Aberystwyth Mon Amour an-1

by Malcolm Pryce

  Maybe it was simply the power of the phrase 'on the house' that did it. Words that initially filled me with contempt, but which became less offensive and more attractive with every drink. Or maybe it was just the drink. My original plan of going on to the Indian to find Siani had lost all appeal. And it didn't have any to start with. What for anyway? I already knew where Evans was: at the bottom of the harbour or somewhere similar. There could be no other explanation. It was just a matter of time before he floated to the surface. I didn't care anyway. Or maybe it was something to do with Bianca. She was a sweet girl. Not just pretty. But something else, which I only really came to understand long after she died. She was more honest than Myfanwy. She wasn't very smart, and that was probably why. But she was a lot nicer for it.

  For a long time we sat in my car, parked on the Prom just across from the mosaic of Father Time. The windows were wound down and out in the blackness we could hear the ocean throbbing; roaring and shuddering and gnawing at the boulders of the sea wall. I asked her why she hung around with Pickel and she shrugged. 'It's not like you think.'

  'But he's horrible, isn't he?'

  'He repairs the clocks for the pensioners for nothing. You wouldn't believe how shy he is about it; they have to leave them on the back step and in the morning they're fixed — like the tooth fairy.'

  She shifted in the seat, the shiny black plastic coat crackling as she moved. 'And if they get locked out, he opens their door for them. He can open any lock . . . besides, you don't know what it's like for him.'

  'Do you?'

  'He spent his childhood waiting for his mum to come home from the pub. I know what that's like.'

  In the darkness the glare from the streetlights glistened on the pillar-box red of her lips and the whites of her eyes.

  'You make things so difficult.'

  'What things?'

  'You know I like you?'

  'No.'

  'Well, I do.'

  'Thanks.'

  'I didn't mean it like that.'

  'Nor did I.'

  She looked across at me and smiled weakly. 'I know you're a nice guy.'

  'Don't get carried away, I'm not that nice.'

  She squeezed my hand in the darkness.

  I asked, 'Why did Myfanwy tell you to come home with me?'

  'She didn't. I wanted to.'

  'I just don't get it.'

  'Does everything always have to be something you can get?

  I pondered that one for a while. Then she put her hand on my shoulder and said, 'Can we talk about something else?'

  But we didn't talk; instead we drove round the block to Canticle Street and climbed the bare wooden stairs to the scrap of destiny which seemed so like a turning point but was probably nothing of the sort.

  The following night I stayed home and drank half a bottle of rum and booked a table at the Indian restaurant.

  'Do you have a reservation?' Two dark eyes studied me through the Judas hole in the door.

  'Yes, Kreuzenfeld.'

  The waiter nodded and pulled back the bolts.

  'We've been expecting you.'

  The door opened and I was shown past a sign saying 'Please guard your artificial limb against theft' and into a lounge packed with tables. The air was foggy with sweat, body odour, beery breath, hot curry spices, vomit and disinfectant. Most of the tables were full; a mixture of locals and nervous tourists. I sat down and the waiter held out a menu, regarding me with a mixture of anxiety and interest. I smiled at him. 'What's good tonight, then?'

  He stared at me. 'Good?' he said in a flat Midlands accent.

  'Yes, what does the chef recommend?'

  'Are you trying to be funny?'

  'No. I mean what should I have? What's good?'

  It was plainly a request he'd never had to deal with before. He narrowed his eyes and looked at me, suspicion and confusion swimming in his eyes.

  'You mean on the menu, like?'

  'Yes.'

  He laughed.

  'Nothing of course, it's all shit.' And then, perhaps feeling a trace of guilt inspired by my guileless expression, he added:

  'I mean look at this lot, what's the point?'

  I looked round at the screaming hordes and nodded in sympathy.

  'No point at all. You might as well open up a few tins of dog food and stir in some curry powder.'

  'We do!'

  I looked at him startled, and he burst out laughing. 'Just kidding, mate, but it's not a bad idea. They wouldn't know.'

  I put the menu down on the table.

