Four British Mysteries
Page 74
“You mean weapons?”
Robert nodded. Fear still in those wide brown eyes, but Lionel’s mind was too much on fire with Peris Morgan’s extraordinary story to plunge straight in. This young man needed coaxing, not a stick.
“But why here? Why you? Because of your stance on the War?”
“Sit down, sir. Please. Let me take your coat, or can’t you stay?”
“I can for as long as you need me to. You offered to help me. Now it’s my turn.”
That seemed to relax him, but instead of sitting where Lionel could see him, chose to stand behind his chair. In the old-fashioned mirror over the fireplace, Lionel, having unbuttoned his coat, saw that tense face close to tears.
“My crime is to be in love,” the deserter began. “Yes, there have been other girls – while I was studying music in Cardiff, when I began giving recitals throughout Wales, but no-one like... like the one with onyx eyes. The most beautiful, wonderful person on this earth. Margiad Joy.”
“Edmund Pitt-Rose’s daughter?”
Robert nodded.
“How old is she?”
“Seventeen. I met her by accident, back in April it was. She was in St. Barnabas’ graveyard putting daffodils on her mother’s grave. I’d just finished a rehearsal for Easter Sunday’s service, and there she was. Like a vision. But nervous, mind. Looking over her shoulder all the time as if she shouldn’t be there. And guess what? There was Gwenno Davies, all togged up in riding gear, on her pony, lurking by the lych gate. Spying on us.”
“Did you notice her carrying a gun?”
“What!” Those brown eyes doubled in size.
“She had one when she threatened me. Looked ready to use it, too.”
“How dare she, the minx. But this is what we’re up against.”
He went over to the nearest set of bookshelves and extracted a bound copy of William Williams’ hymns, opened it at the middle and removed a black and white photograph. “That’s Margiad. Up on Pen Cerrigmwyn last month. She’d managed to escape her guards...” He passed it to Lionel whose fingertips immediately felt numb. That description was indeed apt. The tilt of her lovely, oval face, her dark hair lifted by the breeze. However, her smile seemed forced. Those eyes troubled.
“Are these so-called ‘guards’ Idris and Gwenno Davies?”
“Yes. And a governess too, I believe.”
“Her name?”
“Margiad’s not said. But sir, I swear to God it’s not normal there. Do you understand what I’m saying? Every time her father’s name comes up, she just freezes.”
He moved closer. “She’s in danger, sir. I know it, here in my heart.”
“Does mention of The Order ring any bells?”
Robert frowned. “What do you mean, sir?”
“A small group of men at Heron House behaving like beasts yet who think they’re above the law they’re supposed to uphold. Your recent visitors no less.”
The young man paled. His fine hands trembling. “Her father?”
“So I’ve been told…”
“Stop, Mr Hargreaves! I can’t listen to any more. Are you implying Margiad’s involved in this?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Lionel handed back the photograph and rubbed his fingertips together for warmth. He got up and, in the few steps he took to reach the young organist, his oath of secrecy to Peris Morgan dissolved like February’s snowfall under a surprise winter sun.
“What I’m about to tell you, must stay between these four walls. You mention danger – a word not to be used lightly – but I believe you’re right. And that danger is what young Walter Jones witnessed and died for. Margiad being taken back to Heron House by car as if she was a prisoner. Screaming, she was. Struggling to get out. Although I’ve kept that story hidden for too long,” Lionel laid a hand on Robert’s sunken shoulder. “We must trust each other. If we can’t, then I stop investigating now.”
The organist turned to face him. The full intensity of his anguish almost unbearable. “I trust you sir. But before you say any more, there’s something else you should know. Margiad gave me some news the Thursday before Walter’s funeral.” He pressed the photograph to his chest, the weight of his hand creasing the back of it. “She’s six months pregnant. And it’s not mine. I swear on my dead parents’ souls, it’s not mine.”
***
Lionel left Troed y Rhiw burdened further by the harrowing exchange in that room full of creative works by those writers and composers driven to right the world’s wrongs through their craft. To show the oppressed and downhearted a higher meaning to this mortal coil.
