He’d obviously not yet heard about Charles Pitt-Rose, but as before, Jason held back. Let him talk.
“When my Carol was the postwoman, she sensed there was something odd about the place. How secretive its occupants were. How, despite almost daily visits, she rarely saw a soul.”
“We should tell the cops about this son of theirs. If it was him on the loose, there could still be DNA traces in the house. Did you see any police chopper around any time after four o’clock?”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
And before Jason could also ask about anyone called Margiad, or that mysterious spectre lurking by the old lead mine, he spotted the boot of a red hatch tucked back from the station’s main building. Although the two security lights weren’t at full strength, he knew immediately whose it was.
***
The wind drove an empty crisp packet against Jason’s forehead as he climbed out of the Nissan and ran towards the Ignis. “Door’s open,” he shouted, before trying the others. All locked, including the boot.
“Everything looks normal to me.” The farmer who’d joined him, used his torch’s beam to scan the interior. Yes, the same debris lay on the floor, and various shopping lists littered the top of the dashboard, but nothing suggested anything other than carelessness.
However, Helen wasn’t careless.
“She’d never leave her car unlocked.” Jason‘s voice was lost even before it left his mouth. “She gave me a lift from Swansea to Heron House yesterday, and when we arrived, I saw how she checked and rechecked that all its doors and the boot were secure.”
“In a hurry, perhaps?” suggested the other man, feeling the bonnet with a bare hand. “Whatjecall’s still warm.”
It was too. But instead of bringing a comforting sensation, Jason sensed only danger. “In a hurry for a non-existent train?” he challenged. “For a National Express bus that passes through twenty miles away? I don’t think so.” But why did no-good Llyr Davies come to mind again? The skinhead from the asylum. “Where’s the cop shop here?” he asked. Gwilym Price pointed towards a road leading to the left, opposite the station, signed for Builth Wells. “Not far, it is. Bound to be someone in there in the warm, twiddling their thumbs.”
***
Gwilym was right. And once inside its reception area blinking defensively against the too-bright strip-light, Jason off loaded his growing fears about Helen to the Desk Sergeant, Edward Rees. A man with expressionless, weather-beaten features.
“And while we’re at it,” added his companion, “I’d like to know why no chopper came over Pen Cerrigmwyn this afternoon as promised, and who deliberately killed my prize-winning sheepdog. My best friend.”
Sergeant Edward Rees squared up to him. Jason noticed his smooth, neat hands at odds with his face. “We had an important incident in town. Didn’t DC Prydderch mention it?”
“Yes,” said Jason, wondering how the Hell someone with advanced rigor mortis was sitting on a good incremental wage and a gold-plated pension. “But there’ll be a far bigger one if someone round here doesn’t get off their butt. And soon.”
Jason, like Gwilym, was too angry to notice the strange expression on the Sergeant’s face. His pretty hand hovering over his phone.
18.
Saturday 4th April 2009 – 11 p.m.
She shouldn’t be running after Mr Flynn like this, Helen told herself. But what choice had there been? For a start, he had freaked her out and then The Rat had tried pushing her into The Drop. She was sure of that. The memory of those strong wiry arms grappling with her shoulders, pushing her inch by inch towards that black hidden valley, had come to the fore. How that bony hip had connected with hers with an almost superhuman power.
Originally, she’d planned to drive herself to Islington, but her petrol gauge was already on red before she could reach the only garage still open on the Brecon road out of town. The station car park had come just in time. So had the guy in a black beanie and matching duffle coat who’d introduced himself as Ethan Woods, a family man who didn’t normally offer people lifts in his van at night. Especially young lone women.
Now, with his wheels swinging on to the M4 – the same route she’d taken with Jason only yesterday – she realised that in her rush to take up the timely offer of a lift, all the way to central London, she’d left her driver’s door unlocked. Too late now to get back to Llandovery.
Shit.
“You OK?” asked the man next to her, passing over a warm bag of Everton mints. She didn’t take one. Instead said, “I should have locked my car. I never forget to do that.”
