“Hey! take a butcher’s at this one.” His voice came from behind the biggest memorial topped by a crouching angel who, despite seventy years of Welsh weather, seemed remarkably white. “Edmund Pitt-Rose QC and his wife, Joy. Dearly beloved and all that… I wonder if they’re related to that poor sod who’s just been found hanged in London.”
Helen, in an effort to leave that suddenly cloying smell of roses lingering in the moist air, ran over to join him and stare at what was clearly a large family plot. “Who knows? But surely there aren’t too many with that name around. Especially here. Unless, like the drovers they were passing through.”
“See these dates? Joy died in 1937 and her husband almost thirty years later. Hardly passing through.” He caught her eye. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yes. Islington. Where Mr Flynn was going earlier. To be honest, I thought he looked demented.”
“Do the Davieses know he’s gone?”
“Now that’s a thought.”
Despite their presence, an eerie stillness seemed to pervade the place. Helen slipped her arms into her coat sleeves, glad now of their warmth.
“Plot thickens.” Jason knelt down on the wet, newly-mown grass, letting his fingers follow the stonemason’s lettering. Their original gold leaf replaced by paint from a none-too-steady hand. The whole thing lovingly tended, obviously. “Joined for nine years until parted by death,” he read, then looked up at her. “Had you heard of this surname before yesterday?”
“No. But looks like there’s plenty of space for more.”
***
“At this rate, I’ll need to get myself a coat like yours.” Jason stood up, shook out his sodden leather jacket and, shivering like a road drill in action, returned it to his back. “Mr Flynn might have warned me.”
“Same here when I first arrived. The rainfall’s ten times worse than in Aber. Nor did he say a word about who else was sharing his roof.”
“You mean that married couple?”
Helen laughed then covered her mouth. Her mamgu had always said it was unlucky to laugh amongst the dead. “They’re the barmy army, OK? I’ve been trying to tell you.”
She then found herself looking at the grave of a Walter Jones who’d died in October 1946 aged nine. Only child of Eira and the late Iori. The sad remains of nine pine cones lay stuck to his pale granite slab. She wondered what had happened to him. If his mam was still alive.
Jason joined her. “Never mind my thriller, which isn’t going anywhere, there’s stuff happening here that needs an explanation. Fast. “Remember me,” for a start. And the more I think about it, it was definitely a Welsh voice and female.”
Again he fished out his mobile and tried RECALL without any luck. The same for SAVED MESSAGES and VOICEMAIL. All the while Helen watched him as if something between them had changed. She could have walked off. But no. She actually wanted to give him some small hope that he might perhaps fulfil Mr Flynn’s expectations.
“There’s something else I’d like you to see,” she said. “Now this damned drizzle’s stopped.”
But Jason stayed put as if he wasn’t finished. “I keep thinking of this boss of yours. Why such a big bee up his bum just now?”
She sighed. If he wanted to try his detective skills, it didn’t have to involve her. “He never said. Just for me to keep an eye on the place and call him in case of emergency.” She pushed back her coat sleeve to reveal her watch. “It’s half ten already. I can’t be out too long. Just in case.” She moved away from the sorry plot towards a gap in the bordering hedge, but he soon caught up with her.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
She frowned again. “OK. He basically said I mustn’t upset the Davieses. Good, eh?”
“I don’t get it. Why are they so special? Anyone would think they owned the place. Not him.”
“Join the club.”
They watched as a very elderly woman half-hidden under her umbrella, came through the small gateway carrying a flowerpot of something, and made her way to that same youngster’s grave. She stood over it, as if completely unaware of anyone else.
“Look,” he whispered. “I might not have written a single line of this book of mine, but I’m good at sniffing rats. Had to be in my job especially with all that Health and Safety crap dumped on us.”
“There’s one you’ve missed, then,” she smiled, dug in her coat pocket and produced two of the same kind of cakes he’d had for tea yesterday. Their blue icing still unappetisingly Gothic.
