In Guilty Night (39 page)

‘She won’t cause any harm while her conscience sits firmly on her back,’ McKenna said. ‘At least, not to anyone who doesn’t deserve it.’

‘Scratch a Celt and find an anarchist?’

‘Depends on your perception of anarchy.’ McKenna lit a cigarette. ‘Call it giving God a helping hand.’

‘Pastor Evans’d say a mere mortal can’t know when God wants one.’

‘And Pastor Evans can’t know if God would want to judge a girl like Sian because she had a baby out of wedlock, but he takes it upon himself to condemn her in His name.’

Griffiths began defacing another sheet of paper. ‘Scratch a papist and find some compassion, eh? There’s little enough of it
warming the hearts of most chapelgoers. Peggy Thomas was telling me how people’ve treated them since Arwel died. Not a word of condolence, and most folk crossing the road rather than pass the time of day.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose they’re held to blame for Arwel dying.’

‘They’re held to be contaminated, and people cross the road because they’re afraid of catching their own death.’

Arwel’s funeral merited a brief mention on the local teatime news. The cameraman made these extraordinary people look banal, McKenna thought, grief painted on their faces for the occasion, the dreadful thudding bells reduced to a vibrant humming beneath the reporter’s voice. The report occupied fifty-five seconds, followed by whole minutes on council overspending, where the director of social services justified his further negligence, and the councillors expressed outrage about wasted money.

Shivering inside his padded coat, a tissue-wrapped bottle under his arm, Eifion Roberts arrived as McKenna put his empty milk bottles on the front doorstep.

‘I expected you to wait after the funeral,’ McKenna said.

‘Didn’t feel like it.’ Hanging the coat over the back of a dining-chair, the pathologist sank on the sofa, arranging his feet around the sleeping cats. ‘Harrowing, wasn’t it? You look more bloody awful than usual.’

‘I’ve had precious little sleep since Saturday.’

‘Arwel can sleep all he wants, but I don’t expect you’d fancy a swop.’ He unwrapped the bottle and unscrewed the cap. ‘Get the glasses, Michael.’

‘I don’t much feel like drinking.’

‘You can watch me, then.’ Tipping out a huge measure of whiskey, Dr Roberts added, ‘And you can shut up with your nannying platitudes about drink and the other little pleasures that stop mortal man putting an end to it all every so often!’

‘I’d no intention of saying anything.’

‘That’ll make a change, won’t it?’ Peering over the rim of his glass at McKenna, he said, ‘I was watching Elis at the funeral. He gawps at you like you’re some sort of saviour. Does he think you’ve mastered the art of walking on water? You should tell him even papists just wash in it, like the rest of us.’

McKenna sighed. ‘Is this going to be one of those times when you do a verbal autopsy on anyone unlucky enough to cross your orbit?’

‘I got to thinking, that’s all.’ Dr Roberts gulped his drink. ‘Maybe it wasn’t very charitable to say Elis does bugger all. Did you know some Roman bod said he never let a day pass without writing a line? It’s fine when you know what you’re supposed to do with all this time, but what do I do? What’s my motto? “Never a day without a carve-up?”.’ Emptying the glass, he said gloomily, ‘Not much of a purpose, is it?’

‘Are you busy, sir?’ Dewi stood on the doorstep, a powdering of snow on his hair and shoulders.

‘I thought you’d be in the Land of Nod.’ McKenna retrieved milk bottles toppled by the wind, then closed the door. ‘Which is where I’d like to be. I’l bet Janet’s tucked up at the manse.’

‘She wasn’t half an hour ago.’ Standing at the foot of the stairs, Dewi gazed upon the pathologist, fast asleep on the sofa, half-empty bottle at his feet, two cats in his large lap. ‘Is he all right?’

‘He will be. You can help get him home when you’ve said what you want.’ Sitting at the table, McKenna added, ‘What were you and Janet doing?’

‘Fighting over words, and it’s a bloody good thing she stormed off back to Daddy before I found the death verse.’ Opening Arwel’s book of medieval poetry, Dewi pointed out the number above each title, the printed numbers at intervals beside the lines, then showed McKenna the handwritten margin annotations, the underscorings of letters and numbers. ‘She got very snotty about council-house kids defacing books.’

Rubbing his eyes, McKenna leafed through the book. ‘They’re not all marked. Maybe Arwel was learning some of them, or just fancied the imagery.’ Haltingly, he began to read the archaic language. ‘It’s very beautiful, isn’t it? Very fresh.’

