Four British Mysteries

by Thomas Brown

  She pulled up next to a grey Volvo saloon in front of the first of three lock-up garages, which, like most of the house, were smothered in ivy. Broken branches and other detritus lay drifted against their tatty-looking doors. He watched her bale out. Neat butt, nice legs, he thought. Then reprimanded himself. He was here to write, not catch up on a non-existent love life, since Gina Colburn, who’d worked in the videos section of the Hounslow store, had dumped him last summer. “So this is Heron House,” he said, dragging his venerable suitcase from the boot. “I’ve been on tenterhooks since I saw that advert.”

  “Where?”

  He hesitated. Mrs Davies’ reaction had been bad enough. “The Lady. What’s wrong with that?”

  Her laugh caught him unawares. Deeper than he’d expected. “You’re kidding?”

  “In the doctor’s surgery it was. Perhaps your Mr Flynn was hoping to attract females rather than some geezer who’s just lost his job and got nowhere to live.”

  Surprise wasn’t the word for it.

  “You?”

  Just then, she turned towards the house as the front door opened, as if, it seemed, by itself.

  7.

  Friday 3rd April 2009 – 8 p.m.

  Gwenno Davies stood aside, almost reluctantly, to allow them both access to the cavernous reception hall where the log fire was busily spitting out green flames reflecting on the unfashionably papered walls. This time, her riding crop quivered in her right hand as she looked the new arrival up and down.

  Jason stared back at her with undisguised puzzlement. One day, Helen promised herself, she’d make a painting of that woman’s face and throw it into the fire to watch it burn, bit by bit. But that wouldn’t be enough to shift someone who was clearly ensconced here for life. Part of the fabric were she and her husband. Like fag burns and other dodgy stains. At least the other old loony acknowledged her, despite the fact she couldn’t converse in Welsh. At least he kept out of the way from dawn to dusk, pick-picking old leaves off whatever tree or bush he could reach, yet deliberately letting the swimming pool’s contents grow thicker and blacker with them and any fallen ones as the months went by.

  “Mr Flynn will be down now,” snapped her enemy. “He said for you to wait.”

  Her little bit of power. Saddo.

  “No worries,” said Jason breezily. Although he’d turned down the chance of a lift back to Swansea, by the end of the evening, he could still change his mind.

  Next came the soft, regular tread of suede on carpet. Thank God those legs now clad in dark blue trousers still seemed steady, and Monty Flynn’s pock-marked skin not quite so pink as when he’d first arrived back from the pub. His odd socks, however, were still the same but the maroon velvet smoking jacket was new.

  The moment he spotted Jason, his smile widened. The same smile that had brought her here too far inland from the sea country that she loved. He turned to her; his irregular teeth still on show. “I’m sure, Helen, that Mr Robbins could do with a nice strong cup of tea.”

  Mr Flynn laid a long-fingered hand on her shoulder. “Off you go.”

  Helen obeyed, picking up her bag, wondering if Jason, in her shoes, would be treated any differently.

  Someone had got to the kitchen first, for the kettle was beginning to boil, letting out its usual thin scream. Then came The Rat’s voice as she beat Helen to the mugs. “I don’t much care for that young man out there,” she said. “Fit he is, that’s for sure. I can tell by his eyes, see? The way he looked me up and down as if I was one of them killing ewes at the mart.”

  Killing ewes?

  Helen flinched.

  “If that’s not proper manners, I don’t know what is,” the woman went on, now in full spate, while Helen appropriated the tea-bag tin and dropped a tea bag into one of the mugs. “And the Lord knows who else’ll be turning up next Thursday. They could be criminals come for a nosey round, for all I know.” Her deep sigh also delivered what Helen hoped was the start of a death rattle. “You being a girl on your own here – think about it. I know Mr Davies is of the same mind.”

  The sudden reference to that wrinkly in a filthy old boiler suit, made Helen add too much hot water. Her onlooker tutted while fetching milk from the fridge. Beyond the locked windows, dusk had deepened too suddenly. So had Helen’s sense of claustrophobia.

