Garston jumped up. ‘Oh no. Please. I’m very sorry. Perhaps there may be a drop somewhere.’ He began to open drawers in the desk. ‘Wait. If you please. Excuse me.’ He vanished from view behind the desk and we heard the clink of glass and the sound of paper being torn. ‘I might have something here, though I never touch a drop myself.’
Amos winked at me.
‘Here you are,’ he said, breathing heavily as he emerged from behind the desk. ‘I hope it will be the right drink.’ A half bottle of gin, US Army for the use of. He had, for some reason, torn off the label. It was clear to me then what kind of goods he had stored in the narrow room on the top floor of the Market Hall. ‘It was given to me as a present many years ago,’ he explained.
Twenty minutes later and very little happened apart from Amos swigging at the gin. Garston had apologised four times for firing off the gun.
‘Let us particularise,’ Amos said. ‘Your keys were stolen?’
‘Oh, would you believe it? The first time it’s ever happened to me. A whole bunch. All the keys to the properties in which I have a small interest...’
‘When were they stolen?’
‘Garston made a thinking face. ‘Well – it must have been on Saturday afternoon. Us country people, you know – we never lock our doors. Mind you, I never use them keys very much. All my tenants – well, they’re not really tenants, more like friends really – they all have their own keys – as part of the contract.’
‘Special keys for special locks?’
‘Oh – I wouldn’t say that. Most of them were ordinary...’
‘But some were special – and expensive?’
‘Oh – well I wouldn’t say that. You see...’
‘I would like to see your son,’ Amos said briskly, and dipped his nose into his glass.
Now Garston for the first time was alarmed. ‘David? But he’s at his studies, you see. Learning to be a doctor, see...’
‘I would still like to see him.’ Amos banged his glass down. ‘Not for questions...’
‘David can answer any question anybody asks him.’ A sudden show of defiance that brought colour to his sallow cheeks. ‘He’s always at his books...’
‘Last Saturday night, too?’
‘With me at the concert. He never left my side. People who know me can swear...’
‘In which case,’ Amos said wearily, ‘he has nothing to fear. Be good enough to bring the young man in.’ He left the request like a challenge on the air. Garston’s eyes flickered, a rapid calculation going on. Then he got up and went out of the room, and Amos turned and gave me a pitying look that said I bet you don’t know what I’m up to. And he was right. Senile decay was all I was thinking.
Then we heard David Garston in protest. ‘For God’s sake – you don’t have to lock me in!’ Garston ushered him into the room. ‘How do you do, Mr Ellyott,’ he said stiffly. They had done wonders to his accent at that school. He didn’t say anything to me.
‘Studying to be a doctor in London,’ Garston said.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Dad!’
I had forgotten what he looked like and was surprised to find how short he was. Short and neat – dapper, I thought. And he had a beauty of a black eye.
Amos stood and planted his hat on his head. ‘Thank you – that will be all,’ he said, and raised a beckoning finger at me.
‘You’re not going, Mr Ellyott?’ Garston was genuinely dismayed. ‘Another drink, perhaps?’
‘Open the door for me, Philip.’ To David Garston he said, ‘One more thing. Can you tell me why Marshall Edmunds assaulted you?’
David’s hand went to his eye. ‘Not a clue,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Amos said, ‘that will be all. I may want to question you again.’
‘I’m always here,’ he replied, ‘under lock and key.’ More than a touch of bitterness, I thought, but like his father he was surprised at his dismissal. ‘Just looking, were you, Mr Ellyott?’ And I thought good boy, David, more to you that meets the eye.
‘David can answer any question anybody can ask him,’ Garston said as he escorted us across the yard. ‘It’s been a great honour for me to have you visit my humble home, Mr Ellyott.’ At the gate he said, ‘Good night, Philip.’
‘Ah, so you knew I was here all the time,’ I replied, and Amos muttered ‘Bravo’.
Mash, on Emlyn’s orders, drove back very slowly, but he picked up another puncture not far from his house and we had to push the car up the drive. ‘I’d better give him a hand,’ Emlyn said. ‘He gets all mixed up.’ And once again I was left to look after the old man.
