by Thomas Brown
Strange, he thought, lifting the suitcase on to a torn leather footstool. But something more than that was bothering him. Not just Heron House’s antiquated decoration, or Mrs Davies and Helen Jenkins herself, who in unguarded moments, seemed more than ill at ease here. No, it was the fact that she as cook, hadn’t been briefed about the writing course, but the old girl had. Why? And the more he dwelt on Monty Flynn’s lack of common courtesy, the more puzzled he became.
Nine o’clock and, despite Dr Chatterji’s warning, he was missing his evening bevvies. It was too early to hit the sack. Too late to wander around outside. Nothing for it but to sample the plumbing, pop an extra pill just in case, and reopen Evil Eyes at chapter 22.
***
His bathroom boasted one threadbare towel, a cracked wooden toilet seat that wobbled above a suspiciously stained bowl. Worse, the washbasin’s hot water had emerged the colour of pee. Jason told himself to hang on until the course proper began. Once he’d penned the best first chapter ever, he’d put in for better accommodation. Monty Flynn surely wouldn’t want to deny him. Timing was everything.
Back in his room, he was about to close his room’s floral curtains to shut out the solid, black April night, when he heard a grating, raucous sound from behind him, making his blood freeze.
“Caw… caw… caw…” It went on, as something was scraping at the walls. Then whatever it was, brushed the top of his head.
A solid black shadow was roaming around the room, dipping down over that patch of soiled carpet, moving in ever smaller circles, coming in closer to him, skimming past his eyes. A bat maybe? He’d seen enough of them in his mum’s cottage. But no. They were silent creatures. This wasn’t. It was a bird with flapping feathered wings and a beak that ended in a strangely luminous area of white at its base.
Jesus.
It must have got in through the still-open window, but was making no effort to escape. He pulled a spare pair of jeans out of his suitcase and flapped at it, round and round until finally, with an almost threatening call, the intruder flew outside to vanish into the darkness.
He shivered as he slammed the window shut and drew the curtains tight together, aware of his thudding heart. He eyed the bed. It was suddenly tempting. Wider than the one he’d used at Colin’s but without the same bounce, it was nevertheless somewhere to draw breath. To remind himself why he was here.
Having located the page in Evil Eyes that he’d been reading when Swansea station had appeared, he cast his mind back to that puzzling street scene in Llandeilo and those old-fashioned characters in front of Heron House. Were these the pills’ side-effects Dr Chatterji had mentioned? He’d hardly been specific. If they were, why hadn’t Hounslow also slipped into sepia mode? And what about the mysterious Margiad? In the morning, if Monty Flynn was in more conversational mode, he’d ask him who she was.
Suddenly, however, as he began devouring Evil Eyes’ gripping climax on page 304, he noticed what seemed like a damp, cold breath on the back of his neck, before the book started to pull away from his fingers and the remaining pages turn backwards as if someone else, much stronger, more determined than he, didn’t want him to read any more. “Gerroff!” he shouted, “this is mine!” He somehow managed to cling to its vinyl cover and slap the borrowed read shut, before flinging it hard across the room.
9.
Wednesday 2nd October 1946 – 4 p.m.
Lionel Hargreaves, fifty-three-year-old bachelor headmaster and sole teacher at Nantybai School, was counting out a set of dog-eared geography text books for the next day’s lessons, when an urgent knocking on the classroom door disturbed him.
Because the wind was roaring through the Towy valley at full strength, he thought at first it might be a stray branch or a lightweight piece of machinery from a nearby farm, but no. Young Walter Jones from Brynawel, and habitual non-attender, wanted to speak to him. Now.
Lionel opened the door a fraction. “This is most inconvenient,” he said. “I’m very busy.”
“Please, sir. I’ve something to tell you.”
He finally let the boy in, and pushed the schoolroom door shut behind him. He then returned to his desk. It wouldn’t do for him to lift the lad’s sodden cape from his shivering shoulders, nor to encourage any closer contact. Walls, especially these, had not only ears, but also tongues. He’d learnt that much since his appointment from Solihull just over a year ago.
