(1995) By Any Name (17 page)

He wanted to see just how fast the bike could go.

Elizabeth’s hands tightened around his waist, and although he knew she was terrified, the touch of her body behind his felt oddly familiar. The thought of marriage crossed his mind again. Was there a woman waiting for him? A woman who had somehow missed the media coverage of the nationwide search.

She’d have to be brain dead, in captivity, or out of the country not to have seen or heard anything. Surely someone, somewhere had to know who he was?

Someone… somewhere…

He circled the roundabout and re-entered the town through Llanfaes. Speeding to the bridge he turned into St Michael Street, finally slowing the bike to a halt outside the old bake-house.

Shaking, grateful that the appalling noise of the engine had finally been silenced, Elizabeth stepped on to the yard.

‘That wasn’t so terrible, was it?’ he teased.

‘It was dreadful.’ She leaned against the wall and watched him unlock the door to the cellar. ‘Did you remember anything?’

‘The streets. I could draw you a map of the town.’

‘Fine, as long as you sit at a nice quiet, table to do it.’

He wheeled the bike into the cellar, and locked the door.

‘We’re not going in?’

‘Not yet, there’s a pub I want to visit.’

‘We could have stopped there.’

‘I go even faster when I drink and drive.’

‘Strange sense of humour you have. Dark, sarcastic.’ She took his arm. ‘Is it far?’

‘Up the lane and across the road. It’s the pub servicemen use.’

‘And you’ve been in there?’

‘I’ve been in there,’ he echoed.

‘Describe it?’

‘The building’s old. All the downstairs bars have been knocked into one, although at one time it had at least two separate rooms. The door’s more or less in the centre of the bar, and there’s no passageway, only a small porch. The tables and chairs are dark wood, the cushions covered with faded tapestry. There’s a dart board, a pool table, a juke box on the wall and a blackboard on the right hand side with a menu chalked up. There are benches next to some of the tables; the carpet’s old and burgundy. If it had a pattern you can’t see it now. The door to the Ladies is in the top right hand corner of the bar, and you have to ask for a glass.’

‘Ask for a glass?’

‘You’ll soon find out what I mean.’ He crossed the road, pushed open the door and they walked in.

The place was empty apart from the barmaid and three men dressed in overalls covered with paint and plaster. They were sitting on stools at the bar drinking from bottles and Elizabeth realised what John had meant by “asking for a glass.” He nodded to the right and she saw the blackboard.

‘The window seat,’ he muttered.

She walked over to a bench seat set below a window and heard John ask for two lagers in a credible Cockney accent. None of the men at the bar, or the barmaid who was engrossed in conversation with them, gave them a first, let alone a second glance. The place was exactly as John had described, even down to the Ladies door in the top right hand corner of the room, something he wouldn’t have known unless he’d brought a woman here.

She wondered if he was married. Not many men of his age – thirty to thirty five – who were tall, dark and head-turning handsome had escaped a woman’s clutches. Even if he wasn’t with someone now, she was fairly certain from the casual way he treated her, that he had been in a relationship.

He sat beside her, opening the curtains slightly so he could look across the street.

‘Someone following us?’

He shook his head and set his helmet next to hers on the table. ‘But I’ve lived in that house.’

A short terrace of four storey Georgian houses bordered the pavement opposite. Further down the street towards the traffic lights and crossroads, was a cinema. Lights blazed above its door, illuminating a poster of a Hollywood hunk with a bare chest posed in kickboxing stance, but no lights illuminated the windows in the houses, and she saw the glint of brass plaques set next to the doors.

‘They look like offices.’

‘They weren’t always. This place is just as I described it, isn’t it?’

‘Absolutely. But I would say from looking at this room, it hasn’t changed in twenty years.’ She noticed the juke box on the wall, exactly where he’d said it would be. ‘What kind of music do you like?’

‘Not the sort that was played on the radio last night.’

‘Why don’t you go over there and pick something?’

He rose, hesitating when half a dozen men walked in. They were younger than the men sitting at the bar, and their bearing and close cropped hair announced they were military personnel. Out to find him?