“Cheers,” he said, taking a bite. “Now, what was it I had to see?”
“Not far. I promise.”
“Why not the lead workings down here, if you’ve got to get back?”
“The upper ones are far more interesting. Besides, I’ve had a thought. Once I’ve checked on Heron House, I could drive us to the pub. According to Mr Flynn, they do fab home-made chips.”
At this, her companion’s tired eyes sparked into life and, for the first time that day, she saw him smile. “And perhaps we can find out more about the intriguing Margiad.”
“Right then. Wagons roll.”
***
With a white, hiding mist lurking in hedgerow corners and among the neat, slate-roofed barns of a farm called Cysgod y Deri, they trekked along a muddy path churned up by so many sheep’s feet and horses’ hooves. With each step, Jason’s boots made an embarrassing sucking sound. He whistled between his teeth probably to disguise it, but Helen was fixed on something far more serious.
“Pen Carregmwyn’s to the right. See?” she said. “Pen means hill.”
“Can’t miss it. And are those Heron House’s chimneys?”
“Correct.”
They crossed Rhandirmwyn’s main street – originally the turnpike road to Builth – and reached an overgrown junction with yet another weather-beaten fingerpost indicating a turning to the right.
“Up here,” she encouraged, and soon, having reached a wide, grassy plateau, the valley view below made her catch her breath. That same farm and its outbuildings like so many tiny dice thrown onto green baize.
For at least a minute his gaze devoured the land and the sky before he turned to her. “Someone should paint this.”
“I’m planning to,” she said without thinking. And while he listened with what seemed genuine interest, she filled in the gaps of her so-far unsuccessful life.
“OK.” He nudged her at the end. “You start on the painting tomorrow, and I’ll start my thriller. Deal?”
She hesitated. This was not a realistic proposal. “Deal.”
“Anyway, it’ll give me an advantage before the other punters show up.”
“Not competitive, then?” she grinned, suddenly becoming aware of a sickly, lanolin smell behind her. There, just a few steps away, in a hollow of foul water, lay the torn remains of a ewe and her lamb. Their spines interlocked. The bigger one resembling a long, brown Afro comb, the smaller version white and delicate. “Don’t look,” she said. “Nature’s nasty.” And next, as if from nowhere, came the roar of beating wings overhead. Rooks. Too many of them, blackening the sky.
“Move!” Jason grabbed her hand. His felt hot, solid. She found herself blushing.
“They’re not interested in us,” she said.
“Oh no? I’m not hanging around to find out. I’m an Essex boy, and those gulls out near Bradwell used to try and peck out my eyes whenever I walked to school.”
She looked back on the black blur of feathers descending into the hollow, then rising again, beaks full. One even tugged at the poor lamb’s spine and, having freed it, carried the trophy high over the forestry.
“Who lives over there?” Jason was pointing left to a neat bungalow nestling against a bank of cherry trees coming into blossom. A small white car parked outside.
“That’s Golwg y Mwyn. Aunty Betsan’s place. Must have been a cute cottage at one time, but the Welsh can never resist a new bungy. She’s that brilliant cook I told you about.
You’d not have had spag bol last night without her help.”
“How come?”
“I cadged the recipe off her last Wednesday.”
Odd what her host had said about The Rat and that despite her smile, she’d seemed ill at ease. Odder still that she, Helen Myfanwy Jenkins of No Fixed Relationship, should be here of all places, with a guy she hardly knew.
In silence, she and Jason sloshed upwards towards that dark kingdom of firs and pines she’d never dared go near on her own. Nantymwyn Forest. Big moolah for someone, she thought. She hated destruction of any kind, and to see these majestic specimens cut down to a uniform size, their sap weeping, trundling along the local roads, made her too want to weep.
“What’s that racket?” Jason had stopped in his tracks. Head cocked.
“Only the sawyers hitting their logging targets. You wait till the trees fall. Sounds like thunder.”
