Friday 3rd April 2009 – 2 p.m.
Having heard the hall phone ring early, Helen had stopped in the middle of brushing her teeth to open her bedroom door and listen. That same Jason guy had been trying to cadge an extra week at Heron House. Bloody cheek, she’d thought, having herself been told in no uncertain terms that if any of her arty mates wanted to freeload here, then tough. They’d have to stay at the Fox and Feathers. Heffy, however, was the exception. Mr Flynn had liked the sound of her.
But why had The Rat still hung around, even though he’d ordered her into the laundry room? One day, when the pest had gone or died, she’d snitch on her big time. But right now, until a better job came along, she must cling to this one like a bluebottle to a fly strip.
“Mr Robbins will be arriving at 5.20 p.m. at Swansea station,” Mr Flynn informed her later as he was getting ready for another stint at the pub. “I told him there’d be a car waiting, and afterwards, a nice three-course meal. Can we do that?” His eyes with their well-worn twinkle, weakened her defences as he pressed a crumpled twenty-pound note in her hand.
“We?”
“Come on, Helen. It’s just a figure of speech. You know you’re my main man round here. It’s crucial we get things off to a good start. Our Londoner sounds like the kind of punter who’ll spread the word. And right now, the word’s what we need...”
***
For a start, her hair out of its pony tail scrunchie, for the first time in yonks, stuck out in all directions, refusing to lie flat against the nape of her neck. Secondly, her car, an aged Ignis with a dodgy tyre and even dodgier clutch, hadn’t seen a vacuum cleaner since the day of her interview in February. Soil and dead leaves covered its once jolly mats, while a layer of stubborn green slime lined each of the windows.
At least it was a car, she told herself, still ratty at having to drive a round trip of eighty miles to include shopping en route. If Mr Robbins so much as mentioned the state of it, he could damned well leg it up-country on his own.
So preoccupied was she with overtaking those caravans and camper vans, that seemed to have sprouted on the roads overnight, she forgot altogether how two events had freaked her out recently. The first, on Wednesday’s walk to Aunty Betsan’s bungalow up on Pen Cerrigmwyn, when she’d spotted what must have been the remains of that poor Collie dog Mr Flynn had mentioned. Bits of black and white fur lying in rain-thinned blood.
Next, a dark, motionless figure standing in front of the silent lead mine workings. She’d stayed there holding her breath for a few minutes until, as if she’d been dreaming, it faded away.
As for this strange experience, her boss didn’t need to know everything, but Betsan Griffiths did. The neatly turned out spinster who’d claimed she’d once catered for local weddings and hotels in Llandovery and Llanddewi Brefi, had neither seen nor heard of any mysterious watcher. “Rain and wind, mind, can cause some right old tricks,” she’d said, handing Helen four of her easiest recipes for main meals. “Mind you, some say that since that village was drowned under Llynn Brianne, there’s been a few dead folk wandering about, looking for their homes. So she says.”
“Who’s she?”
“The cleaner over at your place.”
“Gwenno?”
Instead of a nod, the woman had frowned. Something clearly bugging her. “I never call her that. She’s done me too much harm. Her and her mouth. And she’s not the only one.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You watch yourself.”
“I will.”
And then the back door had closed behind her, for the rods of rain to hit her skin and deliver, not for the first time, a gnawing sense of unease. What had Aunty Betsan meant by those strange remarks? What harm exactly? And who else had she meant?
***
“Can I help you, madam?” asked a large guy trapped inside a navy blue tabard at a Fforestfach store. “You seem lost.”
“Parmesan,” she said, suddenly realising why she was here. “And bay leaves. For a spag bol.”
Once outside in the busy car park, she checked her watch. Ten minutes left for a rush-hour trip of six miles. She’d miscalculated the volume of traffic. So little passed by Heron House, that even the post van or forestry lorry was an event.
Her resentment at feeling used, mounted with every lurch and stop of her car. OK, so Mr Flynn had soon come clean about the writing courses. But had he seriously been expecting her to rustle up the promised fare with no notice? Of course. That’s how he operated. Impulse his middle name, with others – meaning her – picking up the pieces. Idris Davies, the groundsman, said the same on the rare occasions he’d communicated with her, but like his wife, he’d been at Heron House for years. So long in fact, that the oaks and dead chestnuts, the banks of rhododendrons and the bluebell trail, had become closer to him than any close relative. And, in his eyes, no-one, not even Mrs Davies, it seemed, matched up to them.
The wind was different here. Sharper, more gusty, coming off the sea. The rain too with no mountain barrier between these outskirts and the Bay. Helen switched on Radio 4, only to turn it off again. She’d given up listening to the news, but not so her mam up in Borth. An energetic primary school teacher, full of suggestions for what her only child with – in her eyes – a useless degree, should really be doing to ‘ride the recession’ as she’d put it. Undertaking had been top of her list of suggestions. ‘Everyone has to die sometime. The one sure thing.’
So it was. But not just yet.
***
Once in Swansea, near the station, Helen parked her Ignis up on the kerb outside a greasy spoon café and switched off its grunting wipers. Her curiosity about the emergency arrival now outweighed her resentment at his nerve. Perhaps he was as old as Mr Flynn. Or older. Perhaps he had a shady past best kept hidden. As she tried opening her knackered umbrella against the wind, she realised with a churning pulse, she was soon about to find out.
Commuters. Swarms of them, striding, clack-clacking along the platform towards her like a dark, rough sea. Who was she looking for? There’d been no description asked for, or given. Just that Jason Robbins would be wearing a black leather jacket plus jeans, and carrying a battered suitcase.
And then she spotted it. Attached to a guy in yes, black leather and stone-washed denim who seemed paler than his travelling companions, with a more wary look in his eye. His gelled brown hair bristled from his head, and from the lobe of his left ear, glistened a small stud.
Not her sort at all.
However, she’d been trained to observe, to look hard at her subject, and saw that although that suitcase with its rusted steel corners, seemed medieval, the shoes weren’t cheap. Nor the jacket that hung from a pair of broad shoulders. As he handed his ticket to the waiting inspector, she noticed there was no wedding ring. She also wondered what job he did to be able to take an extra week off. Why it was so important to come to Wales now, and whether or not he had a return ticket tucked away somewhere.
He glanced up, caught her eye, then walked past her, probably thinking that a representative of the grandly-named Heron House would at least look the part.
“Hi.” She ran after him, pushing her wet hair off her face. Aware how naff she looked in the black suit not worn since her uncle’s funeral three years ago. “Are you by any chance Jason Robbins?”
He stopped, turned to face her, that same wary expression giving way to a smile. “Are you Patsy Palmer?”
“Funny, not. I’m Helen Jenkins from Heron House.” She held out her right hand like Mr Flynn had told her to do. “Welcome to wet and windy Wales. Or, as they say here, Croeso i Gymru.”