The figure in the doorway looks at her angrily. Face red in the fire light. Peter. But it can't be! He's... Bigger. Darker. With dark angry eyes. Not the man she knows.
Carole's mouth dry with fear. She can hardly speak. "Oh my God Pete, you've killed him!!"
Peter smiles, which turns into a sneer. "Good! Practice makes perfect don’t it?" He turns the key in the door behind it. It snaps locked.
Carole runs into the kitchen and tries the back door. Locked. She searches around desperately for the key. She turns around. Peter stands in the doorway, holding the back door key in his hand.
"You think I'm fucking stupid? Running away from me. Ruining me. Hiding up here in the mountains with some local kid. I bet he fancied a big city girl eh?"
"Pete, its not like that". Or is it? It could look that way. She looks around desperately. The knife block. Empty. Oh God, he's thought of everything!
"You've done me a big favour here. I was all set to torch this place, with you in it. Arsonists would get the blame. Perfect".
An emptied bleach bottle in there Belfast sink. He has thought of everything. Oh Christ! "Pete. Please don’t…"
"Shut up, I’m thinking. This is beautiful... B plan. Lone woman in a remote cottage, attacked by the local rapist. He kills her. Her boyfriend turns up unexpectedly, finds the geezer still in the house, and kills the bastard in the struggle. Any jury would let me walk. Simples". That frightening smile again. Carole has never seen it before. He's not himself. Like she wasn't herself. Oh God...
"Pete listen to me… I know it’s not you doing this… please Pete, fight it… I shook off the ghost of the girl. Shake him off Pete. Don’t let him control you! This isn’t you. Fight him!"
A moment of doubt crosses Peter's face. Carole rushes him, slamming into him with all of her might, knocking him backwards. She loses her footing and falls hard on the living room floor. Peter lands beside her, face to face with her on the floor. Or is it Peter?
"Ast!!! Putain!!!"
Not Peter's voice. Words in Welsh Carole half knows. Female dog. Bitch. The other one, similar to Spanish maybe? How does Pete know these words? Carole looks Peter in the eyes. Those darker eyes. Partly hidden under Peter's hair.
"You killed your wife and her lover… isn’t that enough? Why Mr Phillips’ wife? Why me?"
"You are all whores. The ruin of honest men. Homed and fed, but unfaithful. Biting the hand that feeds you".
"Oh no. You're wrong, and these are different times. I'm my own woman. Peter and me aren’t married. I own this house. Me! Times have changed, and you’re time has passed. Move on! Let Peter go. Leave us in peace. Get out of my house!"
He lunges at Carole, who rolls out of the way kicking out at him. He recoils, hurt. Carole jumps to her feet and turns on him, kicking him time after time to the head, then the body. He rolls over to shield his head from the reign of blows. He stops moving.
Carole stands over him panting. The panting turning to gasps, turning to sobs. "Oh God Pete. He's got into you". She turns away to see her dead dog and tears flow. Nearby Geraint lies motionless on the ground. She drops to her knees beside Geraint. "Geraint can you hear me?" She shakes Geraint who does not stir. "Geraint!!!" She shakes him again. Oh God, how could things have come to this?
The stench takes her breath away just as two strong hands grab Carole around the throat, pulling her back into his arms.
She tries to get her hands beneath his. He's bigger and stronger than Peter. And angry. Pressing harder. She can't speak. Can't breathe. Can't struggle. The darkness intensifies around her. Masking the world. Her arms fall away.
His breathing as harsh as hers as he whispers in her ear. "Why did you betray me? I gave you everything!"
Carole's eyes close. She falls limp in his arms.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Passing
He looks down on her lying on the floor. Tears in his dark eyes. "Why Carole? I gave you everything!" He glances across at the body of the teenager with whom she had betrayed him within just days up here in the mountains.
He tenses. His body expanding. Hair falling across his eyes. "Ast!" He gets to his feet, distancing himself from her body. Their bodies.
