I could see that I had lost him. Or I had led the conversation in a direction which threatened the protocol. People came here to escape their cares, not to relive them. They came to buy his vanilla-soaked tickets back to a world where pain was just a grazed knee and a mother's caring hand was never far away.
* * *
I took a slurp and then turned, leaning my back against the counter and staring out to sea. The surface of the water glittered like the shards of a shattered mirror. It was going to be a scorcher.
'Seen much of Evans the Boot lately?' I asked casually.
'No. And I don't want to.'
'I heard he'd done a bunk.'
'Has he? I don't expect many people will be sorry to hear that.'
'You hear anything about it?'
He scratched his chin in a pantomime of a man struggling to remember.
'Can't say that I have.'
I put a 50p piece on the counter and the smiling ice man removed it with a nonchalance that took years of polishing.
'I didn't hear anything myself, but they do say that the kid at the bingo parlour knows about these things.'
I nodded and walked off, flicking the remainder of the half-finished cone into the bin.
The mangled ironwork of Aberystwyth Pier points out across the waters of Cardigan Bay like a skeletal finger. In happier times it had been a brightly painted boulevard of kiosks and sideshows where the ladies and gentlemen of the day came to enjoy the restorative properties of the seaside air. Parasols were twirled, moustaches waxed and ships bound for Shanghai, Honolulu, Papeete and 'Frisco' could be embarked from the end of the jetty. But the intervening years had seen a sad, slow fall from grace. The ships had all been turned into garden sheds and the Pier now lay stunted and truncated like a bridge to the Promised Land that had run out of funds.
I walked under an arch of flashing, coloured lights past a cobweb-covered RSPCA dog who stood sentinel. He regarded me with a glazed look and a shocked expression on his fibreglass face and I patted him before entering. Inside it was bedlam: a flashing labyrinth of fruit machines at which boys, who should have been in school, stood chewing like cows in the late-afternoon sun and examining the reels with the concentration of chess players. Sullen girls slouched next to them with heavy kohl-rimmed eyes like handmaidens from Egyptian tombs. I walked quickly past to the back and through the fluttering door of plastic strips into Bingoland. Here the same girls, fifty years down the line, could be found wearing dishwater-coloured coats and peering intently at the electro-illuminated screens. Each searching in the depths of the TV tube for the string of numbers that would unlock the doors of the glass-fronted cabinet of prizes. Goblin Teasmades, picnic hampers, sets of wine glasses or, for those granite-hearted ones with the resolve to save up the vouchers, the Colt 45 and Roy Rogers hat. Any line from top to bottom, side to side or from corner to corner.
At the far end of the room, next to a window looking out on to a forlorn ocean, there was a player who differed from the rest. Dressed in school uniform, she looked about fifteen or sixteen years old, and had a turned-up nose, a mass of freckles, spiky blonde hair and a chocolate-rimmed mouth. Although she was sliding the plastic shutters across on her console, she hadn't put any money in. Without the background illumination you couldn't see the numbers, but she didn't look like she needed to. I walked over to her. She gave me a brief glance and then returned her attention to the game.
'Wouldn't it be better if you put some money in?' She answered mechanically without removing her gaze from the screen. 'No point. This machine isn't going to come up for another fifty games. Lady over there in the blue scarf is going to win this one.'
I looked across to the lady in question. She didn't seem the lucky type.
'She'd probably pay a lot of money for a piece of information like that.'
'She already did. Why do you think she's sitting there?'
'How do you work it out?'
'I got a system.'
'Oh.'
'Wanna buy into it?'
'No thanks. I don't believe in systems.'
She shrugged. 'Suit yourself.'
'How old are you?'
'Old enough.'
The lady in the blue scarf shouted, 'House!'
Twenty jaws dropped and the crack of Mintos hitting lower dental plates was like a Mexican firing squad taking aim. The compere walked over and started checking off the numbers as the rest of the room held its breath and watched through rheum-filled eyes of hate. Everyone prayed that there had been a mistake: a wrong number or maybe the lady would turn out to be one of those sickos who drifted in off the street to make hoax calls. The caller gave the 'OK' and the bubble burst. The lady in the blue scarf squealed with glee and twenty handbags snapped open in unison as everyone delved for more coins.