  'Look, I'll tell you what I can do, mate, I'll ask the chef to do you some egg on toast or something?'

  Before I could answer, a fight broke out in the corner of the room and the waiter strode off wearily and -without any sense of urgency to attend to the situation. I looked around. On the table next to me a man lay face down in his curry. And over in the bay window, among a group of bikers, sat the girl I was looking for. Siani-y-Blojob: dirty and frayed sleeveless denim vest over the standard-issue leather jacket; hair like wet straw and a pudgy pasty face.

  The fight had developed from shouts and abuse to flailing fists as the two protagonists fell heavily on to a neighbouring table, occupied by a group of lads. Paradoxically, it was one of the few things you could do to someone in this restaurant that wouldn't cause offence. Brush their sleeve, look at their girlfriend, or just stare in the wrong direction for a second and you would be issued with a challenge. But throw a body on to a stranger's food and it was OK, the sort of forgivable mistake that could happen to anyone. The only danger was if you spilled their pint of lager and there was no danger of that because it would have been whipped out of harm's way the moment the fight broke out. It was a spectacle of synchronisation and choreography that put the wonders of the natural world to shame. A shout, a scream, the splintering of glass — and suddenly, to the accompanying shouts of 'incoming!' — thirty right arms shot forward like the tentacles of a sea anemone to remove the pints. What made it even more amazing was this: they all knew the difference, like veterans from the trenches in the First World War, between the real and the false alarms. Only the tourists embarrassed themselves by reaching for their pints at the wrong moment.

  The fight rolled off the table and on to the floor and the waiters moved in to disengage the flailing limbs. Another late night in Aberystwyth. Over by the window Siani-y-Blojob, like a human oil rig, lit one of her farts with a plume of flame. As she did so a waiter brought three curries on a tray and scraped them all on to one plate for her. Reckoning that this gave me at least an hour's grace, I stood up and left.

  I drove fast through the empty streets, along the one-way system which took me past the station, along to the harbour and over Trefechan Bridge out towards the council estate. Calamity had written down the address for me and I found it easily enough: a semi-detached house in a nondescript row with those metal gates and railings which council houses seem always to have painted either blue, red or yellow. There was a small patch of garden to the side and the underwear hung from one of those merry-go-round washing line contraptions. I put on a gardening glove.

  *

  I knew I would find Archie Smalls at the all-night diner on Llanbadarn Road. It was situated on a patch of waste ground set away from the road with room for the long-distance lorry drivers to pull up for bacon sandwiches and mugs of tea. The other customers — and there were never many at any one time — were the usual misfits you find in the early hours: burglars and drunks sobering up; night-shift workers going home and early-shift workers on their way. And people like Archie who like to start late in the night, long after the rest of the town has fallen into a drunken sleep. There was one waitress on duty in a stained pink tunic and a cook playing cards at the back. The night was hot and all the windows were open, but there was hardly any movement of air to take the edge off the heat from the kitchen. Archie was sitting morosely, staring into a cold mug of tea at a table just inside the doorway. I sat down opposite hi
m. I could see he didn't want company.

  'Morning!'

  He looked up sourly, but said nothing.

  'Fancy a chat?'

  'No.'

  'Don't worry, you will.'

  He looked up again and stared at me.

  'I hear you've been spending a lot of time in this neighbourhood.'

  'If I have, it's my business, isn't it?'

  'Not now I've made it mine.'

  He put a grubby index finger in his mouth and gnawed at it and spoke without taking it out. 'What do you want?'

  'I was just wondering what Siani-y-Blojob would say if she caught you stealing her knickers.'

  He became convulsed with contempt. 'You think I'm stupid?'

  He stood up to leave but stopped halfway when I put the panties down on the table-top.

  'They're from her garden.'

  'Fuck off!'

  'I was there about half an hour ago.'

  'She'll tear your bollocks off.'

  'Why would she suspect me?'

