‘You told us off last time,’ Robert Owen said, a note of hurt in his voice. ‘This time, it’s the truth.’
They both stood, both of them pointing up the beach in the direction of the town. I got to my feet. Ceri grabbed my arm and pulled herself up. The light wasn’t good, but most of the men in a half circle at the water’s edge were clearly policemen, and there was an ambulance lurching up the beach to the promenade.
‘We can tell the truth when we want to, see?’ Robert Owen said.
‘She came in with the tide – in a boat,’ Captain X added. ‘Another one of them...’
We began to walk towards the town, the boys following. Robert Owen said, ‘There was a seagull sitting on her head.’ It was Tom Hughes’s boat, we were told, and Tom had been on the look out for it all day.
‘Say you’re sorry,’ Robert Owen called after us.
I turned to look at them. They looked small, standing there, and very defiant. ‘Why should I be sorry?’
‘Liars you called us. We can tell the truth good as anybody when we want.’
‘OK – sorry. Now come on with us off this beach.’
They walked between us. We saw a stretcher go into the ambulance, saw the police heave the boat up clear of the high waterline, saw the ambulance go bumping up the beach.
Captain X turned out to be a Cyril. His mother came out of the crowd on the promenade screaming, ‘Come here Cyril, you bloody idiot! Murder you I will!’ The town, she told us, wasn’t a proper place for bringing up children any more.
Voices from the crowd told us the deceased was a widowed lady. Mrs Hilda Palmerstone. From Bristol way. Lived in a flat on the front past Ocean View. Very refined. Been in the town for most of the war. And she had gone out on the ebb tide during the night, had been there in the estuary all day long, made a landing not so very far from where Tom Hughes usually had his boat beached. Mrs Palmerstone. The fourth.
Ceri said she wanted to go home, and although she linked her arm in mine we were silent all the way. At her door she said, ‘Anything I’m likely to say is going to be a waste of time. Right?’ The light came on in the street. A ship in the estuary brayed across the town. I wanted to stay with her, oh Christ I wanted to talk to her, hear her talk. But I knew it would be a waste too, and I let her go. After the door had closed the street was a stony, desert place, dark and empty.
Any night but Sunday night I would have made for the first pub. But Sunday was dry-day and I wasn’t a member of the only club with a seven-day license, so I headed for the Crescent, and Emlyn was up in his room at the top of the house, letting the neighbours have it with ‘My Very Good Friend The Milkman’, full trumpet blast. I didn’t give him a knock. Anything I might say to him would be a waste of time too, I felt.
So I wandered the town – back home to Laura was unthinkable – and by the entrance to the station I paused to light a cigarette and discovered my lighter had gone. It wasn’t a particularly good lighter, had one of those flames that blacken your fag. But it had come back with me from Burma and I went in search of it, remembering that I had taken my jacket off and spread it out on the sand. On the promenade, a crowd of people still there under the street lamp talking and staring out at the estuary. I kept away from them and took the steps down on to the black beach and headed for the dune. Not a chance, of course, but I had to do something for God’s sake.
Your eyes become accustomed to the dark, as the story books say. I kept close to the dune, the sand I kicked up cold as ice under my trouser legs. Two stars in the sky, winking lights from the ships out in the estuary, and an occasional blast from the sirens, the lap of small waves further down the beach. Some night bird went whirring past, made me catch my breath. I tried to gauge where the hollow was, looked out to sea remembering that there had been a big tanker close inshore. A steep bank of sand that I remembered. Then a ridge of marram grass. I heard myself breathing heavily. And I was kneeling in the hollow, one hand sweeping across the cold sand. This hollow? This place? It all depends on what you remember, and what you remember of it: one of Amos Ellyott’s remarks in my head. My hand closed around the lighter and I gripped it tight, and stayed there like that, and remembered her, how she looked, what she said, taste, touch...
Then there was a scuffling sound in the darkness above me. ‘Who’s there?’ I said, and all I could think to do was flick the wheel on the lighter. It fired first time and I held it out at arm’s length, staring over and beyond its ragged flame. A man there, big and bulky, crouching in the grass. His face turned slowly towards the light. ‘Where am I?’ Mash said.