He had been silent in the car, listening to my description of Garston at home at Emlyn’s request. But now as we walked along the dark promenade he talked incessantly. ‘One can find reasons for Ridetski leaving his wife,’ was his opener, ‘but why should he want to leave such a promising little business? Don’t interrupt, I am clarity itself in the dark, and please walk straight. You keep on banging into me.’
‘It’s you,’ I told him.
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘This Lilian gave her favours to many. How very ‘old comrades’ of you three young men, home from the wars. How very sophisticated and how naive. In a capital city – London, say, or Paris, – an acceptable arrangement. But here! In this little corner! Such naivety! Don’t interrupt. You all liked her – by which I mean you found her amusing. But did one of you like her too much perhaps? Found the arrangement unacceptable – so that one day he all but chokes the life out of his best friend? What do you say to that?’
‘You tell me,’ I said.
‘And why would he do that? Was it because you had both promised not to see her again, and was it because he thought he had seen Emlyn leaving the lady’s house?’
‘It’s a theory,’ I agreed.
‘It’s what you think, Philip. Lilian was free with her favours – not an allegation to be aimed at Miss Porterhouse or Miss Sweeney so far as we know. Men called at Lilian’s – and consider this: how easy for a man to make a mistake, a man whose eyes are failing...’
‘Whose eyes are failing?’
‘Marshall Edmunds. Will you please walk straight? Don’t you know Marshall is deteriorating?’
‘For Christ’s sake!’
‘A deterioration taking place. His eyesight – did you notice the way he drove tonight? Reactions slowing down.’ I shook his arm away. ‘Listen to me! You know it as well as I do. Deterioration. In the end he will withdraw entirely. His mother knows that...’
‘Well for God’s sake, Mash didn’t kill her – or anybody!’
‘That remains to be seen. But isn’t it possible that he might have mistaken David Garston for Emlyn?’
‘David Garston?’
‘On a darkened street? His sight less sharp? Isn’t it possible? The same build, the same colouring?’ We had reached Ocean View. I helped him up the stairs to his door. He tapped his stick against my fly so that I backed away hastily. ‘The trouble that thing causes. Young Mr Garston was also a visitor. George Garston would not have liked that, would he?’ He reached for his key above the door. ‘Such a concealed man. The doctor to be dallying with a fallen woman. Enough to bring on a frenzy, would you think?’ He opened the door and stepped inside, then poked his head out to say, ‘think about it, Philip. And if the police stop you on your way home just mention my name.’
I walked across a deserted town, hoot of sirens in my ears, and pondered. They must have had the entire force on night duty. I was stopped four times and questioned, and none of them had even heard of Amos Ellyott.
Laura was waiting up for me. ‘I want to lock up for myself,’ she said, ‘then I’ll know it’s safe. Mind you – I think we’re all right. It’s only these strangers who get killed... Are you thinking about something, Phil
ip?’
‘Good God,’ I said, ‘does it show?’
X
On the morning of MT’s sports day there was a deluge, and at eleven still no break in the clouds. Eleven was a special hour, according to Laura – rain at eleven meant rain for the rest of the day, because of the tides.
I found Ceri out shopping and took her to Bodawen’s cafe for a cup of coffee. ‘He’ll have to cancel it,’ she said, ‘or turn it into a swimming gala. Anyway, my father says that a malaise has come to town. That’s how he talks all the time. In metaphor.’ She dabbed some of the skin from the coffee off her upper lip. She had a beautiful, full mouth. ‘My mother takes great comfort from the fact that the victims are all new, not natives like us.’ She had a slow way of speaking that I found appealing. ‘But we sleep with all the bedroom doors open so we can call for help if he comes to the wrong house.’ She smiled. ‘Shouldn’t joke, though, should I? It’s panic stations. All over town. That poor old girl yesterday. It was even on the wireless this morning. The Police keep on telling Dad everything’s under control, inquiries proceeding; arrest imminent. All that. But old Mr Ellyott says this kind of killer is the most difficult to catch – no motive, or something. And there’s talk, Philip.’
