The Dylan Thomas Murders (19 page)

We spent the afternoon of November 2nd cooking. Rachel made leek and asparagus quiche to take to the party, and I baked some rosemary bread. Evening came with a flurry of snow, as the wind swung round to the east. Wrap up warm, Waldo had advised, and that is what we did. We drove to the gate of Fern Hill and decided to walk up.

The track was lit by a line of hurricane lamps that Waldo had hung from the trees. Along the ground, Halloween pumpkins with candles inside hissed as the wind drove snowflakes through the eyes of the yellow faces. Half-way to the farm house, we saw a cluster of lamps, with a group of guests huddled beneath. They were gathered round a table, drinking mulled wine from a pan kept warm by a small gas stove. We helped ourselves and expressed amazement that Waldo had gone to so much trouble on our behalf.

We walked on, now a party of six. When we reached the farm, we found the house in complete darkness but a line of smiling pumpkins directed us to a stone barn at the far corner of the yard. I pushed open the door, stepped inside and paused for a moment, trying to take in what was before me. The group behind pushed past to find the warmth, but they, too, stopped and stared, gawping like children. My first impression was that we were layered between two miracles. The floor of the barn was strewn thickly with daffodils and above our heads, moving like mist through the golden rafters, were hundreds upon hundreds of butterflies. To have daffodils and butterflies in November was impossible but there they were!

I moved further into the barn, wincing as my feet crunched along the yellow carpet. The atmosphere and layout was a little like a church, and I wondered how the Quaker guests would react to it. Rachel seemed as entranced as I was. She took my hand and led me across to the wall where, in a church, the altar would have been. But here was no altar but a
perllan
, a large rectangular board attached to the wall like a painting. At the centre was a red circle, with a stuffed wren placed within it. Ribs of brightly polished wood ran from the circle to each of the four corners of the board, in each of which an apple had been fixed. I grimaced at the wren but Rachel gave me a dark look and said: “It's traditional.”

On each side of the
perllan
, Waldo had secured two flaming torches that gave the barn most of its shadowy light. Where the heat came from, I didn't know, but it was warm enough to take off our coats.

We turned round and looked down the body of the barn. In front of us, a few feet forward of the
perllan
, a round pit had been dug in the earth floor, presumably to hold a fire, because the bottom was covered in shredded newspaper. On the other side of the fire pit stood a small oak table with a
menorah
burning brightly on it, and a plate of small cakes. “
Pice rhanna
,” whispered Rachel, “or soul cakes to you.” Beyond the table were two rows of nine chairs. Scattered amongst the chairs were little boxes, each covered with a blue and yellow cloth that bore the trademarks of O'Malley's embroidery. On each box, there were more soul cakes, as well as a sheep's skull with a lighted candle inside. Behind the chairs were two tables that were to hold the food and wine brought by the guests. Alongside was an old grandfather clock whose tick sounded like water dripping into a tin can.

It was now almost eight o'clock and there were eighteen guests present, an equal number of men and women. They were a mix of Quakers and poets but also a few local people, including O'Malley. Then Rosalind appeared, stepping quietly out of one of the unlit corners of the barn. She moved amongst the guests. Waldo, she said, was ready.

We sat down, both nervous and excited. Rosalind came to the front with a tambourine which she rattled and then flicked rhythmically with the backs of her fingers. Waldo came in through the door. He was wearing a white apron over his dark trousers, with a white ribbon tied to the buttonhole of his blue shirt. His black boots were tied with white laces. He had a bowler hat under his arm. He came forward to the small oak table, picked up a soul-cake and crumbled it gently between his fingers. “Share! Share!” he shouted, making us jump in our seats. “All Soul's Day! A share to my father for playing with words, a share to my mother for not being
frum
, a share to the children who have never been.”

