Last Train to Gloryhole (38 page)

‘Carla, what did the police find when they got to your house?’ Chris enquired.

‘You mean after the men ran off?’ she asked.

‘Oh, they’d disappeared, then?’

‘Well, they must have,’ she told him. ‘I never saw hide nor hair of either of them. But I trusted that
you
had seen them, and I reacted straightaway, just the way you told me to.’

Chris bit into his lip. ‘I - I knew one of them, you know,’ he told her,

Carla halted and stared straight at him. ‘Hey! How could you?’ she asked, shocked at this.

‘Well, at least I think I did,’ he replied. ‘I mean I believe I do, yes. The tall one who was standing back - the one that I saw was carrying a gun. I’ve never actually met him, of course, but I reckon it had to be him.’

‘And who
is
he, then?’ she asked.

‘Well, you won’t know him. His name is Volver,’ Chris told her. ‘He lives in England - Bristol, I believe - but he’s originally from South Africa. He’s an evil man, Carla. That I do know.’

‘Is he really?’ asked Carla, looking away. ‘Then how would
you
know him, then? Surely you don’t mix with people like that, do you, Chris? With people who are evil.’

‘Of course I don’t,’ he retorted. ‘But I hear things, you know. I got told that he was back in the area again. And, do you know Carla, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if it turned out that he was the guy who murdered that boy from my school.’

‘Do you mean that Danny?’ she asked, staring at him.

‘Danny Flynn, yes. He was - he got stabbed with a knife.’ Chris’s voice was beginning to shudder. ‘I know - I’ve heard - that this Volver guy always carries a blade and a gun with him in the dash-board of his Audi - in his car - in his bright-blue Audi that I heard that he drives.’

Carla studied her new friend closely. For some reason, his eyes seemed reluctant to fully meet her gaze. ‘You say you don’t know this Volver, Chris, yet you do know what car he drives,’ she told him. ‘Mm. Interesting, that. You know I’d wager a fortune that there’s a lot more to all this than you’re actually telling me, right? For a start I bet you know the Audi’s registration. Yes? If you can recall it, then please tell me.
Can
you remember it, Chris?’

Chris looked into Carla’s eyes. He decided to be part-way honest with her. ‘Apparently, it’s impossible not to,’ he told her. ‘I heard it’s only got four digits.’

‘It’s a personalised one, you mean?’

‘Yeah, and they are Dutch plates, not British.’

‘How do you know that if you’ve - if you’ve never actually seen it?’ Carla asked him.

‘The - the colour, of course. I was told that they are both yellow, front and back, you see, with the letters N-L on the left side of each plate.’

‘Shit Sherlock! I’d better watch out for you,’ stammered Carla, mouth agape.

‘Why’s that?’ he asked.

‘Why? Well, I smoke drugs for a start,’ Carla told him, smiling, and slapping him on the arm. But listen - you won’t tell anyone will you?’

At this Chris laughed out loud. ‘Well, I guess they already know, don’t you? Look – let’s be honest, shall we? I guess almost everyone alive on every continent must know that fact, Carla. I mean, isn’t that why they wouldn’t let you into the States that time to receive that big award?’

‘Hey, I’m allowed in there now, remember,’ she told him. ‘I even have a house over in the States these days, you know. Perhaps you don’t believe me, but it’s true. Look - you can come over and visit some time if you like.’

‘When?’ asked Chris, excited.

‘Well, when -’ she began her reply. A cold tear suddenly welled up in the corner of her right eye. She rubbed it away with her thumb and prepared for the same event happening in her left. ‘Look, I’ll let you know when the best time to come is, O.K.? Trust me.’

‘Well, this summer is bound to be the best time for me,’ he told her. ‘My final year in school starts in September. And it’s already the middle of May.’

‘Listen - do you trust me, Chris?’ Carla asked, looking directly into the young man’s eyes.

‘You know I do,’ he replied. ‘
And
I went and told you about Rhiannon and
everything
.’

‘Well, if you do, then why don’t you start telling me exactly what you know about this Volver guy you just mentioned? Because if you do that, and be totally straight with me about it, then I promise I’ll be straight with you too. What do you say to that, Chris? Eh? Say. What’s up? Pussy got your tongue?’

‘Eugh! That sounds disgusting, especially coming from you,’ retorted Chris, hoping that this might delay somewhat Carla’s questioning.

‘I tell you what,’ she said. ‘I’ll start the balls rolling, shall I? Wait - that sounds almost as bad.’

The two of them giggled away, first pretending to poke each other in the general direction of the genitals, then grasping each other tightly by the arms so as to keep them from falling over on the steeply sloping field they stood in.

