* * *
Constable Harris wandered down to the village and with apparent casualness went up the lane and behind the houses opposite the school and the church. When he reached the back of Griff’s house he stopped and looked through the garage doors. He heard the gate open and started back, but Griff, who had come out of the back of the chip shop, saw him and asked, ‘Anything wrong, Constable?’
‘No, not really. I just wondered who those bikes belonged to, that’s all. Being repaired on the side, like, are they?’
‘One is my boy Pete’s, and the other is Gerry’s. Both in pieces again. Damn me, I’ve never seen a pair like them two for mucking about with bikes! All day in the garage then all evening here in my garage.’
‘There’s more than two bikes.’
‘Oh, you mean, mine. Never touched it once the exhaust fell off. I haven’t got the interest now Hilda won’t go on it. Used to love the bike, she did, but now she won’t bother, so I haven’t got round to repairing it and I’m damned if I’m going to pay them boys to do it for me. Kids, they won’t do anything without getting paid now, will they? Money-mad the lot of ’em.’
He led the constable through the gate and into the garage, where the floor was littered with fallen leaves and bundles of rags that had been used for wiping greasy hands and motorbike parts. Harris lifted the old piece of carpet that covered the bike belonging to Griff. It seemed the same as last time he had looked, and the exhaust was in the same sorry state. He knew very little about motorbikes so there was little he could tell by standing looking at it. George told him once that he had owned a bike in his youth. Perhaps he might learn something talking to him.
‘Thanks, Griff,’ he said. ‘If you hear anything about strangers on bikes, let me know, although I doubt if that will be the answer. George pointed out that these robberies don’t need a vehicle to carry the stuff away, do they? Money fits easily into a pocket.’
‘I wish some would fit easily into mine,’ Griff laughed. ‘Hilda spends it like there’s no tomorrow!’
Harris walked back up the hill a niggle of unease in his mind. There must be something he was missing and not necessarily about Griff. He’s a crook and that fact alone would account for him making me nervous, he thought. Poaching and carrying bets illegally were a regular and known part of Griff’s life, and he was carrying on with Milly Toogood’s daughter. All these facts were known to Harris, and almost a necessary evil in a place like Hen Carw Parc. The poaching and betting could hardly be considered real crimes, although he doubted if his superiors would agree. But somewhere in this village was someone who was not just cheating on the law, but bringing distress and fear to those who did not deserve it. If only there was something to give him a start on an investigation, but petty crime was all he had and there seemed nothing there likely to lead him to men who would break into houses and take all they could find. He went home and took out his notebooks to pore over them in the hope that a small, and unimportant detail would give him a lead. Hours later, he took out a fresh piece of paper and began all over again.
Chapter Eighteen
When Prue arrived on the Friday morning, Amy was at the house to meet her. She had spent the previous evening cleaning and polishing the furniture ready for her critical sister’s visit. The taxi pulled up at the end of the drive and she went out to greet Prue, who had brought surprisingly little luggage. She carried the one small bag up to the room that was Freddie’s and then came down to make them some coffee.
‘You’re looking well, Prue,’ she said as she set the kettle and milk to heat. ‘Are you feeling better?’
‘I want to forget how ill I’ve been,’ Prue said rather gruffly. ‘I’m determined to get well again and I’d rather not discuss how I’m feeling. All right?’
‘Good idea,’ Amy said brightly, thinking, it’s going to be one of those visits! ‘Shall we take the coffee out into the garden?’ she suggested. ‘I want you to see what we’ve done here. Only a patch of very untidy grass when we moved in. Not that I’ve done much, mind. I have to thank Victor and Billie for how it looks, and Freddie of course, for his planning. Coming home soon, he is. Got a few days’ leave.’
Amy prattled on while Prue looked around her at the late summer flowers; michaelmas daisies and geraniums, fuchsias, gladioli and a riotous display of nasturtiums that made an attractive if untidy show in a rocky corner. Amy sensed that Prue was imagining the orderliness that would result if she were allowed an hour or two to tidy up.
