Last Tango in Aberystwyth (16 page)

‘Would you really shoot?'

‘Yes.'

‘But why? Over a girl?'

‘I'm just an incurable romantic.'

He took a breath. ‘If I tell you, it's imperative … you must promise … this mustn't go any further.'

‘Anything you say is automatically protected by the sanctity of the confessional. You should know that. Now tell me.'

‘That girl you showed me. It's true I had seen her before. I know her because I worked with her once.'

‘Where?'

‘In … in … a place.'

‘What sort of place?'

‘Oh, Louie, don't make me say. A terrible place. A wicked, wicked place where a priest has no business being.'

‘And where's that, apart from Mrs Bligh-Jones's bedroom?'

He paused and I could hear the sweat droplets breaking out on his forehead. ‘Where does someone go in this town when they've reached the bottom and have nowhere left to go?'

‘There are lots of places.'

‘For you, yes! For you there are the bars and the girls and the toffee and the bingo and the whelks. For you there is a great choice. But for her. Ah! but for her? You cannot imagine what this girl was like. A filthy, lecherous Jezebel. A girl who oozed iniquity from her every pore. Who came out at night and ensnared the hearts of men with her malevolent scent like a carnivorous flower shining in the tropical moonlight … where would such a dirty bitch go?'

‘I don't know but I'd like to!'

‘There is only one place where she would end up. The movies.'

I paused for a second. ‘Which ones?'

‘Those filthy detestable engines of lust.'

‘You mean the “What the Butler Saw” machines?'

I could sense his whole being twisting in pain. ‘Yes them. And not the ones from the pier. The ones in those private rooms where filth boils over like a cauldron of hot tar, where men come willingly to submit to the mortification of a bridle and other upholstery of the Devil …'

I started to snigger.

‘Oh yes, you can laugh, you can laugh! Jeer away! But be warned, those who begin by mocking the degradation of the human spirit soon end up supping themselves from the cup of vileness!'

‘That's a bit rich coming from you, isn't it!? What about supping from the shoe of vileness? Look, Father, you had a little tingle under your cassock and went to see some dirty movies. Big deal!'

The priest banged his fists against the side of the box. ‘Oh you fool, you unutterable, execrable mean-spirited fool!' he cried in abyssal anguish. ‘You loathsome dolt, you –'

‘Hey, who's holding the gun here!'

He exhaled like a schoolmaster finally broken by the lifetime of ignorance from his charges.

‘Louie, Louie. I didn't look at these things, you fool! I was in one of them! I was … was … the gimp! Oh my God, Louie, what have I done?'

He wailed like a lorry full of sheep when the scent of the approaching abattoir reaches them. And then he added quietly, breathless, as if his spirit was now so crushed it didn't matter what he said, ‘The girl is called Judy Juice.'

I withdrew the gun and stood up, adding as I left, ‘Say three Hail Marys and give up the Vimto.'

I spent the next three nights, red-eyed and weary, trailing the gossamer thread of rumour that fluttered behind the name Judy
Juice. I knew the name, of course, but it was obvious now that the girl in the leopard-skin coat at Jubal's party had not been her. It should have been obvious then, too. How could she have been when the real Judy Juice wouldn't give him the time of day? It was just a clever trap, maybe not even all that clever – one of those gaping manholes Jubal left lying around in his conversation and which I had obligingly walked into. I had to hand it to him: he was a polished operator.

Everyone I spoke to had heard of her, but no one could say where she was at the moment. They said she was bitch, they said she was a babe, they said she was gorgeous and equally they said she was vile; but they didn't say where she lived. Some people said she was slime and others said she was smart, smarter than all the men who longed to paw her; and being a bitch was all really just an act. Some said she put herself about and others said she never went near any man except on screen. They said she was easy but from the resentful looks in their eyes you somehow doubted it. They said she'd been raped as kid and that's why she hated men and others said it wasn't true and why would she need an excuse like that anyway? Some said she was beautiful and all said she was contemptuous. Some said she stayed in the hotels, a different room every night, depending on who was paying and the house Johns at the hotels said they'd never once seen her. Some said she lived on the council estate at Penparcau and others said she was rich and owned a house on Llanbadarn Road. One person said she lived at Borth and someone else said she had a houseboat at the harbour. Another person told me she lived out at the caravan park on the south bank of the Rheidol and the security guard there told me it was true but he hadn't seen her for weeks. In short, after three nights in which I got no sleep and even less joy, the only thing I knew about her for sure was the one fact everyone in town agreed upon. The thing between her and Jubal.