  He sat down, slowly, as if there was an egg on the seat beneath him. I started speaking to no one in particular. 'About an hour ago she was in the curry house; she had three curries. I reckon she'd be on the third by now. Maybe after that she'll go for a few more pints. Maybe she won't, maybe even she has early nights now and again. You've probably got about an hour to put her knickers back. Otherwise, you might as well start packing your suitcase.'

  For a while he sat and looked at me without saying anything. I could see he was working it out. I could be lying, but why would I bother? If I wasn't lying, he was in trouble. I hated doing it to him.

  'What do you want?' he said finally.

  'Iolo Davies, from the Museum.'

  He shot up and started to leave again but I grabbed the sleeve of his coat. The waitress looked over and then quickly away again.

  'What happened to him?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I hear he left the Museum.'

  'So?'

  'Bit sudden wasn't it?'

  He shrugged. 'Maybe he wanted a change of career.'

  'Did you do any business with him?'

  'Yeah. Some.'

  'What happened?'

  Archie looked sadly at the panties, thought for a while, and then said, 'That thing with the semen stain was bollocks. He'd never get caught like that. He was a pro; we all were.'

  I nodded.

  'We had a well-run group — you know, respectable people, vicars and school teachers and the like, none of your riff-raff. Everyone was clean. No stains, no mess. Everyone used protection. It was understood. If anyone got caught we'd all go down. The authorities had known about it for years; they didn't care as long as they all received their fat envelopes of cash at the beginning of every month. Then one day they went for Iolo.'

  'What about the rest of the ring?'

  'That was the funny part. It was just him. Whatever it was he'd done, it wasn't the underwear.'

  'What happened to him?'

  'I heard he managed to get out of town; or maybe they let him, I don't know.'

  'Do you know where he went?'

  He shrugged.

  I placed a hand on the panties. 'Don't force me to do this, Archie.'

  He shook his head. 'I really don't know where he went, but it's not hard to guess ... I mean the man's got to make a living hasn't he?'

  'So?'

  'So years ago, long before he became Mr Big Bollocks, he had a different trade. The sort they don't paint your picture in oils for and hang up in the Rotary Club.'

  'What was it?'

  Archie looked into my eyes and stared long and hard. He knew he was going to tell me, but he still didn't like it. Eventually he said the three words:

  'Punch and Judy.'

  Chapter 10

  IF THE PIRATES caught you,' I explained, 'they chained you to an oar and rubbed chillis in your eyes to keep you awake. Unless you were a woman in which case they sold you into slavery.'

  Calamity stood in front of the map of Borneo and studied the route of my great-great-uncle.

  'What makes you so sure she didn't drown?'

  'She probably did.'

  Calamity unwrapped a sugar lolly. 'So you just sit here staring at your uncle?'

  'It's the second rule of being a private eye.'

  She looked at me with interest. 'How does it go?'

  'Look after your shoes.'

  She frowned.

  'It means don't waste shoe leather walking around all over the place when a lot of things can be worked out with your head.'

  'What's the first rule of being a private eye?'

  'Don't be one.'

  She frowned again. 'And the third?'

  'I'll tell you later.'

  'You mean you haven't thought of it yet.'

  I laughed. 'Come on, get your coat, it's time to violate the second rule.'

  In Venice a nobleman would arrive at the Duke's palace in furs and silks and half an hour later would exit the back way over the Bridge of Sighs to prison. With Iolo Davies the way led over Trefechan Bridge but the symbolism was the same. For years he had basked in the warm glow of Aberystwyth respectability. Not a duke or a lord, perhaps, but a man occupying an eminent position, enjoying the esteem of the movers and shakers of his little world. Invited every year to the Golf Club Summer Ball and the Rotary Club Christmas Party; holder of a seat on the St Luddite's School board of governors; advisor to the examining boards; publisher of several pieces of research into the lost art of whalebone corsetry. A proud man who had his suits tailored in Swansea, and bespoke aftershave mixed to a personal recipe by the perfumers of Gwent. A man of culture now forced to scratch a living putting on marionette performances in the back rooms of pubs.

