The House of Women (33 page)

10

The cats were behind the front door, faces pressed to the reeded glass. When a stranger followed their master over the threshold, they disappeared at high speed down the staircase.

Following them, McKenna found empty food and water bowls strewn about the kitchen, the sill beneath the open parlour window streaked with dusty paw-prints, parallel trails of dirt on the wall below, and playing cards littering the carpet, the Knave of
Diamonds jammed behind a skirting board. The Queen of Spades had vanished, like her human counterpart.

‘
Looks as if there’s been quite a party,’ Rowlands said, eyeing the cats, now by the kitchen door, and the wreckage all around him. ‘Why did you leave the window open so far?’

‘
So they could get in and out, of course!’ McKenna said tetchily, on his way to feed his pets.

‘
Along with half the local cats, by the look of things.’ As practical as Dewi, he re-ordered the parlour, wrung out a clean cloth in hot, soapy water, washed window, wall and table, then made tea and sandwiches while the cats ate supper.

McKenna slumped at the kitchen table, and twitched, like the animals, when the opening bars of Friday
’s late concert sounded from the garden.

SATURDAY, 25 AUGUST

1

ROWLANDS SNORED. The deep, rhythmic sound throbbed through the walls of the house and roused McKenna in the small hours. While his brain waded sluggishly through memory for the source of the alien noise, he lay stiff and still, then drifted back to sleep until a brilliant summer’s dawn invaded the room.

Sunbeams angled sharply across the pale flowery wallpaper, moving as the sun climbed behind Bangor Mountain, and he sneezed quietly as the scents of early morning weaved through the open window. The sleeping cats were a dead weight at the foot of the bed, deaf to the screeching and mewling of gulls. Turning over to check the alarm clock, he saw a dark shadow flicker on the sun-striped walls, and felt the draught of wings as a huge bird eddied past the window before landing with a thud on the roof. When its jabbering began to reverberate down the disused chimney shaft behind the bedhead, he buried his head under the pillows.

He slept through the rising tide of noise from the waking city, through the wailing of his hungry cats, and came to life only when the shrill note of the alarm began to sputter with exhaustion. He staggered down to the bathroom, Blackie at his heels, Fluff tittuping ahead, then retrieved a litter of envelopes and postcards from the mat by the front door. As he looked through the post, the smells of toast and bacon and coffee finally touched his senses, and he descended the second flight of stairs to find his breakfast cooked, the table laid, and Rowlands, fully dressed, scooping meat into cat dishes.

‘
They’ve already been down,’ he said, nodding towards the animals. ‘They legged it back upstairs when they saw me.’

McKenna grinned.
‘They’re more discerning than tarts and lawyers, even if they do hang around on every street corner.’ Seating himself, he added: ‘This is very civil of you.’

‘
It’s the least I could do. I slept like a log.’

‘
I know. I heard you.’

Rowlands flushed.
‘If my wife ever murders me, you won’t have far to look for a motive.’

‘
Separate rooms might solve the problem,’ McKenna said, ‘as well as giving your conjugal relations a clandestine edge. The upper classes never share the marital bed.’ He flipped through the envelopes. ‘At least, not with each other, except to procreate.’ He grinned again, for no letter from Manchester hid in the welter of paper, and his food tasted even better.

*

Stock-still in the ivy lavishing the garden wall, a pine marten garbed in golden summer livery watched the cats sail out through the back door. As it leapt from view, the dark glossy leaves quivered, and only then did the cats briefly abandon their territorial circuit.

‘
What a wonderful sight!’ Rowlands said.

‘
You sound like Iolo.’ McKenna smiled.

‘
That was a real animal, and you saw it, too.’

‘
And I’ve seen it before, as well as the jays nesting in that big tree below the fence, the barn owl which holes up in one of the derelict outbuildings behind the High Street shops, and the colony of bats from Burton’s attic.’ Pouring fresh coffee, he went on: ‘A vixen and two cubs came down from the mountain in March, and last week, one of the neighbours found an adder asleep in her back yard.’

Rowlands heaped sugar crystals in his coffee.
‘We’ve got a view of more houses and the tops of a few artificial-looking trees. It’s a nice area, but it’s too much the work of man, like Iolo’s garden.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Shall I caution him before he makes his statement?’

‘
And don’t forget to offer him a brief,’ McKenna added, surveying the post once again.

‘
Aren’t you going to open your letters?’

