by Cathy Ace
I don’t like lying to them both, really. I’m not sure I’m even very good at it, so I’d rather not say anything to set either of them off asking questions about me and Aled. They haven’t guessed so far. Not at all. It’s amazing, really. They’re both so wrapped up in their own stupid worlds, I suppose.
If she’s not down in the pub, Mam’s on her computer, in one of her chat rooms. She thinks I don’t know, but sometimes she’s not quick enough to clear the screen when I go into her room, so I know alright. I wonder who she’s chatting to. About what? She doesn’t do anything to chat about.
Chat rooms are weird. The only ones I’ve visited were full of idiots who want you to tell them everything about yourself. Though there was one interesting conversation about how young people can get themselves set up with a place to live if they fill in some forms the right way; the bloke writing said he could fill them in for me if only I paid him. I left then. Just trying to get money out of people, that’s what that was.
I never did tell Aled about that. I didn’t want him to think I’d gone behind his back to try to plan for when we’re on our own.
If that’s what happens.
I heard him and Stew talking today about how they’re going to be out in the surf in Rhosddraig Bay in the spring, which is when his Grannie Gwen will let him go back in, and Stew said how good the surf would be again next autumn, because that’s when everything’s in its favor around here. So it looks like Swansea Uni is in the lead for now. I’ll shut Mam up by making sure she sees I’m doing some research into courses at Swansea tonight, after I’ve done my homework.
If I can do well at my A levels, she’ll be chuffed. And I know I have to knuckle down and work, like she says. Aled has to, too. He was saying just the other day how much longer he’s spending studying these days. All our teachers have turned serious lately, going on about how this is the most important year of our lives.
As though we don’t know that.
This is the year when everything changes. It’s started to change for me and Aled already, after the other night. Even though things didn’t go quite the way I’d expected them to.
But they never do, do they? There’s always something that comes up at the last minute, and you have to cope with it. To be fair to Mam, she’s always recognized how good I am at that. I noticed it when I first joined the Girl Guides. It’s a shame they closed them down at St David’s; Aled misses his Scouts, too. There was that few years when about half a dozen families moved away, and then there just weren’t enough of us, at the right age, to keep it all going. And Mam couldn’t get me to the meetings in Killay back then, so I didn’t make a fuss about it. Aled went there for Scouts for a few years, but then he dropped out. About the time he got that job making bicycle deliveries of take-away food. Then, eventually, he came to work here at the pub.
They said it might stop raining this weekend. That would be nice, because I like my walks up on the hill, even if it’s freezing – but not so much in the rain. If I don’t get up there regularly, I miss my walks a lot.
It’s the only time when I feel connected to anything. Anything real, that is. I like the way the wind feels in my hair – it’s usually all tied up, but I let it down in the wind. Best feeling in the world.
Well, second best – the best would be being in Aled’s arms, of course. His wonderful, muscular arms. That surfing means he’s so strong. You have to be if you’re not going to drown.
If it stops raining, maybe Aled and I could somehow manage to find ourselves together with a chance to go for a stroll.
If I can, I’ll make it happen – all innocent like – so no one would notice anything was up. But I’d have to make a plan, and stick to it. Sometimes, improvisation isn’t the answer.
Evan
‘It’ll be your last morning to get up and go off to be a policeman, tomorrow, cariad. How do you feel about that?’
Evan gave his response some thought. ‘Not too bad. Not too bad at all. Though I don’t think it’ll hit home that I’ve actually retired for quite some time. Not until we come back from our cruise, and I don’t have to go back to work afterwards. Until then, it’ll just feel like I’m on holiday. A once-in-a-lifetime, very special holiday – thanks to your great Auntie Barbara. By the way, did you manage to find that suntan lotion I asked about?’
‘Yes, but I got factor 30, not factor 20, like you put on the list. The Caribbean sun is more dangerous than you think, and we’re both blue rather than white at the moment, so I thought it best to get the stronger one for you, and for me too. I also got a bottle of factor 50 for the very tender bits.’
