Candlenight

Chapter XLV

Miranda had been absolutely determined not to do this. A clean break was the only way. They simply didn't need the hassle of each other any more.

The problem was she'd got rather pissed on the plane — private plane owned by the company, no expense spared when you were working with these people, lots of Champagne, none of this Sangria nonsense — and the thought of ferrying all her luggage out to Daddy's place had been too tedious.

Besides, the Spanish resort where they'd been shooting — two days for about six seconds — had been a sort of hot Bognor, the kind of location that dictated at least an hour in the shower absolutely as soon as one reached civilisation.

So Miranda let herself into Morelli's flat and made straight for the immersion heater. It was supposed to be one of those rapid ones, but she decided to give it twenty-five minutes, because an hour in the shower was a long time for Morelli's primitive cistern to cope with.

She picked up the mail and put it on his desk. No point in trying to pretend she hadn't been here — Miranda would have been the first to agree that her personal ambience was not the easiest to dispel.

OK then.

She switched on every heater she could find, flung her case into the middle of the floor and stripped off most of her clothes. Sometimes feeling rather cold could be quite a luxury.

Miranda hated Spain. On the other hand, she did rather enjoy doing commercials. So many well-known actors were doing them these days that people tended to think that if you were in one you must be a rather respected figure too.

She wandered into the bedroom. Duvet still thrown back. He obviously hadn't returned from Wales. What an utter plonker he was. Always worrying about the effect he might be having on the great cosmic scheme of things, or the effect he ought to be having. "Taking responsibility, kid," was how he'd put it, explaining that you shouldn't eat meat if you weren't prepared to kill your own.

Morelli was a mass of conflicting neuroses. How could anyone be the young Al Pacino on the outside and mid-period Woody Allen underneath?

Miranda marched into the bathroom and ran the shower. She gave it a couple of minutes to heat up and was about to step in when the phone bleeped.

She decided to go ahead regardless, but remembered then how annoying a telephone could be when one was showering — the shower never quite managing to drown out the bleeps. So she decided to unplug the thing. But, of course, curiosity won in the end and she picked it up and affected a Deep South sort of voice.

"Thiyus iyus the Morelli res'dence."

A man's voice, educated, not young said: "Oh, is that Mrs. Morelli?"

"It most certainly isn't!" snapped Miranda, reverting to type.

"Oh dear. Well, would it be possible to speak to Mr.Morelli? I'm afraid this is about the seventeenth time I've tried over the past two days."

"I regret to have to tell you." Miranda said, "that he's in Wales. Please don't ask me why."

"Wales, eh?"

"Wales."

"Well, would you happen to know precisely where in Wales he's gone?"

"Somewhere full of grim mountains and dead sheep, I expect," said Miranda, beginning to feel rather chilly standing there in the altogether. "Would you like to leave a message?"

"Look, if I'm barking up the wrong tree, cut me off or something…"

Don't tempt me.

"… but it wouldn't be a village called Y Groes, would it?"

"Called what? They all sound the same to me."

"Y Groes. Spelt I-Grows."

"Oh, well, look, I believe he has spoken of some such place, yes. But I really couldn't be certain."

"Ah. Do you know if he's staying at the inn there?"

"I can't honestly say where he's staying. Look, can I take a message?" Over her shoulder. Miranda could hear the beckoning patter of the hot water.

"You see, it was about Y Groes that I wanted to speak to him. Are you a friend of his?"

"Friend, ex-lover, confidante — and highly qualified to pass on messages." Come on, you old fool, spit it out.

"Perhaps I should explain…"

Must you?

"My name's Peters."

"I'm writing it down."

"Canon Alex Peters."

This has to be a first, Miranda thought morosely. I'm standing here tit-and-bum naked, talking to a vicar.

"I conducted the funeral service for Winstone Thorpe. Perhaps your, er, friend mentioned him."

Miranda barely managed to suppress a groan.

"You see, I was chatting to your friend after the funeral, and he told me how poor Winstone had begged him to discourage young Giles Freeman from making his home in Wales. Of course, I was born and brought up in South Wales and I'm afraid I was rather dismissive about the whole thing. Nonsense. I said. Lovely place, lovely people."

Get on with it! Miranda was grinding her teeth.

"Then, you see, I read about Giles's death, and it said he'd been living at Y Groes. and immediately I thought about Martin Coulson and this awful man Ellis Jenkins."

"I really think I should leave a message for Berry to ring you when he gets back," Miranda said, goose pimples on her arms now.

"You see, I didn't know until I read about Giles's death that we were talking about Y Groes. Which, of course, is where Martin died so tragically a couple of years ago. Do you know the case I'm referring to?"

"I don't think so, but—"

"Died in the church. Twenty-five years old. Dreadful. And then Jenkins refusing to have him in his churchyard. Caused quite a stir in church circles. So I thought I ought to pass this on to Berry Morelli, as he'd seemed rather anxious, a little unsure of what he ought to do."

"Oh. he always seems anxious…"

"It's probably of absolutely no relevance. Though I confess to being rather curious about where Giles Freeman was eventually buried."

"Well, I'm afraid I really can't help you there." Miranda said. "Look, I'll get Berry to ring you. shall I? What's the number?"

Canon Alex Peters gave her a number. "I'm at Woodstock, near Oxford. In retirement. Not much else to think about, you see. As I say, probably nothing, but if he should happen to ring you from Wales, pass on my number, would you?"

"Oh, I will," Miranda said. And then, just a tiny bit curious herself by now. "Look Mr., er — Canon—"

"Peters. Alex Peters."

"Of course, I wrote it down. Listen, I shall probably regret asking this, but why wouldn't they let this chap be buried in the churchyard?"

"Ah. well…"

"Yes?"

"Well, because he was English, my dear."

When she got back log the shower it was lukewarm.

Miranda shrieked in rage and frustration.

"God, Morelli," she rasped through her teeth, groping for his bathrobe and discovering he'd taken it with him.

"Wherever you are, I hope you're really suffering for this."

Chapter XLVI

Elinor said, "I hate this room."

She didn't hate any particular part of the room. She didn't hate the Victorian bed. She didn't hate the deeply recessed window, or the low-beamed ceiling. Or even its size— rather cramped, with that enormous wardrobe.

"I suppose," said George Hardy, with heavy resignation, "that I'm supposed to ask you why you hate the room."

Still wearing her funeral dress, Elinor sat on a corner of the bed, glazed gaze fixed on the window through which she could see, in the late-afternoon light, the rooftops of the cottages opposite the inn, the winter-browned oak woods on the edge of the village and the misting hills beyond.

She was wondering if all this — the car breaking down, having to come here — was fate's fumbling attempt to heal the cuts she and Claire had inflicted on each other.

Wasn't working, though, was it? Anyone could see the wounds had only widened.

"I don't know why I hate it," Elinor said.

George said. "I think I shall ask that fellow if I can use his phone, give the garage a ring in Pontmeurig." George pronounced it Pontmoorig. "Make sure the parts will be here tomorrow."

Elinor, distant, still staring out of the window, said, "Should have had it towed away. Back to England, if necessary. We could have taken a taxi."

George didn't bother to reply.

Elinor stood up and turned back the covers of the bed to see if the sheets were clean. Unfortunately, they had the look of being freshly-laundered. She sat down again, on the edge of the bed.

As she sat down this time, the bed shifted and a floorboard creaked.

"Better ring the office too." George said. "Get them to stall any clients."

"We won't be here for ever, George."

"Can't count on anything these days." Tidy George unpacked two clean shins and hung them in the wardrobe.

"Good job you're so efficient." he said brightly. "Enough clothes here to last the week out."

Elinor was determined not to rise to this bait.

"Handling it awfully well, though, isn't she?" George said.

"What?"

"Claire. I was quite surprised."

And relieved no doubt, Elinor thought. He could never deal with women's tears. Blubbing, he called it once. Only once — she'd almost had his eyes out.

"No, she's a tough girl." George said admiringly. "What d'you think of her new hairstyle? Quite fetching. I thought. I'd almost forgotten what her natural colour looked like."

"George," Elinor dug her nails into the bedspread. "Go and make your phone calls."

The floorboard creaked again as she stood up.

That night must have been an encouraging one for Simon Gallier. Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Glanmeurig.

There weren't enough chairs in the Memorial Hall in Pont; groups of people were blocking the firedoors and clustered in the passageway to the lavatories.

Novelty value. Berry Morelli thought. It was obviously a real night out for many members of the audience. Most of the men wore suits and ties.