Time to get on with the plan that has distilled and matured in the darkness of his mind all week. He picks up the petrol can and heads for the bedroom. He opens the door. The air is stifling. Dead, or worse. The room now empty of furniture, desolate. A hole in the floorboards. White lime dust spread all around on the black floorboards. The canvas bag open on the floor. The body visible within. His body. Dried and rotten. His clothes perished. His face gone leaving his skull. His time over.
His body quakes with a shudder. He covers his mouth to stifle a scream. They say if you die in your dreams, you die in real life. This is not a dream. This is real. Too real. Shattering. Remembering his coat splashed with their blood. His waistcoat. His shirt. Trousers. Boots. All there. Bloody and muddy from the deed done.
Ifan sways. Reality hitting him in waves. Something is not the same. Where is the picture of Mari and him on their wedding day? No sign of it. He tucked in his waistcoat pocket. His memory of a better day. Before her witchcraft. Before her infidelity. Before her fornication. A day when perhaps they really did love each other.
He drops the petrol can and crosses to the body. His body. Coming face to face with himself. He drops to his knees. Dark eyes filling with tears. The waistcoat pocket is turned inside out. No image to soothe him. Just the reality of his death filling his senses.
He releases a roar of inner pain at the death of himself. Ifan recalls the passage of testament where Jesus had called to God from his cross. "O Dduw, pam wyt wedi fy ngadael?" Why has he been forsaken? He weeps bitter tears in this desolate room. Emptying his soul from this body. Wishing to return to his own body. The one lying here before him. But how? He should be with God. But how? So many Commandments broken even though he has tried to find a better way. How can there be Redemption now?
Mari used to say a ghost was just someone who did not realise they were dead. He now realises. And its overwhelming.
The room spinning away. Faces from his childhood at Capel Celyn. Friends. Open fields. Summer streams. Half remembered conversations with friends long gone. Seeing Mari like an angel beside him. Ships. So many ships. Other lands. Storms. Pain. Whiskey blunting his mind. Inspirational preachers. The Bible which suddenly meant so much. The memories washing away now. A life lived and forgotten. A wave rises. His vessel drops. Ifan lets go. Ifan is gone.
Peter's eyes snap open. A skull stares back at him. Peter pushes back in shock. Confused. Waking from a dream he doesn't remember. What the fuck is going on?
He climbs to his feet, backing away from the long dead body wrapped in some kind of bag. In an empty room. Where the fuck is he? Familiar, but... Fog outside the window. Shit, is he still asleep? A can of petrol nearby. What's going on? What did he do with the car? He staggers to the door.
A fire in the grate. Sammy the dog. Still and his neck at a strange angle. Dead. A flash of recollection. The dog barking at him angrily like it didn't recognise him. Grabbing the dog to silence it. Forever.
Carole! Oh God! His voice comes out hoarse, like he's been straining his voice. "Babe?". No reaction. "Babe!?! Carole!!!" Remembering a snippet of the dream. Strangling the life out of the love of his life.
Another body. Some lad. A teenager. What the hell is going on?
Then the paranoia returns. Her alone with some man in the woods. The arsonists. The chance to be rid of her. And here he is in the middle of it. Half done. Maybe more than half done. He's killed two people, and an animal. He's not a killer. What the fuck has happened here? Peter puts his head in his hands. "Oh my God. What have I done?"
How to get out of this? There is no way out of this! Prison for something he did not do. Or did he? Is this what its like to lose your mind? And then to lose everything you've ever loved? And then your life? Fuck. Fuck. F
uck!
She has driven him to this, and now he has had his revenge. But the joke is on him. Its the end of his life too. Best take control of that at least. She's not going to win.
Peter staggers around the bodies to his holdall, carrying it into the bedroom.
Peter fishes in the holdall bag, and produces a length of rope. It was supposed to tie her up. Too late for that now. Peter had never been in the Boy Scouts. Not coming from that sort of neighbourhood. So is that memory working his fingers? Or is it someone else's memory? The first attempt unravels. The second works. A noose.Peter stands on the holdall so he can feed the rope around the beam in the bedroom. The beam both Ifan and Phillips have used in the past. He ties off the rope. The noose hangs in front of his nose. High enough. He galvanises himself. Pushing his chin through the noose. Tightening it at the back of his head. He looks around the desolate room. The body in a bag. What a fucking dismal place to end it all. He kicks away the holdall and swings free.
