Mr Cassini

by Lloyd Jones

  I will weave a web to catch me some luck. Like the moon-struck Russian scientist Kozyrev I will train my telescopic mirrors to catch starlight in chorus from the past, the present and the future. I will fight back with words – for words are a form of witchcraft too, my friends. PC 66 – you are summoned to the police station, at once.

  8

  THE TIDE COMES IN

  I interview PC 66 and we assemble a goodly band of men

  Mr Cassini must die. But he won’t – he’s a grotesque vampire-man who refuses to lie down. He has survived his own funeral, and now he’s prowling around downstairs, in the cellar of our story. Clatter, bang, shatter – can you hear him down there, shouting at someone? Having crept into the story he has spread his dark stain over the narrative: he has infected nearly every page and forcibly added his name to a bestiary of hobthrusts and monsters, a band of baddies ranging from the Minotaur to Faust and Frankenstein’s Monster, Prospero, Dracula, Caligula, the Demon Huntsman, Freud’s Wolf Man, Pedro the Cruel…

  You’ve never heard of Pedro the Cruel? A fearsome king was Pedro – recognisable only by the clicking of his arthritic knees, he stole out from his Spanish fortress at night, in disguise, to pick a quarrel with – and murder – any luckless subject who happened by. We have to reverse this process and pick a quarrel with Mr Cassini; we have to rebirth the monster and then destroy him if Olly is going to survive. Mr Cassini has stalked along the ley lines of her mind every night, looking for trouble; he’s asleep now, so let’s make the most of his quiet period – let’s nab him.

  If we go back to the first story ever recorded, the 4,000-year-old Epic of Gilgamesh, we find the sky-god Anu responding to the pleas of the human race, which is being oppressed, by creating someone who will deliver it – the wild man Enkidu, who lives in the untamed forest and has the strength of a horde of wild animals.

  Ring any bells? Yes, remarkable isn’t it – Merlin, our very own wild man of the woods, has been around for a long time in one form or another. But how could a wild man save the oppressed majority? Because he speaks the truth? Because he has experienced ultimate degradation and knows, exactly, the depth of Abaddon’s pit – and how to climb out of it? Or is it because he knows that our fears are often more troublesome than reality itself? And is there a wild man in all of us, a Janus who swivels the mirror playfully now and then to show us sanity then insanity, order then disorder, yin then yang? Who knows... maybe Enkidu was just another drugged-up tree hugger.

  First, we have to set the scene. Conditions must be just right.

  Let us go down to the shore again, to that liminal strand between land and sea. Why? Maybe because nobody owns it, not really. The National Trust and the MoD lay claim to some of it, and the Queen says she owns more than half of it. But the truth is that no human can own this realm. It’s the dominion of children, a land of dreams. The first and last place of safety. A separate world exists here, but don’t imagine for a moment that nothing much happens between a rock and a hard place, because every beach is divided into zones and territories which have their own citizens and their own unwritten laws. Some of the citizens have been around a long time, others are new kids on the block. Take that smallish barnacle which clings tenaciously to its rock: it came from Tasmania, on the keel of a flying boat which landed in Milford Haven, and now its offspring are spreading at a fantastic rate along the Welsh shoreline. No matter how small or insignificant we are, there’s always someone or something ready to feed on us. So it is with the humble barnacle, too. The common dog whelk drills holes in its shell and sucks it up for dinner. Then there’s the Chinese mitten crab: having conquered swathes of Europe and North America it landed at Chelsea in 1935, and now threatens a number of native species as it burrows into river banks and crosses dry land in a steady march northwards, obliterating the natives as it goes. Likewise the American red crayfish – a vicious invader which is on a murder spree in Britain’s waters; it can climb up nearly anything and live out of water for months. Little fleas have smaller fleas… there’s a bird in the Galapagos Islands – the sharp-beaked finch, also called the Vampire Finch – which lives by drinking the blood of other birds, and there are plants in Wales which live on flesh – sundew, butterwort, and the rootless bladderwort. Which brings me back to another blood-sucker – Mr Cassini, and the cunning plan I have in mind. I’ve been extremely resourceful. I think you’ll be impressed with my stratagem.