He was standing under the platform, searching the crowd for Bethan McQueen and failing to spot her. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, he turned expectantly.

"We're down here, mate." Ray Wheeler said. "One space left on the Press table"

"Oh. Sure, Thanks." Berry allowed himself to be steered to a chair between Shirley Gillies and Bill Sykes.

"Mind boggles, eh?" Sykes grated. "Bet old Johnny Gore's never pulled a bigger crowd since his wedding. Oh, sorry John, didn't see you there."

"Evening, Bill," said the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, leaning across the Press table and then whispering. "Afraid I'm going to be a trifle boring tonight. Don't want to outshine the boy."

"Poor old Johnny," said Sykes, as the Minister hefted his considerable bulk up the three wooden steps to the platform. "Couldn't outshine a ten-watt bulb."

"I was wondering." Berry said, "what Ole Winstone would've made of all this. Think he'd've come?"

"Not a hope," said Bill Sykes. "You wouldn't have got Winstone back to Wales for a lorry load of Glenfiddich."

It struck Berry that you could get a hell of a lot of Glenfiddich on a lorry. More than enough to make a cynical old hack overcome his prejudices. He made a mental note to raise this with Sykes when the speeches were over.

There were a few cheers as Simon Gallier stepped onto the platform. He was built like a front-row rugby player, had prematurely greying hair and a shambling, untrimmed moustache like, Berry thought, a badly made yardbrush.

Gallier made a tough, rousing speech, full of commitment to Wales and the language, a few Welsh phrases scattered strategically around. When he threw these in. there were odd noises of appreciation. English immigrants. Berry thought. Token Welsh wouldn't cut much ice with the locals.

His perception surprised him. He must be getting the measure of this strange, mixed society.

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry was indeed, even by comparison with Gallier, extremely predictable. Almost as boring as the questions people asked afterwards. Jerry suspected most of the questioners were plants. These guys were preaching to the converted. No opposition here — except, he thought, amused, for Bethan sitting somewhere back there discreetly absorbing it all for Guto's benefit. Mata Hari.

"One of Johnny's belter efforts. I thought," grunted Sykes as the minister sat down for the last time.

"Oh, Berry," a voice breathed in his ear.

As Gallier's applause died. Berry turned to find Shirley Gillies contemplating him, a bijou smile dimpling her plump, downy features. She said, "You must be getting really fed up, stuck in the Drovers' all night." She dipped her eyelashes. "I was wondering… why don't you wander back to the Plas Meurig for a couple of drinks before turning in?"

The implication was clear.

He couldn't believe it: she was genuinely turned on by all this shit. Wow. Was there a name for a person who was erotically stimulated by the cut and thrust — with the emphasis on thrust — of party politics?

"Thing is, ah, I arranged to see someone later." he said, trying to sound regretful. 'Thanks, though, Shirley."

"Oh, right, OK." said Shirley. "Just a thought"

It was going to be somebody's lucky night. Maybe even Bill Sykes's, depending how legless the alternatives were around midnight.

As they stood up, the hall clearing, people talking in bunches. Berry said to Sykes, "When you said Winstone wouldn't come back to Wales, you meant because of the bad time he had covering mat story in the sixties, the murder of the two farmers?"

"Ha!" Bill Sykes snapped a rubber band around his notebook. "Winstone never covered that story. He wasn't even born then. Indeed, that's the whole point."

"Huh?"

"Now there's a mystery for you, old boy. Remind me to tell you about it sometime, eh?" Bill began to rub his knees. "Not good for the joints, these damn chairs."

"Hey, come on. Bill, t—"

Tell me now, he'd been about to say, but there was a hand on his shoulder again and this time, to his relief — relief and a frisson of something more interesting — the hand belonged to Bethan.

She was wearing her white raincoat, Guto's beautiful spy.

"Can we be seen talking?" Berry said out of the corner of his mouth. "Or should I leave a message in the dead-letter drop?"

"Actually, this is probably the one place we are safe," Bethan said, 'if Guto sees us together one of us will need to seek asylum in England."

"Right. Ah…" Good a time as any. "I was gonna ask. Guto — Guto and you…?"

"He thinks I need to be protected," Bethan said.

"By him."

"Of course. He thinks living alone is not good for me. He thinks I am in danger of having a nervous breakdown."

"What do you think?"

"I think a nervous breakdown would be quite a relief," Bethan said softly. "Come on, let's go."

It was George who made the discovery, just as they were getting ready for bed.

"That's it!" he announced, sitting on a comer of the bed. flinging down a sock. "I'm going to find out what's causing it."

He's drunk too much, Elinor thought. "It's only a loose floorboard," she said.

"Getting on my nerves."

Elinor had more to worry about than a creak. It had been a most unsatisfactory evening.

She'd been almost hopeful at the start — Claire turning up at the inn at around seven, joining them for dinner. Roast lamb, of course. All the Welsh seemed to be able to cook was lamb. George enjoyed it.

There'd been nobody else dining at the inn, theirs the only table with a cloth. The little white-haired licensee had served them himself, reasonably courteously. An opportune time, Elinor had judged, to raise the issue of what was to happen now.

"Why don't you come and stay with us for a while, give yourself time to think things out?"

Claire had told her nothing needed to be thought out and then said, "We'll never agree about this, Mother, you must surely have realised that."

George had said, "Let the girl get over it in her own way." And Elinor had found herself wondering if, for Claire, there was really anything to get over. It was clear their marriage had not been as well founded as she'd imagined.

"I shall come and visit you, of course," Claire said. "Sometimes."

"I should hope so." her father said in his jocular way, his second cigarette burning away in an ashtray by his elbow.

"Knowing how much you would dislike coming to my grandfather's house."

Elinor had felt something coiling and uncoiling in her stomach. Tell me I've got it wrong. Tel! me you aren't going to stay here…

"Let's just enjoy our meal, shall we?" Claire had said.

Later, in the bar, everyone had greeted Claire in Welsh, switching to English when they saw she was not alone: She'd introduced them to her "friends," a thin man with horrible teeth and a couple, he bearded and hefty, she red-faced with little beady eyes and an awful gappy Welsh smile. All were appallingly friendly to Elinor and George, who was persuaded to play darts and allowed to win.

Not Elinor's sort of evening.

"Hey, look at this—" George had the floorboard up.

"Put the bloody thing back, for God's sake. George—"

"No, look—" He appeared ludicrously unattractive, sprawled on the floor, hair awry, white belly slopping out of his underpants, arm down a hole in the floor.

"Some kind of book, I think. Hang on… Here it comes."

George brought it into the light. "Probably a valuable first edition or something. Oh…"

The light from the centre of the ceiling fell on an ordinary stiff-backed notebook from W.H. Smith.

"Can't win 'em all," said George. He stamped on the floorboard, "Least I've stopped the damn squeak."

"What is it?" Elinor said, in bed now. wearing a long- sleeved pale-blue nightdress.

George opened the book. "Sir Robert Meredydd," he read. "Thirteen forty-nine to fourteen twenty-one. Can't be his notebook, anyway, it's written in Biro. Couple of diagrams, rough sort of plan, pages of unintelligible scrawl. Doesn't look very interesting. Why do you suppose it was under the floorboard?"

"I don't know. And I don't care."

"Probably a bloody treasure map." George laughed and tossed the book on to his bedside table. "Remind me to give it to that chap Griffiths in the morning."

"I wish it was morning now," Elinor said.

"I don't. I'm bloody tired."

"You're drunk."

"What, on three pints and a Scotch?"

"There's an awful tension in here. In the air. Can't you feel it?"

"Only the tension in my bladder." George said coarsely, pulling on his overcoat. "Excuse me."

As he slumped off to the bathroom across the landing— nothing en-suite in this place — Elinor pulled the quilt around her shoulders and picked up the notebook to take her mind off how much she hated this room. The book was not particularly dusty, obviously hadn't been down there long.

It fell open at the reference to Sir Robert Meredydd and Elinor saw that the date 1421 had been underlined twice and an exclamation mark added.

She looked at the diagrams. One appeared to be a rough map of the village with a circle marking the church, shading denoting woodland and a dotted line going off the page and marked "trackway."

Half the book was empty. The last note said something like "Check Mornington."

Elinor put the book back on the table, on George's side.

She'd hated those people in the bar tonight. Most of all she'd hated the way they and Claire had exchanged greetings in Welsh. Claire seeming quite at home with the language.

