Disturbing Ground (21 page)

Lift
him
with
care.

Certification of death might seem a significant event. It is, after all, the final act of life. In fact to a doctor it is one of the least dramatic chores in a day’s work. The stethoscope placed over the spot where a heart no longer beats, the token shining of a torch into fixed, dilated pupils, the feeling for a pulse you already know you won’t find, the folding of a sheet over the face and the filling in of the death certificate.

Sandra Penarth stood over her silently, waiting for her to speak.

“It’s going to be a long winter.”

“Yes. Our patients are elderly. And plenty of them have got bad chests.”

Sandra Penarth’s face held a strange expression as she stared down at the bed. “I’ve known Mr Driver for years,
you know. He was friends with my grandfather. They were down the mine together. Awful place.”

Someone stood in the doorway.

“Mervyn.” Someone else Sandra knew well. “I’m so sorry.”

“Do you know Mr Jones, doctor?”

“No - but you were at Bianca’s funeral.”

He was a short man, wiry with a pair of fierce blue eyes. She’d thought of him then as “the angry man” and named him, Rumpelstiltskin. Even today, in grief, he reminded her of the angry dwarf of the fairy story who stamped his foot when his name was guessed.

“You were a friend of Bianca’s?”

Mervyn Jones snorted. “Not exactly, doctor. I
knew
her, like most of the people in Llancloudy. She was always around.”

Sandra interrupted. “I suppose you’ve come to fetch Mr Driver’s belongings.”

Jones grunted. “Such as they are, Sandra.”

She handed over a black carrier bag with a sigh. “Exactly. Such as they are. He didn’t have much in the way of personal possessions. But his watch is nice.”

Jones fished around the carrier bag and drew out a gold watch with a black, leather strap. “It is a nice watch. Got it when he retired. From the Coal Board. But not so nice when you consider what it cost. Bloody curse of the valleys, doctor, sitting on this stuff. Glad I was when they closed the doors for the last time and stopped the wheels from winding men up and down, up and down.”

Megan nodded. She too had watched men cough up black dust from their lungs then wait years, many dying before they received their compensation. She had watched their widows receive cheques in bitter tears and not known whether it was worth cashing them.

Sandra turned away briskly. “The Death Certificate Book is down in my office,” she said.

“Mervyn, do you want to stay with your old friend a minute or two longer. Say goodbye?”

Jones’ eyes were bright. “If you don’t mind,” he said gruffly.

This time Megan had no hesitation what to write on the Death Certificate. “Broncho-pneumonia, secondary to penumoconiosis,” she wrote then crossed to the window and picked up the fifties black and white photograph of the smiling couple. “This is your grandfather?”

Sandra nodded. “Lovely man, he was. Died nearly thirty years ago. Another one destroyed by coal dust.”

As they wandered back towards the front door, Megan broached the subject. “You must miss Mr Smithson.”

Sandra’s reply was tart and predictable. “We always miss patients when they die, especially people who’ve been with us for years.”

“He was such a character. So full of stories.”

“He told some mad stories.”

“Just like Bianca.”

The nurse looked genuinely astonished. “Bianca? What’s she got to do with it? She didn’t die here.”

“She worked here.”

“You’re saying Mr Smithson made up stories like she did?”

“I just thought it was funny that they made up the
same
stories.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“About children disappearing.”

“They were just stories.”

“But Bianca -”

“Surely, doctor, Bianca
imagined
things.”

“And now Stefan has disappeared.”

Sandra Penarth gave her a strange, frightened look and Megan felt she must say something quickly. “Nothing.” It was surely nothing. Hot air, stories, illusion. Nothing.

Sandra tugged the front door open and Megan dived outside to the icy air.

Arwel Smithson was leaning against her car and she knew he had been lying in wait for her. “Hello, Megan,” he called heartily. “How are you?”

She replied stiffly. “Fine, and you?”

“Oh - missing the old man. You know. We were pretty close.” He looked down at his feet and Megan could have sworn he meant what he said. Maybe he really did miss his father.

Smithson’s face looked tired. The red veins on his cheek stood out more than before. He wrapped his coat tightly around him. “Better go then. See you, Megan.”

