by Rhys Bowen
The cottage was perched outside the village at the edge of a high, bleak moor. A slim, good-looking man in his forties or fifties opened the door. “Can I help you?” he asked warily in Welsh.
“Yes, we’re looking for Trefor Thomas. Have we got the right house?”
The man reacted to Evan’s uniform. “You have. I’m his son, Tudur Thomas. Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing. This gentleman is from England and he’s making a film about Wales in the war. We understand that your dad was working in the mine when they stored all the paintings down there. Mr. Smith would like to interview him.”
Grantley Smith’s eyes had been darting from one face to the other as they spoke in Welsh. He stepped between the men with his hand extended. “Grantley Smith,” he said. “I expect he’s told you we’re making a film. We’d like to feature your father in it.”
“Oh, I see.” Tudur Thomas glanced back into the house. “You better come inside and we’ll see. I’m not sure how much you’ll get out of him.” He leaned closer to them and lowered his voice. “His mind’s going, see. Some days he’s quite clear and lucid, other days he doesn’t even know me. He had a stroke last summer and I came back here to look after him. He’s recovered pretty well physically—he always was as strong as an ox. All those old slate miners were, weren’t they? But his mind’s definitely rambling. That’s why I’ve stayed on—so that he doesn’t set fire to the place.”
“Are you his only relative?” Evan asked.
Tudur nodded. “My mother died when I was young. Dad more or less raised me by himself. He’s never been an easy man—a bit of a hermit, I suppose you could say. But he’s been good to me. I want to do right by him. I’ve taken leave of absence from my school—I’m the art master at a comprehensive in Wrexham.”
“Following in your father’s footsteps, eh?” Evan smiled at him. “We heard your dad was something of an artist.”
“A really talented artist,” Tudur Thomas said. “Unlike me. He paid to send me to art school, but I never was much good, unfortunately. Good enough to teach. Come on in then, I’ll see if he’s awake.”
Tudur Thomas went ahead of them. Evan and Grantley Smith followed, ducking their heads under the low doorway into a dark entrance hall.
“Tad? Ble ryt ti?” he called out. “We’ve got visitors. Gentlemen come to see you.” There was an exchange of rapid Welsh conversation, too low for Evan to catch.
“Come on in. He’ll see you.” Tudur ushered them into a gloomy, cold living room. A coal fire was burning in the fireplace but it didn’t seem to give off much heat and the room had a chill, dampish feel to it.
It was clear that Trefor Thomas had once been the handsome man Mrs. Williams had sighed over. Even at seventy, he had a shock of white curly hair and a strong, angular face. In some ways he looked like a bigger, more vital version of his son. He stared at the visitors warily.
“Have you come to arrest me?” he asked, looking at Evan’s uniform collar peeping out from under his jacket.
“Why, what have you done?” Evan asked good-naturedly.
The old man shot a glance at his son. “He knows, don’t you?”
Tudur laughed. “Oh, he means the time he took a Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut bar from Tesco’s. I made him put it back.”
He motioned them to sit on the sofa.
“I’ll make us a cup of tea, all right, Tad?” Tudur said in English. He disappeared into a kitchen. Evan looked around the room. The furniture was threadbare and faded but the walls were covered with paintings. There were several cheap reproductions of masterpieces, plus a couple of local landscapes Evan guessed had been done by Mr. Thomas the elder. Evan thought they were quite good.
Grantley leaned forward in his seat. “Mr. Thomas. We’ve just been talking to Mrs. Williams in Llanfair. You remember her?”
Trefor Thomas shook his head.
“She wasn’t Williams then. She was Gwynneth Morgan. She said you used to play with her brothers.”
A smile of recognition spread across Trefor’s face. “Gywnneth Morgan? A skinny little thing, wasn’t she? I wonder what happened to her?”
Evan thought that Trefor couldn’t have seen Mrs. Williams lately.
“She lives in Llanfair, Mr. Thomas,” he said. “She married Gwillum Williams and she has a daughter and a granddaughter.”