‘
I can resist the temptation.’ He picked out a large, lurid postcard stuck about with numerous stamps and five postmarks. ‘Eifion Roberts, the pathologist, is touring Germany and Switzerland with his wife,’ he said, reading the scrawl on the back. ‘But he’s not a happy man, because if he hadn’t sold his boat last year, he could be tacking down Menai Strait instead of traipsing around crowded foreign places which mean absolutely nothing to either of them. He says his wife’s enjoying herself, but only because she’s buzzing in and out of shops like a wasp going from one jam pot to another.’ Glancing at the collage of mountain peaks and meadows, of narrow streets hung about with timbered houses, and a bell tower in the utilitarian style of architecture, he put the card aside and picked up the other colourful missive which had graced his morning. ‘And this is from Jack Tuttle,’ he said, examining a sharply focused photograph of the Pont du Gard at Nîmes. ‘The weather’s dodgy, along with his stomach, because of the ghastly
cuisine
, and his wife is also buzzing in and out of shops, so he’ll need the payrise due with his expected promotion to settle the credit card bills.’ He picked up his coffee. ‘And as there’s no promotion in sight for anyone now, he’s in for a shock, isn’t he?’

2

A lump had grown on Dewi’s forehead during the night, pulsing as if he were harbouring alien life. He was reading through a pile of paper, placing each sheet neatly aside as he finished it. As McKenna and Rowlands entered the office, he said: ‘I’d like to bring in Jason for questioning about Annie’s car. He arranged the deal.’

‘
We know that,’ Rowlands told him. ‘But there’s nothing to suggest he knew it was dodgy.’

‘
He insisted on a cash transaction, sir. Edith lent Annie the money, and she’s paying it back every month.’

‘
So as Annie should’ve known cash equals something amiss, we could do her for knowingly buying a dodgy car,’ Rowlands suggested.

‘
We’re interested in the people behind the fraud,’ said McKenna. ‘Not the victims.’

‘
She could be involved,’ Rowlands went on. ‘The family’s hardly white as the driven snow. Edith’s morals leave a lot to be desired, Mina’s a headcase, and the saintly Uncle Ned well and truly mislaid his halo a long time ago.’

‘
More to the point,’ asked McKenna, ‘has the pathologist reported back on prescriptions for the Lloyds and Polgreens?’

‘
No, sir,’ Dewi said. ‘I’ve left another message for him.’ He paused. ‘And I called the hospital. Janet’s no better.’

‘
Is she any worse?’

‘
They didn’t say.’

3

Janet’s mother must have retreated to the manse, McKenna thought, facing Pastor Evans in the narrow corridor outside the intensive care unit. Ashen-faced, quivering with the rage which so often precedes grief, Evans hissed words of censure and disgust, then brushed past, leaving behind him the smell of the chapel, a medley of dust and prayer books and polish and maleness which pervaded his daughter’s car and person, overwhelming the costly French perfumes she wore in disguise.

Watching the fine grey cloth of the pastor
’s summer coat swirling about his legs, McKenna made his way to the nursing duty station, a narrow counter overhung by a bank of monitors, where lights pulsed and machines bleeped in harmony and discord.

‘
Is she conscious?’ he asked a tall black woman, whose ornately plaited hair enhanced her height and presence. ‘Can I see her?’

The consciousness which had mercifully deserted Janet the day before remained out of reach, and her body seemed shrunken, absent of kinship with the vibrant, temperamental girl who resided in his memory. Watching the regular rise and fall of her chest, he thought of Phoebe
’s musings on perception, and wondered if life depended for its existence on the memory and participation of an observer.

4

‘Jason’s out on patrol,’ Dewi said. ‘He’s not due at the depot before lunch-time.’

‘
When does his shift finish?’ McKenna asked. ‘Four o’clock.’

‘
Try to collar him at lunch-time, then, but don’t be too pushy. And did you let Annie know about her car?’

Dewi nodded.
‘She’s furious.’

‘
Hardly surprising,’ McKenna said. ‘She can keep it over the weekend, but you’d better tell her we want it first thing Monday morning for the vehicle examiner.’

‘
You can tell her yourself, sir. She’s in your office.’

*

She wore a finely-seamed dress, in the style her mother favoured, and looked, he thought, as Edith must have done before she faded, and age rather than youth came to define every curve of her body. ‘This week’s been like the doldrums,’ she said. ‘Little winds blowing you this way and that, then a calm period, then a sudden storm, brewing up from nowhere, leaving you breathless and baffled.’ She brushed a bead of sweat from her hairline. ‘There was a breeze yesterday, but it seems to have died. Did you know this is the second hottest August since records began in 1727? I read it in the paper this morning.’

