Last Train to Gloryhole (75 page)

Chris was right. The car that contained the pair of young lovers soon emerged from the cover of thick trees into the bright sunlight, and the full majesty of the serrated peaks, that formed the backbone of the Beacons massif, could be properly assessed.

‘Hey, I recognise where we’ve come now,’ exclaimed an excited Rhiannon. ‘I think my Dad has driven Mam and me up this route once before. I can remember her telling us how this is the ancient Roman Road which, because of the high terrain, had to become a narrow track along here, so allowing their legions to march over the mountains, then descend to their fort in Brecon. You know, Chris, we’d need to be in a four-by-four if we we wanted to do the same right now.’

‘Well there’s no sense in us getting out and walking any further north,’ said Chris. ‘We should probably stop somewhere around here and eat something, don’t you think, Rhi? I could murder a sandwich right now, couldn’t you?’

‘I certainly could,’ she told him. ‘I know, let’s go back to that waterfall, shall we?’ said Rhiannon. ‘It looked really nice back there.’

Before long the teenage couple had returned, and parked up by the little stone bridge that bestrode the stream, and sat alongside the tumbling cataract that discharged its flow underneath it, happily sharing together the food they had brought along, and, of course, the genuine love they had by this time developed for each other. Their bare calves swirling around in the stream’s cool, rushing water, Chris and Rhiannon drank from the bottle they had brought with them, and discussed the worrying matter of Carla’s disappearance against the cacophonous back-drop of the waterfall, and the sweet sounds that the summer’s songbirds made, as they swooped down upon the crumbs and tit-bits the pair joyously dispersed around for them.

Above the serene sound of nature at play the low drone of a whirring vehicle somewhere high in the sky above them could soon be clearly heard. The barefoot couple waited patiently for the flying craft to enter the gap between the tall trees on either side of the watercourse, and so at last become visible to them. When it finally did, they were able to clearly see that it was a bright orange helicopter that had suddenly disturbed their peace, and was now swooping low and, its black, fish-net tail spinning right and left, gliding its way along the flanks of the mountains. Suddenly turning clockwise, the orange craft advanced towards them, and, as it did so, seeming almost to skim the crowns of the diaphanous, green conifers all about them, that liberally coated the valley proper in these wild, upper reaches of the Taff river-basin.

‘You know, Rhi, I - I’m sure I saw this once before!’ exclaimed Chris, jumping up and standing on the bare sandstone boulder that lay behind them.

‘Really? When?’ asked Rhiannon.

‘I’m pretty sure it was the day that Carla’s dad first arrived in Gloryhole in the spring,’ he told her. ‘You know, the day he moved in next-door. I never found out why it was buzzing about the place then, and I’m just as puzzled as to why the thing is back now.’ He suddenly ran across to his bag, and from inside it brought out the binoculars he always carried with him, then standing completely still, his sturdy legs akimbo, he carefully focused his sights on the wild, flying craft.

‘But it’s surely got to be the police,’ said Rhiannon, clambering up out of the stream herself and joining him. ‘Like us, they’re probably out searching for Carla, don’t you think?’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Chris, straining his eyes to try to make out what letters or numbers there might be on the helicopter’s roof or side, but quickly discovering that there didn’t appear to be any. ‘For a start it’s the wrong colour to be one of theirs,’ he told her. ‘And it’s definitely not a mountain-rescue craft either. No, this is - this one is something completely different if you ask me. You know, Rhi, to be frank, I seriously don’t know
what
to make of it.’

Rhiannon contemplated this for a moment, as she watched the strange, insect-like shape hover off into the distance, soon to disappear completely into the eastern sky high above distant Talybont; Talybont, the village which had given birth to both Tom Davies and his talenred daughter, she told herself. Then she suddenly looked up into her lover’s eyes and gripped him firmly by the arm. ‘Hey, I think I get it now, Chris,’ she exclaimed. ‘Wow! Isn’t that out of this world!’

‘What is?’ asked Chris, tucking the field-glasses back in their holder, and clearly confused by her comment. ‘Explain, would you, because I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

‘Well, don’t you see, Chris?’ said Rhiannon, waving her arms about in her excitement. ‘This strange craft - this mysterious, orange helicopter, which, more than likely, no one had ever seen before - appears for the first time the very moment that Tom arrives in
Gloryhole
, yeah? Months go by, during which time he shares a new life - a wonderful, new, loving relationship - with his gifted daughter, who had previously severed all ties with him. Not long after that he informs you that poor Emily is dead, and even tells you where to find her.’