I went over to him saying, ‘It’s Philip – what are you doing here?’ The lighter went out, failed to fire again. ‘Mash – what the hell are you doing here?’ I touched his hand. Colder than the sand. ‘Come on, mate – what are you doing here?’
‘I was sleeping,’ he said. ‘I was going and I got lost.’
I put my hand under his elbow. ‘Come on. You can’t stay here.’ He shook it away and I was suddenly afraid of him, and began talking, saying the first thing that came into my head. ‘Come on. It’s bloody cold – you’ll get piles worse than Emlyn.’
‘Emlyn?’ He said. He got to his feet. ‘Where’s Emlyn, then?’
‘In his bed,’ I said. ‘Come on. It’s me – Philip. Let’s get you home...’ Then he was walking next to me along the beach, rubbing his huge hands and mumbling, ‘Cold, cold, it’s cold.’ And I was having to stretch out to keep up with him. He was making for the lights on the promenade, but I edged him over and said ‘We’ll stay on the beach,’ and wondered why I’d said it.
He didn’t object. ‘All right on the beach, Philip. Cold. I’m cold.’ We both stumbled in the ruts the ambulance had made. There were still people under the same lamp on the promenade. I moved him down almost to the water’s edge as we drew level with them. Rationalised the act by asking myself what I would I say to them if they asked where we’d been. Taking it no further than that, but wondering at myself all the same.
We walked on. No one yelled from the promenade, no policeman rose out of the sand to halt us. We climbed over the railings at the far end of the promenade, and now he knew where he was and went on ahead of me. I followed him to the gates of the Grange. He sprinted up the driveway without a word. The house was in darkness but lights came on all over as soon as he opened the front door. I waited for a while; I didn’t know what for. Then I walked slowly back to the town.
As I went past the Crescent I could hear Emlyn still blowing away. Twice I was pulled up by the police and allowed to go after a few questions and a flash of a torch in my face. When I reached the house and searched for my key I found I had the lighter clenched tight in the palm of my hand.
A bad night. Dreams. Ceri in them, running down dark streets ahead of me. Mash at the gate of the back yard with vipers in his hands.
Monday, a morning close and sticky, thunder in the air. Laura had a bad headache, in a depression brought on by more murders, nobody safe any more, nothing certain, like the weather. She was bitten by the cleaning bug, this old house she moaned, this old town, that old shop, these terrible murders. Where was it all going to end? Mrs Palmerstone now. Beyond joking now. Nobody safe any more. People had had enough. Time the whole town joined together and put a stop to it. Hadn’t everybody suffered enough in the war? All that killing. And look at us now – was it any better now what with everything still on rations and clothing coupons? There were lights in the street, but that didn’t stop these terrible things going on did it? ‘They teached people how to kill,’ she said, looking away from me as she did so.... Laura voicing the unease and anger and suspicions of Maelgwyn town. An outrage going on. And I was connected – not responsible of course – but linked to it in Laura’s and the town’s mind.
‘I’ll go and tidy up the shop,’ I said, and retreated. I had the feeling that if I
had said I was going back to India she wouldn’t have minded.
The shop, of course, was long since past any return to order, the stock thick as weeds in a deserted garden. I flung books about, made piles of them, swept shelves clear and stuck the same worthy volumes back again. Only a great burning would bring order. But I worked myself into a sweat, breaking off only when the traders of the Market Hall came for a chat. Mollie Ann with an apple, Nell Crockery with a dirty joke that was old when I was young, Isaac Moss Cobblers who picked nails out of his mouth as he talked. The murders, naturally. I remembered that old lift, didn’t I? Well, nobody’s heard it, not for years, during the day. Only at night, see. Eyes narrowed, lips pulled in. This Mrs Palmerstone took size five shoes. The birds had been at her. But it was the same man who did it – and the police knew him, could lay their hands on him any time, only there had to be evidence, see.
