Last Train to Gloryhole (26 page)

‘Oh my God! He must love you, Rhi!’ cried Carmen, gleefully. ‘Do you, Brian? Do you love Rhiannon then? He won’t admit it, but I bet he does, you know.’

‘And I thought you loved
me
, Bri!’ screamed Sian, chasing after him to hit him with her satchel, but instead watching the boy spin round and protect himself from harm with Rhiannon’s struggling torso.

‘Ger-off me, Brian!’ screamed Rhiannon, making to pull away, but not quite succeeding.

‘Yeah, you’d better, Brian,’ added Carmen. ‘She’s going out with a gorgeous, really fit sixth-former, remember.’

‘No, she’s not,’ said Brian assuredly.

‘Tell him, Rhiannon,’ said Sian, angrily.

‘He’s right, you know - I’m not,’ Rhiannon told them. ‘That’s all over, that is.’ Brian suddenly released her, and she stood up straight, pressed down her skirt, and carried on with her story. ‘Chris went and dumped me in Vaynor Woods weeks ago now. And all because - all because it seems some stupid tree wouldn’t obey his command, and some silly dreams he had about it.’

‘A tree! He’s not right in the head, he’s not,’ said Carmen supportively.

‘Sadly that’s what I think,’ Rhiannon told her. ‘Anyway, Chris dumped me all right.’

‘He nev-er!’ the two girls uttered in stunned harmony, mouths agape.

‘It’s true,’ retorted Rhiannon. ‘So I’m free to go out with whoever I like now, I suppose.’

Rhiannon looked around. All she could see was the rude, blonde-haired boy, standing stock-still before her, hoping against hope that she just might say
his
name. Rhiannon could sense her new power, and so stared right into the boy’s eyes. ‘Even - even -’ she stammered, playfully.

‘Brian Flynn!’ shrieked Sian, in anger.

‘Yes, even Brian Flynn, I suppose,’ Rhiannon replied, turning to face them. ‘Sure, why not?’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Carmen dismissively, beginning to fear for her best friend’s sanity.

Rhiannon took a sideways glance at her prey, and then sauntered right up to hm. She paused for a moment, and then slowly wet her lips with her long, pink tongue. Her two friends quickly moved round in a circle so as to best observe what they feared, yet secretly hoped, was about to follow.

A little hesitantly, and with just gentle pecks to start with, the two young people began to kiss each other passionately on the lips. The clinch was prolonged, and was disturbed only by the sound of a distant dog squealing. The pretty, red-haired girl then suddenly pulled her head back from his, and started spinning round in the street, and warbling at the top of her voice a pop-song from the charts.
‘Maybe you got messed up by someone in your past,’
Rhiannon sang, and then danced away along the pavement, singing to herself the remainder of the song by a Dionne someone-or-other that she could just about remember some of the words to.

‘God! Just look at her!’ called out Carmen, her hand now covering her mouth, and genuinely shocked.

‘And listen to her!’ added Sian. ‘What is she like, eh? She must think she’s Katherine Jenkins.’

When Carla walked into the house from her afternoon stroll the first thing she saw was the scribbled note lying on the table.
‘I’ve been taken off by them to help the police with their enquiries,’
was all that the familiar, stuttering hand had penned.

Carla sat herself down on the sofa, and, before even removing her coat, looked up the number in the phone-book, and rang the police to find out why her father had been arrested. But her efforts were in vain, as the woman on the other end of the line insisted that she couldn’t be of any help to her, since nobody with her father’s name had been recorded.

After apologising for the error, Carla put the phone down and sat silently for a few minutes, contemplating what might have happened to her dad. If he hadn’t been arrested, then where on earth had the police taken him, she asked herself. That is, of course, if they were actual policemen who had called at the house for him. She bit her lip and shuddered at this last, unlikely thought. The old man was so plainly unwell, after all, that removing him from his warm, comfortable home, and taking him whoever knows where was surely tantamount to abuse, she mused. ‘Senile abuse, I’d call it,’ Carla told herself out loud. ‘But the Merthyr police wouldn’t do that, surely. Unless - unless he was the only person who could possibly help them with something, that is. I wonder - I wonder if it’s got anything to do with that cat. I wonder would Chris know?’ she asked herself. ‘Maybe the Cillicks are at such a loss about their Emily that they let them know what my Dad told Chris had happened to her. Yes, I suppose that might be it.’

So, closing the neighbouring gate quietly behind her, Carla tentatively walked up the short path to the Cillick house and rang the door-bell. She repeated the action three times, and even looked in at the window, but eventually she was forced to walk away. Everyone must be either at work or still at school, I guess, she told herself.

