by Thomas Brown
He was just about to chuck the useless thing down on to the slippery grass when his wet ear picked up an all too familiar sound coming through its discreet perforations. A deep sigh like before, then that same haunting plea.
“Remember me... Please... I beg you... No-one else does and I’m so alone…”
Helen was standing at the gate, drenched and bewildered. He couldn’t add to her woes. Not now. He shouted into his phone, “Who the Hell is this? Why pick on me?”
“Hell was my home... You will know. You will know...”
“Have you got through?” Helen shouted at him. “Please say yes.”
However, as he shook his head, stuffing the phone back in his inside pocket, he heard a new noise. The heavy stomp of boots on loose stones behind him. He twisted round to see a short, well-built guy he guessed to be in his early seventies, dressed completely in black from his bushman’s hat to his knee-high boots. A rifle lay strapped to his right shoulder, while his left supported a long pole to which the legs of some twenty fledglings – rooks, crows or ravens, he couldn’t tell – had been attached by twists of wire. Each small, feathered body bore a clod of dark blood, and from the beak of the most recent target, hung a glistening red strand soon thinned by the rain. Each victim bore the same bare, whitish patch at the base of the beak as the one in his room last night.
Jason shivered. For the second time that day, his near-empty stomach turned over. As for the guy himself, there was something vaguely familiar about his unshaven face and pinprick eyes that made Jason stare too long. Could this be one of his unborn characters suddenly come to life, toothless and all? Or someone else entirely? Even an older version of that spook on the hill? Whatever. The grizzled stranger was lifting his rifle free of his body. “What you doin’ up here?” he challenged in a thick local accent. “This is my patch, boyo. Understood?”
Jason’s instinct was to say he’d got lost trying to find the campsite, but the rifle was way too handy for his liking. If he bunked off, Helen would be left in the cottage. In a kitchen still full of knives.
Sod it.
“We need help,” he said.
“We?”
“My friend. She’s up in that bungalow. Betsan Griffiths has been...”
The stranger’s eyes switched away from him.
“Golwg y Mwyn?”
“Yes. I’m trying to get the police but can’t get a signal.”
At this, the bird-slayer began to run up the slope; his macabre cargo swaying from side to side as he went, while all Jason could think of was Helen catching sight of him first. “Wait!” he shouted after him, realising he didn’t know the guy’s name. “Wait!”
No joy.
Despite his own running skills, he was too slow and, as he neared the dead woman’s little home, even the stinging rain couldn’t disguise the frightened scream that filled his ears.
***
The slain birds lay in a line on the wet stone flags outside the back door. No way was Jason going to let any of them touch his boots.
From inside, came voices. His and hers.
“Sorry to give you a fright,” the man was saying to Helen. “I do understand. But I don’t understand this. What’s happened to her?”
Helen looked more than relieved as Jason pushed his way in. The man, squatting in a pool of his own rainwater, was checking the old woman’s pulse in her wrist.
“Too late for that, I’m afraid,” Jason ventured, feeling that four people in that small space were definitely a crowd.“We’ve tried.”
“Betsan’s been my nearest neighbour for years. I can’t just stand by.” The farmer glanced up. Offered his hand in greeting. “Gwilym Price, Cysgod y Deri it is, just below here. Buried my wife two years ago. Why I’m dressed like this. Mustn’t forget, must we?”
Jason took it, noticing dried blood under the fingernails.
“I’m sorry.”
“Cancer from the rain it was, see. Nuclear testing in the fifties, then Sellafield. Gets everyone in the end. ‘Cept Betsan.” The farmer straightened up. Used the soles of his boots to spread out the water on the stone floor, and in doing so, rubbed away any intruders’ possible footprints. Jason didn’t dare intervene. Not with that rifle in such close attendance. Nor did he quite believe him.
“Did you reach the police?” Helen asked, still on edge.
“Nope.” Tempted for a moment to tell her about that same begging voice. A voice he now realised belonged to a young woman.