“A granddaughter? Little Gwynneth Morgan? No!” He shook his head in disbelief.
Grantley got up and switched on his camera. “Mr. Thomas, Mrs. Williams told us you had helped build the sheds where they stored all the paintings during the war. Can you tell us about that?”
“Paintings?” Mr. Thomas looked around. “I like nice paintings. Always have. Always keep a few good ones around to look at. Got some of the best here, haven’t I? The Laughing Cavalier—one of my favorites, and a Constable and that Rembrandt. Always did have good taste in art. Mr. Hughes at school, he taught me.” He pointed at the painting over the fireplace. “Those old artists knew how to paint. None of this modern splashing and daubing.”
“Not these paintings, Mr. Thomas,” Grantley said patiently. “I’m talking about the paintings they put in the slate mine, during the war.”
A troubled look spread across his face. “They came all wrapped up, didn’t they? I was hoping I’d be able to look after them, seeing as how I worked there, but they wouldn’t let us see them.” A faraway look came over his face.
“So can you tell us what you remember about that time—about building the sheds down in the mine … . ?”
“You can’t paint skin tones like that with modern paints,” he said, pointing at the Rembrandt print. “I don’t know what he used back then, but they had different paints in those days. I’ve tried but … .”
“They don’t want to know about your painting, Dad.” Tudur came in with a tray with four mugs on it and a plate of Cadbury’s chocolate finger biscuits.
“I was pretty good when I was younger, wasn’t I, boy?” the old man said, holding out huge gnarled hands to them. “But I haven’t painted in many years. Sort of lost interest. Not much to paint when you’re down a slate mine every day of your life.” He pointed up at the wall. “That’s one of my paintings. Not bad for an amateur, eh? Better than that great lump can do, anyhow.” He glanced at his son. “I paid for him to go to school, but he hadn’t got my talent.”
Tudur put the tray down on a low table and handed his father a mug. “They want you to tell them what you remember about the war.”
“A long time ago that was,” Trefor said. “I was young then. Not like you see now. Strong. Handsome. All the girls liked me. I could have had any one I wanted.” He chuckled, then the smile faded. “A long time ago, that was.” He took a noisy slurp of tea, then picked up a biscuit from the plate. They waited patiently but his head sank down onto his chest.
“It’s not easy,” Tudur apologized. “He comes and goes. Some days he can be quite lucid and talkative. Other days—well, like now.”
“I tell you what,” Grantley said. “I’ve got a portable recorder with me. Why don’t I leave that with your dad and he can talk into it when he feels like it.” He brought the small tape recorder out of his bag. “How about it, Mr. Thomas?”
“What’s that?” Trefor Thomas looked at the small machine with suspicion.
“A tape machine,” Grantley said, holding it out to him. “You don’t have to talk in front of us. Why don’t you take your time and let the memories come back to you? Then, when you’re ready, you just press that red button there and talk into the machine. Anything you can remember about the war, the slate mine, any good stories about when they brought in all the pictures … . anything you can think of that might be interesting.”
“How about that, Dad?” Tudur took the machine for him. “See, you just push the red button and talk. You can take it to your room. That might be fun, to remember when you were a lad, mightn’t it?”
The old man took the machine and sat staring at it. Then he put
it down and took another noisy slurp of tea.
Chapter 8
Grantley Smith was bubbling with excitement as they drove back down the High Street.
“Who knows what we’ll get out of him? Complete gobbledygook, I’m afraid. But never mind. I suppose the old mine is around here somewhere. We should ask. I’d like to meet the former mine manager, and other men that worked there … . and maybe we can get in touch with the National Gallery. They must have documented all this on film.” He turned to beam at Evan. “This is going to be good stuff, Constable. Bloody brilliant of you to find this!” He fumbled with his packet of Gitanes. Evan sighed as he lit another cigarette.