“Sir,” the skinny nine-year-old began, bursting with impatience; hopping from one leg to the other. “I was up Pen Cerrigmwyn picking spare wood for me mam’s fire, when there was this great din, like a growling animal coming closer and closer up the forestry track behind me... honest to God I had to jump in the hedge and hide, else I’d have been run over.”
“What kind of animal?” Lionel asked without much interest. “A wolf? A bull?” This really was a waste of his precious time.
“No, sir. More like one of them hungry lions out in Africa you once told us about. But it was a car. A big black one, sir, going as if the Devil was on its tail.” As he spoke, his whole body began to tremble, whether from fear or being soaked to the bone, Lionel couldn’t tell. Whatever the reason, he didn’t much care. He’d worked hard all day, and simply wanted to get home before the weather worsened. Perhaps if this fatherless lad spent more time at school, he’d have been more sympathetic towards him.
His voice grew sterner than he intended. “And what would you like me to do about it? That’s a public right of way although a poor enough one. Anyone can use it.”
“This wasn’t anyone, sir. I saw a young woman in the back, banging on the window. She was crying, sir. No, screaming. Like my mam when me da got crushed by a tree.”
Notes on that tragedy still lay in the class register. Not the first death in the plantation; nor, sadly, the last.
“Which girl?” said Lionel. “Come on, son. Spit it out. Can’t you see I’ve things to do?”
Suddenly the boy’s face lost its wild colour. His eyes stared ahead, motionless. His mouth too, stayed rigidly open like those on the marble angels in the church next door. To Lionel’s horror, and before he could reach out, Walter Jones’ legs buckled beneath him. He fell hard against the stone flags; his head of wet, dark hair, taking the weight of the impact.
“Holy Jesus!” Lionel knelt down next to him, desperate to hear a heartbeat, but already, an extraordinarily dark thread of blood was eking from the lad’s left ear, trailing over the nearest slab and dropping into the first wide gap.
***
The funeral – a simple affair – was held the following Saturday at St. Barnabas’ Church where Mrs Jones normally cleaned the pews and mended the hassocks. Today she sat dressed in shabby black, her sorrowful gaze fixed on the small, plain coffin placed before the altar.
Throughout the short service, Lionel was unable to shift her only son’s terror-filled eyes from his mind. Remorse had devoured him like one of those tidal waves he’d recently witnessed off the Gower coast, and even now, as Walter’s casket topped by nine pine cones, passed back along the nave, he couldn’t bear to look at the widow’s stricken face. When he offered her his deepest condolences, he was met with a look of pure hatred. But how could he tell her, or anyone else, the truth? That he could not have been more attentive to her son. Acted more quickly.
A much-respected doctor from Trecastle who’d been visiting his sister at the vicarage, had examined the dead boy and declared a fatal heart attack had led to the skull fracture, consistent with a sudden fall. The Carmarthen coroner supported his opinion, while the police, busy with a spate of sheep rustling, were still gleaning witness statements from the locals. Many, rather than admit ignorance, had let their overheated imaginations run amok as to what exactly had happened in the schoolroom.
Thus he, Lionel Alfred Hargreaves, who’d so far never put a foot wrong, was now the feared incomer. A malevolent cuckoo too big for the nest he’d been appointed to fill, because all other potential male candidates had either been maimed, shel
l-shocked or buried amongst hundreds of other war dead far away. If only the School Board had selected a woman for the headship, he thought. Perhaps she wouldn’t have been in this situation. Walter had clearly wanted a father figure. And he’d let him down.
***
Arglwydd, arwain
trwy’r anialwch
Fi, bererin gwael ei wedd...
William Williams of Pantycelyn’s closing hymn filled the church, and although the youthful organist played with fervour, Lionel’s throat stayed closed. His endurance beginning to wane.
Once outside, in the sunny, autumnal afternoon, he stood apart from the rest of the congregation as the casket met the grave’s gaping wound. However, such distance didn’t prevent him hearing hostile mutterings from young and old alike, as ripe, red earth was thrown in. Even as he made his way along the narrow path to the gate, whispered oaths followed, not entirely lost to the wind.
