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‘Meici,’ I said.

His hand reached to his side and fumbled with the door handle. He seemed to recoil from me, pressing himself against the door in his hurry to escape.

‘Meici, it’s not like you think . . .’

He opened the door and stepped out backwards, still staring at me in horror. ‘Don’t you say a damn word, Louie Knight, don’t you say a damn thing. You’ve really done it this time, good and proper. You’re in for it now, I can tell you. Just you wait and see what you get, you’ll see! Dirty double-crosser.’ He turned and walked up the path to the house, his right hand raised and twisted, pressed against his eye. I thought I should perhaps go in and see if he was OK, but even as I entertained the thought, I found my foot pressing down on the accelerator and my hands turning the wheel to leave.

Chapter 13

Four days passed. Meici didn’t reappear and didn’t answer the phone when I called. I didn’t greatly care. I was more worried about Mrs Bwlchgwallter, who hadn’t been seen either. Calamity asked her neighbours each day, but they said she hadn’t returned home. On the fifth morning I got a call from Calamity from the telephone kiosk across the road from Ginger Nutters in Bridge Street. She said she had forced the back door and found Mrs Bwlchgwallter, she’d been there all along, sitting in the dark. I said I’d come right away and she told me to steel myself.

I found Calamity standing in front of the shop, feigning interest in the window display. Normally it was crowded with gingerbread men – but now it was in darkness. A mouse nibbled at the remains of a confectionery foot. I pressed my face against the glass and looked in. Calamity walked down the alley at the side of the shop and I followed. The brick walls on either side glistened with moisture, our footsteps making sharp sandpapery rasps on the concrete. The alley led to a walled-in yard, barely big enough to hold the rig of a rotating washing line. The arms of Mrs Bwlchgwallter’s laundry reached up like ghosts in a stick-up.

We walked into a dark kitchen. Burnished copper pans gleamed from the wall, a black iron oven like a steam engine filled half the kitchen but was cold as ash. We walked through across a floor that was sticky with discarded food. The sound of a TV was coming from above us. We climbed the creaking stairs up to a small sitting room. Mrs Bwlchgwallter sat in an armchair, facing the TV and watching the Test Card. A plate of half-eaten Heinz spaghetti sat on her lap, covered in green fur. On a side table next to the arm of the chair was an empty bottle of tablets, a cup of cold tea in a metal camping cup and an empty quarter bottle of gin.

‘I think she’s been here the whole time, working on that –’ Calamity pointed at the fireplace. In the grate there was a full chamber pot and next to it, reaching almost to the ceiling, was a 7-foot gingerbread alien.

‘It’s a Grey,’ whispered Calamity.

‘Mrs Bwlchgwallter,’ I said.

She turned her head slowly and focused her watery eyes. ‘We’re closed . . . Forever.’

‘We didn’t come for gingerbread,’ I said.

‘The time for gingerbread is passed.’

‘You mustn’t think that,’ I said. ‘None of us knows what lies in the womb of time.’

She narrowed her eyes, trying to comprehend. Then she parted her lips a fraction and breathed the words, ‘The horror! The horror!’

‘What was it?’ asked Calamity. ‘What did you discover in the hypnotism?’

Mrs Bwlchgwallter shook her head sadly and mouthed the word horror.

I threw the contents of her teacup into the chamber pot and filled the cup with rum from my hip flask. I held it out to her, but she was too enfeebled to grasp the cup. I pushed it towards her mouth, but the rum dribbled down her chin. I broke a finger off the gingerbread ‘Grey’, dipped the finger in the rum and used it as a makeshift teat. She sucked greedily and a fire was illumined in the depths of her eyes. It shone weakly from behind the wide panes of her spectacles like the pilot light on a stove. The frame of her glasses was made of semi-translucent pale blue plastic.

‘Tell us what happened,’ I said, withdrawing the gingerbread finger. She reached out feebly and I pushed her hand down. ‘Let it go down first,’ I said. ‘Tell us about the horror.’

‘I can’t,’ she whispered, ‘I can’t. Not for as long as I live.’

‘Please, Mrs Bwlchgwallter,’ said Calamity, ‘we need to know; it’s very important.’

Mrs Bwlchgwallter pointed at the gingerbread finger, using the last few dregs of her strength to drive a better bargain. I dipped the finger in the rum and gave it to her. She sucked greedily, making sounds like a coffee percolator.

‘That’s the last until you tell us what we need to know,’ I said losing patience. She ignored me, continuing to suck. I dragged the rum-soaked finger away. ‘OK, talkie talkie first, then drinkie drinkie.’

She took a deep breath, then said, slowly inserting an agonising pause between the syllables, ‘The horror!’

‘Come on now, Mrs Bwlchgwallter,’ said Calamity. ‘Just think of the applause at the Shrewsbury Palladium.’

I scowled at Calamity, indicating that this was not the time for the good agent/bad agent routine. She stared down at her feet.

I said, ‘Fantastic idea! Barney and Betty Hill. How did it go again? It’s the classic UFO contact from America in the early ’60s. They were hypnotised by the military and –’

‘How was I supposed to know this would happen?’ said Calamity.

‘That’s what I keep asking myself.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? When they hypnotised Barney and Betty Hill they drew a picture of the star system Zeta Reticuli. The aliens were puzzled by Barney’s false teeth. Everyone was OK afterwards, they didn’t curl up in a ball and cry or make giant gingerbread aliens.’ I could tell from her voice she was near to tears. ‘How was I supposed to know?’

‘I don’t know. I told you it was a dumb idea.’

‘You tell me all my ideas are dumb.’

‘Most of them are.’

‘Louie!’ She shot me a look of appeal.

‘We’ll talk about it later.’

‘Are we just going to leave her?’

‘You want to bring her along?’

She shook her head. We walked down the stairs taking care for some reason not to make a noise. We walked out onto Bridge Street where the fresh air came as a relief, lifting our low spirits and leaving just a mild sense of guilt. Once we had put sufficient distance between us and the shop, around the top of Great Darkgate Street, we stopped and looked at each other.

‘I think we should give up the case,’ said Calamity.

‘Me too.’

‘I’m scared.’

‘Me too.’

‘Do you think Raspiwtin is really looking for Iestyn?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you think Iestyn is alive?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you think Raspiwtin is who he says he is?’

‘He might well be since he hasn’t really said who he is.’

‘Has he paid us?’

‘No.’

‘Do you think he will?’

‘No.’

‘Why are we carrying on?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t you think we should stop?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will we?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘I just need to do one thing first. Call an ambulance. Don’t give your name, just tell them she’s up there and hang up.’