‘You’ll find out. Come on, let’s go.’
‘No. I can’t.’ She could visualise her father’s face as if he was right next to her. As if he’d just stepped out from that Llanberis photograph and was holding her back. That smile so imprinted on her mind now faded. He was clearly warning her not to go.
‘Why was there no mention of these so-called Dagdans when I last came here with my school?’ she queried.
Mark snorted.
‘Tourism’s big moolah in these parts. Nothing must gobble up this whopping great golden egg. Then or now.’
However, she wasn’t convinced. Where were the tourists for a start? This was a Sunday morning in late summer and it was just them and the birds. She held her ground.
‘Look, I’ve seen enough crackpots and gruesome stuff to last me a lifetime. And another thing,’ she paused to take a deep breath, ready to run if need be. ‘Why are you hiding those freaky bits in that black shoe of yours?’
An imperceptible tension tightened his lips.
‘You had no business being in that room. It’s private stuff there, okay?’
‘Tell me.’
‘I can’t.’
She was now aware of a lone cyclist approaching from the direction of the Suspension bridge and kept the welcome figure in her sights. ‘You and your father know all about me. I thought trust was a two-way process.’
‘This is different.’
‘Why? Think of my situation. I’m due to exchange contracts next Friday. Four days to find out the truth.’
Mark hesitated. His eyes closed against the sun.
‘Whoever butchered my mother, not only slit her throat, but . . .’
‘Go on, please . . .’
Lucy forgot to close her mouth as he told her the rest.
‘And I’ll give you two guesses what was used for the cooking.’
The cauldron. Oh, Jesus.
‘So ‘Simnai’ Williams was right?’ She could barely speak.
‘Cerridwen, the mother goddess has been defiled. That cauldron was hers.’
‘My God.’
There was no breakfast to come up but something else was forcing its way back into Lucy’s throat. She ran back to lean against the van’s warm side. So, that’s what he’d kept in that special place. A sick souvenir. But why mustn’t anyone know about this or the burnt blue cloth found up the chimney? And what about the blood-stained strip now wrapped up safe inside her pocket?
She could see it all clearly now. It was total bollocks about him being frightened of someone else. Oh yes, he was frightened alright. About being found out. And hadn’t Hector let all that slip only yesterday? Almost been relieved to, she thought, edging away from the man who was trying to stop her leaving. She recalled the way he’d held the bread knife. Threatened his father.
Whatever James Benn had done to her was nothing to this unfolding scenario. She had to get out. To get away, or she really would be next.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I have been an axe in the hand,
A pin in a pair of tongs,
I have been dead, I have been alive
Only to keep what is mine.
The kingdom of Blood.
And now She of the Light
Has turned thief of the night,
Like the dark side of the moon.
Anon
Lucy sprinted away from the visitor centre and Mark’s protesting shouts, aware of the cyclist who was thankfully female, chaining her bike to a nearby post. But suddenly nausea overcame her and her stomach lurched so hard she crouched down in a patch of high weeds by the roadside and let her body take over.
Afterwards, still feeling queasy, she stood up and looked around. His van was still there but Mark had vanished.
‘Are you alright?’ asked the cyclist in a very English voice who, upon closer inspection proved to be a gaunt-faced, elderly lady dressed in cord breeches and an old hacking jacket. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘I’m fine now, thanks,’ she gave her a weak smile as she found the last tissue in her bag and used it to wipe her mouth. ‘Not very nice for you to see that. Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry my dear. My three daughters were always car sick. Now then,’ the cyclist re-secured her headscarf under her chin, ‘did that young man upset you? I saw you two together just now . . .’
‘He was expecting me to go into the wilds to some oak grove round here to meet the Dagdans, and I’m just not up for it, after what I’ve heard about them.’ She replied, realising how naff that must have sounded. But, if she told her what Mark had just revealed about his mother, the woman might also need first aid. Her companion’s sparse eyebrows rose in surprise.