Without exception they ended with the same remark, followed it with an enquiring look that underlined my involvement. I wasn’t a suspect, of course. I was J. Palmer Roberts’s son. They had known me since I was knee high to a grasshopper... but they left statements on the air – ‘fancy pushing her out in Tom’s boat after’ – and watched me keenly through narrowed eyes, as if they knew I could, if I wanted, come up with the answers.
‘What he does,’ Nell Crockery explained after giving her breasts a heave, ‘is kill quick. With this strap, see. Then he plonks them somewhere else. And there’s no marks on him because he’s naked – no hairs or anything like that.’ Her voice became spitty with relish. ‘That comes from official sources – top secret as they used to say in the war.’
It was a relief to go back to the books. I had offered no explanations or theories, and that probably made me a more doubtful character than ever. What should I have said? Find Ridetski, I was certain. Alive or dead.
Shortly before Laura arrived to take over I found an old, ink-stained copy of Tales from Shakespeare. It had the County School stamp all over it, a real old veteran of many a classroom battle. Inside the front cover there was a string of names. The last one was Ellen Lewis, 1924. I squatted on a pile of books and lit a cigarette.
It was the entry for September 1908 that set the bells ringing. Edward Mortimer, in a rounded, child’s handwriting. A name that spelled clashing swords and acts of valour. It recurred on page after page, sometimes as the Honourable Edward Mortimer, sometimes as Sir Edward Mortimer, once as Edward Mortimer, Gent. And on the inside of the back cover five lines that brought me back to Marshall Edmunds once again:
Who’s left to love?
Only he who rages –
Gone to ashes all the ages.
Summer has a fine warm face,
Winter such a cold embrace.
Signed, Edward Mortimer, Poet.
Glanmorfa House
Maelgwyn–on–Sea,
Wales,
Great Britain
The World.
I pocketed the book if only to prove to Emlyn that Edward Mortimer, Sir and Honourable and Gent and Poet, hadn’t been at school in our time, and that Mash was misquoting the last line.
The house in the Crescent was silent, seemingly deserted. It always looked like that – as if the owners had done a flit and weren’t expected back. But the front door was wide open, held against the wall by an empty milk bottle. I tapped on the glass of the porch door and went in calling Emlyn. My voice spiralled upwards and died. The kitchen door was open. I heard sounds of retching from the back and went down the passage calling ‘Mr Morton – are you all right?’
Hot as a boiler house in the kitchen, the remains of a meal on the table. What a day to have the fire banked up. There was a large brown paper envelope on it, edges curling in the smoke. The toilet in the yard flushed and Idwal came in. He was unsteady on his legs, his face drawn and shiny with sweat, white froth at the corners of his mouth, red on his chin. He saw me and turned quickly and I knew he was replacing his teeth, then he slumped on a chair at the table. It was blood on his chin.
‘Never heard you come in,’ he said. Then ‘Philip...’ – as if he had forgotten my name.
‘I’ll get you a drink of water...’
‘Perish the thought.’ He smiled. ‘A bit of morning sickness.’ The blood on his chin fascinated me. I wanted to wipe it off for him. ‘Must have been the heat...’
‘I’ll open a window.’
He shook a hand at me. ‘No, no. I might catch pneumonia... My God, I could catch anything.’
I could smell sick from him. ‘D’you want me to get a doctor or something?’
He forced another smile. ‘No, no. It was just those bloody powdered eggs we had. In the piping days of peace, Philip – and still powdered eggs! A fag would be useful.’ I held one out to him and flicked my lighter. He inhaled deeply and sat back in the chair. ‘That’s better. Keep up the level of the poison.’ His hands were trembling. ‘Life savers these – can’t have doctors, Philip – they’d make me give them up!’
‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
‘Philip – don’t fuss. You don’t have to stay. I’m all right. Emlyn’s over at the boat.’ There’s blood on your chin, I wanted to tell him. ‘Look – just one thing you can do for me. Just keep it to yourself, OK? Emlyn – such a bloody hypochondriac. He was moaning about his indigestion last night. Just – well – don’t tell him.’ Then he brought out his army officer’s voice, like his son a good mimic. ‘I must absolutely insist, Roberts, actually. Mum’s the jolly old word, what?’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. We smiled at each other. The colour returning to his cheeks now.