‘Not all the poems are marvellous,’ Dewi said. ‘Still, I expect even Beethoven managed to write crappy stuff at times.’

McKenna smiled. ‘Policing’s doing wonders for your cultural development.’

‘Obscuring my origins, you mean?’

‘Leave the bitchiness to Janet.’ Leafing again through the pages, McKenna said, ‘And never underestimate the intelligence of the uneducated. Carol sees things others miss. Her imagination’s not been smothered by learning, and neither was Arwel’s.’ He stared at one of the marked verses. ‘So what was he doing?’

‘Not wantonly vandalizing books, but Janet got so steamed
up she wouldn’t even bother thinking about the combinations of letters and numbers he’d marked. If you ignore what’s not marked, these read like vehicle registrations, don’t they?

Tossing and turning in bed, McKenna came to violent wakefulness again as the cathedral clock struck eleven, head and heart thudding. One heavy, one light, the cats lay on his feet, the black cat sporting a new silver collar. The other cat stirred as the owl called, winging over the sleeping city, and McKenna thought of the legendary Blodeuwedd, sprung from flowers and doomed never to know the love of mortal man. He thought too of Pryderi, the stolen child, whose name was fashioned from the word for worry, and whose legacy was vengeance.

Wrapping himself in his dressing-gown, he crept downstairs to sit by the parlour fire. Immune to his terror, the cats slept on, sure that day would pursue night and that death dogged life, wise to the tensions holding all infinity in infinite balance.

18

The shrill note of the telephone roused McKenna from sleep, and as he groped for the receiver, he imagined again the acrid fumes of Blodwel alight. Instead of Dewi’s voice, sharp with urgency, he heard the soft breathy tones of Emma Tuttle, panting with fear.

‘The girls’ve gone!’

‘Gone where?’ He glanced at the bedside clock. ‘It’s past one in the morning.’

‘I know what time it is!’ Emma’s voice rose.

The cats protested as he sat upright. ‘Was there another row?’

‘Not really. They wanted to go to Bedd y Cor after the funeral, but we said no. It’s not as if they knew the boy.’

‘They’re young. He was one of their kind.’

‘I think they wanted to see inside the poshest house in the county, as a matter of fact. Oh, why are we wasting time?’

‘When did they go out?’

‘I don’t know! They went to bed about eleven. Jack was already asleep, worn out after the funeral.’

‘And you?’ McKenna switched on the bedlamp.

‘Twelve? I did the ironing first.’

‘Did you check on the girls?’

‘Of course I did! They were reading.’

‘So they’ve been gone less than an hour.’ He climbed from the bed, back and legs stiff enough to snap.

‘There might’ve been a telphone call,’ Emma said. ‘Something woke me, but there’s nothing on the answering machine.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know! I went back to sleep.’

‘So what woke you again?’

‘I don’t
know
! Instinct, probably.’

‘Is there a recall number stored?’

‘I couldn’t think of anything except calling you.’ She sobbed.

‘Is Jack still asleep?’

‘I don’t want to wake him. He’s really not well.’

‘I know.’ Pulling underclothes and top clothes from drawers and wardrobe, he began to dress. ‘I’ll get your number checked now. What about the bikes?’

‘In the garage.’

‘It’s not only council-house kids who go off the rails,’ Dewi said.

‘I didn’t mean that, and you know I didn’t!’ Janet snapped. ‘I don’t see Inspector Tuttle’s girls that way.’

‘I don’t expect he does, either.’

‘Why should they want to run away?’ Janet demanded.

‘If we find them, you can ask, can’t you?’ McKenna said.

Dewi snatched at the telephone on McKenna’s desk before the first peal rang out, scribbled numbers and notes on a sheet of paper, then dialled out. ‘There’s no incoming number stored, but somebody rang out at midnight forty-one to—’ He broke off to speak, gave instructions, and waited, the secrecy button activated. ‘Bettacabs. They’ve taken a fare some place. He’s asking the driver exactly where.’

‘They’ve gone to meet Gary Hughes,’ Janet shivered.

‘How d’you know there isn’t a rave in the mountains like on Penmon cliffs during the summer?’ Dewi concentrated on the dark narrow road, an unforgiving thoroughfare through the detritus of an Ice Age glacier.

‘Look at all that ice. And it’s snowing. You’d have to be out of your mind to go up there.’

‘Druggies usually are.’

‘You can be so stubborn.’

