‘One of them said I should be talking to a man who can recall the German air force crews that were captured after an aircraft crashed in the mountains. Apparently, some of the locals took trophies from the crash site.’
It reminded him of the old handguns recovered from Harry Jones’s lock-up.
And of the bullet that killed him.
‘I thought you might like to talk to him?’
‘When?’ Drake looked at his watch.
‘Can you make it tonight?’
Drake didn’t need to think twice. He jotted down the address. ‘And I’ve got some more research papers that you can read while I make dinner.’
He left Caernarfon and drove up towards Llanberis, following the instructions from the satnav until he reached a terrace of properties. He spotted Annie’s car and parked nearby. She appeared at the door of the property, gave him a warm smile and ushered him inside.
‘His name is Gerald Pugh. He’s a real character. His daughter is Manon.’
She led him into a parlour and introduced Gerald.
Gerald Pugh had large ears and wispy hair floating over his head. The rest of his skin had a blotched complexion. Manon fussed around him as he sat in the living room of his home. She explained that Gerald still lived at home despite being ninety-five. His mind was sharp, too sharp sometimes, and he was a night bird who never went to bed before two a.m. Gerald smiled and told Drake he enjoyed channel hopping on the television.
A plate of sandwiches wrapped in cling film sat on the table alongside his chair with a glass of beer.
‘Annie tells me you remember when the bomb storage facility was an RAF base?’
This man wasn’t a witness so Drake embarked with a conversational tone. He was interested in the possibility a handgun from a Luftwaffe serviceman had found its way into the hands of someone with a reason to kill Harry Jones. What troubled Drake was whether it was the same person who was responsible for killing Heulwen Beard and Frank Smith.
Gerald settled back into a comfortable routine of entertaining Drake and Annie with his vivid memories.
‘I can remember the place when the trains used to come back and forth carrying the ordnance into the storage facility. You can’t go near the place now.’
Gerald meandered off several times with anecdotes about men he recalled and accidents that had happened, before telling Drake and Annie about the quarry. Gerald had been no more than a youngster when it closed.
‘The Germans tried to bomb the place. Did you know that?’
‘I do remember someone telling me about it,’ Annie said.
‘Three planes crashed on the top of the mountains. We reckoned they’d got lost in the clouds that swirl around Snowdonia. And if they tried to navigate by using some of the lakes and failed to realise which lake they were looking at – then it would be too late.’
‘Do you remember seeing any German servicemen?’ Drake said.
Gerald beamed. ‘We marched them down with pitchforks.’
‘What happened to them then?’
‘We kept them in the old station building until the soldiers arrived to take them away. It was really exciting.’
‘Who else was involved?’ Annie sounded genuinely interested. ‘There are so many of the old families still around.’
‘Harry Jones’s grandfather worked in the bomb storage facility. He was one of the officers. Nobody liked him much. I can remember my father saying he was stuck-up. Dad mentioned the name of Arthur Talbot quite often – he was killed down there.’
‘Is that Glyn’s father?’ Drake said, his interest stimulated.
‘No, it was his grandfather.’
‘Are the Talbots a large family?’
Gerald shook his head. ‘I knew his father, David. I remember him telling me when he realised Glyn was a bit odd. It was when he went to secondary school. He liked to play at being the funeral undertaker. All of the other children laughed at him. You know how cruel children can be.’
Drake tried to hide his interest in Glyn Talbot, a man he had dismissed as an eccentric living in his own little world. He probably never left Deiniolen, Drake thought. ‘What did he mean by odd?’
Drake sensed Annie giving him a sharp look, the equivalent of a poke in the ribs.
‘I like reading the articles he writes. It takes me back to when I was a lad. I don’t read so much in Welsh any more. Everything is about the box these days, isn’t it?’ Gerald tipped his head towards the television in the corner.
‘Did David Talbot have any more children?’
