by E. A. Clark
‘I’m so sorry. I just hope that getting some sort of justice for Aneira will help to ease your pain. Maybe if we find out what Carys told her it’ll help piece things together a bit more.’ Not wanting to add to her anxiety, I refrained from mentioning the possibility that a third party had been involved in her daughter’s death.
‘Maybe.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘Give her my regards, won’t you,’ she said. I nodded and, wishing her goodnight, stepped back out into the darkness.
*
It was too late to drive all the way to Aberffraw, but staying with Arfon and Nia in Penmynydd meant that we wouldn’t have quite as far to travel there the following day. We arrived at the Evans’ cottage feeling weary and ready for our beds. It had been a long day.
Arfon went to collect Jake, the Jack Russell, who was being looked after by their neighbour. The little dog was his usual exuberant self and greeted everyone enthusiastically as he trotted into the house. Nia made everyone chamomile tea – ‘to help us get a good night’s sleep’.
Sarah and I shared the room I had slept in last time. I was apprehensive lest another angry visit from Aneira lay in store for us, but we slept remarkably well. Perhaps she was satisfied that we were pursuing a mission on her behalf. Whatever the reason, I was relieved and grateful for her absence.
The following morning, Nia rang the phone number that Mrs Williams had given us. She managed to speak to a rather surprised Carys, explaining that Marian Williams had passed on her details. Carys said she would be happy to talk to us but wasn’t sure how she could help.
It was a gloriously sunny day with the clearest of blue skies, and a drive in the country was most appealing, even if ultimately we had a task to perform at the end of it. After a hearty breakfast, we all climbed into Arfon’s truck.
‘Seems silly to take two cars,’ he had said. We drove through the market town of Llangefni and headed out to Aberffraw, using Sarah’s new satnav to find the farm where Carys was living. We drove along a maze of hedgerow-lined country lanes, and seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Soon we came upon an L-shaped pale grey stone building off a single-track road, surrounded by field upon field of sheep. Arfon pulled up on the grass verge just outside the gate.
Nia climbed out of the truck. ‘I’ll go and knock,’ she said. ‘Just wait here a minute.’
A moment later she returned smiling, and beckoned for us to follow her. We all filed into the farmhouse, passing through a cool, flagstone-floored passage into a long, bright and airy kitchen. A young woman with short dark hair and rosy cheeks was standing at the far end of the room, by a table under the window. She looked up and beamed at us.
Carys introduced herself. She was carrying a curly-haired toddler on one hip and simultaneously spooning food into the open mouth of a ruddy-faced baby seated in a high chair. The room was clean and newly refurbished, but in a state of disarray, with pots piled up at the sink and a mound of dirty laundry on the floor waiting to be bundled into the washing machine.
‘Sorry about the mess!’ She laughed. ‘Occupational hazard, I’m afraid.’
‘Don’t worry. We know what it’s like to have a young family! You seem to be doing very well.’ Nia smiled. ‘This is my husband, Arfon, and these young ladies are Annie and Sarah.’
‘Pleased to meet you all. I’ll make tea in a minute if you can bear with me!’ said Carys, spooning as fast as she could but struggling to keep up with the demands of her ravenous infant.
‘I can see you’ve got your hands full! We’re sorry to bother you, but we were wondering if you could tell us a bit about your cousin: Peter,’ said Arfon. Carys’ face seemed to cloud over.
‘What do you want to know about him?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t seen him for years now. Not since Mam slung him out.’
‘I’m assuming you know – about Peter and Aneira Williams, that is,’ began Arfon.
‘How could I not? It’s been all over the news these past few days. Shocking; absolutely shocking.’ She shook her head. ‘We were good friends once, Aneira and me. To think that she’s finished up like that. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
I didn’t know how to broach the subject of Aneira’s ghost or the circumstances of her death. Probably best to come to it all in a roundabout way – or the girl might think we were a bunch of crackpots.
‘Carys, Aneira’s mum seemed to think you had told her something about Peter. We wondered if you’d mind telling us what it was.’ I looked at the young woman, whose expression had become suddenly stony.
