'I don't believe you.'
I could see fear in Pickel's eyes. If I had threatened to throw his mother out of the window, he probably wouldn't have batted an eye, but the prospect of seeing his clock destroyed was too much. I pushed the anvil even further until it was now teetering on the brink, held in place only by the slight extra weight from the sole of my shoe.
'Where is she?'
'Please, they took her.'
I looked at him impatiently.
'Lovespoon and his tough guys. She stole the essay from me, y'see - the stupid bitch. I mean I had to tell them. They'd have killed me if they'd found out; probably will anyway.'
His eyes were riveted on the anvil.
'Where did they take her?'
He shook his head. 'I don't know. Really I don't.'
I let the anvil swing a bit to refresh his memory.
He cried out. 'Why the fuck would they tell me, anyway?'
'Look, you pile of shit, I don't care what they will and won't tell you. I'm trying to find that girl before any of you monkeys harm her. Now either I leave this tower knowing where to find her, or your clock is fucked.'
He sank down on to the floor and supported his head in his hands.
'Lovespoon is up at the school.'
'What's he doing up there?' I asked in surprise.
'He goes there every night ... to his study ... to write ... and -'
He stopped.
'Yes?'
'And to look at his Ark.' He shrugged. 'That's where he goes.'
'Even at four o'clock in the morning?'
'He'll be there. He never sleeps any more.'
I pulled back the anvil and walked to the door. If you're lying, I'll be back with my own anvil.
Nothing had changed: the squeaky floor, the stale smell of feet and disinfectant, and the skeletal coat pegs, empty except for the occasional lonely anorak. But night gave it an alien, ghostly appearance. Breaking in was as easy now as it had been twenty years ago when we used to come and piss in the sports trophies in the assembly hall. I crept down the corridor, my shoes squealing on the tiles like birds in the rainforest. It was difficult to believe Lovespoon would be here at four in the morning, but Pickel was right. At the end of the corridor, across the foyer, I could see a shaft of light coming from the door of his study. The section where the senior masters had their offices was set off from the main foyer and used to be called the Alamo. A powerful Pavlovian reaction, dormant for two decades, was set in motion as I approached. Mouth went dry and ears began to throb in anticipation of being cuffed. I wrestled with the force inside me which was turning me once again into a subservient, defenceless schoolboy. A target for board rubbers, someone to be lifted bodily by the ear and pulled by the hair. To be upbraided with inferior sarcasm and terrorised into not answering back. How would I find the courage to stand up to him? To accuse him of murdering five of his own pupils? What business is it of yours, anyway, little boy? What if he had his cane? I hesitated outside the door and a voice came from inside: 'Come in, boy, don't stand out there dithering!'
He was at his desk, side-on to me, hunched over and marking essays. Without looking round he raised a hand and waved it in my direction, indicating that I should wait. I stood up straight and took my hands out of my pockets and then cursed myself for the cringing subservience. The only light was the lamp on his desk, and from outside the window the reflection from the huge wooden Ark which now filled up most of the scrub grass to the left of the games field. It shone in the intense white glare of the lights, and security patrols could be seen wandering up and down in front of it. Lovespoon finished marking with a dramatic flourish, closed the last exercise book and looked up.
'It's about that girl, isn't it?' And then adding, as he transferred his entire attention from the marking to this new subject, 'Such a silly girl.'
I said nothing and stared.
He scrutinised my face, trying to place me in the endless stream of pustulating, squeaky-voiced adolescent boys that had flowed through his life, boys who perhaps grew to be as indistinguishable as the leaves that littered the drive each autumn.
'Mr Ballantyne the careers master tells me you're a private detective?'
I didn't answer and the old Welsh teacher sucked on his tongue as he considered the merits of my career choice. 'I always had you down for something more clerical. Drink?'
He pulled a bottle of wine out from behind the angle-poise lamp.
'I'm not thirsty.'
'Ffestiniog Chardonnay, the '73. Really quite good.' He poured himself a glass and added, 'I was under the impression that hard-boiled private eyes were constrained by the requirements of stereotype to drink on every possible occasion.'
'Fuck you!'
The teacher flinched slightly and then said, 'Ah!' before drumming his fingers softly on the desk.
