Last Train to Gloryhole (74 page)

‘Do you know that there’s a little village down there somewhere, that new History-teacher told us,’ Rhiannon informed him. ‘Buried deep beneath the water, since the day, around a century ago, when they flooded this valley for water for homes and industries in the Valleys and Cardiff.

‘Oh, I get it now,’ said Chris. ‘That’s why you brought your waterproof coat along, right? You mean to swim down and search for Carla down there.’ He arched his brows and smiled at her.

Rhiannon slapped him gently on the shoulder then smiled at the notion. Becoming more serious again, she said, ‘Still her body could easily be swirling about in this lake somewhere.’ Her pretty mouth fell open as she contemplated this. ‘Chris - just imagine that!’ she exclaimed.

‘You know, Rhiannon, she once told me that her brother Will drowned while swimming in here many years ago,’ said Chris. ‘And, what’s more, she holds herself totally responsible for it.’

‘What
did
happen?’ asked Rhiannon.

‘Carla told me he cooked her a meal on a primus stove, and, because she didn’t like the taste of it, and sulked about it, he chose to teach her a lesson about gratitude and selflessness, and ate her portion of the meal along with his own. Later that afternoon, while swimming alone somewhere out there, he sadly got his foot caught in an underwater branch of a floating tree, and, despite all his best, most strenuous efforts, and possibly on account of the amount of food he’d consumed, couldn’t free himself, and so drowned.’

‘Oh my God! How utterly awful!’ said Rhiannon. ‘What - what did Carla do?’

‘There was little she could do,’ he told her. ‘Carla was only about eight at the time, you see, couldn’t swim, and obviously panicked, and somehow ended up falling down and knocking herself out. Well, by the time help finally arrived, and they revived her again, Will was long dead.’

‘Oh, that’s dreadful,’ said Rhiannon. ‘And Carla such a young girl as well.’ Her eyes narrowed as she considered this. ‘But you know, Chris, I think that might go some way to explaining the theme of another track on her debut album, the title of which escapes me at the moment.’

‘You know, I don’t really want to know, babe,’ Chris told her. You see I imagine Carla has most probably been haunted by the guilt of what happened here right through her entire life. I know
I
would have. And to be honest, could anyone really blame her for experimenting with the array of drugs she got into while trying to develop for herself a career in music. You know, Rhi, I feel this whole business is just so sad that all I want to do is simply set off and find her. And you know I’d go right this second if only I knew which direction to take.’

‘Clutching her lover’s arm, and placing her head on his chest, Rhiannon said, ‘Well, there is only the one main road that we
can
take to drive towards Talybont, Chris,’ she told him. ‘So let’s just drive along it and see where it takes us, shall we?’

‘Yeah, O.K. That’s a sound idea,’ Chris told his lover, kissing her softly on the cheek. ‘Only let me drive the car this time, would you, babe? Look - I know I haven’t passed my test yet, but you must admit I’ve actually been driving cars a lot longer than you have.’

Rhiannon gazed into Chris’s eyes. ‘Well O.K., then,’ she said. ‘But I’ll need to pop the L-plates on just in case, yeah?’

‘Just in case of what? No, please don’t Rhiannon,’ Chris pleaded. ‘Who the hell is going to stop me up here, do you reckon?’ he asked pointing along the lake shore. ‘A fisherman? A lumberjack? A sheep farmer? Or one of the sheep, perhaps?’

Knowing he had won the argument, Chris jumped down onto the road, reached up his strong arms, then snatched up and carried Rhiannon, kicking, but definitely not screaming, back towards their little yellow car. Within seconds the young couple had slammed the doors and set off in it in the direction of the brownstone tower at the end of the dam, and then sped past it into the upland village, where the sharp right-turn, and the Talybont-posted road that led away from it into the heart of the mountains, seemed magically to beckon them on.

Unbeknown to the Merthyr police, D.I.Dawson was already in town, having been called up at his office in west London early on the Monday morning by a gruff-throated Welshman, whose identity was withheld, and whose voice he wasn’t able to recognise, or, more importantly, record on tape, when the man informed him curtly that Carla Steel had disappeared.