The creaking sound fills the cottage.
Huge pressure on Peter's neck. He can't breathe. Gasping now. No room to take in breath. His throat stretched and crushed. Trying to stay calm. Letting go.
But something else now. The will to survive. He claws at this throat, reaching up to the beam, but there's not enough purchase. He can't get enough of a grip to take his weight. His gasping getting more laboured. His eyes clouding.
A figure in front of him. Smelling familiar. Very familiar. Hugging him now. Sounds. Unfocussed. The pressure off his throat. He snatches a breath or two. Moving upwards and coming down with a crash, banging his head. Stars. Black. Nothing. For a moment.
Carole removes the noose from Peter's neck. Her voice hoarse, bruising showing around her neck. "I thought you were stronger than that Pete! I thought you had a mind of your own".
She punches Peter in the chest with all of her might. Peter flinches at the blow and coughs, clearing the liquid in his windpipe. Clearing his throat so he can breathe.
"Pete?!?" Carole pushes the hair away from Peter's face. Blue eyes. Not dark. Coughing. "That’s it Pete, breathe! Come on!"
Geraint stands in the doorway, a look of confusion on his face. "What are you doing? He tried to kill us!"
Peter turns to Geraint. Hoarse. Strained. "No. Not me". He drops into a fit of coughing again.
"Why aren’t you calling the police Carole?" Geraint wobbling on his feet.
"Pete wasn’t in his right mind, Geraint".
"He's killed your dog!"
"Sorry. So sorry". A hoarse whisper. Tears in Peter's eyes. "I'm so sorry".
"So what are you going to do? With him? With that body?" Geraint wiping his eyes in pain.
"We need to move on too. Now we have to deal with the body. It’s what’s been causing all of this. The whole history of this place, everything that’s gone on between all of us. We need to get his body away from here. End this nightmare".
Peter whispers grabbing Carole by the wrist. "How can I help?"
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Burial
"And how do I explain this Geraint? Two sets of bodies from the last century in two different places. Its too much of a coincidence for there not to be suspicion. Difficult questions. And it will bring the police here. And they'll look into what's happened here today. Yes I'll tell the police about the bodies in the woods, but we have to deal with this one ourselves". Carole stares at Ifan's body, whose presence and influence has nearly cost her life, and that of the young lad who is still watching Peter warily from the doorway.
Peter is losing his patience. "Lets just get it the hell out of here. Bury it in the woods".
Geraint bares his teeth as he speaks to Peter. Still very raw from what's happened in the last half hour. "Why would that work any better than him being buried in here?"
"OK, bury him in a graveyard. I passed an abandoned one a few miles away up in the mountains".
"He can't be buried on sacred land. He's a suicide".
"Alright son, you got a better idea? Do you? Lets hear it!"
Geraint leaves the room.
Carole gives Peter a withering stare.
Geraint is raging, heading for the door. He almost kicks Sammy's broken body on the floor. He stops, tenderly picking up the little dog and carries it to the front door. He unlocks the door letting before heading out into the murk outside.
Geraint carries the dog's dead body around to the far side of the cottage, the garden side, outside the kitchen. Away from those two arguing in the bedroom.
A few rusty gardening tools have been left to rot against the wall. Grass growing over them. Phillips' tools. More likely his wife's. This garden hasn't been touched for years. Its overgrown. Overrun with brambles. Impenetrable to be fair. He lays Sammy's body down by the back door. A good place for the dog to be. Protecting the house. Geraint wrestles a small hand spade free from the long grass, starting to dig the dog's grave outside the back door.
"He's right. We can't bury it, and we can't dump the body".
Peter thinks hard. "So where would this body be at rest?"
"He's a sailor. We could bury him at sea".
"That's what, a couple of hours from here?"
"There's the lake".
"Its not too far is it?"
Carole ponders. "A five minute walk. There'll be no one out there in this fog. No one will see us".
"Do we need a priest or something?"