‘My my. I’ve been coming to this special place for years since my husband died, but I can tell you for a start there are no oak groves as such, and that cult hasn’t been in the valleys here since, oh, let me see now . . .’ she frowned in concentration, ‘the mid-seventies.’
‘Mid-seventies? Are you quite sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
Lucy felt sick again. Suddenly she didn’t want this sympathetic stranger to leave her on her own. She was no longer an adult who’d lived an independent life in London with a job and a flat, but a kid again. A kid who needed to be told that she was safe and that everything was going to be alright. She hoped her desperation wasn’t too obvious.
‘I’m afraid whoever that young man is, he’s wrong. This Elan Valley’s my second home, especially now my family’s grown up and gone. It’s heaven on earth to me, and do you think I’d be coming here on my own otherwise? No.’ She cast her watery eyes over the surrounding area, which to Lucy just then could have come straight out of Magical Tales. ‘Admittedly it was different in those days before the army drove them out,’ she went on. ‘Even the villagers here were wary of straying too far from their homes. Naturally everyone breathed a sigh of relief once they’d gone.’
‘Where?’ she asked, trying to make sense of everything she’d heard so far.
‘Ireland. Right out west, thank goodness. I expect it all fizzled out as the years went by. There’s been no mention of them in this region since then and I do make it my business to keep up with all the local news . . .’
‘So why’s my friend back there so adamant that they’re still around?’
‘Is he local?’
‘Lives just a few miles away.’ She stopped short of saying Ravenstone.
‘Then I really don’t know. Maybe he just likes making things up. Lots of people do. My eldest especially.’ She pushed back her jacket cuff and checked her watch. Lucy saw how the day was slipping away.
‘Look,’ she said, relieved to see a red hatchback stop in the car park and a normal-looking family of four emerging. ‘I need to get back into town. Are there any buses anywhere on a Sunday?’
Again the veteran cyclist consulted her watch.
‘If you’re nippy, there’s the one for Newbridge. It comes to Lower Llanfadog at midday. You seem young and fit enough to make it easily.’ She smiled, and Lucy, having thanked her, felt better already.
She’d previously noticed that sign just before the Elan Village, and, with the sun on her face, power-walked along the B4358 until the bus stop with, thankfully, two other people waiting came into view.
So, if this seemingly trustworthy woman was to be believed, Hector had lied to her, Mark had lied. Not once, with a slip of the tongue, a careless remark, but a sustained falsehood because in her opinion Bryn Evans and Sion Hughes were simply peeved locals with a sad agenda. No more Dagdans then, she was Good Queen Bess. But why this collusion between father and son? And was it possible, given this scenario, that Hector had injured himself? If so, who was he protecting over his wife’s murder? For that’s what it looked like now. And, she asked herself, for how much longer?
Questions spun round in Lucy’s mind, just like her clothes had done in that front-loader downstairs. She was now back in her bedroom at the Hall, deciding on her next
move, with the door securely locked. Normally, she’d have done a few simple yoga exercises to sort herself out. To clear her head. They’d been a godsend at Uni just before exams, but here wasn’t Warwick and it wasn’t a simple exam which was vexing her.
The bus from Lower Lanfadog had broken down outside Rhayader and the expensive taxi back from town had crawled along at 20 mph; yet another drain on her depleted mental and physical resources.
Hector had been trimming a hedge with a noisy hedgecutter when she’d finally returned. Not the best time to challenge him about his Druids theory. But when would be? And was it finally time to admit defeat and step off the rollercoaster?
She stared at her bedroom door too wound up, too hungry to think straight. For a start, angry Mark might have a key to her room. Might just push his way in, or even try the window, still fractionally open at the top. She leapt from the bed and jammed it shut, rattling the old panes. The catch didn’t quite connect.
Dammit.