‘You’re a good chap. Emlyn always said you were. When he was little he used to copy you.’
‘Poor sod! I’ll have to be going...’
‘What’s the reading matter in your pocket? Can I have a look?’
I gave him the book and he laid it flat on the table so that he could hide the trembling in his hands. A crooked vein throbbed in his forehead. ‘Found it in the shop this morning.’ He was examining the names at the front. ‘There’s a bit of a poem in the back. Mash is always quoting it.’ He turned the pages over slowly. He was a long time reading the poem. Behind him the fire hissed in the grate.
‘Philip,’ he said at last, ‘I don’t think Marshall killed these women. Do you?’
‘Well, good God, of course he didn’t!’
He was still staring at the poem as he spoke. ‘It’s what they’re saying. The consensus of opinion. Get the brain doctors in. Break him down. Philip...’ it was an effort for him to say it. ‘You don’t think Marshall’s insane, do you?’
‘To hell with that,’ I said firmly. ‘He’s... Well, not right, but he’s not a loony.’
‘I had a row with Emlyn about it.’ He was staring at me now. ‘Didn’t mean to – but it came to that.’ I could sense the power in him still. A hell of a man, this one – wild and daring so they said. And there was some of it left, even now. ‘But – he’s violent, Philip. In some kind of blackout, maybe?’
‘Four blackouts?’ He nodded. ‘Pointless – you’ve got to have a motive. What about this Ridetski?’
‘Yes, pointless. Most things are pointless, aren’t they? In the long run.’ He closed the book. ‘Andy Ridetski? The cops asked me about Andy. I sold him a camera once. Very artistic bloke. Very highly strung. Bit of a crook.’ He was calm again now, back to bantering. ‘What a bloody situation. Ridetski come back – is that what old Mr Ellyott thinks? Oh – I have my doubts.’ He flipped open the cover of the book. ‘Mind if I have a read of this? Might not be too late to learn something. Improve my mind. But – well, if you want it for something it’s all right.’ He pushed the book along the table towards me.
‘You keep it,’ I said. ‘What about Ridetski, though?’
He picked up the book and h
eld it against his chest. ‘I’ll be sure to let you have it back – give it to Emlyn, OK?’ I nodded. ‘Ridetski? Well, the last time I knew him he was scared of his own shadow. Did a bunk, you know. He was running away from his missus – so why come back and kill her?’
‘And he might be dead....’
Idwal Morton flashed a white smile. ‘Then he’d have some difficulty in killing anybody wouldn’t he?’ We laughed. ‘All right if I have a read of this?’
‘Fine,’ I said. Subject closed. I left him there in that oven of a room. Outside, although the air was heavy and oppressive, it was, for a while, like a spring day.
As I turned a corner on to the promenade I came face to face with Amos Ellyott. ‘I have been looking for you all morning,’ he greeted me accusingly. ‘Come quickly to my chambers.’ And he turned on his heel and went stumping back to Ocean View. He was nimble that day, joints functioning, and was close to a trot on the stairs.
‘You’ve been at the vitamins,’ I told him.
‘Do please refrain from witticisms,’ he replied as he flung back the door. ‘The first break has occurred. Come in.’
Laura wasn’t the only one in the town with the tidy bug. Amos Ellyott’s rooms, considering my last look at them, were neat, orderly, the books on their shelves, the bottles gone, a smell of polish on the air.
‘You must come and tidy our shop,’ I said.
He had the lid of a small bureau open. ‘Keep your remarks to yourself,’ he snapped back, then beckoned me to the desk. ‘Now – tell me please – why should someone decide to send me this?’ He pulled a photograph from a large envelope and placed it on a square of blotting paper. An enlargement. Ten by twelve at the least. Of a car burning in the night. Of a man with a white bag clutched to his chest, his face clearly defined in the light from the blaze. MT Edmunds. Emtee by name, but not empty by nature.
Say Goodbye to the Boys Page 13