However, despite the singular anonymity of the messenger, Dawson made immediate arrangements to drive down to Merthyr, and, just a few hours later, accompanied by a young Asian constable called Shah, whom he now frequently worked alongside, he drove due west down the M.4 motorway. Flashing his warrant-card as he sacheted through the bridge-tolls, and exceeding the speed-limit at every available opportunity, he got them to Wales by lunch-time, later that day to accommodate himself and his companion in adjoining single-rooms in the same motel in The Beacons where Carla Steel had spent a solitary night no more than five months before; not that Dawson or Shah were ever likely to discover this curious fact of course, (the proprietor appreciating the importance of secrecy far more than she believed the police-service did,) otherwise it is quite likely that the younger officer would have transferred his personal belongings, and his Carla-fronted copy of
Rolling Stone,
to that very same room.

Dawson recalled how he had first become embroiled in the matter of Carla Steel when the body of a relatively young black, female addict and ex-con called Jackie Boyce was found to have mysteriouly disappeared from the home she lived in with a middle-aged, Welsh woman in Fulham - a woman whom Dawson had found was the owner-occupier of a property which was actually registered as belonging to Carla Steel. Then, if the recent discovery of Jackie’s stabbed body in a locked-up room in sheltered accommodation in Putney wasn’t enough, the fact that Carla’s own father, whom she was living with at the time, had located it for them, suggested to him that Carla herself might well have played a role of sorts in the poor woman’s demise. The coincidence involved was far too great to actually be one, Dawson felt, and so, ever since then, he had focused his efforts on trying to uncover the nature of the singer’s involvement in Jackie’s murder, and even in its bizarre concealment just across the river from where she lived.

P.C.Vic Shah, who was lying flat-out on his bed, happily sampling the cold contents of his mini-bar, was an officer who knew all there was to know about narcotics, and had been a crucial part of the team that had succeeded in finally getting Carla Steel convicted for possession of class-A just a few years before. So it came as no surprise to Shah that he was the man whom D.I.Dawson turned to when he found out that the singer had gone missing in Wales.

Initially the young detective had, like Dawson, believed that Carla Steel might be one of the perpetrators of the heinous crime that had shocked west London, but recent events had now suggested to him that this was probably not the case. To the young officer’s mind it seemed that there was a very unusual, and probably highly significant, link, or, at least, a correspondence, between the abduction and murder of Jackie Boyce in 2010, and what seemed to have just taken place here in Merthyr. And the conclusion Shah had come to, on discussing the matter, at great length, while travelling in the car with D.I.Dawson, was that someone whom both women - both drug-users - knew, was most likely to be at the heart of both events, and was also likely to be the man who had covered up his evil tracks by murdering the young policeman, Darim Ahmed, whose final words seemed to suggest that he had recognised him. But who that dangerous man might actually be, neither he nor Dawson seemed to have the foggiest notion.

A firm double-knock on the door told Vic that his superior had come calling. Quickly sitting up, and placing his can of lager on the bedside-table, he called out, ‘The door is open, Sir!’

‘Vic, I told you before you can call me Jeff, you know,’ the officer replied, opening the mini-bar and taking out a can for himself. He smiled at the younger man, turned a wooden chair right round, and sat his legs astride it. ‘I need to let you know something that I only just found out,’ the older man said. ‘The morning after Carla Steel disappeared, her father Tom passed away.’

‘Really?’ said Vic. He thought for a moment, then said, ‘The two events couldn’t be linked, could they?’

‘I can’t see how,’ Dawson told him. ‘In fact I can’t imagine Carla is even likely to know of this.’

‘Oh, I see,’ the young man replied. ‘Say, but wasn’t he the chap who seemed to know poor P.C.Ahmed was about to cop it just before he did?’

‘He certainly was,’ said Dawson, recalling the strange, terrifying evening in Merthyr Police Station. ‘You know, I shall never be able to forget how the old man cringed up his face and covered his ears just a second or two before the two shots were fired. It was quite astounding.’

Vic Shah pondered this. ‘Then I guess, Sir, the old man might have known that he himself was about to kick the bucket,’ he announced, arching his brows, then smiling at his companion.

‘Yes, I suppose that’s quite possible,’ said Dawson, breaking into a laugh. ‘You’re a clever lad, do you know that, Vic? I feel we always seem to work really well together, don’t we? And, if truth be told, I’d like to see you get yourself the credit for tracking Carla down, I really would.’

‘You mean share the credit, yeah?’ the constable replied, smiling.

