They passed through the bar without a glance at Joe and Bron.
The girl finished her drink.
‘Time to go home, Joe,’ she said.
Outside they found Shorty and Quilter examining the Jag like a pair of customs officials.
‘You sure she said it was mine?’ said Quilter.
‘No, well, it was the way she described it … she did sound pretty old and very distressed and you know how women are about makes of car … so no harm done after all, Mr Quilter, all’s well that ends well.’
The builder nodded, relief at the lack of damage momentarily dominating irritation at being dragged from his enjoyment.
Bron nudged Joe and he stepped forward to the Morris.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said politely to Quilter. ‘I seem to be blocked in. Couldn’t move this lovely machine of yours, could you?’
The builder glowered at Joe and did not look at all inclined to concede. Then Bronwen stepped forward and caressed the Jaguar mascot on the bonnet sensuously with the palm of her left hand.
‘Oh, it’s lovely, isn’t it? I’d love a ride in one of these. Maybe some day when you’re not too busy, Mr Quilter …’
The builder looked at her assessingly. Bron’s performance was way over the top, judged Joe. Man would need to be a real idiot not to see he was being sent up.
‘I’m not too busy right now as it happens, young lady,’ said Quilter with a leer, producing his keys and clicking the door locks open.
‘What a pity, my mam’s expecting me home half an hour ago, but we’ll call that a date, shall we, Mr Quilter? Now, Joe, you drive fast as you can or I’ll be in real trouble.’
Quilter got into his car and moved it away with as much grace as he could muster. What else could a real idiot do? Joe asked himself as he waved an acknowledgement.
He drove the Morris out of the square, then glanced at Bron who sank back in her seat and screamed with the uninhibited laughter of a child and Joe, who had never travelled very far from the child in himself, had no problem joining in.
Chapter 18
Back in Llanffugiol, Joe found that normal service had been resumed. The stage had been reassembled, the shattered flower urns replaced, and once more the sound of sweet voices in unison enhanced the balmy air.
He’d offered to drop the girl off at the college but she had said she’d prefer to go to the village. She turned to him with a smile and said, ‘Thanks a lot, Joe bach.’
‘My pleasure.’
She began to open the passenger door, then turned back.
‘Nearly forgot. Promised you a favour in return, didn’t I?’
Leaning over the gear lever, she took him in her arms and kissed him hard, with lots of tongue. It was like having a hot goldfish in his mouth. Finally it withdrew, only to resume its assault on his left ear as she whispered something in Welsh.
‘Do I want to know what it means this time?’ he gasped.
She released him, got out of the car, then stooped back down to look into his eyes.
‘Means you’d better think of something fast to tell your girlfriend,’ she said. ‘Ta-ta, Joe.’
She walked away, rear penduluming provocatively.
‘That girl needs to be careful else she’ll slip a disc by the time she’s twenty,’ said a familiar voice. ‘So what she been massaging today, Joe? Apart from your vocal cords.’
Joe turned and found himself looking up at Beryl.
‘Shoot!’ he exclaimed. ‘You shouldn’t come sneaking up on a guy like that.’
‘Not me who’s the sneak round here. Thought you’d come to listen to the singing, then I find you’ve gone sneaking off to do heaven knows what.’
Joe was good at listening to the voices of those he loved. He could tell Aunt Mirabelle’s state of mind from a couple of syllables heard distantly. Not that this was hard, seeing that, far as he was concerned, she didn’t have much more than three states of mind – suspicious, exasperated, and despairing. With Beryl, when she was accusing him of playing around, he could usually identify a kind of affectionate mockery. It wasn’t there now. Maybe he ought to feel flattered. All he felt was indignant.
He got out of the car and said, ‘Now hold right there. I’m old enough to be that girl’s …’
‘Know what you’re old enough to be, Joe. Pity you’re not old enough to have more sense. Must be the primitive company you keep.’
Last time Beryl had had a go at him about Bron, she’d had her tongue in her cheek, but now there was a look in her eyes which told him this was no wind-up. The crack about primitive company had to refer to Merv.
