From Aberystwyth with Love

Chapter 6

When I arrived at the office the next day there was an overhead projector set up on the desk. I asked Calamity what it was for and a slight air of coyness slipped into her voice. ‘Oh, I’ve been superseding the paradigm.’

‘That’s good. How did you do it?’

She walked over to close the curtains, but it did little to lessen the fierce light from the street outside. ‘I’ve been looking into the bearded lady angle, I think I’ve found something interesting. She flicked a switch on the side of the overhead projector and a wonky square of light illuminated the wall. Dust danced in the well of light above the platen. She placed a transparency down. ‘Take a look at this. This is the area round Abercuawg, this line here is the Devil’s Bridge narrow-gauge railway line.’ She placed another acetate cell over the first. It superimposed a pattern of stars over the map. ‘See these stars? Each one represents the birthplace of a champion on the Pro-Bearded-Lady circuit over the past fifty years. See? Classic clustering pattern. And there’s more—’

‘Could be just a statistical anomaly.’

‘Maybe, but look at this.’ She put a third acetate over the first two and this time a pattern of skulls was superimposed. The skulls clustered in the same patterns as the stars.

‘Same clustering, different occupation. Guess what?’

‘You tell me.’

‘School games teachers.’

I laughed.

‘You can laugh if you want, but the facts can’t be laughed away. These clustering patterns are mathematically significant. Now look at this.’ She put another acetate down, this time showing a series of dots. ‘Each dot represents a parish museum that has a photo or photos of hairy babies born in the neighbourhood. You see? There’s a clear pattern, this area round Abercuawg has a rogue hairiness gene among the populace. Where did it come from? That’s where it gets interesting. This line here is the working of a spur line to Devil’s Bridge that was suddenly abandoned in 1872 after an accident during blasting. The official history of the railway says they hit a pocket of gas, but the oral histories claim the explosion released a “thing” imprisoned in the belly of the mountain. No one knows exactly what it was, but it was pretty angry and very hairy.’

‘So where is all this leading?’

‘Folklore also relates stories of village girls being offered to the “thing” over the years as brides, and there is talk of intermarriage between local women and the “thing”; this may explain the hairiness.’

‘OK, sleuth, what is the “thing”?’

Calamity paused for effect, allowing her gaze to linger on me melodramatically. Finally, she said, ‘Trolls.’

‘Trolls?’

‘Trolls.’

‘There’s a troll living in the mountain near Abercuawg?’

‘It’s a possibility we have to consider.’

‘Is it?’

‘We have to consider it even if only to eliminate it from the inquiry. The investigator doesn’t get to choose what goes into the pot and what doesn’t.’

‘This one does. If we don’t admit it into the inquiry, we don’t have to eliminate it.’

Calamity looked flustered. ‘Louie, you don’t get this sort of thing just by chance. Maybe one or two games teachers, and one or two bearded ladies, one or two hairy babies, that I grant you. But not this many.’

I threw up my hands in mock despair. ‘Maybe the pattern of hairiness is interesting but what does it mean? We’ve already got a suspect, a flesh and blood guy called Goldilocks who was sentenced to hang for the murder. We just need to find out what he did with her. Why bring in the trolls?’

Calamity’s brow furrowed as she considered the implications. ‘I don’t say I believe it, I do say it has to be checked out and eliminated from the inquiry. I was thinking maybe you could help out on that . . .’

‘I’m not talking to my old school games teacher.’

‘No, I meant with the bearded ladies. I thought you could speak to a few.’

‘Calamity, the world has moved on since those days. We don’t have bearded ladies any more because it’s . . . it’s . . . I don’t know, it’s not right. Competitive bearded ladying went out with all the other freak shows. We don’t laugh at people like that, we try to help them, or at least good people do. I’m not going to remind them of the old days, and if I did they would probably slam the phone down on me. What’s to stop you from talking to them?’

‘I tried but they slammed the phone down on me.’

‘See!’

Calamity sighed. ‘We just need to find a way to crack the culture of Omertà surrounding the bearded ladies.’

‘When can we hear the séance tape?’

‘I’m still trying to get hold of an open reel deck, it should be round later today.’ She opened the curtains again and it was like leaving a darkened cinema for the bright daylit street.

‘I guess there’s not much point me asking you to talk to Meici Jones, either,’ she said.

‘What’s he got to do with it?’

‘Don’t you remember him saying there were four games teachers in his family?’

