27

‘What are we going to do?’ My heart was thumping with panic. I looked at Sam who was staring down at the half-exposed skull, his initial shock turning to revulsion.

‘I don’t know.’ He wiped his face. ‘Dig the rest of it up, I suppose.’

‘Must we? I suppose … we can’t just bury it again?’

‘Don’t be daft. You can’t leave it there.’ He stepped back into the hole. There was a faint crunch and he came up again, quickly. Sam had wrestled with grizzlies, tackled gun runners in the Amazonian forest, fought off orcs, but only on a computer screen. There was nothing virtual about this skull. It was indisputably real.

‘It could be old butcher’s bones,’ I suggested. ‘If it’s just the family rubbish heap. We don’t know it’s human.’ Wishful thinking, but I’d known, the moment Sam had explained the meaning of O dan y goeden afalau that we were about to uncover something bad.

Sam thought about this. The exposed dome was pale against the dark soil. Could it be anything else? There was only one way to find out. He gingerly stepped back into the hole, placing his feet with care, and crouched over the skull, working the soil loose with his fingers.

An eye socket.

Sam swallowed, worked on. A jaw bone, teeth. We could see enough. It was a human skull.

I was going to be sick.

Sam was looking pretty green too. ‘It’s getting too dark,’ he decided, hauling himself up. He was breathing heavily as he brushed his jeans down. ‘Take another look in the morning.’

‘What if it rains? The hole will flood.’ I pictured the crumbling earth washed back over that white Thing.

Sam found some blue plastic sheeting, left by the builders, with a small heap of sand and half a bag of rock hard cement, in the remains of one of the barns. Using stones from the garden wall, we pinned it out over the pit, with mutual relief as the skull disappeared from our gaze. While it was visible, it seemed impossible not to look at it. Even now that it was safely under the blue plastic, I had an almost irresistible urge to lift a flap and look.

We went out for dinner. The idea of food didn’t really appeal to either of us, but neither did the thought of staying at Cwmderwen. Even when I turned all the lights on as a gesture of encouragement, the stark bright light only emphasised the pitch black that had settled on the back garden. So we drove out to the pub in Felindre where we skipped the Thai-style crab cakes and red mullet couscous, and settled on sausage and chips and sticky toffee pudding. There was nothing quite like nursery food by a log fire to convince us that all was well, and that somewhere out there were adults who would deal with this problem.

But when the sticky toffee pudding was devoured and we sat and faced each other over the pub table, we had to acknowledge that we were the responsible adults. Coping with Marcus was nothing to this.

‘So who is it?’ asked Sam, his voice low, although the few other customers, mostly gathered round the dart board, weren’t bothered with us. ‘It can’t be our grandfather, can it?’

‘No, I’ve seen his grave. He’s buried at the chapel in Llanolwen.’

‘Okay, so … You know it could be nothing to do with us.’

‘Nothing to do with us!’ I squeaked. ‘It’s buried in my back garden!’

Sam patted my hand to hush me. ‘I meant, nothing to do with the Owens. It might be really ancient.’

‘Robert said “under the apple tree,” remember? This has to be what he meant. He wasn’t talking about a pile of buttons.’

‘No, okay, so who is it?’

I felt the tears welling, couldn’t stop myself. ‘Rose isn’t buried at the chapel.’

‘Rose? Oh hell. Surely not.’

‘She was a suicide, remember. What did they do with suicides?’

‘Dump them in a shallow grave in the back garden? Oh Jesus.’

‘It makes sense. I felt it as soon as I saw Cwmderwen; I felt there was something it wanted me to do. This is it. It was Rose calling me. My grandmother. The child who was raped, abandoned, as good as murdered. She wanted me to find her and…’

Sam looked at me, to see just how serious I was. At that moment, more than a little drunk, I was deadly serious.

‘Shit,’ he said.

Our return to Cwmderwen was no fun. Why hadn’t I thought of having a security light fitted? Why hadn’t we at least left a light on?

