by Howard Marks
Gwen had started gathering the tea things together. Catrin waited for her to go through to the kitchen. Then she looked over at Huw.
‘This leader, the one who looked like Manson, he sounds a bit like the figure who used to pick up Face.’
‘Maybe. You’re thinking Megan got involved with this group?’
‘I don’t know, but it sort of fits. Megan is alone a lot, lonely, gets with this group, maybe gets pregnant by one of the members while her husband is away at sea.’ She thought it through for a moment. ‘So by sending Face to see his grandmother in the west, Megan could’ve actually been sending him to see his father. When the grandmother discovers this it pushes her over the edge.’
‘It’s possible.’ Huw glanced again at the fence in the back garden. ‘All the security measures seem a bit over the top, though. I can’t see why she’d be worried after all this time.’
Outside the light had subtly changed, the greyness of the day already taking on the deeper tones of dusk. The sky had filled with strands of pale mauve, signalling more snow to the west. The woman picked up the remaining cups, then stood at the front door, received their thanks for the tea.
‘Do you remember the Angel Jones case?’ Catrin asked softly. She’d waited for Huw to go on ahead. She was embarrassed to bring it up again in front of him, but something in her wouldn’t let her leave until she’d asked the question. ‘The man who held those girls in cellars for years.’
Gwen nodded, seemed only too eager to change the subject. Catrin looked the woman straight in the eye. ‘Val never made any connections between this Manson figure and Jones, said that she thought it was Jones when he was younger?’
‘No, never mentioned him.’ The woman paused, her hands dug deeper in the pockets of her apron. ‘Funny you mention Jones.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Well, a neighbour here.’ She pointed to another house in the close. ‘She was shopping in Aber the other day, swears she saw someone looking like Jones walk right past her, close as you are to me now.’ She laughed slightly. ‘Knew it wasn’t him of course, but still, gave her quite a turn.’
Huw had come back into earshot. Catrin felt ashamed. She knew asking questions on the sly went against one of the basic rules of trust between investigating officers. And he was still an officer at heart and abided by those rules.
The woman seemed subdued. Huw turned to face her. ‘You said at that time this cult had a house up the coast. Did the old woman ever mention where they were based?’
‘Not in exact terms, no.’
‘But generally?’
‘Somewhere up north of Abergwaun.’
‘There aren’t many villages up on those headlands. Any idea which?’
‘Not really, no.’
The woman seemed eager for them to be gone now. Catrin didn’t wait for Huw but pulled her coat tight around her shoulders and hurried down the path. While they were inside the temperature had dropped several degrees, and snow had begun to fall again. They sat in the car for a moment in silence.
‘I’m sorry I did that,’ Catrin said.
She knew Huw was aware of what she was referring to, but he said nothing, as if he didn’t understand.
‘Asking about Jones when you couldn’t hear,’ she said, ‘it was wrong of me.’
He still said nothing. He looked disappointed and was trying to hide it and she hated seeing him like that.
‘Should we go back to Pryce’s?’ she said. ‘Show him photos of Jones, just to eliminate Jones once and for all.’
Huw shrugged his shoulders, as if he didn’t care either way.
‘Let’s sleep on it.’ He started the heater, turned it up full. ‘On all that medication, Pryce could just send us off after more shadows.’
3
The high winds nearer the coast and driving snow made the final part of the journey slow and difficult. By the time they began the descent into Abergwaun, strong gusts were pushing the car out to the edges of the sheer drops. They had to crawl down the cliffside road in second gear.
As they drove into the small town, through the snow-spattered windscreen Catrin could see the wind whipping the breakers into spiky, white-topped peaks. On the other side of the road was a row of boarding houses. Most were shut up for the winter, but one sign was still illuminated and some lights showed behind curtains in the windows.
In the narrow hall was an oak desk and an antique brass bell, which made no sound when pressed. On the window at the side of the door, the nets had been pushed aside. Someone had been standing there, watching the waves.
Under the sill was a half-drunk mug of tea and a copy of that day’s Western Telegraph. No one came, and Catrin picked up the paper. The first pages were taken up by the weather stories. She leafed through them, only half looking at the images of desolate snowbound headlands and narrow tracks blocked by drifts.
‘So what Gwen told us at least gives Face some connection to this remote part of the country,’ she said.
‘But she said that group moved away from here after a few years.’
‘Right. Most of those alternative hippie groups moved away decades ago. It’s difficult to see what could have brought Face back after all this time.’
‘Unless the original group or some of its members were still out here?’
Catrin thought about this possibility for a while before answering. ‘Gwen said the group all dressed alike, like a cult. In the photos, the men in the woods were all dressed alike in those robes and hoods.’
‘But we’re talking almost four decades since the woman saw this group. It seems next to impossible they could have been living isolated out here all this time without anyone knowing.’
She was looking over Huw’s shoulder at the pictures of the heavily wooded snowy terrain. ‘We know Rhys’s photos were developed out here. So Rhys could have known about Face’s old link to these parts.’