* * *

Everyone you talked to said Jubal was a bag of slime, but everyone you talked to smiled and cringed like a beaten dog whenever he appeared. Jubal the movie man with his hunchback and his pea-size head and his glasses thicker than portholes. Hi, Jubal! How's it going, Jubal? Saw the latest flick, Jubal, fantastic! You're looking great, Jubal! It might not be true to say every waitress was an out-of-work actress and every waiter had written a script, but Jubal slept with a lot of waitresses and it was difficult to see what else they found attractive in him. He wasn't scared of a challenge either. They said he'd promised to make Mrs Bligh-Jones a star, but it hadn't happened yet so maybe the job was too big even for him. Yeah, Jubal was the movie man in Aberystwyth, and so vain and girlish were the hearts of the townspeople he could have anything he wanted, any woman and any thing. Except Judy Juice's heart. He tried buying it, he tried bribing, he tried threatening and cajoling. But nothing worked so she got all the parts she wanted; passed the auditions without ever having to disrobe, or even turn up. It was the only thing in Aberystwyth money or influence couldn't buy.

*

After three days of getting nowhere I drove east along Llanbadarn towards the mountains of Pumlumon. I pondered the case and started to wonder, as I sometimes did round about this stage, whether it was really all that it seemed to be. Maybe there was something all a bit too glib about it. Almost rehearsed, this story of a man within whose soul the repressed Bohemian dream breaks free. This plummet from the top of Mount Parnassus via the ventriloquists' ghetto and the Komedy Kamp to the swirling waters of the ‘What the Butler Saw' sewer. Even though I hadn't found him, it seemed a bit too easy, a bit phoney. His trail led like the footprints of a man in deep-sea diver's boots across wet concrete. And the fact that, despite all that, I still felt nowhere nearer to
finding him only confirmed my suspicions. Maybe he wanted to be trailed, but wasn't ready to be found. Maybe he was playing with me; or someone else was not being straight with me.

Rain had started to spit at the windscreen as I pulled into the lay-by and looked ahead at the sanatorium. Now that I was here I suddenly saw what a forlorn task it was. A twelve-foot perimeter wall, razor-wire on top, guard-dog patrols … I sighed and stepped out of the car. The air was cold and fresh, the ground sodden. I squelched over the turf and wandered along the wall for a while, looking for entrances. There weren't any. At one corner there was a tower and I could see a guard watching me through binoculars. It was hopeless. I doubted even Llunos could get in. I walked back to the car. I hadn't been away more than five minutes but another car had arrived in the meantime and parked behind mine. Two men had got out and were leaning against my car. One was dressed in a police constable's uniform and the other wore a shabby raincoat. It was Harri Harries.

WE DROVE SOUTH through Ysbyty Ystwyth, towards Pontrhydfendigaid, and then turned off on to a minor road into the hills; driving too fast for any chance of jumping from the moving car.

‘Why have you picked me up?' I asked. ‘Or is that a stupid question?'

‘It's a stupid question.'

I flexed the muscles of my forearm; the cuffs, deliberately on too tight, bit into my flesh.

‘This isn't the direction of the police station.'

‘Well done, pathfinder. This is not the direction of the police station.' Harri Harries turned in the front seat of the prowl car and said to the driver, ‘I told you he was smart.'

He squirmed awkwardly round to face me over the passenger seat. ‘You'll like this place better. It's remote and it's quiet. Far from the hurly-burly, and from the madding crowd. It's a place where two men can unwind and get to know each other. And, best of all, it's the sort of place where if you hurt yourself you can die safe in the knowledge that your whimpers won't disturb anybody's peace.'

‘And you wouldn't hold the odd whimper against a dying man.'

‘Every man has a right to whimper, peeper. Even you. Especially you.'

