by Thomas Brown
“In our case, cameras are a necessity.”
Llyr dared himself to watch. This could be him all over again, at the farm now below the reservoir and at Heron House. He turned away from the screen.
“In case you ask,” Markham said to Llyr, “your mother and her brother are at this moment being dealt with. They’ve long overstayed their welcome. Let’s say, an unfortunate accident is unfolding as we speak. I’m sorry, Llyr, but I’m sure you’ll understand. They’ve had a good innings. Longer than most.” Markham glanced at the grandfather clock’s face and checked it against his own. “To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under Heaven.”
Llyr wondered precisely what ‘being dealt with’ meant, but couldn’t find it in his wrecked heart to care. Wondered too about the two grands’ worth to relocate them.
“Think of a lovely reservoir opened in 1972 by Princess Alexandra,” added Markham. “A very useful dumping ground indeed. Ed Rees was right about that.”
The Llyn Brianne reservoir.
Deep as Hell, but not such a bad place to end up in. And so what if his Welsh mamgu and tadci’s little farm also lay beneath its icy water? Best place, to be honest, strapped down for ever in their iron beds, unable to harm anyone any more. They’d raised both Gwenno and Idris to expose him to far worse than any smelting fumes they’d ingested. Stuff Llyr should never have seen. Was it any wonder he’d turned out the way he had? In and out of trouble like a terrier with too many rat holes. Except that right now, and before he got old himself, he’d reached the end of his tour of duty. If he played his cards right he could soon be sitting on a fortune. Not ruling the roost, like Paddy had said, choosing classy meat and even pink pants to make more dough. But a log cabin and thousands of grassy acres in Montana. Far, far away.
Soon Paddy’s handkerchief matched the colour of the red cummerbund Llyr had been given to wear on special occasions. Michael Markham stood up, helped the nosebleed to his feet, then, having slapped out his own trouser creases, indicated the cloakroom. “But before you go and spoil my newly-cleaned washbasin, you both should hear some other news. Last Monday, we, meaning myself and Geoffrey, finally located some very important remains. Felt it was time for a spring clean, so to speak.”
“Remains?” queried Paddy through the borrowed handkerchief.
“A whole skeleton, in fact, of Robert Price, a Welsh conchie. A nobody, who could have ruined a lot of careers including mine.”
“Whereabouts?” Llyr asked while the Irishman made for the cloakroom.
A pause. But pride won over caution.
“Buried in a small cave off the River Towy. Below the road out of Rhandirmwyn.” The way he pronounced the name of that village, made Llyr wince. Typical Saes who hadn’t got a clue. “Lured there on Christmas Eve by the ever-loyal Margiad. A real daddy’s girl. Oh, and we also have the headmaster’s notebook. So kind of him to think of us as well.”
Markham then joined the bleeder where, from the open door, Llyr heard tap water gushing into the sink. He tried jogging his own memory. Before he’d been sent to the Special School, there’d been talk of a Robert Price having a pregnant lover. He could not remember any more.
“Who was this Margiad?” Llyr called out.
The cloakroom cold tap was turned off.
“Seeing as Heron House will soon be yours, best you know.”
***
Llyr felt sick again. And thanks to his mam putting herself about, he’d also be Margiad’s step-brother, with even less claim to Heron House should she still be alive somewhere with greedy great-grand kids.
As Llyr crept over to St. Peter and raised the frame’s lower edge to see the handwritten name on the other side, he realised Charlie hadn’t breathed a single word about her. His only sister.
And here was her name on the same print that had hung in his bedroom.
***
The cloakroom tap must have been turned off again. Llyr stood by the doorway filled by Markham’s toned physique. The other man just a sniffing, snivelling shadow.
“Is Margiad dead, too?” Llyr queried. “If not, where’s her grave?”
His boss back kicked the door to close it on him, but didn’t quite succeed.
Llyr stayed put. Ears on alert. Just then, from somewhere a phone began ringing until its answering machine took over. Tempted to investigate, he stopped when raised voices reached him from the cloakroom. Markham sounding even meaner. “And as for the chief beneficiary, Mr Flynn. Any problems with her?”
