The Twilight Streets

by Gary Russell

  Extract from diaries left to the Museum by Michael Cathcart in 2004

  May 1947. Tuesday. Went to Tretarri, see what all the fuss was about. But nothing. No ghosts, no ghouls, no visitations of any kind. Just a tramp, old Tommy, who’s been living in and around Grangetown for years.

  Extract from memos between L Morris, BBC H of RF (London) to R de Houghton, BBC Ctrllr L P – docs. 01.02.1961

  Sir – as noted in our memo of Monday last, we have checked and rechecked the tapes. Everything that was recorded in Cardiff is blank. However, as my producer explained to Asst Ctrllr L P – docs and features on Thursday, we had done some editing work, so I know the damage to the tapes occurred after we returned to BH, for we listened to everything through before making an editing script for the Pas to work from.

  Extract from Building Commission, 3rd quarter 2005

  … trees lining the street need to be cut right back. Planning permission refused for change of use from house to three flats at 38 Gainsborough Gardens. Planning permission pending for conversion of attic space at 116 Riley Road, Canton to bedroom and en suite WC. Planning permission granted for demolition of entirety of Tretarri estate, work to begin by September, construction of new apartments and office space to be put out to tender by 3 November. Planning permission refused for 69 Prospect Avenue, Ely for construction of two garage spaces in rear garden…

  Extract from Local History pamphlet, on sale in Wales Millennium Centre shop, 2007

  The area referred to as Tretarri was established as a small town in 1872 by Gideon ap Tarri, landowner of West Grangetown and North Penarth arable land.

  Extract from diaries left to the Museum by Michael Cathcart in 2004

  January 1961. Saturday. Tretarri is becoming a legend apparently. The BBC were there, a Light Programme about ghosts the man said. I offered to show them my journals, my diaries, but they weren’t interested. Bloody English, so ******** superior.

  Obituaries, Western Mail, 14 July 1986

  Sheppard, Martin: Devoted husband to Helen. Accidentally taken from us during the Tretarri fire.

  Extract from Fire Examiner’s report (suppressed under Govt Resolution 8A/dcl/1913)

  My people could find no evidence of fire damage to any of the terraced houses in Hanover Street, Coburg Street or Windsor Street. Eyewitnesses, including the surviving firemen, all reported identical descriptions, within reason, of the fire and the gutting of at least two of the houses, on the corner of Coburg Street and Bute Terrace, formerly occupied by illegal immigrants from Albania. This inexplicable event is exacerbated by the occupants all receiving invitations to a restaurant in Butetown that night for a family birthday celebration. The Albanians all reported, when interviewed separately, in different police stations within Cardiff, that the restaurant did not exist.

  Government inspectors accessed the area but reported feelings of paranoia, of trepidation or general fear and mistrust when they explored the neighbourhood.

  Extract from Cardiff Bay and Its History by Eleri Vaughan (TaffTours Ltd, 1992)

  The legends surrounding the area known as Tretarri are as fanciful as the area itself. Too small to be a real town or village, Tretarri is little more than a cluster of Victorian streets built as a vanity project by mine owner Gideon Tarry, who adopted Cardiff as his hometown in 1852, after changing his surname from his birth name, Haworth. His claims to be a Welshman were finally disproved ten years ago by students at Cardiff Grammar, researching biographies of famous Welshmen for a modern Domesday Book. Tarry’s origins and subsequent death remain clouded in mystery but it is known that he invested a great deal of money building Tretarri, ostensibly for workers. However, no workers ever lived there after 1876 – the ‘town’ itself is seen as an eccentric form of the traditional Victorian Folly beloved of so many rich landowners during the late nineteenth century.

  Obituaries, Western Mail, 14 July 1986

  Brennon, Bruce Peter: Widower. Accidentally taken from us during the Tretarri fire.