‘Well yes, of course,’ said Dawson. ‘But I’ve cracked a lot of big cases over the years, you see, whereas you, Vic, have yet to pop your cherry, if you get my drift. Yes, I should really like to see you get promoted, I really would, lad. And if we find Carla Steel, and bring the woman back home in one piece, then I can promise you that your life is unlikely to be the same again.’

‘You know, I have never yet met the girl,’ said Vic. ‘Say - what is she like, Sir?’

‘Jeff, remember, Jeff. To look at, do you mean?’ the older man asked.

‘That, too,’ said Vic, grinning.

‘Well, if you like the bi-sexual look, then I’m sure she could easily be your Miss World. Or Miss Wales, anyway.’ He chuckled. ‘She’s got millions in the bank, of course, so if, like me, you prefer another type of female completely, then you could do a lot worse than spend some of Carla’s cash on finding that one instead.’

The two men laughed heartily at this.

‘Jeff, can I tell you a little confession?’ the young man asked.

‘Of course you can, lad,’ replied Dawson.

‘Well, I’ve had a crush on Carla Steel since I was in sixth-form in Peckham. I swear it’s true. And despite what you’ve said, I reckon she’s sexier than Katy Perry and Lady Gaga combined.’

‘Wow! That’s an interesting concoction, if ever there was one,’ said Dawson.

‘I’ve got every song the singer ever recorded, I really have,’ Vic told him. ‘And I know all the words to most of them.’

‘O.K.,’ said Dawson, surprised more than intrigued. ‘Hey, you don’t mind if I test you, do you?’

‘Fire away,’ the young man retorted.

‘So where the hell is
Candice Farm
then? Because it sure as hell ain’t on any map, I can tell you.’

‘You know, Jeff, I haven’t a clue about that myself,’ replied Vic. ‘But, you know, while I’m down here, I’d sure like to find out. You see, Jeff, according to the song’s lyrics, Carla and her friends seem to have achieved a large measure of, what she calls ‘enlightenment’ there, when they were all still quite young.’

‘Lost their cherries there, she means, then, yeah?’ said Dawson, grinning.

‘Well, that as well, I bet,’ replied Vic. ‘But to my mind I believe a great deal more must have happened out on that farm during those balmy, summer holidays.’

‘Christ, Vic, you’re beginning to get
me
interested now,’ said Dawson, shifting in his seat. ‘Listen, I bet you any money old Sergeant Foley knows where
Candice Farm
is. And if he does, then trust me, I’ll be sure to get it out of him, so I will. Then, perhaps, when Carla is out of harm’s way once again, you and I could take a trip out there. Blimey, did I say
trip?
’ exclaimed Dawson, chuckling away merrily at what he regarded as one of his finest jokes.

Vic watched his D.I., but decided he wouldn’t be joining in with him this time. ‘You know what I hope happens, Jeff?’ said the young man.

‘What’s that?’ asked Dawson.

‘That Carla Steel might be so grateful to us, after we’ve rescued her I mean, that she offers to take us there herself. Now that
would
be worth doing, don’t you think?’

‘Hey, I wouldn’t want to play gooseberry, Vic lad,’ said Dawson, smiling. ‘After all, I’m a lot older than you two are, and a married man to boot. And booted is how I feel a lot of the time, I can tell you. What I mean is, you two being about the same age and all, I’m sure the pair of you would really value a little trip out to that place together.
‘Make hay, not war,’
yeah? as that blond Welsh bird used to sing back in my day. Say, what the hell was her name again, I wonder? ‘Cos she certainly did it for me back then, I can tell you.’

‘We must have come off the
Talybont
road some way back there, I reckon,’ said Rhiannon, throwing the folded map down into the foot-well and frowning.

‘But I thought you were navigating, babe,’ yelled Chris, slowing down the yellow Fiesta as they traversed a stone bridge yards away from a picturesque little waterfall just off the carriageway, that delivered cool, cascading water down to the Taff River from the high, angular peaks known as
The Fans,
that had, by now, quickly become a solid, foreboding presence round and about them, as they bounced along the narrow, rising, stone-strewn, road.

‘Where are you taking us to?’ enquired Rhiannon.

‘Look, I can’t turn the car round here,’ retorted Chris, becoming more than a little impatient with the unfamiliar terrain which unsurprisingly put a considerable strain on his inexperienced driving skills. ‘I’ll just have to drive on a bit further, O.K., Rhi? Though something tells me this road will turn out to be a dead-end before very long.’