Last Train to Gloryhole (73 page)

‘Because we don’t believe he’s the one to blame for Carla’s kidnap,’ Rhiannon told me. ‘We think he may have been forced to write it. You see, he’s just not that kind of boy at all, really.’

‘Man,’ said Chris.

‘Man,’ said a surprised Rhiannon, shutting her eyes and wincing. ‘Oh, hell!’

Frowning, and shaking my head at their hapless folly, I turned and walked down the stairs, and made my way back to Anne’s lounge. I then walked into the corner of the room and stood in front of the potted plant that Chris had referred to, in an attempt to conceal it from view. But it wasn’t long before the distinctive odour it emitted began to fill my own nostrils and affect my brain, and I was suddenly forced to sneeze out loud. I nevertheless lifted the plant-pot, and, turning the knob with my left hand, carried it out of the door and down the step into the Cillicks’ kitchen. But finding the back-door of the house locked, and not knowing where the key might be, I placed the cannabis-plant securely on the kitchen-table and returned to the lounge, on this occasion to resume my original seat much closer to everyone else.

‘Have either of you got any idea who brought this note to the door?’ asked P.C.Thomas, turning the paper over to examine it properly.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘There wasn’t a single soul out on the road when I collected it, and the only passing motorist I saw nearby was Jack Belt, doing the usual rounds in his noisy, green van.’

‘Jack Belt, do you say?’ said Foley, pouting as he contemplated this, then scribbling the name down in his open pocket-book.

‘Yeah, but he’s harmless, he is,’ I told him. ‘I can’t for the life of me imagine that Jack Belt, of all people, could be involved in any of this.’

However the strange looks and the prolonged silence that followed my remarks suggested I should perhaps reconsider this.

‘He’s no longer just involved in, what you might call,
‘the black market’
these days, I’m afraid,’ said young Thomas, rubbing his face in his hands. ‘We’ve cut the old fella a load of slack in that regard for a number of years now.’

‘He’s right, Dyl,’ said the sergeant, smiling. ‘My wife certainly couldn’t manage without the cheap fags from the continent she gets off him every week. But ever since the Cam-bornes have been in power up in London, and money round here is tighter than ever, we’ve noticed he’s started keeping company with some of the young lads in the valley who are dealing drugs.’

‘They live over in Pant and Dowlais mainly,’ Thomas added. ‘Say - you live over that way, don’t you, Dyl?’

‘I do,’ I told him. ‘But listen - I hope you’re not suggesting -’

‘Ben - button it!’ the sergeant bellowed at him. ‘Sorry, Dyl. The boy’s so keen to hoover up all the narcotics round hereabouts it wouldn’t surprise me if he confiscated your
Sanatogen
next.’ He glared at the young man who quickly flushed up. ‘Anyway, now that we know that Carla Steel is definitely missing we can’t afford to leave a single stone unturned, right? First of all, I can guarantee you that our old friend Jack Belt will very soon be coming in for questioning. Do you mind if I use your toilet, Mrs. Cillick?’ the sergeant suddenly asked Anne, getting up.

‘Not at all, officer,’ she replied. ‘There’s one through the door there, just off the kitchen.’

The officer disappeared out of the room, and I stared across at the unorthodoxly seated Drew, wondering how any man could remain so incredibly quiet in the supposed comfort of his own home. I began to sense that it might well have something to do with me, and specifically with the fact that one of his wife’s old flames had seemed to have unexpectedly come back into her life. But whether this was true or not, I can’t say that I felt at all sorry for the man. After all, I posed the man no threat, and so I felt he could, and should, have conducted himself far more confidently and hospitably. Unless, of course, I thought, his wife had gone and told him about what happened many years before between her and Gareth at the care-home around Christmas-time. Yes, that could be the cause of it, I told myself, smiling.

Sergeant Foley soon returned to the room, thanked us all for our kind cooperation, and invited his younger colleague to accompany him to the front-door. I wasn’t able to make out most of the small talk that the police-officer shared with the Cillicks out in the hall, nor did I try to, but I became rather alarmed when I did manage to hear the grey-haired sergeant tell Anne, ‘Might I suggest you throw it over the back-fence with all the others, Mrs. Cillick, before you find you have the law come calling.’ With this the grey-haired, old fox smiled at Anne, and walked out of the front-door to join his younger colleague inside the black squad-car. ‘Do you know, Ben,’ I heard him tell the younger officer as he climbed in, ‘I think it’s high time we called up Dawson in the smoke, to come down here again and help us out.’