Yet, as he crossed the strip of main road and headed up more directly this time, towards Cerrigmwyn Hill, he knew that if only he and Robert could find proof of Margiad Pitt-Rose’s secret Hell, they could together, release her and bring real justice to bear.
And twelve-year-old Betsan Griffiths would be a start.
27.
Sunday 5th April 2009 – 1 p.m.
Llyr’s head was messed up, inside and out. Having to abandon his precious van was bad enough. He’d been turned away from that full-up Travel Lodge at Leigh Delamere too tired to think straight, never mind drive. No wonder he’d done a roll-over for all to see. But would The Order understand? He’d have to wait and find out. Whatever, it was too late to get replacement wheels organised. He still had another job to do.
After the roll-over, he’d kipped in some shitty barn till it had been safe to emerge, almost suffocated on the train from Reading, before the cattle-truck underground to Highbury & Islington and arriving here. A last look in the mirror over one of Camden tube station’s stained urinals was enough to make him slap more cold water on to his hot, newly-shaved jaw. Pull his beanie down as far as it would go.
London didn’t agree with him. Never had. Not even when The Order had stumped up for the Euston studio flat two years ago. Nor when Charlie had treated him to a made-to-measure suit and striped tie from some posh Dorset school and whisked him off to the Pullman Club in his Bentley. Not even with dinner there costing two hundred quid a head.
Suddenly, he wasn’t alone. Some coon – the only word of his mam’s that he really liked – bulked out by a fluorescent safety jacket, was pressed up next to him. Too too big, like the cock he was holding as he pissed.
“Want some?” he said, shaking off the drops. “I’m clean. Got proof.”
“Fuck off.” And with that, Llyr elbowed him away and pulled open the door. Was that the click of a knife he heard behind him?
“No-one disses me, d’you hear?”
Too many steps up to Camden’s daylight. Too many bodies and the guy right behind him. Llyr could tell by snatches of yellow flashing in the corner of his right eye. He’d got enough on his plate, what with his van and The Ginger bint snooping around with that waste of Irish skin. He was glad he’d put the frighteners on her, not that it seemed to be making any difference. And as for the leprechaun chatting up the cleaner outside Charlie’s flat, he should have finished him off when he’d gone down that adit up Pen Cerrigmwyn last year. Come to think of it, his whole life had been one of botched jobs and missed chances. But perhaps at last, thanks to the chicken choker lying in the Royal Free Hospital’s morgue, things would take a turn for the better. Soon, he hoped. Like this afternoon. But there was still that Hounslow nerd with the ear stud, gelled hair and crap jeans poking his nose in. Asking too many questions. Now came shouting, yelling, swearing. He pushed through the human tide like the scrum-half he’d once been at the Special School until a solid, deep sting in his left calf slowed him down. Then the right leg, through denim to bone.
Shit...
Someone pulled him to the top step and placed him in front as Mr Yellow ran off into the crowd. “You bleed,” observed a French-sounding voice. “You need attention.” This guy in a sheepskin coat, pulled out his phone. Just then, Llyr saw his future caged in. This time by bars.
“I’m OK. I’m OK,” he muttered.
***
He’d soon got shot of that mobile and his own giveaway beanie before finding an open doorway to what appeared to be a deserted pub. The Lamb & Whistle. Just the kind of quiet dark he needed. Christ, he was hurting, losing more blood. He must keep on his feet, get back to Wales to check out what he’d removed from Flynn’s study. But first things first. From his lookout in that phone booth in Thornhill Road, he’d seen the Volvo turn into Fylde Street leading to Euston Road. He’d known then that the traitor and The Ginger were heading for Charlie’s solicitor in Camden and wondered how he’d found out about the death. No matter he himself couldn’t be there in person. He’d soon find out the result.
And then like a black flash, he realised that if he did collect big time, the pigs could be fingering him as a prime suspect if things looked suspicious. Had Michael Markham, and others in The Order, thought of that when they’d pushed him Charles’ way two years ago? Perhaps that’s why an urgent meeting had been arranged with him in Dulwich for tomorrow morning.