  “I went to see Aunty Betsan yesterday, for some decent recipes,” she volunteered as casually as she could. A deliberate change of subject while putting her shopping in the fridge. She was up for a fight, if need be, adding, “so you won’t be able to complain about my catering any more.”

  Immediately, the temperature inside the already cool room seemed to drop. The Rat set down the milk then pushed her forefinger’s knobbly middle knuckle into Helen’s breastbone. “How long is it you’ve bin here?”

  “You should know. A month. Why?”

  “And how often have you called on her?”

  “Only twice.” Which was the truth. “Why?”

  “And has she bewitched you yet? Given you fresh-baked Welsh cakes as a parting gift? Tell me.” The woman prodded even harder until Helen grabbed the finger and prised it away.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.”

  “Well, let me tell you, my girl, she hides potions and poisons and uses them as punishment.”

  “Punishment? What for?”

  Gwenno Davies drew closer, keeping her hands to herself, but her dry, thin lips almost brushed Helen’s cheek. Meanwhile, laughter eked out from the reception area. Monty Flynn on top form, enjoying himself with his new recruit. Helen felt an all-too-familiar pang of jealousy.

  “Why Betsan’s suspicious of anyone who treads the path to her door. I should know. But I’m not alone thinking this. Oh, no. Not saying. Except those who’ve had food there, or walked away with something she’s made, come to no good,” Gwenno said.

  Helen tried to rekindle the image of the woman who’d been so eager to help. No way was this horrible accusation tying up. Instead, “She’s done me too much harm. Her and her mouth,” came immediately to mind.

  “Surely the police would have investigated her by now, if that had been true,” Helen said.

  “Oh, they have, but Betsan charms them, doesn’t she? Nothing ever proved, see.” The Rat backed away to listen in on the other conversation. “Travellers go on, eat other food from elsewhere. Think of it. How easy…”

  “Stop!” Helen set the full mug on to a little plastic tray and added milk, sugar and a leftover cup cake. “This is crazy, and I’m fed up with all the gossip round here. Why can’t everyone just get on with their lives? You’d think people would be grateful to live in an area like this. Ever been to Salford? My cousin took a job there last year. Knifed in the back, he was and lucky to survive.”

  “Ask Mr Davies if you don’t believe me,” she countered, deliberately closing the door so Helen trying to balance the little tray, couldn’t pass through. “And you can be sure that when these so-called writers turn up, I’ll be putting them straight.”

  “I’m sure you will. Now please open this thing. I’ve supper to get, as well you know.”

  Grudgingly, the woman obliged, letting tea be delivered to the Londoner now relaxed in one of the two deep-buttoned chairs by the fire. Mr Flynn’s smile was in overdrive. “Helen, in case you don’t know it, I swear to God you’re looking at the next Max Byers. Jason’s got this great idea for a début thriller.” He enthusiastically slapped both arms of his chair. “It’s got the lot. And he’s just agreed to count me in when the squillions come rolling into his bank account. Just wish he’d sent me something to read beforehand.”

  Another pang of jealousy hit Helen’s heart. The Irishman had never shown any interest in her preparatory sketches for paintings. She then told herself to get over it. What did it matter what he thought?

  Meanwhile, the budding author’s cheeks had reddened with excitement, and she felt mean to deny his moment in the sun. However, at uni, she’d spent three weeks learning a
bout being a freelance. How a properly drawn-up contract between patron and client was considered paramount. Perhaps in private, she should warn Jason of the dangers of such a loose arrangement, especially after what he’d admitted in the car. Homeless and redundant, he was vulnerable. But was he also just plain unlucky?

  “Well, I’d better get out of my funeral suit and start making that spag bol to celebrate,” Helen said instead.

  “Ah, the angel of Heron House has spoken,” chuckled her boss. And as he did so, leant forwards to pick up the Metro that Jason had left on the coffee table between them. “Life in The Big Smoke, eh?” He skimmed through its well-thumbed pages. “You won’t get me in any big city even if this place went up in flames and I was left standing in my pyjamas.” Then all at once he stopped. Peered at the last but one page, his fingers stiffening as he did so.