‘But will he want to come, I wonder?’ asked Ben. ‘On account of the last time we took him to a murder-scene just up the road there, that turned out to be just a tump-ful of medieval corpses?’

‘No, he’ll come,’ Sergeant Foley told him, grinning. ‘After all, the guy’s been trying to pin something on the great Carla Steel for almost a decade now. And a little matter of a kidnapping is unlikely to deter him in that respect, I bet.’

‘O.K., if you say so,’ said Ben grinning back at his superior and starting up the engine.

‘Hang on a minute!’ the sergeant suddenly told his young colleague, before climbing back out of the car. ‘Mrs. Cillick - can you tell Dyl I want a word with him,’ he told her.

Hearing this, I walked down the path and joined the sergeant beside his car.

‘There’s something I forgot to tell you, Dyl,’ said Foley.

‘What’s that then?’ I asked him.

‘You must know that your Gwen has a daughter much older than Rhiannon, yes?’ he said.

‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘She’s called Sarah, and she lives in London. God, she must be around forty, now, I guess, though we haven’t seen the girl for ages now.’

‘Really?’ said Foley. ‘Then it might interest you to know that she and Carla Steel were lovers up until quite recently. Shared a flat and all. Even brought up a little girl together, I understand.’

‘What! Are you being serious?’ I asked the sergeant, stunned beyond measure.

‘Never been more so as it goes,’ he said. ‘A little black girl called Leila, so I gather. Her real mother got sent to jail for a stretch, and even got herself sent back there again. Well, soon after being releasd she disappeared, and was later found dead, you see. Her decomposed body was only discovered just a few short months ago, concealed in a locked coal-hole in west London.’

‘Well I never!’ I said, shaking my head. ‘And where’s the little girl now?’ I asked him.

‘Social Services took Leila away with them initially,’ he replied. ‘But I gather she’s back living with Sarah in their flat in Fulham again these days.’

‘Thank God for that,’ I said. ‘I guess I’ll need to get my Gwen to contact Sarah now, yes?’

Foley nodded, then added, ‘But listen, Dyl - you’ll never guess who helped us find the body of the mother of the child that your Sarah and Carla Steel have been playing parents to?’

I thought for a moment, then pointed towards the door of
Coral
just behind me. ‘Something tells me it was the old man here,’ I told him.

‘Blimey! You’ve got it in one, Dyl,’ said Foley, turning towards his partner in the car, his mouth wide open. ‘But how on earth would you know that?’

I said nothing in reply, but simply stepped away from the car, and let Foley climb back inside again. Waving once, I stood and watched the pair of officers drive off.

Not feeling able to trust the August weather half as much as Chris did, Rhiannon insisted on taking her cagoule along, and, after tossing it onto the back-seat of the yellow Fiesta, she climbed into the driving-seat and drove her on-off boyfriend and her off along the road that ran due north out of Pant.

‘Your cagoule! Why the heck are you bringing that along?’ Chris soon asked her, as they sped past the
Pant Cad Ifor
pub and then the extensive, packed car-park that served the narrow-gauge railway station. ‘How do you figure you’re going to get wet today of all days?’ He shook his head at her. ‘And what’s this music you’re playing? I didn’t know you liked rap.’

‘It’s Radio-One,’ Rhiannon told him, quickly reaching her hand down and switching it off. ‘You know, there are some CD’s in the drawer there. Get one out and put it on if you like.’

Chris opened the dash-board drawer and found sitting there four discs which he took out and inspected. ‘
Twenty-one’
and ‘
Nineteen
,’ he told her scowling. ‘What happened to Twenty, then?

‘What do you mean?’ Rhiannon asked him, smiling.

‘Well, I always buy raffle-tickets in strips of three, you see. Don’t you?’

‘They’re
Adele
, silly,’ Rhiannon told him. ‘There’s a
Marina
and at least one
Carla
in there too, if I’m not mistaken.’

Chris took the Carla Steel disc out of its case and popped it into the player. Carla’s voice immediately started singing the title-track. He listened attentively then gazed across at his companion. ‘Hey this is crazy, don’t you think?’ he asked.

‘What is?’ enquired Rhiannon, changing down to second-gear to negotiate the steep slope that descended past the tinkling freshwater spring to their right, (which poured off the steep slope then passed under the road,) towards the low, stone railway-bridge that sat ahead of them.