She was going mad. Unable to now work anything out logically. And had this place and its people so disorientated her that even if contracts were exchanged on Friday and Anna happened to send her a promised manuscript, would she be able to do any decent editing? She doubted it very much. But there was Barbara Mitchell, three hundred miles away, believing everything was going so well. There was also her dead father who’d never had this chance to live a different life, yet had passed his one big dream on to her. How could she let them both down after so short a while? How could she throw it all away?
She peered out through the curtains at the view beyond. Not the best by any means, where Wern Goch’s bank had steepened to form a high wall topped by rough grass and a few scrubby trees. Thus all lower rooms at the back of the Hall were denied their natural light, and seemed from the inside almost subterranean. Part of an Underworld she could see and smell. A repository of lies and secrets, of a tragedy which had eked into her very soul.
However, to muse on this eyesore from her vantage point at least provided a breathing space, enabling her to plan a logical structured Truth Strategy. This would start first thing tomorrow with an unannounced visit to her solicitor, followed by at least two more hopefully useful outings.
Two p.m., and still no sighting of Mark. After a speedy wash and having put on her fleece again, Lucy tried her phone again. It was working. She parked herself halfway up the stairs to keep her eye on the front door, should either Mark or Hector return, then dialled Anna’s number.
‘Hey, Luce! Happy birthday for yesterday. Did you get my card? I wasn’t sure you’d get it in time.’
Lucy smiled just to hear her.
‘It’s got pride of place,’ she lied. ‘Thanks.’
‘How’s it all going, anyway? Are you growing anything yet?’
‘Give me a chance. This is a starting from scratch project. What isn’t there to do . . .’
‘You sound a bit down. Shall I come over? Bring an extra shovel and so on?’
‘It’s fine thanks. Crunch time on Friday, mind. Exchange of contracts. The day of no return.’
‘What a weird thing to say. It’s not as if you’re going to the bloody Scrubs. You’re in the most enviable part of the UK, for God’s sake, with a new life just round the corner, waiting to grab you by the throat . . .’
A brief pause followed in which Lucy noticed a black shadow of birds pass by the glass panel above the door.
‘I’m not arguing with that, it’s just that sometimes I lose my nerve about stupid things I should ignore. Things which are probably all fantasy anyhow. I’m sure everything’ll be alright,’ she forced her tone to brighten and predictably, Anna took up the slack.
‘Look, Nick stuck his neck out to get this place of ours two years ago. Massive mortgage, crusty old neighbours whom he had to schmooze to get garage plans through, you name it . . . But would he swap it now? No chance. And that’s what you’ll be saying in a few months’ time. Trust me.’
‘You’re right. You always are.’
‘Sorry to talk shop, but I see Benn’s made the longlist again.’
The sudden mention of that name made Lucy start. She let her friend go on.
‘His wife hates him, you know. Someone told me that the other day. Apparently, she had a daughter by her first marriage. Poor kid died of leukaemia and even though she’d lived with them, Benn never even went to the funeral. Off on some tour somewhere. Can you believe it?’
‘Nothing would surprise me about him,’ said a tense Lucy, expecting Mark at any moment. ‘But he’s got Hellebore licking out of his hand, that’s for sure. It used to make me sick.’
‘For how much longer if stuff like that gets out?’
Lucy bit her lip, poised to tell her closely guarded secret and about the phone calls, but not yet. This was neither the time nor the place.
‘I’d better get the old washing sorted,’ she said instead. ‘It’s been brilliant to hear you.’
‘Same here, and don’t forget, hang on in there. It’ll all come right.’
‘I will.’
Afterwards, she headed for the scullery where Hector had obviously taken her damp clothes out of the machine and left them in a tidy pile by the sink. Ten out of ten for trying, she thought cynically as she found a peg bag embroidered with MAM on the front and then went outside to the rusty wire washing line in the back yard. All in shadow. She shivered, realising then that in just over one week, she’d managed to step not into any light but a deeper and, it would seem, yet more perilous darkness.
While she wiped over the line and pegged out the garments it was Mark’s morning story which soon killed off Anna’s encouraging words. That black cauldron now lurked in her mind’s eye like a giant and ever-present mote.