'Where is she?'
He smiled weakly and made an almost imperceptible shrug. 'I don't know.'
'Try again.'
'No, really I don't.'
He leaned slightly closer and peered at me. 'I don't remember teaching you actually.'
'You chipped my tooth when you threw the board rubber.'
He reached and picked up a pen, and then put it down again. 'This is all a terrible mess. Apparently she did it for you.'
Even in the dark I couldn't disguise my reaction.
Lovespoon laughed. 'So romantic. Still, you'd make a better match than Pickel, I dare say. So one can hardly blame her.'
'Just tell me where she is, and I won't hurt you.'
'Hurt me?' he said in phoney surprise.
'Not that you don't rucking deserve it, I owe you plenty.'
The Welsh teacher rutted at my language, and ran a hand lovingly along the ornately carved wooden arms of his chair. It was like a throne.
'Do you know what this chair is?'
I knew he was playing for time, trying to think of a way out or hoping someone would come, but it was difficult to resist the drift of his conversation.
'It's the bardic chair from the Eisteddfod. You won it for the poetry.'
'Three times. That's why I got to keep it.'
'Like Brazil in the World Cup.'
He winced. Then stood up wearily and walked through the darkened office to the window.
'That's the trouble with people like you, Knight, you only know how to mock. How to break things. You don't know how to create anything. You never did.'
'Where does killing your pupils fit into the picture?'
'Brainbocs was unfortunate.'
'You'll be telling me you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, next.'
He shrugged and turned back to face me. 'It's not a bad philosophy.'
'Is that what Bianca is then?'
'Surely you're not going to get all sentimental about a tart?'
I jumped and lunged at him; he stepped back in time and I ended up grabbing his arm. As he struggled to break free we both fell on to the desk, scattering photos, half-marked essays and a pair of scissors.
'She's worth ten of you.'
He laughed wildly. 'She's not worth one of my farts.'
'Tell me where she is!' I shouted. We rolled off the desk on to the floor. Lovespoon struggled to push me off and I fought to get above him, to push him down. He was strong but I had twenty years on him. Soon I was kneeling on his chest. The struggle had knocked the table lamp over and the thin yellow beam pointed at his face.
'Where is she?'
Lovespoon was breathing hard and spoke in gasps. 'I told ... you ... I ... don't know.'
I balled my fingers into a fist and raised it. He looked straight at me with clear, calm grey eyes. There was no fear in them. It was then that I noticed the scissors on the floor. They were those heavy craft scissors with black-painted finger holes. I picked them up and held them hovering above his face.
'Don't make me do it.'
He sneered. 'You haven't got the balls! You never did have, did you? You were too much of a
milksop to play rugby — yes I remember you; and now you think you can come here threatening me?'
I brought the scissors down so low that the point was almost touching his eye. The eyelashes brushed against it. I could see him visibly forcing himself to remain composed.
'You can't frighten me, you know. I fought in Patagonia.'
'With Gwenno Guevara.'
He sneered. 'You'll never find her, you know. Brainbocs managed it but he died, and you don't have the brains.'
'What have you done to Bianca?'
'Since when did you care so much about Pickel's tart?'
I tightened my grip on the scissors. 'If you don't tell me where she is I'll put out your eyes so you never see Cantref-y-Gwaelod.'
For a while there was silence except our breathing. Lovespoon stared up at me and I stared down at him and in between were the scissors. Finally he said: 'I'll make a deal.'
'You're not in a position to.'
'Herod has the girl; I don't know where. We'll bring her to you tomorrow.'
'Why should I trust you?'
'Because you haven't got the rucking balls to use those scissors, have you?'
Chapter 15
HE WAS RIGHT, of course. Maybe in the heat of a fight I could have used them but not like that in cold blood. Perhaps if I had paid more attention during Herod Jenkins's games lessons I could have done it, but I was, as he said, too much of a milksop.
