Larry woke guiltily to see Rosemary’s door wide open and, running across the footbridge, realised to his alarm that she wasn’t there. He ran to find Huw and together they searched the area. First they went to Gethyn’s house and that too seemed to be deserted. Huw decided to look in the hills in case they had gone for an early walk.
‘The car is there, so they can’t be far,’ Huw said. ‘You stay close by and whistle if she appears so I know to come back.’
Larry went into Gethyn’s house.
The door was locked but he forced a window without any difficulty.
He went from the small, overfilled front room in which he found himself, across the hall and into the main living room. The place was such a clutter that he despaired of finding anything to help him in his search for information. But when he opened the large cupboard that stood out from a corner in an untidy way, he gasped with shock.
It was filled with electronic equipment. He recognised several tape recorders, some machines that looked like radio receivers.
A large-volt battery stood against the wall behind the couch, connected to something that disappeared through the wall below the level of the skirting board. Cursing his ignorance in such matters, he blundered around the room wondering what to make a note of and how to deal with what he had found.
Seeing everything, yet understanding nothing, he knew that if he wasn’t careful he might lose the advantage he had been given. Somehow he must record what he’d found in case something happened, like being caught and treated like a thief.
He tried to calm his mind and take a cool look at what he had found. He looked at the boxes of tapes, picked one at random and stuck it in his pocket. He felt bemused by what he had found. In his wildest imaginings he hadn’t thought of anything as complex as this. He stood looking at the cupboard with its boxes and wires spilling out, but not seeing what it all meant.
He shook his head to clear his mind, pressed the heels of his hands into his eyeballs, ran his hands through his hair and began again.
At once a slight tear in the wallpaper caught his eye. An examination showed it to be a tear on three sides of a square.
Lifting the flap that had been created, he saw it was hiding a hole that had been drilled through the shared wall, right to the wallpaper in Rosemary’s room.
A slight touch with a pen and he was through with a view of her room, too small to be used for spying, but good enough, he guessed, to hold a microphone attached to a recorder. All the time he had been living there, Gethyn had been watching and listening.
Rosemary could see from the drooped shoulders and the exhaustion in the lines on his face that Gethyn had come out of the rage that had engulfed him. She waited until he turned and looked at her then walked towards him slowly, but trying not to show her fear of his returning to the anger of a few moments ago. To her relief he smiled and when he spoke, his voice was low and gentle.
‘That’s been building up ever since my mother told me about how I became Gethyn Lewis,’ he said, taking her hand and slipping it through his arm. ‘I’m sorry you witnessed it but so very glad you didn’t go away. Just knowing you were there helped me cope with it.’
‘I have to go, Gethyn,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light. ‘If you’re sure you’re all right, I have to get ready and leave for work. Walk back with me will you?’
He held her, stopped her from walking on and said, ‘I know you don’t like me saying it, Rosemary, but I love you and feel our destinies are linked. If you would tell me you feel the same, the way I came to be here doesn’t matter. To think that I was taken from a street in Aberystwyth all those years ago and brought to live in the house next to your grandmother … doesn’t it seem like fate? You can’t deny that it was meant to be.’
He was holding her hand and squeezing her arm against him so tightly she began to feel the pain of it. His grip was like a clamp, threatening to stop the blood from coursing around her body. His eyes were wider than usual, giving his usually gentle face a fanatic stare. She began to be afraid. Instead of the negative answer she intended to give, she said, ‘I do know what you mean, Gethyn. Fate takes a hand and we hardly realise it most of the time. Only in very exceptional circumstances do we see clearly how our future is mapped out. Tortuous threads lead us to the here and now, and we accept what the day offers without considering how we reached our position, our—’
‘Destiny,’ he said softly.
