She ran back around the vicarage, out of the front gate and down Church Street towards the river, pulling out her phone. She’d call Eirion. Hadn’t called him back last night, just dropped him a quick text promising to explain tomorrow. She’d tell Eirion everything.
But his damn phone was switched off. Jane leaned over the bridge, watching the slow water making dark, languid circles around the pillars and buttresses. After the psychotic nights around Christmas, the river was back to its old torpid self, and there was no sign of a bin sack down there.
‘’Ow’re you, Janey?’
‘Oh!’
He was leaning over the bridge next to her, teeth clamped on an unlit ciggy, pale sunlight swimming in his specs. Hadn’t even heard him approaching. Jane looked down at his feet.
‘Gomer… you’re wearing trainers.’
‘Hay ’n’ Brecon Farmers. Two for the price o’ one.’
‘That’s, erm… normal in footwear, isn’t it?’
‘Two pair, girl. Don’t worry, you en’t gonner see me doing no joggying.’
‘You don’t fool me, Gomer.’ Jane found a smile. ‘I bet you’ve got a hoodie and a baseball cap in the back of the JCB.’
‘En’t even seen the bloody ole thing for nigh on two days. Danny’s got him, workin’ over by Walton, makin’ a pond. Been fillin’ my time with a bit o’ spring maintenance in the churchyard. Found some bloody ole briars muster got missed last autumn, so…’ Gomer eyeing Jane, head on one side ‘… took up the vicar’s offer of borrowin’ the ole loppers.’
He put the ciggy back in his mouth, stood with his hands behind his back, rocking slightly.
‘Oh,’ Jane said. ‘Erm… from the shed.’
‘Exackly. From the ole shed, back o’ the vicarage.’
‘Right. Wooh. So, you, erm…’ Jane looked into Gomer’s glasses: opaque white discs, relief enfolding her like an old bath robe. ‘You probably found a black bin sack.’
‘Sure t’be.’ Gomer extracted his ciggy. ‘Bit of a story to this, is there, Janey?’
Jane felt her shoulders slump.
‘Got him back at my place. You wanner…?’
She nodded and followed him, down from the bridge. They walked up to the bungalow with the fading buttermilk walls, where Gomer had lived alone since Minnie’s death.
Gomer. Sometimes, crap situations just rearranged themselves for the best. With divorce and death and stuff, Jane had never really had a grandad. Her worst recurrent nightmare was probably the one in which Gomer had died.
Gomer didn’t judge. Well, not Jane, anyway, so she told him virtually everything, in the sure knowledge that it would go no further.
He leaned against his wall, listening, chewing on his unlit ciggy. When she’d finished, he opened his garden gate.
‘Dull buggers, some o’ these fellers,’ he said. ‘For all their college papers.’
‘He was really scared, Gomer. And probably shocked. That the guy could, you know, do whatever he did. He obviously knew who it was.’
‘You sure it wasn’t Barry?’
‘I heard his voice.’
‘Only Barry, see, he’s had his times.’
‘Oh, I know Barry could have done it, but he didn’t. Definitely not him.’
Signs of springtime action in Gomer’s garden – a rake and a hoe leaning against the wall, with a stainless steel spade, its blade worn thin and sharp.
‘En’t much into gardenin’, see, Janey, ’cept for the ole veg, but Minnie… her always liked her daffs. These is in memory, kind o’ thing.’
‘They’re nice, Gomer. Erm…?’
Gomer nodded towards the garden table. The black bag was underneath it, tied up with orange baler twine. He went over and dragged it out, placed it on the table, undid the twine.
Jane looked around nervously. The bungalow was raised up behind substantial hedging, tightly cut, obviously. You could see over it back to the river bridge and, in the other direction, the Church Street pitch, all the way up to the market square. But nobody could see into Gomer’s garden.
‘Shot it,’ Jane said quickly. ‘I think they shot it. Cornel, he was going, Oh, I’ll have a blast at anything that moves.’
‘Was he now?’
‘He said it was all OK, as long as you cleaned up afterwards. Scumbags, Gomer. They went onto someone’s property and shot it. I was going to put it back in the litter bin, but then I thought, no, it’s evidence.’
‘Shot, eh? That’s what you reckons?’
Gomer brought it out and laid it on the iron tabletop. It was pretty battered, but you could tell it had been a lovely thing, with like a lion’s mane, all golden. Jane swallowed. Dismay set in.
‘I know this doesn’t really prove anything. They could just say it was an accident. They’re just-’
‘Haccident?’ Gomer ran a hand over the feathers. ‘This don’t happen by haccident.’
‘Huh?’
‘Janey…’ Gomer sighed and brought out his ciggy tin. ‘This boy en’t been shot.’
‘Well, I didn’t really look. It was dark and…’
‘See that?’
Jane saw there were spots of blood around the beak. She didn’t understand.
‘That en’t good, girl,’ Gomer said.
26
‘ It’s not your fault, of course,’ Huw said.
In the scullery, the red light was still blinking on the answering machine, the air swollen with its bleeps. Merrily sank down at the desk.
‘You’re a hypocritical bastard, you know that?’
Holding the big, Bakelite phone with both hands. Her stomach felt like a crumpled paper bag. About four hours’ sleep last night, and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Barely remembered driving home, very slowly. Ignoring the answering machine, taking two paracetamols with a glass of water.
She fingered a cigarette, drew a hard breath.
‘You as good as told me something was coming. You were afraid for him.’
She felt momentarily dizzy.
‘Merrily?’
The old black Bakelite phone, a present from Jane, felt like some kind of barbell in her left hand. Everything was heavy, even the waning sunlight. She slid her dog collar off.
‘Sorry…’
‘I said. How did he actually die? Where was he found?’
‘On the side of the hill. He was in a shallow ditch. A depression near the foot of some steps.’
‘You saw his body?’
‘No… God, no. I just remembered the spot when they told me. Earthen steps, the soil held in by boards. Walked up there once, Jane and me.’
‘And is there any reason to think-?’
‘They don’t know. They’re not sure. There’s no suspicion of…’
Foul play. Why did they always say that? Play. Jesus.
‘There’ll be a post-mortem, obviously,’ Huw said.
‘Yes.’
Merrily was unbuttoning the top of her clerical shirt, wiping a hand across her throat. She was cold but sweating.
‘They go running up there?’ Huw said. ‘The lads from the camp?’
‘Bound to. There seems to be nothing to suggest it isn’t natural causes. As if he’d just collapsed. Gone for a run, just like old times, but he wasn’t up to it any more. Especially with all that weight. The big rucksack still on his back. The Bergen.’
The word had been used several times after they’d gone into the house. Syd had been found with his Bergen beside him. The big framed rucksack that the SAS carried their kit in. What they carried sometimes weighted with bricks, according to the legend – on exercises.
‘Who found him?’
‘I don’t know. Walkers. A lot of people go walking up there. There’s a car park and everything. He might’ve been lying there all night, or since early morning.’
‘And they let you into the house, with his wife.’
‘I think they were grateful to have another woman there.’
One of them had made tea. They’d sat Fiona down with her sugary brew and asked her some simple questions. When had she last seen Syd? What had been his state of health, state of mind?
She hadn’t wept. She’d kept on her Gore-Tex jacket and her woollen hat and her scarf. The suppressed grief in the room had been like a still, white steam, Fiona’s first word little more than a breath.