‘Not as neat as yours used to be, although that’s a sorry sight now. Want to go and look?’ Amy asked.
Prue was silent for a moment and Amy looked at her. Always thin, Prue’s illness had reduced her weight further and now her eyes, deep in the lined face, were those of a stranger. Amy wondered how she was going to get through three days of entertaining her: the future hours stretched out long and exhausting.
An utter sense of loneliness overcame Amy and weariness pressed down on her shoulders. Why wasn’t there someone in her life to help her? Someone to share the daily burdens and support her in things that worried her? She thought of Victor and how much easier life would be if he were always here, a part of her life. Then thoughts slipped to the offer of marriage from Billie.
That would be a different world but one in which she would have few worries. No shop accounts to bog down her weekends and no customers to press for payments. Margaret could have her piano and Freddie might leave the army instead of signing on for further years as he threatened. Billie was the answer to her troubles, perhaps the only one she would get, but definitely not, she sighed, the answer to her prayers!
She turned her head from where she was staring into the middle distance, unseeing and lost in her thoughts and brought herself back to the present.
‘Yes,’ Prue was saying. ‘Yes, I would like to go and see my garden.’
‘Great. I’ll just take these cups inside and we’ll go.’
Amy watched Prue carefully as they approached the village. Pushing Sian in her pram, she chattered about the people Prue remembered and gave her the latest news. She sensed Prue stiffen as they reached Gypsy Lane at the beginning of the group of houses in what had once been the grounds of Mrs French’s house.
‘All right?’ she asked.
‘I expect it will look a worse mess than yours,’ Prue replied. ‘Paying someone doesn’t mean the work will be done satisfactorily.’
‘No, but Victor has been a few times and Freddie did a bit of clearing up when he was last on leave,’ Amy said. ‘Don’t expect too much, then you won’t be disappointed.’ She hoped that Prue would be pleased at how the garden had been kept, and surprised at how colourful it still was. Prue had paid someone to cut the lawns and Amy and her friends had done the rest.
Prue was surprised at how neat everything was but, being Prue, found it hard to admit it.
‘The roses need dead-heading, the lawn edge is a bit uneven,’ she said, but Amy saw from her face that the state of the garden had pleased her.
‘It needs your expert and loving hand, Prue,’ she said. ‘But it has survived, hasn’t it?’
‘It will take ages for it to be put right.’
‘We’ll all help,’ Amy offered. She was gratified to see a slight bloom of colour in her sister’s cheeks and knew that in spite of the complaints Prue was pleased.
‘I think your help would be more of a hazard,’ Prue said, and there was a hint of a smile on the thin lips which made Amy laugh aloud.
‘Best I stick to making the tea, is it?’
‘I think so.’
They walked around the garden and Prue stopped occasionally to straighten a fallen stem, support a weak shrub or collect a few untidy leaves. Then, as they approached the back door, Prue stopped and, looking away from Amy, said, ‘I want to go inside, on my own.’
‘Are you sure, love?’
‘Quite sure. You take Sian on home and I’ll follow on.’
‘No.’ Amy spoke firmly. ‘We’ll w
ait. Take as long as you like but Sian and I will wait for you. Right?’ The challenge in her blue eyes was not met and Prue agreed.
The house smelt surprisingly fresh as Prue unlocked the back door and stepped fearfully into the kitchen. It smelt of soap and disinfectant and not, as she had constantly believed, of death and stale flowers and blood. Nor did it have the atmosphere of horror that it had in her dreams and imaginings.
She closed the door and began to shake as she forced herself to look at the polished brass pokers that lay across the clean tiled hearth. She tried to imagine Harry lying there and courted his ghost to come and torment her. Instead the room remained friendly and calm. Slowly her heart settled to a steady rhythm and she began to breath evenly and easily.