I looked at the kid with renewed respect. 'Pretty good! What's your name?' 'Calamity Jane, what's yours?' 'Louie Knight.'
'What can I do for you, Louie?' 'Evans the Boot.'
The kid pursed her lips and shook her head. 'Sorry, never heard of him.'
I took a 50p piece and laid it on top of the bingo console.
She reconsidered. 'I've got a friend who might.'
I nodded.
Kelly's eye, number one. They were off again.
'I'd like to meet him.'
Calamity Jane tut-tutted at the enormity of the task.
'That might not be easy, boss.'
'Of course.'
'Tough assignment.'
Two fat ladies, eighty-eight.
'You look like a tough kid.'
She considered again.
'Maybe I can arrange something. I'll need some help to cover my bus fare.'
I put a 20p piece down on top of the 50p piece.
'I live in Machynlleth.'
I put another 20p down.
'And sundry expenses.'
'Well, let's just begin with the bus fare.'
Calamity Jane looked at the coins disdainfully.
'Generally, my friend doesn't get out of bed for less than two pound.'
'Must be a big bed.'
'Fills the whole room.'
I put another 50p piece down.
'Always glad to help a man get out of bed.'
'Looks to me like you want him to stay there the whole day.'
I sighed and took out my card. 'I tell you what, why don't you pin this to his teddy bear. If he's got any information about Evans the Boot, we can discuss terms then.'
She picked up the card and examined it.
'You're a gumshoe!' she said, her face lighting up. 'That's what I'm going to be when I grow up.'
'Good for you!'
She slid the card into her breast pocket and slipped off the stool.
'I'll be in touch.'
Two things struck me when I got back to the office in Canticle Street: the light was flashing on the answerphone; and the office had been ransacked.
Chapter 2
THERE WAS NO sign to indicate the presence of Wales's most notorious night club. Just a plain black door, standing quietly amid the Dickensian bow windows of Patriarch Street. On the one side were the shops selling Welsh fudge, slate barometers and paperweights made out of polished fossils from the beach. And on the other, the Salvation Army second-hand clothing store, 'Army Surplice'. The door to the club itself was featureless except for a Judas window and the number six in scarlet and only if you looked closely at the doorbell on the right would you see the simple words: Moulin Goch, Boоte de Nuit. When I arrived shortly after 10pm Mrs Llantrisant and Mrs Abergynolwen from the Sweet Jesus League against Turpitude had just started setting up their stall.
'Evening, Mr Knight!'
'Evening, Mrs Llantrisant! You're looking very glamorous tonight, new hair-do is it?'
'Guess again, Mr Knight, new something else.' She lifted her left heel and did a pirouette to show off her wares. I studied her keenly; what was new?
'Go on! Can't you tell? Honestly, you men!'
/> 'It's those orthopaedic boots, isn't it?'
She beamed and bent forward to look at them. 'Got them this morning; imported from Milan they are: calfskin with sheepskin lining — hypo-allergenic, as well, so's the cat doesn't get a cough.'
Mrs Abergynolwen came over. 'Going into the Club, is it?'
'I thought I might.'
'Like a nice little sedative to put in your drink, Mr Knight? You'll need it.'
'Not with my luck, ladies.'
'Just in case now. Keep the lid on those raging hormones. Better safe than sorry.'
'Honestly, it would be like locking the stable door when you haven't got a horse!'
