‘What am I to do with you, Joe? Turn my back for a minute and there you go again, running into burning houses.’
Joe said, ‘The girl was talking, Angela. What did she say?’
‘Like we thought. Her brother talked to her, pretty mixed-up stuff, but she didn’t believe it was all just in his head. Something very nasty had happened to him at Branddreth. Seems Glyn Matthias had been in touch with the family …’
‘I knew that,’ said Joe.
‘Oh yes? Didn’t bother her that Matthias had been indirectly implicated, he was about the only thing at Branddreth young Simon seemed to recall with any pleasure. So when her brother died, she got in touch with him.’
‘Knew that too. He told her that Wain was studying at Manchester, so she went up there to try and make contact and use him as a way into Branddreth. Found it was easy ‘cos Wain was a smalltime campus dealer, got into it in the States, which was where he came across Decorax. Probably brought some back, sold it around, and when Tilly Butler said they were trialling the stuff at Caerlindys, he got into her pants, then persuaded her to help him steal the stuff.’
Ursell said, ‘Joe, do you want to tell me everything while I just sit here and eat your grapes, which incidentally are beginning to taste pretty sour?’
‘Sorry. Go on.’
‘So Angela made contact with Wain. Told him she was bumming around for a year before going to university, fancied seeing Wales, and he said he could give her a lift and let her see the Welshest bit of Wales she was likely to see in a long day’s ride. Also offer accommodation. By now they were making out.’
‘She do that just to get an in on Branddreth?’
‘Who knows? But from his track record, young Wain’s got something the girls like, though to look at him, you’d think a good woman would crack him like a nut. Anyway, he brought her to the college, didn’t want her round the Lady House, though, so he put her up in the college, which was empty, the Williamses being away on holiday.’
‘But Mrs Lewis caught them at it, told her son to send her on her way, only he just sent her as far as Copa, and when Mrs L caught her again, this time searching the Lady House, there was a great row and Angela made the mistake of threatening to turn Wain in as a drug dealer.’
‘You’re at it again, Joe.’
‘Sorry.’
‘But you’re right, of course. Mrs Lewis has coughed the lot to us. Not till we’d done a deal. We go easy on Owain over the drugs, she gives full cooperation on the attempted murder.’
‘What’ll she get?’
‘The lot. She didn’t go up to the cottage for a reasoned discussion, Joe. She went along with a canful of petrol to torch the place with the girl in it. It’s premeditated.’
Joe sighed. That smile behind bars.
At least she wouldn’t mind the food.
‘She giving up Lewis at all?’
‘No. Just looks blank.’
‘So what’s happening there?’
‘Nothing, if Tom Prince and his mob have their way. To them, all he is is a possible “in” to the paedophile ring working through the Internet. They got Dai Williams in their pocket now, ready to testify that Lewis lured him up to the quarry, knocked him out and pushed his pick-up over the edge. Attempted murder seems to be that family’s forte. So, Lewis has got plenty reason to cooperate and if he does, the bastard could be home and free.’
‘Wife banged up, son hating him, not much of a home.’
‘Better than young Simon Sillcroft’s got,’ said Ursell sombrely.
‘So you’re giving up? Prince knows where you live too?’
‘He been talking to you, has he, Joe?’
‘Some. Listen, what about the others round here? They gotta know something. Pantyhose. Electricity Sample.’
‘Haven’t you heard? Mr Sample had an accident in his workshop. Electrocuted himself. And the DCC has been taken ill, job stress, they say. He’ll probably be retiring on full pension in the next few weeks.’
‘My piles bleed for him,’ said Joe, indignation, or hospital, making him untypically coarse. ‘So that’s it?’
It must have sounded like an accusation, for Ursell replied defensively, ‘You know so much, Joe, you give me something. Anything.’
Suddenly Joe felt very very tired.
Joe woke.
Ursell was still there.
Joe said, ‘Matthias was in the Lady House cellar before I was. He left the cupid’s head in the cabinet. Maybe he took something out. Maybe he’s looking to use it personally against the High Master. Tell him what happened to Dai. But treat him gentle. He doesn’t trust the police. Talk to him like you talked to me last night, Perry. Being gay don’t make him the enemy.’