Evan chuckled. ‘I’m not planning on letting the sun get at any of my tender bits, thank you very much. As for you? Well, I’d be careful if I were you.’
Betty hugged him from behind, her arms around his neck as he put down his tea on the table beside his armchair. ‘I’ve got to put some laundry away,’ she said. ‘When I come back, you’d better have decided what we’re watching for an hour. I’ve had a long day, and you have too. For all that you say you’re not tired, what you mean is you can’t relax because your mind is racing, trying to think if you’ve forgotten anything you’re supposed to do before five o’clock tomorrow. An hour of vegetating and viewing is what we both need to slow us down. How about Death in Paradise? You know, to get us in the mood for the Caribbean.’ Betty shouted louder as she finished her point while walking into the kitchen.
‘No, not tonight,’ Evan replied, ‘I can’t face it. It drives me mad the way they solve the whole case in just under an hour. Though, you’re right, the locations – and the actors – aren’t too difficult to watch. It’s hard to believe we’ll be somewhere just like those beaches in a week or so. It doesn’t seem real.’ Evan realized Betty had gone upstairs, so lowered his voice to talk to himself. ‘It didn’t seem real when we were planning this cruise, and it doesn’t seem more real now.’
‘All done,’ said his wife, plopping herself down onto the settee, which sagged beneath her; he had to admit the furniture in the sitting room was a bit tatty.
‘Do you think I’m past my best?’ he asked aloud.
He noticed his wife’s expression soften as she put down the magazine that listed everything on TV. ‘Evan, you twit, you’re in your prime. Look, with Auntie Barbara’s money in the bank, you can afford to retire now, while you’ve got good years ahead of you. While we’ve got good years ahead of us. Thank heavens she was a real miser, owned that massive house, and didn’t last long in that horrifically expensive old folks’ home.’
Evan decided to play. ‘Really? Glad she dropped off her perch, were you? You didn’t help her along, by any chance, did you? Should I be investigating my wife for murder?’
Betty held her hands toward him in mock-surrender. ‘It’s a fair cop, guv. I’ll come quiet, I will. No bovver, me.’ She aped a cockney accent, and he loved the way her face took on a mournful expression.
Evan’s phone began to trill and buzz in his pocket. ‘Damn, I thought I’d plugged this thing in out in the kitchen,’ he said, annoyed that he felt compelled to answer. ‘I’ll be quick. It can’t be anything urgent, not this evening.’
As he rose to leave the room – that being the normal practice in the Glover household – Betty waved at him. ‘Stay there, comfy, cariad. Tonight’s a treat – last time.’
Recognizing the number on the screen, Evan answered, ‘Hello Rakel. What can I do for you this fine – well, alright wet, but still quite special – evening?’
Rakel Souza was not only the head of pathology at West Glam General hospital, but also the region’s Home Office approved pathologist; she and Glover had worked side by side on many cases, and had become firm friends over the years. The fourth daughter of immigrant Goan parents, she’d been raised in what was locally known to be the pretty dodgy area of Hafod, but was now at the top of her field. Evan wondered what she wanted. Never one to beat about the bush, Rakel launched into her topic with few niceties.
Evan was impressed. ‘Well done, Rakel. Good job. That was a lot faster than we thought. Anything else?’
‘Wasn’t me who worked it out. As soon as I saw the remains on-site, I knew it wasn’t for me. Everything – skeletal remains, rocks, stones, any detritus and therefore anything of potential forensic value gathered at the scene – was sent up to London, to the Metropolitan Police Laboratory. They’re the only ones with the equipment and expertise to work on something like this. I’m not much use if there aren’t any juicy bits left, and they’ve got access to all sorts of specialists there. So they’re the ones who determined gender. From the bones. They managed to locate the sciatic notch. Which just goes to show I made the right call in sending it to them; I’d have been hard-pressed to find it, given the absolute mess it was all in, and the number of cases I’m working on with this flu thing going around. They’ve been able to take a look at it straight away.’