Elinor hated the sound of Welsh. Nasty, whining, guttural. If they could all speak English, why didn't they?

Her father had never once spoken Welsh to them at home. Yet had turned his back on them, returned to the so-called land of his fathers — and then, apparently, had spoken little else.

There was something rancid in the air.

When George returned they would have to put out the light, and the room would be lit from the window, which had no curtains and was divided into eight square panes. And the room would be one with the silent village and the night.

Chapter XLVII

Shadows clung to the alleyway along the side of the Memorial Hall. It was lit only by a tin-shaded yellow bulb on the corner of the building. Berry walked close to Bethan. He liked walking close to Bethan, though he wasn't too sure who was protecting whom.

Neurotic chemistry.

They came out on the parking lot below the castle. Any place else, Berry thought, they'd have had floodlights around a ruined castle this big. Made a feature of it. In Pontmeurig they seemed to treat their medieval monument like some shabby industrial relic, hiding it with modern buildings, parking cars and trucks as close as they could get to its ramparts.

Plenty cars here tonight, as many as in the daytime.

"Business has never been so good," Bethan said, as they crossed the road to Hampton's Bookshop. "The licensees are hoping that whoever wins the by-election will die very soon so they can have another one."

"Where's Guto's meeting tonight?"

"Y Groes," Bethan said quickly and pulled her keys from her bag.

"What time's he get back?"

"Alun's driving, so he'll have a few drinks afterwards. Half-eleven, twelve."

"Gives us a couple of hours to talk before he comes looking for your report."

"He won't tonight. Close the door behind you."

Bethan led the way upstairs, flicking lights on. In the flat she switched on a single reading lamp with an orange shade, went to plug in the kettle. "How long you lived here?" Berry said.

"Only a few months. After Robin died, I went to work in a school in Swansea, but then they offered me the head teacher's job in Y Groes '

"Hold on," Berry said. "I thought you were at Y Groes before."

"Yes, but not working there." Bethan came through from the kitchen in jeans and sweater, coat over her arm. She threw it in an armchair, sat on an arm of the sofa. "I'll start at the beginning, shall I?"

"OK"

She told him she'd been born in Aberystwyth, where her parents still lived. Went to college in Swansea, came back to teach at the primary school in Pontmeurig then at a bigger school in Aber. Met Robin McQueen, a geologist from Durham, working at the British Geological Survey Centre just south of the town. When they married they'd been delighted to be able to rent a terraced cottage in Y Groes, even though it would be a fifty-mile round trip to work each day for both of them.

"It all seemed so perfect," Bethan said. "Robin was like Giles — overwhelmed by the setting and the countryside and the beauty of the village itself. The extra driving seemed a small price to pay."

"How long were you there, before—?"

Her eyelids dropped. "Under a year."

"Listen, you don't have to—"

"There is very little to say. He complained increasingly of feeling tired. Put it down to the travelling and the stress. The stress, he— The survey team were being told to investigate Mid-Wales to find areas where the rocks were suitable for burying nuclear waste. Robin, of course, was fiercely anti-nuclear. He considered resigning. But then we would have been forced to leave the area — nothing else round here for a geologist. Then, worst of all, he found two prime nuclear-dumping sites in the Nearly Mountains, five miles from Y Groes. can you imagine that?"

"Awkward."

"So be was tired and under terrible stress and he flew into a rage if I suggested he should see a doctor. And then—"

The kettle puffed and shrilled. Bethan got up. Berry followed her into the tiny kitchen.

"And then he did see a doctor," she said dully. "And of course it was too late." She poured boiling water into a brown teapot. "Far too late."

Bethan pushed the fingers of both hands through her black hair. "We had not quite two weeks," she said.

"Jesus," Berry said softly.

"My neighbour at the lime. Mrs. Bronwen Dafis, told me one day — being helpful, very nice, very understanding — that Robin would be dead before the weekend."

"She was medically qualified, huh?"

"It emerged that she had followed a corpse candle from the church to our door."

"Followed a what?"

"In rural Wales." Bethan said. "There are many signs and portents signifying death. The corpse candle is said to be a tiny light which floats a few feet above the ground. Identifying the house of a person who will soon die. Or perhaps someone will see his own corpse candle, trailing behind him along the lane."

"People believe that?"

"That is the very least of what some people believe. There is something, also unique to Wales. I imagine, called the teuli or toili. The phantom funeral. A funeral procession may be seen carrying a coffin or pushing the coffin on a bier or a cart. Perhaps you are in some lonely place at night or twilight, and the cortege passes right through you."

"Legends. Folklore. Country bullshit, right?"

"Of course." Bethan poured two teas. "Strong enough?"

"Fine. These stories… must scare the crap out of kids."

"Except," Bethan said, "in Y Groes."

"Why'd I have a feeling you were gonna say that?"

They carried the mugs back into the living room. Bethan put on the electric fire. They sat, one on each arm of the peacock sofa.

"All this furniture from the cottage?"

Bethan nodded and told him how, heartbroken, she'd at first put the furniture in store and taken a job, any job, in Swansea — in spite of the entreaties of her neighbours, several of whom had seriously urged her not to leave.

"Obviously, they wanted me to stay because I was a Welsh speaker and they needed younger blood. The young people leave this area in their hundreds, to find work. And because, well, that is what young people do, they leave their roots behind. So you have many villages which are full of old people. And immigrants."

"Ah."

"But not Y Groes. It is perhaps the only village in Wales where everyone is Welsh. And Welsh speaking."

"Everyone? What about the Welsh people who bring their wives and husbands who happen not to be Welsh—?"

It hit him.

"Aw, hey, come on…"

Bethan shrugged.

Half asleep. Elinor thought at first, as anyone would, that it must be the wind.

And then she heard the unmistakable heat of wings.

The bed shifted as she sat up.

"What was that? What was it?"

George grunted.

"Did you hear it? George, did you hear it?"

A clear, cold night outside. A quarter moon in the top-left square of the deep-set window.

Elinor shivered in her cotton nightdress.

"I was asleep." George complained. "For God's sake. I was asleep"

"It's stopped," Elinor said. "It was a bird, I think."

"Owl, probably."

"Owls don't peck at windows."

"I wouldn't know. I'm not an ornithologist" George wrenched at the blankets, turned over.

"Stopped now." Elinor spoke faintly and sank back on the pillow.

"Go to sleep." George mumbled. "We'll be away from here tomorrow, God willing."

Eyes wide open, she wondered how much influence God might exert in a place like this. She was no more a theologian than George was an ornithologist. But she was a woman and he was a depressingly unresponsive man. There were things that he would never begin to understand.

She lay on her back looking up at the beamed ceiling, only white bars visible, found by the sparse moonlight.

"George," she said after a while, unmoving in the bed.

"What?"

And came out with it at last. "I think she's pregnant."

George turned over towards her. "What on earth makes you say that?"

"Oh, you probably wouldn't understand, but I can feel it about her somehow — the way she moves, her colouring, her skin tone. Not much more than a month perhaps, but it's there."

"Oh dear. That would be difficult, especially in a place like this. How would she support a child? She's a freelance. No maternity leave for a freelance."

"I'm probably wrong," Elinor said, sorry now that she'd blurted out what was on her mind. She'd always had cause to regret confiding her deeper feelings to bluff, shallow, well-meaning George.

"Hope you are," George said. "Although I'd quite like to be a grandad one day. Completes the picture."

Within minutes he was snoring. Always make the best of things, that was George. Elinor turned on to her side and after a while began to drift unhappily towards the blurred frontier of sleep.

Was pulled back by that hideous noise again.

The measured, sharp laps on the windowpane, The convulsion of wings.

Rolling over in her lonely terror, she saw the shadow of the nightbird against the moon-tinted glass.

In a flat, cold silence, as if the sound of the world had been switched off, it brandished its dark wings at her, a spasm of black foreboding.

And vanished.

She turned to face the wall. And did not sleep again, nor look at the window, until morning came in a sickly pink mist.

Chapter XLVIII

Berry came down lo breakfast and heard voices from the sitting room next door.

"Bethan has been here since seven," explained Mrs. Evans, setting down his three kinds of toast. "Been following the Tory campaign, she has. Well, I never realised this electioneering was so complicated."

Ten minutes later, as she carried his plates away, he heard her open the sitting room door. "I'm taking your tea and coffee into the dining room. It's not friendly to leave Mr. Morelli on his own."