“So we’re here just to listen to falling trees. Great.”
Instead of replying, she led him up a steeper gradient to where not only the bare, ragged top of the hill was just steps away, but also where more than four hundred men had once toiled above and below ground for a miserly wage. The land had become boggy, studded with bristling, fan-like reeds. “This is the Nantymwyn site I was telling you about in the car,” she said. “Terrible hard work it was, and dangerous. I’ve done some research into the living conditions of the men – women and kids too – who often came from miles away. Can you imagine what it must have been like here in the depths of winter?”
Jason nodded, staring at the all-too-visible industrial remains of what looked like an engine house guarding a dead tree, and nearby, a tall, two-tone chimney surrounded by silent, cropping sheep.
“There’s no sign of the mine manager’s house,” Helen continued. “And talk was that several workers and those living nearby became seriously ill from the smelting. That graveyard’s probably full of them.”
“You mean lead poisoning?”
“Yes,” thinking again of Heron House’s two elderly occupants. “Never mind blood poisoning, it can cause mental illness severe enough for people to be institutionalised, hidden away by their families. Or worse. Apparently Caravaggio became really violent as a result of lead in his oil paints.”
Jason had obviously never heard of that sensual painter’s name.
“So no compensation, then?”
“I honestly can’t say.”
“You should have seen the Health and Safety freaks we had at Woolies. If it moved, disinfect it.”
She smiled. “There were also lung troubles from the tailings.”
“Hello?”
“Dangerous dust.”
“And what the Hell is that?” He waved at a half overgrown cave-like opening set in the grass and surrounded by barbed wire and another danger notice.
“An adit. It leads to the Angred shaft.”
“Adit? Never heard that word before. Do cavers and potholers come up here?”
Helen knew her second laugh was way too loud. Too out of place. He was staring at her as if she too was mad. “If you go down one of these, forget it. Make a will first. When Mr Flynn had a go, he said it was like descending to a watery Hell. Really shook him up, it did. He saw animal bones and God knows what else, so perhaps some predator had used that shaft as a kind of store.”
“Wish I’d not asked,” said Jason, clearly not joking.
Just then, a different object caught her eye. To the right of the opening stood the same eerie phenomenon she’d spotted three days ago. Black, motionless as before but now turned to face Dinas Hill opposite.
“Sssh,” she hissed to Jason. “Look over there. Quick!”
He followed her pointing finger. “Why? It’s just some old stone.”
“No, it isn’t. Can’t you see? It’s the figure of a man. Looks like he’s in mourning clothes.”
“If you say so.” Jason sounded more than fed up. And, despite the cup cake, was probably starving.
“Is that the best you can do? I mean, this is freaky.”
“Let’s check it out, then. I can try taking a video again.”
“No.” She held him back with surprising force. “He’s up here for a reason. He’s obviously interested in this place and we mustn’t interfere.”
“With no coat? No umbrella? And if he is real, how come he’s just appeared out of nowhere?”
“You’re right.” Yet she knew Jason was wrong. Could it be that whoever it was, had made a showing just for them, like for her on Wednesday? If so, why? “Let’s just hang around a bit longer,” she whispered. “All might be revealed.”
Suddenly, before she could stop him, Jason cupped his hands round his mouth and hollered out “Yo there!”
Damn.
The effect of this din was immediate. The previously faceless figure turned their way. Despite Jason’s closeness, Helen gasped in fear at that pallid, pained expression, and worse, as the young, brown-haired, pale man himself began to move. Towards them.
***
Jason began legging it down the forestry’s waterlogged track. She could tell he was a good runner, not like some, all flailing arms and legs. “So you’ve seen him before?” he shouted at her.
“Yes. When I called in on Aunty Betsan. His suit’s definitely from another era, and did you notice the black tie?”