‘Though we don’t know where Rhys’s pictures were taken.’
‘Not yet.’
From behind a velvet drape to the side of the hall an elderly man in a neck-brace appeared. He wrote their names in the ledger in a neat, copperplate script. Then at Huw’s request he showed them into the dining room. There was no one else eating. Outside the dark band of the sea was just visible beyond a pale ribbon of sand.
The food was brought through by a small, white-haired mouselike woman, the man in the neck-brace doubling as a waiter. As Catrin waited for the food on her plate to cool, Huw fastidiously put a piece of every ingredient on the plate on his fork before lifting it to his lips.
When he raised his head, she looked away towards the window. Down on the street an old camper van was parked under the shelter of the promenade, dim candlelight flickering behind its curtains. Two people, one holding a bottle, were walking towards the van. A side door opened. They stood talking for a moment in the small patch of light. Then they walked on towards the row of boarding houses and disappeared into the snow.
Huw had stopped eating and was looking out at the spot where they had disappeared. ‘At first sight this would seem to be the perfect environment to hide out in,’ he said.
‘A large choice of cheap rooms, all the surf bums and other strays as camouflage?’
He put his fork down on his plate, shook his head. ‘But in winter these towns have an occupancy of around a tenth of the summer season. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. To hide down here you’d need the protection of a significant part of the community.’
The plates were removed and two steaming bowls of apple crumble and custard set down in front of them. Catrin ate in silence, aware of Huw’s eyes on her mouth. How easy it is to forget, she thought, what a peculiarly intimate experience it is watching someone place things between their lips, then swallow them.
The television in the corner was showing a long-running soap, one she’d never followed. The two main characters were driving through the rain, which ran down the windscreen, covering their faces. Their car gra
dually disappeared down a long straight road.
Then the news came on. The top story was the weather once more. A reporter was shown sheltering in the entrance of a windswept ferry terminal. A sign showed that all ferries were still cancelled. The same reporter was shown beside a series of gritting trucks moving tentatively up narrow country roads.
Then she saw an image she recognised. Amid snow-covered fields there was a stone bridge, a track winding into wooded hills. The next shot showed the flashing blue lights of ambulances and fire engines. ‘Christ,’ she said. ‘Look at this.’
Another reporter, an older man this time, was standing in front of the lights. In the background there was a glimpse of something low, dark and smouldering.
An ambulance was pulling away across the yard, followed by another. Black smoke drifted across the scene. The reporter looked calm, as if this was all just routine for him. In a neutral tone he said that all three members of the family had perished in the fire, that its cause remained unknown.
She thought of the young girl and the woman walking across the field. The little girl in her pinafore, her chestnut hair and searching eyes. Then through the smoke an image flickered over the screen, so briefly Catrin hardly saw it. In the foreground were charred timbers and blackened cloths, the remains of curtains flapping in the wind. Behind she saw a figure among the trees. The image was there for less than a second then it was gone. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick right there at the table. She began to push the chair back, meaning to go to the bathroom. She rose, steadied herself with one hand on the top of the chair, then slowly sat down again.
‘Looks like we got out of there just in time.’ She could hear the shudder in Huw’s voice. His face was pale, drained of colour.
‘Or we were followed there, more like,’ she said. ‘Look at the date on the film, the tone of the sky. That news footage was filmed yesterday, just after we left.’
‘But you saw how narrow and quiet that track was. If anyone had followed us we’d have known about it.’
‘They could have tailed us at a distance without lights. I thought I saw someone there in the trees.’
‘How clear?’
‘Not at all, it was just a flicker.’
‘Worth getting the footage off the channel?’
‘Doubt it.’ Catrin took out her phone, searched for the channel’s press office and after a wait was put through. She told the young press officer she needed a copy of the footage for an ongoing arson investigation, that there wasn’t time to get a warrant. She gave her identity number, but not a whole number, she knew it’d mean nothing if there was a trace put on it.
The girl said she’d send it through digitally within minutes. Catrin gave her a private Gmail account as receiving address, then went into Gmail and registered the address she’d just given under a bogus name.
She turned back to Huw. ‘They’re sending it through. I think we must have been followed there by whoever did this.’
‘But that track was too rough to navigate without lights, the country there was silent as the grave. Another engine would have been heard for miles around.’
‘How the hell did they know we’d gone there then? A tracker?’
Huw looked sceptical. ‘I had the car swept before we set out.’
‘At the station?’
‘My two guys had eyeball on it throughout.’
‘At Della’s office?’
‘I never let it out of my sight.’
He’s sharper than he looks, she thought.
‘If we weren’t tracked, then something weird has just happened here.’ Huw stared at her. She stood up. ‘I need some air, so I can think straight.’
He followed her out to the car.
Catrin checked the engine first, from underneath with a torch in her mouth, then went over all the components again from above. Then she worked through the interior, pulled out all the carpets, all the trim. Nothing. Then she went through the boot, the undercarriage. Then she started again, repeated the whole process in reverse order.