After walking on a distance, Carla put her arm round her friend’s shoulder and spoke to him. ‘That man you call Volver, Chris -’ said Carla.

‘What about him?’ the boy asked.

‘Well, he is actually called Kronfield,’ she told him. ‘And he certainly is very dangerous, you know. Extremely so. He’s twice served prison-time in Holland, for a start. The truth is - he has been trying to blackmail me for years, and right now he has probably got easily enough on me - my unpaid taxes, my shameful term at Oxford, my drug habit, my sex life - I’m bi, you see, Chris - to succeed beyond his wildest dreams.’

Chris found that this was all too much for him to take in at once, but he still wanted to hear more. ‘Go on,’ he told her.

‘Volver - Kronfield - had a young policeman killed in London a few weeks back, who had just stumbled upon the body of someone he’d once murdered, and was convinced he’d securely hidden away. Ironically it was my father who helped the young copper locate the body. Unluckily for the young copper, though, as it turned out.’ Carla sighed deeply. ‘You know, if I were Volver I think I’d be terrified of what else my father could reveal. Only he probably doesn’t realise that my Dad was in any way involved. At least I hope not.’ She turned to look into Chris’s eyes. ‘Right, now that I’ve got that lot off my chest, what is there that
you
would like to tell
me,
young man?’

Chris pondered Carla’s words for a second or two, then decided he had no alternative but to take the plunge. ‘The man’s been buying my weed off me for several months now,’ he told her.

Carla suddenly halted on the path. ‘You mean Volver?’ she asked, eyes wide.

‘Yes, Volver. He has never actually met me, of course, just heard of me, you know, but he does know that the herb’s quality is good. It’s strictly business to him, you see. Strictly profits. He always buys it off me through two boys in my school, and it’s they that do all the actual selling for him round here. There were three of them originally, you see, Carla, only - only one of them is dead now.’ Chris gulped audibly, but forced himself to carry on.

‘Jesus!’ stammered Carla.

‘But this Volver hasn’t actually paid me a single penny for my crop yet - the bastard. He’s just told me - through the two boys I mentioned - that I’ve got a big pay-day coming my way one day soon, and to keep my head down and keep on growing the stuff. And all the time I’m waiting for my dosh, Volver is trying to force the boys to sell a stack of cocaine for him. But Merthyr’s not exactly Las Vegas, is it? It’s not even Cardiff. And so they’ve found that they can’t shift more than a few ounces of the stuff each week, and I gather the guy’s not at all happy about it. People round here don’t have that sort of money anyway these days, even if they had the inclination to use the stuff, which most don’t. Carla, you see that, don’t you?’ She nodded. ‘And, to top it all, the boys have just told me that Volver wants
me
to start helping them sell the coke, and now I fear I’m going to have to, otherwise I may not get to see any of the money I’m owed by him.’

‘Christ alive!’ exclaimed Carla. ‘You’ve got yourself in a right pickle, haven’t you, Chris?’

‘A pickle! Is that what you call it?’ he told her. ‘I’d say it’s a darn sight more than that. Listen, Carla - I feel really, really bad about what cocaine involves, you know. It’s a whole other level, you get me? I mean, compared to blow, puff is nothing - it’s just sort of recreational, isn’t it? Whereas coke, and especially its variations, such as crack, well, it’s - it’s -’

‘Reprehensible,’ suggested Carla. ‘Although I have to admit that that never seemed to stop me from indulging in the past, of course.’

‘Well I feel it’s almost worse than that, anyway,’ retorted Chris. ‘After all, you’re a celebrity, aren’t you? In the circles you mix in it’s almost expected, right? Carla - look - can you help me, do you think? Because - because crack-cocaine isn’t as yet such a big problem round these parts. And, worse than that even, I’ve already been handed the stuff, and I really haven’t a clue what I should do with it.’

‘You don’t mean - so you mean it’s all up in my dad’s loft right now, then?’ Carla asked him. ‘The crack.’ Rather sheepishly, Chris nodded. O.K., O.K. Then listen. I’ll tell you what we’ll do.’

‘What?’ he asked.

‘I’ll take the whole consignment off your hands,’ she told him.

‘You’ll what!’ stammered Chris, beaming, his mouth agape.

‘You heard,’ said Carla. ‘And make sure you tell Volver that you sold it all, O.K.?’

‘Tell
him
?’ Chris asked, puzzled. ‘But why - why is that important?’

‘Just do as I say,’ Carla told him. ‘Listen - promise me you will, right, Chris?’

‘Well, O.K., then. But the consignment of crack is on a sort of ‘sale-or-return basis,’ he protested. ‘And Carla, I’ve literally got bags and bags of the stuff that I’ve never even opened!’