‘Mrs Tuttle’s stubborn, isn’t she? No way would she stay in the house.’ Dewi glanced in the mirror, at the lights of McKenna’s car behind. ‘I wouldn’t like to be in the twins’ shoes when we catch them.’

‘If.’ A volley of snow hit the windscreen, sheared from the mountainsides. Janet watched the car headlights swing up and down, glittering on cataracts of ice in crevices and gullies like black holes in a solid universe. ‘What do we do when we get to the village?’

‘What we’re told, like always.’ Dewi grinned. ‘Mushroom
management, isn’t it? Keep us in the dark and shovel shit on us every so often.’

‘Don’t jest.’ Janet shivered again. ‘We watched one poor kid put six feet under yesterday, and Tony’s already dust and ashes. Pray God there won’t be any more.’

A hundred yards beyond the last terrace of village houses, Mountain Rescue vehicles and police cars littered the verge, and men in Alpine gear, festooned with ropes and ice axes and survival equipment, cast huge hump-backed shadows in the light of flickering lanterns and headlamps. Maps were laid out on walls, pinioned by hands and small rocks, people spoke in low measured tones, and radios crackled with static from the high peaks.

‘We’ll only get in the way. That’s why Mr McKenna wants us to stay in the car.’ Emma’s tension was palpable, Janet thought.

‘They’re my children!’

‘They can’t have gone far in less than two hours.’

‘And how long does it take to freeze to death in the mountains?’

‘We don’t know they’re in the mountains. Why should they be?’

‘How the hell should I know?’ Emma shouted. ‘I don’t even know why they went!’

McKenna sank to a crouch, breath rasping. ‘I’ll catch up.’

Two of the rescue team and a local police officer crunched away up the lane, leaving Dewi and McKenna to the strident mountain night and the screaming wind.

‘Why not go back to the cars, sir? You’re in no fit state.’ Dewi shouted to make himself heard, lips brittle with cold.

‘I’ve had no less sleep than you of late.’

‘With respect, I’m a lot younger, and I haven’t had an accident.’ Putting his hand under McKenna’s elbow, Dewi pulled him upright, as he and McKenna had earlier manhandled Eifion Roberts into Dewi’s car to be driven home. Propping McKenna against the rough wall around a mountain pasture, he added, ‘You can’t stop moving. The wind chill’s at least minus fifteen.’

‘All the more reason to find those girls.’ McKenna gazed upon a world empty save for Dewi and himself, and huddles of sheep in the lee of the wall. The wind thudded against the rock faces, screaming with the pain, and he wondered if his head
would ever be free of the dreadful noises of this day and night. ‘Why aren’t they searching that place?’ He pointed up a stony track beyond the pasture, to a small dwelling at the foot of a sheer-sided crag.

‘It’s a holiday let. Been done already.’

‘There’s a light inside.’

‘Where?’ Dewi scanned the distance, and saw nothing amiss. ‘Your eyes are playing tricks, sir. Folk reckon you’ll see hobgoblins in these mountains at night.’

McKenna said stubbornly: ‘I saw a light.’

‘Probably a reflection.’

McKenna staggered a little as he moved away from the wall. ‘We’ll make sure, shall we? We’ve nothing to lose.’

Stones on the track rolled away under their feet, turning ankles, as treacherous as the cemetery path. He leaned into the wind, feeling it an entity and enemy, strong enough to halt the most determined progress, and thinking he glimpsed the silvery-white coat of a mountain hare fleeing their advancing shadows, wondered what shapes the goblins took upon themselves. Gasping for each breath snatched from the teeth of the wind, bent double, he almost fell when the mountain flank suddenly cut off the gale and left them becalmed, overwhelmed by a massive rock face obliterating the sky.

‘You were right.’ Dewi stopped to rest. ‘I can see it myself now.’

The cottage was built of cob with a low felted roof, a small sash window to each side of the little front door. There was no garden, simply a cinder path between cottage and pasture wall. A broken harrow, its rusting tines like devils’ teeth, blocked the end of the pathway, and the air smelt of damp sour earth, as if the sun never reached this desolate place.

Dewi crept along the path to peer through the far window, seeing nothing but deeper shadow, while McKenna leaned against the house wall, listening to his thudding heart and rasping breath, and the faint rise and fall of voices behind the other window. He looked in, and saw Jack Tuttle’s twin daughters, grave-faced and dishevelled, Denise’s clothes bereft of all elegance, seated at a table draped with a red gingham cloth, amid a litter of sweet wrappers and drinks cans and candles guttering in a saucer. Back to the window, the boy shuddered and twitched uncontrollably.