Gerald shook his head. ‘They got to be a funny family. Kept themselves to themselves. I could never work out why Glyn kept his grandparents’ house once they died.’ Gerald lowered his voice. ‘And you know what happened to his wife, don’t you?’
Drake nodded, uncertain whether Annie was aware of the details. ‘It must have been terrible for the family when she killed herself.’
‘He keeps the place like a shrine. And his grandparents’ house too.’
Gerald took a sip of his beer and chuckled. ‘Did I tell you about the time when the bomb disposal squad arrived in the village? Somebody had kept a rifle and some shells and bullets from the planes that had crashed on the mountain. I never did find out who told them. They came here in their big vans. And they blew them up on the common. What do they call it?’
‘A controlled explosion?’
Gerald chuckled. ‘I can tell you a lot about the history of the bomb storage facility.’
Neither Drake nor Annie interrupted Gerald as he regaled them with more details about the servicemen stationed in Llanberis. Then he recounted how the RAF dumped the unused ordnance at the bottom of a lake in the quarry. It took the Royal Air Force years to make the place safe. Gerald sounded sceptical, almost resentful, about the latest plans. He was an old man now clinging to his memories and the value of nostalgia. Gerald’s head began to sag.
‘Thank you, Gerald,’ Annie said getting to her feet. ‘I’ll come back and see you one morning.’
He jerked his head upwards. ‘Don’t go. I like the company. There is so much more I can tell you.’
Annie reached out a hand to touch Gerald’s shoulder.
‘I’ll call to see you again.’
Gerald smiled; the top row of his false teeth sagged.
Drake followed Annie down to her home on the Strait. The handgun used to kill Harry Jones was a Second World War relic but did it arrive in Llanberis from Germany with Wolfgang Muller or through Perdue and his criminal connections? Or had it been passed down to Harry Jones, and his wife, sick and tired of his philandering, had decided it was a suitable weapon to bring her humiliation to an end?
He parked at Annie’s home a few minutes later.
Inside he followed her upstairs to the top floor. The moonlight cast a pallid light over the Strait, its surface calm. They stood outside on the balcony each drinking from a bottle of lager. Drake caught sight of Annie’s profile against the light from the next-door property and realised how beautiful she looked.
‘It’s getting chilly,’ Annie said.
Drake sat by the dining table watching her as she warmed a beef sauce and then put the pasta to boil. She put a bowl of parmesan in the centre of the table, and opened a bottle of Chilean Malbec before finding two glasses.
He watched her move around the kitchen: staring at her as she did the smallest of tasks. He realised he was enjoying this shared domestic activity. He wanted to grab her around the waist and kiss her.
Annie shouted over her shoulder. ‘What did you think of Gerald Pugh?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘I’ve got some documents on my laptop about the bomb storage facility. There was a big explosion there just after it was built. A lot of local men were killed. They never found the bodies.’
Drake glanced over at a nearby table that had a laptop open, its screen blank. Reading a report was the last thing on his mind.
Annie brushed passed him as she placed a bowl of spaghetti Bolog
nese in front of him. Then she glided into a chair by his side and smiled.
When he started eating he realised he couldn’t remember when he last had a square meal. As they finished he topped up their glasses a second time. He couldn’t recall the conversation that ebbed and flowed naturally. As he filled the glasses for a third time, his body relaxed. And when Annie placed a hand over his fingers his skin tingled. Even the lights in the kitchen glowed more brightly.
‘Help me clear the dishes.’
Drake got to his feet and cleared the table. He was standing next to Annie now. She turned to look at him. He moved closer, drew his arm around her waist and, pulling her towards him, he kissed her. Her lips and her skin felt sensational. And when she kissed him back he knew he couldn’t hide his desire. She must have seen what was in his eyes because she squeezed his hand tightly.
They kissed again and they pushed and pulled each other out of the kitchen, past the table, where she yanked at his shirt. They tumbled downstairs to the bedroom on the first floor. His shirt fell to the floor on the hallway, her blouse soon followed. He had dreamed about this moment, fantasised about her shoulders, her breasts. He pulled her close, loosened her bra and drew his fingers over her shoulder down the smoothness of the skin, cupping a breast in his hand. She reached over and threw the duvet off the bed.