  “What’s up?” Helen asked, used to his mood changes, but not this sudden. “Is it something you’ve just read?”

  Without answering, Monty Flynn slapped the pages together, folded them tight and stuffed the bundle into his smoking-jacket pocket.

  “I’m not to be disturbed. Understood?” he snapped, before springing from his armchair and striding towards the archway leading to the stairs.

  8.

  Friday 3rd April 2009 – 8.15 p.m.

  Having placed the heron-decorated fireguard in front of the dwindling fire, Jason carried his empty mug into the kitchen. Helen was busy tipping bright red mince into a frying pan; no sign of that strange old girl hanging around either, which made it easier for him to ask, “what’s got into Monty Flynn, I wonder?”

  “You tell me. You’ve obviously read that paper too, judging by the state of it.”

  “Is he connected to London in some way? Family, friends, etcetera?”

  She paused before adding salt and pepper. The smell of the sizzling raw meat made him catch his breath. “Not that I know of.”

  “Or more specifically, Islington?”

  Flushed and frowning, she refocussed on sealing the beef strands with the hot oil. “No. And why’s it so important all of a sudden?”

  “Charles Pitt-Rose – whoever he is – is dead. Found hanged, apparently.” And in the next moment was aware of someone’s shadow creeping along the adjoining scullery wall.

  ***

  “Nosy old bat,” muttered Helen ladling the Bolognaise sauce on top of his pasta and bringing it over. “She’s always around. You watch her. And Idris her husband out there. They’re seriously odd.” She gestured towards the darkly waving trees beyond the window. “They live in, see. Up with the dawn and down at midnight. Mind you, there’s an old Hillman Hunter in the second lock-up which she uses once a week. He never goes out, though. At least, not since I’ve been here.”

  She coiled some spaghetti strands around her fork without much enthusiasm, but he noticed she’d thoughtfully kept a portion aside for Monty Flynn in the old fashioned Aga. Not the flash dark blue version that Colin had recently installed, but cream and rust.

  Colin.

  His brother and his comfortable life now seemed so far away. Jason toyed with the idea to call him to say he’d arrived in one piece, but sod it. What did he owe him?

  “She made out to me, she lived somewhere else,” he said.

  “She would.”

  In the pause that followed, he took the first tasty mouthful. “Great nosh,” he said, licking the fork. For someone who’d confessed she could only make sandwiches, she’d rustled up a welcoming dinner.

  “Thanks. But I can’t lie. It was Aunty Betsan’s recipe. She lives up by the old lead workings on Pen Cerrigmwyn. You’d love her. She’s not far away. We must call in some time. She also makes the most amazing cakes.”

  Lead again...

  Just then, before he could respond, Helen’s face tensed up as she opened the fridge’s freezer compartment, pulled out a big tub of vanilla ice cream and reached up to one of the store cupboards for a packet of wafers.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, honestly. Sometimes I think too much about stuff.” Helen scooped out a generous portion and dropped it into a pudding bowl, before forcing the wafer into its softening side. “There. And when you’ve eaten that, I’ll show you your room.”

  ***

  She’d said ‘we,’ Jason reminded himself as he followed that same pert butt up the first flight of shallow stairs, yet hoped, ungratefully, she wouldn’t be plotting a programme of things for them to do together. He had other plotting to do. For big bucks and a brighter future. Just to think of it brought that familiar adrenalin rush flood from his brain to his writing hand.

  She stopped on the first, dark landing and he sensed she was still distracted. He let his dad’s old suitcase rest on the worn carpet at his feet, also aware of the dead blackness beyond the bare, grimy window set into the side wall. Not since his Essex childhood had he experienced such an insidious pressure of the unknown, both inside and outside a building.

  “The other writers will be sleeping just round that corner at the end.” She flicked on a nearby switch, whereupon the few lights ranged along the faded, musty wallpaper, flickered into a dim life. “You’re on the next floor. Mr Flynn thought a top room with a gable window would suit you better. That, after Hounslow, you’d enjoy its view.”

  “I’m honoured.”

  They took the next eight plain, wooden stairs into the attic area where an almost physical darkness cocooned him in its numbing embrace. He blinked twice to bring himself back to reality, which was more bare boards and a smell he couldn’t quite identify.