Evan was immediately engaged. ‘They must be treating it as a possible murder; Superintendent Lewis has given it to Ted Jenkins. He’ll be the right DCI for it, I should think.’
‘Yes, I heard about Ted being given the job of heading up this one. London concurred, generally, with what I suggested to you at the site. They also say they know the type of accelerant used, and have confirmed what I first suspected – all the teeth have gone. Someone did a pretty thorough job.’
‘Hang on a minute, Rakel – what do you mean, all the teeth have gone? Do you mean someone actually took the time and trouble to find all the teeth and pick them out of that pile?’
‘No, Evan, don’t be twp, they’d have pulled the teeth from the skull before smashing it about, I’d have thought. At least, that’s what I’d have done. If there were any to start with, that is.’
Betty hovered beside her husband, trying to get his attention. ‘Hang on a minute, Rakel, Betty wants me.’
‘Alright, Evan, say hello to her from me, and tell her Gareth and I are looking forward to seeing you two at your leaving do tomorrow night. I hope neither of you is planning to drive. Do you need a lift? I’ll do it, you know. Happily.’
Not wanting to get sidetracked, Evan, said, ‘Thanks, we’re fine,’ to Rakel, and ‘What is it?’ to his wife.
‘I’m going to change for bed while you talk about missing teeth. But don’t be too long, alright? Remember what we agreed – this one’s not your case. Never was, never will be.’
Evan nodded at his wife’s back and said into the phone, ‘So does that mean the killer knew a good deal about forensic manipulation of a crime scene?’
‘Hang on a minute there, Evan. It might be being treated as such by Lewis – who always likes to cover his backside, as we all know – but I, personally, cannot be certain it’s murder. They haven’t yet determined the age of the remains; the skeleton might have been dug up from somewhere, then smashed and burned. As a scientist, I can’t yet assume it’s a current-day case at all – except for the smashing and burning bit, which is why I believe Lewis is treating it the way he is; imagine the blow-back he’d face if he didn’t take such a discovery “seriously” enough. All we know for certain is that it was a male.’
‘Fair enough,’ replied Evan, ‘but if you and I assume for a moment that it was a recent killing, or death, there might well have been forensic countermeasures taken. Or it might have been some judgement, with a bit of luck thrown in.’
Rakel sighed. ‘I suppose a person could have a general idea that they’ll burn a body to hide evidence, then observe the wicking that’s likely to happen – the process of the body’s fat becoming its own burning medium – and realize it’s all going to take longer than they imagined. That said, you could have a total loss of all but bone inside two hours. Then they could get the teeth out, maybe with a hammer or something, then they smashed the whole thing to bits, then burned it again.’
‘So you’re certain about that too? The second burning.’
‘Yes. Confirmed by London. It was pretty obvious that the broken ends of the bones were charred, and that’s the only way that could happen. But we don’t know yet when the bones were originally burned and smashed, you see. They have a great deal of testing ahead of them.’
‘What about DNA?’ Evan had to know.
Rakel snorted. ‘That’s where they might start, but I’ll be largely out of the loop on this one, and I’m not them. They might have been told to make establishing the provenance of the bones as a priority.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘They have budgets and resources I cannot even imagine. They might be instructed to work out if they have the remains of a recently deceased person, or something from some time ago.’
‘Would that take long?’
Rakel hesitated. ‘Given all the machinery they’ve got in their swanky labs up there, maybe not. I’ll be honest, if it were me, I’d go for DNA first, because they’ll have to do that in any case if they discover it’s a recently deceased person. They might get something they can work with, but I’d put money on any DNA being quite badly degraded. Heat’s a bit of a bugger when it comes to DNA, you see. It’s true they can run tests on tiny amounts these days – microscopic, if you’ve got the right kit. But who knows what the burning will have done to the shards, however old they are. The teeth would have offered the best chance to get hold of a less compromised sample, and it looks as though the person trying to hide the identity of the remains knew that much at least. Or – and this is a possibility – if it’s an old, or even ancient, skeleton, there might have been no teeth to begin with.’
