Sunday 5th April 2009 – 7.30 a.m.
Colin’s late-night call had caught Jason by surprise, interrupting a dream where he and Helen had been strolling hand in hand along some empty, unfamiliar beach. His normally predictable brother had urged him back to Hounslow.
“Why? What’s up?” Jason had said.
“She’s dumped me, right?”
“The Girlfriend?”
“Fancies her boss instead. Has done all along, apparently. Look, it’s pretty weird here on my own.”
Not as weird as here.
Jason had known what was coming next and jumped in.
“I can’t. Sorry, mate,” he’d said. “I really am.”
“C’mon, Jaz. You can have my room. Borrow the Merc whenever.”
Jaz? Colin hadn’t called him that since they’d been kids at school together. Before one got lucky and the other not.
He’d watched raindrops racing down the pane. He’d not gloated, knowing what being ditched was like, but no way would he take the bait. He was needed here. Helen needed him, never mind the dead Betsan Griffiths and the demanding, invisible enigma with as yet no name.
“So that’s it?” Colin again, sounding half the guy he’d been last Friday.
“’Fraid so, but thanks anyway. Hope you get something sorted.”
***
Jason reached out to the bedside table and, like last night, took his Orange handset over to the window, beyond which the ugly lump of Dinas Hill seemed to have grown in every way. He dialled DC Jane Harris, then prayed this time she’d pick up and stay on board. She did. “I’m calling about Miss Jenkins again,” he began. “She may have reached London, but I need to be sure.”
“I should have a result some time this evening,” DC Harris said.
“Evening?” She might as well have said next year.
“Mr Robbins, traces normally take two or three days. I’ll do my best.”
He thanked her then rang Helen.
“Yes?” came a man’s voice. Irish. “Who’s that?”
Jason heard his own sigh of relief. “Monty Flynn?”
“I think so. Just about. You want Helen?”
I did in my dream.
“Yes, please,” said Jason. “I’ve been worried sick.”
“She’s fine. She’s with me. I’ll pass you over.”
Archie Tait had sworn he’d been fine too, with both legs off and half his face. The word should be banned. Then, at last, Helen was speaking. “I’ve been to Hell and back if you must know,” she said, barely audible. “I managed to do a bunk from that lift of mine at the Leigh Delamere Services near Swindon. A white Ford Transit van it was, with no tax disc.” She then described the driver who’d briefly tried the Travel Lodge. Even down to his stubble and black leather gloves.
“Dark blue top? Like the one you’d seen…”
“I couldn’t tell.” Then she repeated the man’s threat.
Never had Jason felt so helpless.
“Are you OK?”
She let out a brief, grim laugh.
“Where’s this freak now?”
“God knows. I had to hide in a wheelie bin all night. But I now know his trainers were the same as that skinhead wore yesterday in Mr Flynn’s study.”
Jason realised then that should anything happen to her, the life he’d so determinedly envisaged for himself, would crack open. “Listen,” he said, as a posse of ragged rooks fanned out from the roof of the house and diminished like sooty specks against the pale sky. “This is important. I’m putting two and two together, right? According to Gwilym Price, the Davieses had a son, Llyr. Early forties by now. No hair since birth. Nasty bit of work. Used to race around in some green truck he nicked from the Forestry Commission. The cops know about him, too. He’s got form...”
All he could hear was the murmur of traffic.
She’s gone.
“Helen? You there?”
“Stop it!” she snapped. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
“Who picked you up in Llandovery? Tell me.”
Another pause. Would she or wouldn’t she cut him off?
“Ethan Woods, so he said. Brings Welsh lamb to butchers in Surrey, but I swear his van was empty.”
“He could have killed you.”
“I coped, didn’t I? I’m here now and I don’t need a minder, thank you. I am twenty-two.”
Now came another voice in the background. The guy who’d so far not made much effort at being Monty Flynn. “Was he a skinhead beneath that beanie?” Jason pressed on. “Did he have a Welsh accent? Is there anything else you’d recognise?”
She wasn’t bothering to answer, and Jason’s neck was beginning to burn as it always did when he faced a brick wall. Time was also against him. She was too far away. “Look, I don’t want you getting hurt. That’s all.”
Another pause. Then Helen again.
“Look, we’re back on Tuesday. Meanwhile, there’s loads to sort here, like looking round Charles Pitt-Rose’s flat.”
“Why? It must still be a crime scene. And the garage.”
“Mr Flynn wants to find out more about the Davieses.”
Jason felt that inhospitable morning touch his still-warm skin. Thoughts of danger and death refusing to budge. “Well, tell him this. Someone’s totally cleared out his study. I checked in there late last night. He needs to know.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I am not.”