‘
I can’t imagine people harnessing such information so long ago,’ he commented. ‘I can’t believe they knew enough.’

‘
Why not? They weren’t inherently less developed.’ She grinned at him. ‘I expect you think your parents had only just raised their heads above the primeval sludge, don’t you?’

‘
Not quite, although it’s hard to tell at times with the Irish.’ He smiled in return. ‘But they seemed content with less.’

‘
All we need is food, shelter and warmth. The rest is decoration, diversions from the real business of death and sex, like my car. What’s the problem with it?’

‘
You’ve fallen foul of the car-ringers.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘More than a quarter of all recorded crime involves the half million vehicles which get stolen every year. Like a lot of popular mid-price range cars, yours was probably stolen to order, then fitted with number plates derived from a same year model we’ve already traced. Number plates also come from accident write-offs, which the insurance companies sell to wreckers.’

‘
But I’ve got registration documents,’ she protested.

‘
Which only prove that computers can’t think for themselves. There’s no automatic cross-check when documents go in for change of ownership.’

‘
So now what happens?’

‘
If the vehicle identification plate hasn’t been drilled out, it will show chassis, engine, marque and year details, and provided the chassis and engine numbers weren’t removed and reblocked, we can find out where your car came from.’

‘
And I’ll be minus my car and still in debt to my mother for several thousand pounds.’

‘
I’m afraid so.’

‘
Damn and blast that bloody Jason and his “bargain of the year”! What a fool I was.’

‘
D’you know where he got the car?’

‘
One of his mates in the trade, he said. According to him, he’s got mates in all sorts of trades. I hope you’re going to ask him.’

‘
We’ll ask,’ McKenna promised, ‘but please don’t alert him.’

‘
He probably knows already. Mina was in when Dewi Prys phoned earlier.’ She scowled fiercely. ‘Oh, damn and bloody hell!’

For no discernible reason, her agitated gestures reminded him of Denise, and he recoiled i
nvoluntarily, resentful and even fearful. Later, he realized the similarity depended on a glimpse of some quality common to all women, but only after he had begun to appreciate that real, harm had been rendered by the miserable attrition of his marriage.

*

Sweating profusely, Dewi sat in McKenna’s office, legs crossed, hands in pockets. ‘What happened at the hospital, sir?’

‘
Pastor Evans gave me the benefit of his opinion, which, as expected, amounts to Janet’s condition being our fault.’

‘
He can go hang!’ Dewi snapped. ‘Is she any better?’

‘
I don’t think she’s any worse.’

‘
But she’s very ill all the same, isn’t she? God! The way the blood poured out of her was horrible!’ He rubbed the swelling on his head, and winced. ‘Who’d imagine it can go so dreadfully wrong? Mam said even an ordinary miscarriage can be fatal.’

‘
It can happen. Why not go to see her? She might have come round by now.’

‘
I’ll wait. Her father’ll be there, won’t he?’ He picked at a worn patch of veneer on the desk. ‘Has anyone said anything about the demo?’

‘
Not yet.’

‘
Should I make a report about it?’

‘
Only what you remember, bearing in mind that a whack on the head can affect the powers of recall.’

‘
I was well out of order, sir.’

‘
And not for the first time. I sometimes think you harbour a death wish.’

‘
I don’t do it on purpose.’

‘
Yes, you do. We all act on purpose, unless we’re mad, and even lunatics can come up with reasons which satisfy their own logic.’

‘
I lost my temper.’

‘
You do that too often, as well,’ McKenna commented. ‘You’re prone to acting like a naughty child, especially when you’re bored, and you pick fights with Janet, expecting Jack Tuttle or myself to sort you out as if we’re your parents. Well, we’re not, and it’s high time you started acting like an adult at work, as well as at home. You passed your sergeant’s exams with flying colours, but I’m not prepared to recommend your promotion at present.’

‘
Point taken, sir.’

‘
Then do something about it,’ McKenna said tetchily. ‘This is the last time I’ll help you off the hook. If you must kick against authority structures because they’re there, then accept that a couple of broken feet is all you’ll get. You’ve got the potential to be a very good officer, and a similar potential to be a real liability. It’s your choice.’

*

‘Iolo declined the services of a solicitor,’ Rowlands reported, dropping his files on McKenna’s desk. ‘He’s still hoping to keep his affairs out of the public eye, and he’s back to his usual obnoxious self, so he’s probably got an almighty hangover.’