The Club was a dimly lit basement made up of adjoining cellars knocked into one. The theme was nautical: fishing nets hung from the ceiling and other maritime bric-a-brac littered the room. To one side there was a small dais that acted as the stage. It was edged with sequins that glittered in the spotlights, and an unattended microphone stood in the middle. Nearer to the stage there were closely packed wooden tables, each with an oil lamp on top, while further back there was more elaborate seating made up of coracles and rowing boats sawn in half and padded to form intimate sofas. In the far corner there was an entire fishing boat washed up behind a crimson rope, accessible only to Druids and high-ranking party functionaries. Between the tables a sea of dry ice billowed, dyed blue and turquoise by the luminous plastic fish entangled in the ceiling nets. The effect was wonderful and outshone only by the club's most famous assets of all: the Entertainment Officers, or, as we all affectionately knew them, the Moulin girls. Their job was to keep everybody happy; their uniform, anything to do with the sea that they could dig up from Dai the Custard Pie's fancy dress basement. There were cabin boys and pirates; captains, smugglers and mermaids. And also, inexplicably, a girl in Welsh national dress and two Marie Antoinettes.
I was shown to a table near the front by a door officer in a dinner jacket. Myfanwy was advertised as coming on at 8pm, but never appeared before 11pm, so I ordered a rum and pondered the significance of my ransacked office. The man from the Orthopaedic Boot shop said he'd seen a group of men leaving the premises hurriedly and driving off in a mauve Montego with blacked-out windows. Only one group of people drove cars like that - the Druids. I thought of how completely the tentacles of their organisation now encircled our town; how they reached into every nook and crevice, and controlled all aspects of life - the public affairs and those goings-on that dare not show their face to the sun. How they organised the crime and also those people put in office to stop it; and how they took a cut from both. It was so familiar now it was easy to forget that it hadn't always been like this. There was a time when they just organised the Eisteddfod, licensed the application of spells and judged the poetry. When I was in school we would eagerly push ourselves forward outside assembly to have our hair tousled by the Grand Wizard when he came from the temple to deliver an address. When did it change? When did mothers start pulling their kids into shop doorways as the men of the shroud passed? When did they become gangsters in mistletoe? Was it the time they started wearing the specially tailored surplices? That day when the usual sheets, pillow cases and Wellington boots painted white with emulsion no longer sufficed? Or was it when Lovespoon the messianic Welsh teacher became Grand Wizard? And the high-ranking officers started staining their cloaks red and black to distinguish the hierarchy like the Daleks on TV? Now, of course, they eschewed sheets altogether in favour of sharp Swansea suits and silk handkerchiefs.
I ordered another drink and pondered the damage to my office. What had they been searching for? Did it have something to do with Myfanwy's visit? Nothing had been stolen. Admittedly there wasn't much to steal, but there were a few things in the attic that I didn't want disturbed. The attic still connected to the main building of the public library and I had secreted a store of cash and a disguise up there as an emergency escape route.
* * *
And then there was the message on the answerphone. Short and to the point: a boy with an Italian accent claimed to have information to sell about Evans the Boot and told me to go to the 24-hour Whelk Stall tonight at lam.
The girl in the Welsh national dress appeared in front of me, blocking off the light.
'Hi, handsome!'
I looked up warily. 'Hi.' At close quarters I could see her outfit was only a faint echo of Welsh national dress: a basque, fishnet tights, a shawl and a stovepipe hat sitting at a jaunty angle on a mass of black curls.
She held out her hand. 'I'm Bianca.'
It would have been ungracious not to shake her hand, but I knew that once shook, that arm would act like a drawbridge enabling her to gallop across and sack the citadel of my wallet whenever she pleased. I hesitated which made her wiggle her hand impatiently in front of my face, grinning. Reluctantly I took her hand and shook. There was no resisting these girls, and if you wanted to - went the unvoiced accusation in their mocking smiles — why bother coming in the first place? She grinned and spun round excitedly before seating herself on the empty chair opposite me.
'Myfanwy told me to look after you.'
My heart fluttered unaccountably. 'She did?'
'Mmmm,' she giggled. 'She'll be along later, so she made me her deputy; only she didn't give me a star — boo hoo!'
'Are you sure she meant me?'
'Of course. You're Louie aren't you?'
