‘Who?’ they cried. ‘Who did this to Meici?’
I silenced them with an imperiously upraised hand. ‘Oh no! Do not ask me that. Do not force me to break your hearts anew. You are only men. The flesh of a man’s heart was never made to withstand such a cruel blow as that.’ My eyes met Calamity’s again and she made an O of her thumb and index finger and gently raised it to convey her appreciation of my performance. Encouraged, I continued.
‘Tell us!’ they cried. ‘We demand to know who took our Meici!’
‘I cannot say, nay I will not! The man who did this is a man dear to your hearts. A darling of Aberystwyth. Is it right that I turn him away from the doorstep of your bosom? Is it right that I set you upon him in this frenzied hour? Is it meet that you would pluck out his beard and dash his brains against the rocks beneath the pier?’
‘Yes,’ they cried. ‘Yes!’ And from the left, at the front, the man from the twenty-four-hour sweet shop shouted, ‘Be he my own grandfather I will dash him!’
The anguish was etched deep into their faces, the pain of losing Meici too great to bear, even though up until this moment not one of them had liked him.
I told them once more that I could never tell them the identity of Meici’s murderer, and then I told them. Words heard on a school trip to watch a Shakespeare play many years ago came to me across the years. ‘The man whose purple hands still reek and smoke with Meici’s blood is none other than our former mayor! But an hour ago he wore this shirt and would have buried it too if we had not stopped him. Look at it! See the crimson drops that Meici spilt! The man who did this was Preseli Watkins.’ Gasps of horror and disbelief rang out. ‘I would never have harmed a hair of Meici’s head. It’s true we had our disagreements, we didn’t always see eye to eye.’ I paused. The crowd gazed at me, mesmerised, hanging on every syllable. I remembered Meici and felt for the first time the true anguish and injustice of his death. ‘Meici did not have many friends, but he chose me to be one. He regarded me as a brother and no man can give a more precious gift than that. It may be that I did not appreciate it . . .’
One or two cries of ‘No’ rose from the assembled crowd.
‘Yes, yes, I confess it freely. If I have committed any crime, it is simply this: that I did not love him as he deserved. I don’t ask you to believe this, I ask only that you fetch the police so I may tell them what I know.’
Whispers ran through the crowd: ‘I think Louie has been much wronged in this matter.’ ‘It’s true,’ another said. ‘Louie would never hurt Meici, they were old friends.’ ‘He loved him like a brother, did you hear that? How then could he have attacked him?’
‘Please!’ I called out. ‘Call them now, bring the police here to this spot and deliver me into their keeping. That’s all I ask!’ A muttering realisation passed through the crowd; they acted as one, like a shoal of fish, and turned towards Raspiwtin with fury in their hearts. Fear appeared in his countenance, the fear not just of the cornered beast but of the man of the world who knows, and has probably seen, how terrible the rage of a mob can be once its collective heart has been stirred to vengeance. But Raspiwtin had the cunning of a cornered beast. A moment passed, only a fraction of a second but one of those rare splinters of time that are drawn out far longer for those who participate in the drama of the moment; his fate hung precariously in the balance as the mob bent on mischief turned towards him. He pointed at me and shouted, ‘Let us have Louie Knight for our mayor!’ The suggestion fell like a flaming match onto dry bracken in a parched summer. The passion of the mob switched direction again. The chant ‘Louie for Mayor’ tore through the ranks of people and, with each iteration it gained in volume. ‘Louie for Mayor! Louie for Mayor!’ I raised a voice in protest, but the torrent of their desire could not be dammed. My pleas went unheard, and so, swept forward on the irresistible tide of history, I became mayor of Aberystwyth.
Chapter 19
Preseli must have got wind of what happened at the boxing match and decided not to return to town. The police duly alerted all ports and airports. They also began a search of Tal-y-Llyn Lake. It’s deep and cold and lonely up there, lying in the shadow of Cader Idris mountain. It’s the sort of lake that contains many secrets, including, so they say, a crashed Heinkel bomber. Meici Jones will be down there now sitting in the cockpit and, not far away, perhaps in the gun turret, will be Skweeple – one of those unfortunate visitors to town who have their holiday spoiled by an accident on the road. These things happen. The police were also keen to interview the former mayor about the murder of Mrs Lewis, and a search of his house turned up a gun among his possessions. Ballistics analysis matched it to the one that had shot Meici Jones, the one that Sauerkopp had taken from me the day of my ill-fated attempt to kidnap him. I don’t know how he managed to magic the gun into the mayor’s possessions, but it got me off the hook and the charge was dropped. Chastity went back to her auntie in Shropshire to sit in a rocking chair and listen to Frank Sinatra LPs every Sunday evening after church. One day, maybe in the not too distant future, her auntie will pass away and it will be just Chastity and Frankie. She will listen to him croon ‘You’re Nobody till Somebody Loves You’ as she sifts through the memories, trying to make sense of it all, a summer holiday by the sea, a love affair with a human cannonball who flew too close the sun.
Jhoe, we learned from other sources, had recently escaped from a psychiatric hospital after reading newspaper reports about flying saucers. He had spent the previous twenty-five years in various such institutions, never receiving visits from anyone except a benefactor who took great care to see that he was well provided for. The benefactor wore black and turned up each time in a black 1947 Buick. No one knew who he was, but I did: it was Sauerkopp. The fact that Jhoe was Iestyn Probert meant that Miaow was his daughter, and arrangements were underway to have Jhoe discharged so that he could return with Miaow to the Denunciationist community in Cwmnewidion Isaf. If all this was true, if the aliens really had resurrected Iestyn, it left two unanswered questions burning in my mind. What had made him lose his sanity? And why had Sauerkopp gone to such lengths to protect him?
Preseli’s absence meant that he was unable to complete the traditional handover of mayoral responsibilities. As a result, I was obliged to spend some time attending to such matters and it was three days later before I got round to Maelor Gawr caravan park.
In Reception, behind the desk, the same fat man sat, still not caring less. He was eating cake. I asked him about Miaow. He didn’t take the cake out of his mouth, but mumbled through the crumbs a story I didn’t catch. She didn’t owe rent, which was unusual and one more reason not to care. But I cared. I was tired, too. And during the past week or so I had forgotten my manners, so when I asked him for the key to her caravan and he didn’t jump to the task I stepped sharply round the desk, grabbed the back of his swivel chair and twisted him round. Then I placed my palm on the back of his head and rammed it into the filing cabinet. After that, he gave me the key. He slid it across the desk and held his handkerchief to his nose, and for a while took a break from not caring.
The curtains were drawn and the inside of the caravan was warm and stale, still heavy with the smell of takeaway Chinese food. A wasp buzzed indolently at one of the windows. I drew one curtain aside to let in some light and surveyed the scene. There was nothing in the wardrobe, nothing on the bed, no letter on the table and none in the bin. On the drainer in the kitchenette there was an empty bottle of Jack Daniels and a tumbler that had been rinsed. I picked it up and sniffed – it smelled of Parma Violets. Raspiwtin was the only man in Aberystwyth who ate them. I let the wasp out and followed.