“No.”
“If I’d known Charles was going to top himself when he did, we’d have waited a bit. But there we go. Had to be done. Specially since that cosy chat old Betsan had with you last Wednesday morning, threatening to spill her happy memories to the media.” Markham’s voice then sharpened. “And no-one saw you pop in on Saturday either to firm up that cosy lunch à deux?”
“Give me a break.”
“Main thing is, did you tidy up afterwards? Leave no prints of any kind? All curtains left open as you’d said they normally were?”
“I’m telling you, there was no mess. She was easy, as if she wanted to go to Heaven and I was doing her a favour,” Flynn said.
Another lie.
“I’m not talking mess. I’m talking smell. Chloroform.”
“Not a trace.”
“Is this the truth?”
The question was then repeated in such a way that Llyr’s breakfast burger turned over. Before The Ginger and the Saes had shown up, he’d glimpsed the old girl’s broken ornaments from her kitchen. The result of a rage usually so well hidden, like some of them at Holmwood. Honey on the tongue one minute. Poison the next.
“What d’you think I am?”
“I actually don’t have the words, Mr Flynn.”
But Markham was still playing games. “Did you clear away your place setting at her table?”
“Naturally.”
“How can I believe you when you’d left such a shambles at our future base? Even the St. Peter print which Prydderch’s just delivered here?”
“Who’s been telling tales?”
“Guess. And a good job, too.”
Llyr flinched.
“He’s a bastard,” gurgled Paddy.
“Well, that’s accurate enough, but your track record doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. And if you think we’re refunding your session with Dee Salomon, who incidentally declined to deal with our prompt calls on Friday morning, you’ve another thing coming. In fact, you owe us. And your pathetic little bequest.”
Sounds of a scuffle. Of more water running. More commands. One that made Llyr swallow hard. “If you want to keep breathing, get rid of Robbins by the 7th. Deep in the forest, away from any felling. Understood? Plus irrefutable proof you’ve succeeded. We want to see four, used six-inch nails. Nothing less, and no mistakes.”
Just then, a high-pitched alarm sound issued from his study.
Tracker alert.
Markham stepped from the cloakroom, hands wet, face flushed, to take a look. “The Ginger’s heading back to base. I’ve already made arrangements there and, by the way, if her mother calls her on the phone I’ve got, there’ll be no reply.”
Llyr picked up more gurgling and spluttering noises. More protests. Paddy certainly had stamina when he needed it, but Markham had a Glock 9 milli.
Suddenly, on the TV screen, came a larger than life image of his white Transit in some yard or other. All wound round with police tape while his old surname came over like a whisper on the breeze. “The police are warning the public that Llyr Davies, who also calls himself Ethan Woods, is highly dangerous, could be armed, and on no account to be approached.”
The door to the rear lobby was still ajar. What did he owe the Irishman? Anybody? He’d failed in all departments and now was his chance. If he missed it, he’d be sampling a metal table next to his step-brother. He thought about his birth certificate with Edmund Pitt-Rose named on it as father. It would have been good
to see it, but he could always get a copy. Having cleared his mobile’s Address Book and Inbox, he dropped it together with the calculator and Charles Pitt-Rose’s keys on to the nearest settee, then made his move.
35.
Monday 6th April 2009 – 9.15 a.m.
Now what?
Although Helen had managed to kick and bite her way out of that grungy B&B they’d all holed up in for the night, it was kneeing her betrayer in the balls that had finally seen him off. He’d then chased her with surprising speed along Nantwich Grove as its orange street lights had faded.
No point dwelling on how they’d all shared that so-called ‘family’ room on the first floor; how she’d forced herself to stay awake until she could flee both men, clearly operating under instruction. The younger thug had accused her and Flynn of knowing about the will, so he must have followed them to Hurst Crescent. Her instincts about him had been right. Wrong about the other. She must call the police and Jason, then hotfoot back to Heron House to collect her stuff.