Guto's reply was unintelligible but audibly grumpy. He shambled in a couple of minutes later wearing a torn sweatshirt with something in Welsh printed on the front and a lot of exclamation marks "Morning, Morelli," he said without enthusiasm.

"Bad night?"

"Don't even fucking ask." said Guto, reversing a dining chair and sitting down with his legs astride the seat and his chin on his hands over the backrest.

Bethan followed him in, contrastingly elegant in black, with the big gold earrings, "Guto has decided his meeting in Y Groes was not a success," she said carefully.

Mrs. Evans returned with matching tea and coffee pots in some ornate kind of china, put the coffee pot on the table in front of Guto. "I've told you about sitting like that, you'll ruin that chair."

"Oh, Mam, not this morning, for Chr — Not this morning, please."

Mrs. Evans put down the teapot. "Two black tea drinkers?" She said. "There's coincidence. Strong or weak?"

"I like mine strongish," Bethan said. "I am afraid he likes it so it corrodes the spoon."

Guto threw her a penetrating look which said. And how the hell do you know that?

"Berry was at the Conservative meeting last night." Bethan said quickly, pouring tea. "They served tea afterwards," she lied. "He was complaining about the Tory tea. how weak it was. This is lovely. Mrs. Evans."

Guto's look said, Oh. Berry, now, is it?

"Anything else you want," Mrs. Evans said, scurrying off, "I'll be in the kitchen."

"Yes, yes, thank you, Mam," Guto said irritably.

"So what went wrong?" Berry lit a cigarette.

"I truly cannot fathom it. Morelli." Guto said. "You know Y Groes, you've been there?"

Berry nodded.

"Not a soul in that village does not speak Welsh, am I right, Bethan?"

"You're right," she said. "And you are remembering that when Gwynfor won his by-election to become the first Plaid MP, back then, it was said he had one hundred per cent support in the Welsh-speaking communities of Carmarthenshire — in Llanybydder and Rhydeymerau."

"Right," Guto said bitterly. "Of all the places, this was the one I was the least worried about. Didn't even think about what I was going to say in advance. I'd march into the school hall to universal cheers. Hard man of the nationalists, hero of the hour."

He rocked backwards and forwards on the dining chair. "You know how many were there? Nineteen. Nineteen fucking people!"

Berry reckoned Simon Gallier must have pulled nearly four hundred. OK. Guto's meeting was in a village, but, shit…

"Another notable chapter in the annals of apathy, it was," Guto said. "And worse still — get this — most of the nineteen were from farms and hamlets a few miles away. I should say there were fewer than five actual residents of Y Groes. And they were the people who knew me, come out of politeness — Aled from the pub, Dilwyn Dafis, Dewi Fon. What is it we learn from this, eh? What do we fucking learn here?"

"Maybe the meeting wasn't publicised enough? " Berry said.

"Bollocks. Nothing happens in these villages that everybody doesn't know about. Apathy, it is. Typical of this area. Makes you sick."

He looked despondently at the floor. Bethan looked at Berry. The look indicated she could maybe explain this, and apathy was not the word she would use.

"Look, I have to go," Bethan said.

"And I have to change, for my Press conference," Guto said. "Jesus, what if the hacks have heard about it?"

"Any of them there?" Berry asked.

"No. And with only twenty-one people in the bloody room, I can be sure of that, at least. But they'll have heard, see. Word travels fast. I tell you, if it goes on like this, I'm finished, man."

"It won't, Guto." Bethan said. "Believe me. It is not like other places, that village. I know this. And you have over a week, yet" She squeezed his arm.

Berry thought. He's worried about this getting out and he just told the entire story to a reporter

He didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted that neither Guto nor Bethan seemed to consider him a real journalist.

When Guto, reluctantly be-suited, had left for the Drovers', Berry wedged himself into the telephone alcove of Mrs. Evans's china-choked sitting room and called American Newsnet, collect.

"I was beginning to think," Addison Walls said, "that the telephone system had not yet been extended to Wales." He sounded like he had a cold.

"It got here at the weekend," Berry said. "Just nobody could figure out how to connect the wires. So, how much you want me to file?"

"I don't want you to file a thing." Addison Walls said. "I read every damn word printed about that by-election and, as I predicted, it's full shit and of purely domestic interest. So what I'm lookin' for is you back here by tonight, yeah?"

"Ah, I don't think I can do that." Berry said. There was a long pause during which Berry could hear Addison trying to breathe.

"I hear you correctly? I said I needed you back here by tonight, and you said—"

"I said I didn't think I could make it. Like, you know, my car broke down."

"You drive a pile of crap, Morelli, whadda you expect?

So take a train. If there's no trains, take a bus. Fuck it, grab a cab, but get your ass back here by tonight. OK?"

"Addison, listen," Berry said. "How about I take a couple days vacation—"

"Nearly December, Morelli. You took all your vacation."

"OK, I'll take some of next year's."

"Morelli, Goddamn it—" He heard Addison Walls blow his nose. "Listen, we're up to the eyes here. Paul went sick, I can't see the top a my desk for fuckin' influenza remedies that don't fuckin' work. You know what, Morelli, you've become a real weird guy. So, listen, you don't show up tomorrow, I am not gonna be all that worried. Give me an opportunity to test out my new shredder on your contract."

"Addison, hey, come on… Just two days is all I'm asking."

"You getting the general direction of my thinking. Morelli?"

"Yeah," Berry felt some perverse kind of euphoria filling up his head. "Yeah. I think I'm finally piecing things together."

"Good," Addison Walls said, and he hung up.

The sun was out, pale but definitely out, and the street sparkled after an overnight frost. Berry could see the broken denture of the castle walls, a sign pointing to the Welsh Pizza House — lousy name, lousy pizzas. Feeling suddenly very strange, very different, he began to walk up the street. Saw Guto's mom coming back from the shop with a teeming basket over her arm and a headscarf over her perm. Felt a crazy kind of affection for Guto's mom.

Guto too. He'd make the right kind of MP. Always be in trouble, always say the wrong things to the wrong people. Berry liked that.

But how much of a chance did Guto really have? Why didn't Y Groes want him? Heart of the Welsh-speaking heartland.

He could get back to London in four, five hours. He could spend most of today here and still get back to London by tonight. Maybe come back next weekend, see how things were going.

Sure. No problem.

At the top of the street, past Hampton's Bookshop but before you got to the bridge, there was a teashop which also sold Welsh crafts. Mainly lovespoons, which were made of wood and were intricately carved and came in a variety of sizes. Berry wondered what they had to do with love. Maybe he'd ask Bethan, who ought, by now, to be waiting in there. An arrangement they'd made last night.

They'd talked until eleven-thirty, then Berry had said he ought to go because Guto would be home and Mrs. Evans would want to get to bed. He hadn't wanted to go. Christ, no.

As he approached the teashop, he could see her sitting in the window, black hair tumbling into a black cowl-neck woollen sweater.

She'd told him last night how she'd done this dumb thing, gone to the education department and suggested they close down the village school. How she felt the school had been corrupting generations of kids. She'd found it hard to explain why she thought this. Said he'd need to meet the other teacher to understand.

Berry had told her about breaking into the judge's house that day with Giles. He'd told her about the study, the deep, dark atmosphere of hate.

"Yes." she'd said. "Yes."

He hadn't told her about the room whispering, sice …sice… because he wasn't even sure that had happened.

The education department had told Bethan to take two or three weeks off. They figured she had to be nuts, trying to get her own school shut down, maybe heading for a breakdown.

I think a nervous breakdown would be quite a relief.

He walked across the road to the teashop. She had her back to him, talking to someone maybe. He caught a flash of gold earring as she tossed her hair back. No way could this woman be insane, but then, who was he to judge?

Chapter XLIX

Inside the teashop it was very dim, all the furniture stained as dark as the lovespoons on the walls. Which was why, from outside, you could only see the person sitting in the window. Why he hadn't seen the other two people at Bethan's table.

It was the older couple who'd been at Giles's funeral. The guy with white hair, yellow at the front, and deep lines down both cheeks. The woman thin-faced, harsh hair rinsed an uneasy auburn, looking like copper wire.

"Berry, this is Claire's mother and father."

"Oh." Somehow, he'd thought they must have been relations of Giles, rather than Claire. "Hi," he said, pulling out a chair.

Bethan introduced him as a friend and colleague of Giles's, down here for the election. "Mr. and Mrs. Hardy had to spend the night at the Tafarn at Y Groes. They are having problems with their car."