His laugh was a surprise. Different in every way from Jason’s. Not that he’d done much of that since arriving at Heron House. “Plenty of folk’ll be there come morning. And it was hardly Piccadilly Circus when we left.”
She couldn’t argue with that, but still she fretted as they roared along in the middle lane and the eerie glow of Port Talbot’s steel works, invaded the van’s cab. She then noticed an empty tax disc on her side of the windscreen. Wondered if he was insured.
“You don’t sound very Welsh,” she observed, to break the silence.
“I’m not, but I am back and forth to your rainy country twice a week. Tregaron way mostly.” He crunched like a horse on his mint and slowed down. “Them poshies down in Surrey like the taste of fresh lamb off the hills. Pays me to keep going.”
The way he said ‘fresh lamb,’ made her edge surreptitiously towards the window where regular bursts of spray shut out the blackness beyond. She was not only bone tired, with that same groin ache becoming a deep nagging pain, but also too knackered to call Jason. But she must phone her mam first, though.
She pulled her phone from her grass-stained fleece pocket. £4 left, while a welcoming sign for SERVICES 1 MILE came and went. For a second, her driver glanced at her phone, then back to the road ahead. His beanie now covered his eyebrows.
“Can we stop there so I can top this up?” she asked, clicking on the green glow of her mother’s land line number.
“Say please.”
She glanced at him in surprise. “Please.”
He tapped the fuel gauge with a leather-gloved finger. “Next one’ll do. Got to shift. This lot’s to be in the shops first thing.”
Really? To her, even frozen lamb still possessed a nauseatingly sweet smell, so why wasn’t it on his clothes, in the used, heated air? OK, so she’d been too stressed to notice or question what he might or might not have been carrying when his muddy van pulled up alongside her dead car and made the offer she couldn‘t refuse. But the more she thought about it, the more she remembered the open area behind them being empty.
The guy glanced at her again. This time for longer, then had to brake sharpish behind a coach, his wipers on full speed, sloughing off the brown spray.
Damn.
Eluned Jenkins was either out or too fast asleep to hear her phone ring. “Be in touch tomorrow,” said Helen, once BT’s automated voice had finished, and the bright, busy lights of Sarn Park Services became night. “And don’t worry.”
“Who were you calling?” he asked.
“My mam. Why?” Normally she’d have told him to mind his own business, but she’d cadged a lift, hadn’t she? Once again, she was beholden. But not for long. When her paintings started selling and she’d got her own place, she wouldn’t be in this situation ever again.
£3.50 left.
“Why would she be worried?” the man persisted. “I don’t get it.”
His tone had sharpened. But right now, she needed him more than he needed her. “I always say that to her. Whatever.”
“My kids don’t.”
“Perhaps you give them more space.”
Just then, her Nokia juddered in her hand. Jason’s number came up, beating her to it. She held her breath as he came through. Too loud, on the move as well, it seemed. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you…”
“I’m OK. But my car’s not. It’s in Llandovery station car park. The driver’s door u
nlocked. Can you please try and make it secure?”
“Sorted, no worries. Just been to the Fuzz there. Mr Price gave me a lift. Look, you can’t just take off in the middle of the night. Was it because of Gwenno?”
The Fuzz word had been too loud. She lowered her own voice to barely above a whisper. “No. Though she did her best to push me down into that valley. It was something Mr Flynn said that made me leave. Tell you later.”
“Tell me now.”
“I can’t. Look, Jason,” she was whispering now, “you shouldn’t have done that. I mean go to the police. This is my business.”
Now Ethan Woods was leaning towards her, his beanie clear of his bright red ears, while that same mix of sweat and stale aftershave, she’d smelt that morning at Heron House, hit her nose.
“So where the Hell are you?” Jason wasn’t giving up.
“Got a lift to London.”
“Anyone you know?”
“Erm... No.”
“Helen, you’re crazy. I’m coming to find you…”
“You can’t.”
And that was it.
The driver suddenly switched on his radio. Amy Winehouse plus strings. Helen reached out to turn down the volume, but that black leather hand pushed hers away.