He could see what had happened. Beryl must’ve asked Merv where he was and got the jokey explanation that he said he’d got a date with a lovely lady, meaning the car. Only Beryl didn’t altogether approve of Merv on account of he made taxi-driver jokes like, You know why they call them the fair sex? ‘Cos if you want the sex, you gotta pay the fare! And Merv, recognizing the disapproval, reacted by really playing up the bold bad ladykiller who didn’t like the way his old hunting mate Joe Sixsmith was being hijacked off the pleasant primrose path on to the straight and narrow. So he’d probably made a big production of Joe’s alleged date, which normally Beryl would pay no mind to, not till she caught him snogging Bron in the car park.
Working it out and explaining it to Beryl were different things. He opted for a change of subject.
He said, ‘You ain’t said nothing about the car, don’t tell me you’ve not noticed? Was just trying it out …’
‘I noticed. Often wondered why you were so stuck on them old juggernauts. Now I know. They got room for a double bed.’
It was too good a line not to exit on. She turned and strode away, her back view as expressive as Bron’s. Normally she could do a pretty good pendulum thing herself, but today it would have needed a seismograph to detect a tremor.
There is a time for everything under the sun, says the Good Book, and there would be time for a repair job, but it wasn’t now.
‘Mr Sixsmith, good afternoon.’
Another female voice behind him. Like being stalked by Apaches. He turned, and adjusted the example. By spirits.
‘Hello, Mrs Lewis,’ he said.
Morna Lewis had looked like she might fade away in the confines of her own house by night. Outside under the spotlight of the sun, she had such a slight presence that Joe was glad to see she still threw a shadow.
But when he said, ‘Wanted to tell you thanks for having me last night. Real nice dinner,’ her face lit up with the Audrey Hepburn smile which gave the sun as good as it got.
‘You were very welcome,’ she said. ‘That was Bronwen just now, wasn’t it?’
So she’d been standing there invisible, watching the whole little drama. He didn’t mind. Way he read this lady, she wasn’t one to be entertained by other folks’ troubles.
‘Yeah. Gave her a lift from town.’
‘Caerlindys?’ she said, like there might be some other town in this wilderness. ‘You didn’t go to the hospital, did you? I was wondering how that poor woman was.’
‘Did, as a matter of fact. Not much change but they’re hopeful.’
Her tiny face puckered with concern.
‘It’s a terrible thing, fire,’ she said softly.
She looked like she might cry.
Joe said, ‘Hey, it’s OK, Mrs Lewis. She’ll probably make it. It’s in the Lord’s hands.’
This was one of Mirabelle’s comfortable sayings, and it was her conviction that Joe put into it.
Mrs Lewis looked at him closely.
‘Are you religious, Mr Sixsmith?’ she asked. ‘You don’t mind me asking? I know yours is a chapel choir, but there is a saying in choral circles round here, it’s not the vice that keeps you out, it’s the voice that gets you in. I’m sorry. That was very impertinent of me. I did not mean to suggest …’
‘It’s OK, Mrs Lewis,’ said Joe. ‘No need to apologize. Much the same back home.’
&
nbsp; He was thinking of Dildo Doberley whose fine bass obliterated many other disqualifications to membership of Boyling Corner Choir. Thought of Dildo brought the problem of the Decorax into his mind and his need to get hold of Wain Lewis. Maybe his mother could help. But first there was her question.
‘No, I’d not say I’m all that religious, not in an on-my-knees praying and hallelujahing kind of way. In fact, my Auntie Mirabelle – she’s here with the choir – would say I ain’t religious at all. But I believe there’s something out there bigger than us and sometimes when it’s in the right frame of mind it can put the pieces together in a way nothing we understand allows for.’