"But we're getting it back this morning," George Hardy said. "That's why we're here. Claire dropped us off."

Berry turned to the woman. He'd heard her muttering "Thank God," when her husband talked about getting the car back.

"You don't like it here?"

"Not really our son of place. I'm afraid," Elinor Hardy said, tight-voiced.

"Not being snobbish or anything," George assured Bethan. "Good God, no. Wonderful place for a quiet summer holiday. Just that at this time of year it seems a little cold and remote and it's not quite what we're used to. Certainly never had to wait two days before to get what seemed quite a simple problem with the cam belt seen to."

"We didn't get much sleep, I'm afraid," Elinor said. The skin under her eyes was blue, Berry saw, and it wasn't cosmetic. She was fingering her coffee cup nervously. He wondered why Claire had put them in a teashop and just left them.

"Bloody bed kept creaking," George said. "Had to get down on my hands and knees and mess about with a loose floorboard underneath to stop it. Good God, I'd forgotten— Elinor, why didn't you remind me?"

From an inside pocket of his overcoat he pulled a slim, red, hard-backed notebook. "Found it under the damned floorboard. Meant to give it to the manager chap this morning."

"Unlikely to have been his anyway," Elinor said.

"Suppose not. Must belong to somebody, though, and he'd be belter placed than us to find out who, obviously."

Bethan said. "You found it under the floorboard in the bedroom? Can I see?"

George passed her the book. "Keep it, if it's of any interest. Odd little hand-drawn maps of the village, that sort of thing. Probably mean more to you than me."

'Thank you." Bethan made no attempt to look at the notebook, slipping it into her bag.

"If you find any treasure, send us a few bob, won't you." Ignoring his wife's withering glance. George laughed and coughed and pulled out his cigarettes. "Don't mind, do you? Only things that seem to stop me coughing these days."

A waitress appeared, glum girl of about seventeen. Bethan said, "Can I order you more coffee?"

Elinor grimaced.

"Just one pot of tea, then." Bethan told the girl, "Un te, plis." Pointed at Berry. "Dim laeth. "

Berry saw the woman flinch when Bethan spoke Welsh. She was in some state.

The hell with tact. He said. "I hear that Claire… she has this amazing aptitude for the Welsh language."

Elinor said, tonelessly. "Has she?"

George Hardy looked at his watch, stood up, cigarette in hand. "Think I'd better pop round the comer lo the garage, see how they're getting on with it. Have to stand over these chaps sometimes. Nice to meet you. Miss… er. Yes."

When he'd gone, squeezing his overcoated bulk past the racks of lovespoons, his wife just came apart.

She leaned across the table, seized Bethan's wrist. "Look, I don't know anything about you, but please will you help?"

"Of course." Bethan was startled. "If I can."

"I'm sorry. I don't usually behave like this. Bui I don't know anybody here, do you see?" Berry saw her eyes fill up. She let go of Bethan's wrist, pulled a paper napkin from a wooden bowl. "Pen."

Berry handed her his.

"I want to give you my telephone number." She began to write erratically on the napkin, talking as fast and jerkily as her wrist was moving. "Want you to promise to ring me. If anything happens. You see Claire, don't you?'Of course you do. Teaching her… that language."

Bethan said, "I—" Berry's eyes said. Don't contradict her, let her talk.

"Something's happened to her. She's not the same."

"No." Bethan said.

"You can tell that, can't you? You've only known her a short time, but you can see it."

"Yes."

"I won't say—" Elinor put down the pen, folded the napkin; Bethan look it. "I won't say we were ever terribly close. Dreadful admission, but I have to be frank. Have to."

She looked defiantly from Bethan to Berry and back to Bethan.

"Often felt closer to Giles. He would tell me things she concealed. And now he's dead. And we weren't told. Weren't invited to the funeral, you know."

"That's awful." Bethan said.

"She said," Elinor pulled another napkin from the bowl, dabbed her eyes. "She says she wrote to us, but she couldn't invite us here. We had to decide. For ourselves." She blew her nose, crumpled the napkin in her hand. "Never saw a letter. Read about it in the paper. Suppose she didn't tell us because… when my father died… we were about to leave for a holiday and I didn't tell her. None of us went to his funeral. I didn't want her going, didn't want her anywhere near him again."

"Oh," said Bethan. "Of course. You're the judge's daughter.

"He was a bastard. I think that's the first time I've ever used that word."

"Why?" Berry asked gently. "Why was he a bastard?"

"You don't want to know all that. No time, anyway. George'll be back soon. With the car."

"You said you didn't want him near her again. I remember Giles telling me specifically that Claire never met her grandfather."

"She didn't remember meeting him. We were once foolish enough to bring her here. As a small child. He…went off with her. I thought… that he wasn't going to bring her back."

Bethan said, "Went off?"

"I don't know where they went."

"To the woods? To the church?''

"Does it matter? Please, all I want… Just ring me sometimes. Tell me how she is and if… You see, I think she might be expecting a baby. Perhaps that's why she's changed. I pray that's all it is."

"Not the best time to have a kid," Berry said. He felt very sorry for the woman. Obviously wasn't able to confide in her husband. Something not right when she had to pour it all out to strangers in a cafe.

Elinor Hardy straightened up, threw the crumpled napkin in the ashtray with two of George's cigarette butts. "You must think me a very stupid, hysterical woman."

"No," Berry said. "All the people you could've told this to, we're the ones least likely to think that."

"I'll be better when I'm out of here. I know it's your country, but I don't like it here. Feel vulnerable."

… not meant to be here, the English…

"Car goes wrong and you're suddenly stranded. Strange language, different attitudes. Birds pecking at your window in the night."

Bethan's expression did not change at all, but Berry felt she was suddenly freezing up inside.

"Birds?" Casually. Hiding it.

"Pecking… tapping on the window. Kept waking me up in the night. Wasn't an owl. I saw it. Or I may have dreamt it. I don't know. I'm in a terrible state. I've got to get out of here, it's gloomy. I'll go and find George. Look, you will ring me, won't you?"

"I'll ring you before the weekend." Bethan promised.

"Thank you. I don't even know your name."

"Bethan. Bethan McQueen. Mrs. Hardy, you are leaving today, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes," Elinor said. "Count on it."

When she'd gone. Bethan rose silently, paid the girl, collected her bag and her white raincoat from the table. She walked out of the cafe and along the street, Berry following. She didn't speak. They came to the bridge and Bethan crossed the road and walked back towards the town, on the castle side. The frost had melted now, but the sun had gone in.

When they reached the castle car park, Bethan said, "Your car or mine?"

Berry unlocked the Sprite. They got in. Berry started the engine. Not easy. Blue smoke enclouded the Sprite, which now had a cough worse than George Hardy's. Berry backed it round, pointed it at the road.

"Where we going?"

"Turn left," Bethan said. "Across the bridge. Keep going. You'll see a sign pointing over the Nearly Mountains to Y Groes."

"I know it."

"Pass it," Bethan said. "Keep straight on."

"But where are we going?"

"Christ knows," Bethan said. "Somewhere where nobody has ever thought they've seen the bird of death."

Chapter L

Every second farm they passed seemed to have a political poster pasted to a gate or a placard sticking out of a leafless hedgerow. Berry counted seven for Gallier (Con), three for Evans (Plaid) and two each for Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

"Could be worse," he observed. "All over the world, farmers are notoriously conservative."

She didn't reply. She was sitting as upright as was possible in a bucket seat full of holes and patches.

At least the Sprite was responding, losing its bronchitis now they were into open country. He'd been getting a touch paranoid about that, having told Addison Walls his car had broken down and therefore been half-expecting it to do just that.

Superstition. Everywhere, superstition.

Five miles now into the hills north-west of Pontmeurig, and disillusion was setting in. At first he'd been stimulated by all that "your car or mine" stuff on the castle parking lot. Now the space between them was a good deal wider than the gap between the bucket seats, and he didn't know why.

She said suddenly, "Death fascinates the Welsh."

The first time she'd spoken since they passed the sign to Y Groes.

"Corpses and coffins and funerals."

"Signs and portents," Berry said.

"You see these farms. Each one an island. Farmers never visit their neighbours. But when one of them dies, people will come from miles around to his funeral. All the roads to the chapel lined with cars and Land-Rovers for half a mile in each direction. On the day of a big funeral, the traffic police send for reinforcements."

"Bethan, what is the bird of death?"

She didn't reply.