Ursell nodded.
‘Worth a try. Anything else?’
‘No,’ said Joe, thinking, here’s me with a cop hanging on my every word and I’m out of words. ‘Except …’
‘Spit it out, Joe. I’m in the market for anything.’
‘On the locker in the sickbay, where that poor kid scratched his name, remember?’
‘Yes, you told me. Simon Sillcroft, sadness.’
‘Well, there was another odd one. What was it? Henry Loomis, sights. Strikes me that Simon might not have been the only one that got the full nasty treatment. Maybe this Loomis kid was another. Maybe he’s out there somewhere, keeping it bottled up. Some folk do, not the kind of thing they want other people to know, isn’t that how these dirty bastards get away with it?’
‘Yes, I know, Joe. I know,’ said Ursell softly.
‘Perry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean … look, maybe if someone like you talked to him …’
‘It’s worth a try. Joe, anyone ever tell you you’re a wonder?’
‘Maybe, but didn’t quite pronounce it like that,’ said Joe Sixsmith.
‘Now I’ll leave you in peace. You probably want some sleep.’
Joe consulted his wants.
‘No,’ he said in surprise. ‘In fact, I feel quite awake. What I could do with is some grub. Like breakfast.’
‘Joe, it’s the middle of the afternoon.’
‘Is for you,’ said Joe Sixsmith. ‘Me, it’s any time I like it to be.’
Chapter 29
Joe Sixsmith left Wales in something like Oriental splendour, lying in princely state along the backmost seat of Big Merv’s coach, draped in rugs and firmly wedged in with cushions, with bunches of grapes and cans of Guinness in easy reach of his outstretched hand.
After the fire and everything, Dai Bard had felt it best to cancel the rest of the Choir Festival, which probably had them singing for joy down at the Goat and Axle. Rev. Pot had had a quiet word with some of the judges and was able to pass on to his choir an off-the-record assurance that, with the Guttenbergers gone, they were so far in the lead as to have been almost inevitably the winners.
Joe felt really proud of them till Merv, during the course of a private farewell he’d managed to arrange with his colleen, discovered that the Irish choir, and presumably all of the others taking part, had received the same confidential assurance of success.
He thought it best to keep this snippet of information to himself.
His fellow choristers, though eager to get home, refused to leave without Joe. Best medical advice was that he should stay another couple of days in hospital, but he didn’t care to inconvenience his friends any further. So he announced that, fond as he’d become of many things and several persons in Wales, he had a cat back home who was pining away out of loneliness, and he discharged himself.
Before he left the hospital, he’d taken the crutch they’d given him and swung himself along the corridor to get the feel of it. A door had opened and Bronwen Williams came out. She was a pale shadow of the bright, lively girl he’d first encountered. She looked at him with a look he recognized, the expression of someone whose world has fallen apart and who longs for someone to blame.
He said, ‘Bron, how are you?’
‘It was all right till you came,’
she said. ‘Wain and me were getting it together again and Mam and Da were OK and …’
Tears, not reason, interrupted the accusations.
Joe said, ‘I’m sorry.’
She said, ‘Go back to England, won’t you? We’re better off without you.’
She walked away.
It was unfair, but Joe felt no resentment. He only wished it were true. He’d seen the end of innocence before and it never got any more bearable.
He went into the room.
Dai Williams, sitting up in bed, said, ‘Oh, it’s you.’
He didn’t look much like Sinatra now, more like a guy in trouble who knows exactly where to lay the blame. Elsewhere.
Joe said, ‘How’re you doing?’
‘How’s it look?’ he growled. Then, with an effort, ‘Sorry. They tell me it was you spotted me at the quarry. Thanks.’
‘My pleasure. Inspector Ursell talk to you?’
‘Him!’ said Williams scornfully. ‘Oh yes, he was after talking me into jail till the other one came and shut him up. Never be taken in by appearances, Joe. Rank’s more than what you wear on your arm. No point talking to the monkey when the organ grinder’s handy.’