“I’ll go,” said Price. “They know me, see. I’ve caught ’em napping more times than Betsan here made hot dinners. “And what have they done about my best dog that got run over on Wednesday? Give you one guess.” He lowered his head. “Bob and me won all the trials, we did. Local and national. He could round up a herd of bloody monkeys.”
“So it was him I saw,” said Helen. “What a horrible accident.”
“That were no accident. Someone round here’s got a grudge. A big grudge. Didn’t run him over proper like. Oh no. Just his back end. He tried dragging himself back home…” His glistening eyes fixed on them both. “Can I trust you to stop here with my rooks?”
Jason nodded, his mind racing. Never mind the spooky stuff, was the man right? Was something pretty sick going on?
“Funny thing, I never saw her without her Jesus.” Her neighbour rubbed his wet eyes with his dirty cuff. “So where is it?”
“Did she go to church?”
“Off and on. She wasn’t that keen on non-conformism, but she was a good woman. A real good woman. Come the winter, if I’d not had the time to cook, she’d bring down a nice bowl of cawl and a home-made roll for me.” Those small, moist eyes now fixed on the stove. “Looks like there’s cawl here now. And,” glancing at the formica table, where two lots of cutlery, glasses and side plates had been set out, “someone to share it with her.”
Helen gasped.
“We never noticed that, did we? And it’s a really obvious clue.”
“The police,” Jason reminded Gwilym Price, rather than acknowledge he’d been slack. Aware that the man just getting into his stride, had forgotten his offer to call them.
“No-one had a bad word to say about you,” the rook-killer addressed his dead neighbour, stroking her hair. “Mind you, she wasn’t short of a penny, what with all the cooking she done. Even the pub used her when their generator played up. And as for that campsite...” He turned his gaze on Betsan’s dead body again, while Jason saw the second hand on his watch moving round too fast, and Helen tensing up. “I’ve seen enough death round here in my time, but not one so... so unmarked. There’s no bruise, nothing.”
“Poison?” Jason suggested, wondering if there might have been cash stored away somewhere. Making amends for his earlier slip-up.
The farmer shook his head. His hat still darkly in place. “Ever seen what that does to a body? She’d be soiled. Top and bottom. No, seems to me she was suffocated. Gently, mind, like they are in them hospices where my wife ended up. Can see it now. Grabbed from behind. Caught by surprise, and then perhaps a cushion. ‘Cept there don’t appear to be none. Only what she’s sitting on.”
“Maybe chloroform?” said Jason, recalling the vilest film he’d ever watched. “Ever seen The Vanishing where those young Dutch tourists…?”
“Don’t!” Helen cried out. “That’s enough!”
“And my guess is,” Price continued, making for the door, “judging by the number of pigs I’ve dispatched in my time – and pigs is close to humans as you know – Betsan’s only been gone an hour or so.” He eyed the stove. “State of the cawl suggests the same. Cooker was switched on about then too.”
“Maybe the table’s set like this to be a red herring,” said Helen, and Jason had to acknowledge she wasn’t just a pretty face. A clever but fearful, pretty face.
“Hurry with that phone call, Mr Price,” he said. “Whoever’s responsible, may still be around. May want us out of the way, too.”
***
On hi
s way out, the farmer turned towards Helen. “By the way, Miss Jenkins, how long is it you’ve been at the asylum?”
Her mouth fell open. “What?”
“Heron House.”
“Why call it that?”
A short but loaded laugh followed.
Jason, aware of the stew’s lingering smell now something quite different, saw Helen’s hand cover her nose as a sly brown stain spread down each leg of the deceased’s rayon slacks and dribbled to the floor.
“Surely you don’t need me to say. What with you, Miss Jenkins, working there and all. Those were Betsan’s very own words.”
12.
Monday 7th October 1946 – 8 a.m.
Although the too-large black suit he’d worn for young Walter’s funeral now hung in his wardrobe, Lionel decided to continue wearing its matching tie for the remainder of the week. Not only as a mark of respect, but also to remind himself of his mission. He’d spent too many sleepless hours imagining how blame would bring him an empty schoolroom, and now, having shaved and dressed, he glanced at his grandfather’s old pocket watch.