"Where are we headed?"

"Keep driving," she said.

After a few miles they came to a T-junction, Aberystwyth to the right, Machynlleth to the left.

"Make a right here?"

She pointed to the left. "Quickest way out of the constituency."

Sure enough, after a couple more miles there were no more political posters. The landscape became rougher and a lighter, more faded shade of green. Kind of like the Nearly Mountains, snow on the high ground giving the crags a 3-D outline.

Presently, they drove down into a pleasant town, with a wide main street and a Gothic clock tower.

"This is the town that ought to have been the capital of Wales." she said. "Perhaps the earliest centre of Welsh civilisation."

We had the sociology, Berry thought, now we get the history lesson. What is this, a school outing?

"But that's not why we're here," she said.

"So why are we here?"

"Because at the top of this street is the best restaurant in this part of Wales," Bethan said. "Vegetarian meals a specialty. Park anywhere along here."

Berry grinned. A long, slow Italian grin.

"No. No! No! No!"

"I'm sorry. My wife is rather distraught."

"Nooooooo!"

"We lost our son-in-law, you see."

Elinor strode out then, straight through a patch of oil, ruining her sensible pigskin walking shoes.

"Is there no chance for later today?" George pleaded.

"What can I do." the mechanic said, "if they send me the wrong parts. Look, I will show you a copy of the order we dictated to them over the phone—"

"Never mind, I believe you," George said. "It's just bloody inconvenient."

"Quite an old Volvo, see."

"Volvos last for ever." said George, affronted.

Some minutes later he caught up with Elinor.

"It's really not my fault, you know."

"It's never your fault."

"Look, what we'll do—"

"I won't go back there. I'll sleep on a park bench first."

"Dammit, there isn't a park. Nor any benches. But what I was about to say… We've got a few hours. We'll have lunch at that Plas Moorig place and see if they can't find us a room. Any room. How about that? Please…"

Over lunch. Bethan said. I want not to think about it. Just for a while."

"OK. Fine."

'Tell me about you."

"Oh, shit."

Bethan started on her fresh salmon salad. "What is that stuff?"

"It's a vegetarian cannelloni."

"I know that, but what is it?"

"Well, it's got spinach and stuff inside." He sampled a segment. "It's OK."

"For Wales."

"No, it's real good. Jesus, you Celts are so touchy."

He'd taken off his jacket, revealing a green sweatshirt probably older than Guto's, if less torn. In black Gothic lettering across the chest it said, AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.

"You haven't told me about you," Bethan said. "You just said, 'Oh shit,' and then we were sidetracked by the food."

"OK. I'm from New York originally, but I was brought up and educated in seven different states on account of my dad kept moving to further his career until it wouldn't go any further and he decided it was time he became a power and influence in the land."

"What did he do? What was his job?"

"I just love it when people say that. I hate it when they say, hey, you related to Mario Morelli?"

"Who is Mario Morelli?"

"He's my dad, the bastard."

"I had gathered that."

"OK, Mario Morelli is maybe America's number one TV anchor man, known coast to coast. A household name, like that — what's that stuff you put down the John?"

"Harpic? Toilet Duck?"

"Yeah, he's a real toilet duck. Only the great American public doesn't want to know that on account of he has this mature elegance and charms the matrons with his dazzling Italian smile."

He told her about Mario Morelli's role in the Irangate cover-up. He told her how his conscience wouldn't let him hit on this information when it seemed they were going to get away with it.

"Like. I don't want to come over as this big idealist. But when your dad's a national hero and you know what kind of asshole he really is… OK, in the end, it made no difference. Most of it came out. And Mario Morelli came out of it as this caring patriot. He did it for his country, all this shit. Cue for selfish, radical un-American activist son to leave town. Or leave country in this case. So I came to England and I find England's suddenly become a place where it's cool to make a million overnight and they're looking up to America as this big, successful younger brother who got it right, for Chrissake. That's about it. My vegetarian cannelloni's getting cold."

He ate some cannelloni, then he said. "One thing I kinda like about Wales is that it's just about the most obscure country in Western Europe, now even Belgium has the EC, but it doesn't seem to look up to anybody."

"Wrong," Bethan said. "Wrong, wrong, wrong."

"Wrong, huh?"

"You've only been exposed to people like Guto, who are the most vocal but not typical. For most of this century Welsh people have been looking up to anybody prepared to notice they're even there. Especially the English."

"You're talking as a nationalist. It's an outdated concept.

"How else can we defend what is ours? The English wanted more water for Liverpool and Birmingham, so they came into Wales and flooded our valleys. Whole Welsh villages at the bottom of English reservoirs. And the humble Welsh people went to work for the English water boards and said how good they were and how well they looked their employees."

"Sure, yeah, but—"

"I know, that was years ago. But they are doing it again. Only this time they're flooding us with people and they're drowning our language and our culture."

Berry put his fork down. "You know," he said. "You're beautiful when you're defending your culture."

"Sir, with my hand on my heart, I can tell you that even if you were prepared to sleep standing up in the third floor broom-cupboard. I would not be able to accommodate you.

The proprietor of the Plas Meurig Hotel (two-star) was short, plump Englishman in a double-breasted fawn-coloured suit which matched the walls of the hotel lobby.

"I'm prepared to pay over the odds, if necessary," George said.

"Sir, I've turned away Conservative members of Parliament who are prepared to pay well over the odds. I've turned away a senior editor from Independent Television News with a chequebook as thick as the New Testament. I swear if I could get an extension block put up in five days I'd call in the builders now and apply for planning permission later. I could be making a fortune. But I am utterly full and there's nothing I can do about it."

"Well, where else would you recommend?'

"In this town, to be quite honest, there's nowhere I'd actually recommend. But I seriously don't believe there's anywhere you'd get in anyway."

"Let's not be stupid about this." George said to Elinor outside. "It's going to be a damn cold night. I think we should ring Claire."

At the top of the wide street, on the same side as the restaurant, was a very old building with flags protruding from its deep grey stonework.

Bethan said. "This is where Owain Glyndwr convened the first Welsh parliament in 1403. By that time he was in control of most of Wales — the nearest we ever came to ruling ourselves."

Inside, there was a tourist reception area with books about Vales and about Owain Glyndwr, including Guto's paperback.

"I bought one, you know," Berry said. "Still in the car."

"It's really very good," Bethan said. "You should make time to read it."

They saw a replica of Glyndwr's parliament table, pictures of the man himself, one of him sitting solemnly in state. The only real distinctive thing about him, Berry reckoned, was the fork in his beard, like somebody had tried to cleave his head apart from underneath.

"Hold on," he said, as they emerged onto the street. "I just realised who this guy is. He's Owen Glendower, from Shakespeare. Henry the Fourth Part One or Part Two, I can't remember. The point being—"

"Part One. I think," Bethan said.

"The point being that Owen Glendower was a horse's ass, pompous, full of shit—"

"The point being." Bethan snapped, "that Shakespeare was biased. The real Owain was a fairly modest, cultured man who studied law in London, had many English friends and would never have gone to war with England if he hadn't been faced with a completely untenable—"

"OK, OK." Berry held up his hands. Few other people were in sight on the wide, cold street. Bethan was facing him on the pavement, small lips tight, fists clenched by her sides. This was not about the rights and wrongs of Welsh nationalism or whether Owain Glyndwr was full of shit.

Her fists unclenched. She looked small and alone and without hope.

"I think," she said slowly. "I think I am ready now to have my nervous breakdown."

Chapter LI

The Rhos Tafol Hotel was a white-painted former farmhouse about six miles west of Machynlleth. It overlooked the placid Dyfi estuary, beyond which mountains lay black, pink and gold in the last light of the last day in November.

The Rhos Tafol dated back to the seventeenth century and had a suite with a four-poster bed. OK, a reproduction four-poster. But four posts were four posts.

Tenderly, he kissed a small, pale left breast. "How would you feel," he said, "about another nervous breakdown?"

The sky over the inn was like bronze tinfoil, the cottages around it coloured ochre and sepia and clustered together like chocolates.

Yes, it was beautiful. She had to agree. It cast its spell.

And inside the beauty it was only a village, only houses with front doors and gardens and electric cookers and televisions. It could not harm her.

This was because, before leaving Pontmeurig in the Land-Rover, Elinor had taken two valium.

Claire steered them casually, one-handed, over the bridge. "You never know, having to come back here — it might be destiny."

