Rhodri was helping himself to roast potatoes when he finally spoke. 'Funny thing, that explosion,' he said, in his usual, gruff tone.
'What do you mean, "funny"?' said Michael, barely able to mask his resentment.
'Well, they've closed off the whole dock, and that ship's still there. There were people all over it this morning. No crew. Just people, and jeeps. Like army jeeps. Funny thing. They reckon it was a bomb.'
Michael pretended not to listen, spooning carrots and then peas onto his plate before reaching across the table for the gravy boat.
'No police, mind,' said Rhodri, 'which is the really funny thing. You'd have thought, big explosion like that, they'd have had the police involved.'
When Michael looked up from his plate, he saw Rhodri, staring at him with an expression that bordered on amusement. It was too much to hope that his brother-in-law might realise quite how much this had all meant to him; seeing his friends killed like that. Frank and Wilf. Hassan.
When the meal was over, Michael went to his room, barely saying another word to either Maria or Rhodri, and only managing to muster a moment's baby talk with his nephew. Lying back on his bed, he turned on the radio.
They were playing that song again, that Frankie Lane song they were playing all the time. He'd thought it was the most romantic song he'd ever heard before; before all this. Now just listening to it was painful. Why did they have to keep playing it?
He put his shoes back on and left the house in a flurry. His sister ran to the front door, and called after him, 'Michael! Where are you going?'
'Out,' he called back, sullenly. 'I won't be late.'
The Ship and Pilot was a typical Butetown pub, filled with the usual Butetown patrons: a mixture of dockers, sailors and waifs and strays from every corner of the globe. Gruff old men with stories to tell sat quietly nursing their pints and playing dominos while Michael's peers took part in all the rituals of youth, knocking back their pints of Brains bitter, telling jokes, or challenging anyone within earshot to an arm wrestle.
People were looking at him strangely, he could sense that much. They must have heard about what had happened, but nobody said anything. It was just the way they looked at him.
In the far corner of the pub, they were setting up the stage for Shirley, the resident singer, and her band, but the noisy chatter of the pub carried on unabated.
'What happened?'
Michael looked up. It was Frank's son, Pete. He was a little older than Michael, but built like his father, a natural born scrapper with forearms like Popeye's. The curious thing was, he didn't really look angry, and Pete almost always looked angry, like he was on the lookout for a fight. Now he just looked sad, like something inside of him had been crushed out of existence. Michael said nothing.
'What happened?' Pete asked again. 'You were there with him when it happened.
What happened?'
'I don't know,' said Michael. 'I can't remember.'
'You can't remember? I…' Pete looked up into one corner of the room, breathed in deep, and closed his eyes.
'Honestly, Pete,' said Michael, 'I can't remember anything. There was an explosion, and then I woke up in hospital. That's all I can remember.'
'But what were you doing there at that time of night?'
'I don't know,' said Michael. 'I don't know.'
The rest of the pub had fallen quiet now, as Shirley took to the stage and opened her set with 'Stormy Weather'. Pete stared down at Michael with an intensity that scared him, signs of the Pete he knew, the angry, violent Pete, returning. Michael stood, leaving his pint glass half-full.
'I'm sorry, Pete,' he said, walking out of the pub. 'Really. I'm so sorry.'
He was halfway up the narrow, Victorian gully of West Bute Street, at the corner of the Coal Exchange, when he saw them.
Cromwell and Valentine.
They were standing in the shadows, but he could see them both. It was as if they weren't even trying to hide. He knew then for certain that they weren't from the Union.
He carried on walking, gathering pace, and somewhere behind him he could hear the sound of two men running, then sounds of a car engine grumbling into life, its wheels spinning against wet cobbles.
Michael started to run.
He was caught in the headlights, but he didn't dare look back. Why were they chasing him?
It was then that he felt it; a strange sensation starting in his feet and then creeping up his body until it reached his scalp, almost like static electric shocks. The streets around him were lit up with a brilliant light, impossible at this time of night, and everything was silent. He turned to face the oncoming car and saw that it had stopped in the middle of the street, its headlamps still glaring. Behind it, Cromwell and Valentine too had frozen on the spot, feet off the ground, as if suspended there on invisible strings. It was as if the world itself had stopped turning, just for him.
Then there was the pain. A terrible pain that surged through him, throbbing and pounding him into submission until he fell to the ground, his eyes clenched shut in agony. A few seconds passed, and with it a feeling of nausea, and then he realised that he was on his hands and knees, that the ground beneath him was hard, and cold, and wet, and that he could hear the sound of bombs.
'Cromwell and Valentine?' said Gwen. 'The names of the two men were Cromwell and Valentine?'
Michael nodded.
'And all this happened in November 1953?'
'Yes,' said Michael.
Gwen turned to Toshiko. 'Where's Owen?'
'He's down in the Autopsy Room. He said he had to check something.'
'OK,' said Gwen, 'can you go get him? We need to start looking into this.'
'What about Jack?' asked Toshiko.
'He's in his office. Something's wrong with him. I just don't know what.'
Gwen looked at Ianto, hoping he might have an answer, but he looked as puzzled as she was.
'Ianto,' she said. 'Can you carry out a search on the names Cromwell and Valentine? Can't be many people in Cardiff called Valentine in 1953.'
Ianto nodded stoically and left the Boardroom, and Toshiko followed.
Gwen turned to Michael. 'You rest a while,' she said. 'We're going to…' Her voice trailed off.
'Going to what?' Michael asked.
'I don't know,' said Gwen. 'We're going to help you.'
Michael looked away from her, forlorn. He didn't seem convinced by her reassurance.
'I mean it,' she said. 'It's what we do.' And then, smiling, 'No mystery too big, no puzzle too… erm… puzzling.'
Michael smiled, for the first time since she'd seen him, and Gwen felt something, a flicker of recognition, and an uneasy sense that this was going to be a long night.
FOUR
Owen Harper opened his eyes and saw a ceiling he didn't recognise. Not that he was an expert on ceilings, of course, but he knew his own ceiling when he saw it, and this wasn't his ceiling.
Next up was the awareness that his mouth was dry. No, not just dry… His mouth was desiccated. And then there was the headache. It felt like somebody had put his head in a vice and was still cranking it up. It felt like his head was going to explode.
But first was the matter of the ceiling and the hard floor beneath him. Reaching out with his fingertips, he felt the bristly surface of a carpet and, reaching further, his fingers delved into the dusty mess of an overflowing ashtray. He recoiled in disgust, and his hand brushed against the side of a can, tipping it over on its side. He heard the glug-glug-fizz of beer pouring from the can and soaking into the carpet. This wasn't a bed, and this wasn't a bedroom.
Through his one open eye, he saw a television in one corner of the room, and on the wall several posters of Johnny Depp.