She left Triagwn House feeling more confused than ever.

Driving home she switched her car radio off. She wanted to think. Two people were dead, almost certainly three. Stefan Parker had been missing now for eight days.

Someone
was
behind
all
this.
Someone
more
strange
than
Esther
Magellan
and
more
insane
than
Bianca.

And the thought that had crossed her mind as she had watched Arwel Smithson stride across the gravel and disappear inside Triagwn was that he was a man who would be capable of putting a sick animal down if it was of no further use. If a sick animal, why not a sick human? Or a sickly one?

But even major dramas are forgotten. Newspapers move on to other stories. With no new angle and nothing different with which to headline their story the local newspapers began to lose interest. Megan watched Stefan’s name move from headlines to sidelines and by the end of November the boy’s disappearance had been relegated to one short column on page four. And even that feature was not solid fact but a vague sighting in Blackpool.

And from Alun she had heard nothing. But knowing him as well as she did she knew he would be better left alone. He never had been someone who liked to be pushed. His involvement would be with the official police investigation. He was better deployed there.

Her line must be another one.

She decided to speak to Barbara Watkins again.

It was a Thursday, two days before the end of the month. It had been eerily quiet in the surgery so Megan had finished by midday with no firm plans for the afternoon. She had no evening surgery. As she left the building, the sun was hidden behind a band of thick grey cloud but across the valley she could see where the cloud ended and blue sky began. It would be a good day to climb the mountain. She drove home impatiently, pulled her hiking boots from the cupboard, cleaned and ready for action, found her fleece and orange kagoul, ran upstairs and slipped into a pair of comfortable, stretch jeans. She caught sight of her face in the mirror and was surprised at how eager she looked.

Eager for what? To find the truth? For a walk? Eager for life?

Whatever. She slicked some lipstick on and drove back down the valley.

She found Barbara in the garden, clearing debris from the drains, deaf and blind to Megan’s approach, startling like a jack-in-the-box when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Megan said, taken aback. “I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

Barbara looked embarrassed. “Oh, normally I’m not so jumpy but … “For the first time ever Megan read fear in the retired schoolmistress’ eyes. She who had faced rebellious teenagers and angry parents for years looked anxious.

“It’s with you telling me all those stories. It’s set my mind thinking. And now Stefan Parker. Megan,” she appealed, “what is going on?”

Megan linked arms with her. “I thought we might go for a walk,” she said. “It’s easier to talk when you’re active, isn’t it?”

“All right.” Barbara welcomed the idea. “Let me just get ready then.”

The intial climb was a steep one and they were puffed out when they reached the ridge. They sat down in a small hollow, out of the wind. Megan took a bottle of water from her rucksack and they both swigged at it in turn. Below them was the town, squashed into the narrow valley, slate roofs in tight lines with a snake of traffic between. There was little noise. The wind up here whistled softly through its teeth and blotted out the town’s synthetic sounds.

They both stared around for a while and then Barbara spoke. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that
anyone
could vanish from a place like this. I mean there’s only one way out.
Down the valley. If you keep going up you simply reach the mountains and they never did build a road straight over.”

Megan knew exactly what she was saying. It was harder for people to disappear from Llancloudy than from another place. In a way it was almost an island, joined only by the narrowest of isthmuses - the width of a road, a narrow river and a railway line. There was one road in and one road out. It wasn’t like a city or a town where people could permeate to another place. It was cut off, practically sealed in.

And yet… She glanced at Barbara and knew her thoughts were moving in exactly the same trajectory.

“Tell me about the real Bleddyn Hughes. The one you remember.”

Barbara was unsurprised at the question. She thought for a moment, her face screwed up in concentration. “Quiet, polite and thoughtful.” She closed her eyes. “The sort of person who bought birthday cards. With flowers on. Gentle. He had very beautiful hands, I remember. Long, slim fingers. And a lovely speaking voice. He was fond of poetry. Would read it aloud to the children.” She opened her eyes with a jerk. “Especially a Hood poem. Great favourite of his.
The
Bridge
of
Sighs.”

One
more
unfortunate

Weary
of
breath,

Rashly
importunate

Gone
to
her
death.