They were just leaving Blenau Ffestiniog when there was a violent shriek from a whistle and a little train crossed the street ahead of them, a small antique steam engine pulling a line of scaled-down carriages. Grantley let out a whoop of delight. “A little train! Look at it, Constable—it’s a real little train.”
“That’s right,” Evan said. “It used to carry slate down from the mine to the port at Porthmadog. Now it’s been resurrected to carry tourists.”
“What fun. We have to get the little train into the film somehow. I can’t wait to show it to Edward and Howard!”
Evan looked at him almost with affection. Grantley’s problem was that he had just never grown up. He sat beside Evan with a big, satisfied smile on his face. Then, without warning, he asked, “So, tell me, Constable—is it true that you’re bonking the lovely Bronwen?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” Evan continued to stare at the road ahead.
“No need to be defensive about it. She must be delighted. I’m sure Edward wasn’t up to scratch in that department. A big, burly policeman is probably just what she needs.”
Evan wondered how he could have thought Grantley childlike. His first assessment had been closer to the mark. Grantley was a man who got a delight out of pressing other people’s buttons.
“She’s having dinner with us tonight, at the Inn,” Grantley went on. “Maybe you’d like to join us.”
Evan didn’t want to admit that Bronwen hadn’t mentioned this dinner date. “Oh no thank you,” he said easily. “I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do. I’d just be superfluous.”
“As you wish, only … .”
He sensed that Grantley was annoyed he hadn’t risen to the bait.
When they arrived back in Llanfair, Grantley wanted to be driven straight back up to the lakeside. “Edward’s probably going to be in a complete tizzy because I’ve been away so long,” he commented with a wicked grin.
This was confirmed as Edward came hurrying over to meet them. “Where the hell have you two been? It’s been farcical up here. We’ve had a bulldozer show up, loaded with lager louts. We’ve had that red-headed girl back with snacks for everybody and then she wouldn’t leave. I thought we were assigned a policeman to help deal with things like this, not to go driving all over the countryside on one of your whims!”
“Keep your hair on,” Grantley said. “You wait until you hear what we’ve found. Not only have we got ourselves a great slate mine story, with a firsthand account and a promised tour of the mine, but we’ve discovered a wonderful little train as well. We’re all going to take a ride tomorrow up from the coast to the slate town.”
“And exactly how does a little train, however cute and appealing it may be, fit into a film about raising an aeroplane?” Edward asked in a clipped voice.
“I have to agree, Grantley,” Howard said. “We do have a budget and we’re only shooting a sixty-minute feature. It’s not a travelogue on the beauties of North Wales.”
“We’ll find a way to fit it in,” Grantley said impatiently. “Maybe an intro sequence to set the scene. Anyway, at least say you’ll ride it up with me tomorrow. Then we can tour the slate mine and you can see for yourselves that we’ll have an absolute scoop with our wartime art story.”
Edward sighed. “I know him too well. He won’t shut up until we ride his bloody train with him. All right, Grantley. We’ll ride the train tomorrow. Satisfied?”
“Thank you, Edward. Okay. Where have we got to with our filming?”
He was suddenly all business again.
My chance came when all the older boys were called up and left. Then I was the pick of the younger crop—head and shoulders taller than the rest of the fifteen-year-olds and well built too, even in those days. Ginger liked them well built.
I remembered that summer day when we walked up onto the moor together. It was hot and sunny and she made me take my shirt off. “My but you’ve got lovely muscles,” she said, and she ran her hands down my back as we sat together on a rock. The feel of her hands turned me to jelly. I was on fire, my head was a jumble of confused thoughts. Was she egging me on? Did she want me to go all the way? I knew about her reputation, of course. She’d done it with several boys in the village. I hadn’t done it at all yet, but it was about bloody time. I turned and reached out for her, but she jumped up onto a flat rock and hitched up her skirt. “How about this then, Tref?” She started to sing, “Heaven … . I’m in heaven,” and she danced, gliding over the flat rock just like we’d seen in the movies. Then she grabbed my hand and dragged me up there with her. “Hold me around the waist, Tref. That’s right. Now, off we go … . ‘when we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek.’” I wasn’t even conscious of my feet touching the ground. She was spinning me around, the sky and the moor were flashing past as she twirled me, and somehow I kept up with her crazy dance until we both collapsed, panting and laughing.