Destiny, Elinor thought. Dessss-tinnny. Fated to see it like this, in what passed for sunset. To understand why they were all so attracted to it.

"Or it might simply be incompetence and inefficiency," George growled, trying to hold a match to his cigarette as they jolted to a halt in front of the inn. "Can't for the life of me understand how they managed to send the wrong damn parts."

Destiny and fate and beauty, Elinor thought, drifting. I shall leave tomorrow and still look back with a degree of hatred.

"Perhaps we should have taken it to Dilwyn's," Claire was saying. "Dilwyn is very good at improvising."

"Don't want a Mickey Mouse job." George said, opening his door, peering out. "Don't know why you can't have a proper car, Claire. Hell of a way to the ground from these things."

"You said that yesterday," Elinor said, opening her own door, putting a foot into the air, giggling.

"Mother, wait…"

But she fell into the gravel. She was crying when Claire went to help her to her feet. "Don't mind me, darling," she said miserably, clutching her handbag to her chest.

Night came and they did not leave the reproduction four-poster bed, did not go down to dinner.

She clung to him for hours.

He woke intermittently, hearing voices from the bar below. Mainly voices speaking Welsh. Local people, farmers. He and Bethan must be the only guests.

It occurred to him that in only a few hours' time he was going to be out of a job. He could, of course, steal quietly out of bed and drive like hell through the night, reaching

London by dawn, just time to shower and shave and change and present himself at Addison's desk by nine-fifteen. Then again… He hugged Bethan lightly. She moaned softly. Her body was slick with her own sweat, nothing to do with the sex. He hoped she was sweating out all the pain.

He slept.

Woke again. No noise from the bar now. Bethan stirring in his arms, mumbling, "Which of us is sweating?"

"Don't wish to be ungallant," he said, "but I think it's you. I also think" — licking moisture from her shoulder—"I also think I love you. Is this premature?"

"You don't know what you are saying."

"Do too."

"We've talked so much, you think you've known me for a long time, but it was only yesterday. What I think—"

"Don't care what you think. No, yes I do. I care."

"I think having so much to talk over, things we'd never told anyone… that is a great stimulant."

"Like Welsh lovespoons," Berry said.

She kissed him. "What are you talking about?"

"Those lovespoons. The long wooden ones. Aren't they some kind of Celtic dildo?"

For maybe a couple of seconds, because they'd pulled the curtains around the bed and it was too dark to see her face, he had the impression she thought he was serious.

Then a small hand closed around his balls.

"No, hey… I didn't mean it… Bethan, geddoff…I'll never… Bethan!"

After a third, rather more languorous nervous breakdown, she said, "I have got to have a shower."

"OK."

"Alone! You stay and read Guto's book. It is the least you can do for him now."

"Because I went off with his woman?"

"I am not his woman."

"Well, he obviously—"

"Shut up and read the book."

He looked at his watch on the floor by the bed. It was three-fifteen in the morning. They'd been in bed since about four-thirty yesterday afternoon.

Hell, he'd left all his stuff at Mrs. Evans's. What was she going to think? More of a problem, what was Guto going to think?

As they'd had no cases — and not wishing to make anything too obvious — they'd carried everything they could find out of the Sprite's trunk. Bags full of useless stuff lay under the window, on top of them the two books — Guto's Glyndwr and the red notebook George Hardy had given Bethan.

Berry switched on a bedside lamp with pictures of Tudor houses on the shade. He heard the rush of the shower. He began to read, the way journalists read official documents when they have only twenty minutes to extract the essence.

She was right about Glyndwr. He was an articulate, educated guy who'd probably had no ambitions to rule an independent Wales. This had been a lost cause since the last official Prince of Wales, Llywelyn, had bought it in the thirteenth century. All the same, people in Wales — where there seemed less of a social gap between the peasants and the landowning classes — felt they were getting a raw deal from the English king, Henry IV. And Owain Glyndwr had been pushed into confrontation when some of his own land was snatched by one of Henry's powerful supporters, one Reginald de Grey, who seemed to have had it in for Glyndwr in a big way.

Guto's style was straightforward, fluid and readable — and maybe as biased as Shakespeare in its way. But Berry was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt as he read the enthusiastic account of Glyndwr's rebellion which, at one stage, had put almost the whole of Wales under his control. Guto implied that a Wales under Glyndwr and his parliament would have come closer than anywhere else in Europe to some kind of medieval democracy. It was an appealing theory.

The book was fairly dismissive about Glyndwr's reputation as a wielder of supernatural forces — a side of him which had certainly caught Shakespeare's imagination. The only lines Berry could remember from Henry IV were Glendower claiming, I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

Oh, sure, somebody had replied, or words to that effect. But are they really gonna show up when you do call for them?

Dr. D. G. Evans quoted Shakespeare some more, Glendower boasting,

… at my birth

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes.

The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds

Were strangely clamourous to the frightened field.

These signs have mark 'd me extraordinary;

And all the courses of my life do show

I am not in the roll of common men.

There had been claims, Guto wrote, that Glyndwr had been trained in Druidic magic and could alter the weather — a couple of his victories were put down to this ability. All crap, Guto said: the English view of the Welsh as wildmen from the mountains who, having no military sophistication, needed to put their faith in magic.

None the less, Guto conceded, all this stuff added to Glyndwr's charisma, put him alongside King Arthur as the great Celtic hero who never really died and one day would return to free his people from oppression.

Prophecies. Signs and portents and prophecies.

Bethan came out of the bathroom, a big towel around her. She looked wonderful, black hair all tangled, skin aglow in the warm light of the Tudor lamp.

"Feel better?" He tossed the book on the bed, rose and filled the electric kettle sitting there with tea and coffee and biscuits and soft drinks. One worthwhile extra that inns had picked up from the motel trade.

Bethan sat down on the edge of the bed, towelling her hair.

"What happened to him? Glyndwr."

"He retired, defeated," Bethan said through the towel.

"Checked in at a retirement home for aged rebels, huh?"

"By the early 1400s, he was losing ground." Bethan said patiently. "It all fell apart and Owain just disappeared. He had a daughter near Hereford and one story suggests he went to live with her."

"In England?"

"I am afraid so. But at least he could still see the Welsh hills."

"Sad."

"All Welsh history is sad."

"Jesus, how would the Welsh survive without self-pity?'

"Unfair," Bethan said. "But tonight, I am prepared to excuse you."

"Bethan…" He hesitated. "Is this the first time since…?"

"Robin. Yes."

"How do you feel about that?"

She put the towel down. Faced him across the bed. Her eyes were brown and luminous in the lamplight. "Glad," she said. "I have tried to feel bad but I don't. I wish we could stay here for a very long time."

Pouring boiling water on four teabags — it wasn't a very big pot — he thought. I don't have a job to go to, neither does she.

"We can stay here a while," he said. "Buy a change of clothes." He ran a hand across his chin. "Razor. Toothpaste."

"No," she said. "We can't. You know we can't"

"Maybe we're both chasing shadows."

Bethan said, "You wanted to know about the bird of death."

"Right now I can do without the bird of death."

She said in a rush, "The bird of death is supposed to come at night and tap on your window. It's an omen, like the cannwyll gorff and the toili, the phantom funeral. Sometimes it flutters its wings. At night, this — unnatural. Sometimes…"Bethan clutched the towel around her breasts. "Sometimes it has no wings at all."

"Why couldn't Claire's mom have simply been disturbed by an owl?"

"Oh, Berry." Bethan said in exasperation. "I am not saying she actually saw anything. It's what she believes she saw or heard or whatever. Yes. You're right, it's all nonsense. These things don't even exist — except, somehow, in the minds of people living in Y Groes "

"I didn't say that. I never said it was nonsense."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I'm prepared to believe there's something essentially weird about the place." He poured tea, passed her a cup. Gave the pot a stir and then poured a murkier brew for himself. "We're talking about this now?"

"Yes."

"OK, let's lay it all on the table and push it around. Robin died suddenly. Giles too. Suddenly, but natural causes. Who else?"

"Dilwyn Dafis, who runs the local garage. He had an English wife, a young secretary. He met her on holiday. Within a year or so of coming to Y Groes. she was dead. Breast cancer, I think, and it spread very rapidly."

"That's three."

"A couple of years ago, the Church in Wales sent a young Englishman as curate to ap Siencyn. I don't know much about this, but he had some sort of fall in the church. Broke his neck."

"Four. Three natural causes, one accident."

"And a suicide." She told him about a child leading her to a body hanging from a tree by the riverbank. '

"You found him?"