I said nothing and stared instead at the innocence and candour that played in her eyes. When she came back at Christmas it was with her tail between her legs. She saw it as a failure but in reality it was nothing of the sort. Winter is a bad time to set up a new venture. Because of this I try to bolster her confidence without letting on. But the trouble is, I too suffered in a different way from her temporary absence. In the time she was away I noticed something in my office that I had never seen before. It was surprising how it had escaped my attention all those years but life is like that sometimes: we fail to see things on the end of our noses and it takes a renewal of perspective brought about by a change to make us see. And what I saw was this: the office was empty.

Footsteps echoed up the stairwell, we both looked expectantly at the open door. A small man appeared.

‘Mr Knight and Calamity! I’m so glad I caught you, I was afraid you might be out.’ It was Mr Mooncalf. ‘I have some good news for you.’ He opened his briefcase and pulled out a folder. ‘A very old and dear customer of the firm Mooncalf & Sons living in Romania has requested I courier a certain item to him. If you were to agree to undertake the task it would so defray the cost of your trip to Hughesovka that you would be able to go for about . . . er . . . nothing.’

‘Where in Romania?’ I asked.

‘I believe the town is called Sighisoara.’

‘Wouldn’t it take us out of our way?’ I said.

‘A short detour through a most beautiful landscape, dotted with perfectly preserved medieval villages and abounding in wolves and bears.’

‘Sighisoara is in Transylvania, isn’t it?’ said Calamity.

‘Is it?’ said Mooncalf with feigned innocence.

‘We did it in school for a project.’

‘Who’s the client?’ I asked.

‘Mr V. Tepes,’ said Mooncalf darting a worried glance at Calamity.

‘That means “impaler” in their language,’ she said. ‘It’s pronounced tsep-pesh.’

‘It’s just a name,’ said Mooncalf. ‘Like Smith.’

‘Is he any relation to Vlad the Impaler?’ She turned to me and said, ‘He was the original Dracula.’

‘Of course not,’ said Mooncalf. ‘It’s just a name, like Smith. If someone is called Smith it doesn’t mean they shoe horses, does it? Same with Tepes. It doesn’t mean you are an impaler.’

‘They used a sharpened stake,’ said Calamity showing off her knowledge, ‘and stuck it up your bum.’

Mooncalf looked worried. ‘Did they teach you that in school, too?’

‘Yes. Sometimes they used a horse to haul you on to the sharpened pale.’

Mooncalf put the folder on the desk and stood up with a slightly dejected air. He clutched the briefcase close to his chest. ‘Marvellous what they teach the kids these days,’ he said mournfully. ‘We never had the opportunities when I was young.’

After he left we both stared for a while at the empty doorway as if half expecting him to come back.

‘Oh, I forgot to tell you,’ said Calamity. ‘There was a message for you slipped under the door when I came in. It’s from Arianwen, the girl we saw out at Mrs Eglwys Fach’s cottage.’

‘What does she want?’

‘She wants to see you about a business matter. Doesn’t say what. She works in the witches’ wholesaler on Chalybeate Street.’

I arranged to meet Calamity later at Sospan’s and walked through town to Grimalkin’s.

There was not much room in the shop, just an aisle through piles of stock rising up on shelves. On the left there were building materials: chocolate roof tiles, gingerbread bricks with marzipan cement, and a liquorice hod. Cauldrons in varying sizes hung from the ceiling; and all around there were chalices, gargoyle moulds, wands, crystal balls, candles, toadstool seeds and bric-à-brac for the altar. A sign announced familiars were down in price.

The counter, too, was an untidy profusion of wares: a display of Rune Letraset next to glass jars containing black feathers, quartz, amethyst, agate. There was a stand selling fairy traps and the injunction to bait with shiny things or children’s milk teeth. For pixies, there was a larger trap with a bigger snap spring. Customers were warned not to use them for trolls, except minors. There were phials of blood in a variety of grades: dragon, bat or strangled dove. Behind the counter, through a hanging partition of amber and bloodstone beads, there was an aquarium tank in which newts stared out disconsolately and pondered their fate.

A girl stood with her back to me on a stepladder sticking up a hand-lettered sign with Blu-tac. It said: ‘If you can spell it, we probably sell it.’ She wore a long cloak of midnight-blue velvet surmounted by a red riding hood. Behind her were arrayed tiers of wooden drawers neatly labelled with their contents: dust of tomb, venom of toad, flesh of brigand, lung of ass, blood of infant, corpse grease, bile of ox and finger of birth-strangled babe. Everything for the weekly groceries. They sold things separately, neatly wrapped in plain brown paper; you could buy individual coffin nails in a variety of sizes and cobweb by the yard, from free-range spiders rather than the farmed stuff.

