With his first sentence down in black and white, Jason’s words seemed to fly from the one decent Woolies’ ballpoint he’d kept. In fact, he had a job to keep to the facts and not exaggerate. ‘This isn’t your book,’ he’d warned himself. ‘Stick to the facts.’
Suddenly, Idris Davies crumpled up his sheet and threw it on the fire whereupon a twisted, green flame spasmed into life. “Can’t read nor write, see,” said the man whose grizzled head seemed even smaller than ever for his body. “Never bin to school. My sister here neither. Too busy working, we was.” He pointed to the woman whose paper also lay untouched. Whose shocked surprise was a picture. She tried to leave her seat, but the Fuzz, sitting alongside her on a worn settee, restrained her. He handed Jason and Helen a spare sheet each.
And then the penny dropped.
Sister? Jesus.
Helen stared from one Davies to the other. “But I thought...”
“He means wife,” barked the cleaner. “Too much fresh air it is. Affects the brain. His brain. I keep telling him, mind.”
Meanwhile Idris Davies had lowered his head, muttering, while the cop drummed his fingers on the top of his file. “Are you married or not?”
“Never,” insisted the gardener. “She made a mistake, didn’t she? Likes to call herself Mrs for some reason, but it’s not true. ‘Sides, if we was a couple, where’s her ring?”
At this, the old woman seemed to stiffen, except for her right hand fiddling with that empty wedding finger. Jason could imagine the air between them in private would be not just blue but navy blue. “Where were you married, then?” he asked her as if he really cared. “Locally or outside the area?”
“Can we please move on?” the Fuzz cut in. “Perhaps you, Mr Robbins, could write down what Mr Davies says; and you, Miss Jenkins, do likewise for Ms Davies. I want dates and places of birth. Relationship to one another and the deceased; current residence and lastly, but vitally, where you were between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. this morning. Also, if you’ve any thoughts on who Miss Griffiths might have been expecting for lunch.” He glanced at his watch then the cleaner. “You go first. And by the way, please remember, this is a legal document. Mr Price of Cysgod y Deri has already been very helpful.”
A lie. The farmer had given him short shrift.
“What about my boss?” asked Helen. “He was in his dressing gown till nine.”
“Mr Flynn will need to call into Llandovery police station immediately upon his return. By the way, has anyone any news of him?”
“He’s OK,” said Helen almost too quickly. “I can give you his mobile number afterwards.”
“Diolch.”
Again the cleaner tried to stand. A look of disbelief tightening her bitter face.
“She never said he’d gone to London. I mean, how come it’s incomers knowing more than us?”
“Ask Mr Flynn,” said Helen. “And by the way, I’m as Welsh as you are.”
The cop coughed. “Now, Ms Davies, and please speak clearly so Miss Jenkins can understand.”
“Mrs, if you don’t mind.”
As Jason watched her begin, he resisted asking how long they’d lived at the house in case she’d volunteer it. She didn’t, and the minutes ticked by until both bland accounts had been signed by two wobbly initials apiece. Idris Davies claimed he’d woken at 7 a.m. and not left the grounds at all after that. He’d seen Gwilym Price passing by with his rooks mid-morning when the farmer had given him the sad news about Betsan. As for her having any living relatives in the region, the answer had been an emphatic no. In unison. Something about the Davieses’ manner was more defiance than denial. “Were you both here at Heron House a long time before Monty Flynn bought it?” Jason finally ventured.
“Not relevant at this stage, Mr Robbins,” the Fuzz manoeuvred himself out of the settee to gather in the four statements. His bulk blocked out the meagre light from the front window as he locked the statement file in his case and snapped it shut. “Go on for ever, otherwise.”
“Quite right,” added Gwenno. “None of his business.”
“Just one thing, while everyone’s together,” persisted Jason. “Have any of you heard of someone called Margiad? She may have lived here. Even died here. The reason I’m asking is I saw a sign bearing her name, outside my room door. Then it vanished. Other things happened last night, too. Things you wouldn’t believe.” He felt his cheeks colouring up as he spoke. Aware of Helen looking at him in a way he couldn’t fathom.