I didn’t sleep at all that night, and I knew, from the persistent creaking of the camp bed in the adjoining bedroom, that Sam was doing no better. But daylight helped, even the half-hearted light of a December morning. We sat at the gate-leg table, with mugs of coffee and bowls of cereal, and reconsidered the problem.

‘You realise we ought to call the police,’ said Sam, having another helping of muesli, since it was all I had.

‘No. Not yet at least. If it’s Rose, can’t we, I don’t know, take her out gently? With a bit of dignity? I don’t want policemen stomping all over her. When she’s out, maybe.’

‘We get her out?’

‘We have to.’

So, fortified with coffee, we ventured back out. The blue plastic was still there, and when we rolled it back, so was the skull. We hadn’t dreamed it then.

There was nothing to stop us, no one to see. The garden was enclosed by a wall of trees. Even in their winter nakedness, they were too tangled and crowded to let anyone spy on us. Unexpected visitors or hikers on the footpath through the field would only glimpse the front of the house. We could quietly dig up or bury half a dozen bodies round the back and no one would see a thing.

Sam set to work with the spade again. Yesterday, he was digging with wild abandon. Today, knowing what to expect, he was more circumspect.

He dug a coffin-shaped pit down to the level of the half-exposed skull, and more fragments of bone began to appear.

What do you do with exhumed bones? It was all very well declaring that I wanted Rose treated with dignity, but how exactly? On a previous visit, having ideas about a quaint brass bed, I’d bought some equally quaint bed linen. It was still in its cellophane wrapping in the dresser. I unpacked one of the floral sheets. We both eyed the whisky bottle, decided it was not a good idea. Not yet, anyway.

‘Right,’ said Sam. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

The larger bones were easily exposed. Shoulder blade, pelvis, arm and leg bones. She lay on her side, crumpled up as if forced into a tiny space. How could they have done this to her, dumping her with such callous contempt? My Nan had allowed this?

Sam started working with an old paintbrush left by the builders, sweeping delicately round each bone.

‘We’re not going to be able to get it up in one go, you know,’ he said. ‘Can I pass you her arm? It’s in the way.’

I steeled myself. ‘Wait.’ I spread out the sheet, pinning down the corners against the sharp gusts of wind that whipped round unexpectedly. ‘All right. I’m ready.’

One by one, the bones of an arm. In one scoop the bones of a hand. Rose’s hand. I looked at it, pathetic on the flowered cotton. I would not cry. The humerus had been broken once. I could see the break, snapped and mended. How had she broken her arm, I wondered?

Sam was working to free the ribs now. I could see breaks there too. Unhealed, this time. Jagged edges. ‘If I can just loosen here,’ he said, sitting back on his haunches, to get better purchase on the rib cage. ‘It’s got…’ He stood up suddenly.

‘What is it?’ I asked, straining to see what it was he could feel.

‘I’m not sure.’ He crouched down again, leaning over the ribs, working, brushing, loosening, tugging, then he stood up again. ‘Yow!’

In his hand was the corroded head of a pitchfork.

I had to run to the wall, to throw up.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Sam, following me.

‘Wonderful.’

He sat beside me on the wet grass, as I buried my face in my hands. I couldn’t believe they could have done this. Thrust her into her grave with a pitchfork? What sort of animals were they?

‘Come on,’ said Sam, his arm round me. ‘Let’s leave it for a bit.’

‘No! No, I want to finish it, get her out, now.’

It took Sam all day and the light was fading again, but all the bones were exposed now. He made other finds: heavy rusting chain, metal shards and there was what appeared to be a sledge hammer, at her feet. Sam was no longer shocked. He merely held the hammer up and looked at me.

I took it from him, my jaw clenched shut.

We looked down again at the huddled skeleton, the curve of the spine. That was intact, right up to the skull. A pang seized me. It meant that when she’d hanged herself, her neck hadn’t broken. Had she slowly throttled on the rope?

Licking his lips nervously, Sam got a firm grip on the skull and pulled it free from its cradle of stagnant earth, a nightmare parody of Yorick in his hands. I saw, full on for the first time, the face of my poor aunt, grandmother, tormented child… and the gaping jagged shattered hole in the left temple.

