Cold Remains

by Spedding, Sally;

  “You tell me. You tried to kill her.”

  “Slander, Mr Robbins, is a serious offence. And we’ve friends who’d help get you in trouble, haven’t we, Idris?”

  “Indeed we have.”

  Jason wasn’t going to waste his breath at this stage. He ditched the stinking boots and, despite his legs feeling like two lead weights, took the stairs three at a time to check Helen’s room was still locked. It was. He then made for his own. All he could think of was her out there, with some stranger – or more than one. Christ, he shouldn’t have let her go. Easy to say that now, when he’d not even noticed she’d left Heron House.

  Once inside his fusty, over-decorated room, he pulled down the sash window’s upper portion and felt the dying wind on his face. Reception for his phone was sure to be better up here than at ground level or in the Nissan where he’d last tried to contact her. No such luck. He was just about to chuck the useless piece of junk across the room, when that other voice he recognised immediately, swirled into his ear. He faced the black, still night with its hidden hills and impenetrable forests; the secrets and lies of the dead and the living. His heart churning.

  “For God’s sake, who are you? What do you want?”

  “I have come and I have gone. Suffered and been punished, but no more. It is time... It is time...”

  And was that some bird he could hear calling out in the background, or something else? A kitten, perhaps? Some other young animal?

  “Time? What for? I don’t understand...” That cold, damp air from outside filled Jason’s mouth, stroked his skin. His hand shook on the phone that suddenly seemed heavier, like a lead weight.

  “You saw them by our swimming pool, didn’t you?” That same young woman’s voice continued after taking a deep, grating breath. “Those foul, arrogant men who used me for too long. I was there with you. Couldn’t you feel it, deep in your soul?”

  “Yes,” he lied, just to get rid of her.

  “So, Mr Robbins, please open your writing book and pick up your red pen. That way, you’ll remember me and what I had to do to survive.”

  ***

  Mr Robbins...

  How weird was that? And about his red pen. But what stuck in his knackered brain like a maggot, wasn’t only her tortured message but ‘our’ swimming pool. Not ‘the’ or ‘their’ – Jason rubbed his eyes, trying to revisit that tiled terrace with its black-suited men and their blood-red wine. Had whoever just spoken to him, in that faintly threatening way, belonged here at some point? But how? When?

  Dammit.

  All Jason wanted to do was sleep, so that in a few hours’ time, he’d have the energy to check again on Helen and get the Fuzz properly involved. So far, Sergeant Rees had arranged for her car to be secured, but seen no need to dust it for prints. “Probably met up with a friend,” he’d opined. “Someone she knew.” But something in Helen’s voice had told Jason otherwise and, as he crept downstairs to use the landline phone in the reception hall, realised that her finding a handy lift at that time of night in that small, snoring town, had been like snow in July.

  999.

  “Police,” he said to the automaton who answered. “My friend Helen Jenkins who’s a cook at Heron House in Rhandirmwyn is on her way to London by road and could be in danger.”

  “Which road?“

  He only knew of the M4 and said so.

  “What vehicle?”

  “God knows.”

  “We need far more precise information than this. Where in London exactly?”

  “Some mansion block or other in Islington.” Neither the Metro newspaper nor Helen herself had given any more detail than that. “I believe a Charles Pitt-Rose was living there.”

  “Was?”

  “He’s been found hanged.”

  “And your friend’s age?”

  “Say twenty-three.”

  After what seemed like a lifetime and a million questions later, Jason was connected to Dyfed Powys Police in Carmarthen where a DC Jane Harris took down what details he had. Also both his and Helen’s mobile numbers. “If she’s on pay-as-you-go, there may not be a trace. But we’ll try. I was told Islington…”

  “That’s right, and I’ve a hunch she may be seeing her boss, Monty Flynn, there. Charles Pitt-Rose was his landlord. He did once live at Heron House. Has any news of his death reached you here?”

  “Not so far. And I’m very sorry to hear it. Do you have this Mr Flynn’s mobile number?”

  “No.”

  So the deal was that Helen must reply to him first.

  Here goes...