‘But Gethyn, I really must go now. We can’t have me being given the sack, can we?’ She pulled away from him and he released her arm after a few moments with a puzzled look, as if he hardly knew it was there. Or perhaps had not expected her to want to be free, she thought with a shiver of apprehension. His tenseness was unnerving her and she was glad when he looked at her with his face returned to normal and said, ‘Go on, my darling. I want to wander around here for a while and think about what we do next. You know, don’t you, I’d never have let you go, not to the American. Somehow I’d have prevented you leaving. You belong here, with me, and this is where we’ll stay.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said, praying he would believe her lies.
Gethyn watched her go but instead of wandering as he had stated as his intention, he took a short cut down through the dangerously steep, wooded hillside, where boulders and ravines blocked the path of the inexperienced. He jumped over the fencing where it was low and was back at his door long before Rosemary, who had walked the usual way, had even come in sight of the cottages or sound of the stream.
She sensed the emptiness of the cottage long before she reached it. Without Larry there it was no longer a home. But she had to face the fact that Larry had lost patience with her and was gone. She was alone and the word, ‘alone’, seemed a more emotive word than ‘deranged’, she decided. She could escape from a deranged neighbour but not from being alone. ‘Alone’ represented a lifetime without Larry.
Larry was looking, with gradual understanding, at the collection of equipment gathered in the living room of Gethyn’s house.
He had searched the walls by smoothing the wallpaper with his hands; had been horrified to find a second hole drilled through the wall. Gethyn had been listening to their conversations and intimacies both in the living room and the bedroom.
Returning to the ground floor, reeling with the shock of the discovery, he began to untangle the intricacies of the wires and recording devices with greater determination. He daren’t try listening to one of the tapes although the idea was tempting; if anything were disturbed, Gethyn would be sure to guess. He felt in his pocket but decided to keep the tape he had taken from one of the boxes. He had to take away something to show the police. He daren’t stop and listen to what it contained, it was hardly likely to be a fairy story!
The first sound at the front door made him freeze and he stood half hoping that whoever it was would go away, the mailman perhaps? But the key, finding the lock and turning with a swift movement, unlocked his muscles and brain as well as the door and he fled into the only cover he could find, the closet under the stairs. As he pulled the door to, Gethyn entered the living room.
Rosemary knew as soon as she went inside and threw the bolt that she couldn’t go to work that day. She wouldn’t ever come into the house again if she left it now. She looked at the time and decided she would catch Megan before she left for work. She hadn’t intended to offer more than the mild excuse of a headache, but the friendly voice on the other end of the line soon had the story pouring from her.
At number one, there was a click, and reels began to turn.
She described the sensation of fear when she realised the depths of Gethyn’s instability, and ended by telling her friend that however long it took, she would find Larry. Megan listened to her and promised to both make her excuses that day, and help her search for Larry.
‘Although I don’t know where we start, do you?’ she said.
‘I think he went a long way away,’ Rosemary said. ‘His car isn’t here and from the way he stormed out yesterday, I don’t think he’d have stopped until he’d put a couple of hundred miles between us. I’ve been such a fool.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! How could he expect trust when he was so lacking in it? He still hasn’t told you why he’s here, remember. Are you really sure enough of him, even now? He’s kept you in the dark about so much of his life.’
‘There’s a good reason and he’ll tell me when he can. I haven’t been the most confidential person, have I? He’s asked me to keep a secret and I’ve told Gethyn. And the key. We made such a fuss, getting the locks changed and I, in my stupidity, gave a spare, as I’d always done, to Gethyn. And now it seems that Gethyn’s, well, deranged.’
‘Should you be talking like this now, if Gethyn can overhear?’
‘It’s all right, I left Gethyn up on the hill; I’d hear him if he came back. The house is empty so he can’t be listening to me. But I will be careful once he’s home. Megan, it’s very frightening.’
‘Want me to come, love?’
‘No. Thanks, but I have to face this or be a coward for the rest of my life.’
‘Don’t open the door, whatever you do.’
‘Not a chance!’