Evan gazed at the silent TV screen in front of him. It showed a majestic whale swimming through a sea littered with plastics. Even without sound, and bearing in mind the fact he’d probably already seen the clip a dozen times before, it was heartbreaking. For a fleeting moment he wondered why he felt so bad for the whale, whereas he felt nothing but curiosity about the human being whose remains he’d glimpsed in the rain just a couple of days earlier. Shouldn’t he feel more compassion for the person, than the whale? He closed his eyes. Tight.
‘So what’s the next step?’ he couldn’t help but ask.
‘As far as I’m aware, you pack away your things at HQ tomorrow, then drink a bucket of beer, and relax on a wonderful cruise,’ said Rakel. He could tell by her voice she was smiling as she spoke. ‘Jenkins is running the case. You’re not on the team,’ she added. Quite unnecessarily, thought Evan.
‘I know,’ he said quietly. Betty sidled into the room in her thick, snuggly dressing gown, and he knew it was time to wrap up his conversation. ‘Thanks for this, Rakel. I know you won’t be able to keep me in the picture after tomorrow, me having no official standing after that, but this means a lot. Ta. See you both tomorrow evening. Best bib and tucker, mind you. Betty’s even bought me a new tie for the occasion.’
‘Last one I’ll ever choose for him. Cost a fortune. He’ll probably be buried in it,’ shouted Betty at the phone. ‘Bye.’
Evan returned the phone to his pocket, telling himself he shouldn’t forget to charge it overnight.
Betty said, ‘If the teeth were missing, it might be an older person, you know. Someone who wore dentures, and the person who did all that horrible stuff just took them away. Or would they melt? I don’t know.’
Evan smiled. ‘God, I love you, woman! You’d have made a wonderful detective. But, you’re right, I shouldn’t get caught up in it all, and it could have been someone who had no teeth anyway. I’ll mention that to Rakel, you know, just in passing.’ He winked.
‘So,’ said Betty, ‘a novel way to kill someone on a Caribbean beach, or the latest head-to-head in cake-baking? What’s it to be? It’s up to you.’ Betty pulled the remote control from its little pouch hanging on the arm of the sette
e.
‘Better make it cakes,’ said Evan. ‘I don’t think I’m up to hyper-fast clue collection, and a denouement that takes place in a bar with a view of a beach behind it. Not tonight.’
‘Cakes it is then, cariad. I could do with a bit of rose-tinted dreaming of perfect bakes, followed by stress and disaster, triumph and tears. If you drop off, I’ll wake you up to send you to bed, as usual, alright?’
Evan’s heart literally missed a beat; how had he been so lucky to find Betty? And how had she put up with him and his job all these years? This was it, the beginning of the end for him, and the start of something new for the two of them. As the perfect white marquee, with its picturesque setting within a stately, yet bucolic, idyll filled the screen, Evan allowed himself to wonder if he’d been right to miss the retirement preparation seminars they’d offered him.
Ah well, it’s too late now, he told himself, and he did his best to give himself over to enjoying the variations between the artist’s impressions of the bakers’ descriptions of their creations and the eventual output.
Poor buggers, he thought, I bet it all seemed a lot easier when they were in their own kitchens, and just having to treat their families. Though he knew from experience that, sometimes, family members were the hardest to please.
Helen
Helen scrolled through the replies to a fellow support group member’s question about how she might get a better night’s sleep when her dreams were wild, and full of menace. As she read she recognized many of the tricks she’d tried for herself: hot milk, white noise on a bedside radio, lavender smelly things, the sound of the ocean. None of it had worked for her, and it seemed none of it had been working for this poor soul. Her fingers hesitated above the keyboard. Would it be silly to suggest the woman might try what had worked for her?