  As the sea gathered its forces before the equinox, and the tides waxed big, Mr Cassini set about his next gargantuan task. He decided to build a massive stone man on the shoreline, to paralyse sailors with fear so that they would be driven onto the rocks below. He laboured every day under his rusting scaffolds, carrying stones to a promontory in the paludal wastelands beyond Little Bay, using the harbourmaster’s tractor and trailer. This area of bogland was far bigger than any of the great bogs of Wales: Fochno, Caron, Crymlyn. Gradually, the sea-facing colossus (which he eventually painted matt red, the same colour as his house) took shape: it was fifty feet high by the time he finished. As he fashioned his creation, rumours spread around the town. A ghost ship had been sighted repeatedly in Big Bay. A polar bear had passed by on an ice floe. Three Inuit kayaks, empty save for whalebone fishing tackle, but steered in a perfectly straight line by phantom paddles, had been seen by local fishermen. Finally, Mr Cassini unleashed a wave of panic with Little Michael. He told the juvenile sharks drinking in the Blue Angel that he had found a small but superbly-crafted coffin on the shore near his colossal Red Man, a coffin which was precisely fourteen inches long. Inside it lay a perfectly formed human called Little Michael. This tiny man, dressed in a black suit, was dead… but Mr Cassini knew how to bring him back to life. A wave of agitation and unrest swept through the town.

  While Mr Cassini basked in a new wave of notoriety I prepared the way for his final demise. I knew a way to eliminate him, once and for all. One day I went down to the shore, looking for PC 66. Sure enough, I found him moping around on his throne-rock in Little Bay. There, amid the scuttling crabs and many single Wellingtons, pumps, moccasins and boots, I interviewed him. I told him about myself, and about Olly’s predicament. He was anxious to help us, to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  ‘It’s time to get it all off my chest,’ he told me. ‘I’d like that. Maybe I could relax a bit afterwards. That calm, drugged feeling you get when an ordeal is over. Actually, I was thinking about it yesterday, on the beach, walking along aimlessly. Daydreaming, really. I imagined the seawater all gone, just for a day, so that I could walk along the bottom of the sea looking at what’s there. Maybe I would meet other people wandering along the bottom of the sea bed and we’d laugh and say did you see this and did you see that. I want to start with a clean slate. I’ll tell you all about it. Don’t rush me though – I want to figure it all out first.’

  We decided to form a team. A classic nice cop – nasty cop routine. He could be the nice cop for a change.

  ‘Do your duty before it’s too late,’ I urged him. ‘Iron your uniform, polish your truncheon, do whatever you have to do. We must get rid of this monstrous man!’

  Our first step was to recruit some aides to help us dispose of Mr Cassini. We needed men with special powers, and our first choice was a man much famed for his exploits: the soldier, magician and poet Huw Llwyd. We travelled westwards to find him at Maentwrog, and luckily for us he was available. We found him at a loose end, and he was quickly persuaded to join our hit squad.

  His first question was: would there be any fighting? I assured him not. I was well aware that he had fought bravely for a Welsh regiment raised to fight the armies of Spain in the Low Countries, but I needed only his fabled mental powers. ‘Good,’ he replied, ‘since I have been dead for over 400 years now.’

  Let me introduce Huw – or to give him his full name, Huw Llwyd of Cynfael.

  He was the seventh son of a Maentwrog family and he was a wizard, according to the old people. If you walk through C
eunant Cynfal nature reserve near Llan Ffestiniog you’ll come across a pillar of rock known as Huw Llwyd’s Pulpit: according to local tradition he came to this spot regularly to meditate. He was a renowned huntsman who wrote odes to both the fox and the hound. He had a thorough grounding in medicine, and he was skilled in wizardry. It’s said that he studied books on magic and ate the eagle’s flesh so that his descendants could charm away diseases for generations to come. To ease him into his new role, as one of my interrogators, I asked Huw to tell me about the famous occasion when he’d outwitted the cat burglars of Betws.