There was nothing to be done. I left the school and drove aimlessly inland, through Commins Coch and on to Penrhyncogh, and then began a. long sweep west towards Borth. As I drove, the words of Lovespoon echoed through my thoughts. Since when did I give a damn about Bianca? I thought of the night I took her home. To perform that act — the one that along with money was responsible for most of the trouble that came in through my door. For years I had sat and watched them all squirming on the client's chair, gored by the suspicion that their partners were cheating on them. Each one thinking that the disaster that befell them was unique, thinking that paying me to confirm it would somehow make them feel better. I had heard it all a thousand times before, like a priest taking confession — me with my phoney absolution. That act that so twisted the heart. Which the newspapers called sexual intercourse, and Lovespoon called sexual congress, and the man in the pub called bonking and Bianca called, paradoxically, making love, and which Mrs Llantrisant didn't even have a name for which she felt comfortable with. That act of cold animal coupling that so often in this town was nothing more than simple rutting. I didn't know why I had done it. Lonely and frightened, and drunk, perhaps. I hadn't given it any thought. Why? Because she was a Moulin girl and we all knew they had no feelings, or the ones they had were invented to suit the occasion. As men we warned each other with smug pride at our worldliness to steer clear of their treacherous hearts. And then this happens. She risked her life to help me; and might now be dead, or worse. A course of action that could only have been prompted by tenderness or love or some feeling she wasn't supposed to be capable of. And I thought of Myfanwy, so much more wise and versed in the ways of the Aberystwyth street, and I tried to imagine her sacrificing herself for me like that. And even as I tried to picture it, I knew with iron certainty that it was out of the question.
The first light was filtering through a veil of grey clouds when I reached Borth. I drove through the golf course and parked at the foot of the dunes and got out. I had intended going for a swim but when I reached the top of the dune, I thought better of it. Instead I sat on the sand and watched the slow, endless advance of the cleansing waves. My eyelids dropped lower and lower, until I slept. It was Cadwaladr who woke me. The war veteran Myfanwy and I had shared our picnic with. He offered me a drink from his can of Special Brew and I took it despite the waves of nausea brought on by the high-alcohol lager hitting an empty stomach. For a while we didn't speak, just stared out at the eternity of the ocean and I asked him the same question that I had asked Lovespoon. Who was Gwenno Guevara? This mysterious soldier Brainbocs had met in the week before he died.
Cadwaladr didn't answer immediately, and when he did he said simply, 'She was a whore.'
'Is that it? Just a whore?'
'Before the war she was a whore. A tea-cosy girl. Then she went to Patagonia and became a fighter. After the war — who knows? She disappeared.'
The old soldier stood up to leave and I called after him.
'You remember what you said about Rio Caeriog?'
He paused.
'You said they didn't teach your version of it in school. Do you remember?'
'Yes.'
'Can you tell me your version? The true story of Rio Caeriog?'
'No.'
'But you were there, weren't you?'
'Oh yes, I was there.'
He shook his head and added before tramping off: 'But I can't tell you that story. It's not mine to tell.'
When I got back to the office, there was a note from Eeyore to call him, and Llunos was once again sitting in my chair. He was picking bits of dirt from underneath his fingernails, and spoke without looking up, 'Have a nice swim?'
'Not bad; you should get out in the sunshine a bit more yourself.'
He continued to talk to his fingernails. 'You're probably right.'
I slumped down into the client's chair across the desk from him and waited for him to say what he had to say. Nothing came. We sat in silence like that for a while. The phone rang.
'Louie Knight Investigations.'
'If you want to see the girl, come to the harbour tonight at midnight. Outside the Chandler's.'
'Who is this please?'
'Come alone or we'll slice her up.' The caller hung up and I put the receiver down while trying to keep the look on my face neutral.
Llunos seemed too bored to even ask about the call. When he finally spoke it was about palaeoanthropology.
'Fascinating discipline,' he said looking up from his fingernails.
'If you've come to borrow a book on it I gave my last one to Mrs Llantrisant.'
'It's quite a hobby of mine, actually.'
I wondered why he was here. Had they found Bianca?
'Chap at the University specialises in it. He's got this wonderful 3D modelling software for his computer. He takes the skulls of stone-age men and scans them in and then slowly builds up the tissue and muscle and things until eventually presto! he gets to find out what Stone Age men looked like.'
'Why bother? We all know they looked like you.'