“I’m thinking funeral too, if you must know.” He speeded up, now slithering over wet stones and pieces of bark left by the lorries. The whine of saws had resumed, once more turning the whole scene into a kind of vegetative abattoir. “Christ, what is it with this place?” he complained. “I’ve come all the way from Hounslow to try and hit the big time, not deal with a load of ghosts.”
Nevertheless, Helen couldn’t forget the spectre’s red-rimmed eyes. That open mouth set mutely in a cry. How, having reached out a hand as if to touch her, he’d merged with the drizzle.
“Why we’re calling on Aunty Betsan,” she said. “She swore blind to me that she’d not noticed anyone hanging around, but I think she was trying to protect me. Not give me any more worries.”
“More worries?” He almost twisted his ankle and swore. “What d’you mean?”
“Nothing. But Mr Flynn said the same to me last Wednesday, about his mortgage being the least of his concerns. I can’t help thinking he’s in trouble. Perhaps there’s no one else he can confide in. And do you blame him, given the alternatives there?”
“Look, you can’t take on the sins of the world. He’s a big boy. Not short of a bob from what I can see. Maybe he’s gone to London to get some new deal, probably with Coutts. There’s lots caught up in this slow-down now. Ex-bankers selling Big Issue under Waterloo Bridge, for a start.”
He’s right, she thought. Wasn’t that the reason for the planned writing courses? And weren’t there only four days to go until the first was due to begin? She then recalled something else.
“So why did she overhear him phoning Islington Police Station before he left?”
Jason didn’t reply, as if he was too busy thinking up an answer.
***
As they approached the welcoming dwelling, Helen noticed that the poor dead ewe and lamb they’d seen earlier were now just tufts of sodden fleece. And for an instant she wondered how she’d react if she heard her mam had suddenly died.
“Wait,” she said, as Jason reached the plateau first, where Golwg y Mwyn’s inky blue slates and newly rendered walls glistened despite the grey light. “Betsan doesn’t know you, and we don’t want her scared, do we?”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Nice car,” he said, admiring the immaculate white Modus aligned against the bungalow’s front wall. “Bit impossible here without one.”
Helen was too busy exploring the bungalow’s four windows to reply. Three had their curtains open except those belonging to what she remembered was the lounge. Maybe the seventy-five-year-old was taking a nap in there.
&nb
sp; Jason caught up, smelling of rain and wood sap. A smell she could get used to. “She’s probably out the back in her herb garden. I’ll take a look,” she said. And, leaving him out the front, pushed open the unlocked side gate on to that same paved, weed-free path and glanced around at the beautifully tended plot that met her eyes.
No Betsan.
Helen made for the back door and found it unlocked, with no sign of any damage to either the Suffolk latch or the empty keyhole. “That’s strange,” she muttered to herself, finding it slightly ajar. “Betsan?” she called out. “It’s me. Helen, from Heron House. Are you alright? I’ve brought a new friend to meet you. He really loved your spag bol recipe.”
Silence, save for the distant call of birds and the rocking of Helen’s heart.
11.
Saturday 4th April 2009 – 11.30 a.m.
We don’t want her scared, do we?
Even though Helen had tried to laugh that off, she’d made him look an idiot, and he’d been there, done that more times than most twenty-eight-year-olds, especially when grovelling to keep his Woolies’ warehouse job.
“You ain’t the only one affected,” his boss, not far off his pension, had muttered as if he, Jason, had complained about some faulty piece of equipment, not goodbye to a monthly pay cheque and good managerial prospects. And now here he was clinging to his dream in a totally different world where, according to a Wonderful Wales brochure he’d skimmed through while waiting for his train at Paddington Station, myths and legends abounded. But nothing like that crazy, untraceable message on his phone, his shape-shifting library book and that body-shaped stain. Never mind the toffee-coloured time-slips…
He’d have to be extra focussed. Extra determined, otherwise, he’d be crawling back to TW4 with his tail between his legs, not having written a word. Which is why, when Helen called out to him from behind the cottage, he didn’t answer.
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