‘Not really, no,’ protested Chris. ‘He just said she was in a tunnel, and would soon float out.’

But Rhiannon wasn’t listening to him, and continued much as before. ‘Later on he tells my dad what really happened to my Uncle Sam when, almost fifty years before, they found him mysteriously killed on the railway. And, from what you’ve told me, he even told your mother things which convince her that he had played a key role in saving her life way back in the sixties, when she was in school with my dad, and the terrible disaster happened.’ By now Rhiannon could feel tears welling up from deep inside her. ‘And just to cap it all, the next time you see the mysterious orange-and-black helicopter is when the man concerned has just passed away.’

‘And?’ said Chris, turning to Rhiannon and making a face at her. ‘Wait. Are you suggesting - surely you’re not suggesting that the old man next-door was some sort of
special man
- some sage, or prophet, or some guru or such like? God! What was in that sandwich you ate just now, Rhiannon?’ he asked her, smiling. ‘Because, if you ask me, it sure as hell wasn’t ham.’

Rhiannon was beginning to feel frustrated that Chris wasn’t on the same wave-length as she was; in truth, she thought, he didn’t seem prepared to even consider what she felt she was now beginning to see very clearly indeed. ‘But Chris,’ she continued, ‘to my mind it all seems to be much more than just an odd coincidence, don’t you think? At the very least, you have to admit yourself that the whole thing is quite creepy.’

‘Creepy!’ echoed Chris.

‘Well, maybe that’s not the best word,’ said Rhiannon. ‘How about uncanny? Or - or supernatural? Or transcendental even?’

‘Babe, are you seriously trying to tell me that - are you saying that you believe the orange helicopter that we just saw flying over us could be - could be carrying the old man away somewhere? Tell me - Rhiannon! Are you trying to say that? But that’s preposterous, isn’t it?’

‘Why is it?’ she asked, staring into his eyes, her brows lowering.

‘Because I’ll remind you that Tom’s body is at present lying, awaiting burial, in a Cardiff morgue. ‘That’s why,’ he told her, grinning.

‘Yes, I know - I understand all that,’ she responded, wringing her hands, and thinking furiously. ‘But the question I have is - is that really Tom that’s laid out down there?’ she asked him. ‘Chris - do you think it is? Because - well, because I don’t.’

‘You don’t!’ Chris yelled at her. ‘You don’t believe he’s there? You don’t think he’s In Cardiff!’

‘No,’ she told him, then, raising her gaze, staring right into him.

Chris suddenly felt afraid of her. ‘So - so where the hell is he, then!’ he asked her.

‘Chris - I can’t believe you’re saying that you believe he will always remain in that stiff, broken, old body that your mam and my dad discovered? Do you believe that, Chris? Tell me.’

‘Chris looked down, clearly trying to comprehend Rhiannon’s words, and piece together all the facts - the separate, confusing facts - that pertained to the matter that so engrossed her.

‘And anyway, what would be the sense in that?’ Rhiannon asked him, taking his two hands in hers, pleading. ‘Is that where the great dead go, Chris? Do you think they are still buried in soil? Under our feet? Boxed in like - like ancient turnips, and just rotting away? The wonderful dead? Pl-ease.’ Seeing Chris unable to respond, Rhiannon decided to develop even further the point she was making. ‘Or is the soul of a man able to soar, as some people say, do you think?’

‘So - so is that what you believe, Rhiannon?’ Chris asked her slowly.

‘It is,’ she replied, smiling. ‘That’s precisely what I believe.’ Then squeezing his hands tightly within her own, she asked him, ‘And what do you believe, Chris? Tell me. No, don’t be afraid.’

Chris was feeling seriously challenged, and more than a little confused, by what Rhiannon was telling him. He suddenly became aware that his lips had gone terribly dry, and so he licked at them furiously with his tongue, if only to facilitate the words he now felt desperate to express. ‘I have to tell you, Rhiannon,’ he said, his two hands moving down and tightly gripping her sides, ‘that it worries me greatly that you seem to believe that this - this strange orange craft we just saw was - well, that it was transporting the old man’s soul. That’s right, isn’t it? His soul.’

