repeated how he’d loved her and promised that while she was convalescing at home, would
drop everything to keep the memoir going. How her close shave with death had been because he’d pushed Margiad aside.

  ‘Look,’ she’d said. ‘We were in a no-win situation. I didn’t co-operate either, remember?’

  ***

  As if compensating for Jason’s departure, Heffy Morris was on her second visit to Aberystwyth’s Bronglais Hospital with two ripe mangoes, the latest copy of Hello! and hair whitened by snow. However, it didn’t take long for Helen to realise something was seriously wrong with her best, very pregnant friend. There’d been none of her usual ‘Hi Hellraiser’ greeting followed by the mad clinch. No ‘Poison’ overdose either, and why were those normally lustrous eyes welling up? Her typical smile barely a flicker?

  “What’s the matter, Hef?” she asked, reaching out as her latest visitor perched herself on the edge of the hospital bed.

  “I’m OK.”

  “And I may be stuck here like a turnip, but I’m not blind.”

  A pause in which Helen’s nurse gave her a wave as she passed into the intensive care suite. A busy den of wires and tubes that had saved her life.

  “Look, you can always have this when it pops out,” Heffy patted her considerable bump. “I mean it. Neither my folks nor the father wants to know, and you and Jason would make brilliant parents. Better than just me. Specially since…”

  “Since what?” Helen hadn’t really taken in what she’d just heard. But saw mascara trickling down those flawless cheeks.

  “You know…”

  “I don’t.”

  “God. Haven’t they told you or your mam what that evil ghost has done?”

  Helen turned to see Eluned Jenkins waiting by the door to the recovery ward. She held a fluffy toy dog in one hand and a bag containing clean nightdresses and other necessities in another. Something normal. Decent.

  “Only that I’ve still got my ovaries. That I’m in with a chance of someday having a baby using my eggs.”

  Heffy leaned as far forwards as her tummy would allow, her familiar perfume bringing back memories of life before all the crap. Her zebra-striped coat looming large. “That’s not true. They’re stringing you along. I’ve just seen your notes. Jason, too.”