‘Well, here we are, venturing out, intent on finding the kidnapped Carla Steel, and she’s clearly encouraging us in song along the way.’ Chris grinned from ear to ear.

Rhiannon suddenly turned and gazed into Chris’s face just as she drove her car into the darkness and sought to negotiate the awkward double-bend that sat beneath the bridge, before emerging once again into the dappled sunlight that lay beyond. But, having forgotten to sound her horn on approach, she was quickly confronted by a large black van that was approaching the bend from the opposite direction, and which very nearly collided with them. In panic Rhiannon steered to the left, and all but hit a large tree which stood at the junction with the narrow, tributary road that descended left, towards the river. The music ceased as the Fiesta came to a sudden halt, and the pair were thrown forward in their seats. Seconds later, and gazing about them in wonder, the couple soon agreed that a serious accident had been narrowly averted.

‘What do you think you’re doing!’ Chris screamed. ‘You very nearly killed us there!’

‘I know -’

‘I know too,’ said Chris, mouth open wide.

‘No, you don’t understand,’ said Rhiannon. ‘I know, at least I believe I know, where Carla could be -
right now
.’

‘You - you know where she could be!’ stammered Chris. ‘What are you - some sort of clairvoyant or something?’

‘No, I’m not saying that,’ she told him. ‘I’m nothing like her father, Chris, you know that.’

‘And I’m glad to hear it,’ he said, taking Rhiannon’s trembling hand in his, and stroking it lovingly, recalling how it was only very recently that she had returned once again into his life, into his arms, his heart. ‘So tell me, sweet, where is it you think Carla might be then?’ he asked, lifting with an index-finger the curly, red strands of hair that the car’s jolt had suddenly formed into a rudimentary fringe across Rhiannon’s forehead and nose, then tenderly running the adjoining thumb along her pale, perspiration-speckled, brow.

Rhiannon stared into her lover’s eyes and said, ‘
Candice Farm
.’

Having stopped the car on the narrow road that ran along the crest of the great dam, just short of Pontsticill village, the young couple dashed across to the wall, where Chris effortlessly lifted Rhiannon up onto its summit, then climbed up it himself to join her there. The pair soon sat with their legs dangling over the edge, and, facing due north, surveyed the gleaming surface of the vast lake that stretched out for close to four sinuous miles before them, after that almost seeming to merge into the golden, serrated skyline that was
The Brecon Beacons
proper.

‘But even if she were there we don’t have a clue where
Candice Farm
might be,’ said Chris. ‘It could be anywhere out there,’ he told her, pointing. ‘On the bare hills, or hidden among the forests, or in the valley on either side, or behind us even.’

‘But it couldn’t be behind us, Chris,’ said Rhiannon. ‘You see, in the song she says that it’s ‘halfway to town,’ right? And as the town was almost certainly
Merthyr
, since she went to the same school that we did, then if we could discover where her home was, then we could maybe pin-point the area that we ought to focus our search on. Chris - what are you doing?’

‘Doing a search on-line,’ he told her, staring intently at the tiny screen of his mobile-phone. ‘There’s only mention of ‘
Candice Farm’
on here as a song, babe, and none of the farms mentioned with that name are to be found in this part of the country.’

‘Listen - Chris. Find out where her home-village was, if you can,’ said Rhiannon, looking over his shoulder. ‘I’m sure it has to be on there, she being such a big star and all.’

‘Talybont-on-Usk’
said Chris. ‘Her father’s home where she grew up was in
Talybont-on-Usk.’
He looked up. ‘God, I used to go camping by the canal in Talybont when I was in Scouts,’ he announced. ‘I never knew she came from
there
.’

‘And how many miles is that from here?’ asked Rhiannon.

‘From Merthyr, you mean,’ Chris corrected her, since we’ve established that that’s what the song says. Well this web-site claims it’s around fourteen miles, so that means the farm she named the song after -’

‘ - which almost certainly doesn’t have that name today, by the way -’

‘ - and quite probably never did have,’ Chris added, ‘is around five or six miles from where we are sitting right now.’

The couple looked up at the breathtaking vista before them. Chris turned his head and gazed to his left at the tower that stood, like the great, brown head of a wading bird, in the midst of the dark, still water, and recalled the night some months before when he had met Carla there to sell her his weed. He then turned and gazed at Rhiannon, and told himself that there were plainly things she need never know about him, especially if, this time, he intended to hold onto her love.