‘What about?’
‘You three.’ She gave me a long, searching look. ‘About old Mash, especially...’
‘Why pick on Mash?’
‘I’m just telling you.’
‘Just because he’s got problems? That doesn’t make him...’
‘Don’t get rattled!’
‘Have you been told not to see me, then?’
‘I see who I like, Philip Roberts.’ And we had a long and angry silence which she ended by buttoning her mac and pulling her hat over her ears. ‘Back to the piano,’ she said, and she leaned across the table and kissed me. ‘Come on. Walk me home.’
Outside her house she said, ‘I can’t see you tonight. Not because of what you’re thinking. I’ve got some girls coming over for the evening.’ I looked up at the house and saw a curtain shift back into place. ‘But call for me here tomorrow – OK?’ I said I’d do that, and walked away and saw her face in all the puddles in the street.
‘You’re too deep for me, Philip,’ Idwal Morton said. ‘It’s all foolosophy where I’m concerned, not that deep stuff. But I suppose you’re right – wars change you. Though I missed them both.’
He sat very still at the cluttered kitchen table, the paper open at the racing page. ‘Yes sir. I’ve given up thinking.’ He ticked a horse. ‘It’ll all be the same in a million years.’ A train went by and he winced. ‘They let the German chappie go this morning. At least they were talking of letting him go. They haven’t got a clue; useless all of them – how d’you mean, you can’t remember?’
‘About how it was before the war. I can remember when I’m told – when somebody starts talking. Like Emlyn does...’
Idwal smiled grimly. ‘Oh, he remembers it all.’
‘But when I start thinking about it myself, I can’t remember.’
‘Anything in particular you want to remember?’
No I said, I didn’t think so. Idwal stared hard at the newspaper, tapping it gently with his pencil. ‘When I was young,’ he said, ‘I was going to be a world beater. I used to walk around thinking I could do anything.’ He spoke always as if he didn’t expect to be heard. ‘You learn you can’t.’ He looked at me then, a light in his deep-set eyes but no change in his voice. ‘You’re the strong one of the three. They listen to you. Tell Emlyn to stop pushing it, all right?’
‘Pushing what?’
Idwal looked up. ‘God, what is he doing up there? Takes him a day to comb his hair! Now he was picked up last night. Near the prom. Dressed himself up as a woman! Had a bloody steel bar this long under his arm! Decoy he says! Now you tell him to stop messing about.’
Emlyn came in. ‘Three guesses who you’re talking about,’ he said. Then, to his father, ‘Beg your pardon – we’re not speaking today are we?’
‘You are a stupid bastard,’ I said to him.
‘In retrospect, I agree. They were not amused.’
‘Why don’t you write them a letter and ask to be bloody well locked up?’
‘Granted, granted. But it might have worked.’ His face broke into a wide, cheeky smile. ‘You’ve got to take chances, though I was shit scared all the time. By the way, the Inspector is very anxious to have a word with you.’
‘Me? What about?’
‘Yours truly,’ Emlyn said, ‘I should think.’
Inspector Marks came out of his car on the High Street and called me over. He looked even more at the point of exhaustion than he had done the last time I’d seen him. A worn old face above a crisp white shirt. ‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ he said as we stood out of the rain in a shop doorway. ‘I’ve spoken to Emlyn Morton, who is very lucky not to be behind bars even if he was a hero in the war. We can tolerate no interference. The eye of the nation is on us.’ And he went on like that for quite some time. ‘There must be discipline. We know what we’re doing.’ He sighed deeply. ‘But – above all else – please keep that old man out of my way...’
‘Mr Ellyott? I’m not in charge of him.’
He gripped his brow. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘please. I look to you for discretion, so keep this to yourself.’ He looked around to see if we were likely to be overheard. ‘They kicked him out. Long ago. For malpractice, I understand. Do you follow me? Please – without saying anything to him directly, keep him out of my hair, I beg of you. This is not a comedy. I cannot face waking up to another day of him!’
‘I’ve no chance,’ I said.
‘I know.’ He nodded sadly. ‘I simply thought I’d ask.’
