Last Train to Gloryhole (78 page)

The singer then began thinking about her poor father back home in
Gloryhole
. Who was looking after him now, she wondered, now that she was no longer there to help him? Was Chris or his mother able to spend time with him, and meet the bulk of his daily needs? She hoped they were. And was Rhiannon helping out too? she wondered. A feeling of horror suddenly came over her, wondering where the sweet young girl with the heart of gold could be right that moment, now that she had become sadly separated from the safety of her motor-car.

At the first and only phone-booth the two boys came to, they found the instrument to be wholly castrated, its twisted, coloured tassels all that were left at the end of its, normally vocal, cords.

‘Where is your mobile-phone again?’ asked Steffan.

‘Like I told you, I’m not sure,’ said Jake. ‘You know, it could even be upstairs in her room. But I hope not.’

‘What! I tell you if Carla has got it then you’re toast, pal,’ Steffan told him, chuckling maliciously. ‘Just you wait ‘til Volver finds out.’

Jake suddenly felt he wanted to strike his companion with his fist, but knew from painful experience that such a course of action was totally out of the question. Instead he turned his head to the side, and stared blankly at the gleaming, anthracite surface of the vast, serpentine lake that extended south from them all the way back to the dam and the tower at Pontsticill.

‘Hey! There’s no need to cry about it,’ said Steffan. He wandered over towards a low wall and picked up a few slabs of rock, then steadied himself and hurled one point-blank at the open door of the phone-box, then another at its side, smashing a glass panel to smithereens. He then threw a third at its other side. ‘I didn’t have any coins on me, anyway,’ he told Jake, grinning.

‘But why are you trying to ring him?’ asked Jake. ‘I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have driven down here to get us anyway because he already told us to return along the old railway-track. And it’s probably quicker than walking back along the road we drove down on, don’t you think?

‘Do you know that railway route, then?’ asked Steffan. ‘Because I’ve never been along it before. Say - what’s up?’

‘My phone,’ said Jake, baring his teeth. ‘I remember now I left it on the dash-board of the Fiesta.’

‘You did what!’ yelled Steffan. ‘You numbskull! We can’t let the fuzz find that. Now we have to go back to the bridge and get it. Shit! Well, come on - let’s go.’

The two boys strode down the hill again in the dark. When they reached the parked-up Fiesta, Steffan leaned in through the broken, passenger-side window and collected the phone, then threw it to Jake.

The unmarked police-car that approached, lighting up the two boys clearly, was driven by D.I.Dawson, and navigated by his colleague D.C.Shah, (who had missed the left-hand turn for The Beacons and Talybont,) and so the car they were in coasted round the lakeside bend and up to the bridge. Seeing two boys standing beside a car with a smashed window, they pulled up, climbed out of the car, and walked quickly towards them.

‘What’s up boys?’ Dawson asked them, illuminating their faces in the beam of his torch.

‘We noticed this car parked up here, guv,’ said Steffan, thinking fast. ‘It’s a stupid place to leave your car, don’t you think? Well, I mean there’s criminals and all sorts living round here, and you never know who could be walking past, do you?’

‘So it looks like,’ said Shah, smiling.

‘Do you know whose car it is?’ enquired Dawson, inspecting the damage to the window and the bust ignition. The boys shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads in reply. ‘Because it looks to me like the criminals have only just finished with it.’

‘It’s been sitting there for ages, man,’ said Jake. ‘We noticed it from up on the hill over there, so naturally we came down to take a look.’

Shah felt the bonnet with his palm, then checked the car’s front-tyres. ‘It’s still hot,’ he told his colleague.

‘And do you lads live round here, then?’ Dawson asked them.

‘Not exactly,’ said Steffan.

‘How far from here?’ asked Shah.

The two boys looked at each other. ‘Probably about five or six miles,’ replied Steffan.

‘Really? And how were you intending to get back there?’ the young officer continued. ‘Wouldn’t be in a yellow Fiesta, would it?’

‘We’re planning to walk back,’ said Steffan. ‘Even without hurrying, we’re sure to be home again soon after midnight.’

‘Well, it all looks mighty suspicious to me,’ said Dawson. ‘What’s your name, lad?’ he asked Steffan.

‘Barlow,’ Steffan answered, gritting his teeth.

Dawson made a note of this in his pocket-book. ‘First name?’