Sam’s hands were trembling. I took the skull from him, staring at it with pity and revulsion. Sam picked up the heavy weight of the hammer and tentatively held it to the gaping wound. A perfect match.

‘Sai,’ he said, keeping his voice steady with difficulty. ‘I don’t think this is Rose.’

‘It stands to reason.’ Sam had had three whiskies to relieve the strain and was getting loud. ‘I mean, 1948. It wasn’t the Middle Ages. I don’t know what the law was then about disposing of bodies, but they couldn’t have just tipped a dead girl in a hole in the ground, could they? And if it isn’t Rose, so who is it? More to the point, what are we going to do about it? It’s no good. We’re going to have to call the police.’

‘No!’

‘Sai, it’s a murder. We can’t just cover it up and pretend we haven’t noticed it. They’ll have to have it, see if they can find out who it is. Probably a bit late to investigate, but—’

‘It’s obvious who it is.’ I buried my head in my arms on the table. Why hadn’t I guessed long ago? Everything made sense now, including the resolute silence.

‘Who?’

I looked up with a sigh. ‘It’s got to be Peter Faber.’

‘The German? The German! Of course. That explains the old breaks in the bones. And all that metal round the legs, maybe that was shrapnel.’

‘Probably. I expect he was wounded in the war. Plenty of time to heal up.’

‘Yes, but hang on. I thought he was seen boarding a ship?’

‘They would say that, wouldn’t they? And don’t you see, if it is him, we can’t possibly go to the police.’

‘I don’t see why not?’ Sam gave a macabre laugh. ‘Means they can finally stop looking for him.’

‘I don’t think they ever were looking for him. Not really. They probably guessed. Bob Roberts was dropping heavy hints about lynch mobs. They just chose not to pursue it. But if we tell them now, they’ll want to dig up the whole story, and we can’t let them do that.’

‘Why not?’

Did I have to explain the obvious? ‘Faber killed our grandfather. So who killed Faber?’

‘Good question.’

‘Who had just seen her husband shot dead? Who had just lost her raped daughter? Whose garden was he buried in?’

‘Nan?’ Sam slammed his glass down and stared at me. ‘Nan Owen took a pitchfork to a German soldier, bashed his brains in and buried him in the back yard? Jeez.’

‘Who else could it have been?’

‘Well, I take my hat off to her. Sounds like she did the world a favour.’

‘Maybe that’s what everyone thought. William George was protecting her, pretending he’d seen Faber running off. Everyone else in the village probably played the same game, so the police never had any proof, even if they suspected. We can’t just hand them the evidence now, can we? Or do you want to be the one to tell Dilly that the police are about to label her dead sister as a murderess?’

Dawn was late. It was nearly eight o’clock and I could hear, distantly, the hum of cars ferrying people to their work. Sam and I would have started earlier, but it was so dark we would not have been able to see a thing. Torches would have been asking for trouble, even with the protection of the trees.

It was frosty. I was wrapped up in all my spare clothes, but Sam braved the cold in bare arms. He was putting so much energy into digging that the sweat was pouring off him. Neither of us wanted to waste time on this.

The grave where the bones were found was shallow. Barely three feet down. Probably as much as Nan could manage. If we were putting him back, I wanted him a lot deeper. Deeper than anyone would ever dig. Deep, but it didn’t have to be large; the bones were bundled up ludicrously in my floral sheet. Any idea of treating them with respect had evaporated when I’d realised they were the bones of a rapist and a murderer.

My true grandfather. I didn’t want this. Could I disown my forebears? Him, maybe, but I was not disowning his victim, Rose. I was claiming her with all my heart and soul.

When Sam was finally done, we dropped the package in, and I helped him shovel the earth on top. There was no escaping it; even when I’d raked the soil as level as I could get it, it still looked ominously like a grave, one patch of fresh bare earth in an expanse of dead weeds and sodden grass. Midwinter. It would take months for the weeds to grow back and cover the deed.