“You know what, Trefor—I bet you could get work in Hollywood too, with that body.” She grabbed my shoulders. “We don’t belong in a dump like this, either of us. Let’s run away together.”
“Don’t be daft,” I said. “There’s a war on. How are you going to get to Hollywood with a war on?”
“It can’t last forever.”
“Yes, but I’m bound to be called up before it’s over. And what if Herr Hitler lands here, eh? How are you going to get to Hollywood then?”
She ran her hands through that blond, wavy hair. “I have a feeling that my type appeals to German officers.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“I’d do what it takes, my darling. Whatever it takes to get me there.” She squeezed my shoulders. “You’ve got to believe that good things will happen, Tref. We’ve got to make them happen.”
“How?” I asked bleakly. “I’ve only got two years until I’m called up and then I don’t know if I’ll ever come back, do I?”
“Don’t talk daft.” She let go of my shoulders and hugged her arms to herself.
“I’m not talking daft. Look what happened to Johnny Morgan at Dunkirk. And Will Jones’s ship got torpedoed. You don’t live long in a war.”
“Then we’ve got to make sure we come out okay,” she said. “If you get called up, show them your drawings. You could go into the army as an artist.”
“Now you’re talking daft again.”
“No, I’m not. They have army magazines and posters and things. Someone has to draw them. Why not you?”
She snuggled close to me, her sweet, blond hair tickling my cheek. “You have to take your chances in this world, Trefor. There are those people who sit back and let things happen to them, and those that reach out and grab what they want. We’re getting out of here, you and me, Tref. We’re going to Hollywood and we’re going to be stars.”
Cautiously, I put my arm around her. “It’s all dreams, Ginger. It can’t ever happen.”
She shrugged me off and jumped to her feet. “I’m going to make it happen. I don’t know how yet. I know there’s a war on, but I’m not going to stop believing. One day my chance is going to come, and when it does, I’m going to be ready for it!”
Evan didn’t sleep well that night. He couldn’t help thinking about Bronwen spending an evening with her former husband and friends. He told himself he had nothing to worry about. Bronwen h
adn’t exactly been pining for her ex-husband. But why had she kept quiet about her dinner date last night, unless she didn’t want him to know? Was it still possible that she had feelings for Edward Ferrers? Was she missing the intellectual stimulus of her former life? Bloody film crew, he thought. They’ve been nothing but trouble since they came here.
Then he remembered something that lifted his spirits instantly. This morning his charges were going to take their ride on the little train. He wasn’t needed. He could spend a quiet morning in his office catching up on paperwork in blissful silence!
He worked until midday, went home for a satisfying lunch of shepherd’s pie and cabbage, and then went back to the Everest Inn to wait for the Land Rover. By two-thirty, there was still no sign of it. Evan walked up the trail until he could overlook the lake. The diving team was working but there was no sign of any filming taking place. He walked down again to wait. Obviously, Grantley had got his way yet again. He’d probably taken them all down the slate mine and found other miners for them to interview. Evan was sure he’d taken his portable video camera with him.
Evan asked the hotel receptionist to call him when they returned, then headed back to his office. School was just over and noisy, laughing children were fighting to be first out of the playground.
“Hello, Evan.” Bronwen appeared behind the children. “How’s my favorite sheepdog then? Should I start calling you Mot or Gel?” Most of the farmers in the area had a border collie called Mot or Gel.
Evan didn’t smile. “So how was your evening?”
“My evening? All right, I suppose.”
“Did you have fun?”
“If you can call marking twenty-five history tests fun. You’d think I’d never taught those children spelling or history. Tommy Howell said that the Magna Carta was a kind of racing car.”