  Aberaeron was the centre of the Punch and Judy circuit and as we drove south along the coast road, we talked more about Hermione Wilberforce. I explained how years later Bartholomew's journal was found in the jungle. It recorded how his guides and bearers abandoned him one by one, until finally he ploughed on alone; how his last weeks were spent racked by fever and madness. And how in the final delirium before he died he described the day when, alone in the jungle and too ill to move, he was visited by Hermione.

  'The thing is,' said Calamity, the lolly still in her mouth, 'that doesn't prove anything, does it?'

  'Nope.'

  'It could just have been a hallucination.'

  'Of course.'

  'Or an orang-utan. Or he could have just made it up.'

  'Except for one thing.'

  There was a slight pause. Calamity looked at me sensing the mild air of melodrama in my voice.

  'What?'

  'He took a camera with him.'

  I could sense her interest quicken.

  'It was one of the very first ones — the size of a step-ladder and he lugged it all the way to Borneo and then upriver. He was the first person ever to record images of the headhunting tribes. He once described how he arranged a photo session and had to wait an hour for the women of the tribe to get ready. He said women were the same all over the world.'

  Calamity snorted.

  'Most of the film was eaten by insects but a few plates survived.'

  'Where are they?'

  'Sydney University.'

  'You're not going to tell me he took a picture of Hermione?'

  'I don't know. That's the fascinating thing: the camera was never found — they found his journal and other effects but not the camera. Then fifteen years later it turned up, or so the story goes, in a junk shop in Hong Kong. An American merchant bought it and there was a plate still inside. They say he had it developed and although partially ruined you could still make out the ghostly image of a European woman in the midst of the rainforest.'

  'What happened to the picture?'

  'He lost it.'

  It was late afternoon when we drove into the fishing village of Aberaeron. I pulled up and parked outside the butcher's shop on the main street. A fawn Allegro p
ulled in and parked about thirty yards behind me. It had been following us most of the way from Aberystwyth.

  'How many pubs are there in this town?' Calamity asked.

  'Loads.'

  'How are we gong to find the right one?'

  'Third rule of being a private eye. When confronted with a mystery, don't ask what's the answer, ask what's the question.'

  Calamity considered that one for a second. 'That's a good one; better than the first two.'

  'Can you see the fawn Allegro behind us?'

  'It's been following us since Southgate.'

  I squinted at the driver in the rear-view mirror. Trench coat and trilby, beard, dark glasses, newspaper balanced on the steering wheel, it didn't prove anything, but when did an innocent person ever dress like that?

  'So what's the question?'

  'The question is: not which pub will he be in tonight, but which of these two butchers' shops will he be getting his sausages from.'

  Calamity considered this new approach to detective work.

  I took out the pamphlet on the history of the Museum that I had picked up from the library. 'Whatever else I know or don't know, I know you can't do Punch and Judy without sausages. There's always a bit where the Chinaman falls into the sausage machine and comes out as a yellow sausage with a pigtail.'

  In the list of contributors at the back of the booklet there was a picture of Iolo Davies. They may have removed his portrait from the Museum cafe but they had done nothing more painstaking than that. Chubby red cheeks, a toothbrush moustache which he may have shaved off and bushy eyebrows which he probably hadn't.

  He turned up shortly before closing time at about 5.20pm, sauntering down the sunlit street with the air of someone who has just woken up. The once-sharply tailored suit was now dirty and torn. Both knees were patched with the sort of big ugly stitching you normally only saw on clown's trousers; the handmade shoes were scuffed and open to reveal his toes. He walked into the shop and came out a few minutes later with a bag of sausages under his arm. As he walked off down the street, I eased the car out into the traffic and followed. He walked down the High Street, across the pelican crossing and into a pub overlooking the harbour called the Jolly Roger. I drove a couple of blocks and let Calamity out at the lights. The plan was for her to double back and keep an eye on the pub; I would carry on and try to lose the tail. We agreed to rendezvous at 7.30pm. I drove on and parked on an embankment overlooking the harbour; there was time to kill and the way to do it was wind down the window, let the muggy late-afternoon air in, and snooze to the muted cries of the gulls. The Allegro overtook and turned into a side street.