‘Er - Gareth,’ said Steffan, looking away.

‘O.K. And you?’ he asked Jake.

‘Me? Er - Walsh,’ replied Jake.

‘First name?’ asked Dawson. He looked up. ‘It wouldn’t be Louis, would it? Or Lewis, perhaps, more like?’ He and Shah exchanged knowing glances.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Jake. ‘My first name’s Simon, actually. Always has been.’

Dawson wrote this down. ‘Are either of you known to police, then, lads?’ he asked. Both boys shook their heads. ‘Right, then I’ll just go and run your names through,’ said Dawson, walking back to the police-car. Suddenly spinning round, he yelled, ‘And if everything checks out, and the computer tells me neither of you has warrants, then I dare say you’ll be free to continue your night-time yomp.’

‘Hey - see if you can find out who owns the Fiesta while you’re at it, Sir,’ shouted Shah.

Chris and Rhiannon woke up to the sound of a genuine, ear-piercing, country cockerel. They looked about them and saw that the barn they had broken into the previous evening now seemed much larger in the cold light of day. And cold it certainly still was, despite their noticing through the broken panels in the arched roof that day had clearly broken.

‘I still can’t believe that my car has gone,’ said Rhiannon. ‘My dad will be furious.’

‘I guess so,’ said Chris, picking something up from amongst the bed of straw upon which his body, and that of his girlfriend, lay.

‘Show it me,’ she said. ‘And tell me again how you know it’s Steffan’s.’

Chris held up the small, green, plaid scarf. ‘Oh, it’s his all right. I don’t know anyone else who wears a muffler like this,’ he told her. ‘And if you still don’t believe me, then check out the initials on the underside. Oh, it’s Steffan’s, all right. No doubt about that.’

They suddenly heard a strange noise that sounded like the whirr of a helicopter hovering close by, then crossing over the sky above them, and so jumped up and hurried towards the closed barn-door. But soon, emerging into the morning sunlight, they found that they were too late, as the craft they sought to catch a glimpse of had already passed them by.

‘Did you see it?’ asked Rhiannon, running about to get a clearer view of the sky.

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Chris. ‘But this one was almost certainly the police searching the hills for Carla. But they obviously haven’t got a clue where she might be, so that’s probably why they are flying so fast.’

‘Well, do
we
have any better idea where she is, then?’ asked Rhiannon.

Chris rolled his bottom-lip and considered her question. ‘Well, at least we know that Steffan is around here,’ he told her. ‘And I dare say that means that Volver has to be in the vicinity too.’

‘Well, if that’s true, then Carla must be not far away, either,’ added Rhiannon, ‘since I guess they have to have her incarcerated close to where they are.’

‘Then let’s not waste any time,’ said Chris. ‘With or without your car, let’s go off and continue searching for her, shall we?’

Initially Carla thought that the weird sound she heard outside the window might be an articulated lorry on the main road that ran away towards her childhood home-village, but quickly realising how impossible that would be on a route as narrow, steep and undulating as the road that traversed the mountain-pass, and then descended in a series of crazy double-bends towards Talybont, she began to consider that it might actually be a helicopter or a low-flying aeroplane.

Carla walked over to the window and lifted the lower half of it up a foot or so, and was straightaway taken aback by the strength of the cool breeze that flew inside, bringing a host of flying insects with it. Had the weather changed suddenly, then? she asked herself. She leaned her head outside to see, and quickly saw that thin, grey clouds now lay over the plateau to the west like an immense dust-sheet over a grand piano. It was plain that today was likely to be a lot more like the August days of a year ago, when some of the outdoor gigs she was invited to perform at, on her circuit of British summer-festivals, had either had to be curtailed, or forced to take place on dull, uninspiring days, often plagued with sodden ground and leaking tents.

Turning to walk away from the window, Carla suddenly saw that a man had entered the room, and now stood looking across at her from the farthest, dimmest corner. She blinked, then rubbed her fingers across her eyes, so as to better validate her observation. Yes, it seemed that this was truly happening, she told herself, although how exactly she hadn’t a notion. Though fitter, more handsome, and far younger than she could ever remember him, there was no doubt in her mind that the man who stood gazing at her across her un-made bed was none other than her dear father.