Pause.
“Don’t tell the police,” she sounded breathless. “You mustn’t. He’ll deal with it.”
“That’s an odd thing to say.”
“I know him. Right?” But she didn’t sound very convincing.
“I can get a train. Be with you by five o’clock. Just give me the address.”
“No.” Then she dropped her voice right down. “Mr Flynn wants you to stay at Heron House. He’s scared, OK? He’s just confessed the whole writers thing was a lie. It’s not happening.”
“What?”
Clever Gwenno…
Yet he felt as if a cold, black shadow had crept from the corner of the bedroom to envelop him, suck air from his lungs while the floor beneath his feet began to shift. His more pressing dream of writing his thriller, slipping away…
“He wanted witnesses, and me and you seemed the best of the bunch,” she continued.
“Witnesses? What for?” Now his heart was slowing down.
“Just do as he says. You told me you liked solving problems, so please be there. For me as well. And could you check my room’s still locked?”
But Jason’s mind was elsewhere.
“Hello?” Helen said.
“Course I will.”
So that’s why no other bedrooms had been set aside for paying visitors and that grotty, black swimming pool not smartened up. He’d been stung.
“One thing,” he said. “ Are you on pay-as-you-go with Nokia?”
“Why? Are you checking up on me? Don’t you trust me and Mr Flynn?”
“Do you?”
***
The morning was coming alive with the peck-pecking of more rooks on the mossy roof above him; an early chainsaw screaming up in the forest, and all the while, snatches of one of Jason’s favourite videos sneaked into his mind. The Whicker Man, where the unsuspecting cop had been lured to some wacky Scottish island to investigate a non-existent crime. He’d found the ending unwatchable. The whole premise profoundly disturbing, and here he was, not acting, but for real, in a similar Land of the Zombies. Had brother and sister put the Irishman under pressure not to have anyone else here? If so, why? Why too had Charles Pitt-Rose died?
Suddenly, helplessness and shame replaced the fear to still his whole body. Helplessness because normally by now he’d be down in the reception hall tearing through Yellow Pages for a cab to take him to Swansea. Shame because he’d not told Helen he thought he loved her.
Just then, the tinny beat of ‘Paper Planes’ broke into his regrets. By some miracle DC Harris had got through. She’d bust a gut to get a trace off Helen’s phone, but no joy, at least he was able to say he’d spoken to both her and her boss.
“That’s good.”
And then came DC Harris’ news that made Jason prop himself against the old dressing table. “My colleague DC Prydderych at Llandovery wanted to tell you himself but he’s on his way to an accident on the M4 near Binfield, just east of Reading. A white van it is, rolled off the hard shoulder some time after midnight. No sign of the driver, mind, but he must be somewhere.”
Ethan Woods?
“Two things lead us to believe he could be a Llyr Davies from Beulah who picked up your friend Miss Jenkins late last night from Llandovery station.”
“Beulah?” He remembered that name from the tourist guide. “That’s not so far from here.”
“Exactly. He rents a room in the village. We’re trying to trace its absent owner.”
Deep in his gut, Jason knew this was getting too close to home.
“Interestingly, that same van’s tyre tracks exactly match those by Heron House’s grounds,” she went on.
“And near Golwg y Mwyn?” His pronunciation of the bungalow’s name wasn’t perfect, but she understood.
“Yes. There’d been a U-turn nearby. Rain usefully softens the ground.”
“So that’s how he’d got away from that stile.”
“Quite possibly. And secondly, a receipt from the Fforestfach Tesco store for 4.40 p.m. on Friday 2nd April, with Miss Jenkins’ name written on the back, was discovered deep inside the passenger side cubby hole. To me – and not because I’m also a woman – for her to have hidden it, showed great presence of mind.”
A small, but fierce glow of pride seemed to swell Jason’s heart. “I’d say that’s typical. Have you spoken to her?”
“Just now, yes. She’s fine. I advised her and Mr Flynn to be vigilant. You as well, Mr Robbins. Although, judging by what we know of this Llyr character, he goes to earth, often for ages. But we have a DNA sample from a source in that cab, and it’s being matched now with that from a cold case going back five years.”
He took a punt. “From when he worked for Mr Price?”
“Sorry. I can’t say.”
The gigantic Dinas Hill had suddenly morphed into a sick shade of green while that detective’s attractive voice continued. “Sergeant Rees will be calling on you late morning to see Mr Llyr Davies’ parents,” she added. “I’d be grateful if his visit could be kept a surprise.”
