Last Tango in Aberystwyth an-2

by Malcolm Pryce

  I bent down and scooped the broken-hearted dwarf into my arms and then put him tenderly back in his wheelchair. And then the tiredness swept over me. I could have slept standing up. The lights flickered and went out. Not just in the house but down in the valley too. I slumped into a chair and held my head in my hands. All the reserves of strength seemed to have been drained from my body.

  The butler walked in holding a candelabra of lighted candles. 'I

  fear we have some problems with the electricity ...' He stopped

  as he took in the scene in front of him.

  'Yes,' I said. 'There's been a loss of power in here too.' 'So I see,' he said in a thoughtful voice. 'So I jolly well see.' 'I'll be phoning the police in a while, if you ... er ... if

  you ...' I was almost too tired to speak. 'Time to go, eh?' he said. 'I think so.' 'Would you permit me, sir, before I leave to straighten Mr Brainbocs's tie for one last time?'

  I shrugged. 'Be my guest.'

  The butler walked up to Brainbocs and punched him with pure venom full in the face. 'That's better,' he said, and then walked to the door.

  A fat bead of blood appeared in Brainbocs's nostril and trickled down his upper lip. Tears welled up in his eyes. I walked over and held out a handkerchief to him. He misinterpreted the gesture and flinched in anticipation of another blow.

  The loudspeaker crackled on the wall and a voice, the voice of a dead girl, shouted, 'Go on, Louie, bash him up!'

  I twisted round suddenly and the butler pointed at a set of doors to the left of the console and said, 'I think someone had better go and untie Myfanwy, don't you?'

  I walked across and swung the doors open and there she was. Tied to a chair, and staring at the proceedings on a TV screen with a microphone in front of her, but seemingly unharmed. Myfanwy. I attacked the cords with fevered hands and soon she was free and in my arms and squeezing me so hard I could feel my ribs crunch. 'Oh, Louie!' she groaned into my chest. 'Oh, Louie!' And I pressed my face against the top of her head and breathed deeply the lost incense of Myfanwy's hair. Finally she pulled back, looked up at me and said, 'You switched me off, you pig!'

  *

  I called Llunos and he told me Calamity had turned up. She had walked into the police station an hour earlier and turned herself in for the Custard Pie break-out. He was going to send me a car, the fastest one he had, because she was driving everyone mad down there and they were considering arresting her for vagrancy or something, just for some peace and quiet.

  We didn't wait for the police car, we borrowed Brainbocs's 1960s era Rover instead.

  'Why didn't you warn me,' I asked as we drove through Ponterwyd and west towards town.

  'If I gave the game away he was going to kill you. He said he had a power setting on the belt that would kill you instantly; he demonstrated it by electrocuting a pig. The deal was I had to answer all your questions and convince you that you were really talking to me. Then he would make you the deal: renounce me and he would tell you how to find Calamity.'

  'What would have happened if I didn't renounce you? Told you I still loved you?'

  'He said you would never do it, you would never let Calamity die; but if you did he would let us go. We could be together.'

  'Really?'

  'He said if you did that, if you sacrificed an innocent child for me, he would be quite impressed and would have to admit that maybe your love was even greater than his.'

  I nodded. It sort of made sense.

  'Do you think he really would have let us go?' asked Myfanwy.

  'I'm not sure. What do you think?'

  'I think he was planning to kill us all, including himself.'

  We drove on in silence for a while, in a dark world of old leather, polished wood and chrome bezels.

  'Anyway, I told him there was no way you would be stupid enough to fall for such a dumb trick. And he said you would.'

  'He was right.'

  'No he wasn't, you outsmarted him. You thought of something he didn't expect. That was really cool. Although I'm not sure about the bit where you called me a bitch.'

  'And don't forget I switched you off.' I squeezed her hand in the dark.

  Myfanwy loosened her seat-belt and sidled across, nestling her soft head on my shoulder.

  'But to tell the truth,' I added, 'he had me hook, line and sinker. I fell for the whole thing — especially your bit. When you started going on about Ynyslas and then broke down and wept... where on earth did you learn to act like that?'

  'I wasn't acting.'

  Calamity was sitting on a chair wrapped in a blanket and arguing with an exasperated-looking policewoman.

