In Guilty Night

by Alison Taylor

  ‘Nobody’s asked him to release the body.’

  ‘Apparently, sir, Councillor Mrs Rhiannon Haf ab Elis talked to the hospital management on behalf of the Thomases and those caring souls in Social Services. People want Arwel six feet under as soon as possible, so they can get on with the business of grieving and recovery. Personally, I reckon folk hope out of sight’ll put the boy out of mind. Should one of us tell the lady councillor to mind her own sodding business, sir?’

  ‘She’ll keep. Why can’t anyone solve the crossword clues?’

  ‘They’re like codes.’ Dewi riffled through sheets of photocopies, and pointed to the word “Elijah”. ‘I remember Elijah from Sunday School, but proffwyd doesn’t fit, because it’s eight letters, not five.’

  ‘Try the Welsh form, Dewi. I’m sure you’ll find “Elias” will fit perfectly.’

  ‘Dewi Prys says you’ve been tilting at windmills,’ McKenna said.

  ‘I might as well’ve been.’ Jack shivered. ‘God! It’s cold!’ He glanced through the window of McKenna’s office. ‘And bloody night-time again already. Will we ever see the sun again?’

  ‘Arwel won’t.’

  ‘Why don’t you stop laying it on with a bloody trowel? We know he won’t! That’s one of death’s tragedies, whatever age you are.’

  ‘The inquest is fixed for next Tuesday. Will we have anything to say?’

  ‘“Arwel Thomas is dead, enquiries are proceeding”.’

  ‘People want him buried.’ McKenna lit a cigarette. ‘Do we need to delay the funeral?’

  Jack shrugged. ‘Leave it to the coroner. We might’ve witnessed a revelation by then, but I doubt it.’ He shivered again, and moved his chair nearer to the radiator. ‘I swear it’s colder than last night.’

  ‘Anything to report apart from the state of the weather?’

  ‘Nothing much. We can probably write off the parents, even though you think they’re capable of violence towards either of their kids.’

  ‘I said Peggy Thomas is overly concerned with what the neighbours think. She punishes Carol enough.’

  ‘Her sort never do anything though, because they’d have nothing to carp about after. Anyway, there isn’t even a hint Arwel got as far as Caernarfon, and if the Thomases killed him, we’d’ve found the body in a local skip, or down an alleyway.’

  ‘What’s the word on David Fellows?’

  Jack shivered violently. Under the harsh fluorescent light, his face was ashen. ‘Gone to earth, people say. Since he was diagnosed with AIDS, he’s kept himself to himself. Pity he didn’t do that before, isn’t it?’

  ‘So no spurned lover is claiming he’s got an interest in the kids?’

  ‘We’ve shown pictures of Arwel to all his neighbours, and no one’s ever seen the boy. They’d remember him, wouldn’t they?’

  Janet sat in an antique Victorian armchair upholstered in rose-pink velvet, surveying the pretty sitting-room of Mari Williamson’s flat, and pondering the chance that placed one homeless and unwanted girl in this luxury when many of her peers scavenged the streets, prostituting bodies and hope for the bare necessities. She felt resentment, an unwholesome enjoyment in the distress she brought to the girl, who sobbed bitterly, rubbing her eyes with her fists.

  ‘I can’t talk to you while you’re crying. When did Mr Elis know Arwel was dead?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Mari flushed. ‘Why don’t you ask him? Somebody from that dump probably phoned Mrs Elis.’

  ‘Who d’you know at Blodwel?’

  ‘A few of the kids from Caernarfon.’

  Janet picked up her file from the rose-pink carpet, and read out a list of names. ‘Any of these? They went on the run with Arwel.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘D’you know where he stayed when he absconded?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he ever say why he ran away?’

  ‘Are you stupid?’ Mari demanded. ‘That place is worse than a bloody prison!’

  ‘How is it worse?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘How would you know? You’ve never lived there.’

  ‘Why d’you think they ran off all the time?’

  ‘Teenagers do that kind of thing,’ Janet said. ‘I expect I would at that age. Like bunking school, isn’t it?’

  ‘You dodged school?’ Mari asked, the ghost of a smile to her lips. ‘Dear me. I thought coppers had to be squeaky clean.’