Then he paused and invited us to try the soul cakes. I thought they tasted awful, dry like sawdust, but I noticed some of the Quakers chewing away manfully as if they knew what was expected of a polite guest. I spat mine into my hand, and let it fall amongst the daffodils.

“On this day of souls, we stand half-way between Dylan's birthday, October 27th, and the day of his death, November 9th. That is a significance that binds us here tonight.” We waited whilst he crumbled a soul-cake into the fire pit. “It's no accident, of course, that 18 of you are gathered here.”

At this point, Waldo stopped, gave a nod of his head, presumably at Rosalind who was in the shadows somewhere, and a shaft of light came streaming across our heads, illuminating the wall in front of us, just to the right of the
perllan
. “This,” he said, “tells you everything.”

The image flickered rather eerily on the rough surface of the barn wall, but it was plain enough to see without straining. It was a simple matrix:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
A B C D E U O F
I K G M H V Z P
Q R L T N W
J Y S

I'd seen this kind of chart before. It was based on a Cabalist theory that a person's name contained a code giving information about the person's character and their destiny. They'd worked out a system for giving names a numerical value, and in so doing decoding the information that they believed was implicit in them. I'd once shared an office with a personnel manager who used this system when she was hiring staff and, amazingly, she was almost always right.

“We use the chart,” continued Waldo, “to determine a person's name-number. Simply add the numbers for each letter of the person's full name, then add the digits of the resulting number, and carry on doing this until the addition gives you a number below 10. In Dylan's case, the numbers for his name, including Marlais, add up to 54, which in turn add up to 9, a name-number associated with achievement, inspiration and spirituality.

“Dylan's life was largely determined by the number 9 and its various multiples, the most potent of which is 18, a number which adds up to 9 and is also a multiple of it.”

Waldo paused again as the guests began working it out for themselves, and after a few moments there was agreement that Dylan's name-number was indeed 9. I calculated Waldo's. It was 1, a name-number associated with aggression, action, purpose and cunning.

“Dylan was born on one of the most powerful 9-days of the month – 27. It both adds up to, and is divisible by, 9.

“Dylan's first poem was published on the 18th of May, his first collection contained 18 poems and was published on the 18th of December. His first nation-wide radio appearance was on the 18th of October, and his television debut on April 9th. Incidentally, that first poem was ‘And death shall have no dominion', a line taken from Romans 6:9. It has 3 stanzas each of 9 lines. This was the first and only time Dylan would use that arrangement.

“We would expect certain compounds of 9 to have a special significance. For example, its square root, 3. Dylan and Caitlin had 3 children, he had 3 important lovers in his life, there were 3 collections of poetry, excluding
The Map of Love
which was a hybrid, 3 completed trips to America, and 3 houses at Laugharne.”

“And don't forget the 3 kisses for his mother the last time he left for America,” shouted O'Malley, much to everyone's surprise, but Waldo seemed pleased that we were getting into the swing of it.

“Let's consider September, the 9th month of the year, and made up of 9 letters. No other month does that, so September has a special status in the occult. It's certainly a creative month for Dylan – his second and third poems to be published came out in September, as did his second collection,
Twenty-Five Poems
. It was in September that
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog
was published in America, and in September that Dylan started work for Strand Films.”

This was the first time that Waldo had explicitly mentioned the occult. I had wondered about it when I first saw the sheep's skulls with the candles inside. It didn't make me nervous, just more alert to what Waldo was saying and what was going on around me. The Quakers didn't seem fazed by it so perhaps I was being a little over-sensitive. On the other hand, I didn't think the Quakers would remain so laid back if Waldo edged over into other aspects of the occult. A ritual slaughter, for example.

“With 9 as your name-number, September will bring change, disturbance and upheaval. And that's exactly what happened to Dylan. He made almost all of his major house moves in September. Perhaps the most significant of these was to Majoda, an address made up of the names of 3 children. Dylan moved there in the 9th month of 1944, a year that adds up to 18, is divisible exactly by nine, and the result, 216, adds up to 9. There could be no more powerful combination of numbers. Precisely 6 months later, on the 6th day of the 3rd month, William Killick fired his machine gun through the kitchen window of Majoda. When your name-number's 9, there can be no more ominous portent than its inversion, the number 6.”