  Her ring tone was alive alright, but for some reason, she wasn’t picking up.

  “C’mon... c’mon…” he urged her, but whenever had life ever gone to plan? He stared at his receiver, wondering if texting Helen would suffice, when he was suddenly aware of a shadowy movement by the door to the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” Jason called out, only to see a naked Idris Davies and his besom advancing with the speed of someone half his age. All old muscle and menace, his crinkled cock and purple balls swinging as he moved. Jason slapped the phone down and bent to pick up a pair of brass fire tongs. “Where’s Llyr, your son?” he shouted. “And don’t tell me you haven’t got one. He’s been here, hasn’t he? Attacked Miss Jenkins, and the rest. And don’t think I’m not onto it. The police as well.”

  Jason’s pulse was high jumping in his wrists and his neck, as he slapped down the receiver and waited for the kill. Instead, to his surprise, the besom slipped from the man’s grasp and without making any effort to retrieve it, Idris turned on his heels and ran back the way he’d come. His shrivelled buttocks wobbling with each stride, his strange fearful cry diminishing as he ran off into the house’s dark, mysterious heart.

  ***

  Back in his claustrophobic room, Jason locked his door, took a few deep breaths before closing his window and lying down by the wardrobe to access his refill pad. His hands probed the shallow wooden arch from left to right, back and fore, until with a sick ache in his gut, he knew he was wasting his time. OPERATION ROOK had vanished.

  Shit.

  Ignoring the faintly cloying smell of roses that suddenly seemed to reach his nose and swill around his boiling head, he was soon hurtling down to the next floor, groping his way along the papered walls and their tilting pictures, until he reached his destination.

  The cohabiting brother and sister. A sliver of light showed beneath their door. The faint hum of voices. Time for action.

  Bang, bang, bang and a kick for good measure. He felt good.

  “Open up!”

  Almost immediately, three bolts were drawn back. Three turns of a key, then a gap wide enough to allow the thick smell of sex to eke out and for two crazed eyes to meet his. The gardener again, still starkers.

  “No, Idris!” came a shriek from behind him. “Leave it.” There’s enough trouble as it is.”

  “I’m no coward. I’ll sort the runt out,” Idris said.

  But Jason pushed the door further open to see something he’d rather forget. Gwenno Davies in the huge bed, holding its silky brown duvet up to her chin. But it was the bright blonde wig perched on her head that made him start. Then the fluffy handcuffs and the riding crop…

  Asylum.

  “Who’s been in my room and nicked my notepad?” Jason yelled. “You or that lovely son of yours?”

  The gardener backed away, but not her. “I’ll call the police!” she hissed. “Then you’ll have a record. No more jobs for you, Saes. That’ll teach you to put your nose where it’s not wanted. And another thing…”

  Jason let her rant on while he sussed out what he could of the room. Classy curtains and carpet; no expense spared, it seemed. But it was the bed and its padded champagne-coloured headboard that dominated even the pale wood dressing table and matching double wardrobe. Against the door hung what appeared to be a woman’s black riding habit from much earlier days. Closer to, he also spotted a mobile phone on the nearest bed
side table. A sleek little silver number. And something else that made him catch his breath. He’d never seen an actual dildo before, but what else could the thing be? Creamy white and surely too thick, with a distinct kink halfway along its shaft.

  But Jason had to get back on track. And soon. “What did you do to Miss Jenkins to make her leave like that?” he challenged the old woman. “Try to strangle her? Push her out of the way? Well, let me tell you couple of psychos, I’m sticking here till she’s found safe and well. OK?”

  With that, and not unexpectedly, the door was slammed in his face; the bolts slid back into place. The key viciously turned.

  Tempted to retrieve the besom and chuck it in the pool, Jason reminded himself to stick to what mattered and, right now, Monty Flynn’s study was tops. In total darkness, with his own boots in hand to silence his journey across rugs and creaking floorboards, he reached the front door and with the tiniest of clicks, set the latch.

  Once outside in the night’s oppressive stillness, and too close to the front wall to activate the security light, he groped his way along the thick ivy until his hand connected with the front lounge’s stone windowsill. Ten paces later, came the lock-ups with the ivy still conveniently in place.