  ‘I suppose I was lucky. I was never found out.’

  ‘Arwel was,’ Mari offered. ‘That’s why he was put in care.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Not,’ Mari went on, standing to stare through a window giving on to a side garden grey with mountain mist, ‘that you could call it “care”. More like neglect.’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Me?’ Mari turned, leaning against the window-sill, staring at Janet. Dressed in black from head to foot, her clothes sat well on the small neat body. Brown shiny hair, cut in a modish bob, shadowed her pale face. ‘Nothing special. Mam had me when she was sixteen, then ran off with some bloke. My Nain took me in, but she couldn’t manage with her rheumatism, so I went to a foster home.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then I went to another foster home, then another and another. I lost count years ago. Social Services might know.’

  ‘Why so many?’

  ‘That’s how things go.’ Smoothing the skirt over her thighs, Mari sat down again, twisting her hands until the knuckles showed angry red. ‘I got blamed for anything going wrong with their marriage or their kids. I was always on sufferance, always waiting to get chucked out on the streets.’ She paused. ‘Some of them cared, in their own way, I suppose, but not very much. One family was trying to foster as many kids as they could to get an OBE off the queen and their names in the paper, and another couple took me because they couldn’t have children of their own, and they were too old to adopt.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stay?’

  ‘I started growing up. They wanted something quiet and pretty to dress up and play with.’ She smiled at Janet, a wise smile too old for her pretty young face. ‘You begin to understand people, even if they don’t understand themselves. You don’t get too fond of them, because it won’t last, but they feel rejected so you’re out on your ear even faster.’ The smile vanished, leaving her eyes hard. ‘Their own kids bully you, and lie to cause strife with the parents, and tell everybody in school what you are, and it’s even worse when people say you’re their “special” child.’

  ‘You survived,’ Janet said quietly.

  ‘I even landed on my feet. I didn’t need to saddle myself with a baby to get a roof over my head. I’ve only got to be nice to Mr Elis and his wife.’

  ‘And is that hard?’

  ‘He treats me like anyone else, but she can act like I’m a charity case.’ Mari smiled. ‘You might’ve noticed I don’t speak too badly. That’s her doing.’

  ‘You sound like a Cofi to me.’

  ‘So? I’m from Caernarfon. You talk chapel Bangor.’

  ‘My father’s a minister.’

  ‘My father was a drunk, according to my Nain.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  Mari shrugged. ‘Who knows? God knows who I’m related to. I’d never go with a local lad. For all I know, he could be my half-brother.’

  ‘D’you ever see your mother?’

  ‘Not a word in all these years. She might be shacked up with some man. I might have half-sisters and half-brothers I’ll never know. She might be flogging her assets on the streets.’ She fell silent, looking inward. ‘I’m eighteen. She’s only thirty-four, if she’s not dead.’

  ‘You could try to find her. The Sally Army finds lots of missing people.’

  ‘Why should I want to? I don’t expect she’s got anything I might want after all this time.’

  ‘You make life sound terribly bleak.’

  ‘I learned how bleak it is before I could think properly. It’ll take you a lot longer to
find out the same.’

  ‘You’re depressing me.’

  ‘You should grow up a bit, then!’ Mari snapped. ‘Is there anything else you want to know?’ She looked at her watch, a thin gold disc on a gold bracelet. ‘My eighteenth birthday present from my kind employers, in case your little copper’s mind is thinking otherwise. And it’ll be their teatime soon.’

  ‘There’s a lot I want to ask you, actually, such as how Mr and Mrs Elis get on together.’

  ‘Same as most married people, I suppose. Good days and bad days.’

  ‘What causes the bad days?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Janet sighed. ‘You don’t want to gossip. That’s understandable.’

  ‘There’s nothing to gossip about, is there? Pillars of the community, aren’t they?’

  ‘Has Mr Elis ever made a pass at you?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t.’ Mari stared at Janet, bitter humour twitching the corners of her mouth, while her cheeks flushed.

  ‘What’s the joke?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Try me.’