Larry was watching from the partly open door of the cupboard, wondering how long he could stay in such a cramped position without straightening his legs. Gethyn was standing with his back half towards him, his dark face in profile. He was watching the turning spool on a large tape recorder. Larry heard the click as it stopped and saw Gethyn press the button to begin to play it.
His own voice came clearly, and he was able to relive the quarrel he had contrived with Rosemary. It sounded good and from the way Gethyn was now smiling, he was satisfied too. Larry hoped he had convinced the man that he and Rosemary were finished. Her safety, her very life, might depend on it.
Gethyn played the quarrel over and over again and Larry waited, dreading discovery. The stiffness of his limbs began to trouble him and he hoped he could manage not to move while Gethyn was so close. The need to stretch made him lose his concentration and he was jerked from thoughts of his discomfort by a low growl of anger from Gethyn.
The recorder had stopped repeating the quarrel and Gethyn had allowed the tape to run. He had reached the conversation between Rosemary and Megan. Larry went cold as he saw the change in Gethyn’s expression. Rosemary was pouring out the story of the encounter at the graveyard, and her thoughts that Gethyn was ‘deranged’. She spoke emotionally of her love for Larry, and this enflamed Gethyn and made him growl, low in his throat. His hands twitched and he kept mouthing the words, ‘the American, the American’, and Larry feared for his own life.
How could he escape? Larry ran all the possibilities through his anxious mind. He daren’t show himself, not now he knew how much Gethyn hated him. In his confused mind, the man was obviously blaming him for taking Rosemary from him; he wouldn’t be persuaded that even without Larry’s arrival, Rosemary would never have loved him.
Talking to Gethyn would not be the solution, especially if he showed himself as an intruder, who had uncovered his secrets. He settled for a long wait, dreading the possibility of moving and making a sound, or of the dusty surroundings creating the need to sneeze.
His heart almost failed him when Gethyn began to step over the piles of clutter towards him. He held his breath, expecting the door to be flung open and be dragged from his hiding place but the man went past the cupboard and climbed the stairs, his footsteps creaking the boards above him.
It was now or never. Larry shot out of the cupboard and, half imagining seeing Gethyn staring down from the stairs, he reached the kitchen and looked frantically at the door. If it was bolted then he wouldn’t get out without being heard, but miraculously, and typically, it wasn’t even locked. He turned the brass knob and escaped out of the house into the clean, crisp air.
Above him, he heard the chain being pulled in the bathroom and on weak legs he reached the back door of Rosemary’s house and fumbled for his key. If it was bolted he could make his excuses, better that than be seen running like a bat out of hell down the side of Gethyn’s garden.
Gethyn’s voice called to him and nervousness made him drop the key. Bending over to find it gave him a few seconds to recover. He pretended to have just locked the door.
‘Women!’ he said. ‘They want to own you, every inch. They give you the runaround then expect you to apologise. I’ve had it up to here with this one. Hell, they expect too much of a guy, don’t you think, Gethyn?’
‘I think wicked women should be punished,’ Gethyn said quietly.
‘Hell, don’t I just agree! Well, I’ll be off, and glad to shake the dust of this place off my shoes.’ He edged away from Gethyn, intending to make for the bottom of the garden and the lane beyond the fence, but Gethyn stopped him.
‘What d’you think is the right punishment for wicked women, then?’
‘Leave ’em flat, man. If there’s no future in it, get away and as far as you can.’
‘I mean really wicked.’
The last thing Larry was capable of was a philosophical discussion, and unnerved as he was, he said the first thing that came into his head.
‘Some need their brains blowing, some need a kick up the ass. Some want locking up. But an ordinary quarrel, well, I guess it’s best to move right away and that’s what I intend doing, right now.’ He hurried down the path and out of the gate on legs that seemed to be made of unset jelly, and once outside, he leaned on the wall to recover.