  ‘With pleasure,’ he said expansively when we met him at the Grapes Hotel. I had difficulty keeping his attention, since he could hardly keep his eyes off the barmaid, who was extremely pretty and engagingly industrious.

  ‘I hear it’s a great story,’ I said, to egg him on.

  He called for our glasses to be replenished, though it was clear he’d already had a few snifters. He grabbed the barmaid as she served us and began singing a ballad to her, gazing forlornly into her eyes, his cheek pressed against her bosom.

  ‘Huw,’ hissed PC 66, ‘people don’t do that sort of thing any more! Let her go!’

  He looked dumbfounded, but slowly unclasped her.

  ‘The cat burglars of Betws,’ I prompted.

  ‘Ah yes! This story is quite famous you know,’ he said with a hint of mock-modesty. ‘One day I called at an inn kept by two sisters near Betws-y-Coed. I pretended to be an official on my way to Ireland, and asked for a night’s lodging. But I had a reason for calling – travellers who stayed the night there were consistently robbed, and I’d promised to unravel the mystery. But I was puzzled – the bedrooms were kept locked throughout the night, and it was impossible for anyone to enter them.’

  He took a slurp from his beer, to wet his whistle.

  ‘Anyway, at supper there was a bit of a duel of wits between the sisters and I: they tried to entice me with their beauty and their racy talk, while I entertained them with fantastical tales about faraway countries. When bedtime came I asked for a plentiful supply of candles, to keep my room lit all night. I locked the door, got into bed, and pretended to sleep. But I kept watch all night long, with my sword unsheathed beside me on the bed. Before long two cats came down the chimney and romped around the room. As I watched them through half-closed eyes I saw them play among my clothes. They were cunning – but not quite cunning enough! They thought I was asleep, so one of them put her paw into my purse-pocket. I sprang out of bed and lashed at the paw with my sword. There was a hideous yowl and both cats disappeared up the chimney. I saw no more of them that night!’

  Huw sank the remainder of his porter – he was a thirsty man that night – and burped loudly before continuing with his tale. He was beginning to slur a little now.

  ‘Next morning only one of the sisters came down to breakfast. So I asked her where the other was. I was told she was ill, and wished to be excused, so I ate my food in silence. When I’d finished I prepared to leave, but before going I insisted on saying farewell to the absent sister. I listened to many lame excuses but I refused to be fobbed off, and finally she came down to say goodbye.’

  There was a pause, and Huw’s eyes misted over as he contemplated his story.

  ‘When I held out my hand to bid her farewell she held out her left hand, instead of her right, but I refused it, saying in a light-hearted way I’m not going to take your left hand: I’ve never taken a left hand in my life, and I’m not going to begin with yours, white and shapely though it is. Very unwillingly, she extended her right hand. It was swathed in bandages!’

  Huw winked at me, and scratched a livid sore on his right cheek. I noticed that his teeth were yellow and rotten, and his breath smelt indescribably foul. Still, if I was going to summon aid from other dimensions I would have to put up with some unpleasant side-effects. He finished his story.

  ‘I had solved the mystery. Those two sisters were witches who took on the form of cats to rob travellers lodging under their roof. Drawing myself up to my full height I told the injured sister: I have drawn blood from you and henceforth you will be unable to do any mischief. Turning to the other sister, I said: I will make you equally harmless, and with that I seized her hand and cut it slightly with a knife, just deep enough to produce some blood. Do you know what? There were no more robberies at that inn, and for the rest of their lives the sisters behaved like model citizens. What do you say to that?’

  I laughed uproariously and clapped him on the back, though I’d heard the story at least a dozen times before.

  The time had come for me to lay my cards on the table.