He waited until they’d been served before picking up his bottle and crossing the room to the illuminated box that held the list of song titles.

‘You have money?’ she followed him and fumbled in her pocket for the change from her shopping expedition.

‘Yes.’ He pulled a selection of coins from his pocket and picked out what he needed.

‘Choose any you recognize.’

Slipping the coins through the slot he scanned the list, and punched a series of buttons before returning to the window seat.

‘Sit back, close your eyes and allow your mind to go blank,’ she instructed.

‘I feel a fool.’

‘Everyone has their back turned to us.’

‘Except the barmaid.’

‘She’s busy serving.’ The opening bars of Unchained Melody filled the air. ‘What can you see?’

‘A film, a pretty girl with dark, close cropped hair… ’

‘The film Ghost. It’s old and not much help, beyond telling me you’re a Demi Moore fan judging by the silly grin on your face.’ She looked around impatiently. ‘Do you think you spent much time here?’

He opened his eyes. ‘Possibly, it’s a useful place within easy staggering distance of the apartment, and they stock good beer.’

‘You come here when?’

He frowned, ‘presumably after I’ve ridden the bike, walked the mountains, wriggled through caves, canoed down the river… ’

‘You’re thinking of the equipment in the flat?’

‘That’s all I’ve bloody well got to go on. I’ve no fucking memory… ’Realising he’d raised his voice and one or two of the younger men were watching him, he finished his lager, pushed his helmet back on to his head and went outside. She followed.

‘John… ’ she placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.

‘Don’t touch me!’ he exclaimed angrily, shrugging off her hand. ‘My name’s not John. Hasn’t it occurred to you, that you could be keeping company with a killer, and that you might be next on my list of victims?’ He crossed the road to the Georgian terrace.

Concerned by his outburst she followed but was careful not to get too close.

‘Something’s wrong here.’ He ran his fingers over the smoothly plastered concrete on the wall. ‘There should be another door between these two.’ He looked at the doors further along the street. Retracing his steps, he returned to the same window. ‘Here.

Definitely here.’

‘But this window is exactly like the others, it looks as though it’s always been here.’

‘I’m telling you it should be a door,’ he repeated pedantically. ‘It opened into a small hall. A flight of stairs opposite led up to a long passage. Turn right and you were in the drawing room, walk straight ahead and you were in a kitchen. There were only two rooms on that first floor, but there were three bedrooms and a bathroom on the floor above. Damn it all, it 
was
 here.’

She looked carefully. There was a crack in the cement skim at the bottom of the house where the wall met the pavement. She followed the line with her finger. It was there, hair line but definite. She traced it to the top of the window and realised that the decorative coping above that particular window wasn’t the same as the others.

‘I believe you,’ she said softly. She looked around the deserted street. ‘Someone must know who lived here.’

‘Who do you suggest we ask?’ His voice was tinged with bitterness.

‘Someone might know in the pub. An old man just went in.’

‘You’re prepared to risk going back in there?’

‘You weren’t recognized before, there’s no reason to suppose you will be now. Besides, if anyone had any suspicions they’ll hardly expect you to walk back in.’ Making the decision for him, she crossed the street and opened the door of the pub. This time she went to the bar. Digging in her pocket for money she studied the other customers. The men dressed in working clothes were downing the dregs in their bottles and making bad jokes about nagging wives.

The young men in jeans had commandeered the pool table. The barmaid was exchanging banter with them in between serving drinks, but Elizabeth dismissed her as too young to be of any help.

She spotted the old man she had seen in the street.

He was sitting in a corner nursing a pint of Guinness, reading a copy of the 
Brecon and Radnor Gazette
 and soaking up the heat from an electric fire. Momentarily forgetting the coffin earrings, leathers and spiked hair, she walked over to him. He stared at her belligerently over the top of his glass.

‘I wonder if you can help me?’ she asked, wishing she had a plausible cockney accent like John.

‘That depends on what you want?’

‘I used to know someone who lived across the road.’

‘There are offices across the road.’

‘I think he lived in one of the houses before it was converted into offices.’