The mantelpiece clock chimed half past three.
He wished he’d never asked the question, nor volunteered the rest. It had just happened, almost without his control, and at the end he felt as if he’d stepped into his own grave to be buried alive by silence.
***
Half an hour had passed. The cloakroom sanctuary reeked not only of discarded coats, macs and mud-encrusted boots, but bad drains. Jason stood wedged against the old-fashioned washbasin while Helen sat on the toilet lid, head in hands. They’d not only accompanied the lumbering Fuzz back to his wheels during which he’d promised to find her attacker, but trekked up to that old stile again to search for clues. Now, free of the Davieses’ hostile stares on their return, it was catch-up time. To discover what had turned the girl in front of him into a living ghost. But she beat him to it. “Weirder and weirder, don’t you think? Hard to know who to believe.”
“That Fuzz certainly didn’t want me digging up stuff on the so-called brother and sister. And didn’t you think the earth around that stile had been conveniently raked over?”
“Possibly.” As if she was dwelling on something else.
“Describe this guy who put the frighteners on you,” Jason whispered.
“Tallish, strong, bald. Cheap jeans and serious b.o...”
“Dark blue top?”
She nodded.
“Got to be the same guy I saw. Is this what you told Prydderch upstairs?”
“Yes. And there’s to be a chopper search of the area by four o’clock.”
“In half an hour? I’ll believe that when I see it.”
She looked up at him. Her eyes misted by tears. “To be honest, Jason, I’ve never really felt at home here. Now I’m frightened.”
In certain films he’d seen, now would be the moment to step forward and get physical. “You’ve got me,” he reassured her instead, but needn’t have bothered. As before, she wasn’t listening. Something had indeed changed. Heron House was neither a safe workplace for her, nor the inspiring retreat he’d hoped for. In less than twenty-four hours, it had become somewhere to retreat from. Yet why had she been targeted like that in her own space? It didn’t add up. He took a chance.
“You weren’t in your room, were you?”
The look Helen gave him said it all.
“You can tell me.”
She lowered her voice. “I was in Mr Flynn’s office. Its door was unlocked. I found stuff he’d hidden away in a Private and Personal box file. Can’t you see? I had to find out what’s really going on here. Why he dashed off like that.”
There was clearly more to Helen Jenkins than met the eye.
“You didn’t leave any prints?”
“No. I pulled my jumper’s sleeves down over my hands.”
“Wool can leave fibres,” he warned.
“For God’s sake...”
“Go on. Did you get a result?” The dampness from their own and those long-abandoned outdoor clothes brought that same sense of claustrophobia he’d felt at Betsan Griffiths’ place. He could still be back in London before the pubs got dodgy. Find a bed somewhere to tide him over.
“You’d never guess. For a start, Mr Flynn doesn’t own Heron House. Only rents it.” She stood up. Put her mouth to his ear at which his pulse immediately speeded up. “Charles Pitt-Rose is the landlord. He also lived in Islington. I’ve seen letters. Receipts, proof.”
“Jesus. For how much rent?”
Cracks in the Irishman’s edifice widening by the hour.
“
Wait. There’s more. Apparently, he’s also been bribing Mr Flynn to keep the Davieses on here. Those two creatures come with the territory. Non-negotiable. Can you credit it?”
“With difficulty. Were they referred to as being married?”
“No. I only saw their names.” Helen had spotted herself in the plain mirror behind him, and grimaced. “I warned you they were bonkers. And something else. It was Gwilym Price who told Judy Withers that Charles once lived here.”
Another reason to meet up with the old farmer again, thought Jason, realising just how secretive the Irishman had been.
“So what’ll happen now this Charles Pitt-Rose is dead?” He was aware of a tightening in his chest. The Armitage Shanks’ cold porcelain in the small of his back growing colder.
“God knows. But I was just hunting for any sign of a will, things like that, when this creep appeared telling me to mind my own effing business or else.”
“Had you seen him before? Think.”
“No.”
“Must have known his way round, though.”