  He tucked his boots out of sight and, having tested his weight on the cold damp foliage, began to climb. So far so good, and within seconds, as a scrap of acid moonlight poked through the clouds, his fingers found what they were looking for: a moss-covered windowsill.

  ***

  The lower portion of the sash window, although broken, moved sweetly upwards at an angle, enough for him to wedge it open with clumps of ivy. Next, he curled himself over the sill into a large, oblong room divided into sleeping and working areas. A desk and filing cabinet stood to the right, with a single bed, armchair and open wardrobe to the left. A noticeable smell of drink and fags lingered in the air. But where were all the books Monty Flynn was supposed to own? Helen had been right about that. In fact, where was anything?

  Jason paused, ready if necessary to hide in the darkest corner, out of the moonlight’s glow. This was how Helen must have felt. A nervous trespasser. He gave himself five minutes to find what he was looking for. Hadn’t Gregor Vasilich boasted on page 83 of Evil Eyes, that ‘knowledge is power?’ However, as Jason directed the pale green light from his phone on to the oak desk and its many drawers, he realised someone – or perhaps more than one – had got there first. Not even a paper clip remained. The computer and framed photographs that Helen had also mentioned, had gone. But why?

  Just then the phone light suddenly died. He clicked it on again to see the filing cabinet, too, had been emptied. And then, without warning, his Orange Rome phone began to vibrate in his hand.

  20.

  Wednesday 9th October 1946 – 4.30 p.m.

  Having relieved his unexpected visitor of his sodden reeking hat and coat, and suggested the rifle stay in the lobby, Lionel hefted a pine log on to his fire and indicated the second of two armchairs whose green upholstery and walnut feet, almost matched the one belonging to his late father.

  As a result of the bombings in his native city, the chaos of death and destruction, he’d grown to crave order. A simplicity of material things that allowed his mind to burrow whichever way an idea took it. But nothing could have prepared him for what was about to come from Peris Morgan’s mouth.

  The old soldier, with an inch of whisky now in his glass sat bolt upright as if in bed, enduring a bad dream or some long-ago memory from days spent at the Front during the Great War. It was then Lionel noticed that his left eye stayed still, more opaque than its partner. Was it real or artificial, he wondered. Yet despite this and other privations, the man still felt driven to serve the land of his birth. He also had a few questions to answer.

  “So what makes you think I’ve been up to Heron House?” Lionel began.

  “Not sayin’, sir.”

  “Was it young Gwilym Price?”

  The stranger hung his head, which Lionel took to mean ‘yes.’ “You’ve things to tell me about it,” Lionel reminded him, lowering himself into his own chair with pen and a small notebook at the ready. Thirty-three years of teaching had shown it was best to write things down rather than rely on an over-burdened memory.

  “I have, sir.” The old man eyed the pad. “But be sure to burn your paper afterwards. D’you understand, sir?”

  As if in anticipation, the flames caressing the base of the log, sprang into life, leaping halfway up the chimney, releasing the sappy smell that would normally soothe Lionel into a doze. But not now. This time he was tense. On alert. He’d rarely seen a man so fearful since he’d left Birmingham’s mean, ravaged streets.

  “Someone should set fire to that damned Heron House, too.” Peris Morgan took a mouthful of whisky as if to fortify himself, and licked his cracked lips before continuing. “What they do up there is shameful. More what you’d find down Cardiff docks or Soho, not here among decent, clean-livin’ folk.” He paused, drawing in his slightly wheezy breath, while outside, beyond the still-open curtains, the grey dusk had become an impenetrable black. He got up to shut it out, aware both his hands were trembling. His usually reliable legs more those of someone more elderly.

  “You’d think bein’ judges and all, they’d know about what was proper and what wasn’t.”

  So Carol hadn’t been mistaken.

  “Judges? How many?”

