by Alis Hawkins
The fairer of the two girls, Ruth Eynon, sprang up from her chair as if propelled by a hidden spring. ‘How dare you, Billy Walters?’
I opened my mouth to silence her but, before I could speak, Nan took her hand and pulled her into her seat again. ‘Let him be, Ruth. He’ll say whatever he wants, like he always does. It doesn’t mean anybody will believe him.’
Billy spun around. ‘They will believe me, because it’s the truth!’
This was rapidly descending into a sibling spat.
‘That’s enough!’ I said, in a tone that I hoped would bring both of them to heel. ‘This is not a schoolyard. A serious allegation has been made against Billy and I would like to hear what he has to say in his defence. Uninterrupted. Now, carry on, Billy.’
The boy hesitated, presumably gathering thoughts that had been scattered by Ruth Eynon’s interruption. ‘They thought they were being quiet, the pair of them, but I heard them go out. So I went after them. Nan isn’t supposed to go out of the house after dark.’
Despite his self-justifying caveat, I wondered if, in fact, he had been snooping on them all evening. The boy seemed to be something of an habitual spy.
‘They didn’t have a lamp so they weren’t going very fast. It was easy to follow them. And I knew where they were going anyway.’
‘You followed them to the schoolhouse?’
‘Yes. They thought they’d just be able to walk in but the door was barred.’
That was interesting. In a community where doors were rarely locked, I wondered why Rowland had felt it necessary.
‘They had to knock and shout for a long time before he came to the door. Then, as soon as he opened it, they pushed in. Ruth said she had to talk to him. Urgently.’
I saw the scene in my mind’s eye. Nicholas Rowland at the door, his face lit by the lamp he was carrying. The two young women pushing past him, unexpected, uninvited.
Rowland had not been wearing his jacket when he died but, otherwise, he had been fully dressed. If Billy was telling the truth about the delay before Rowland had come to the door, the knocking and shouting must have forced him out of bed and into sufficient clothes to make him decent.
John’s train of thought had obviously gone in the same direction. ‘What time of night was this?’ he asked.
Billy’s face turned towards John but he didn’t answer.
‘Billy?’ I prompted.
‘Just after ten. Mam and Dad were busy in the taproom. People drink late when there’s no work the next day.’
I nodded but, as I waited to see whether John would ask anything else, I wondered whether Nan and Ruth could have crept out of a crowded pub without anybody seeing them? I had not formed a clear picture of the layout of the Three Horseshoes and could not remember whether the main staircase came down into the taproom.
John did not ask another question, simply inclined his body away from the wall. Go on.
‘What happened then?’
‘I went up to the door to listen.’ Evidently, Billy had understood that being accused of spying on his sister was, now, the least of his worries. ‘I could hear Ruth talking. Wanting to know if Mr Rowland’d seen Shoni Goch, if he’d come to the school. I don’t think he knew what she was talking about and she started shouting. About Shoni Goch and her father. She was hysterical.’
The word sounded oddly out of place but Welsh does not have a word for the condition.
‘Mr Rowland said he wasn’t going to stand in the schoolroom having this conversation, they should come up to the loft so he could light some candles and they could sit down and talk sensibly. So up they all went.’
Sit down and talk sensibly. That was, surely, exactly what a teacher might say to an overwrought girl.
‘Did you follow them in?’
‘When they’d all gone up the ladder. Went in and hid where they wouldn’t see me.’
Which, presumably, meant that he would not have been able to see them, either.
‘And, when they were in the loft, what did you hear?’ I asked.
Billy shifted his feet, jammed his hands in his pockets. ‘Mr Rowland said something like “well, what’s all this about?” and then she was off. Ruth. But she wasn’t raving any more, just angry.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Told him she’d just found out that her father had promised her in marriage to his cousin. Which was a lie,’ Billy said, his voice rising and his fists coming out of his pockets. ‘Because – weeks ago – I heard her telling Nan that Shoni Goch was coming and he’d want to marry her and she wasn’t going to. My sister told her to say that, if they made her, she’d cut his cock off.’ He clapped his hand to his mouth and turned to look at the women. ‘Sorry—’
Over his shoulder, I saw Miss Gwatkyn raise a hand as if she was offering a blessing. Next to her, Nan and Ruth seemed to be sitting close enough together to prop each other up. I would have given a year of my life to be able to see their faces, gauge the effect Billy’s words were having.
‘Then Ruth started going on about how Mr Rowland had to say he’d proposed to her – that he had to tell her father that, otherwise she’d have to marry Shoni Goch and she said she’d rather die than marry him, then she started crying—’
Ruth made a sound and tried to rise from her seat once more but Miss Gwatkyn restrained her.
‘And what did Mr Rowland say?’ I asked.
‘He didn’t say anything. But I could hear him pacing about. Then Ruth started shouting again – shouting that he’d promised to look after them, promised that they could be part of the new school. She kept saying the same thing. “You said to come to you if we needed help. You said. You said.”’ He fell silent and I wondered who he was looking at.
‘Mr Rowland surely must have given some response to that?’