“That’s what I thought. And I wonder who else has access to this place?”
Jason was trying to shove black thoughts to the limbo area of his brain.
“Did this Judy person mention any Margiad?”
She shook her head. Her wet hair at the front had begun to curl.
“The silence here couldn’t have been any more deafening when I did.”
“At least you tried.”
“Either she’s off-limits for some reason, or no-one has the faintest idea.”
Just then came a rubbing sound followed by a sharp thud against the bottom of the door.
“Ssshh. Listen!” he hissed.
Somebody was repeatedly pushing against the wood.
“Who’s in there?” came Gwenno Davies’ nasty little voice.
“Only us,” Jason turned the key and stepped back for her to survey the scene. “Helen’s feeling sick.”
But instead of sympathy, anger curdled the whites of her hard little eyes. “She’ll be more than sick if she keeps on the way she is. Keeps upsetting things. Mark my words.”
15.
Wednesday 9th October 1946 – 12.45 p.m.
Lionel Hargreaves should have changed into his walking boots. Mistake number one. The second was taking what he assumed to be a short-cut up by the Post Office where lunchtime meant no-one was there to answer his pressing questions. Here, the stubborn mist drew him into its cold, dense embrace, and he soon found himself sliding down into a waterlogged gulley, suddenly meeting a roughly-trimmed hawthorn hedge on the other side.
“Ouch!” A trickle of blood reached the corner of his mouth, and another his chin. He managed to pull himself clear, but almost slipped again.
“Hello, sir,” came a young lad’s voice from behind him while a hand pulled at his coat. “I got you safe. This way. Steady, sir...”
Once Lionel had reached terra firma, he wiped his wounds with a handkerchief, immediately spoiling it. He looked with puzzlement at his young helper. “That was most kind of you. It’s Gwilym, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Gwilym Price, sir. Cysgod y Deri it is. Too busy seeing to me mam to get to school, in case you’ve been wondering.”
He had, and now recalled the string of noughts by the boy’s name in the class register. How promising this curly-haired lad had once seemed at the start of last year’s autumn term. How Bryn George the Truant Officer, or ’Whipper-in’ as he was known, had been turned away whenever he’d called at his home. At least Gwilym had a good heart, thought Lionel. Something no conventional education could guarantee.
“Well, I hope we see something of you soon. You’ve a good brain, lad. A pity to waste it.”
“Where ye goin,’ sir?” asked the boy as if he’d not heard a word.
“Just a walk, to think about things before lessons start again.”
“What things, sir? You don’t need to be out in this weather to think. Besides, Old Peris Morgan’s on guard duty up by the forest. And we all know he’s got a screw loose.”
Lionel remembered Morgan’s grandson’s remarks about him in class. How proud he’d seemed.
“Got a gun and a rifle, he has,” volunteered his helpmate. “To keep out the Boche.”
Lionel hesitated. He’d wasted too much time already. But dead Walter’s tearful face came once more to mind. “I’d heard about the heronries up at Heron House,” he said. “Thought I’d take a look. I’ve been a bird lover since I was a child.”
“Not this way, sir. You’ll most likely get shot. Follow me.”
***
The fog had folded itself away, leaving a windless afternoon with a sky as flat and grey as his cottage walls. Lionel let the truant find a track he never knew existed, past a redundant concrete tower he assumed had been used for storing lime; then uphill, at least on stones rather than churned-up dirt.
“Not far, sir,” panted his young companion, before pointing to a white single-story bothy, whose tin roof was home to a row of fat, black rooks. “That’s Golwg y Mwyn. Betsan Griffiths lives there. Tidy she is. You must teach her. Should’ve brought my rifle. Mam likes rook pie.”
Lionel could think of nothing worse and wondered if his helpful quiz winner was inside having lunch, perhaps wishing like him that the dreary afternoon was over. His thoughts drifted to relighting his sitting-room fire and placing Mahler’s 9th symphony on the new gramophone’s turntable. To him, this work played by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra summed up Europe after war, and never left him dry-eyed. Not only for the fallen, but the young growing up in its shadow.