  Extract from Fortean Times, issue # 867

  … amongst the weirdest bodysnatching rumours is that of Gideon Tarry in Wales, England. This bizarre reclusive landowner disappeared from the city of Cardiff in or around 1881. Some years later, a grave was located in a North Cardiff churchyard he never frequented as it was quite some way from his adopted home in Penarth. A frequent subject of gossip during the twentieth century, Tarry’s body was exhumed twice – the second time because of what occurred the first time. Reports state that the headstone was taken down during the excavation to discover if money, jewellery, etc were secreted in the coffin with Tarry’s body. The headstone was broken in two accidentally and put inside the church vestry for safekeeping. The coffin itself revealed no treasures, or indeed anything else – because there was no coffin, no matter how far down they dug. A day later, investigators returned to find the ground replaced and looking untouched, and the headstone seamlessly repaired and resituated. The ground was consecrated once more and after a lengthy legal battle, the headstone was removed and the grave freshly dug eight years later, using more sophisticated equipment to find where the coffin was. No coffin was found and once again, the ground was re-laid, the stone reset by persons unknown.

  Obituaries, Glamorgan Voice, 21 May 1856

  Haworth, Tarri: Master craftsman and respected businessman, of Penarth. A swift and shocking sailboat accident took this beloved husband and devoted father, aged 63. Funeral at St Teilo’s Church, Wednesday week. All welcome, including working classes to whom he holds a special place in their hearts.

  Extract from Building Commission, 1st quarter 20??

  Reversal of 2005 submission and subsequent approval. Application to restore Tretarri without any substantial building work and no demolition to occur. Uplighters to be placed in the pavements, new street lighting to be installed and each forefront of the houses to be cleaned and restored. Trees to be trimmed back. The ground floors of 1 and 3 Coburg Street to be redeveloped as a retail unit. No other houses are to be entered, or interfered with in any way. Approved by Cardiff Council.

  [NB: Date of issue and proposer and seconder illegible]

  SIX

  With a sigh, a really quite loud, one might almost say melodramatic sigh, Ianto closed the last file on the screen, and picked up the buff folder containing pre-electronic age sheets of paper. It had two Torchwood logos on it, the modern hexagonal one and a sketchier version, which, experience told him, meant this particular file was started around the 1920s.

  ‘Problem?’

  Owen was coming up the small stairway from the Autopsy Room. Ianto thought that Owen was spending too long down there in the cold, sterile atmosphere. Since giving up his desk on the upper level to Gwen, he’d buried himself down with the tables and cold storage trays. It couldn’t be healthy.

  That said, Owen smiled more these days. Perhaps being away from the watchful eye of Jack made him more cheerful. Or perhaps he was even weirder than Ianto had previously thought.

  Ianto held up the folder of real paper items. ‘Everything is incomplete, out of order and a mess. The online files aren’t much better.’

  Owen didn’t take his eye off his PDA and whatever readings he was inputting, but he did pause before carrying on. ‘Well, you know what, I blame whoever is in charge of keeping everything up to date and efficiently ordered. Now. Who would that be?’ And he then looked up and grinned that slightly lopsided grin he had. ‘Oh, wait. That’s you, isn’t it?’

  He was heading towards the back of the Weapons Room, to the steps that took him up to the walkway level and the Hothouse. After clattering up the steps, he paused before pulling open the Hothouse door and entering the world of bizarre alien botanics inside.

  ‘You need to stop worrying, mate. If Jack’s not fussed about Trewotsit, why are you?’

  Ianto opened his mouth to reply, and realised he didn’t have an answer. Was it because it was about Jack? Was it because he didn’t like mysteries? Perhaps it was simply that, ha
ving started the research and found it a bit of a mess, his dedication to perfection – or anal retentiveness, depending on who you asked (oh, he was aware of what the others said about him) – was drawing him into the strangeness that was Tretarri.

  By the time he was ready to admit that he didn’t actually know, Owen was shut away with the plants, spraying a couple of them with a small nozzled water-gun, and occasionally reading off from his PDA.

  With a shrug to himself, Ianto returned to the files. And was immediately disturbed by the huge cog-shaped doorway rolling aside to reveal a giggling Gwen and Toshiko as they scuttled in, carrying a couple of pizza boxes each.

  ‘Hiya,’ Gwen called sweetly. ‘What’s your poison tonight?’

  Ianto looked at the pizzas and shook his head. ‘Oh. No, thank you. No. No pizza. For me. You carry on. Enjoy.’

  Gwen looked strangely at him. ‘You OK?’

  Ianto nodded. ‘Sorry, just distracted. And not hungry.’

  She and Toshiko were out of his eyeline now, obscured by the base of the water tower sculpture that housed the Rift Manipulator.