Eight o’clock.
News on the wireless of the communist takeover of Bulgaria would have to wait. He was already late.
***
As Lionel opened his front door, the thick morning mist curled around his shoes, obliterating the sight but not the sound of shod hooves stopping by his gate. His pulse quickened as he recalled that unnerving encounter on Saturday, and just as he was about to slam the door shut, a muffled but familiar laugh, reached his ears.
Of course. What a fool I am. It’s Carol.
“Only me, Mr Hargreaves,” came her welcome voice. “I know I’m not usually this early, but everything’ll take longer in this lot.”
Carol Carr, young postwoman extraordinaire, leaned down from her saddle to hand him a substantial bundle of letters. “You’re popular.”
Not always...
He took the post aware of her fingers brushing against his. The combined smells of horse sweat and the damp morning assailing his nose. “You watch how you go,” he said and meant it. “This fog’ll be worse up by Nantymwyn.”
“It’s the oddest thing,” as she patted her chestnut cob’s neck. “But Lucky here hates going to Heron House. Every time, without fail, he digs his heels in outside the gates. Fair wears me out kicking him on, and more than once, I’ve had to dismount and walk up that drive myself.”
How could he suggest she use a post van instead? During the war, Carol had come south from Shrewsbury to work in the Women’s Timber Corps. He knew she loved being close to nature, whatever the weather, and had been sorry to leave at the end of last year. Even to lose her ‘Lumberjill’ nickname. No time now to dwell upon her strange remark or to tentatively ask her to call in some time next Sunday afternoon for a cup of tea. She had a job to do, and he likewise. Starting in half an hour’s time.
“Don’t give up here, Mr Hargreaves,” she said out of the blue, before turning her mount round. “I’ve heard folks complain about what happened at your school last week. They’re ignorant and cruel, and should know better.”
Without giving him a chance to thank her, and having stuffed her curly brown hair back under her cap, she gathered up her reins and began to move off.
“By the way,” he called after her, “you haven’t by any chance noticed a large black car around here?”
“Why?”
He hesitated. Carol visited every door in the neighbourhood, often stopping to chat to those who’d not seen another living soul all week. But behind those doors lurked a multitude of mischievous tongues. Best to tell a lie.
“Last week during lunchtime, I took a walk up Pencarrig Hill and saw one travelling up the forestry road like a bat out of Hell. Nearly ran me over.”
She thought for a moment while Lucky’s front hoof struck the ground with impatience. “The only one I can think of belongs to Heron House. What make was it?”
Walter hadn’t said…
“Not sure, but thank you anyway. I’m sorry to have kept you.”
“No trouble.” She raised a hand in farewell, kicked her mount on.
Heron House?
He’d never heard of it, neither had there ever been any children from there at school. He knew the class registers better than his own heart from as far back as before the Great War, when its doors had first opened. His curiosity about the demographics of this, a typical rural Welsh community through two major upheavals and the loss of coal and lead mining, had turned to astonishment upon discovering how many inhabitants had left for the New World and Patagonia. Most, evolved from the ancient Brythionic tribes, had chosen to leave their homeland that sustained only forestry, livestock farming and seasonal fishing. He’d also wondered how many had regretted their decision.
Now, he found himself following the cob’s doleful hoof beats, even though the track became muddier and more slippery. “Who lives up there?” he called out after Carol. His voice thin in the choking mist. “I mean, at Heron House.”
“Some big-wig judge, I think. Never met him though. Just the girl and boy who help out. Most of his mail’s from Cardiff, mind; but I can’t for the life of me remember his name. Double-barrelled, that’s for sure.”
“And the younger generation?”
“Too old for your school, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She drove the cob forwards. “Got to move, Mr Hargreaves, or I’ll never get round.”
And so all trace of her faded, leaving him to imagine her sturdy figure rising and falling to the trot’s regular beat.