“He let you have it,” the guy observed as if he’d not done anything. “Not cricket to speak to the fairer sex like that.”
So he’d heard that much...
“Jason, eh?”
“No. James, actually.”
“Could’ve sworn you’d said Jason, which just so happens to be my youngest’s name.
It was then, despite the van’s warm, cosy cab, she felt her skin ice up. Jason had called her crazy. It had hurt, but he was right. This guy had sniffed a lie like an owl sniffs meat. “What’s with the Fuzz?” He eyed her in a way that made her grip her phone even harder. “That didn’t sound very helpful.”
“Look, Mr Woods, my period’s come on. I need to sort it. I really don’t want to spoil your seat.”
“Next stop, eh? Like I said. Anyway,” he shot her another glance, a slight smile on his chapped lips, “I’m used to blood.”
One of her failings, she knew, was her inability to suss out character. Hadn’t it taken her a full month to realise Mr Flynn was a fully paid up member of the Chameleon Club? Gwenno Davies too? Nice as pie at first, yes. Just like with Jason, until the dark stuff seeped through. Why, to her painting tutor’s disappointment, she’d never tackled the portrait. Hers would have been too superficial to show any truth. Not that there was much to read in Ethan Woods’ face. Just his round, blue eyes, chapped lips and fox-coloured stubble.
SERVICES 28 MILES.
Don’t panic, she told herself. He’s just a bloke. The ones she’d known, including her da, rarely said the right thing, especially to do with female stuff. But Jason was different, and she wished now she’d not been so arsy with him.
Over the Severn Bridge with the last of Wales and Saturday slipping by to the throb of Bob Marley’s ‘Exodus’ and that sudden surge of blood down below that meant the next Services would probably come too late.
***
“I’m on my way to Islington. Wait for me.” Helen whispered in reply to Mr Flynn’s standard voicemail instructions, having checked neither adjacent cubicle in the Ladies loos at Leigh Delamere Services was occupied. She stuffed her own phone into her rucksack, willing him to soon pick up her message. But perhaps he too was asleep, exhausted.
With a night-time sanitary pad that felt more like a small house between her legs, she opened the heavy fire door bit by bit on to the too-bright BP Shop. She blinked, then spotted her driver’s sturdy back as he stood by the till paying cash for his diesel and a giant Mars bar.
So far, she’d only seen him up close and seated. Now, while a sudden rush of blood left her body, those broad, slightly stooped shoulders, the thick neck and the way he moved towards the exit, brought everything back. So he’d added a donkey jacket and covered his shaved head. But he’d missed one important detail. Her eyes followed his thick-soled, white trainers as they unexpectedly turned from the exit and began walking towards the door she was holding.
No...
She let it close without a sound and shut herself in the furthest of the six cubicles. Voices now. His and someone else’s. A woman.
Bastard.
“It’s a ginger,” he explained. “Pony tail, blue fleece with hood, jeans, pink rucksack. May be in trouble. Mentioned her period starting and looked pretty pale. Reckon you should take a look.”
Helen held her breath while shivering with too much fear to bother about him calling her a ginger. Her rucksack felt too heavy on her back. Her blood, inside and out, way too hot. She thought of her room back at Heron House with all her painting gear waiting to be used, mam, Jason, whom she was missing already, and Mr Flynn, for whom she’d taken such a stupid risk.
“No joy so far,” said the woman clicking open next door’s cubicle. “But I’ll keep looking.”
No you won’t.
Helen charged from her hiding place, causing the woman in the navy trouser suit to lose her balance while she yanked open the door into the shop and, head down, pushed through the queue who temporarily barred her way, and headed for the door. Someone stuck out a leg and she almost fell, but was upright again, weaving her way between the newspaper and magazine displays.
“C’mere bitch!” yelled Mr Beanie behind her. “Before it’s too late.”