I picked up the bell on the counter and tinkled politely. The girl looked over her shoulder and smiled. It was Arianwen.

‘Oh! Hello! The spinning-wheel salesman.’ She climbed down the steps. ‘How can I help?’ She stared up into my face and smiled.

‘I’m looking for a cage with a childproof lock.’

‘Might I ask Sir what he intends to use it for? I must warn you, I’m very good at escaping cages.’

‘Sadly, it wasn’t for you. I’m trying to fatten a little boy up for eating.’

‘Oh I do love a man who can cook!’

‘I’m not very good at it – he doesn’t seem to be putting on any weight.’

‘He’s probably just poking chicken bones through the bars, you know what young boys are like.’

‘Where would he get chicken bones from? I’m feeding him on gruel.’

Arianwen giggled. ‘You know, you really are far too handsome to be a spinning-wheel salesman.’

‘Is that so?’

‘You just don’t look the type.’

‘I was brought up to zig when the world zags.’

‘And you certainly don’t talk like one.’

‘You’re full of surprises yourself. The red riding hood is very . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Provocative.’

‘It’s supposed to be emblematic of innocence.’

‘That’s what Red Riding Hood said.’

‘Surely you don’t doubt her?’

‘I’ve always regarded her as a lying trollop who knew exactly what she was doing. You telling me she couldn’t recognise a wolf when she saw one?’

‘She was a virgin. We’re easily deceived.’

‘She knew what she was about, the murder of the grandmother was an inside job.’

‘Men always say it’s the girl’s fault. Did you know, some things went missing from our kitchen about the time of your visit?’

‘It was probably that blackbird.’

‘Oh, of course. I hadn’t thought of that. Or at least a black-hearted demon. Did you really want a cage? Or were you after a love potion?’

‘What would I do with it?’

‘Exactly, with eyes like that, what would you need one for?’

She picked up a pack of cards and dealt three face-up on the counter. ‘Let’s see what the cards say . . . Ooh, the Knight of Wands! And . . . and . . . who will our handsome knight rescue? . . . The Queen of Pentacles . . . and the Lovers!’ She looked at me, eyes sparkling in triumph. ‘It is written.’

I put the note down on the counter. ‘This is what I really came about.’

She glanced at it and a puzzled expression stole across her face. ‘I don’t understand . . .’

‘You left this in my office?’

There was a pause for a fraction of a beat and then a smile replaced the look of puzzlement. A smile of sly triumph. ‘Ah! Now I get it! I left the note in the office of a private detective and who should turn up but the spinning-wheel salesman! But then I always thought there was something funny about that handsome spinning-wheel salesman. In fact it looks like he was only pretending to be one. Nice try, Mr Detective! Am I right? No! Don’t say, you’ll only lie.’

‘You got it in one, but you mustn’t tell anyone.’

‘Oh I won’t. Have you been investigating him long?’

‘Who?’

‘Meici Jones.’

‘Oh yes, a long time, he’s a nasty piece of work.’

‘He stole some things when you came round, some stamps. That’s why I came to see you. My brother will be furious if we don’t get them back.’

‘Why don’t you go to the police?’

‘As if you didn’t know! Snuff philately! Imagine reporting that to the cops. How much is it going to cost me to get my stamps back?’

‘If you can be patient I might be able to get hold of them for nothing.’

‘No payment?’

‘I’m already engaged to spy on Meici Jones, it wouldn’t be right to get paid twice.’

She tilted her head down and looked up through her eyelashes in a slightly awkward attempt to look coquettish. Her voice dropped in timbre. ‘Maybe I could find some other way of paying you.’

‘That’s a good idea. Is this shop licensed by the Witchfinder?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Do you know his wife?’

‘Mrs Mochdre? Not very well. What’s this got to do with anything?’

‘You could repay me by spying on her for me.’

‘Why, what’s she done?’

‘I don’t know, that’s why I want to spy on her.’

‘This wasn’t quite what I had in mind.’

‘I know, but you didn’t specify.’

Arianwen looked deflated. ‘You are such a wet blanket. Or you enjoy teasing me.’

‘I’m a wet blanket and I enjoy teasing you.’

‘Do you really want me to spy on her?’

‘Not for the time being.’ I tipped my hat, thanked her. ‘I’ll see if I can find those stamps.’

‘Is it true private detectives always seduce their female clients?’

‘The big city boys do,’ I said. ‘But in Aberystwyth we decide on a case by case basis.’