A few miles down the road we pulled off and drove up a rough dirt track. The car's suspension was not good and we jumped
and jerked around like drunken puppets. But the driver seemed not to care and Harri Harries sat up front with a smile on his face that didn't reach his eyes which were cold and intense.

We skidded to a stone-splattering halt outside a building that looked like an electricity substation, surrounded by a chain-wire fence, topped with barbed-wire. The twin gates were chained with thick anchor chain and a padlock the size of a sporran. A mournful electric hum filled the air. We passed through the gate and Harri Harries pointed to the sign that read: ‘Danger. Keep Out.' ‘Don't say you weren't warned, shamus.'

I decided I'd seen enough and as soon as they pulled me out of the car I made a run for it. But they had been expecting this … They were both on me within seconds, and with my hands cuffed behind me ruining my balance I was soon sprawling and eating cinders. A blackjack rained down a few times and I was groggily dragged or pushed towards the building. Crudely painted slabs of concrete cemented together to make a wall. Steel-frame window, the panes filthy and broken and replaced with cardboard. Dirty green paint that had all flaked off to reveal the desiccated wooded subframe. Signs showing stick figure people in attitudes of pain being hit with z-shaped electric rays coming down from the sky. A building whose rough brick architecture seemed to be designed solely to make lonely places in which to beat up the innocent. The deputy opened the second door and they shoved me through. The space inside was taken up with piled-up boxes and packing-cases, overflowing files and sacks of paper. There was a cleared space with a workbench and a chair that looked like it had been borrowed from a pre-war dentist's. It had leather restraining straps. There were dark stains of splattered liquid on the cement floor, stains that could have been blood, and over in the corner was a table covered in fancy-dress clothing. A wolf ‘s outfit and a little girl's dress – a dirndl, the sort that Heidi used
to wear. They pushed me into the chair and fastened the straps. The nausea of fear began to well up inside from the pit of my stomach, up and up to my throat. I swallowed hard.

‘Like the chair? We got it from the sanatorium. They're not allowed to use them any more – illegal.'

I was too scared to answer.

Harri dragged up a chair and sat, legs astride it, facing me from the side. I nodded towards the table in the corner. ‘Are we going to have a party?'

He gave a quick glance and said, ‘Yeah but you're not on the guest list.'

He took out a pack of cigarettes, gave it a rapid shake, and grabbed a protruding cigarette between his lips. Then he lit it and spoke through clenched lips the way they do in the movies. Why didn't he just take the cigarette out for a minute if he wanted to speak? The same reason he did everything: just one long trailer for a movie I'd seen a hundred times before.

The deputy brought over a canvas bag and dumped it with a loud metal clang on the table. There were a lot of iron things inside and my heart froze. How crazy were they? I had no idea. Harri Harries was new here. Maybe they really did keep law and order like this in Llanelli. Where was the deputy from? He was dressed like a constable but I noticed now the numbers on his arm were all zeros. I'd never seen him before and something told me if I survived this night I probably wouldn't be seeing him again. Not unless Harri Harries needed to do some more special policing.

Harri put his hand inside the bag and performed the pantomime of someone doing a lucky dip. He pulled out a monkey-wrench. Lucky old me. I put a foot on the tabletop. Harri turned the wrench in his hand and then let the flat side fall on to the
exposed bone of my shin. Tears of pain filled my eyes. It was just a lazy slap but the message it conveyed was clear: if this is the hors d'oeuvre, just imagine the banquet to come.

‘What do you want?' I said through gritted teeth.

He rested his elbow on the back of the chair, rested his chin on the palm of his hand and said simply, ‘I want to ask you a few things about Dean Morgan. Principally, where the fuck he is.' He puffed smoke gently out towards the ceiling.

‘But I don't know where he is.'

He made a thoughtful face. ‘I thought you might say that. That's why you'll notice a slight departure here from formal police-interview procedure. It's not an easy one to spot, quite subtle, but someone with your enormous experience should be able to get it. Any ideas?'

‘The fancy dress?'

He glanced again at the clothing in the corner and shook his head. He pulled the pen out of his breast pocket and held it out to me. ‘You see? It's this. I'm not taking any notes.'