Drake pushed the door shut tightly.
Chapter 34
A weak beam of light fell over the bedside table next to Drake from a crack in the folds of the curtains covering the windows. Annie slept beside him. Her regular breathing massaged the air. It was quiet, the room comfortable even if it was unfamiliar. He felt more alive than he had done for weeks, months.
Gently he rolled over and kissed the lobe of her right ear. She murmured. He slipped out of bed, shrugged on a dressing gown and closed the door silently. In the kitchen on the first floor, he organised coffee and as he stepped out onto the balcony the autumn breeze blew a salty wind into his face. A rib made steady progress south towards Caernarfon against the tide.
Two doors down a man pottered in his garden, a dog playing at his feet. At that moment Drake wanted to shout out a greeting, share his elation, but he smiled to himself, sipping the coffee before heading back inside. Sitting at the table, he pressed enter on Annie’s computer and it opened with the initial page from a report about the history of the bomb storage facility – RAF Llanberis Reserve Depot its formal name.
Drake read the index. He noticed a section about the original Glyn Rhonwy quarry. Another section about the famous labour dispute at the beginning of the twentieth century at the Penrhyn Quarry in the nearby valley reminded Drake of the proud tradition of slate mining in North Wales. He could remember his history teacher at school becoming animated describing the hardships the men and their families had endured.
The section with a heading ‘commissioning the facility’ was a reference to the construction work necessary to build it deep into the workings of the old quarry. It was the only way to protect the ordnance against the inevitable German bombing. The process of assembling the tunnels and building the entrance passageways had been rushed and Drake spotted the paragraph headed ‘loss of life’. It sounded so matter-of-fact. Accepting death must have been commonplace during the Second World War, although Drake wondered if it was any easier when the deaths were close to home and not in the field of battle.
Blame for the collapses was squarely apportioned on inadequate planning and failure to strengthen and secure the access to the various levels where ordnance had been stored. A dozen men had been killed, but Drake got the impression the Royal Air Force simply dusted itself down, extended formal condolences and rebuilt.
None of the bodies were recovered. How did the bereaved families react knowing they could never bury their loved ones and yet still have to live next to the facility – a constant reminder of the loss of life? They wouldn’t have had a gravestone to visit, a place to lay flowers, to reflect for a moment on the life of the person lost.
Drake examined a black-and-white photograph showing a gang of middle-aged men in heavy workmen’s clothes gazing self-consciously at the camera. They all had local names, Williams and Jones, the sort Drake would have expected, although he also noticed the name of A.W. Talbot. Drake peered at the man’s features, and as he did so guessed he must have been Glyn’s grandfather.
Drake sat back and hauled from his memory Gerald’s comment about Glyn keeping his grandparents’ home after they had died. Probably A.W. Talbot’s wife, Glyn’s grandmother, Drake thought. And she must have lived to a grand old age.
There was something secretive, obsessive, about Glyn. Drake understood it. For it often meant hiding real emotions, wanting to control every situation. On occasions when Drake faced the obsessions that drove his rituals it had meant an impact on his work, on his life and on his marriage.
Trying to build a picture of this community was like prising open a clam shell only to have it snapped shut before the contents could be revealed. Drake mulled over what he knew. Jean, Glyn’s wife, had committed suicide. He suspected a dark secret lay buried and as he stared at the image of Glyn Talbot’s grandfather he reminded himself that Harry Jones had left Matthew Talbot a substantial inheritance.
But what if Glyn Talbot discovered Matthew wasn’t his son. Drake reined in his enthusiasm to implicate Glyn Talbot. It wasn’t enough to be a motive to murder, surely? He found his mobile and tapped out a message to Sara suggesting they meet in Llanberis, adding – I’ve got something to discuss.