She looked around the orderly kitchen with its scrubbed-top table and the bowl of flowers someone had placed there. Nelly had done well and for a brief moment she wanted to go and tell her so. She looked through the window to where Amy was playing with Sian, waving the branch of a fir tree and laughing at the child’s reactions. Everything was so normal. She turned and faced the door leading to the hall.
A memory flitted across her mind. She had been back, she remembered coming here with, who was it, Netta? But when, and why? The brief memory faded and she stared at the door to Harry’s office. Had she been back? Somewhere in her muddled mind there was a memory of a glance into that room, but the memory was faint and could be false. Her mind played such tricks on her.
The door to Harry’s office was ajar and she stepped across and looked in. His books were still stacked on the shelves and his diary lay open on the desk. She looked at it and saw that the pages had been turned and the present week showed. Nelly again. She went out and closed the door.
It was difficult to go upstairs, although again she half remembered being there since her illness. The stairs seemed steeper than she expected and the colour of the carpet deeper. It was red, blood-red, her mind quickly added, and for a moment she panicked and had to hold on to the banisters for support. She forced herself on although she imagined briefly that she was walking not on carpet but on blood. It’s an illusion, she told herself firmly, and climbed upwards.
Her bedroom was cold and she shivered. It was here, if anywhere that Harry’s ghost would wait. Here, where she had allowed her nephew, Freddie, to make love to her and give her the child that marriage to Harry had denied her. She faltered before making herself enter and touch the covers of the bed, trying to lay the ghost of her shame. She pulled back the covers and touched the pillows then re-made it, tucking the sheets in with fussy precision.
Out of the window she looked down on Amy and Sian. The child was not a part of her disgrace and deserved nothing but love. She had been selfish to make an innocent baby share her shame. The room began to feel warm and she went out, closing the door and walked with greater confidence than she had for weeks and she went down to rejoin her sister and her child.
The walk home convinced Amy that Prue was really on the mend. She talked mostly of the garden, and of her ideas for the following year’s planting. She told Amy of the annuals she would grow to fill the beds with rich colour.
When they reached the house again, Prue went straight to her room and brought down her bag. From it she pulled out a child’s dress. Beautifully made, its lacy pattern looked to Amy too perfect to have been created with only two needles and a ball of wool. They tried it on Sian and it fitted to perfection.
‘Prue, it’s wonderful. You really are clever!’
‘Netta helped me to get started,’ Prue said. ‘For a while my mind wouldn’t work properly. But now I can manage on my own. Shall we go on Sunday morning and show her that it’s finished?’
‘Lovely idea,’ Amy smiled.
To Amy’s delight, Prue wanted to see people she had not mentioned since her illness. Ordering a taxi, she called on several friends and seemed to grow in confidence as the hours passed. Her face was still thin, her eyes sunken and weary but there was animation in her that Amy had feared never to see again.
On the Sunday morning, she suggested the visit to Netta. For the first time, she pushed the pram in which Sian was propped up on a large pillow, wearing the new dress. After staying for tea, which Prue insisted was weak and only lukewarm, they waited outside the church for Margaret to come out after morning service.
Several people stopped to talk to Prue and admire the baby, and when they reached the house, the meat was overcooked and the roast potatoes shrivelled and hard. When Prue complained, Amy smiled in delight. She thought at that moment she would never again mind Prue’s constant carping about how badly she did things. She was getting well and even the thought of losing the baby she had begun to think of as her own didn’t spoil her joy.
* * *
Fay could not tell Johnny about the pregnancy. She tried not to think about it and hoped, childlike, that the problem would magically go away. People often had disappointments, didn’t they? It was far too early to consider it a certain fact. She knew she ought to go to the doctor’s and have the pregnancy confirmed but she could not. Once she heard the word ‘pregnant’ uttered aloud, it would be inescapable. Johnny would have to be told and there would be all the grinning faces of the women in the village and the usual crudities from the less pleasant inhabitants. She shuddered and wished she could suddenly move away to a place where no one knew her. She couldn’t face it, she really couldn’t.