“I can picture him now, reciting it. I thought it a very inappropriate poem for children but there you are. He had a lovely voice. Quite musical it was. Not much of an accent. He was a Swansea man.” She turned and looked at Megan. “It’s funny, isn’t it. The papers put a different angle on him; hinted at unsavoury habits, his sexuality. It
had made me forget. I liked him. He seemed a decent man. But …” She was frowning. “Perhaps he was not. Perhaps he was a deceiver. Papers distort things but sometimes they put a finger right on the pulse. Sometimes they are very perceptive.”

Megan nodded.

“There was such a lot of gossip when he went. Silly ugly gossip really. Great clumps of people gathered outside the chippy or the Co-op. Lots of rumours must have started there. I expect Bianca would listen. And that’s what started her threading bits together. So many tales flew around but even now I don’t know whether they were true. Whether any of it was true. No one came forward and said anything definite. Not after he’d gone.” Her face was puckered with concern. “How do we know what to believe?”

“Perhaps it was easier to believe he was gay and had gone to be with like friends rather than face the truth and the prejudices of Llancloudy.”

“Maybe.” Barbara was getting to her feet. “Maybe. Perhaps we’ll never know what really happened to any of them.”

They carried on with their climb. And the head of the valley came into view, the pen and the huge winding wheel of the mine which still watched over Llancloudy.

Derelict buildings scarred the coal yards though the mines were long since shut. However hard they tried to wash the coal away from the soil of South Wales, the scars would always be there, in the irregular line of the hills, in the grassed-over slag heaps, in the pool the locals called the Slaggy Pool. Megan suddenly felt agitated.

“It’s
in
the
ground.
Underneath
our
feet.”

Smithson was right. All the old mine workings still existed. The shafts and tunnels were still there, beneath
the feet of the twenty-first century. And as though she could sense the vanished as she trod over their heads she felt afraid. She was beginning to see too much. She was seeing Llancloudy through Bianca’s eyes, the past as vivid as the present, dead souls mingling with the living. A child that chattered, a little girl who probably dropped her chip papers on the floor, a trio of childish vandals separated by ten years.

But the pathologist was prepared to believe that Geraint Smithson had been murdered. And she could believe his son could have “finished him off”. For expediency? Because his father had become an inconvenience? An embarrassment even? Why
had
Arwel waited for her the last time she had visited Triagwn? Megan knew. He must have known that she had refused to issue the death certificate. He had been gauging her reaction, wondering how much she guessed.

But while she could picture Arwel pressing a pillow to his father’s face, could she really believe he had murdered Bianca? She had a vision of Smithson’s cottage. Isolated enough to be able to keep someone prisoner for a day and a half. Near to the tumbled gryphon statue whose claw had found its way into Bianca, the collector’s, pocket. Had she wandered towards the Woodman’s Cottage and said something which had led Arwel to believe she knew something about the disappearances?

“What are you thinking?” Barbara’s voice sliced through her thoughts. And well as she knew her old teacher she could not share them all.

“I was wondering,” she said slowly, “about Stefan.”

Barbara nodded. “Me too,” she said. “I think he’s gone.”

Megan watched her, surprised.

“Out of the valley?”

“Where else?” Barbara’s hand was on her arm. “Where else
could
he be? Llancloudy isn’t that big a place. You know what it’s like here. We’re all on top of one another. The places that aren’t built on are old slag heaps, still sliding down towards the river, or crumbling into derelict mine workings. There isn’t anywhere to hide him. And people have looked everywhere. Everywhere.” She took the bottle of water from Megan, swigged at it and wiped her mouth with a rough, brusque action.

“So where is he?”

Involuntarily they both swivelled around to look at the winding wheel. Barbara shivered. “Not down there,” she said. “Not down there.”

But
it
was
the
only
place.

They both gazed around the wide sweep of the valley beneath the rolling clouds which would, later in the night, surely release more icy rain. Maybe even some snow. There was a cruel nip in the air that would bring all the bronchitics to the surgery, needing their antibiotics. Doctors’ surgeries reflect the seasons in disease. Summer brings pollen suffererers, the winter the asthmatics, bronchitics and the old, trying to fend off death with a flu jab.