But as she spun round to close the gate and return home, she noticed a male face at the upstairs-window, and, deciding it looked like Chris’s face, she returned to his door, and not long after found herself being let inside. Chris was barely able to walk, but he managed to stumble across to the sofa, and, with his sore, bandaged leg raised up on the cushion beside him, he listened to all of Carla’s queries with commendable patience, and an obvious eagerness to be of help to her, but sadly shook his head in response to every single one.

‘You know, I fear that perhaps those evil people who tried to blackmail me in London might have kidnapped him!’ Carla screamed. ‘Chris, what can I do?’

‘What people?’ the boy asked, getting tetchy.

‘You know, dealers,’ she told him. ‘Real dealers, I mean. You see they got hold of film of me blazing weed and trying to score and everything. And the state I was in at the time you just would not believe. I have a still from it, a grainy photograph I got sent by them in the post. Want to take a look?’ Carla opened her hand-bag and handed Chris the picture. She looked away.

‘Oh my God!’ the boy responded, shocked at what he saw. ‘You mean they sent you this?’ he asked.

‘No, it’s my ID. Derrh! Of course they did. I told you, didn’t I?’ Carla retorted, angrily. ‘Along with a written demand for fifty grand.’

‘And you paid them off?’ he enquired.

‘No. But I wish I had, though,’ she answered, ‘Now, I mean. They came round to my riverside flat.’

‘Where was that?’ he asked.

‘In Fulham. Near the
River Café
. Though I guess you wouldn’t know where that is, would you? They came round and tried to force their way in. At four in the morning, for Christ’s sake! Can you believe it? For some reason or other I decided to pretend I was out.’

‘Didn’t you ring 9-9-9?’ he asked.

‘But how could I involve the police, with what they had on me?’ replied Carla.

‘Look - I see what you’re saying, all right,’ he told her. ‘But I reckon you’d best call them up now, don’t you think?’

‘No way, Chris. How can I do that?’ she asked. ‘And, anyway, I already called.’

He stared at her. ‘You didn’t really, though, did you? Did you?’ he persisted. ‘Carla - you have to call them again, right now.’ Chris picked up the house-phone from the table and held out its ear-piece for her. The buzzing drone that the telephone emitted pierced the silence in the room as Carla deliberated long and hard over what she should do.

‘But I don’t think I dare,’ Carla told him. ‘How on earth can I, for Christ’s sake? You don’t understand, Chris. I’ve got so much I stand to lose. So, so much. Say - you know I’m not kidding you, right?’ She watched the boy’s eyes suddenly flicker in apparent disbelief. ‘Hey! Do you think I’m lying, then?’

‘Carla,’ said Chris, tilting his head to one side, and smiling at her with raised brows. Suddenly the phone’s tone changed to one that quite startled the pair of them.

‘What?’ she asked.

Chris replaced the receiver, and, raising it once again for Carla to take out of his hand, said, ‘The man is your dad, remember.’

‘The Church of Christ is clearly split in two,’ Tom announced from his seat in the corner of the bare room.

‘Look, Mister Davies - we called you in today to see if you could help us to find the body of a woman in west London, who’s been missing now for almost nine months,’ the white-haired Sergeant Foley told him, ‘and not to hear what your views are on religion or Christianity.’

‘But I already told you where her body lies, didn’t I?’ explained Tom.

‘But she’s a young black woman, Tom, not an old-aged pensioner.’ This the voice of a cockney policeman, called D.I. Dawson, who had driven all the way to Wales to meet this strange old man he had heard about, and who he had been told possessed a, so-called,
gift
.

‘Well, could it be that she had visited somebody old, then?’ Tom enquired. ‘Her grandmother, perhaps?’

‘No, no,’ the Englishman replied. ‘Our records say two of her grandparents still live in Kingston, Jamaica. And her grandparent over here died years ago.’

‘I see. But which one?’ Tom asked.

‘Which one!’

‘Well, we all have
two
, don’t we?’ the old man told him. ‘I mean, does the other one live in a large communal building, do you think? A sheltered-housing complex, for example? And quite near the river?’

‘Near the river! You mean the Thames?’ Dawson enquired, brows raised.

‘I don’t know, officer. I never lived in London,’ replied Tom, his eyes now closing tightly. ‘There are - there are midges everywhere, I can see that.’ He slapped his forehead. It was summer when she disappeared, yes?

‘Late August, yes,’ the cockney detective replied.

‘Yes, I can see it’s summer. And - and they are playing football near by. I can hear the shouts,’ the old man went on.

‘Of children?’ asked Dawson.

‘Them, too. No. No, a large crowd of people. Men in white shirts and shorts. Other men wearing stripes.’

‘In a park, you mean?’ the detective asked.