  'For the umpteenth time,' she said, 'I didn't get kidnapped. I used myself as bait to smoke him out ...'

  'Look, missie, I've had enough of your tales.'

  'And I've had enough of yours!'

  'Really? And how would you like a tanned bottom?'

  'And how would you like to spend the rest of your career writing speeding tickets?'

  She looked up at my approach. 'It's OK Louie, I've got it under control, just briefing the uniformed guys.'

  'She thinks she's a detective,' said the policewoman.

  'She is a detective,' I said.

  There was a loud groan. 'Don't you start as well.'

  'Can we get to talk to someone with a bit of seniority around here, we're losing valuable time,' said Calamity.

  I took her by the arm and drew her to one side. She started to expostulate about the incompetence surrounding her and I made the gesture known as 'shhhh!' She stopped and looked up at me, slightly sheepishly, and said, 'So, are you OK?' I smiled. 'Seeing you again is the best tonic in the whole world. What about you?' 'Of course!' A slight tremor flashed across her face when she said that and she swallowed something. And swallowed again. 'I'm fine, why not?' Her eyes glittered. 'It's been a bit of a tough one this, but I think I've worked out how to find the sacred ...'

  Again I motioned her to be quiet. 'That's not important right now ...'

  'Of course it is, if we don't hurry ...'

  'No it's not. Right now it doesn't matter whether they escape or whatever, the most important thing is that you are all right.'

  'Yes, yes, I'm fine ... I told you, didn't I? This is still a case and ...'

  'There will always be more cases and some we'll win and some we'll lose. That's the way it will always be, we'll never change it. But I'll only ever have one Calamity.'

  She looked into my face and blinked back tears. 'Boy! I really made a dog's dinner of the Custard Pie job.'

  'No,' I said gently. 'You did fine. You found out about Herod. That was an incredible piece of detective work.'

  'But I helped Custard Pie escape. How stupid can you get?'

  'Trust me, Calamity. I would have done exactly the same.'

  'Really?'

  'Really. And if it's any help to you, it wasn't you who let him escape it was the idiot on watch that night who didn't check the ambulance.'

  Calamity considered that and her face became childishly stern. 'Yeah, we'll have to throw the book at him when this is over.' Another worrying thought intruded, and she peeped reluctantly at me. 'I've been thinking about my letter of resignation ...'

  I tried to look unconcerned. 'Oh that! You didn't think I would be fooled by that old trick, did you?'

  She looked uncertain. 'You weren't?'

  "Course not! I knew straightaway it was the work of an impostor.'

  'It was?'

  'Sure! Crummiest impersonation I've ever seen. Whoever did it didn't know the first thing about you.'

  'Really?'

  'For a start, they couldn't spell for toffee.'

  She looked at me and then slightly narrowed her eyes as she considered; and then she grinned and punched me. 'Oh you! Does this mean you're not angry with me then?'

  I ruffled her hair. 'I'm not angry about the escape. But there is one thing I am very angry about. Taking the gun like that.'

  Her eyes fl
icked wide. 'What gun? I didn't take your gun.'

  Llunos walked over clutching a Styrofoam cup, looking tired; his tie skew-whiff, shirt buttons undone over his belly. 'She says she knows where to find Herod's sacred place but won't tell us because it's her collar.'

  'It is my collar,' protested Calamity. 'I have to be there.'

  'Talk some sense into her,' said Llunos, 'or I'll make her a material witness. I do that and she'll never get a job as a dick in Cardigan for as long as she lives. I don't like it but that's the rules.'

  'But it's my collar,' said Calamity.

  I crouched down and spoke to her face to face. 'No one is saying it isn't, kid. But you can't come along. You have to stay here and give these people some statements and things. Boring, I know, but that's life as a real detective. But if you tell us where they are, it's your collar. Everyone knows that.' I looked up at Llunos.

  "Course it's her collar,' he said. 'Anyone says it isn't will have to explain to me why not.'

  Calamity looked to Llunos and then back to me, making up her mind. ' O K. Well I don't know where it is, but I do know how to find out. Just ask Smokey Jones.'

  'Who?' Llunos and I asked in unison.

  'Smokey G. Jones — the pro Mrs Beynon champ from the sixties. She's bound to know all about Mrs Bligh-Jones getting up the duff out of wedlock ...'