She nodded, lowered her heavy eyelids. With one small breast exposed, she looked like a creation of one of those Italian painters Berry didn't know enough about. Botticelli, maybe. No, too slim for Botticelli, hair too dark. Aura too sad.

"You had a bad time," he said. Understatement.

"And then there was another one, about the same time as the suicide."

She reached down for the red notebook. "This is his, I'm sure. He was a historian of some sort. He came to the school once. He was writing a book about relations between Wales and England in the late medieval period, had some theory involving Y Groes. He wouldn't tell me about it, a little Welsh schoolteacher. He was a very pompous man. Nobody really liked him and yet they humoured him, let him stay at the Tafarn."

"Could they stop him?"

"The Tafarn does not provide overnight accommodation. They have a dining room for local functions, but no bed and breakfast."

"What about Claire's mom and dad? They stayed there."

"Only, presumably, because Claire requested it. And yet Aled gave this man — that's Aled the landlord there — he gave this man Ingley a room. An unpleasant, prying English academic. That is curious, don't you think?"

"And he died, this guy?"

"A heart attack, they said. Found dead in bed."

"Police called in?"

"No need." Bethan riffled the pages of the red notebook. "The local GP, Dr. Wyn, examined him, said he knew of his heart condition and signed a death certificate."

"Why'd this guy conceal his notebook under the floorboards?"

Bethan shook her head.

"How do you know it was his?"

She opened the notebook. "Little maps of the village, rough plans of the church. Very detailed notes on a late-medieval tomb. Pages of references to different textbooks. Addresses. And look at it." She passed him the book. "It's quite new. The pages are a little dusty but not in the least yellow. It obviously had not been under the floor very long."

Berry sighed. "Problem about all this — you got half a dozen deaths. OK, all premature. But all of them explained. No mystery here. Nothing you could tell the cops."

He dropped the red notebook on the top of the Glyndwr paperback. "Paranoia, Bethan. That's what they'd say. And what about Claire? She's English; nothing happened to her."

"You heard what her mother said. She was taken to see her grandfather as a small child. He disappeared with her. We don't know what happened then. All I know is that while Giles was desperately struggling with basic Welsh. Claire was mastering the grammar and pronunciation at a speed I could not believe. And there are other things. You've seen the changes, her mother's seen it. It's uncanny. Eerie."

'"True," he conceded. Reached across the bed, pulled her into his arms. "But what the hell can we do about it?"

"I'm only relieved." she said, wet hair against his chest, "that her parents managed to get away before…"

Chapter LII

Did George know she was on Valium?

She thought he must. How could anyone be expected to cope with reality as dismal as this without a little something to place a distance between one and it?

George did not, of course, need anything himself. Some sedative side of his mind seemed to be turned on automatically whenever life threatened to cross the pain threshold.

He certainly enjoyed his dinner again.

The little licensee had gone to great pains to make sure they were comfortable, lighting a log fire in the dining room where They ate alone. Serving lamb which George said was more tender and succulent than any he'd had before, even in the most expensive restaurants.

She had no opinion on this, did not remember tasting it.

The wine, though, she drank some of that, quite a lot in fact.

"Steady on, Elinor." George had said, predictably, at one point.

At which she'd poured more.

"Another bottle, Mr. Hardy? The little landlord, dapper at George's elbow.

"Oh, I don't think—"

"Yes please," she'd said to the landlord. Thinking of the combined sedative punch of valium and alcohol and deciding she needed to be entirely out of her head if she was to sleep the night through.

"When's Claire coming?" Pushing her plate away.

"She isn't." George lighting a cigarette, blue smoke everywhere. "She's picking me up first thing, then we can get the car back. Won't take them more than half an hour once they've got the parts. So I told Claire not to bother coming over, we'd be having an early night."

"An early night?" Elinor croaking a mirthless laugh as a log collapsed in the fireplace. "Bit late for that now."

"Have some coffee."

"Don't want coffee, thank you. The Welsh can't make proper coffee. Nescafe and Maxwell House are all one ever gets in Wales."

"Actually, what I didn't want—" George leaning across the table, voice lowered, " — was another night in that awful bar, all this bonhomie."

"Oh, I hate it too, George. I shall drink here."

"Please, Elinor… We'll be away tomorrow."

"You bet your miserable life we will. If we have to flag down a long-distance lorry driver and show him my drooping tits."

"Elinor!" Through his teeth."… God's sake."

"Perhaps I'd've been better off with a lorry driver, what do think George? Common people have fun."

"Are you coming?" Getting to his feet, taking his cigarette with him.

"Did you ever imagine. George, that the day would come when you'd want to get me to bed only to save embarrassment?"

"Yes," George said brutally.

She awoke thinking the night was over.

A reasonable mistake to make. There was a brightness beyond the curtains, before which all the furniture in the bedroom was blackly silhouetted.

But her watch showed 3:55 a.m.

Elinor, in a white nightdress, slid her feet into her wooden Scholl's, made her way unsteadily to the door, turning the handle slowly because, for once, her husband was sleeping quietly, no snoring.

At least the radiators in this place worked efficiently. It must be a freezing night outside, but the atmosphere in the bedroom was close, almost stuffy. Same on the landing outside.

She locked herself in the bathroom, two doors away, used the lavatory. She was disappointed but not surprised that the combination of drink and Valium had failed to take her all the way to the daylight- Washing her hands afterwards, she could not bear to look into the mirror over the basin, knowing how raddled she must look, still in last night's make-up for the first time in thirty-odd years.

She had no headache, but was certainly on the way down from wherever she'd been, despising herself utterly.

Why had they come? What had she been trying to prove?

Come to pay their last respects lo their good and upright son-in-law. And to be at their daughter's side in her hour of need.

A joke. Claire had not needed them for years and would never need them now.

She bent her head over the sink, turned on the taps again. Feebly splashed water on her face, left great lipstick smears on the towel wiping it off.

This time she did look up into the mirror. And in her sick clown's face she saw her father's eyes.

"Your fault." she hissed. "All this. I hope your soul is rotting."

Her father's eyes did not flicker.

She turned away, pulled back the bolt and switched off the bathroom light, thankful for one thing: at least they had not set foot in his house. Not that Claire had invited them. Not once.

When she returned to their room, George was lying on his side, face to the wall. "Mmmmmmpf," he said.

At home they had twin beds. Next year, she decided, she would move into a separate room.

How far off morning?

The watch said 4:21.

But the light through the curtains was brighter. It could not be long.

She stood by the window; her hand moved to lift up the curtain… and pulled back. Suppose that bird was there again?

Beyond the drawn curtains it grew brighter still, blue-white like constant lightning.

"Ernrmph," George rolled over.

Elinor forced herself lo pull buck the curtain a little, and she looked down into the village street.

The street was blue with cold.

Radiantly blue. A mat of frost the colour of a midsummer sky was rolling out over the river-bridge towards the inn.

Along this chilly carpet a figure moved.

He had a long overcoat of grey, falling lo the frosted road, and a wide-brimmed hat which shadowed his downcast face. He moved like a column of smoke, hands deep in the folds of his coat.

She could not see his feet or hear his footsteps, only a sharp, brittle sound, perhaps the frost itself. He left long, shallow tracks behind him but, as she watched, the marks in the frost healed over and the bright blue ground shone savagely cold and mockingly untrodden.

The figure advanced towards the door of the inn, and with each of his steps the temperature dropped around Elinor, as if the radiators were shutting down in great shudders. Her body began to quake, her teeth to chatter, and the fingers holding back the curtain were numbed.

Reaching the door of the inn. the visitor paused, the cold rising from him like steam, brought a hand out of his pocket as if to knock.

It was not a hand but the yellow, twisted, horny talon of a bird of prey.

"Shut up! Stop that screaming, you stupid, bloody drunken bitch!"

Her body arched at the waist, her neck extended as if she were trying to vomit.

"Are you totally insane, woman? Shut up! Do you hear me, you bitch?"

On his feet now, between her and the window, George grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her down on the bed. "Stop it!"

She looked up into her husband's bulging, sleep-swollen eyes.

Hands clenched around her bony shoulders, he lifted her from the bed then slammed her down again.

And again.

This time her skull crashed sickeningly into the head-board of Victorian mahogany.

George's eyes were opaque.

He smashed her down again, lifted her up, smashed her down, a rhythmic motion, grunting "Stop it."

Stop it.

Stop it.

Stop it.