His attempt at worldly wisdom was unconvincing.
Joe said, ‘Be careful who you do deals with, Dai.’
‘Yeah? You such an expert, maybe you’d like to give me some advice about my family too? I hear you’ve been sticking your nose in.’
Funny how a gibe could sometimes sound like a plea, thought Joe.
He said, ‘Can’t help you there. Need to talk to Ella yourself …’
‘Do I? So how do I do that when she won’t come anywhere near me, says she’s going off with that long streak of stale slops from the Goat. To think of the times I’ve been drinking there, and all the time …’
For a moment he was incoherent with disbelief. And desperation. At least he’s not so blind he don’t know what he’s lost, thought Joe.
The caretaker went on, ‘And all because of this. All because of me and the High Master …’
‘Think it was more than that maybe, Dai,’ said Joe.
‘You think? What the hell do you know?’ yelled the Welshman. ‘She was here, ready to take care of me when I woke up, then bloody Ursell came along to talk to me, all this stuff about the TV system and the High Master. She caught a bit of that and after he’d gone she starts pestering me to know what it’s all about, so in the end I tell her, just so’s she’d know it was all for her and Bron I stuck it out in that one-hole job, building up our bank balance till I’d got enough to take them somewhere decent, see? And suddenly she’s looking at me like she’d turned up a stone and out of the blue she says she didn’t know what to do till I told her that, but now she’s going off with John sodding Dawe! She spoke to me like I was some kind of perverted criminal. Why? You’re the expert, can you tell me why?’
‘Blackmail’s a crime, Dai. Surely you can see that?’
‘But not against someone like Lewis!’ said Dai Williams earnestly. ‘No one could feel any sympathy for a guy like that, could they? All right, what I was doing might be breaking the law in theory, but the sort of filthy stuff he’s into, how can anyone blame me for anything I did to him?’
The worst of it was, he sounded genuinely bewildered.
Joe pivotted on his crutch and swung towards the doorway. Here he paused and glanced back. He hated sounding preachy, but some things had to be said.
‘Not what you were doing to the High Master people will blame you for, Dai,’ he said. ‘But you knew what he was doing with those kids and you said nothing. You should have been thinking about the kids, Dai, not about lining your pocket. You should have been thinking about the kids.’
He let the door close behind him and went on his halting way. He was feeling pretty done in, but he had one more door to open before he rested.
The Carry On Sister was coming out as he approached. She gave him the bullet-stopping glare, but it must have been an instinctive knee-jerk reaction for suddenly she smiled and said, ‘I’ll give you one minute, Mr Sixsmith. You both need all the rest you can get.’
She held the door open for him and he went inside.
The sister was better than her word for he must have sat by the bedside for well over a minute before the still figure lying there opened her eyes and looked at him.
Her lips moved, first to form a smile, then in speech. He had to lean over her to catch the slow, low, hoarse words.
‘Nice to see you again.’
‘You remember then?’
‘Always. Thanks.’
‘I’m sorry about your brother. About what happened at the college. And about the fire. His fire, I mean.’
It wasn’t meant as a question but she answered it.
‘Think it started by accident, but don’t think he tried hard to get out. Other way round with me. But it’s all right now.’
He guessed she was thinking that she’d done what she set out to do. Finding out about the deal the Prince squad was offering Lewis lay in the future. That would be a real blow. But it wouldn’t be a knockout. He’d seen how this girl could fight to survive.
It struck him that probably neither Prince nor Ursell had taken her into their calculations. They had respectively an opponent and an ally here who could well tip the balance of the scales against the High Master. Plus himself. Didn’t matter what threats Prince was making, anything he could do to help nail Lewis was Ursell’s for the asking.
The door opened. The Sister said warningly, ‘Mr Sixsmith.’
‘Gotta go now,’ said Joe. ‘Listen, soon as you’re better, you come and see me in Luton. I’m in the book.’