He flinched, but persevered with the air of studied detachment he'd adopted for the occasion. 'We found some fibres under Evans the Boot's fingernails. Hardly any really, but we gave them to this chap and he put them in his computer and he managed to recreate the knitting pattern. It was a tea cosy. Then we got two speedknitters up from the Bureau in Cardiff and they knocked us out a copy of the original cosy.'
I knew what was coming next.
'I just took it down to Mrs Crickhowell at KnitWits. She said it was the same as that South American cosy that was stolen from the Museum. Funnily enough, she said seen it quite recently — in your hands.'
He stood up and walked over to the toilet. He put his hand on the door handle and added, 'There are police officers posted downstairs in case you don't feel like waiting.' He went in and I dashed across and turned the key.
'I'm sorry about this, Llunos, really I am!' I shouted to the door. Then I walked over to the window and peeked carefully out. He wasn't lying. A police officer looked up and waved. It was time to use the escape route through the attic. It was clear that this time I would be in the cell for a lot longer than overnight, and I was desperate to stay free long enough to see Bianca tonight. Locking Llunos in the bathroom was a high price to pay, though. He wouldn't forgive me for that so easily.
*
Eeyore opened the door, took one look at the man in shaggy blond wig, dark glasses and false moustache and said, 'Oh it's you.' He led me into the kitchen where the smell of recently fried bacon hung heavi
ly in the air.
'I've got someone here who wants to see you,' he said as he filled the old whistle kettle and placed it on the gas oven. 'It's an old friend of mine, from my days in the Force. He knows something about the ESSJAT.' Eeyore pulled up a chair and I sat down.
'He was given the task of breaking the organisation a long time ago; but his cover was blown and they had to give him a completely new identity.' He walked out and a few seconds later came back in with the former agent. A look of surprise consumed my face. It was Papa Bronzini.
'Buon giorno!' I gasped.
He smiled sadly and said in a voice filled with pathos, 'It's OK, sir, we can dispense with the arrivedercis.'
'So you're not Italian, then?" I said obviously.
He shook his head. 'Alas no.'
An awkward moment followed as I waited for him to explain, but he didn't.
'Well you had me fooled,' I said finally.
'I used to be a bit of an actor in those days — amateur dramatics. I expect you're quite familiar with that sort of thing?'
'I've seen a few plays."
'Oh really, sir? Which ones?'
'Er . . . Lady Windermere's Fan,' I said desperately.
'Tennessee Williams?'
'Er . . . yes!'
He nodded. 'I was into method acting — eat, drink, live and sleep the part - that's the trick.' His eyes misted as he thought back to those days of greasepaint and footlights. 'Ah yes, I used to do a lot of that — Richard II... "I wasted Time, and now doth Time waste me." Are you familiar with that one, sir?'
'Yes, it's one of my favourites.'
He looked pleased. I smiled politely and stared at the floor of polished red tiles, spotlessly clean although strewn here and there with bits of straw. I'd never known a time when my father didn't have straw somewhere near him. Even in the sitting room it only added to the feeling of cleanliness, this association with the donkeys. What, after all, could be purer than the soul of a donkey? It's probably why my father had taken it as a second career. After years submerged in the moral grime of the Aberystwyth underworld he had turned to the one industry in town which traded innocence. Sospan tried to in a way, of course. He traded in the essence of the nursery, the sugary, vanilla smell of a mother's breast. But there was nothing innocent about the men who stood at his stall and ate, no matter how much they may have yearned inwardly to turn back the clock. Papa Bronzini continued to drone on about the theatre and at one point a donkey, I think it was Mignon, put her head in through the kitchen window and listened for a while before giving me an uncanny look of sympathy and loping off. Gradually the conversation turned to the old days when Bronzini and my father had worked on the Force together, the days when Bronzini had tried to bust the ESSJAT. For me, Bronzini cut a slightly pathetic figure but I saw that Eeyore was in awe of him and watched in uncritical fascination as Bronzini, now Aberystwyth's foremost mobster, described the workings of the ultra-secret elite known as the ESSJAT. He told how Gwenno Guevara had been a streetwalker before the war and had joined up to earn some extra money with the troops. Once overseas she had discovered a taste for fighting and had been good at it.
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