‘How long ago would this be?’ He peered up at her through bloodshot eyes.

‘I would have been about ten or eleven,’ she answered, neatly evading a definite year.

‘That must have been before the accountants took over the buildings. They’ve been offices for the last ten years.’

‘More like fifteen, Dai,’ a voice chimed from the other end of the bar.

‘Aye, aye, Winston, time has a habit of slipping by.’

‘What was the name of this friend of yours?’ The newcomer was small, wizened, with brown, leathery skin.

‘Martin,’ Elizabeth answered.

‘I don’t remember any Martin, but after the old lady died they had families in and out of there every whip stitch. Rented it out to all sorts. They weren’t particular, but then what could you expect. They didn’t have to live close to them.’

‘When was this?’ West joined them. He was careful to keep his cockney accent.

‘About fifteen years ago, just after the old lady passed on. Her husband was Davies the builder. They lived on the top two floors of the house next door but one to the cinema. He rented the bottom floor even then to the accountants, and kept his building materials and van in the cellar. Not that he was a builder in a big way. More of a jobbing craftsman, if you know what I mean.’

‘When did he die?’ John tried to sound casual.

‘You really are going back some time now. What would you say Winston?’

The old man pulled off his cap and scratched his bald head. ‘Must be close on twenty years ago.’

‘I’d say more like twenty two or three,’ Dai contradicted contrarily.

‘Whatever,’ Winston dismissed. ‘The old lady stayed on. The house was way too big for her but she wouldn’t be moved and she wouldn’t let anyone help her. None of that meals on wheels or home help. Her son, I think he lived Devon way, came up one day and found her dead on the kitchen floor. But then what do you expect. Old people shouldn’t keep themselves to themselves.’

‘We’ll all know the minute anything happens to you Winston. There’ll be more beer than usual in the pump,’ Dai laughed.

‘Aye, well, when she went, that was the end of people living in this street. The Davies’s were the last.

But they belonged to the days when business people lived above their shops in the centre of town.

Nowadays it’s different. People don’t want to live in the town any more and see their places wrecked when the Jazz festival starts. Load of riff raff coming in if you ask me… ’

‘Who’s asking you, Winston?’ Dai said belligerently.

‘I’ve as much right as the next man to say what I feel… ’ Elizabeth had hardly touched her lager but she noticed John had finished his. She’d watched him the whole time the old men had been speaking, but hadn’t seen a glimmer of recognition on his face. Only a frown that meant he was trying to remember. If the story of old Mrs Davies who’d lived and died alone in the house across the road, was relevant to him or his family he appeared to be unaware of it.

‘… course the old lady didn’t have to live there.

The old man bought the old bake-house at the back.’

‘I didn’t know there was a bake-house around here?’ Elizabeth didn’t dare look at John lest her excitement show.

The two old men stared down at their empty glasses.

‘I’ll get a round in.’ John dug his hand into his pocket. ‘Same again?’

‘Two pints of Guinness, seeing as how you’re offering.’

‘And two bottles of lager, please,’ John said to the barmaid when she took the empty glasses from the counter.

‘Well as I was saying, old man Davies bought the bake-house and converted it into a nice little flat – or so I heard from those that saw it.’

‘He moved in there?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘That was his plan. He got it all ready but up and died just as it was finished. The old lady wouldn’t rent it out neither. Got all stubborn about it and insisted on staying on in the house.’

‘And the flat?’

‘It’s a holiday place now. Like everything else around here. Look at the old stables. Beautiful building that was before they pulled it down and built those flats.’

‘Go on, Winston, it was falling down,’ the barmaid interrupted.

‘Falling down maybe, but it could have been saved and there was a lot of history in those walls.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said wryly, ‘but I’ve lived in the town all my life and never spoke to anyone who knew what it was.’

‘Well it should have been done up, kept for tourists… ’

‘The tourists stay in the flats, what more do you want?’ she smiled.

‘The old stables back. What’s the point of putting up flats that no local can afford to buy? The price they were asking was downright criminal,’ Dai retorted.

‘Who in their right senses wants to live in a flat when you can have a nice house with a garden,’ she argued.