‘It looks clean,’ she said finally.
‘I told you.’ Huw had been sitting watching at a distance, the glow of his pipe the only sign he was there.
She heard a bleeping from her phone. The footage from the channel had come. She ran it straight through from the beginning: the ambulances pulling away across the yard, the black smoke drifting across the scene, the glimpses of charred wreckage in the darkness. But looking at it again she couldn’t see any shape in the woods any more.
Huw went inside to get his laptop. ‘Mine has a high resolution,’ he said, ‘1600 x 1200 pixels, if it’s there we’ll see it.’ Soon he’d appeared again with his customised Mac, some hot chocolate and a bottle of whisky. They sat in the car and played the section through again. The drifting smoke, followed by the smouldering shapes in the background. This time there was a momentary view among the timbers of a wheelchair lying there empty, then the blackened curtains. Then the woods behind. But there was nothing among the trees: there was no dim shape that matched what she thought she’d just seen.
‘Shit,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing there.’
She could sense that Huw thought she’d been winging it, letting her imagination get the better of her. She took a quick swig of whisky, then started the engine.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘It’s time to check our only real lead so far in this case.’
Catrin drove fast, by a roundabout route back to a street only a few blocks from the hotel. She’d already studied the maps, so she wouldn’t have to use the satnav. The satnav worked on wireless, she knew it was penetrable.
She kept the headlights full on. There was no other traffic on the road. There were moments when she could see only thick banks of snow. The winds driving the snow were pummelling the car. Along the roadside the ground dropped away sheer to the frothing peaks of the distant breakers.
The photographic shop was on a street so narrow they had to park the car on the street above. There were no lights on in the shop, but one in the flat above. Further down, an old Toyota was parked half up on the pavement. It was only covered in a thin layer of snow.
‘If that’s their car,’ she said, ‘it looks like the owners are back from their holiday.’
In the distance, through the fog, there was another pair of headlights. They were at the other end of the lane, not moving forward. They were high off the ground, as if on a four-wheel-drive vehicle or a van. Abruptly, they swung away, and the vehicle disappeared again into the fog. Catrin heard the revving of the engine, then a high whining noise as the vehicle sped off, already too far away to follow.
She pointed into the bank of fog. ‘That looked like a tail,’ she said.
‘Them or us?’
‘Not sure.’
She picked up the envelope of photographs and ran down to the door. The tanned young man who answered was in his early twenties, with shoulder-length dreadlocks. He looked tired, hung-over from all the booze on the flight back.
‘Can’t this wait until the morning,’ he said. He tried to shut the door, but Catrin pushed in past him.
She slapped the envelope down on the counter as Huw came in, allowing the door to slam in the wind. She reached into her coat, flashed her ID card. When he saw it the boy looked nervous, scratched his hair.
‘Do you know a Rhys Williams?’ she asked.
‘Name doesn’t ring a bell.’
She leant back hard against the stand of cheap digital cameras behind her. It began to rock. One of the cameras dropped, slid along the floor.
‘It’s just that he sent us these photographs and here’s your name on the back of the envelope.’
The boy looked at the stand rocking, then down at the gold sticker. She put out a hand, caught the stand before it fell.
‘Yes, that’s us,’ he said. ‘But this order came through our collection service.’
Huw leant forwards, putting his full weight on the edge of
the till.
‘How does that work then?’
The boy pointed to a box fixed against the outer wall of the shop.
‘The customer puts in his memory stick, CD-ROM or film, then the machine provides a docket and a time of collection.’
‘So you wouldn’t have seen who collected the pictures?’
The boy shook his head.
‘There’s not enough custom to have the shop open in the winter. We just come down to fill and empty the machine.’
Catrin pulled one of the photographs from the envelope.
‘Can you give me a date on this?’
The boy looked at the back of the photograph under the light, then balanced it in his open palm.
‘This has been printed on our new chlorobromide paper,’ he said. ‘So it’s been done in the last six months.’
‘And the photograph?’
He looked at it again.
‘It’s digital, but the image is undated. It looks like the camera’s dating system was disabled. There’s no way of telling when the photograph itself was taken – it could be years old.’
‘Wouldn’t the customer contact details be entered with the order?’
The boy held up the envelope and pointed at its blank front.
‘There’s no name or number on the envelope, so it appears this customer never entered contact details.’
She brought out the rest of the images of the hooded figures in the surrounding woodland.
‘Recognise any of this?’
The boy looked at the pictures, one after the other, and began shaking his head slowly, emphatically. Then just as he was passing them back, he looked at one again. She thought he’d recognised something, but then he just shook his head again and handed the photo to her.
‘Could be anywhere around here,’ he said.
‘So it looks local?’
‘Well, local covers the entire national park. We’re talking hundreds of miles of woods and headlands that look just like that.’
Huw had already turned away, was walking back towards the door. Catrin was about to follow him when she had a thought and turned back to the boy.