“Walter was my best pal,” ten-year-old Sion Beynon’s unmistakeable voice reached his ears. “Now look what you done.” The local shopkeeper’s son rubbed away his tears with his sleeve. It was in that moment, with golden leaves drifting down from the ancient trees bordering the made-up road to Nantybai, that Lionel realised young Walter had sought no-one else’s help to solve the mystery of the frantic girl in the car. Now he would make it his business to find out what had driven the boy to his door and why she might have cost him his life.
“Mr Hargreaves, are you alright?” came a male voice close behind him. “I noticed you earlier, and I’m shocked what folk here – who think they’re good Christians – have said about you. It’s bad enough how they’ve treated me, but today was inexcusable.”
Lionel turned to see Robert Price the organist, a tall, good-looking man in his mid-twenties dressed in well-cut mourning black, clutching his music books. The rebel, who’d dared be a conchie during the war years and been punished for it too long by a diminished congregation and a bigoted vicar, joined him. Together they walked towards the crossroads.“Thank you for your concern. But my conscience isn’t yet clear enough for anyone’s pity.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
A horde of rooks flew in ragged formation towards the church tower. Lionel wondered if they’d left their nests for good. A bad sign, so he’d heard.
“You will, you will. And now,” he pulled his watch from under his waistcoat and glanced at the time. “If you’ll excuse me...”
“I’m over at Troed y Rhiw should you ever need me,” persisted his companion. “Don’t forget. The youngsters round here think the world of you.”
That hadn’t been his impression.
Nevertheless, Lionel nodded his gratitude, and started on his way up the steep track to his right. At the halfway point, he took a deep and necessary breath. Despite the organist’s kind words, his earlier resolve seemed to falter. Neither the beautiful, unfamiliar sun hovering over Dinas Hill, nor the sight of his welcoming chimney could drive away this sudden melancholy. For two pins he’d hand in a letter of resignation on Monday. Pack his meagre belongings in his father’s metal trunk that had returned from the Somme without him, and leave this equally foreign hinterland once and for all.
But no. He’d made the newly-buried boy a promise. And the one thing his own father whose name he’d been given, had said, “Always keep your promise, son. The one thing I learnt at the Front.” But as Lionel crossed the dirt road, buoyed up by this memory of the hero who’d saved many lives on Vimy Ridge, he spotted a small, black-clad figure standing by his gate, carrying a long riding crop. Male or female, he couldn’t say, yet with boots polished to the kind of shine rarely seen in these parts. And then he noticed their dainty heels, the immaculate riding habit accentuating a boyish frame. He wondered where her mount was, or if there wasn’t one, did she normally go around dressed like that?
This stranger, whom he’d not noticed at the funeral, turned to him, pointing the tapering crop in his direction. Her pale face caught in the sun’s rare glow. Her eyes hard as slate. “A warning, Mr Headmaster. For all our sakes, and yours, forget that foolish young boy ever came to see you. Do you understand?”
Lionel felt blood drain from his head, as he rested his weight on his stick. Her warning quite different from the graveside rebukes. This was another matter entirely.
“What foolish boy?”
“Walter Jones. I saw him going into your schoolroom.”
“Why would he come to me? He never attends.”
His adversary’s gloved hand clasped his gatepost. He wanted to hit it away. Hit her away...
“Don’t play games with me, Mr Hargreaves. I heard every lying word he said.”
She must have opened the schoolroom door and listened like a fox in the night. Now he was boxed in and not cunning enough to escape. “I hardly think he was lying, Miss…?”
“Never you mind.” She slapped the crop against his boundary wall, and before he could turn away, to walk down his path to Cwm Cottage, her other gloved hand reached down into her riding jacket pocket.
The next few seconds passed as if he was encased in a slow-motion nightmare. The vivid kind he often experienced just before waking, where unwanted colours and sounds left him drained for the day ahead. The bombing raids over his widowed mother’s house that he’d shared with her. The shrieks of children at play nearby.
The girl was holding a gun. Not the usual heavy-duty pistol used round here on vermin, but small, compact. Aimed all too steadily at his heart. “Remember what I’ve said,” she fixed him with a stare, “or it won’t just be your job you’ll be losing.”