***
As if arriving at Nantybai School without his carefully filled briefcase wasn’t bad enough, half of Lionel’s class of twenty were absent, with no explanation given. While he donned his Birmingham University gown before pinning up four posters showing the pyramids of the Nile and Tutankhamun’s tomb on the wall next to the blackboard, those pupils who’d elected to attend, stared at him in a way he’d not experienced before. Ten pairs of accusing eyes kept up the punishment while he called the register. They’d brought the fog in with them. It clung to their damp clothes, their flattened hair.
Three boys, seven girls, most of whom had been at Walter’s funeral and, when the last name had been called, Lionel Hargreaves made a decision. He was about to rely on a hunch as slender as the vaporous air now dispersing over the desks.
“Instead of learning about Hiroshima or the massacre at Oradour sur Glâne, which took place in France just four days after the Allied landings, we’re staying much closer to home. In fact,” he replaced the tin of drawing pins in his desk drawer, “I want to find out just how clever and observant you all are.”
The surly stares vanished just like that cold, white cloak that had descended on the whole area overnight.
“How’ll ye do that?” asked Dai Meat’s son, Aled; deliberately omitting the word ’sir.’
“By a little general knowledge.” He glanced from one child to another. Most were, like Walter, small for their age. All except Aled who had access to plenty of protein without a ration book’s permission. “Now then, have you each a piece of paper and a pen? The answer should be yes. If not, come up to my desk. Oh, and at the end, there’ll be a prize,” he added, without thinking what or how... A paper kite perhaps? Or a set of coloured pencils conjured from nowhere?
The scramble that followed took him by surprise, and not for the first time, he remarked to himself how easily people are bribed. Even the young. Especially it seemed, the young. When all were ready, keenly watching his lips, he withdrew his watch and, for maximum visibility, laid it on his blotter. He mustn’t jump straight in. Rather, try a more circuitous route to the answers he wanted.“You have four minutes per question. Number one,” he began. “How many working farms are there within a ten-mile radius of The Fox and Feathers?”
“Why?” Aled again withholding the word ‘sir.’
Lionel didn’t reply. The other nine pupils were thinking hard. Thanks to his efforts, a
ll could at least write legibly. Better in English than Welsh which was more the language of the hearth and, if the current ‘Welsh Not’ continued, doomed to stay there. Also, all, unlike some of their older relations poisoned by the lead fumes, were thankfully compos mentis.
While they wrote, he stared at Walter Jones’ empty desk and then at the floor where he’d fallen. All trace of his blood had been cleaned away, making the next question more necessary. “Now then, name all the big houses within that same ten-mile radius.”
“Poshies and Saesnegs,” piped up Alys Humphreys whom he knew had been abandoned as an infant and taken in by the smith and his wife just two doors away.
Her neighbour, Betsan Griffiths, an unusually fair-haired twelve-year-old, glanced up at Lionel as if expecting a reprimand for even breathing the same air as Alys. But a reprimand could wait. Too many words were already flowing on to paper, especially from this same blonde pupil whose father had perished on Normandy’s Juno Beach. Whose final letter home sent in May 1944, hadn’t arrived until last Monday. “Time’s up. Question three is transport. How many different pony and traps have you seen since summer ended?”
“This is stupid,” hissed the orphan. “What do we need to know that for?”
“A prize.” Aled now busier than the rest.
“Question four,” Lionel continued. “How many camouflaged trucks are still being used by the Home Guard?”
“My tadci’s one of them, sir.” Boasted Kyffin Morgan, the lad nearest to Walter’s desk, and his best friend. “Did you know he’s being kept on till Christmas, just in case? You seen his pillbox down by the Towy?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Or the barbed wire he won’t let anyone touch?”
Lionel shook his head. To him, all this smacked of paranoia. Not the only dark side to this otherwise lovely part of the world. “And finally,” he returned to the job in hand, and the most important question of all. “Number five, everyone. Wait for it. How many big black cars?”
***
Once the small class had trooped off home to lunch, he scoured their answers, aware of his late father’s less than positive opinion of him peck-pecking at his mind. Supposing there was chatter in their homes about big houses and luxury cars? Supposing someone other than friendly Carol Carr would soon be knocking on his door? The girl with the gun came to mind.