‘So.’ Job done, we’d retreated to the house for showers, and a second breakfast. Sam poured himself coffee. ‘What are your plans now?’

‘I don’t know.’ I glanced round the virtually empty room. It was no longer possible to see Cwmderwen as a place of lost laughter and happiness. I sensed only the misery, and the bones buried in the backyard. Had I avenged Rose by unearthing them, or had I just been sucked into the conspiracy of silence by reburying them?

Here I was, the keeper of the family tomb. I’d become a character in one of Sam’s computer games. ‘I’ll do the place up, I suppose.’ I tried to concentrate on thoughts of Laura Ashley and scrubbed pine.

‘Invite Mum here for Christmas?’ suggested Sam.

I grimaced at the thought. ‘We’ll be spending Christmas in Hove, with Dilys.’

‘You’re not going to tell either of them about the, you know.’ Sam nodded towards the back garden.

‘No of course not! I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m sure Mum knows nothing about it, and Dilly will take the secret to her grave.’

‘And Robert?’

‘Robert!’ I’d forgotten him. We both thought of that recording. Under the apple tree. How many more secrets were hidden in his long rambling? How many times, I wondered, had he sat reciting an account of my grandfather’s death and Nan’s revenge, to uncomprehending ears?

‘We still don’t know exactly what he was saying,’ said Sam, picking up the recorder from my pile of evidence and turning it over in his hand.

‘We can guess, can’t we?’

‘Yes, but come on. We’ve got to know.’

‘How? There’s no way I’m going to hand it over to some complete stranger. Whatever happens, I’m going to make sure the police are kept out of this.’

‘Let me make a copy, take it back with me. I know people. I’ll think up some story.’ Sam grinned. ‘I’m good at that. And it’s all far, far away; no one is going to ask too many questions.’

The temptation was overwhelming. ‘Go on then. Take it.’

It was three days before Christmas when I got Sam’s call. ‘Sai. Season’s greetings and all that.’

‘You don’t sound in festive mood.’

‘Too much on. Listen.’

‘Go on.’

‘That recording. I know a guy here at the gym. About as Welsh as Nelson Mandela if you ask me, but he belongs to one of these expat I Love Wales groups. You know, flying red dragons on St.David’s Day.’

‘And?’

‘So I asked him if there were any proficient Welsh speakers in the group and I came up with this story—’

‘Knowing you, it was a complicated one. Did it involve orcs?’

‘No, a therapist in Wisconsin, who – Just take my word for it, it was convincing. And Sai, I got the translation. My friend knows a guy, an academic and he agreed to do the deed.’

Was I ready for this? ‘Good. I think.’

‘It was the best he could do. Sai.’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s not what we were expecting. You won’t like it.’

‘No? Somehow I didn’t think I would.’

‘I’m telling you I’ve got it done, but are you still sure you want to read it?’

‘I don’t want to, but of course I have to. I haven’t come this far just to let this last bit rest.’

‘All right then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Okay, there. I’ve sent it. Check your emails. Merry Christmas.’

Merry Christmas. I downloaded my mail, opened the attachment, prepared for Robert’s revelation of murder and violent revenge.

Sam, I’ve had a go, as requested. Some major problems. It’s very colloquial Welsh, not my dialect, Pembrokeshire I think, and it’s pretty indistinct. Think in terms of a spoken equivalent of an old letter whose ink has run and smudged. And there’s the lack of expression. I am guessing there are several voices, but they all blend together, so it took me a while to make any sense of it. I haven’t attempted to guess where one voice leaves off and another starts. I suppose it’s what you get with hypnosis. Don’t know if the result will be any help to your therapist friend. Not surprised the old man was traumatised, if he’s been burying this for 75 years. Here it is.

Translation for Sam Peterson.

Rose and Jack and Robert. Disobedient slut. She was a harlot child of the devil, she was no daughter of mine. I curse her. Dilys. Cake. God, there is a brave boy. Now then, Jack, be a good boy. William George, I do not need you to keep us. No charity here. *** Sorry, can’t make this out, but it could be Biblical.