‘I don’t know that it has any relevance to the case against Peter,’ she said, stiffly. ‘He had just become too much for Mam to handle – that’s all there was to it.’
‘Did you know about Peter’s feelings towards Glyn Parry?’ I ventured.
Carys looked confused. ‘What feelings? I thought they were just good mates.’
Arfon took a deep breath and explained why we had come to see her, starting from the very beginning of the whole affair: from the haunting to the discovery of the letters, and finally the continued presence of Aneira. She looked stunned.
‘I don’t know what to think,’ she said slowly, lowering the wriggling toddler to the ground as she looked round at us all. ‘I’ve never really believed in ghosts, to be honest.’
‘I know this must all sound pretty bizarre,’ I interjected, ‘but trust me, it’s all true, every last word. I didn’t believe in the paranormal either, but I feel very differently about it now. Aneira is an extremely restless soul, and it seems that we need to find out if Peter had assistance, as she’s implying, so that we can help her move on. She’s absolutely intent on justice being done. We wondered if you might know of anyone he was close to who could have helped him …’
‘If you thought that perhaps one of my brothers might have been involved in any way, you couldn’t be more wrong,’ said Carys, shaking her head. ‘We severed ties with Peter after he left our home. Mam didn’t want us to have any more to do with him. And I doubt if he had any other real friends, apart from Glyn. He was a bit of a loner.’
What could Peter have done that appeared to have resulted in his family disowning him? I couldn’t resist raising the issue once more.
‘Did Peter do something really terrible? Surely there must’ve been more to it than getting into a few scrapes at school.’
Carys looked uncomfortable. Scooping the baby out of his high chair, she sat down at the table with him on her lap. The toddler was happily pushing a toy tractor up and down the kitchen floor, complete with sound effects. He seemed oblivious to our presence.
‘My brothers – they were at an impressionable age, you might say, when Peter came to live with us. I was twelve; Peter was nearly three years older than me; and the lads were only nine and eleven.’
There was a long pause. It was clearly very difficult for Carys to tell us what had happened. We waited patiently until she felt able to continue.
‘Mam and Dad kept an old-fashioned tin box – you know the sort, with slots in the lid for coins – in the cupboard under the stairs. They used it to save for Christmas and birthdays. Money was tight when we were kids, but they always tried to make sure that we had nice presents. Peter claimed he wasn’t feeling well one day, so Mam kept him off school.
‘Anyway, to cut a long story short, she came home to catch him helping himself from the tin. Not just a few pence – a whole bunch of tenners. There was no excuse: he had an allowance that he’d been left from his parents and never went short of anything. He didn’t even seem sorry when she confronted him about it. After that, all trust went out of the window. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife.
‘Peter started staying out late at night, not coming home after school and stuff. It was a real worry for Mam. One evening, when he hadn’t shown up, Dad went out looking for him after dark. We lived in Menai Bridge town at the time and it was quite built up, not like round here.’ Carys stared at the floor. ‘Anyway, to cut a long story short, he found Peter. Up an
alley-way with some older man. On his knees, to be blunt. Dad punched the man and dragged Peter back home. There was a huge row and my parents locked him in his room. It sounded as if he’d been doing it for pocket money.’
She looked up at us. ‘Mam was disgusted. It was the final straw. She wanted him out of the house. She didn’t want my brothers – or me, for that matter – being exposed to that sort of thing. So Social Services were brought in and Peter was taken away. Mam and Dad didn’t tell me why he’d had to leave, but I knew something bad had happened. Then I overheard them talking one night. And that was what Aneira knew. Girls always share things with their best friends, don’t they?’
There was a stunned silence. It sounded as though Aneira must have had a hold over Peter for years. Perhaps she had threatened to expose his secret – or had she been blackmailing him? She had obviously been very disgruntled.