Annie stirred when Drake returned to the bedroom. He placed a mug of tea on her bedside cabinet. She smiled and he beamed back. He pulled her hair away from her face and kissed her lightly.
‘I’ve got to leave.’
‘I’ll call you later.’ Annie reached out and gently squeezed his forearm.
* * *
Drake worried whether Sara would notice he was wearing the same shirt, the same tie and the same suit as he had yesterday when he slid into the bench seat at Pete’s Eats. He smiled to himself at the activity that had caused the creases in his trousers and the dishevelled look to the white shirt. The same waitress who took his order at the counter arrived with mug of a two-shot Americano.
He was trying to complete a jigsaw when he had corner pieces and a piece from the centre only. Sara passed the window, and moments later she joined him.
‘I sent the hotel manager in the Wirral the dates and Perdue’s photograph. I’m still waiting to hear from them.’
Drake nodded. Talbot had taken all of his focus that morning. Perdue could wait. An extension of the custody time limits would be authorised, allowing them to hold him for another twenty-four hours.
‘I’ve been reading some historical papers about the bomb storage facility,’ Drake said.
He steeled himself for Sara’s questions.
‘Glyn Talbot’s grandfather was killed in a collapse during building work at the RAF base. They never found his body. We know Glyn Talbot is an odd character. All he has in his life is writing obscure highbrow articles for Papur Padarn and living in a house that looks like a throwback to the Dickensian era.’ Drake looked over at Sara, a dubious look on her face as though she was uncertain what Drake was thinking. ‘All his recent articles are dead against the development. We know that killing Heulwen Beard has stopped the project in its tracks. It might never actually take place.’
Drake thumped the table with a fist as another fragment of recollection fell into place. ‘When I met him in the museum he said the place should be left as a mausoleum. What if he is so obsessive he thinks of the bomb storage facility as some sort of shrine that should not be disturbed?’
Sara nodded her head. ‘It might have been Talbot who shot at the photographer.’
‘Because we couldn’t see an immediate motive for him killing Heulwen Beard we treated him as an eccentric, someone to be pitied. He went to reason with her, make her see sense and not sell the land. She was the only person who could realist
ically stop it. She refuses: tells him he’s mad and he loses his temper.’
Drake fumbled with his mobile and found Luned’s report on Talbot. ‘Luned said that when he worked at the slate museum there were complaints of inappropriate bullying behaviour. Then he was made redundant. We saw him intimidate Harry on the CCTV.’
‘It’s a possibility.’ Sara used calm, measured tones, apparently unconvinced by Drake’s argument. ‘But what gave Glyn Talbot a motive to kill Harry Jones?’
‘He discovered Harry was Matthew’s father.’
‘Is that enough to give him a motive to kill…?’ Drake finished his coffee and peered out of the window. A light shower of rain forced a woman pushing a pram to scuttle into a doorway for shelter. He was looking for a trigger, something that tipped Glyn Talbot’s obsession into murderous intent.
‘Parish council meeting.’ Drake declared. ‘Erdington gave a presentation to the council. Harry Jones supported the plan vociferously despite Glyn trying to persuade him that morning to speak up against it.’
‘But so did all the other councillors.’
‘But none of them had slept with Glyn’s wife.’
Drake told Sara about his meeting the previous evening with Gerald Pugh.
‘So it’s possible Glyn Talbot has a gun from the Second World War passed down through the family. Like some favourite clock.’
Drake nodded. ‘We’ve been to his house; the place looks like a museum. And there were clocks there. They looked ancient, like something from… an aeroplane.’
After a moment, Sara added. ‘And what about Frank Smith’s murder?’
Drake slipped his fingers through the handle of his mug. He tried to focus; the sound in the café faded away.
‘There’s no connection between him and Glyn Talbot.’ Sara continued.
‘The salmon. Smith was outside the house when Talbot was there. He heard them arguing. And Smith is stupid enough to try and blackmail Talbot.’
‘Glyn lures Smith to his death?’
A Time to Kill Page 24