Mouth agape, her body trembling, Carla continued to stare at Tom, now standing tall before her in his best black suit and black tie, with his hands down at his sides, his broad head steady, his ice-blue eyes fixed firmly upon hers, his lips moving, as if speaking, though strangely silent. For a few short seconds Carla thought her father well, and unquestionably alive, and the rush of pure joy she felt was palpable. But then, as he remained firmly fixed to the spot, and the sound of his lovely, lilting voice didn’t reach her ears, the thought suddenly crossed her mind that the exact opposite might in fact be the case, and that he was alive no longer. And, to Carla’s great sadness, it was this latter notion which before long triumphed in her consciousness and consumed her, and that caused her eyes to bulge out, as if on stalks, her mouth to quiver like jelly, and her ankles and feet to shake beneath her.

‘Oh, Dad - I feel that you have passed,’ whispered Carla, knowing it a fact, but hoping that her saddest of claims might yet prove untrue. At these words, her father seemed to nod to her just once, then disappeared completely from sight. Astounded by this, and more distressed than at any time in her life, Carla crumpled helplessly to her knees on the bedroom floor, and, her bare arms outstretched and shuddering wildly before her, her head forced into the duvet on her bed, she screamed out a strange, squealing sound that her body had never emitted even once before, but which for Carla spoke powerfully and expressively to the world of the living, of which she was still a tragic, moving part, of the heart-rending sorrow and anguish she now felt at her dear father’s last departure, at his leaving her, unsupported and alone, to board his long-awaited, final train.

‘Don’t be so bloody negative, for God’s sake. Almost everything can be turned round, lads. Out of every ditch a path, if only one could see it.’ These were the words of Sergeant Foley from the back-seat of his police-car, that Constable Ben Thomas was driving, and Constable Llewellyn was patiently navigating, with the aid of an old, coffee-stained, over-folded and badly split, ordnance-survey map, that they had always kept in the passenger-door pocket.

As if by some magic spell, all three officers suddenly stared across to their right at Pontsticill Reservoir, its surface now glistening majestically in the early morning sunlight, as they sped past it on the road which ran north, towards the peaks, and ultimately to Talybont and Brecon.

‘That’s where the tragedy happened - just there,’ said Sergeant Foley, pointing at the water.

‘Tragedy? You can’t mean the village in the valley that was buried by this lake over a century ago,’ said Llewellyn, ‘because I don’t imagine anybody got killed back then, did they, Sarge?’

‘I’m talking about Carla’s Steel’s brother, boys,’ Foley told them, grimacing. ‘That was a very bad business that was, I can tell you. Drowned in the very middle of it while out swimming he was, and she, poor dab, his only hope for life. God, I remember it like it was yesterday. The poor young girl could play every scale known to man, on piano and guitar, and Handel’s
Water Music
too, I shouldn’t wonder, but could she swim? Not a yard. Jesus, I can’t imagine she will ever forgive herself for that, you know. It’s little wonder she took to drugs if you ask me.’

‘
And
went off to England,’ added Llewellyn.

‘Aye, to England. To it’s capital city too,’ said Foley. ‘Mind you, that alone would have certainly turned me to drugs, I can tell you. Though I’d have drawn the line at turning bi-sexual, naturally.’ He smiled. ‘We blame the English for an awful lot sometimes, I feel, but we can hardly blame them for doing that. After all, lads, they do have something that nobody else has got that sort of mitigates against it ever happening.’

‘And what’s that?’ asked Llewellyn, turning round to face him.

‘Kelly Brook,’ the sergeant told him.

‘Kelly Brook!’ said Thomas, changing gear to round a tight bend as they neared Dolygaer. ‘Agyness Deyn, more like.’

‘Agyness Deyn!’ yelled Llewellyn. ‘God, it’s legs all day with you, Ben, isn’t it? Imogen Thomas for me, any day. Now there’s a real woman.’

‘But she’s one of us, you damn fool,’ said Foley. ‘Her dad grew up in the same town as I did. Wow! Just look at that trout jump! Did you see that, boys?’

‘I missed it,’ said Llewellyn.

‘And I’m driving the car, Sarge,’ said Ben.

‘Too bad. My, it’s a lovely sight up here this time of the morning, don’t you think? Reminds me of something my old dad used to say to me, God rest his Celtic soul, when I was just a boy, and we were out fishing. ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters,’ he used to tell me, ‘and it shall come back to thee with knobs on.’ And I tell you what, lads, I’ve never forgotten it, either.’