Sarah spoke at last. She cleared her throat. ‘I can understand why your mum didn’t want him staying with you any more,’ she said. ‘But at the end of the day, Peter was just a kid. And a messed-up one at that. He’d lost his family and he was vulnerable. He needed help. It’s too awful to think he was being taken advantage of by some older man – or men, even.’
Carys nodded solemnly. ‘Mam and Dad felt a bit bad about it later on. Even after the stealing. But at the time they were just concerned with protecting their own family. It would’ve been too awkward to try to heal the rift later. So that was how it stayed. Hopefully you’ll see now that there’s no chance – I mean, if there was someone helping Peter the night Aneira died, it certainly wouldn’t have been either of my brothers.’
Everyone mumbled in agreement. We thanked Carys for her time and left.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Well, it’s back to the drawing board, then,’ sighed Arfon, as we climbed back into the truck. ‘I wonder if the police have come up with anything new?’
‘It’s a tricky one.’ Nia frowned. ‘If there’s no hard evidence that anyone else is involved, how do we prove it? They’re certainly not going to take us seriously if we tell them we’ve got a hunch because a ghost told us so …’
‘Let’s head back and get some lunch,’ I suggested. ‘My treat. We passed one or two pubs on the way – there must be somewhere decent nearby.’
We found one such pub on the road out of Llangefni. It was small but very busy, which we thought a good indication of the quality of the food. Whilst waiting to order our meal, Arfon struck up a conversation with a middle-aged man dressed in a flat cap, scruffy tweed suit, and heavy mud-spattered boots, standing at the bar. Nia, Sarah, and I sat at our table. Nia seemed to be watching her husband intently.
‘He’s getting quite animated,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘I wonder what they’re talking about.’
Soon Arfon rejoined us. ‘Well,’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘That was interesting.’
He went on to tell us that he recognized the man, who it turned out was an acquaintance of Mr Parry’s. Apparently the chap had been negotiating with the old man, who was looking for someone to take over Bryn Mawr as he was intending to move on to pastures new.
‘But that farm has been in his family for donkey’s years!’ exclaimed Nia. ‘Why on earth would he want to sell up now?’
‘Maybe he wants to retire,’ I suggested. ‘After all, he’s getting on and he hasn’t anyone to leave the land to. He can’t carry on farming for ever. I suppose after everything that’s happened, he wants to start afresh and move on from all the negative associations.’
‘But here’s the thing,’ said Arfon, lowering his voice. ‘It would seem that Mr Parry hasn’t informed his wife about his plans. He told the bloke that it will all be a surprise for her.’
‘I’m not sure that Mrs Parry will see it like that,’ I said doubtfully. ‘She loves her home. Surely she deserves a say in it all!’
‘Did the man say where Mr Parry is hoping to move to?’ asked Sarah.
‘Even more intriguing – he implied that he wants to move as far away as possible – abroad maybe.’
I couldn’t imagine Mr and Mrs Parry retiring to Spain as many British pensioners often did, or somewhere else warm, as my parents had. They seemed as much part of the landscape as Bryn Mawr farm itself. Poor Mrs Parry. As if she hadn’t had enough to contend with recently.
We ate our lunch and headed back to Penmynydd. It felt as if we had hit a brick wall.
‘Do you think we ought to go and see Mrs Parry?’ I asked Nia. ‘I’m a bit worried about her. She looked worn out when we saw her last night.’
‘Yes, she did. I don’t think moving away will help the Parrys. I suppose it’s a bit of a knee-jerk reaction on Mr Parry’s part. He just needs to give things more time. Once the dust has settled, hopefully they’ll be able to return to some sort of normality. We’ll pop round to see them in a bit. Let’s have a rest first though – your feet have hardly touched the ground these last few days – and we’re not as young as we used to be!’
I wasn’t about to argue with her. My ankles had started to swell with the warm weather and I felt lethargic and muzzy-headed. I just wished we had managed to find out more about Aneira’s death, but there seemed to be nothing more we could do. At least, that was what I thought.