Gethyn went back inside and began to sort through the untidy collection of unlikely items he would need to punish the American with for pushing his way into his life and for hurting Rosemary. Pulling the cloth off a low table, he pulled from beneath it, where it had been hidden by the folds of the cloth, the box of fireworks he had bought and never used.
He gathered together a light bulb, some electric fittings, a file, some tubing and a length of electric cable. The punishment should be aimed at Rosemary, women were the evil ones, but now it had to be the American. Larry was the only suitable target. That was much more satisfactory. Rosemary wasn’t really wicked, she was only weak and soon, she’d belong to him. His eyes glowed with an excitement and his face showed a contented smile as he began his preparations.
Larry walked across the fields to collect his car that had remained undisturbed since he had hidden before his sojourn in Rosemary’s loft-space. Driving carefully out of the muddy field, he made his way into town. He hoped Rosemary was at work, he needed to convince her of Gethyn’s insanity and he needed to do it fast, before she went home. Unaware that he had been close to her as he had left Gethyn’s house, he drove away from her and went to the library.
‘She’s at home,’ Megan told him and he groaned with frustration.
‘I can’t go there and I can’t phone her,’ he said. ‘If Gethyn sees or hears me, there’s no knowing what he’s capable of doing.’
‘Police,’ Sally said firmly and she reached for the phone.
‘No!’ His hand went out to stop her. ‘I want to get Rosemary away from there before he’s warned. Can you get a note to her?’ he asked and when Megan agreed to go during an early lunch-break, he added, ‘And warn her not to discuss anything while she’s in that house. That sonofabitch listens to everything that goes on there, and I mean everything!’
Sally found him some writing paper and he wrote down his reasons for coming there, telling them both the story first in case the note was, for some reason, not read. He admitted that he had overheard her telling Barbara at a New York party where she lived and had acted on it by following her to London and faking an introduction by pretending to be a stranger there.
‘I promised my mother that one day, I’d go to Aberystwyth and search for my missing brother; the coincidence of Rosemary belonging in the area was too good to miss,’ he said, as he hurriedly wrote down his explanations.
‘How was your brother lost?’ Sally asked. ‘Did he go missing at sea or something like that?’
‘No, he was stolen from his pram when he was only weeks old and I — What’s the matter? What have I said? D’you know something that would help trace him?’ He stared at Megan’s startled face. ‘For heaven’s sake, woman, spill it out, and fast!’
‘Just before Gethyn’s mother died, she admitted to him that he was a stolen child, taken from a pram in Aberystwyth in 1962.’
‘What? Then Gethyn’s my – oh my God!’
Megan hurriedly explained about the entry in the diary.
Rosemary had looked out of the back window when the voices of Gethyn and Larry reached her ears. What was Larry doing at the back door? What was he discussing so amiably with Gethyn? Why didn’t he come in? If he was there to make up the silly quarrel why didn’t he come in? She watched in disbelief as he walked down the garden and disappeared through the gate.
Some minutes later, standing at the front window looking, hoping, for Larry’s return, she saw Gethyn hurry up the steps to the main road. He was obviously going to catch the bus to town. He didn’t usually go to town apart from market day, but he had his shopping bag in his hand so there was obviously something he needed in a hurry. He looked strained, and in his haste was tripping over the stones on the rough path to the steps.
Over the top of the road bridge parapet, she saw the bus driving past and, realising that the house next door was empty she decided to look inside. She thought of the crashing of furniture and the fury at the graveside and wondered if there was a connection. It was a perfect opportunity to find out. The bus from town wouldn’t bring him back for several hours.
The key to number one was hanging where it had always hung, forgotten for years, inside the cupboard under the sink. She lifted it from its hook and went outside. Guiltily she turned it in the lock and stepped inside Gethyn’s house, feeling like a thief, although all she wanted to steal was his secrets.
The big cupboard was closed but when she opened the door she saw what Larry had seen. The first sight of the black boxes with the digital dials and the cassettes that were visible through clear plastic covers were enough to convince her that Gethyn had been listening to all that went on.