“Sure.”
“And we know what Idris said to DC Prydderch about them being brother and sister, but remember, the old boy gets easily confused. They both do.”
Jason shook his head. Why would Gwilym Price lie about the Davieses?
“There must be certificates somewhere,” he said. “Proof they’re married. Proof this Llyr really is Idris’ son.”
“We’re looking. Meanwhile, just do as I ask. And may I add politely, that this matter is none of your business.”
Silence, in which Jason wondered what Dan Carver would say now.
“Can I ask when Miss Griffiths’ post-mortem’s being carried out?”
A slight pause.
“Tuedsay afternoon. Oh, and another reminder. Mr Flynn will need to fill in his statement as soon he’s back from London.”
***
Jason got dressed without bothering to wash. Something he’d never done even in that crowded Penge squat when he’d first moved to London. But he couldn’t risk meeting the siblings from Hell or he’d probably have killed them. Now, like his almost vanished hero Dan Carver, he had to be prepared. Be on alert.
The house felt too quiet. Too full of secrets brushing by him, filling the gloomy corridor as he headed for the windowless bathroom. By the time he’d zipped up his jeans, any indecision about what to do next had been replaced by a strategy. At least until Tuesday. Go on the charm offensive, he told himself. Butter up the Odd Squad, draw them out. Discover, if he could, who’d cleared out the study, and how come his OPERATION ROOK notepad was still missing. Finally, with a bit of luck, find out more about the son.
***
The kitchen didn’t feel right without Helen. Even less so with the diminutive figure of Gwenno Davies silhouetted against the one window, scrubbing out the kitchen’s Belfast sink that was twice as big as Colin’s trendy version.
“Bore da,” he smiled, even though she still kept her back to him. Even though it nearly choked him to say it. “Sorry I disturbed you both last night. Anxiety, that’s what it was. After you’d said there’d be no writing courses after all, I guess I panicked.”
But would even she believe such a rubbish excuse? He wouldn’t be hanging around to find out. With the coffee machine empty and cold, he picked up the half-full electric kettle and switched it on. Spooned instant coffee and three sugars into a mug while the rain outside still fell on the sodden trees and she kept up the scrubbing – her pale, bony elbows pushing in and out like some featherless battery chicken trying to get off the ground. “Yer a bag of lies, Mr Robbins. Just like our useless sandwich maker. And like I said, we’ll be telling Mr Flynn about your invasion of our privacy in our bedroom. Because that’s what it was.”
On the word ’privacy,’ she turned towards him. Her appearance the same as when he’d first clapped eyes on her. White hair in disarray. No make-up, the crossover apron in place and her scuffed black boots firmly placed on the stone flags. No sign of that weird riding crop. However, there was something different about her eyes. The direction of their gaze for a start. Their almost brazen focus. On his fly.
Oh my God...
He repositioned himself to press against the worktop as he poured boiling water into his mug. The aim now to grab a few biscuits from the nearby tin and hotfoot back to his room. But before he could do any of these things, she was there, next to him. One wet hand clenched over his like a dead weight. While the other...
“I’ll tell you everything, Mr Robbins. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Everything?”
That free hand was now on his zip. Tugging it against the denim fabric, moving it downwards. He felt dizzy, hot. Unable to break away. Coffee steam burning his nostrils. Before he knew it, she was in there. Shit. She was in there, inside his boxer shorts, stroking away, sliding her fist up and down, up and down his unplanned erection. She knew what to do alright. Christ, she knew what to do...
“There’s a nice big boy you are,” she cooed as she worked him, “and getting bigger. I could tell by the shape of yer nose, first time I saw you. Now then, Jason, what’s really bothering you. Why are you staying on here when there’s no need?”
On his foreskin now. Easing it back and pressing an expert finger into the little eye beneath, making him gasp. There was too much blood down there. Too heavy, with nowhere to go except out in the open and out of her hand...
Kneeling now, she took him in her crinkly mouth, back and fore, back and fore... “Ask, ask,” she murmured, suddenly pulling away, prolonging the moment of release. Jason glanced down, about to close his eyes and fall over an edge he’d never had any intention of visiting, when he saw not the face of an old, dried woman, but someone young and eager, whose large dark eyes rested on his. Whose soft, plump mouth expertly returned to the business. “I’ll tell you everything about being in Hell,” she said, as a different, darker room complete with that crucifixion print and a distinct smell of roses had suddenly enveloped them. “I’m Margiad Pitt-Rose who lived here too long. Who’s been trying to make you listen. So are you ready to listen?”
“Yes. Yes. Yessss...”