Once and for all.
She wished she could have spoken to him directly while her captors had used what had passed for a bathroom. But perhaps he’d call her. Soon.
Her purse’s innermost fold held £5.35 pence exactly. All in coins, their worth incompatible with their weight. At least she still had her Visa. But where was DCI Jobiah’s card that she’d kept there, too?
Damn.
Her body was too full of bad blood, rising, falling, into her head, into her unchanged pad. She’d shelled out enough money to be by her boss’ side and for what? The man from Crosskelly had betrayed her. The empty pork scratchings packet suddenly blown against her ankles, said it all. No wonder he’d been so eager to check out the will on a Sunday, then the flat. He had to outwit the cut-up roughneck.
Feeling invisible to the purposeful throng around her, she glanced up and down the busy street. Where were they both now?
She should never, ever have stepped into that tempting white van on Saturday night. Heffy would have said ‘stupid cow’ and been spot on.
Now look.
***
Despite the morning rush hour’s exhaust fumes, Helen could smell herself as old, dead meat. Her manky hair stuck to her head. Her imagination now working faster than her legs, letting in a deadly thread of paranoia that made her quicken. What if the grey Volvo should pass by? What if Flynn and his co-pilot had guns? London was full of them. And knives. What difference would one small ‘pop’ make in this crazy hubbub?
She must get away from this place while that little boy’s photograph and his diary were still safe in her pants. While she still had a pulse. Jason’s advice before he’d put the phone down. But first things first. She needed simply to stop and investigate properly what she’d discovered at the dead man’s flat. Her toilet visits in the B&B had been listened in to. How sick was that? No way could she have studied the little book there or risked being heard turning its battered pages.
Soon the crowds and shops thinned out until she reached railings and a large open gate leading into a children’s play area where the second bench along was thankfully unoccupied. She opened up her rucksack and withdrew a slender, dark green book which bore the embossed word DIARY along its leather spine. Although the tiny brass clasp yielded to her fingers, the even more minute key attached by sellotape, wouldn’t budge in the lock.
At last.
The lock finally clicked open and, with no-one else within snooping distance, she turned back the worn leather cover and its mottled end paper and on the first thin page began to read:
This diary belongs to Charles Edmund Pitt-Rose
aged 8 years, 5 months, 10 days, 6 hours.
Dormitory 9. Weyborne School. Bridport. Dorset.
Great Britain. Europe. The World. Hemisphere. Stratosphere.
Hades.
PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL
Any other eyes that look,
Will be severely brought to book.
Hades was an odd addition from one so young. Or was it? Then she remembered what the Philippina had said. He’d also allegedly used it to describe Heron House.
Her breakfast Diet Coke began to churn around inside her as she began to read the first entry, dated Monday 12th September 1945, where, immediately, she spotted Betsan’s name. But in what context was impossible to see as without warning, the breeze had suddenly become a dusty wind trying to turn the well-used pages for her.
“Stop!” she snapped, facing the other way so she could concentrate. However, the wind only strengthened, bringing a voice she now dreaded. That could, if she let it, drive her insane.
“I can’t, I can’t. Surely that photograph you stole shows how frightened he was? My darling little brother who was forbidden to see me, his loving sister. His only sister. Never to come home, even for Christmas...”
Margiad Pitt-Rose.
“Yes, that’s me and it’s taken you long enough to find out. But then, why should you care? You’re like all the living. Selfish, blinkered. What a waste of a life.”
Helen secured her hood even tighter around her mess of hair to blot out the cruel monologue. To keep her head free for her own thoughts. Hadn’t Jason experienced the same phenomenon with his Evil Eyes book? Yes. Except this time, the agenda was different.
“And when it mattered, nobody listened,” Margiad persisted. “To him or me. And don’t think he was the only one to suffer. There were two other young boys who’d strayed too far. Learnt too much about things that were private, so they were…”
“What?” Helen shivered, glimpsing ordinary people passing the open gates.