  He’d worked with Gwen for a year or more now, but something about her still made him slightly flustered, like he felt he was being judged and so was always trying to impress her. Which was daft, but he couldn’t stop it. Jack had noticed it; he’d made some joke about Ianto’s schooldays and asked whether he’d had a crush on a teacher.

  Stupidly, Ianto had started to tell him about Miss Thomas – and Jack hadn’t let him forget it.

  He needed to say something normal to Gwen.

  ‘So, how’s the wedding? Rhys all right? Found a hotel yet for the reception?’

  Gwen’s frowning face popped back into view. ‘Fine. Great and, umm, no not yet. Oh, know any good DJs?’

  ‘My mate Paul,’ Ianto said. ‘But you probably wouldn’t want his kind of music. A bit… cheesy…’

  Now it was Toshiko’s turn to pop her head round. ‘Cheese pop? It’s very in apparently.’

  ‘No,’ Gwen said. ‘I think Rhys’s best man knows someone. So long as he doesn’t play “Agadoo”, I’ll be happy.’ There was a pause, then Gwen suddenly spoke seriously. ‘Ianto, have you spoken to Jack? What’s with these days off? He’s not crashed out here, as far as I can tell.’

  Ianto instinctively looked towards Jack’s office, where Jack spent his nights down in a small bunker. Where, frankly, there wasn’t room for two, whatever Jack said.

  ‘Hasn’t he? Oh. Well, I imagine he’s found a hotel or something.’

  ‘We wondered,’ Toshiko threw in, ‘if he was at your place?’

  ‘No,’ said Ianto, a fraction too quickly. ‘No, why would he be at mine? What’s at mine that Jack would want? I mean he could be anywhere, why my place?’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Owen from behind and above. ‘Someone’s a bit jumpy about jolly Jack Aitch tonight.’

  Ianto looked up and saw Owen, a plant in one hand, water-gun in the other. And hoped he hadn’t gone red. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, trying to cover his overreaction, ‘we need to look into all this stuff. There’s something about Tretarri that is… off.’

  ‘“Off”?’ queried Owen.

  ‘As in “not good”?’ Gwen asked, as Toshiko fired up her screens.

  Ianto joined them at their workstations, as they both started looking stuff up, Toshiko obviously a bit faster at creating a database to filter the words ‘Tretarri’, ‘Gideon Tarry’ and ‘Gideon ap Tarri’.

  Twenty minutes later, Ianto had told them all he knew. The four of them were down in the Boardroom, staring at the big screen, and Toshiko was giving one of her lectures.

  ‘As Ianto realised, Tretarri has been the focus of a lot of weird and wonderful happenings. Mysterious fires. People trying to live there but unable to stay for reasons they couldn’t explain. Even animals go a bit doo-lally if they enter the area.’

  ‘“Doo-lally”?’ asked Owen munching on chilling pizza. ‘Not another new technical term?’

  ‘I quite like “Doo-lally”,’ said Ianto, which got a smile from Toshiko.

  ‘Oh well, if suit-boy likes it, we’ll adopt it as Torchwood’s new motto. “Everything’s a bit Doo-lally”.’

  ‘People,’ admonished Gwen. ‘Back on the subject at hand, yeah?’

  Owen smiled at Toshiko. ‘Sorry, Tosh. I gather we’re back in the sixth form.’

  Toshiko then outlined the current plans the Council had to refurbish Tretarri. ‘This will result in two things, at a guess. I stress “guess” – we don’t actually know.’

  ‘We don’t actually know why we’re doing this in the first place,’ Owen said. ‘I mean, it’s not as if we even know this is Rift-related.’

  ‘It’s Jack-related,’ Ianto said quietly.

  There was a pause, then Owen looked at Toshiko. ‘Guess Number One, nothing happens and a crappy bit of Cardiff gets a facelift. Guess Number Two, all hell breaks loose as contractors etc go doo-lally as they try and work there. Right?’

  ‘Spot on.’ Toshiko smiled.

  Gwen looked at the guys. ‘Ianto, can you research a bit more, find out about this Gideon Tarry person, see if there’s anything in his past we need to be aware of.’

  ‘Like he’s a Rift Alien in disguise?’