  Llunos didn't stay to hear the rest, he was off across the room, barking his orders. 'Put out an APB on Mrs Smokey G. Jones. I want everything she's got on Mrs Bligh-Jones's bastard — times, dates, places. If she won't talk, slap a charge on her; if she still won't talk run her in and make her. You've got half an hour and I want her singing like a canary. Use your truncheons if you have to, and I don't care where you stick them ...'

  'If she clams up,' shouted Calamity across the room, 'tell her I've got that large-print edition of Lady Chatterley she was asking about.' She turned to me and smiled. 'We'll get them yet.'

  'We sure will. Now tell me how you escaped.'

  She broke my gaze and looked down. 'Argh, you know,' she said trying to sound casual. 'Custard Pie arranged for me to rendezvous with one of his confederates, he was going to tell me who the Raven was. Like an idiot I thought I'd nail them on my own. Then when Pie escaped I was so scared at what you would say, so I sort of hung low for a while. I knew you'd be furious.'

  'I wasn't furious. You just made a mistake, everyone is allowed to do that.'

  'So I went to the rendezvous and, you know, I was too smart for them of course ...'

  'Yeah, I know.'

  'No way I was going to fall for a dumb trick like that.'

  'No way?'

  "Course not.'

  'OK,' I said. 'That's fantastic. Now tell me the truth.'

  She bit her lip. 'Well actually, to tell the truth,' she said reluctantly, 'I was warned.'

  'Who by?'

  'I don't know. I was going to the meeting-point and this old woman in a black shawl walked past me and told me it was a trap. She didn't hang around, one minute she was there, the next she was gone. Soon as she said it I realised what an idiot I was being.'

  Before the half-hour was up Llunos came over and told me to put on my coat. Smokey G. Jones had been happy to talk, although she made the two officers wait while she made a cup of tea. And they had to listen to the antique case-histories of four gymslip pregnancies, two extra-marital affairs and a case of incest before they got to the bit they wanted. The love-child had been born in the hut in the Pilgrim's Pass on Pumlumon. The posse would set out at dawn, but since there was still about half an hour of daylight left ... Llunos didn't need to say any more, we both knew what we were going to do.

  I turned to Calamity before I left and said, 'Is that true you didn't take the gun?'

  She nodded. 'You told me not to, didn't you? I wouldn't have dared.'

  Chapter 24

  The pilgrim's hut was the last of the old wayfarers' stations before the pass. It used to be the main way on foot into England but once the snows set in it was often impassable. Llunos drove fast across the rolling badlands of Blaenrheidol as the first flakes of snow fluttered from the sky.

  We left the car in a lay-by and followed the National Trust footpath through the valley and up the scree towards the pass. If they were keeping a watch they would see us easily, but then where would they go? In this weather the only safe route was down back into the valley. To our left the sombre waters of Nant-y-moch reservoir lapped the shore with tiny wavelets. It seemed a thousand years since we had both passed this way before; above the clouds in an aeroplane from which Herod Jenkins plunged to what we assumed was his death. We were both deeply aware of the significance of this moment, here above the lake where last time we had failed. We walked without speaking; there was nothing left to say. It was a time for deeds.

  Herod was standing outside the hut, his back to us, bent over and skinning a ferret. He was dressed as a man of the woods: home-cured furs wrapping him, with the arms and shoulder bare like a circus strongman. A twig cracked beneath our feet and he spun round, a bloody skinning knife in his hand and on his face that horizontal crease that they once called a smile.

  'Well bugger me!' he said. He nodded to Llunos. 'Evening, Llunos, bit parky isn't it?'

  'Nos da Mr Jenkins! Looks like we might be in for a bit of snow.'

  Herod spoke to me. 'Still playing detectives, are we? You should get yourself a proper job.'

  'It is a proper job.'

  'Could have fooled me.'

  'We've come to take you in,' said Llunos.

  'What for?'

  'What for!?' I spluttered.

  'I've paid my debt to society.'

  'Like hell you have!'

  'I fell out of a plane, didn't I? Banged my bloody head on the water, lost my memory, lived on berries ...'

  'Tell it to the judge, Herod.'