I could sense that rest of the guests were as intrigued as I was by this series of coincidences, though I am sure that Waldo would not have used that word to describe them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rosalind move again into the shadows at the rear of the barn. I heard a quiet click as if something were being opened, and then an explosion of noise behind us. People jumped in their seats in surprise, and gasped with delight as white doves flew across the barn and circled in the beams above Waldo's head. I knew without counting that there were 18 of them.

“Let's look at Dylan's death,” continued Waldo, “The most significant fact is that Dylan left Laugharne for America on October 9th. You will, by now, appreciate the importance of the number. He stayed for over a week in London, and arrived in New York on the 19th. He spent a few pleasant days socialising and recovering from the plane journey. Then things began to go badly wrong:

“October 22nd: exactly 9 days to Halloween, and exactly 9 days since Dylan finished the script of
Under Milk Wood
. He meets Liz Reitell, his American organiser, producer, secretary and lover. They have dinner at Herdts. This was the last proper meal that Dylan was to eat. They leave the restaurant separately. Where did Dylan go to? With whom did he spend the night? Nobody's yet been able to tell us, though it's the most critical night of Dylan's life, and death.

“October 23rd: Dylan's world begins to fall apart. He starts drinking heavily and taking drugs. What on earth happened the night before?

“October 24th: Dr Milton Feltenstein is called and, without doing blood or urine tests, gives Dylan an injection of cortisone and a prescription for benzedrine. Heap bad medicine for a diabetic.

“October 27th: Dylan's birthday, a day of depression and tears, his 39th year to hell.

“October 31st. Halloween. Dylan is seen drinking lager, beer, whisky and taking benzedrine. He does more of the same on November 1st and wakes up on the 2nd. with a massive hangover, unable to get out of bed.

“November 3rd: Presidential Election Day. Eisenhower or Stevenson? A new American future? Dylan stays sober all day, and signs a contract with Felix Gerstman for a $1,000 a week for lecture tours. He goes back to his hotel to bed. He breaks down, he weeps and talks in a maudlin way about Caitlin. At two in the morning, he jumps out of bed demanding a drink. He's back at 3-30, boasting he's drunk 18 whiskies, American size. Impossible, but he's been on the benzedrine again, still no food since October 22nd, and he's a diabetic, remember, a diabetic.

“November 4th: Dylan wakes up and says he's suffocating. Feltenstein is called. He gives Dylan the first of 3 injections of morphine and cortisone, fatal to anyone with diabetes, and Dylan goes into an irreversible coma. He's taken to St. Vincent's Hospital. It's a Catholic hospital. It's a charity hospital. No health service in America, remember. And the country's pre-occupied with the casualties from Korea.”

Waldo stopped and the barn was totally silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock. He bent forward, opened a little drawer in the table and took out a knife. The blade caught the flames of the torches, sending splinters of yellow light across the faces of the guests. Rosalind came forward with a basket of fruit. Waldo picked out an apple and a lemon. He sliced each into 9 segments and threw them into the fire pit. He turned to address us once more: “Let's go back a bit, to that night of October 22nd. Who did Dylan spend the night with? Who and what started the terminal slide?”

Waldo paused and handed out a sheet of paper to each of the guests. It was a photocopy of the inside cover of a book. The inscription read: “To Al, with best wishes, Dylan Thomas. October 22nd 1953.” Underneath were a couple of signatures and the stamp of a Miami law firm.

“We can be sure of one thing,” continued Waldo. “Wherever Dylan went that night he would have taken a taxi but how to find the driver? I have a small trust fund in New York. I have drawn upon it over the years to employ a detective agency to find him.”