She smiled again and murmured, ‘… in my book … top of my list …’ then closed her eyes.
He remembered those words now as he lay in state at the back of the coach.
He’d handed over the cheque and money he’d received from the Haggards and Wain Lewis to Ursell. Merv had thought he was mad when he’d heard.
‘Man, you did the job, you earned the fee,’ he insisted.
‘Not how I earned it, it’s how they earned it that matters,’ said Joe.
‘Ain’t the church got enough saints?’ demanded Merv. ‘All that pain, all that hassle, and what do you come away with? Sweet nothing!’
He was wrong. He came away with the memory of those words … top of my list … and they weren’t nothing, though they were certainly sweet enough to slightly mask the bitter taste of all that pain and sadness.
‘And what about the Morris? How you going to haggle with Nye over that when you’ve got no money to haggle with?’ Merv had demanded.
‘It’ll have to wait,’ said Joe. ‘Tell Nye I’ll have to come back if and when any of this gets to court. Tell him we’ll talk then. Anyway, I’m in no state to drive, am I?’
But, no hiding it, leaving the old car behind was a blow.
Beryl said, ‘You awake?’
“Course I’m awake,’ said Joe indignantly. ‘Haven’t closed my eyes since we left.’
‘You could have fooled me,’ she said lightly. ‘Well, we’ll soon be over the border, back in good old England.’
‘We’ve come that far?’ said Joe.
She laughed and said, ‘Told you you’d been sleeping.’
‘Maybe I nodded off. Say, where’s Mirabelle? How come she hasn’t been poking me every two minutes to make sure I’m not dead?’
‘Mirabelle? Not with us. Her and Rev. Pot are travelling independently.’
‘What? I know she doesn’t trust Merv’s driving, but I didn’t think it would go that far.’
‘Nothing to do with Merv. What she didn’t trust was Rev. Pot’s ability to get out of Wales by himself. It was a hard choice, you needing care and attention and all, but I promised I’d keep a close watch on you and signal if there was any trouble.’
‘Signal?’
‘Yeah. Take a look out the window.’
Joe pushed himself uprig
ht and peered through the rear window.
‘You’re right. I am sleeping,’ he said.
Fifty or sixty feet behind the coach was the old Morris. Behind the wheel he saw the familiar face of Rev. Pot, driving with the same air of intense concentration he brought to conducting. Alongside him was Mirabelle, clutching an open map like a holy relict.
‘Message from Nye Garage via Merv,’ said Beryl. ‘He says next time you come, pay him what you think it’s worth.’
Joe blinked back a tear.
‘What did I tell you?’ he said. ‘Country that Paul Robeson loved has to have a great heart.’
‘Can’t recall you telling me that, but you may be right. Talking about singing, though, message from Glyn Matthias too. He says – I think I got it right – he says he hopes your voice mends soon and next time you come, he expects to hear you singing like one of the three birds of Rhiannon, and maybe the sun this time, not the sadness. That make sense?’
‘Yeah. Lots of sense,’ said Joe.
From the front of the coach, Merv’s voice boomed out, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, get your passports ready, we are now approaching England. Next comfort stop, you’ll be peeing on English soil. You people sang when we crossed the other way. Can’t you raise a song now we’re heading back home?’
Through Joe’s mind, and he guessed through the minds of most of the choristers, scrolled a list of homecoming songs, most of them painfully patriotic or tearfully sentimental. He didn’t fancy either. In particular, he didn’t fancy anything tinged with sadness. A man had to face up to it, but that didn’t mean he had to let it take over his soul.
Then Beryl, standing over him looking through the rear window at the odd couple in the pursuing Morris, began to sing softly, ‘My old man said, “Follow the van, don’t dilly dally on the way.”’
Someone else joined in.
‘Off went the cart with the home packed in it. I walked behind with my old cock linnet.’
And now more and more voices were raised.
‘But I dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied, lost the van and don’t know where to roam.’
And finally Joe cleared his throat and added his still croaky baritone.
‘You can’t trust the specials like the old-time coppers.’
Singing the Sadness Page 29