  He yanked at his fur vest, pulling it down to reveal a long ugly scar on his chest. 'See this? I sewed it myself with a nail and some thread made from the intestines of a sheep.'

  'I thought needlework was for girlies.'

  'Give up, Herod,' said Llunos simply.

  'To you two? I'm bigger than both of you, what are you going to do?'

  'There are more coming, you know that. Men with dogs, and guns. They'll get you. You can't go forward into the pass, you'd be crazy. The only way is back. You want to spend the rest of your life running?'

  'I like running. If the little pansy here had done more of it at school instead of moaning like a girl we might have made a man of him.'

  'I'm not talking about running round a track. I mean running like a hunted dog all your life. Never lying down at night without worrying if that night they'll come for you. Every day a new town, a new identity, always looking over your shoulder.'

  'It doesn't sound any worse than rotting in jail.'

  'Who says you'll go to jail? What have you done? It's not a crime to lose your memory and live in the woods. We could probably work something out.'

  'I'm in it up to my neck. You said so yourself.'

  'No you're not, if you turn Mrs Llantrisant in you'll probably get a deal.'

  Herod spat with contempt. 'Oh that's it, is it? Turn my comrade in for an easy sentence. Well you've made a mistake there if that's what you think. I'm not a coward like Louie Knight here who was always too scared to catch the ball.'

  'Is that the grave?' I asked pointing to an outcrop of rock above the hut, on which now stood a new cross, crudely fashioned from chopped wood.

  Herod turned and peered upwards. The sky was milky grey and filled with tufts of snow falling as gently as a dandelion flower.

  'I put it up there myself last week. His spirit can rest in peace now.'

  'We can probably arrange something with the judge, let you come here now and again,' said Llunos.

  Herod's voice thickened with the emotion. 'It's all I ever wanted, really, was a son. To play rugby on the lawn with. It's not a lot to ask, is it?'

  'Every man has
that right,' said Llunos.

  'But he's dead now. Because of me. I kicked her out. Kicked Mrs Bligh-Jones out when she was seventeen and with child. Poor girl with nowhere to go. Abandoned. The poor little mite was born in a cow byre ...' Tears welled up in his eyes. 'My little son in a cow byre.'

  'Jesus didn't start out any better,' said Llunos.

  'Although he had a nicer dad,' I added.

  Herod carried on as if he hadn't heard. 'All alone she was, trying to walk through the pass to Shrewsbury. No friends, no help, no one to comfort her ... and the boy ... my son, little Onan ... only lived a day.'

  'Let us take you in, Herod,' said Llunos gently. 'You won't have to serve a long sentence, you'll be out in a couple of years and then you'll be able to come and live in the hut here.'

  Herod became thoughtful. 'Up here?'

  'You could probably be the hut-keeper or ranger or something. There's always a job for a strong man.'

  He considered and then said, 'I had nothing to do with that thing with the girl, you know?'

  'Calamity?'

  'That was Custard Pie's idea. I didn't want to get involved. It was rude.'

  'We believe you, Herod. We know you wouldn't do a thing like that. The judge will believe you too. But you have to help us help you.'

  'Where is Custard Pie?' I asked.

  'He's inside. Broke his leg in a fall. We don't think he's going to make it. Mrs Llantrisant has gone to get some Savlon.'

  'If you come with us, we can get help. No point letting him die up here.'

  The powerful spirit that animated the frame of the mighty games teacher wavered. It was a moment of decision so intense you could see it etched into the sinews of his flesh. He stood proud and erect, as if cast from iron, and then slowly the tension within lost its edge and he shrunk slightly. As if the thought of a warm hearth when compared to the uncertainty of flight into the snow-covered badlands was sapping even his considerable reserves of strength. As if he was slowly beginning to take stock of the terrible toll the daily battle to ward off the Furies that had pursued him was taking on his aging body. And who could blame him? A man who took a wrong turning at the very outset of his life's journey, at a time when he knew nothing of the world; took a wrong turning and for ever after was sworn to follow the path it led to. What if he had not rejected Mrs Bligh-Jones all those years ago? Had taken her in and she borne him a son who would have played rugby on the lawn with him? How many years of torment would have been spared to the long-suffering armies of children who passed through the battleground of his lessons?