Although she now felt the mild flirtation with Dexter had to be over, she still thought of him and in her dilemma began to imagine how it would have been with someone as suave and worldly as he, instead of the down-to-earth Johnny who, she was certain, would go into paroxysms of delight at the news. Dexter would have allowed her to discuss the full implications of it all. Foolishly and illogically, it was Dexter she wanted to tell first.
She knew so little about him. In their brief moments together they had discussed many things but had spoken little about their own lives. No, she decided, that was not really true, she had talked about herself and Johnny and Dexter had listened and sympathised with her on the differences between what she wanted from life and the little Johnny was prepared to settle for. She felt a flush of disloyalty, remembering, but knew it was still Dexter she needed to talk her through this difficulty.
He worked with his brother in an estate agency. She knew that much. But which one? She was not sure even which town the office was in and, although his name was Dexter Lloyd-Rees, there was no estate agency with that name that she’d come across so where could she begin?
Her customers, being business people, often knew others and she began asking about Dexter at every place she called. There was no joy in the area in which they had last met. In Llan Gwyn and Swansea no one had heard the name, and it was in a small town near Brecon that she eventually found him. The estate agency was not his, she was surprised to learn, but one of a chain. He was one of the salesman, his brother being the manager.
She was disappointed at the foolish deceit but still wanted to see him. So what if he had told a few small untruths? People often did when they were with people they expected never to see again. And what was the harm in pretending you were better than you really were? Hadn’t she done that herself?
She went to a cafe and after a light, cautious meal she applied fresh makeup with care and combed her long blonde hair until it hung in a neat, but loose under-roll, soft on her shoulders. She had on a new green costume with a pearl-grey blouse. Shoes and hat matched, in a darker green, and her handbag and umbrella were grey. Rain threatened and she hurried through the busy street hoping that the wind, now beginning to gust in the approaching squall, would not disturb her hair.
The office was open and as she stepped inside, a woman of about thirty-five looked up from her typewriter and smiled. ‘May I help you?’ she asked.
‘I wondered if I could speak to Mr Lloyd-Rees for a moment, please?’
‘About a property, was it?’
Fay nodded. ‘Yes.’
> ‘He’ll be back in about five minutes, if you’d like to wait? He’s gone for a sandwich for our lunch,’ the woman explained. ‘We haven’t time to go out today.’
‘That doesn’t seem fair,’ Fay smiled. ‘I should complain.’
‘I don’t mind. We work together, Dexter and I. Having the children to see to, we work the hours that suits us best.’
‘He’s your husband?’ Fay’s throat was dry…
‘Yes. People say husband and wife can’t work together, but we manage very well in spite of all the awful warnings,’ the woman laughed.
Before Fay could leave, the door opened and Dexter walked in, smiling at his wife. Then he turned and his face, prepared for conventional politenesses, was startled into shock. His eyes widened as he recovered himself sufficiently to say, calmly, ‘Ah, er, Mrs Evans, isn’t it? About that property we discussed recently?’
‘Yes,’ Fay found herself saying, ‘I’ve decided not to continue.’
‘Thank you very much for letting us know. I’ll find your file and make a note.’
He escaped by scrambling in a drawer on the pretext of finding some information and Fay rose, feeling sickness again overwhelming her. She had thought it was she who needed to be cautious. Discovering he was married had confused her. Why had she suddenly become the guilty one? She stumbled to the door and fled.
She was trembling when she reached the corner and was out of sight of the office. Then slowly, feeling the nausea that dogged her hours beginning to threaten, she walked to the car. The smell of leather increased the sensation of approaching sickness and as she opened the door, perspiration was running down her hot cheeks. People passed but fortunately none stopped to enquire if she were ill. Fay knew that if she tried to speak she would be sick at once.
Gradually the sensation eased and she drove back to the coast. She parked the car on a plateau overlooking the sea and watched the waves, their regular movements calming her. The spray dashing against the rocks of the shore rose, white and splendid, and she imagined them falling over her, cooling her. She felt better able to cope and after a while, drove home.
The Changing Valley Page 33