Coronation Park had been a gift to the town by the same lady who had left it with King Teddy’s statue. It had been opened with a flourish in 1911 with a flying display, but the plane had failed to clear the fences surrounding the ground. Thereafter it had had its ups and downs. Mainly downs. Now it bore the scars of its occupation during the war as a parking area for military vehicles, its tennis courts fissured, the football pitch covered in waist high grasses. The pavilion had lost part of its roof and its windows were boarded over. MT came blundering down the steps from the veranda to greet us, and his foot went through. ‘Halloo my bonny laddies,’ he called to us as he heaved himself free. ‘Not a bad sort of day, is it? Could be worse – eh?’ The rain overhung the park like a shroud – dense, placing limits on visibility.
Amos Ellyott was sitting on the veranda, a blanket over his knees and an umbrella open above his head. He was talking to Ceri’s father, a short and remote man staring at nothing through thick horn–rims. Inside the pavilion there were two dozen or more children, already wet, most of them involved in fights.
‘We are quite booked up for the junior races,’ MT declared, ‘but we have nobody for the senior events.’
‘They are pretending your sports day isn’t happening,’ Ceri’s father surprised us by saying. ‘This town – it has a genius for turning the blind eye. Even on murders. Nasty things do not happen here – not that your sports are in any sense nasty, of course.’
‘The hundred yards,’ MT went on, glancing at us meaningfully. ‘We must do something...’
‘Put us down.’ Emlyn volunteered, and clapped a hand over my mouth to stop any protest. ‘It’ll be a laugh,’ he smiled. MT went off clapping with delight.
‘Out there?’ I said. MT and Mash had rough cut a rectangular section for the track – it looked like a short landing strip in a jungle, and was brown and obviously water logged. ‘You must be out of your tiny mind.’
Emlyn was kneeling at a little boy’s feet, tying up his laces. ‘Mash is going to run,’ he reasoned, ‘therefore Mash has to have someone to run against.’ He looked up at me.
‘Got it?’
‘In the first place I’ve no kit,’ I said. ‘In the second place I can’t run anyway.’ The little boy, who had straight red hair and evil eyes, held a pair of tiny football shorts towards me and I knew I was beaten.
Emlyn smiled up at him. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Captain X,’ the boy replied. He turned and looked up in admiration, and I knew Mash had come in.
Mash was wearing shorts and a vest and carried a pair of spiked running shoes. ‘Tarzan,’ Captain X said in a whisper, and the children came crowding. Mash flexed his muscles for them, grabbed Sian Thomas and held her high, then gently lowered her to the floor and placed his huge hand on the crown of her head.
‘After the next shower,’ MT announced, ‘we’ll make a start.’ He began to take their names and ages. Captain X told him he could be seven or eleven; didn’t matter to him. ‘Astonishing,’ MT said, ‘but willing. Now, the band will be here in a minute and we’ll soon see the atmosphere buck up. How is the weather?’
‘Pissing down,’ an answer that came from a small boy named Robert Owen who had the frozen face of a practised ventriloquist. I looked out across the veranda. There was no other word for it.
At half past two the Brynbach Silver Band sent word that they would not be arriving owing to the inclement weather being bad for their tubes. They were all in the King’s Arms, the messenger reported, and had been there for some time. ‘Never mind,’ MT sighed. Ceri’s father wondered if it was all really appropriate, given the time and the occasions and the place and didn’t MT think that it would be better perhaps to abandon the sports. ‘Not until three,’ MT said firmly. ‘We never gave up until three in the old days.’
At three o’clock a halt to the downpour arrived and the sports day began. But after only a few races it became out of control. Each race became a swim and discipline broke down. Soon the clothes of each participant clung to them, and they revelled in it and kicked off their shoes and took no heed of the starter’s whistle or finishing tape. Now and then we had to go and rescue them from the deep water–logged ruts made by the army wagons long ago. Seven of them set out on a run, but only three returned. The rest we found among the tall grasses, hunting for tadpoles in an oily pool. ‘Not to worry,’ said MT, ‘everything is going very well.’
Say Goodbye to the Boys Page 10