*
Sarah felt restless and couldn’t relax, so she decided to go for a walk whilst the Evans’s and I went for an afternoon nap. Arfon had mentioned that the church in Penmynydd was ancient and of great historical interest, so Sarah decided to take a look and have a wander round the graveyard.
Wearily, I lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I began to think about Peter and how badly his parents’ death must have affected him. Not that it was any excuse for the things he had done, but he must have had an awful time of it. I wondered exactly what Aneira had said to make him react as he had. Unless he had wronged her in some other way that we hadn’t been made aware of, it did sound as though she might have been quite vindictive.
I wished that I knew more about Aneira. I was trying to build a picture in my mind’s eye of what she would have been like. Mrs Parry had told me that she was a good-hearted girl; I had yet to hear much evidence of this. But I suppose that a clash of personalities can bring out the worst in someone. And there were always two sides to any story.
I closed my eyes and gradually began to drift off. I started to feel quite strange. It was almost as though I were in a vacuum. All background noise seemed to fade away. My body had become heavy and it was as if I were being drawn deep into the mattress. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, although I no longer felt that I had any control over my movements. I had no awareness of my limbs and was unable to make any sound.
Suddenly, I was in an alternative reality – somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. My own memories were being pushed to the recesses of my mind. I had become an observer in a strange, lucid dream. The whole scene played out before me, as though on a television screen.
*
‘Mam, I’m off out now,’ called the dark-haired girl. ‘See you later.’
I watched with interest as she walked out of Marian Williams’ house and took the familiar route across the field towards Bryn Mawr. I followed, breathing in the sweet, still morning air. She didn’t appear to be aware of my presence.
The dew was still glistening on the grass, and the smell of the roses as the girl reached the door of Tyddyn Bach was quite intoxicating. I glanced at my watch. It was quarter past eight – I didn’t know why, but felt that Gwen would be expecting her to start about now, although she seemed to be in no rush. She was going to clean Tyddyn Bach as usual, in preparation for the next batch of holidaymakers. I watched as she produced a key from her pocket and let herself in.
Curiously, I moved weightlessly after her, observing her as she rolled up her sleeves and began to clean. It was as though I had taken on a mantle of invisibility. It was strangely liberating, and I began to have some sense of what it must be like to be a spirit, having a pa
noramic view from an unseen vantage point.
The girl was thorough and clearly took pride in her work. I watched as she stood back to admire the cottage when she’d finished scrubbing and vacuuming everywhere. It looked pristine and I sensed that she felt a little wistful, as this was the home that she and Glyn would have shared.
I knew now for sure that the girl was Aneira; that I was somehow being shown how her last days had played out. I felt her sorrow as though it were my own; sorrow that she and Glyn had lost their baby; that indeed she had lost Glyn, too, and that even though nine years had passed, the grief had never really completely left her. My heart went out to the girl.
I could almost hear her thoughts. It was extraordinary. She had been with other lads since, although no one could ever hold a candle to Glyn. But now she had met Alun. He was as different from Glyn as any man could have been. I sensed that Marian didn’t really approve of him, but he made Aneira feel alive. He might be a bit rough and ready, but he was such fun. He always made her laugh and that was something she hadn’t really done in a very long time.
It didn’t matter to her that they were never likely to be rich. He was exciting and, yes, a bit dangerous, but what did that matter? He’d told her that he loved her and she felt that, in time, she could feel the same about him. Life was starting to feel good again.
The previous occupants had left her plenty to do, so Aneira set about cleaning the kitchen first, scouring the stovetop and wiping out the fridge. Whilst she filled a bucket of water to wash the floor, I noticed a bunch of car keys in the bowl on the windowsill. I thought it a bit odd – how could the last people staying here have left without their car? Perhaps it was a spare set. Aneira had noticed them, too. She would take them over to Gwen in a while.
Suddenly, she heard movement upstairs. She froze. Aware of the stories about the ghost, Aneira had never actually seen it and didn’t want to, either. Cautiously, she crept into the vestibule at the bottom of the stairs and listened, her heart pounding. I was sure I could hear someone whispering and wondered if Aneira had heard it.