‘
He must have a hangover every day,’ said McKenna. ‘He probably can’t remember being without one.’

‘
Like you can’t remember being without kids once they’re born,’ Rowlands commented, offering cigarettes. ‘He was also very maudlin and self-pitying, but I’m afraid my sympathy wouldn’t rise to the occasion. He’s a sly piece of work, always on the lookout for himself, and making up his own rules as he goes along.’

‘
He may be aware of the extent of his dislocation from normality, and that’s why he hits the bottle,’ McKenna said, taking a cigarette. ‘Maybe his brain was glitched in the womb, not enough to cause full-blown mental illness, but enough to condemn him to a no man’s land between sanity and insanity. That could explain why he functions as he does, when he’s had plenty of time and opportunity to learn what’s acceptable and legal.’

‘
He’s adamant he did nothing wrong with the manuscripts because he never made any claims about them. He simply offered them for an opinion, and other people decided what they were. If the experts judged them to be genuine, then genuine they must be. When I pointed out that simply offering them for an opinion was tantamount to fraud, he threatened to have the screaming ab-dabs. And he’s paranoid about Polgreen: called him a lot worse than jungle bunny.’

‘
Guilt-speak,’ McKenna decided. ‘How did they age the documents?’

‘
That was also Ned’s fault, because if he hadn’t cut an article out of some obscure paper, they wouldn’t have known where to start.’ Rowlands took a sheet covered with notes from one of the files. ‘Iolo reckons the world’s full of gullible people desperate to jump on the back of some “discovery” and ride to fame, so they could have got away with taking far less trouble, but with the help of this article, they did a superb job.’ He scanned the notes. ‘Ned allegedly sneaked around the National Library tearing endpapers and the odd blank page out of rare old books, then they copied out their own offerings, with Indian ink and quills cut from seagull feathers.’

‘
I don’t believe it! Ned wouldn’t vandalize books.’

‘
You can’t know that, and I think it fits rather neatly. Ever after, he’s beset by the enormous awe-inspiring knowledge that in his eyes, he’d done terrible wrong, and would have to pay accordingly, and he caused his own pain in case God thought about letting him off the hook.’ He returned to his notes. ‘They aged the ink by pouring boiling tea over the paper, then splattered candlewax and butter and oil at random. Iolo also mentioned rubbing in bread-crumbs and dirt, and chewing the edges to mimic vermin damage. His face quite lit up when he was talking, and he wittered at some length about the very long, and very respectable history of faking, but I had to tell him I’d never heard of Keating, de Hory, van Meegeren, or Hebborn.’

‘
I hope he included his namesake,’ McKenna added. ‘Edward Williams, AKA Iolo Morgannwg, was faking bardic verse two hundred years ago, as well as rewriting Welsh history, and, like any student of Welsh literature, Iolo would know all about him. That’s probably where he got the idea.’

‘
Ned would’ve known, too, and knowing the source of the poetry rather puts paid to your romantic notions about the survival of documents.’ Slipping the paper back with its fellows, Rowlands smiled. ‘You still believe the verses are Ned’s own work, don’t you?’

‘
What I believe doesn’t matter, but I doubt if Iolo will amaze the world with a bounty of wonderful poetry now he’s thrown off the shackles of deception.’

‘
He’s done no such thing,’ Rowlands told him. ‘He’s no intention of admitting to anything except a student prank, which wasn’t his idea, and not even that unless he’s out of options.’

‘
We can’t justify the cost of having the manuscripts examined unless there’s a direct and demonstrable connection with Ned’s murder, so Iolo’s face will probably be saved, which will be a huge relief to the Welsh academic establishment. You’d better send him home.
La
belle
femme
should be back soon from her London expedition.’

‘
I still want to know where the money comes from.’

‘
Why didn’t you ask when you had the chance?’

‘
I did, and he told me to mind my own sodding business.’

‘
And where did he meet with Ned when he felt himself in need of honest comfort?’

‘
They had a weekly date at a pub in Menai Bridge.’

‘
Did they?’ McKenna frowned. ‘How come, when Phoebe was usually with Ned?’

‘
They met while she was in school, and during the holidays, Iolo suffered, which is another reason for him to hate her.’ Rowlands picked up the files, and tucked them under his arm. ‘And you were wrong about his name change. It wasn’t a symbolic separation from Ned and their joint past. People were always confusing the two of them, and he got sick of it.’