"This is Non-Conformist country. Not so hot on ordained priests. Geraint will know some prayers".
"Him? Seriously?"
"Yes his mother is a lay-preacher". Carole momentarily thinks of phoning Mrs. Jones. Not a good idea. Real dead bodies now. No longer just 'an atmosphere' in Pantyfedwen that can be shooed away by good intentions.
This is real. Real life crime. This is no longer a romantic ghost story to tell her friends on a winter's night. The dark secret of what happened to the Sea Captain, his wife and her lover is finally uncovered. Its a story of obsession, witchcraft and death which should be shut. Put away. Forgotten. Untold. The fewer people know about this the better.
Carole nods. "Yes, let's take him to the lake".
This is good soil. Deep, dark, peaty. Very rich. The smell is overpowering. Just like up at the Dark Grove. Too rich to have softwoods planted in it, as they have been everywhere else in Cwm Celyn. Those trees ruining the soil, making it acidic and poisoned. A shocking waste of God's earth. The whole of Cwm Celyn is ruined. And this little square of it which is unaffected will now be a grave.
Geraint has dug a good foot down into the earth in very little time. He's hit a rock. That's as deep as the hole will go. He places Sammy's body in the hole. A cute little animal, much too innocent and trusting. Killed by a larger dangerous animal. One it trusted. One it thought it knew and who loved it. One which wasn't itself anymore.
Geraint peers through the glass of the back door. He can see Carole sitting on the floor of the bedroom, still speaking to that bastard. All seems calm, so all must be well.
Geraint walks over to a section of the dry stone wall backing onto the trees. One section is loose. A few stones falling. He selects a long thin stone, solid, smooth sided, but not too heavy. Perfect for the job in hand.
"I'll be gone by the time you get back to the flat". Peter sitting on the floor. Huddled up, hugging himself. Working out the details of the end of their relationship in his head. "You'll have to be gone by the end of July. That's the notice period. And we're paid up until then".
Carole nods, resigned to these changes. They have become inevitable. Her life in London is changing. No more Peter. No more living together. No more flat in a month. A new start. A new job. Changes. Opportunities. Everything is happening at once.
Peter gets to his feet. "We better get on with this, I should get going before dark".
Geraint taps the stone down onto the compacted earth. Keeping Sammy safe beneath. His stone doubling as a step from the gard
en into Pantyfedwen.
Geraint hears the front door open and close. He carries on with bedding in the stone. Carole and Peter appear from the frontage of the cottage. Geraint doesn't look up, still working on his knees.
Carole looks at him with surprise. "What are you doing?"
"I buried Sammy". Geraint gives Peter a look before finishing bedding in the stone.
Carole starts to tear up. "Thank you. Thank you Geraint".
"I couldn't leave him lying there". Geraint gets up off his knees. Job done.
Carole steps over and hugs him. "We're going to do the same thing with the Sea Captain's body".
Geraint breaks free. "Bury him here? You're kidding!"
"No, we're taking him to the lake. Burying him in the water".
Geraint races to object but thinks for a moment. "A burial and baptism? Absolving him of his sins?"
Carole nods. That makes perfect sense. "Making sure he has moved on. Gone forever".
Geraint and Peter pick up the canvas bag holding Ifan's remains. Its surprisingly light. Say half the weight of a bag of spuds. That's all that's left of this big man after all this time. Geraint had carried his father's coffin with five other bearers when he was fourteen. He felt as though his fingers would be severed. Felt as if he'd never reach the graveside from the cemetery gate. Not wanting to rock the body within. Desperate not to disturb his dad lest he wake him. Desperate. Just wanting everything over. Wanting to be alone so he could cry. Wanting everyone gone, despite their kind words and concern.
Yes this is so much lighter. Bearable too now that the bag has been closed up. He couldn't look at that skull again. It was disturbing. Seeing what was once angry vital life, stripped away by time, death and decay. He tried not to think about what these forces were doing to his Dad. And to Bethan, that gorgeous girl who died here in the forest. And would do to him when the time came. And that time almost came today, care of the man standing an arms length behind him. Geraint thought he had faced death before. It stared him in the eye today.
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