He came to a halt, not wanting to get too heavy, certainly not wanting to get into personal stuff, like his feeling that sometimes his PI work couldn’t work without this something out there gave everything a good shake up and showed him how the bits and pieces he scraped together could shape into some kind of picture. Once when he’d said something of this to Butcher who ran the Bullpat Square Law Centre back in Luton, she’d said with mock-awe, ‘You mean you’re really working for God? How’s He pay?’ She’d then started to suggest that maybe Joe was selling himself short, and the human mind was a very complex thing, even in lathe operators, and maybe the faculty, dear Brutus, lay not in his stars but in himself, at which point Joe had asked was that the Brutus who played for Brazil and Butcher had lit another of her smoke-screen cheroots and told him to sod off, she had work to do without expectation of a helping hand from the Almighty.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Lewis, who’d been listening to him with a concentration which he’d have found troubling if he’d been trying to sell her insurance. ‘I think I see what you mean. God is His own interpreter and He will make it plain. Thank you, Mr Sixsmith, that’s a comfort.’
Gratitude really was troubling. Joe, who’d caught the reference here without difficulty as he’d sung the hymn plenty of times, guessed that the lady was thinking about her own lot, stuck out here in the sticks with an oddball like Lewis. Or maybe she was the oddball. Depended how you looked at it. Joe had seen too many ill-matched couples to dish out blame over-quickly, but on the whole he’d guess that in Mrs Lewis he was looking at one of the fearful saints the hymn went on about.
One thing he was sure of. Wain was the apple of her eye so he’d better box clever in enquiring after him. No point in giving her cause for concern. DI Ursell would do that soon enough once he got on the case.
He said, ‘I’m glad they got things sorted so quick after the trouble this morning.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Yeah. You know. The stage. Mr Lewis must’ve been worried.’
‘Oh yes. That.’
She didn’t sound like she shared her husband’s concerns.
‘Yeah, well, it’s nice to see everything’s back on course. You going to listen to the singing?’
She shook her head impatiently, then, as if feeling this needed explanation, she said, ‘I fear I’m not very musical, Mr Sixsmith.’
This was an opening.
Joe said, ‘What about Wain? Who does he take after?’
‘In this regard, me, I think.’
‘So he won’t spend much time at the festival then?’
‘Not because of the music perhaps, but it is a happening, and there aren’t many of those round here, not such as might interest young people anyway. Yes, I see his car parked over there, so he must be around somewhere.’
Joe followed her gaze along the row of cars in which he was parked and spotted the red Mazda MX-5. Morna Lewis moved towards the car and stood peering into it with a frowning intensity, as if trying to conjure up her son in the driving seat. Joe joined her.
‘Nice wheels,’ he said. ‘Lucky boy. His age, I was saving for a bike. What did you say he was studying at college?’
‘Sociology, to start with. I think he wants to go on to do child psychology.’
‘Sounds heavy,’ said Joe. ‘Must be a bright kid.’
He meant it. People clever enough to learn that kind of stuff he genuinely admired, though rarely to the point of envy. You played the cards the dealer gave you, and as the game was more like poker than bridge, the way you played was as important as the hand you were dealt. But the way to a mother’s heart is through her kid’s praise and his remark got him the sunburst smile.
Then the face clouded over and he turned to see Glyn Matthias coming towards them. He recalled Lewis’s dismissive reaction to the man’s name at the Lady House that morning and wondered how Morna Lewis would respond.
He stopped in front of them and said, ‘Good day, Mrs Lewis,’ in his gentle, musical voice.
‘Good day, Mr Matthias,’ said the woman evenly.
‘And good day once more to you, Mr Sixsmith.’
This got a reaction.
She looked from Joe to the music teacher with interest and said, ‘You know each other?’
‘We … ran into each other last evening,’ said Matthias. ‘I wonder, might we have a quick word?’
The words were addressed to Joe but the man was looking with earnest appeal at the High Master’s wife. She responded with an unfocused gaze which seemed to go right through him to the furthermost horizon.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, after a pause which had gone on too long. ‘I really must join my husband. There are arrangements to discuss. For this evening. There is a reception, you know. In the college hall. For the choirs and special guests.’
This was addressed to Joe.
He said, ‘I’m looking forward to it.’
Matthias said, ‘So am I.’
This got him a fully focused gaze.
‘You?’