Did I not tell you to keep off my land? Please, Peter, go. I beg you, Peter run. Filthy beast, have you come here to find another whore? Go now, Peter. Run Peter now, or he will kill you too. *** expletives? You will not hurt her. You will not speak to me, dog. Bits here I can’t understand at all. Sounds like a cat mewing. Why will you not die, devil? I will finish you for ever. Take that, Satan. I am master here. Get away, devil, I will take care of this. Not on my land. I am master…

…There is nothing under the apple tree…

…murderer, you have killed Peter and you have killed my Rose. You are an animal. You have told lies about me. Silence is the lie. I should shout out what you did to Rose, evil animal…

…He is the voice of God – he knows what is under the apple tree. Liar. There is nothing under the apple tree. I will cut his tongue out. You will not touch Robert. You will not lift your hand against him again.

…You are the devil John Owen. Murderer, you will not kill another child of mine.

It was raining in Guildford. My room was dark, lit only by the computer screen, as I endlessly reread the translation of Robert’s regurgitation of uncomprehended memories, making piecemeal sense of the confusion. What was there left to say? For nine months I’d been seeking answers, but I never thought to ask the right question. Not, why did my grandfather die, but why didn’t she kill him sooner?

‘Merry Christmas, Dilly,’ I said, softly, invalid talk. I was amazed to see her so well. But it would take more than a stroke to defeat my great-aunt Dilys.

Her eyes were bright black buttons, as observant as ever. ‘Merry Christmas, Sarah.’ I could distinguish the words although they were slurred. Dilys shook her head in frustration at the refusal of her lips to obey her precise commands.

‘Sorry,’ I whispered.

She glanced at me sideways. Body language: stuff and nonsense. She didn’t have to say the words.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘What happened. I know. Peter Faber, Nan, everything. And I will never tell.’

Her eyes met mine, her hand over my fingers.

‘What are you two whispering about?’ asked my mother, coming into the room with a plate of mince pies and a bottle of sherry.

‘I’m explaining about Marcus.’

‘Nothing to explain,’ said my mother complacently. ‘Don’t you go nagging her, Dilly. I know you were looking forward to a wedding, but she did the right thing.’

Dilys scowled, and muttered, and then she smiled. ‘Stuff and nonsense.’

‘So let’s open the presents,’ said my mother. ‘Let’s see.’ She sifted through the pile of glittering packages we had heaped around the tiny tree we’d insisted on installing in her room, much to Dilys’ indignation. ‘Here’s one for you from Sam, Dilly.’ She shook it. ‘He wouldn’t dare send you a pipe again, I’m sure.’ She handed it over. A silk scarf. I knew; I’d bought it for him. ‘And here’s yours to Sarah.’

‘Thank you, Dilly.’ I took the neat little package, ready to untie the ribbon, but Dilys’ hand was on mine again.

‘No. Something else.’ She was struggling to get up.

‘Let me,’ said my mother, but Dilys slapped her away, stubborn as ever. ‘I can do it.’ She hobbled to the wardrobe, and rummaged in a box. ‘This is for Sarah.’

The old photograph album.

‘Goodness,’ said my mother. ‘Well that will keep her occupied. Look.’ She talked lightly, leaning over my shoulder as I turned the pages. ‘The Lewis family, isn’t it? How lovely. That must be the garden of the cottage you’ve bought, Sarah. There’s Jack! He looked just the same, the last time I saw him. And there’s Rose.’ My mother said the name without hesitation. I knew that the suspicion I’d sown at our last meeting had stuck. It had aroused curiosity, sympathy, even pain, but it hadn’t wounded her. Not enough to make her forget that Dilys’ feelings were her sole concern. She was speaking, I knew, because someone had to speak. A silence would be too awkward. ‘Yes, Sarah does look like her.’

This time, Dilys didn’t say, ‘Stuff and nonsense.’ She nodded.

While my mother left the room to find an extra glass, I kissed Dilys’ cheek. ‘Thank you,’ I said, hugging the album. ‘I promise I will never say another word, except this. Rose. I have to know. Where is she?’