The glass automatic doors parted then closed behind her. She’d just a few seconds to hide again. To recoup. Around the back of the shop, illuminated by the glare from a small barred window, stood four giant wheelie bins. She snatched up the first three mucky lids in turn, only to recoil from the stench of rotting waste piled high inside. Number four seemed different. Drier, and not so full. She plunged in a hand and felt paper and more paper.
Thank you, God...
She threw in her rucksack and, gripping the bin’s front edge with both hands, up she went and dropped down onto an unstable bed of mainly cardboard. She then closed the lid over her as quietly as she could.
Only her breathing was audible now, and the sudden, unexpected rip of parcel tape against her boots. Her pursuer’s threats seemed to be drifting away in another direction, but she couldn’t be sure if he was now on his own or not. Even changing his mind. She was taking no chances. The luminous hands on her watch showed half past midnight, and she was just about to check her phone’s credits to call 999, when, like a bolt of electricity in that dark, airless box, it began to ring from inside her rucksack.
No...
Would he hear it? Even someone else putting rubbish out?
Her rucksack lay below her in the farthest corner, and only by stretching out a foot to reach its straps, could she reel it in. But as the ringing continued, she had the strongest feeling that if she answered, she’d be toast. The tosser calling himself Ethan Woods had stared at her little screen, hadn’t he? Number highlighted and remembered. Perhaps he had a special memory gift. Mild autism. Unless her driver had been in her room before visiting Mr Flynn’s study.
That stray thought, and another of him foraging in her knicker drawer, made her blood turn to ice.
“NEW CALL... NEW CALL... NUMBER WITHHELD.”
Wait...
And then the invitation to leave a message after the tone. When it came, the debris under her boots seemed to collapse, taking her deeper into the polyurethane coffin’s dead musty air.
19.
Sunday 5th April 2009 – 12.30 a.m.
That bruising wind, that had accompanied Jason and Gwilym to Llandovery, was now an unearthly stillness where nothing stirred. During the journey back, instead of quizzing his driver more about Heron House and its history, Jason fought sleep by staring out at the familiar landmarks and the dead badger now little more than a sorry heap. Its entrails straggled glistening into the road.
***
“I should have asked the Fuzz about Llyr
Davies,” Jason said, as Gwilym Price hauled up the handbrake outside Heron House.
“Don’t you worry, son,” said the farmer. “It’ll all come out in the wash. To me, that Sergeant seemed more clued up than Prydderch. And as for Miss Jenkins, she’s got an old head on young shoulders. She’ll be alright. And her car.”
“Glad you think so. Wish I could believe it,” said Jason.
Gwilym Price then handed over a battered business card. “I’m only a stone’s throw away, remember?”
“Cheers.” And with a lungful of thick, oily diesel, Jason ran half-blind with tiredness over the gravel past the circular flower bed and its solitary rose, towards the front porch. Encouraged by a light from indoors glowing through the door’s two frosted glass panels, he rang the bell.
After five long minutes, Idris and Gwenno Davies appeared with besom and crop at the ready. She, swamped by a camel-coloured dressing gown, with hair a mess and lipstick smudged up her cheeks, looked like some red light district’s favourite granny. He, equally dishevelled, wore pyjamas that seemed to belong to another age and to someone else. Why did sex come to mind? And the gruesome thought of them at it, made Jason miss her first question.
“I said, what time of night is this?” her pink mouth jerked as she spoke. “We’ll be telling Mr Flynn when he’s back. That’s for sure.” She eyed his feet. “And the fact you’ve stolen his boots.”
“Thief,” added the gardener as if she’d suddenly empowered him. “And the sooner you go back to where you come from, the better.”
“Hounslow,” she spat out the word. “Coon country.”
“Excuse me,” Jason kept a lid on his anger, “I’d like to get to my room. The room I’ve paid for.”
The pyjamas stood aside to let him pass. “You’re not welcome here. Nor that slapper either.”
“You’ve already made that quite clear,” Jason crossed the gloomy reception hall, full of strange, penumbral shadows, cobwebs and dust strands hanging low enough to brush his forehead. “So put another record on, eh?”
“Where is the little madam?” the sister called out, looking out over his shoulder.
Cold Remains Page 14