  Mari fidgeted. ‘I’m not gossiping, OK? Only I heard them having a row once. She was complaining about being lonely in bed, if you get my drift.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he was hedging and not answering, so she lost her temper. She’s got a real bitch of a temper at times.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She was shrieking about diseases people catch in posh public schools. Took me a while to work out what she meant.’

  ‘I see.’ Janet leaned back in her chair, feeling the soft upholstery cradle her shoulders, staring at Mari.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Mari told her. ‘Not if you’re thinking he was after Arwel.’ Her face twisted with sorrow. ‘He really loved Arwel, like his own son. Arwel didn’t understand either, until I told him. Then he realized how important he was to Mr Elis, learning to ride and going places with him.’

  ‘Told Arwel?’ Janet frowned. ‘What did you tell Arwel?’

  ‘About the boy.’

  ‘For God’s sake stop talking in riddles! What boy?’

  ‘Their son. That boy. He’s fifteen, and he’s an idiot, a vegetable. He’s locked up in a posh private home in Meirionydd, and he should’ve died years ago, only he’s too well looked after by all that money.’ She looked scathingly at Janet. ‘Didn’t you know they had a son? Don’t you coppers know anything?’

  Seated at his old dining-table, prey to the creeping sense of inadequacy wrought by Elis’s riches and erudition, McKenna surveyed the faded paper upon the walls of his little parlour, the chesterfield clad in threadbare green velvet, the carpet threatening baldness where thousands of footsteps had worn pathways among leaves and scrolls and old-fashioned roses. In the small collection of CDs and albums, the chain-store hi-fi system, the books denoting no particular interest or learning, the old prints of which he had been so proud, what had he to show for his forty-four years? Lack of money had company in the heart of poverty, he realized. A dearth of spirit, a pernicious wasting of imagination, which condemned the children of Blodwel to repeating life-patterns already marked out by parents and grandparents, their existence a ricochet from crisis to crisis to disaster.

  The cat lay on her back before the fire, paws draped over her fat little belly. She looked at him upside down, and he wondered idly if she saw him inverted, or if those sleepy slitted eyes saw anything at all. She yawned, turned over, and tucked her paws under her shoulders, staring at the flames. When the doorbell pealed, her ears twitched.

  ‘Don’t mind me calling late, do you?’ Eifion Roberts stood on the step, Michelin Man inside a padded jacket. He waved a bottle wrapped in off-licence tissue paper. ‘Brought something to warm the innards. It’s bloody freezing again. Your lot are out on the A55 by Aber.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘A whopping great truck jack-knifed over the central barrier. Lucky the road was clear, else I’d have a few to cut up in the morning.’

  ‘What d’you do when there’s no body to autopsy, Eifion? How d’you fill your days?’

  ‘Well, I might tour the hospital wards turning off intravenous drips here and there, but it’s a lot more fun putting carbon monoxide in the odd oxygen cylinder.’ The pathologist bared his teeth. ‘What the hell d’you think I do?’ He dropped the jacket on the floor and sat on the chesterfield, bringing a sigh from the springs.

  ‘How much do you weigh?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘Don’t know and don’t care. You’re beginning to look anorexic. D’you run to glasses in this place, or must we swig from the bottle like common folk?’ He bent down to stroke the cat, running his fingers over her haunches. ‘She’s coming on a treat, isn’t she? Must be all that affection you lavish on her.’

  McKenna put two tumblers on the floor, and uncapped the bottle of whiskey. ‘Owen Griffiths reckons Denise is making a scandal out of her affections, and it’ll rub off on me.’

  ‘Why?’ Roberts gulped his drink. ‘You’re not her keeper.’

  ‘I’m still her husband. Tarnished reputations and all that.’ He sighed. ‘She’s taken up with some bloke.’

  ‘You know, do you? Folk think you don’t, which is why they’re not knowing what to say and what not to say. Who told you?’

  ‘Denise.’ McKenna smiled wryly. ‘She couldn’t wait. He’s a well-heeled type from Cheshire with a boat at the marina.’

  ‘Let’s hope he’s giving her whatever you wouldn’t, then,’ Roberts observed caustically. ‘Married is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And I hope you don’t care. Take no notice of Griffiths and his chapel mentality. Nobody gives a toss if Denise hops in and out of every bed between here and Manchester. How’s the shoulder?’

