Aberystwyth Mon Amour

'Where is she?'

Lovespoon was breathing hard and spoke in gasps. 'I told ... you ... I ... don't know.'

I balled my fingers into a fist and raised it. He looked straight at me with clear, calm grey eyes. There was no fear in them. It was then that I noticed the scissors on the floor. They were those heavy craft scissors with black-painted finger holes. I picked them up and held them hovering above his face.

'Don't make me do it.'

He sneered. 'You haven't got the balls! You never did have, did you? You were too much of a milksop to play rugby — yes I remember you; and now you think you can come here threatening me?'

I brought the scissors down so low that the point was almost touching his eye. The eyelashes brushed against it. I could see him visibly forcing himself to remain composed.

'You can't frighten me, you know. I fought in Patagonia.'

'With Gwenno Guevara.'

He sneered. 'You'll never find her, you know. Brainbocs managed it but he died, and you don't have the brains.'

'What have you done to Bianca?'

'Since when did you care so much about Pickel's tart?'

I tightened my grip on the scissors. 'If you don't tell me where she is I'll put out your eyes so you never see Cantref-y-Gwaelod.'

For a while there was silence except our breathing. Lovespoon stared up at me and I stared down at him and in between were the scissors. Finally he said: 'I'll make a deal.'

'You're not in a position to.'

'Herod has the girl; I don't know where. We'll bring her to you tomorrow.'

'Why should I trust you?'

'Because you haven't got the rucking balls to use those scissors, have you?'

Chapter 15

HE WAS RIGHT, of course. Maybe in the heat of a fight I could have used them but not like that in cold blood. Perhaps if I had paid more attention during Herod Jenkins's games lessons I could have done it, but I was, as he said, too much of a milksop.

There was nothing to be done. I left the school and drove aimlessly inland, through Commins Coch and on to Penrhyncogh, and then began a. long sweep west towards Borth. As I drove, the words of Lovespoon echoed through my thoughts. Since when did I give a damn about Bianca? I thought of the night I took her home. To perform that act — the one that along with money was responsible for most of the trouble that came in through my door. For years I had sat and watched them all squirming on the client's chair, gored by the suspicion that their partners were cheating on them. Each one thinking that the disaster that befell them was unique, thinking that paying me to confirm it would somehow make them feel better. I had heard it all a thousand times before, like a priest taking confession — me with my phoney absolution. That act that so twisted the heart. Which the newspapers called sexual intercourse, and Lovespoon called sexual congress, and the man in the pub called bonking and Bianca called, paradoxically, making love, and which Mrs Llantrisant didn't even have a name for which she felt comfortable with. That act of cold animal coupling that so often in this town was nothing more than simple rutting. I didn't know why I had done it. Lonely and frightened, and drunk, perhaps. I hadn't given it any thought. Why? Because she was a Moulin girl and we all knew they had no feelings, or the ones they had were invented to suit the occasion. As men we warned each other with smug pride at our worldliness to steer clear of their treacherous hearts. And then this happens. She risked her life to help me; and might now be dead, or worse. A course of action that could only have been prompted by tenderness or love or some feeling she wasn't supposed to be capable of. And I thought of Myfanwy, so much more wise and versed in the ways of the Aberystwyth street, and I tried to imagine her sacrificing herself for me like that. And even as I tried to picture it, I knew with iron certainty that it was out of the question.

The first light was filtering through a veil of grey clouds when I reached Borth. I drove through the golf course and parked at the foot of the dunes and got out. I had intended going for a swim but when I reached the top of the dune, I thought better of it. Instead I sat on the sand and watched the slow, endless advance of the cleansing waves. My eyelids dropped lower and lower, until I slept. It was Cadwaladr who woke me. The war veteran Myfanwy and I had shared our picnic with. He offered me a drink from his can of Special Brew and I took it despite the waves of nausea brought on by the high-alcohol lager hitting an empty stomach. For a while we didn't speak, just stared out at the eternity of the ocean and I asked him the same question that I had asked Lovespoon. Who was Gwenno Guevara? This mysterious soldier Brainbocs had met in the week before he died.

Cadwaladr didn't answer immediately, and when he did he said simply, 'She was a whore.'

'Is that it? Just a whore?'

'Before the war she was a whore. A tea-cosy girl. Then she went to Patagonia and became a fighter. After the war — who knows? She disappeared.'

The old soldier stood up to leave and I called after him.

'You remember what you said about Rio Caeriog?'

He paused.

'You said they didn't teach your version of it in school. Do you remember?'

'Yes.'

'Can you tell me your version? The true story of Rio Caeriog?'

'No.'

'But you were there, weren't you?'

'Oh yes, I was there.'

He shook his head and added before tramping off: 'But I can't tell you that story. It's not mine to tell.'

When I got back to the office, there was a note from Eeyore to call him, and Llunos was once again sitting in my chair. He was picking bits of dirt from underneath his fingernails, and spoke without looking up, 'Have a nice swim?'

'Not bad; you should get out in the sunshine a bit more yourself.'

He continued to talk to his fingernails. 'You're probably right.'

I slumped down into the client's chair across the desk from him and waited for him to say what he had to say. Nothing came. We sat in silence like that for a while. The phone rang.

'Louie Knight Investigations.'

'If you want to see the girl, come to the harbour tonight at midnight. Outside the Chandler's.'

'Who is this please?'

'Come alone or we'll slice her up.' The caller hung up and I put the receiver down while trying to keep the look on my face neutral.

Llunos seemed too bored to even ask about the call. When he finally spoke it was about palaeoanthropology.

'Fascinating discipline,' he said looking up from his fingernails.

'If you've come to borrow a book on it I gave my last one to Mrs Llantrisant.'

'It's quite a hobby of mine, actually.'

I wondered why he was here. Had they found Bianca?

'Chap at the University specialises in it. He's got this wonderful 3D modelling software for his computer. He takes the skulls of stone-age men and scans them in and then slowly builds up the tissue and muscle and things until eventually presto! he gets to find out what Stone Age men looked like.'

'Why bother? We all know they looked like you.'

He flinched, but persevered with the air of studied detachment he'd adopted for the occasion. 'We found some fibres under Evans the Boot's fingernails. Hardly any really, but we gave them to this chap and he put them in his computer and he managed to recreate the knitting pattern. It was a tea cosy. Then we got two speedknitters up from the Bureau in Cardiff and they knocked us out a copy of the original cosy.'

I knew what was coming next.

'I just took it down to Mrs Crickhowell at KnitWits. She said it was the same as that South American cosy that was stolen from the Museum. Funnily enough, she said seen it quite recently — in your hands.'