Just as his leg muscles began to complain, Gwilym plucked at his coat sleeve. “It’s here, sir. Heron House. See how huge it is.”
Indeed it was. But not only that, observed Lionel, shivering despite his thick, winter coat. The word ‘disturbing’ came to mind. Each window seemed too mean for its ivy-clad walls and both chimneys too tall. Then, all at once, the curtains in the top right-hand gabled window were suddenly pulled together by unseen hands. Why now? And why in such a panic?
“See them posh cars, sir?” Gwilym interrupted his thoughts, pointing to the right-hand side of the house. “They must have cost a few bob.”
So, Betsan had been right.
But to Lionel, those three, sleek, black saloons parked almost out of sight, reminded him more of hearses rather than conveyances for the living. And could one of these be the same that Walter Jones had seen near the forestry that day? If so, where was the mud from such a trip? All sets of tyres seemed immaculate. As did the shining bodywork. “Listen!” he said suddenly. “Can you hear that strange noise?”
The lad cocked his damp, unruly head. “Them’s rooks, sir. That’s their call. Godless, my da used to say.”
“I’d like to believe you, Gwilym. But please, listen again.”
“Can’t, sir. Mam’s waiting. Needs her food, see. But if you want them heronries, they’re round the back. By there...” He pointed left towards a plantation of mainly deciduous trees, most already bare of leaves but not birds. “Don’t go near The Drop, mind. It’s bad.” Then, before the boy could be stopped, he’d turned on his heels and run off.
Lionel shivered again as he continued to focus on that intriguing curtained window, tempted to advance further up what was obviously a newly-gravelled drive, and explore what Betsan had described in her test.
All at once, from behind, a hand fell on his shoulder. Its weight made turning round impossible. His pulse took on a different beat.
“Your name, squire?” The unseen man’s accent was unusual for a native of this strongly Welsh area. English public school and Oxbridge seemed more likely. Cultured, yet menacing. Could this be the judge that both Carol and Betsan had mentioned? Could this be Edmund Pitt-Rose?
“Be so good as to remove your hand,” said Lionel. “I’m no criminal. I’m merely out for a walk.”
“Then have the courtesy to remove your shoes from my drive.”<
br />
Lionel backed away, and in doing so, turned to see up close, his adversary’s prematurely jowled cheeks, the veined, pale brown eyes; the formal suit and a tie bearing a heron-shaped gold pin. A once handsome man, he thought. Also, judging by his bulky midriff in an age of austerity, one who enjoyed the pleasures of life.
“Your name, squire?” the man repeated the question in an even more imperious manner. “I’m waiting.”
“Who I am, is none of your business and if you persist in intimidating me, I’ll report you to the police.”
A short, sour laugh followed. “You won’t get very far with that, so let me save you the trouble. Most of them are in my pockets, with no desire to climb out.”
Then came that same haunting sound again, creeping from that house through the chilly, damp air. Louder now. Definitely female, Lionel thought. And not just crying, more a prolonged wail that made the rooks spread their wings and heave themselves from their chimney perches into the dull sky as the front door opened. A short, thin creature, no more than fourteen or fifteen, dressed in black save for a white apron, gestured for the man to come in. Could this be that same young woman who’d appeared in riding clothes threatening him after Walter’s funeral? Her features were certainly sharp enough. Her eyes possessed that same hard brightness. If she recognised him, she didn’t show it.
“You trespass round here again, squire,” the suited man prodded his shoulder, “I’ll get my lad to give you the kind of send off you’re unlikely to forget.” He almost swaggered off towards the house without glancing back.
Most of them are in my pockets, and have no desire to climb out.
What an odd thing to say, if he really was a judge. Odder still, his lack of response to what had clearly been human shrieks. Lionel turned away from the curtained window, the air of secrecy and gloom that he felt from just being there, and realised he’d forgotten to ask the bully to confirm his name.
With a less than steady tread, and the added burden of guilt that he’d not had time to investigate those baleful cries, he took the downwards track back towards Nantybai, all the while listening out for the sound of a car engine. A big car engine, eager to mow him down.
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