  ‘Very painful, like the rest of me.’

  ‘What else d’you expect? Coming off that horse, you hit the deck fast. Folk only get mangled in car crashes because when the car stops, they’re still going as fast as the car when it hit whatever it hit.’ Dr Roberts drained his glass, and poured more whiskey. ‘You wouldn’t credit some of the messes I’ve had on the table before seat belts came in.’

  ‘Are you planning to drive yourself home?’

  ‘Only if I can’t sprout wings and fly like a big fat bat. Stop being an old woman! What’s new with the boy?’

  ‘Not much.’ McKenna lit a cigarette, and stared at the fire. ‘We can’t get near the Blodwel kids or staff. Hogg insists there’s nothing more to tell us, and Social Services insist the boy was nothing to do with them because he was on the run.’

  ‘Pontius Pilate spawned more offspring than he ever knew.’ Roberts chewed his lip. ‘What’s the word with the local perverts?’

  ‘We should credit them with more sense, because no one would risk spending ten years on Rule 43 for a bite of fresh meat.’ McKenna shivered, the drink running fiery in his belly. ‘I hoped for something from that quarter. Somebody taking the opportunity to settle a score, perhaps.’

  ‘They’re shit-scared, ’cos this is too close to home, and they’re sitting ducks. Any of the staff at Blodwel got form?’

  ‘Clean as the driven snow, according to our records. There have been complaints about Hogg in the past.’

  ‘What sort of complaints?’

  McKenna shrugged. ‘Dewi Prys reckons he’s a brutal sod. Griffiths was told the complaints are vicious fabrications, fabricated by disgruntled ex-residents or their families.’

  ‘And who told him that?’

  ‘Guess.’ McKenna stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Our own hierarchy is as jumpy as everyone else.’

  ‘You could have fifty ex-kids-in-care telling you Hogg is a psychopath, but it’s no help to Arwel. Can’t you get at the staff?’

  ‘They don’t seem to breathe without Hogg’s permission.’

  ‘Ex-staff, then. Some bod with an axe to grind.’

  ‘And who’ll tell us where to find them?’ McKenna lit another cigarette. />
  ‘You could get that pretty girl you’ve taken under your wing to waylay Blodwel kids on their way back from school.’

  ‘They don’t go out to school, and they don’t go out without staff.’

  ‘Arwel did, unless he got buggered with an audience.’ Draining his glass for the second time, Dr Roberts stared at the sputtering flames.

  McKenna broke the lengthening silence. ‘Elis’s wife has been overheard to comment about diseases caught in public school.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Very rich, very cultured, very charming. He has a son slightly older than Arwel was. Mari said the boy’s a vegetable.’

  ‘Poor sod! Enough to ruin any marriage.’

  ‘People say a handicapped child can bring a couple closer together.’

  ‘People say a lot of things which aren’t true. Religion and philosophy depend on two opposing elements creating a unifying third. Elis and his wife created an idiot, so what hope have they got?’ Settling deep in the sofa cushions, the pathologist added, ‘Denise might know the low-down on Elis’s non-public persona. She’s running with the rich crowd, and they’re as cliquey in their own way as the queer boys and faggots.’

  ‘Elis rather outclasses someone with a tatty boat in Port Dinorwic marina.’

  ‘How d’you know it’s tatty? It could be an ocean-going yacht for all you know.’ Dr Roberts stared at McKenna. ‘Elis and his ilk aren’t averse to trawling gutters for their kicks, as his goodly wife might well know.’

  ‘I hear she tried to get Arwel’s body released.’

  ‘So maybe she knows something she doesn’t want you to find out.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘How should I know? It’s a bastard of a case, and you won’t get far without tapping into the gossip networks, picking up the innuendo, scrutinizing anyone with access to young boys.’ Dr Roberts sighed. ‘Nothing’s changed in the history of man, and some things never will. You can’t bypass Elis, or that Hogg. How d’you rate him as a paedophile?’

  ‘He doesn’t look like a child abuser.’ McKenna raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Listen to me! It’s the drink talking. You can’t tell from looking.’