Resting her head gently on Chris’s shoulder, by way of showing him that, whatever he believed, she still loved him dearly, Rhiannon stood completely still, and allowed the power she felt she knew existed above her, around her, within her, to act, to perform whatever miracle of faith it wished to. Or, if this doesn’t work, and if I am deceived, she told herself, then - then a motor-car will pass, a sheep nearby will bleat, or some wind, or breeze even, will blow on my face, and then I shall know to drop it, and let it lie, and life will simply carry on just as before.

Embracing her tightly, Chris’s thumb suddenly detected a pulse throbbing away urgently in Rhiannon’s chest, and almost straightaway he realised that this had to be her heart. Instinctively he reached the same hand down and felt his own, and was shocked to discover that it was pounding away at the exact same pace.

‘Tell me, my love - is that what you truly believe, then?’ Chris asked Rhiannon, trembling slightly. ‘We just saw the soul of a great man returning home?’ His lover didn’t reply, or even move a muscle. ‘You know, normally, babe, I’d - I’d blast you, and - and castigate you for saying something like that,’ he told her. ‘But, you know, when I looked up at the orange helicopter through my binoculars just now, I remember clearly thinking - why is it that I can’t see any pilot?’

‘Look, we’re starting to get very tired of this, now, Jack,’ said Sergeant Foley. ‘And I gather from my colleagues that you’ve obstructed the police before, right?’

Jack Belt stared up at the officer with a blank look on his dirty, round face that screamed - ‘what the hell are you talking about?’

‘I’m thinking of that pigeon-coop the court said you had to get rid of,’ Foley went on. ‘Have you done what you were told yet, Jack? Or are you still keeping your homing-pigeons?’

‘I smashed up the coop - yes I did, Mr. Foley,’ the skinny, straggly-haired man replied.

‘Oh, really!’ exclaimed Foley. ‘Because
we
recently discovered you’re still keeping them’

‘Well, aye,’ said Jack. ‘But what can I do? They just keep coming back, don’t they?’

Next-door Officers Dawson and Shah began laughing so loud that the noise could clearly be heard inside the interview-room.’

Merlyn Foley walked out of the room and called the two London detectives into the corridor. Dawson and Shah quickly joined him there.

‘As you can see, boys, Jack’s denying everything,’ said Foley. ‘He even claims he doesn’t know where Carla Steel lives, for a start, though he accepts for months now he’s been delivering all sorts of stuff to her dad. Drill-bits, razor-blades, fish-fingers, an enormous coloured print of a French brothel, a religious door-mat, all sorts of things. He did say weed at first, but corrected himself. I said why, he said because the old man seemed to have got stacks of the stuff already.’

‘Carla could easily have turned up from London with a suitcase-full of skunk, or, as you told us, even bought it off the boy next-door,’ said Dawson. ‘It seems he even grew it in his front-room, remember.’

‘So what do we do next, then, boys?’ asked Foley.

The three officers strolled into the room they had emerged from and stared through the pane of glass at Jack Belt’s queer, seated frame. The man sat forward in his chair scratching what little hair he had left, the dry skin from his scalp dropping to the linoleum-floor like falling snow. ‘The rattling van-man’ - as he was known to those who didn’t shop with him - reached over to the table for his cap, but Constable Llewellyn got there before him.

‘Later,’ the seated officer told him in his deepest voice. ‘We haven’t finished with you yet.’

‘You gonna arrest me?’ Jack asked him.

‘That’s for the sergeant to decide,’ said Llewellyn. ‘He’s probably considering it right now.’

‘Well, I wish he’d get a move on,’ said Jack. ‘I’ve got customers waiting, you know. Two garden-loungers and a deck-chair for an old couple in
Dowlais Top
to be dropped off before two.’ He looked up and glared into the one-way mirror on the wall before him that he knew full well Sergeant Foley and his pals were presently standing behind observing him. He grasped his broken nose, flattened it like a pan-cake, and gurned at them his prime facial contortion. He paused a few seconds, then with his fingers rubbed the folds of his face back into place again.

The constable sitting alongside shook his head at him. ‘And we noticed your van’s holding a massive home-cannabis kit that was built in the Czech Republic. Do you want to tell us anything about that, Jack? No? I thought not. They’re illegal these days, by the way, even if some of our own ones aren’t.’

‘Illegal! I recommend you check up on that. Say, did you see what I did there, bach?’ asked Jack, smiling. ‘Because I already have checked up, you know. Listen - I clear over a dozen of those things every month in the Merthyr Valley alone. I’m sure those ministers in the government would give me an award if ever they found out.’