‘Yes, but right across the other side. Across the water. Deep, deep water. And there are some people leaving too - trying to leave, at any rate - trying to drive away - but who can’t get into their cars!’

‘Why not?’ D.I.Dawson asked, confused.

‘It’s the river’s water. It has come too high. Men with long, striped scarves are screaming in their efforts to get inside their cars and drive off. ‘Away! they are shouting, in a sort of - northern brogue. ‘Away!’

‘You know, then perhaps they could be Newcastle fans,’ Dawson told him. ‘Apparently the team were playing away in London one afternoon in August.’

‘Across a river?’ asked Tom.

‘No, at Fulham,’ Dawson told him.

‘But is that across the water?’ the old man enquired.

‘Well, yes, I suppose it might be if you are looking - if you are looking from the southern side - the Putney side,’ D.I. Dawson answered. Tom nodded at him approvingly ‘And
are you
, Tom?’

‘Am I what?’ asked Tom.

‘Looking across from Putney? From the south side of the Thames, I mean?’ Tom paused for thought. The cockney officer turned away and rang a number on his mobile-phone, waited for a few seconds, and then pressed a button on it. ‘Hello! Hello! Drinkwater? Hello there! I’m putting this on speaker-phone - do you understand? Would you make sure you do the same your end?’

The shrill, echoing voice of the man in London soon told them that he had obeyed D.I.Dawson’s request. ‘I’ve just done it, Sir,’ Drinkwater informed them.

‘Thank you, Dave,’ said Dawson.

‘Yes, I believe I may well be on the south bank of the river,’ Tom announced. ‘I know for a fact that the sun is at my back from all the shadows before me. There’s a - there’s a pier to the right, yes? And countless swans everywhere. And a man is stood by big blue railings, beside a stand - an easel - painting a picture of the river landscape to the right of where he is standing, and of the bridge and the two churches he can see in the distance.’

‘And are
they
split in two, Mister Davies?’ Sergeant Foley asked him, with a smile.

‘Do you mean the churches?’ asked Tom. ‘Of course, not. That is - that’s another death completely.’

‘Sorry! Do you mean you’re cross-deathing again?’ asked Foley, turning to the London copper and chuckling loudly. Eventually getting his little joke, Dawson began laughing along with him.

Finally comprehending their silly joke too, Tom suddenly sprang to his feet and turned, as if to leave. ‘Perhaps I’d best go, gentlemen,’ he said abruptly. ‘I am certainly no fetishist, you know. I came here in all good faith to help you, remember, and you tell me my daughter is waiting for me downstairs. Been there for ages, I understand. You realise that by now the poor girl must be wondering if I’ve been - if I’ve been arrested and charged with something.’

‘You might still be if we discover you’re bogus and are wasting our time,’ said Foley. ‘Even though we made you come here.’

‘Your daughter is Carla Steel, isn’t she, Sir?’ D.I.Dawson enquired. ‘Yes, I think I saw her.’

‘Now there’s a girl who’s known to the police,’ Foley told the detective. ‘In London, I mean. Though we’ve never managed to pin anything on her whenever she’s come back to Wales.’

‘Known to the police! My Carla!’ Tom told them firmly. ‘No - I’m sure you’re mistaken there.’

‘But am I wrong in thinking she has a habit the tabloids have shown more than a passing interest in in recent years?’ asked Foley.

Tom wondered what it might be. ‘She has a nasty habit of singing, if that’s what you mean,’ he said, grinning. ‘Been addicted to it since she was four, so she has.’

‘If only it were just that,’ the Welsh sergeant told him, his eye-brows raised aloft. ‘In fact, your daughter -’

‘Shut up a minute, would you, Foley!’ commanded Dawson. ‘No, please don’t go, Mr. Davies. Sit down, please. Please, Sir.’

Tom looked about him at the uniformed group, amassed there on his behalf. ‘Well, if you insist, Mr. Dawson,’ he said, resuming his seat once more.

‘Guys, I need the computer now,’ Dawson told the two constables in the corner of the room. ‘Google street-map Putney for me, someone. The stretch of the riverside in Putney right opposite Craven Cottage. Near to where the stream called Beverley Brook, if I remember right, flows in to the Thames from the south. Look for sheltered accommodation, would you?’ He stared down at the screen before him. ‘That’s good. Now zoom in. More. More again. Yes - that could be it. What does the sign say?
Brierfield?
Does that say
Brierfield?
Dave, send someone to
Brierfield.
His mobile-phone blared incomprehensibly You mean there’s someone near there already? Where? In Santanda Street? Good. And is he on speaker, too? Oh, he’s been listening to us all along, has he? Excellent. Then send him into
Brierfield
right away if you would.’ Then turning to Tom, he said, ‘Take a look at this image on the computer, would you, Mr. Davies?’