She felt sick: all the conversations and the love and the silliness and the passion, it had all been overheard by Gethyn. She sank down onto a chair, her legs weak with the shock of it. Her heart racing, she stood shakily, holding her head against the giddiness she suffered, and looked again at the recording equipment. She guessed that was what it was. Gethyn had been listening and recording them so he could play their conversations over and over again.
Everything was still among the reels and dials. It all looked benign and innocent, no tape was turning. So far as she could see nothing was working. He had presumed she and Larry had parted for good and there was no further need to listen. He was out of the house, and if he had gone to town on the bus, he’d be gone for hours. It was safe now, to use the phone and call Megan.
There was no phone in Gethyn’s house, she would have to use her own. She had to talk to someone, she didn’t know what to do next. Oh, if only Larry were here, he would handle everything and make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. She always seemed to make the wrong decisions. Supporting herself against the walls, she went out.
She relocked the door, went back to her own house and dialled the library number. Sally answered and said at once, ‘Larry’s here.’ Then Rosemary heard his voice and she knew that somehow everything would all be all right.
‘I’ve been into Gethyn’s house and I saw all sorts of electrical equipment,’ she said, then listened as he almost shouted.
‘Rosemary, get the hell out of there, and fast! Go to Megan’s. I’ll meet you there.’
‘I’m quite safe, Gethyn caught the bus to town, he won’t be back for ages yet.’
‘Thank the Lord!’
‘I wanted to tell you that I believe you, and—’
‘Darling, that’s wonderful news, but get out and we’ll talk when you’re safe. Just get out of there, please baby, I don’t want to frighten you but I think you might be in danger from Gethyn. I know you’ve known him all your life, but believe me, he’s more than a bit crazy.’
‘I’ll drive to Megan’s and meet you there in about an hour.’
The car slowed to a stop and the passenger thanked the driver for the lift in a vague way and waved goodbye. He stood where the car had left him and looked down on the row of five cottages, sleepy and quiet in the weak sun. The door of the second one opened and he leaned on the parapet to watch as Rosemary closed her door, pushing against it to make sure it was secure. His smile was gentle and affectionate.
‘Sorry I have to kill him,’ he said aloud. ‘But I did warn you that I couldn’t allow him to take you away from me. You should have listened. Your punishment is to lose him. Wicked women should always be punished. The American will understand, he agrees with me. Wicked women who take babies from prams. Wicked women to leave the ones who love them for another.
‘My mother had to be punished, she stood on the edge of that ravine admiring some rabbits at play and I sent her down to join them. One push. My hands were guided, so I know it was the right thing to do. Wicked women, they all have to be punished. The American agreed.’
Gethyn watched as Rosemary, carrying a small case, went to her car. She drove off and Gethyn guessed she had gone, not to Larry but to stay with Megan. He waited until the sound of the car had faded and went into number two to begin his preparations. He knew exactly what he needed to do and his fingers worked fast as he rewired the pair of switches above the kitchen units. The coffee percolator was now on the other switch of the pair. To the switch previously used by the percolator, he connected the contraption he had prepared, and which he hid inside a saucepan. The first thing Larry always did when he came in, was to go into the kitchen and make a cup of coffee.
Using Rosemary’s phone, he rang the library and asked for Sally.
‘Is Rosemary there?’ he asked.
‘No, but – wait a moment.’ Sally muffled the voice-piece and told Larry, who was sitting near her, who it was. Larry elected to speak to him.
‘I’ve no idea where Rosemary is, can I help?’
‘I’ve fallen, I’ve done my leg I think, it’s very painful. I seem to be unable to get up, can you come and help? I’m in Rosemary’s house, a parcel came and I brought it in for her and slipped on the mud on my shoes.’
Larry didn’t know what to do. He frowned, undecided whether to be harsh with the man or try to reason with him. The risk to Rosemary had to be the greatest priority. He hesitated only a moment, then said, ‘Tough luck fella! Call yourself an ambulance!’ and dropped the phone into its rest.