‘You back then?’ Hector came through the front door just as she was about to sneak off to Wern Goch to examine the vessel. Bits of hedge lay in his hair and the sun had turned his cheeks pink. ‘Where’s my boy?’
‘We had a row if you must know.’
Hector responded by prising the lid off a paint tin and pouring some of its custard-coloured contents into an old baking tray. He then picked up a clean roller, mounted the step ladder and started on the ceiling over the door, effectively blocking her exit without any excuse or apology. She watched, fighting back memories of her dad doing exactly the same in her bedroom just before she’d left for Warwick – that almost milky smell, the crackly sound of the roller’s sponge against plaster – she realised he wanted to talk. But then, so did she.
‘About what you said earlier,’ he began, beating her to it, dipping the roller once more into the creamy goo. ‘This fellow you’ve just met . . .’
The question threw her. She’d missed her moment and her planned challenge about the Dagdan theory was vanishing like the mist.
‘Yes?’
‘Mark’s jealous, you know that? It’s really upset him.’
‘I understand, but, much as I like him . . .’
‘So, you do like him at least?’
She hesitated.
‘Of course I do. Why shouldn’t I? He’s been really helpful about Wern Goch, he saved my life out in the field there, but, as I was about to say, I’m not married to him. He’s not my husband. We’re not even going out together.’
But there had been that kiss. The slow burn . . .
‘He’s had a lot of hurt. You do understand that, don’t you?’
‘So have I,’ she retorted. ‘I had a crap job – knives in the back all day every day – a Booker longlisted author who . . .’
Shit.
She saw Hector lay his roller in the tray and lower his head to look at her.
‘Go on. An author who?’ He waited as she cupped her head in her hands. What the hell was she doing? she asked herself. Here was someone who could lie as easily as unpeeling a banana and yet . . . And yet . . . There’d been the friendly car salesman in Balham whom she’d told about Jon. Now here was another shoulder to cry on, but this time, old enough to be
her father. Not Anna or her mother, someone ready to listen . . .
‘He raped me,’ she blurted out. ‘Last June if you must know.’
Without speaking, Hector laid down the roller and tray and descended the step ladder. When he reached the bottom rung, she saw paint spots on his eyebrows. There was even a fresh one at the end of his nose. The last thing she registered before his arms went around her. The way her own dad used to hold her if she’d had a bad day at school, or when a boy she’d once liked had gone off with someone else.
‘Oh, Lucy Mitchell,’ Hector said at last. ‘What a shitty old world we live in, eh? What’s his name then. This rapist?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘I’ll trawl this so-called longlist for you and find out. Don’t forget, I’ve still got friends in the Force . . .’
‘No. Please don’t do anything. It’s OK. I can handle it now.’
Just then the front door flew open, causing the stepladder to rock alarmingly from side to side and threaten to dislodge the full paint tray. Mark’s dishevelled figure stood in stunned disbelief at the couple now separating in front of him.
‘Well, just how fucking cosy can you get?’ he yelled at them both, then stormed up the stairs before kicking his bedroom door shut with such seismic force that the huge old house seemed for a moment to lose its equilibrium.
Hector let go of her then made his way towards the kitchen.
‘I’ll make a pot of tea for us all,’ he announced with such detachment that her damp eyes blinked in amazement. ‘And tomorrow, don’t forget, just like I promised, I’m going to find out about what exactly was going on at that waterfall.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hi you,
Thought you’d like this as a souvenir. What does the postmark tell you?
THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL
Llandrindod Wells
REPORT FOR – Summer Term 1987
As Richard’s form teacher and Year Head, I have been very concerned by his total absence from school at a time when his undoubted talents were truly coming to the fore. Whilst we all appreciate that the tragedy of losing his mother has clearly had a devastating effect on his well-being, nevertheless some return to normality, the companionship of others his own age and the chance to further his gifts in acting, art and poetry would surely help him at this sad time.
A Night With No Stars Page 22