‘Yes. He started on about investors and what they’d think. And Ruth said he didn’t really have to marry her, just tell her father that they were betrothed. That’s all. But he still didn’t say yes and Ruth started on with her “You said” again and then…’
‘Then what?’
‘Then Nan said … She told Ruth that he was just like all the rest. “Tell you anything to keep you sweet and then break their promises when it suits them,” she said.’ He spun around to look at his father. ‘But what does she know about anything like that? She’s never had a sweetheart, has she, doesn’t know what she’s talking about!’ He was trying to sound dismissive but there was something desperate in his voice.
Morgan Walters did not reply and I wondered what was going through his mind. Did it occur to him simply to take his children home and challenge us to send the police to the Three Horseshoes? Llanddewi Brefi considered him to be a forceful man, a leader, but he was not in Llanddewi Brefi now. He was surrounded by people who knew the law better than him.
Billy seemed deflated by his father’s silence; when he turned back to me, his tone was more subdued.
‘Then she went on about how Ruth couldn’t trust anybody apart from her. Said the only people they could rely on were each other – like as if they’d sworn an oath or something. But Ruth wasn’t listening to her. She shouted at Mr Rowland. She said—’ He took a shuddering breath, like a child who’s recovering from a crying fit. ‘She said if he didn’t do what she wanted, she’d tell everybody what they’d been doing with him.’
What they’d been doing with him? I felt as if I’d been upended, as if the ground I’d taken for granted as solid had suddenly fallen away beneath me. Was my confusion visible to everybody? Every invisible gaze in the room seemed to pull at me physically.
And then John spoke. ‘It’s not what you think, Harry. I’ll explain afterwards.’
I turned and looked right at him. Stared stupidly into the whirlpool as if my absolute need to see him would dispel the grey blindness.
‘I can’t tell you, now,’ he said. ‘It’s not appropriate. Let the boy go on.’
Not appropriate – why? Because of who was in the room? I bi
t down on my frustration.
‘Go on, Billy,’ John said. ‘You were saying Ruth threatened to tell her father what the three of them’d been doing.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Caldicot move, just slightly. I knew that I could not prevent him if he tried to leave.
Billy cleared his throat. ‘Yes. Then Mr Rowland said that she couldn’t tell. It’d be the end of everything – the school, their reputation, everything. But Ruth said she didn’t care. Anything was better than marrying Shoni Goch. She said she’d tell people Mr Rowland’d made them do it. That they’d been afraid to say no.’
The boy stopped and I wondered whether he was looking to his father for reassurance.
‘Then he laughed. Mr Rowland did. He laughed and said nobody’d believe that. Then I heard footsteps on the floorboards so he must’ve gone over to Ruth. It sounded as if his face was up against hers like this—’ Billy raised his hand and held it in front of his own face. ‘And he said to her…’ His voice changed as he hissed Rowland’s words. ‘“You wanted to do it, Ruth Eynon. You know you wanted to.” And then there was a noise – a kind of scream – and I heard a scuffle and a shout from Mr Rowland –“Ruth!”’ I flinched at the sudden vehemence he put into the name. ‘And, next thing, he was falling down out of the loft.’
John
Knowing what I did, it all sounded completely believable, but Nan wasn’t having any of it.
She was on her feet and yelling at her brother before anybody could stop her. ‘You disgusting liar!’ Lydia Howell and Ruth both tried to pull her into her seat again but she tore herself free, pushed past Silas Emmanuel and went for Billy. ‘Liar!’
I don’t think she’d expected any opposition from Harry but he had her by the shoulders before she could lay a finger on her brother. ‘Miss Walters—’
Nan carried on screaming as if Harry didn’t have hold of her. As if he wasn’t there. ‘How dare you tell lies about me and Ruth? This isn’t one of your horrible penny books! This is real life – you can’t just make things up about people—’
‘I’m not!’
‘Yes, you are!’ Without looking away from her brother, Nan tried to struggle free of Harry. ‘You’re trying to protect Shoni Goch. But he’s not one of your made-up heroes – he’s real. And he’s a dangerous man. Just because he wears a uniform—’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ Now that he was speaking to his sister rather than to Harry, Billy was losing the tight grip he’d had on himself. ‘Shoni Goch’s a merchant sailor. He doesn’t wear a uniform. And what does that matter anyway—?’
‘Because you think everybody in uniform’s a hero! Like bloody Mattie Hughes!’
I saw Silas Emmanuel flinch at the profanity. He’d faint clean away if he knew what Nan’d been up to with Rowland.
‘I’m not lying!’ Billy moved half a step forward, fists clenched at his sides. Even from where I was standing, I could see he was shaking. ‘Ruth pushed Mr Rowland out of the loft and you know she did!’
In the light from the window, the boy was pale as chalk. Every freckle on his face stood out as if it’d been put there with a finger dipped in clay.
‘No.’ Nan had stopped shouting now, got a hold of herself. She pulled herself up straight so she could just about look down on him. ‘She did not do that. You’re making it all up. It’s what you always do when you don’t like the truth. Like when Mr Rowland found out it was you stealing the coal—’
‘Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Billy’s voice was almost hoarse he shouted so loud.