“Violated then thrown in the swimming pool. Where they almost drowned my Jason…”
My Jason?
I tried to save them, but was punished for it. You see, their cries had torn at my heart, my soul.”
That once refreshing Coke was now acid in Helen’s throat. Her pulse jumping and that wind still tossing the branches and scattering litter.
“When did this happen? And who’s ‘they?’”
“Hasn’t my Jason told you?”
“No.”
“He’s had every opportunity.”
Just then, a Chinese guy with his toddler son walked by hand in hand, heads bowed against the wind. This picture of normality made her vision blur. They stared briefly in her direction, probably suspecting a multi-personality disorder, before moving on.
“ It was yesterday, in your present time,” the voice went on. “Ask him.”
“You’re lying. You want to suck every last ounce out of me like you’re doing with him. Or rather, you did to him. I’m supposed to forget about that? Am I?”
“He enjoyed it. Begged me for more, if you must know. I can still hear every word… Now,” the tone hardened, “give me my dead brother’s things.”
“You’re disgusting! Leave us alone!”
“Never.”
An angry crack of breaking glass suddenly filled Helen’s ears, followed by that same eerie scream she’d heard outside the art gallery. Not only was the diary being pulled from her grasp by a relentless force she’d never experienced before, but the horrible feeling of something moving beneath her clothes towards her pants.
She shrieked for help, unable to get up and run away, but at last managed to push the memoir between the bench and her thighs. Sealed tight, as the voice grew even more threatening. “Give me the diary. He’s my baby brother, not yours.”
“So what are you trying to hide? Who hanged him? Someone we know?”
A pause in which that sickly smell of roses met her nose.
“My Jason will have the answers. You’re not worth it. I had a child, remember? Unborn, but still something you’ll never, ever have…”
Helen shivered and couldn’t stop. “Your father’s, was it? Like Llyr?”
That breaking glass din returned. She covered her ears. Saw the play area’s trees and shrubs swaying back and forth as if in a deadly dance.
“I’ve been pro
tecting you and your hard heart, but no more. From now on, you’re on your own, and if you think my Jason will be putting your interests before mine, you’re wrong. You’ve had your chance, Helen Myfanwy Jenkins. So let’s see how you get on.”
***
With that wretched diary safely reburied in her now dirty pink rucksack, and a growing sense of foreboding enveloping her, Helen didn’t hang about. Instead, dizzily turned left into Radlett Road, thinking about that baby. Had it been a lie for her benefit, or part of a terrible reality?
Whatever. She was now in competition for Jason with a ghost. A ghost, for God’s sake. Time to make a call. Two calls in fact. She burrowed in her rucksack’s usual places.
No mobile.
She’d still had it in Sandhurst Mansion and when she’d crept into the damp, mean bed next to the bathroom in Nantwich Grove.
That was it.
Those two thieves must have struck when she’d gone in there.
Running now, into the wind, the swollen pad between her legs shifting out of place with each stride, but she didn’t care. Too much else was at stake.
“Where’s the nearest phone,” she panted at a passing suit. His directions a blur as she ran on, dodging the multitude of shoppers and drifters, all the while sensing that other force holding her back.
At the welcome sight of a silver threesome outside Islington Post Office she let out a cry of relief, only to have the breath punched from her lungs from behind, between her shoulder blades. With no chance to fight back, she fell on to her outstretched hands. Her rucksack adrift, just beyond reach and soon snapped up by a figure she half-recognised. When she got to her feet, the man had gone. Her rucksack emptied of the diary lay a few paces on. No-one she asked had seen anything. No-one helped. And it wasn’t until she’d flagged down the first taxi to come along, did she realise who her cowardly assailant had been.
36.
Saturday 19th October 1946 – 10 a.m.
The horrifying Heron House jigsaw was slowly beginning to piece together, but with that important school inspection looming, there’d been little time for him and Robert to save Margiad and young Betsan from any more harm, or to try and bring Edmund Pitt-Rose and his cronies to justice.