  “You’ve a little bathroom just further along,” she added, switching on the single overhead bulb. “So no embarrassment there. Unless The Rat decides to share it with you or even some of the other writers when they show up. Please don’t say anything to them beforehand. At least there was no mention of en suites.”

  “Too right. But where’s your room, and Monty Flynn’s?”

  “My secret. But his is over the lock-ups, next floor down. More like a library, than a bedroom, he says. He’s obsessed with books.”

  “So am I. Specially the one I brought with me.”

  “I saw it. Nice cover. Not.”

  “You wait till you see the one on my finished novel.”

  “Oh, and he’s got a computer,” she added as if ignoring the boast. “But I’ve never seen it.”

  “Any internet access for research, whatever? The advert said there was.”

  Instantly, her hand covered her mouth. In shock or amusement, he couldn’t tell. “You’re kidding. Here? Must be a typo. And as for TV, there’s only the blizzard called S4C in the lounge. If you’re lucky.”

  Damn.

  Was that why no website had been given? And had Monty Flynn only watched The Wire on DVD? The scam word was growing bigger in Jason’s mind. How would the other new arrivals react? Would the man really want to be had up for misrepresentation? Woolie’s had been hot on that issue to the point of paranoia.

  “Oh, and by the way, no-one’s allowed in his study,” his guide went on. “Not even The Rat – I mean Mrs Davies. No key either. I bet he’s there now. Perhaps he’ll say more about that news item in the Metro later. He snapped it up quickly enough, didn’t he?”

  Before Jason could reply, she’d moved on ahead and, having taken two Yale keys from her suit skirt pocket, unlocked a solid oak door, whose matching wooden plaque bore the hand-painted sign saying MARGIAD.

  “Who’s that?” he asked. “One of his kids who’s left home?”

  “No way. Mr Flynn’s a professional bachelor.” She stared up at it, letting her hand follow its shape. “Besides, it’s a Welsh girl’s name. Hey, this is really strange.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve never noticed it before.”

  ***

  Still preoccupied, Jason followed Helen into a long narrow room dominated, or rather choked by, a thick floral carpet. Big, blowsy roses connected to each other by twisted, thorny stems a
nd a dominant border featuring them in miniature. Apart from a single bed covered by a floral duvet and unmatching pillows, there was an old-fashioned dressing table minus its mirror and beneath this, something that made him pause. A dark, body-shaped stain on the carpet, the colour of stale blood.

  He bent down to sniff, and it was as if the foul, stilled breaths of previous dead incumbents suddenly clogged his nose.

  “What the Hell’s that?” He indicated the puzzling mark.

  “God knows. Perhaps a spot of damp. This whole place needs ventilating.” She pushed down the top half of the small sash window, and breathed in the soggy night air. “It’s not been occupied at least since God knows when.”

  “I suppose that explains it.”

  That poky window would be his sole source of natural light tomorrow, and Jason moved towards it, willing dawn to come, only to be confronted by the lowering shape of some vast hill beyond the drive. Bigger than when he’d last seen it from Helen’s car. So big, its summit was topped by clouds.

  “You’ll get a great view in the morning,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. Dinas Hill, or Giant’s Shoulder it’s called. I don’t think there’s a Welsh version of that name. I must try and paint it one day.”

  That caught him by surprise.

  “You’re an artist?”

  “Used to be.” She handed him both keys, one labelled BATHROOM. “Trained at Aberystwyth. Anyway, breakfast’s at eight, down in the kitchen. What do you normally have? Bacon or toast?”

  Should he confess how depression had baldy affected his appetite until the spag bol had been placed in front of him? He didn’t want pity. Hell, he could pay his way ten times over if need be.

  “Both, if that’s possible. I can give you extra.”

  She looked at him with those frank, sea-coloured eyes, and smiled. “My pleasure. But where on earth the other writers will go is anyone’s guess. The dining room’s full of old junk but Mr Flynn’s been funny about shifting it. I daren’t interfere.” She gave the room what was to be a final glance, then left him to it.