Harry’d let go of Nan by now. ‘Miss Walters,’ he said, ‘would you mind sitting down again for a few moments while I finish with your brother?’
For a second, she looked at him as if he’d spoken Mandarin. But she’d been properly schooled at her Lampeter ladies’ establishment. ‘Of course, Mr Probert-Lloyd, if that’s what you’d prefer.’
I watched her go back and sit next to Ruth. Her friend stared at her and reached for her hand. They looked into each other’s eyes, as if they were passing secret messages from mind to mind. I thought about the things the Two Naughty Pupils’d got up to together and I felt a heat rise in me. Had they – Nan and Ruth – in real life?
‘Billy,’ Harry said, pulling my attention back to him. ‘I just need to ask you a few more questions. Are you all right to do that?’
Billy nodded. He was trying hard not to cry. His eyes were bright and he swallowed again and again, as if he was trying his best to get rid of the Adam’s apple that was just starting to show in his throat. Thirteen feels grown-up when everything’s going your way. But when things start to go wrong, you’re Mammy’s little boy again shamefully quickly.
‘What happened after Mr Rowland had fallen?’ Harry asked. ‘Did Nan and Ruth come down to see whether he was badly hurt?’
Billy shook his head. He couldn’t hold the tears back any more and they started spilling out and rolling down his cheeks. He bent his head to one side then the other, wiping them off on the shoulders of his jacket the way a man might have wiped sweat. Then he turned to me. ‘It was like you said,’ he managed. ‘Outside.’
‘Can you tell us?’ I didn’t move from the windowsill, didn’t want to frighten him.
‘I thought he was dead.’ Billy swiped a forearm across his face. ‘He was just lying there. I didn’t know what to do. Just waited for the girls to come down. But they didn’t!’
After everything I’d accused him of outside, he was desperate for me to believe him. I nodded. ‘But then he started to stir, didn’t he, Billy?’
The boy’s eyes went wide again, remembering. ‘He made this sound. It was—’ He struggled to find a word to describe what he’d heard, the effect it’d had on him. ‘Then he tried to get up. He wasn’t right, you could see that. He was all over to one side—’ Billy drooped one arm and bent his leg on the same side as if it wouldn’t take his weight. His eyes were fixed and I knew all he could see was Nicholas Rowland dragging himself up from the flagstones. ‘And he was making this noise. Like panting and moaning.’
The boy looked terrified and I knew why. Nan had just told me. Those horrible penny books of his. Penny bloods were full of half-human monsters who made animal noises and moved as if their limbs didn’t belong to them. Dead bodies scrabbling up through soil and crawling out of graves. Dark beasts dragging themselves out of caves and cellars on deformed limbs. Billy must’ve been terrified when Rowland turned into one of them.
‘Then he looked at me—’
Of course. Billy’d been hiding, but only where he couldn’t be seen from above. Once Rowland hit the ground, he’d been on the same level as the boy.
I could imagine that moment, feel in my own guts the terror of those eyes meeting mine.
‘He started coming towards me—’
I could barely make out what Billy was saying now, he was crying so hard.
‘Did you go to help him?’ I asked.
Billy shook his head, screwed his eyes tight shut, then covered his face with his hands.
I waited till he’d finished sobbing and was smearing the tears off his face.
‘That’s when you hid your eyes, wasn’t it?’ I asked. ‘Like this?’ I folded my arms around my head, blocking out everything in front of me. I daresay Billy curled up tight, too, but I wasn’t going to mime that in front of everybody.
The boy didn’t have to answer. The fact that he’d started crying again told us all it was true.
How often had he gone over this in his head? As often as I’d gone over and over what I’d done when Margaret Jones’s murderer had come for me. I knew what something like that could do to you. You tried to tell yourself you hadn’t been a coward, that you hadn’t had any choice. It never worked.
‘And then?’ I asked, gently. ‘Did you hear anything?’
Billy pulled himself together. ‘I heard him going up the ladder …’
‘Anything else?’
‘The ladder falling. I
mean, him falling – a thud and a crack and—’ Billy was panting. ‘The ladder clattering.’
In perfect silence, every eye in the room was fixed on him.
‘And then?’ I asked.
The boy stared into the air between us. ‘A scream,’ he said, eyes focused on the scene in his mind. Him, hiding, eyes tight shut behind his arms. Sounds happening outside the little protective bundle he’d made of himself.
‘Was the scream from Mr Rowland?’ Harry asked.
Billy spun round, as if Harry’d sneaked up on him. ‘No.’
‘One of the girls, then.’
Billy nodded.
‘Did you hear anything else?’ Harry asked. ‘Did Ruth or your sister say anything?’
‘They were whispering – while he was climbing up the ladder – but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.’
‘And after Mr Rowland had fallen – did they say anything then?’
Billy swallowed. Shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You’d covered your ears after the scream, hadn’t you?’ I said.
He stared at me, not answering, but it was the only explanation. He must have been a gibbering wreck. How had the girls not seen him when they’d come down out of the loft? They must’ve been in a state, too, and the only thing they could think about was Rowland.