‘Oh yes. I’m the voice coach for the Caerlindys Cantors, didn’t you know?’
Clearly she didn’t. And her husband? Probably. Joe didn’t doubt that GM had its moles everywhere.
‘It will be very nice to see you, Mr Matthias,’ said Morna Lewis, recovered from her momentary lapse of surprise. ‘You too, Mr Sixsmith. Good day now.’
She walked away. The two men watched her go.
‘Nice lady,’ said Joe.
‘Yes. But poor judgement.’
Joe considered this. Sounded like an invitation to gossip.
‘The High Master, you mean? Seems to me more likely you’d reckon him for the poor judgement.’
It was Matthias’s turn for consideration.
‘Because he gave me my cards? Well, as I indicated to you earlier, the High Master may have his reasons that reason wots not of. How about Mrs Lewis, I wonder. You and she seemed in deep debate just now.’
‘We weren’t talking about you,’ said Joe firmly. ‘I can’t imagine her bad-mouthing you, though. And even if she had, I’d not have paid it no mind. Man’s business is his own business, is what we say back home in the big city.’
He’d never actually heard anyone say anything remotely like that, but it seemed worth establishing his sophisticated urban credentials before he got down to the subtle cross-questioning.
‘Should I be impressed?’ mused Matthias. ‘Or grateful even that such a metropolitan luminary as yourself, Mr Sixsmith, is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt?’
‘Sorry. I just thought…’ stammered Joe, then gave up because experience had taught him that saying aloud what he’d just thought was rarely the way to improve a bad situation. ‘You just going to stand there, making me feel bad, you should know I’ve been made to feel bad by experts. So if you’ve got something sensible you want to say, best speak up, ‘cos I’m going deaf with thirst.’
Matthias smiled and said, ‘Now there’s a sentiment worth putting in Welsh and declaiming at an eisteddfod. Joe – all right to call you Joe? – let me buy you a drink.’
‘Best offer I’ve had all day,’ said Joe.
‘Including having your throat plumbed by the beautiful Bron?’
Had anyone missed that? Probably be on the local TV news!
‘That wasn’t an offer,’ said Joe. �
�That was repaying a favour.’
‘Ooh, was it now?’ said Matthias, suddenly very camp. ‘Remind me to get in your debt, Joe.’
Then he laughed at the alarm on Joe’s face and said, ‘But we don’t count drinks as favours in Wales, Joe. So let’s see if these thirsty singers have left anything in the barrel, shall we?’
He turned towards the refreshment tent. Joe didn’t follow immediately but stood looking down into the passenger seat of the sports car. He took a comb out of his pocket and slowly ran it over the back rest. Matthias had paused and was looking back curiously.
‘Something the matter, Mr Sixsmith?’ he enquired. ‘You don’t look too happy.’
‘Just a bit of that sadness we were talking about before, Mr Matthias,’ said Joe. ‘And with my voice in the state it is, I’m not sure that singing it’s going to do any good.’
Chapter 19
The smell in the refreshment tent reminded Joe he hadn’t accepted Sergeant Prince’s kind invitation to sample the best mutton pie in the Principality and at the bar he added a bacon sandwich to the drinks order.
‘I’ll pay for it myself,’ he offered.
‘In case food turns out to be a favour?’ murmured Matthias. ‘Only joking. Make that two, will you?’
The Welshman led the way to a table by the entrance. Most people preferred to sit at the outside tables in the sun on a day like this, and Joe would have too, but he said nothing, guessing the reason was the greater privacy the uncrowded interior gave them.
The bacon was as good as Joe had remembered from breakfast and, also as at breakfast, Matthias had the good manners to let him savour his butty in silence. This had another advantage. Joe had the kind of mind which often works best when left to its own devices and eating good grub usually put it into suspend mode. As he’d once explained to Butcher, it wasn’t that he couldn’t eat and think at the same time, but he couldn’t see why a man would want to. So the unproductive speculation filling his mind as to what Matthias wanted from him, by being switched off had worked its way to a conclusion by the time normal service was resumed.
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