‘Did you bring the money?’ she asked.
‘I brought the money. Tell me what you’ve got.’
‘Let me see it first.’
I dug into my pocket and scooped out a fistful of screwed-up five-pound notes. She peered at them longer than I thought necessary, her tongue flicking in and out like a lizard’s; she nodded. I stuffed them into the breast pocket of her coat. She cast a glance around us even though it was clear no one was within earshot and took a step closer.
‘It was the night of the robbery,’ she said. ‘Whole county was looking for them. We heard it on the radio in the kitchen; they said the robbers were armed and dangerous, and had been spotted heading east towards Ystrad Meurig. There we were, huddled round that radio, gripped with fear when there was a knock on the door. Of course, it could have been anybody, but we all jumped. We knew straightaway it must be the robbers. The doctor told me to wait in the kitchen while he fetched his gun. Then he opened the door. On the step was this Iestyn Probert and this other chap. Iestyn Probert said there had been a car accident and his friend needed help. The friend was a strange-looking fellah. Not very tall, no more than 5 foot, if that, with a pretty, boyish face, more like a girl, and blonde hair to his shoulders. His eyes were piercing blue and his ears seemed slightly pointy. He looked frightened. The doctor told me to phone Preseli Watkins at the police station. They took the boy upstairs and put him in the guest bedroom. I made some hot soup and took it up to them. Iestyn Probert was very hungry and wolfed it down. He was not much more than a boy himself; so young and scared. And his friend, there was something very uncanny about him.’ She stopped talking and stared at me intensely. I noticed her hand was held out, palm upwards. I dug out a handful of coins and placed them on her outstretched palm. She continued with the story with the seamless automaticity of a laughing-policeman machine.
‘He was wearing a strange metallic suit – covered him from toe to neck – and we couldn’t get it off, so the doctor couldn’t examine him. He looked so lost and frightened. The doctor asked him where he was from and he wouldn’t answer. Iestyn said he was called Skweeple and was from somewhere called Noö. Skweeple was watching us with fear in his eyes like a timid deer. Then, all of a sudden, he cried out – more of a shriek really, just once. Iestyn Probert must have guessed straightaway that this meant danger, so he made a run for it, leaving the boy with us. Immediately after that we heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. Preseli came straight in through the door while Iestyn was still climbing through the bathroom window. He escaped over the garage roof.’
‘What happened to the boy in the silver suit?’
‘Preseli took him away. He said he would find a way to make him talk.’ She stopped and looked out across the sea. She shook her head. ‘I knew what he meant. Violence. I could never abide it. Not then, not now.’ She paused and licked her lips, then said in a whisper, ‘For another £3 I’ll tell you about the lady from the sweet shop in Ystrad Meurig.’
I made a look of slightly bored inquiry. She pinched my lapel between index finger and thumb and hissed, ‘They disappeared her!’
‘Disappeared?’
In answer, she gave me the sort of emphatic nod gossips deploy to indicate that the information, though it sounds far-fetched, is nonetheless true. ‘Off the face of the earth.’ She pushed her upturned hand towards me and I deposited three pound coins in her cupped palm.
‘Story was, they found exo-biological remains at the crash site, and alien debris which was taken to the RAF base at Aberporth. They said it was a weather balloon, but since when do you need an armed escort for a balloon? The lady from the sweet shop found a bit of the saucer in her garden and used it as a doorstop. It was some sort of black volcanic glass, like obsidian, inscribed with markings reminiscent of the Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform scripts dating from around 2800 BC, and it hummed like the fridge. Two days later they came and took her away, doorstop and all.’
‘Who did?’
‘The Aviary.’
‘The Aviary?’
‘Two men dressed all in black, driving a black ’47 Buick.’ She turned away from me and leaned on the railings, looking into the blackness where slept the sea. ‘I’ve never spoken about this. Even though I knew it was wrong. I’m not a brave woman, Mr Knight.’
‘Didn’t you ask the doctor about it?’
‘I didn’t dare. Not long after that they caught the two Richards brothers, and a week later they caught Iestyn. I read about it in the papers, but there was no mention of the boy in the silver suit. Then the doctor received a visit from the men in black. It was a private meeting and I don’t know what they discussed. But after they left he was trembling, and his face was white. And then when Nora Dettol disappeared, I knew better than to open my mouth.’
‘Who’s Nora?’
‘She was the cleaner at the base. She was hoovering and walked by accident into a room that should have been locked. It was like a hospital room. There was a chap in there wearing olive-green military pyjamas. He had a bulbous head and big almond-shaped eyes. She said he looked so sad and lonely. She said she startled him and made him jump. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “I thought the room was empty.” Then he stared at her and it was as if he was looking straight through her and into her soul, and burrowing down through the layers of the past searching for something. All of a sudden she saw a vision of her mother’s face and an overwhelming sensation of peace and loving kindness flooded her being; she heard the voice of her mother, who had been dead for many years, saying, “Please do not be afraid, Daughter of Earth. We bring you love.” ’ She stopped and folded her arms aggressively saying, ‘You’ll never guess what he said next. It’ll cost another quid.’
Mesmerised, I handed over a pound.
‘He said, “Can you take a message to your president?” ’
Chapter 10
I had said I would pick Miaow up at 9.00 for our trip to the escalators of Shrewsbury, but like a kid on his first date I was early. I parked outside the shop at the caravan site and waited. Then I grew impatient and walked across to the office. A fat man sat wedged behind the reception desk, eating a bacon sandwich. The grease that dribbled over his knuckles glistened in the sharp morning light. The expression on his face said that, whatever it was I needed, he probably had it but couldn’t be bothered to go and get it. It was the face of someone whose synapses sparked at a slower speed than other people’s. The face a tortoise wears the first morning after hibernation as he walks downstairs to collect the post from the mat. It was the face of a man who doesn’t care less and has made it his specialist subject; everyone needs something they can be proud of. I told him I was looking for the caravan of Miaow and his face betrayed no sign that the question meant anything at all. Maelor Gawr was the caravan park at the world’s end.
I took a deep breath and said, ‘You know, my friend, to look at your face you probably wouldn’t believe this, but you are a lucky man. Yes, you are. This may come as a surprise. All your life you have gone to bed at night convinced that nothing good ever happens to you and yet here am I claiming you are lucky. Why? How can a man like you be lucky? I’ll tell you. Because on any normal day I would now grab your tie and stick it into the roller of that typewriter you are busy dripping bacon fat onto. Then I would give the barrel a violent twist and keep turning until your nose was touching the keys. Then I would type out a letter to the Cambrian News. That’s what I would normally do. But today I have a date beneath a pellucid May sky with a girl whose eyes are so beautiful that they elevate this day so far above the common herd of days that it would be a shame to write a letter. But that doesn’t mean I won’t come back sometime when it is raining and the wonder of this day is but a poignant memory, do you understand?’