He looked thoughtfully at Megan.
‘I won’t be happy until Rosemary is safely locked in your house. If the queer fellow phones again, tell him she’s on her way to London or something, will you? I’ll go to your house now and wait for her, if that’s okay with you?’ Megan handed him the key and he drove to her home at the edge of the town.
He had been gone less than ten minutes when Rosemary arrived at the library.
‘I thought I might have found Larry still here,’ she exclaimed in disappointment.
‘He left a minute ago!’ Sally explained. ‘There was this call from Gethyn saying he’d fallen and was hurt, then Larry told him more or less to get lost, and went to my place to wait for you.’
‘Forget about it and go to where Larry is waiting for you,’ Megan almost shouted.
‘Gethyn was hurt?’ Rosemary asked. ‘What happened?’
‘Said he’d fallen but Larry told him to get himself an ambulance. In your house he was, mind. So he could have phoned for help.’
‘But why speak to Larry?’ Rosemary frowned.
‘Wanted you, he did, but Larry took the phone and was told he’d fallen, was in a lot of pain and couldn’t get up.’
‘Megan, I have to go and see if he’s all right.’
‘Don’t be a fool! The man can call for help, you can’t go back there! — Rosemary!’ she called as her friend turned and made for the entrance. ‘At least go and find Larry first!’ But Rosemary was running and already holding the keys to her car.
People looked up from their books in surprise; the silence of the library had been broken but no one complained. This was a very interesting conversation to liven their day.
Frantically, Megan ignored the people waiting to have their books stamped and dialled her own number, but there was no reply. Larry couldn’t have reached there yet. She allowed it to ring, willing him to be quick and not to have stopped for anything on the way.
Larry slammed the receiver down when he heard what Megan had to say. He ran out of the house to find that someone had parked across the drive and the Citroen was blocked completely. He shouted his rage then ran to the road staring left and right, hoping to see someone whom he could persuade to take him to the cottages.
Further up the road he saw a man about to get into a Rover and he ran to him and asked, begged, for a lift. The man was about to refuse and Larry wasted no more time. He pushed the man aside after grabbing the keys and drove off before he had even closed the car door, leaving the man shouting for someone to call the police.
The Rover swerved around the corner, the driver’s door swinging open, Larry leaning out with his hand reaching to close it, his foot pressing the accelerator and the tyres squealing.
Gethyn was sitting beside his cupboard. He had heard the car arrive and heard Larry enter number two. Smilingly, he waited. The second car arriving puzzled him and he stood up then and went to the front window. He saw the door of the Rover open and Larry striding across the footbridge and he stared at the shared wall as if trying to see through it and find the explanation.
If Larry was just arriving, then who was inside?
‘Rosemary!’ he gasped.
He ran out of the front door and reached it just after Larry had gone inside. Gethyn ran after him and, the door being open, saw him put an arm around Rosemary and lead her towards the kitchen. He heard Larry say, ‘First a cup of coffee, then you’ll explain why you won’t ever listen to me.’ As he stepped towards the percolator, there was a shout from Gethyn, making them aware for the first time of his presence.
‘No! Don’t touch it!’ Gethyn warned.
Rosemary saw him then, running toward her as if to murder them both with his bare hands and she tried to close the kitchen door against him. As the door closed, Gethyn burst through. Larry ran for Rosemary and threw her to the ground as the flash and roar of the explosion disintegrated the room around them.
Rosemary came to her senses with the belief she was deaf and blind, as fire burned, giving a deafening roar and filling the destroyed room with smoke. The weight resting on her was Larry, she knew that. She thought from the heaviness and stillness of him that he was dead. Confused, she couldn’t begin to imagine what had happened, she only thought that they were going to die together. Then she remembered Gethyn, an enormous, flying figure coming towards her, his face distorted and wild, and exploding into this, fire and pain and grief and despair.