“My job? What’s that to do with anything?”
A short, mocking laugh. “I can say to the police and the coroner if necessary, that while he was with you, Walter Jones screamed for mercy. That I heard him quite distinctly as I was riding over to Cilycwm. It sounded as if you were doing him serious harm.”
Lionel’s empty stomach seemed to turn over, and bile began to work its way towards his throat.
“Who the Hell are you? Where are you from?”
A metallic click.
“I said, remember.” And with that, the stranger backed away from him, gun still in place, before turning the corner out of sight. Her boot heels clack-clacked against the stones as she went.
With a trembling hand, Lionel turned his key in the front door lock, then suddenly stopped, listening hard. Thinking hard. If she’d heard a young lad in such distress, why not enquire at the time what was going on? Why pass on by? It didn’t make sense. But something else did. Her threat. Could she actually be frightened? Didn’t children behave in the same way when protecting their friends from deserved punishment? And the more he thought about her, and her tense little face, the more he realised she was little more than a child herself.
He let himself into the cottage’s warm parlour, where the log fire behind its guard was still alive, wondering all the while who so desperately needed her protection? And why?
10.
Saturday 4th April 2009 – 9 a.m.
While the Welsh slate clock on the kitchen mantelpiece chimed nine annoying times, Helen finished setting breakfast for one and switched on the coffee maker. Her movements had noticeably slowed. Her body seemed to belong to someone much older. Lack of sleep, she thought, and excitement, because whatever her view on Jason Robbins scabbing an extra week off Mr Flynn for peanuts, there was something about him. An inner core of self-belief, perhaps. Plus his body wasn’t bad either. All that physical stuff before he’d lost his warehouse job, had honed his thighs; the same for his lower arms. His hands too, were a nice shape, with squared-off nails. She was used to observing detail. Been trained to. As for the ear stud, she could soon get used to that.
“Hi, sorry I’m late.”
So here he was. But nothing like yesterday when anticipation had shone in his eyes. She’d drawn and painted from enough models to recognise who was chilled out and who was burdened. He seemed to be definitely in the second category. “
Is anything wrong?” she ventured, bringing over a full cafetière to the table, and the same mug he’d used for tea yesterday.
“Not sure. Perhaps I’m going mad.”
“Tell me,” she pressed, as he sat down and ran a hand through his now ungelled hair. “Is it a smell? You know, like the septic tank?”
“No.”
“Or roses? Sickly sweet ones? I smelt them here when I first arrived. Talk about The White Lady in the Tower of London. Mr Flynn just laughed at me when I mentioned it, saying The Rat had probably discovered a new brand of air freshener.”
“Nothing to do with any smell. Something much more weird.” Jason’s coffee stayed untouched while he recounted that strange bird’s antics in his room, then the incident involving his library book. “And when I woke up, it was on the floor, with whole pages torn out. I just don’t get it.”
“Nor me.” She went over to the bread bin, pulled out a sliced wholemeal loaf and popped two pieces into the toaster. Her hand unsteady. Her mind on that top-floor room and how odd it had felt going in there for the first time. “Did the temperature seem to drop?”
He shook his head. “It felt warmer if anything. Especially near that stain.”
Ugh…
“Toast?” she asked, before clicking the switch to ON. Better than dwelling on what he’d implied. Ghost stuff really scared her. The roses’ stink had been bad enough. “One or two?”
“I’m OK, thanks. But he clearly wasn’t. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Is Monty Flynn around?”
How could she tell him that most days her boss rarely showed up till late morning and then it was off to the boozer. “He’s usually in his office,” she lied. “But like I said, that’s verboten, even for The Rat.”
“Is that me you’re referring to?” shrilled an all-too-familiar voice from inside the walk-in larder. “Because if so, I’ll be telling Mr Flynn right this minute. Then let’s see what he has to say. I was here long before you forced yourself upon the world.” She emerged brandishing not her usual riding crop, but a spray can of furniture polish and a wad of bright yellow dusters. Her crossover apron bearing a map of Wales was tied even more tightly over her mean little body. Helen noticed how Carmarthenshire lay folded in on itself around her waist.