‘Chris, listen - it’s not a problem, so don’t worry about it,’ she reassured him, grasping his two trembling hands tightly in her own. ‘And, anyway, I might discover that I have a genuine need for it all myself when my dad - you know, when my dad finally passes.’

Carla suddenly clasped Chris’s lissome body tightly to her own, and the pair wept silently over each other’s shoulders, and over each other’s tribulations, in the cooling breeze that now blew down on them off the high, brown-tinged peaks of The Beacons.

‘Gwen and Arthur,’ my wife told the woman at the desk.

‘I don’t just mean
first names
,’ she replied, without looking up from the register.

‘The whole thing?’ Gwen asked her. She shook her head around in frustration. She seemed to do a lot of that sort of thing these days, I’d noticed. ‘Well, O.K., then. Best sharpen your pencil if I were you, girl.’

At this the woman looked up at us for the first time, and, with a wry smile, scanned closely, the (to her eyes,) rather obtuse married-couple who were her latest hospital arrivals of the day.

‘Arthur Dylan Thomas Cook, fifty-six, and twelve stone three pounds in a good year, and any time but Christmas,’ my wife informed her. ‘And Gwen Hwyfar Ada Cook, fifty-three, and - well, quite a few pounds under that all year round.’

‘You make it sound like a boxing-match, dear, with all the weights and all,’ I told her, smiling. ‘Fight night on Sky. The inter-sex, cruiser-weight championship of Wales over twelve rounds. And in the blue corner -’

‘In the blue corner are the toilets and the baby-changing room,’ the woman suddenly explained, clearly having paid little attention to anything I had said. ‘The former are ‘handicapped,’ naturally, and we have to have the latter due to the silly new regulations they brought in, even though, you know -’

‘I understand,’ I told her, pointing to my right, towards the bright, red rectangle stuck firmly onto the bare wall. ‘And in the red?’

‘Refectory and day-lounge. And over there in the green corner -’

‘There’s a green?’ I asked.

‘And an orange,’ she continued. ‘And finally a lemon.’

‘Five!’ I stammered. ‘But I’ve never known a rectangle with -’

She pointed at the yellow rectangle above her head. ‘We’re in it now, actually,’ she announced. ‘Very calming - lemon - don’t you think? Tell me, Mr. Cook - has your wife gone on ahead of you, do you think? She shouldn’t really have done that, you see.’

I looked around, but sadly my Gwen was nowhere to be seen. I quickly picked up the card I had brought along and made to go off and locate her, but the woman reached across and tugged at my sleeve.

‘Just one last thing - is your wife’s second name really
Hwyfar
?’ she enquired, with a highly querulous look on her face. ‘You see, I’ve checked our records and -’

‘It isn’t, no,’ I told her, puzzled by the bizarre nature of what she had just said.

‘Because I’ve worked here for ten years now, you see, and I’ve yet to encounter a
Hwyfar
in all that time.’ She suddenly looked up at me. ‘Did I hear you say it’s
not
- her middle name, I mean.’

‘Of course not. No. Gwen’s middle-name is Ada,’ I explained. ‘Just Ada. A-D-A.’

‘Oh, just Ada, is it? Well, that seems to be right, at any rate.’

‘Yes, I guess it’s very apt, in a way - Ada,’ I retorted, grinning. ‘Very short and sweet, you see. Just like my wife herself.’

‘And I’m very happy for you, I’m sure, Mr. Cook,’ she told me, rising. ‘Excuse me! Madam! The reception is on this side if you don’t mind!’ she suddenly shrieked, at an elderly couple who had just arrived from the lobby. ‘I can see you now. You see, this gentleman here is just leaving.’

Taking the woman’s kind advice, I edged away from the desk and scanned the huge room, unsure as to which colour corner Gwen had actually wandered into. I knew her favourite colour was yellow, but, since I was already there, it was the red zone I decided to look in first, and so elected to wander into the refectory, where I was soon able to make her out, carrying two teas and two buns on a tray over to a table, at which already sat a middle-aged man, wearing a hat and sunglasses, who was chatting away to his wife. I wandered across there, and sat down opposite my wife and began sipping my hot tea.

I watched as Gwen bit into her bun, and became more than a trifle perplexed, on seeing her look up and survey her new neighbours with apparent disdain. She seemed particularly scornful of the gentleman sitting diagonally across from her, and kept staring at him, and tutting away to herself quite monotonously, and, for the pair of them, plainly annoyingly. I noticed that the poor man appeared to be doing his utmost to ignore my wife’s unwarranted attention, but, in truth, he seemed to be fighting a losing battle.