Then Larry’s weight was lifted from her, and gentle hands came and moved her out of the hell that had been her kitchen, and she was carried outside into the cool, sweet air, with the sound of the stream and dazzling bright light from the sky.
‘Larry?’ she called, and a strange voice said, ‘He’ll be all right. He has a nasty cut on his shoulder from some jagged debris, metal it was, but he’ll be fine.’
‘Gethyn?’ she asked, slowly opening her eyes and seeing a policeman bending over her, wiping her face with a cloth dampened in the stream.
‘Now don’t you worry about a thing, he’ll be all right, for sure.’
‘The maniac!’ another voice said.
‘Go easy with the poor guy,’ Larry whispered, raising his head and looking across at the figure of Gethyn.
Gethyn’s clothes were torn into shreds, blood seeped from numerous cuts, a blood-soaked bandage covered a gash on his head and his face was one black bruise. He wasn’t moving.
‘Don’t treat him roughly, guys,’ Larry whispered hoarsely. ‘He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s my brother, stolen from my mother when he was only a baby.’
When Muriel visited them in hospital, almost invisible behind a huge bouquet of flowers, she said, ‘Rosemary, Larry, I blame myself for this. I had a strong feeling that Gethyn was more than just upset by his mother’s death. The story of her accident just didn’t ring true. I knew he was unbalanced by something and suspected all along that he had pushed her to her death. I knew he was like an unexploded bomb and I didn’t warn you. Couldn’t face the truth I suppose. A dangerous sort of loyalty. I’m sorry.’
‘How could you believe that Gethyn, whom you’d known all your life, was dangerous?’ Rosemary comforted her. ‘He’s one of us and immune from such things as murder. That’s what I thought, that’s what we all thought. Who would have believed that a neighbour, someone we’d known all our lives, was bugging our homes and learning how to make bombs?’
‘I won’t keep things to myself any more.’ Muriel leaned closer to Rosemary and whispered, ‘New Year’s resolution – a bit early but never mind. There’s something else I’ve been holding back. I know where Mrs Priestley’s son is and I’m going to tell her, now, today. He’s just around the corner from my daughter, in Bala, he never went abroad at all. His first wife died soon after their daughter was born and he never found happiness with the second. Divorced he is, with one son and a daughter who was adopted. Very unhappy he’s been and he blames his mother for interfering all those years ago, between him and Megan. I’m going to ring him and tell him the time has come when he should forgive his mother for her interference and come home.’
‘I’m glad. She’s so lonely. And for Sally! She’s got a brother, or half-brother. Oh, Moo, there’ll be a wonderful reunion!’
‘Sally? What’s Sally go to do with it?’
Rosemary explained Sally’s relationship to Mrs Priestley and they excitedly planned how the news of Leonard would be told, Muriel imagining a huge party to which all members of the new family would be invited.
‘Lovely it’ll be.’
The tapes Larry had taken from Gethyn’s collection were quite revealing. One was a recording of their conversation during which Rosemary told Larry she had decided to sell her house. The conversation was followed by the sounds they had heard, much later that same evening – presumably when he had listened to the recording – of him using his axe on his furniture in rage. The day following, they had witnessed him burning the remaining evidence of his fury and anger.
‘What now?’ Rosemary said when they were home again, bandaged and bruised but safe.
‘Well, baby, I don’t think I could face much more of the peace and tranquillity of the Welsh countryside! What say we go to New York and get married there? It’s a darned sight safer!’ While Rosemary stared at him he went on, ‘I tried to ask you once before, but you seemed to sense what I was about to say and you put me off.’
‘I remember the moment,’ Rosemary said slowly. ‘I thought you were trying to tell me goodbye. Darling, Larry, that’s a word I never want to hear from you.’
‘Then it’s yes?’
‘After we’ve sorted out some help for – the queer fellow?’
‘You’d better believe it.’