  “Three at least. Top of the heap and rich as Croesus, so I’ve heard. Come up country for fun and games. But,” he wagged a knobbly forefinger in Lionel’s direction. “Not what you and I’d call fun and games. I’ve heard the screams, the yellin,’ the cracking of whips. ‘Specially the cracking of whips. You wouldn’t believe it. But what did Constable Prydderch say when I told him? Live and let live. That there was no law against festivities.”

  “Festivities?” Lionel also wrote that down, unsure what to divulge about Walter’s visit to the school and what he himself had witnessed up by the Nantymwyn lead mine. This Home Guard veteran was still a stranger, after all.

  “Sir, I say orgies.”

  Holy Jesus...

  The word came as a shock, but couldn’t completely erase the memory of how in civilian life, Lionel’s own father had been taken to court by a wealthy but dissatisfied customer with a cunning barrister, and lost most of his savings in costs. Why he’d joined up and why, in his last letter home, he’d warned his only son to steer clear of ‘those black, Godless beetles who’ll suck you dry.’

  Having recovered from Peris Morgan’s shock announcement, Lionel had to ask the vital question: “So who exactly lives at Heron House?”

  His visitor set down his glass and wiped his mouth with his jacket cuff. A brown leather affair, creased by years of wear and weather. “I never saw no wife myself, but to my da, she was a real beauty. Joy was her name. A Cardiff girl. Died giving birth a while back now. Buried in St. Barnabas’ Church, she is. The grave’s very well cared for. Always has been. Must have cost an arm and a leg, mind, a plot like that.”

  “This baby?”

  “A son it was. Charles, as I recall. Never saw him either, mind. Must be the same age as our Kyffin.”

  “Well, he certainly doesn’t attend my school,” said Lionel, almost adding that the cries he’d heard at Heron House weren’t those of a young boy. “Never has done.”

  “Talk is he’s in some posh place down Dorset way. Can’t be sure, mind.” He glanced at Lionel. “Don’t understand it, to be honest. But there you go. With what’s supposedly going on at home, best he’s not around.”

  “Who’s his father?”

  The old soldier eyed his whisky glass. Drew his jacket closer over his stained woollen shirt, even though the log in the grate was fully alight, giving off more of the scented smell of pine.

  “I’m assuming Edmund Pitt-Rose. Why I’ve come calling. Heart o’ stone he has, and God help you if you find yourself up in front of him in court like some poor devils I know. Treated worse th
an the salmon in his keep-net.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Sion Beynon’s uncle over in Salem for a start. Stole some sheep. Got ten years and hanged himself in Swansea jail the next month.”

  “Who else lives there?” persisted Lionel, who often had to refocus his charges at school. He’d never known youngsters chatter so much as the Welsh – often delightfully so – but one had planned a lesson to get through.

  “I glimpsed a young woman wearing a black dress and white apron. Hard little face, and even harder eyes. Couldn’t have been more than sixteen.”

  “Gwenno Davies. Stuck-up little piece, given her situation.” Peris drained his glass and replaced it on the side table rather too sharply. Whether deliberately or not, Lionel couldn’t decide. Normally at this time of day, Lionel’d fetch his pipe and, with three practised pushes of his thumb, fill it with his favourite brand of tobacco. But there’d be no pipe now. He was aware of a slow but inexorable unravelling. The way the mist undresses the hills after a damp night.

  The man opposite was in his stride. Lionel topped up Peris Morgan’s empty glass. Whatever it took to loosen that tongue even further.

  “Her and her older brother Idris are – you know – touched up here.” His visitor tapped the side of his forehead with a finger missing its top knuckle. “All the lead smelting that went on, see. Specially down here in Nantybai. Mind you, they wasn’t the only ones. Oh, no. My daughter had terrible nightmares for years. Would take herself off sleepwalking. Once, we found her wading along the Towy. No clothes on, mind.”

  Lionel had heard of such cases on his travels, also during the three school Governors’ meetings he’d attended since his appointment. How the mines’ owners had insisted that conditions for workers and community safety had always been a priority. But he wasn’t here to fill his head with the world’s stories, troubling though they were. He needed some answers.

  “This so-called judge said he’d set his lad on me. Would that be Idris Davies?”

  A nod. “Evil little ferret. Keep out of his way, if I were you.”