I opened my mouth to speak but only managed a croak. She reached across and tousled my hair. As she did so, her basque slipped forward and I stared into the shadowy abyss of her cleavage. I groaned unintentionally before finally dragging my eyes back up to the safety zone of her face. But the damage was done: the cheeky expression poised halfway between a grin and a smirk made it clear she had registered the kill.
'Naughty boy!' she said and flicked my nose.
She moved her stool closer so we were sitting side by side, arms touching and her hair spilling out on to my shoulder, tickling my face. Her skin was hot next to mine and the moist animal scent of hair filled my nostrils like incense.
'Mmmm, I can see why she likes you!'
'But how did she know I was coming?' I said weakly.
'I don't know, I suppose you told her.'
'No I didn't.'
A waiter appeared.
'Did you tell her you weren't coming?'
'No.'
'Well, same thing then.' And then looking up at the waiter, 'Brandy-coke and another of whatever he's having.' The waiter nodded and moved off.
In a panic I shouted after him, 'Hey wait a minute!' He stopped and turned, but only slightly.
'What's wrong?' asked Bianca, her brow clouding.
I wanted to ask how much a brandy-coke cost, but thought better of it. Bianca waved the waiter away.
'Don't you want to have a nice time?" she cooed.
'Yes of course, but...' The words were lost as I considered the implications of what Bianca had just said. Myfanwy knew I would come. I hadn't said I was going to, and she hadn't invited me or anything; we hadn't even discussed it. In fact, I didn't even know myself until this afternoon. But she had known. Not just assumed it, which was bad enough, but had been so confident of it she had even appointed a friend to look after me. And damn it, here I was.
As the minutes ticked away after 11.15 the Club filled up quickly. Just before Myfanwy came on, one of the Druids from the roped off section got up and made for the gents and I followed him. I stood next to him in the stall and looked at him, but made no attempt to piss. After a few seconds he looked over. I smiled.
'That your Montego outside?'
'What the fuck's it to you?'
'Some people driving a car that like smashed up my place this afternoon. Wondered if you knew anything about it?'
He shrugged. 'Nothing to do with me.'
'It looked like they were searching for something.'
'You don't say.'
'Well tell your friends if they want anything from me, they should come and ask. It's m
ore polite.'
'Dunno what you're talking about.' He shook his dick and walked out. I went back to my table.
By the time I returned to my seat, a change had come over the room. As if reacting to an unseen signal, the private conversations started to fizzle out, one by one, until in just a few seconds there were only three or four people talking. Then two, then none. We all looked to the stage like children who have scented that Father Christmas is in the building. A wave of restlessness then swept through the gathering like a breeze through a field of corn. A man appeared on the stage, clutching a microphone and holding out a supplicatory arm, admonishing the restless crowd into silence.
'All right, settle down, settle down!'
There was an outbreak of chair-squeaking as people turned their seats to face the stage.
'Settle down. We've got a long show ahead of us tonight, we can't start until you let us.'
The compere paused, as if to leave a respectable gap between his persona and the new one he was about to adopt. He adjusted his bow tie and then spoke in a voice borrowed from the days of Old Time Music Hall.
'My Lords, ladies, gentlemen!' he began to a huge roar of delight. 'Bards and High Priests, it's time once again to welcome our sweet little songstress from St Asaph
The audience went 'Ooooh!'
'The little lamb chop from Lampeter . . . the farmer's favourite and Druid's delight . . .'
The audience went 'Aaah!'
'The babe that makes the bards bubble at the brim with the basest beastliness ..."
The room thundered a delighted 'Whooah!'
'Ladies and gentlemen I give you the cute, the candy-coated, the coracle-sized crackerjack from Cwmtydu! The legendary, leek-scented lovespoon from Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn, the one and only legendary Welsh chanteuse — Myfanwy M-o-n-t-e-z!'
It took a full three minutes for the applause to die down. During that time, the already dim lights were dimmed further, until nothing could be made out in the room except the cigarette ends in the faces of the audience and shadowy movements on the stage. Then, all of a sudden, dawn broke in the form of a single spotlight trained on Myfanwy, shimmering in an evening gown of pale blue silk.
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