  ‘I have a mission for you Huw,’ I said conspiratorially. ‘You are just the man I need – brave and clever – to rid the world of a fiend called Mr Cassini.’

  For a moment I thought I’d overdone the flattery, since he frowned and cupped his chin in his hand thoughtfully.

  ‘That’s a very strange sort of name,’ he said. I explained the scenario.

  ‘Fine,’ he said boisterously. ‘I’ll do it. When do we start?’

  I told him to be on the summit of Pumlumon Arwystli at such-and-such a time, where he would meet three other adventurers plus PC 66 and myself. Together, we would wait for Mr Cassini and question him about his misdeeds, then send him towards his nemesis.

  As I started to rise, he tugged at my sleeve, playfully, as children or friends do if they want to prolong a conversation. ‘A word to the wise,’ he said. Did he snigger, ever so slightly?

  ‘This tomfoolery about wells. Forget about them. Wells are a dead end, you’ll get nowhere with them.’

  I looked at him steadily, refusing to look surprised.

  ‘Explain that to me,’ I replied after a suitable pause.

  ‘You’ve experimented with water, and it’s got you nowhere. Look at those divers who drown in the Dorothea Quarry pool all the time. What are they after? Some inner truth? Why do they test themselves to the limit like that? Do they expect to see some strange white light of revelation when they reach the bottom, or to arrive at the centre of their being? Give it up, my friend. There’s nothing at the bottom of the well – only death.’

  He looked me in the eye.

  ‘You’re filling your mind with water. You’re filling it up with nonsense so that you won’t remember anything. Do you understand what I’m saying? Thinking about wells is having a contrary effect. You’ll never remember anything while you’re slopping around in water – and you know it!’

  Perhaps he was right. But why would I do that?

  ‘Because you don’t want to remember,’ said Huw, reading my thoughts. ‘The mind is very powerful. It chooses what to remember and what to forget. Perhaps it’s trying to protect you, yes? What did Michael Hamburger say… memory is a darkroom for the development of fiction. Heed his words, my friend.’

  I liked this man. He seemed to have my interests at heart. I smiled at him, and laid my left hand on his right shoulder, as a friendly gesture. He smiled also.

  ‘You’ve tried Water,’ he said. ‘That leaves Earth, Wind and Fire.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘And chocolate,’ I said.

  He looked at me quizzically, so I elaborated. ‘Food… the taste of things. Good for bringing back memories, yes?’

  He shrugged his shoulders and turned to admire the barmaid’s rump.

  When we left Huw he was enthusiastic about the quest; I wondered how eager he would be the next day when he woke up with a demonic hangover. He looked like a man who’d woken with plenty of hangovers, so we went on our way.

  Next on my list was a minister of religion known simply as the Reverend Griffiths, so we travelled eastwards to find him: I’d been told he lived somewhere on the edge of the Llandegla Moors between Wrexham and Ruthin. One of his most celebrated devices was to chalk two circles on the floor of a haunted room; he would stand in one of them and command the ghost or evil spirit to appear in the other. I managed, eventually, to arrange a tryst with
him in the churchyard at Llandegla, a pretty little village on the Offa’s Dyke Trail. I broke the ice by expressing an interest in the local wells. He knew much about the subject.

  ‘Did you know that children were dipped up to their necks three times in one of the local wells to prevent them from crying at night?’ he asked me. ‘And talking of water, did you know that the dolphin family spent a period on land, long ago, before returning to the sea? Might that nugget of knowledge help you with your quest?’

  PC 66 entertained us with snippets about the Reverend’s exploits as an exorcist, and his specialist knowledge of poltergeists; he mentioned the ghost of Ffrith Farm and the Llandegla Rectory poltergeist. The Reverend was surprised by his acquaintance with the facts.

  As PC 66 inspected a circle of bright yellow celandines around our feet I sat on a gravestone and spread the contents of my rucksack – a picnic – on the lid of the grave.