There was the distant sound of sheep bleating. Barbara smiled. “My mam always used to say Welsh sheep sounded as though they were moaning about something. The heat, the cold, the wet, the dry. Always something to complain about she used to say. But me, I don’t think they are complaining at all. They’re just communicating. Though what they’re saying is anybody’s guess.” She pointed towards a flattened patch between the sheep and the trees. Paler than the rest with a fire scar at its centre. “When I was a girl, an old tramp lived in a tin caravan halfway up there. I suppose he was a sort of shepherd.
Certainly he had a dog. A lovely black and white Welsh Border collie. Such an intelligent animal it was. Used to round up the sheep in minutes however far they’d strayed. I used to take the dog the bones after the Sunday joint and, for his master, the shepherd cakes my mother had baked. Ginger cake,
Teisen
Lap,
Welsh cakes sometimes. He was so grateful. Used to ram them in his mouth as though he was in danger of starving to death. Maybe he was. He was awful thin. Then one day I went and he was lying in his bunk, grey-faced, hardly breathing. I didn’t know what to do, Megan. I dropped the bones and the cakes and ran all the way home. I didn’t have a clue. I felt so helpless. Terrible thing, ignorance is.” Her eyes were trained to the pale green spot on the side of the hill. “It was a promise I made to myself that I would not be ignorant again. I enrolled in a First Aid course run by the St John’s Ambulance down in Bridgend. You could say, Megan,” her eyes were fixed on the side of the mountain, “that this one event was the reason I became a teacher. So I could prevent other people from being ignorant. The only way out of these valleys is through education. Otherwise you don’t get the choice. It’s all right for you, Megan. You elected to return and bring your knowledge with you to help the valleys people. You wanted to be the voice of people who had lost theirs. But for some they
have
no option but to stay. And that’s one of the reasons people get frustrated and we have problems with our young. Boredom and ignorance are our enemies.”

“And if they want to remain in their ignorant state?” Megan tried to ask the question lightly but she was disturbed by Barbara’s words and even more by its unbending underlying attitude. You could not force people to learn. It was not possible. Like pigs in mud, some people preferred to wallow in their ignorance.

Barbara’s reply was an angry jerk of her shoulders.

So Megan moved back to her story. “And the tramp?”

“He’d had a heart attack. Dad came back with me while my mam fetched the doctor. He gave my old friend an injection into his arm and he was sent to the hospital. He was alright - for a year or two anyway. He was an old man, Megan. And old people have to die sometimes.”

Megan straightened. “But not the young, Barbara. Not the young.”

“I can’t think Stefan’s dead, Megan.”

“And Rhiann Hughes and Marie Walker, Neil and George?”

Barbara had no answer.

“Come on.” She stood up. “Let’s walk. We’ve still an hour left of daylight.”

They followed the sheep path. Narrow and shorn of grass by the nibbling animals. Now they were forced to walk in single file. It stopped them talking. And Megan was glad. It allowed her to think.

She dreamed of a gentle man with long, slim fingers who had loved the same poem as she and whose disappearance had been explained by ugly rumour. She knew what he looked like from the newspaper photographs; dark, lugubrious eyes, a thin, rather weak mouth suggesting hesitancy and a lack of confidence, hair cut long and in an old fashioned, square, sideburned style. In none of the newspaper pictures had she seen his hands. And she had never heard his voice but she could almost hear it, a soft, Swansea voice reciting …

Take
her
up
Tenderly.

They walked in silence for ten, fifteen minutes.

Then Barbara caught up with her, speaking into her face. “Is it even conceivable that Bianca could have been right?” She frowned. “Who is mad, Megan, Bianca for
imagining such a thing, you and I for wondering whether it’s the truth? The police for failing to connect the crimes? Was Bianca the only one with insight?”

Which
she
communicated
with
Smithson?

And which Smithson believed? Did you need a mind which was not quite normal to understand what lay at the centre of this mystery?

Megan felt inadequate. “I don’t know. I don’t know… Possibly.” She didn’t know what to say.

Lights were being switched on below in the valley. Only the rounded tops of the mountains were still dark. The lamp-posts formed bright lines, like runways. If she jumped she could fly. And then land.