“I just cleaned up, ye sod!” A woman’s voice reached him from beyond the faintly lit bar as he made for the Gents. “Where d’ye think yer goin’?”
She appeared from the gloom. As fat as his mam was thin, with a skirt split halfway up to her bare thighs. “Get out!”
He turned to face her, knowing that would do the trick. His smooth, glistening head, those round blue eyes. They’d worked in his favour at the Special School and with the stiff due to be cut up in three days’ time. The stiff he hoped would soon be helping him on his way.
Seconds later, in a back room with a brown linoleum floor and a plasma TV showing some old black and white flick, she cleaned him up, wrapped a makeshift bandage under each rolled-up denim hem and wiped out his boots.
“Fancy a beer?” she said, really meaning, ‘d’you fancy me?’
“No, ta.”
“Ye’ll need stitches,” she said, straightening up. Disappointment in her made-up eyes. “Got a phone?”
He nodded. His blood was too hot. He had to get out and back on the trail. The Order wanted nothing less. As for his van, although not taxed or insured, it could still lead to him. Attention neither he nor his paranoid bosses needed.
Two silhouettes were standing in the doorway. He could sniff pigs a mile off. Wondered what the dangerous Paddy had spilled about him in Tolpuddle Street.
Shoving past his Florence Nightingale into a cluttered kitchen area, he found an unlocked back door and, biting his lips to stop himself yelping in pain, limped out into a yard full of old beer barrels that led to another alleyway where at last he was on his own.
***
There they were. Paddy and cling-on. He’d guessed right. But at a cost. He’d had to keep stopping, feeling dizzy, sweating, his throat getting drier by the second. He’d only been to Camden twice, but his reward was to see the grey Volvo slip into the NCP car park – the kind of warren he’d always avoided. Too tight corners. Too many concrete pillars. Never mind the spying cameras.
He’d wait till the couple reappeared and the car was his. Trouble was, there were two exits. He’d have to concentrate. Normally his strong point. But not now, feeling as if barbed wire was biting into his legs – as if he was that weirdo hanging upside down from the Cross in what had once been his bedroom – and by the way some tossers passing by were eyeballing him.
It had better be worth his while.
Come on...
What were they up to? Having a grope? He wouldn’t put it past that leprechaun who should never have set foot inside his house. Yes. Despite what Flynn had been putting about, Heron House was his now. He knew it. Why? Because the Charles Pitt-Rose he’d pleasured for too long, never broke his promises. Kept a roof over his mam and da’s heads, hadn’t he? Kept the lid on.
The GPS tracker he’d attached to the Volvo outside Sandhurst Mansion, once the Philippina had gone, was still safely in place. Now, his last job – a clever bug in the form of a calculator – was too. In the glove box. The car alarm reset.
Hello...
Had The Ginger spotted him? No. He’d moved behind a pillar too quickly, breathing in deeply. He thought of his van all tipped over. How he should have dumped her on the A40 somewhere outside Llandovery and got himself out of the whole game. Now he, not those loaded twats from Dulwich and Dinas Powys, working in the shadows, were at risk.
Move...
Both were running on ahead of him. Well, sort of running, and then because God and time were on his side, came the welcome rumble of a bus drawing into the kerb behind. He’d been too wound up to notice either its named destination or any actual bus stop, and while it drew away with a deep sigh and its doors folded shut behind him, he turned to see the Irish con merchant’s grey face grow smaller and smaller. He realised then he should have caught a cab. But would he have been allowed on board? More time wasted.
“Where to?” said the driver. An Asian with seriously bad skin.
Llyr hesitated.
“Back to Islington. Brockenhurst Rise.” Parallel to Thornhill Road. Perfect. He’d be taking his third recce of the flat, just to make sure no trace of him remained. Unlike his rival, hoping to collect a key at 4 p.m., he still had his.
“Wrong direction, sir,” said the driver. “This is for Waterloo.”
“Jesus.”
“Best get off next stop.” The guy veered round a slow-moving white stretch limo. He then, like all six of his lower deck passengers, stared at the blood-sodden jeans. “You been in a fight?”
“Could say that. Goin’ back to my mam’s to get sorted out.”