  ‘That kind of thing. Owen? I want you to plough through the medical records of people connected with Tretarri with me, find out if there’s anything we can extrapolate today that they couldn’t ten, twenty or fifty years ago, yeah?’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’ Owen gave a mock salute. ‘I’m also keen to work out what it is that knocks Jack for six, but no one else.’

  ‘Good. Tosh? Can you take your portable Rift Detector Thingy—’

  ‘More technobabble,’ laughed Owen. ‘Love it.’

  Gwen silenced him with a look. ‘As I was saying before something annoying buzzed in my ear, can you see if you can get into Tretarri and locate anything Rifty?’

  ‘I walked in easily enough,’ Ianto stated. ‘But not for long enough to notice anything. Although…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nothing I can put my finger on. But Jack… I think Jack saw something when I went in. But he never said what.’

  Owen shrugged. ‘Is the plan to get this wrapped up before Jack comes back?’

  Gwen nodded. ‘So, Ianto?’

  ‘Few days left I reckon, if I understand the files. It seems to take him never less than four days in total to recover.’

  ‘Hey kids,’ said a voice behind them. ‘What’s going on?’

  The others looked at Jack framed in the doorway, grinning and clearly full of fitness and health. And, as one, they turned and stared at Ianto. They were not pleased.

  An hour later, they were still in the Boardroom, with the addition of coffees all around.

  ‘I have noticed,’ Owen said quietly, ‘that when it’s just us, no coffee.’

  ‘Jack arrives,’ agreed Toshiko, ‘and oh, look, the coffee gets made.’

  ‘Delivered,’ Gwen added, ‘by hand.’

  Ianto just shrugged. ‘I like Jack. The rest of you? I can take you or leave you.’

  And he grinned wolfishly at them.

  Toshiko suddenly remembered the teasing a couple of days before. She looked at her coffee in alarm. ‘Ianto, you didn’t…?’

  ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Ianto smiled inwardly. Gotcha. Paranoid about coffee.

  With Jack now at the head of the table, Gwen brought him up to speed.

  ‘Really guys,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to do this.’ He placed his PDA on the table and slid it over to Toshiko. ‘Although, by all means sift through this. It’s what I recorded at the site.’

  Toshiko scooped the PDA up. ‘Jack, I think we all want to sort this. Not just for you but we’re all scared Ianto will poison us if we don’t.’

  ‘Slowly,’ added Owen.

  ‘In the coffee,’ Gwen clarified at Jack’s quizzical frown. ‘Teamwork,’ she finished.<
br />
  Jack shot a look to Ianto, who just smiled back, stretched his arms, then rested his head on his hands.

  ‘OK,’ said Jack. ‘Sometimes the humour still passes me by.’

  ‘Who’s joking?’ muttered Ianto. He smiled around the table, then stood up and started clearing the coffee mugs away. ‘Collecting evidence,’ he whispered to Owen as he passed behind him.

  Jack looked at Gwen. ‘I want Owen to run tests on me, get to the bottom of my problem. Then Tosh should go look at the site and—’

  Gwen held up a hand. ‘Got it covered, Jack. All sorted. Teams briefed and ready to go.’

  Owen and Toshiko wandered out. Ianto made to follow them, but hung back just long enough to hear Jack and Gwen.

  ‘You enjoy taking charge, don’t you?’ said Jack, not unkindly.

  Gwen just said what they all thought. ‘You left us once Jack. God knows you could do it again. Now this – someone has to be ready to step up and get the job done when you’re somewhere else. Still your team, Jack, but never underestimate us. Let the bad guys do that.’

  As she left the room, Jack looked at Ianto. ‘I never underestimate anyone on this team. Do they really think that I do?’

  Ianto gave a shrug. He hated this conversation. Permutations of it had arisen a few times recently. ‘Couldn’t say, Jack,’ he just said. ‘But I don’t think it’s a reflection on you, just something you’ve instilled in them. Not a bad thing.’

  Jack stared at him a moment longer. ‘Been a long time since I wasn’t the last voice on things around here. Takes some getting used to.’

  Ianto slammed the tray of coffee cups down, making Jack jump.

  ‘Damn it, Jack – it’s not like that. They’d follow you into fire if you told them to. But you’re not the most predictable man in the world. If they are going to die for you, for Torchwood, give them enough credit to make their own decisions about where, when and why they’re doing it.’