“Mam?” he sneered. “I never heard that word before. Anyway, you need fresh dressings right now. Stay standing, please. I don’t want my seats messed up.”
“Can you step on it?” said Llyr, wanting to put him in an oxygen tent. “I’m late.”
His legs were weakening. What’s more, the dot-head was ignoring him. He knew what his da would do in this situation. Hit him until he begged for mercy. But he wasn’t like that pervert in any shape or form. Even Charlie who knew how riled up he could get. Charlie who liked his cock and ass seeing to in a very special way.
That thought made him push past the brood mare and her giant buggy getting on as he got off, almost falling on to the pavement as he did so.
“’Ere you! Where’s your manners?” she screeched after him.
Llyr didn’t bother to reply. He had more urgent things to do. Having composed himself, he stepped off the kerb and flagged down the first available cab.
He shouted out his destination into its nearside window, adding as a bribe to the doubtful cabbie, “you won’t know I’ve been in it. Promise.”
28.
Sunday 5th April 2009 – 1.10 p.m.
With no news from London, and the atmosphere in Heron House as cold as winter, Jason made his way down to the pub, not so much for the chips there – he wasn’t that hungry – but for company. With his still-damp jacket collar up against the drizzle, he kept glancing around. Glancing everywhere, in fact. Listening for the sound of oncoming wheels, and all the while harking back to that dark, shape-shifting kitchen. That nightmare...
A red kite hovered overhead, wings stroking the sky until the time was right to pounce on its prey. He wished his own life was that simple. He’d come here to write, for God’s sake. To hit the big time, and now look. All that had been a con. Sucker was his middle name. In every sense.
He’d be asking Monty Flynn for a refund the moment he got back. And then what? Buy his ticket to Hounslow? To needy Colin? The thought of it made him quicken towards the sloping car park hosting a 4X4 he immediately recognised, and three cars he didn’t. At least Gwilym Price would speak to him. Judy Withers t
oo, if she was there.
He pushed open the pub door to the smell of dogs, dinner, and Radio 2 bringing news of more troops being sent from the UK to Helmand Province. For a few seconds, with Archie Tait’s face clear in his mind, he imagined himself tooled up in army fatigues, climbing into a crowded chopper, lifting off into the blue. Into danger.
At least being of some use.
The farmer’s distinctive black hat perched on a nearby coat rack, but neither the friendly blonde licensee nor her partner seemed to be around. Instead, a guy whom Jason guessed was in his sixties, and a probable parent of one of them, was chatting from behind the bar to a well-dressed couple with home counties accents. The words ‘estate agents’ reached his ears.
As for Gwilym Price, no sign either, until he stepped out of the Gents with a distracted look on his face.
“Mr Price. Hi, there. What can I get you?” Jason moved to make an order.
“Not stopping, diolch,” said the farmer, whose head, Jason noticed, was completely bald save for a few strands of dry, grey hair. “Too much goin’ on, see. In me mind and everywhere.”
“Can I help at all? I mean, I’m just stuck up there at the asylum waiting for news.”
The older man hesitated, lifted his hat off the stand and crammed it down on his head. “I can tell you now I’ve got to know you. I want to live to see that bastard Llyr Davies behind bars. Carol wouldn’t have died the way she did if he’d not…” he halted, swiping his coat sleeve across his watering eyes. “When he’s finally banged up, mind, I’ll visit him every day to remind him what rape can do to a woman of any age.”
So it hadn’t been cancer.
Jason wondered if this was the earlier ‘form’ DC Pritchard and Jane Harris had mentioned? All thoughts of a possible lunch and a drink or two vanished, and as the bulletin on troop deployment ended, he realised there were enough wars here at home. Less public, but still devastating for those affected.
Outside again, in that deathly still afternoon. Nothing much was visible through the soft rain, except the widower’s grief, but beneath it, Jason sensed a toughness hard as those rocks dynamited from the mine shafts, now strewn about Cerrigmwyn Hill. “My light went out when she had her stroke,” the man continued. “One minute she was there, getting the tea, the next...” He looked hard at Jason. “And to think she’d helped Gwenno Davies give birth to it. Some gratitude, that.”