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‘Pity. That Beryl says you always hit the notes on the head. Here, I’ve just been baking some scones, they won’t take up much space.’
Joe felt a warm glow at this reported praise. Many choristers do good service by being able to take a note when given it, but a choir needs at least one member of each section who can actually give the notes first time.
‘But what I meant was, they’ll be wanting you to tell them about the fire,’ continued the woman as she put a plateful of scones and a potful of jam in front of Joe.
‘Expect so,’ said Joe. ‘Good folk to work for, the Lewises, are they?’
She viewed him thoughtfully for a moment as if trying to assess his motive in asking the question. He gave her the wide-eyed smile of one who had no ulterior motive, which was easy because he hadn’t.
‘Williams seems settled,’ she said finally.
‘And you?’ asked Joe, trying a scone. It was as delicious as it looked.
She smiled.
‘My gran always said, complaining loses old friends and doesn’t make new,’ she replied.
‘Name wasn’t Mirabelle, was it?’ said Joe. ‘Sorry. My auntie. You may have noticed her?’
‘Now you mention it, I think I did spot someone who reminded me of Gran.’
They laughed together and things got even easier between them. Joe took another scone, promising himself it would be the last, and said, ‘Sorry we messed up your holiday, having to come back early for us.’
‘Williams been moaning? He never got on with Gran. Pay him no heed. Couple of days less in a boarding house in Barmouth is no great loss, specially when it’s run by my sister-in-law. Expects me to help in exchange for special rates, least that’s what she calls them. If that’s a holiday, give me home every time.’
‘Yeah, I’m not great on holidays either,’ said Joe. ‘Lot of folk are, though. Buying up country cottages for a few weekends a year. Can get up local folks’ noses, that, I’ve read.’
‘That what they’re saying about the fire up at Copa?’ she asked, circumnavigating his subtlety as if it wasn’t there. ‘May be something in it. Beer talk for most, but there’s always someone daft enough to take their little boys’ games further. She going to be all right, this woman?’
‘I hope so,’ said Joe. ‘She deserves to make it. She was very brave.’
‘Thought that was your line.’
Joe thought of the injured woman’s attempts to draw herself up into the attic, the pain she must have felt.
‘No, she was the brave one. I just did it on the run. She had to make herself do what she did. And there’s no way I could have got her out less’n she’d helped.’
Mrs Williams took a reflective sip of tea.
‘You’d just have left her then?’ she asked.
It occurred to Joe that if the injured woman hadn’t been able to pull herself through the hole in the ceiling, the only way he could have got out was to pull her back down.
Would he have done that?
Could he have done that?
‘Man don’t know what he’ll do till he finds out,’ said Joe.
‘Well, what you found out is what I call brave,’ said the woman. ‘Who is she anyway, this woman?’
‘No one knows,’ said Joe. ‘The Haggards, who own the cottage, are here so maybe they can help. Specially if they’ve got kids, or close friends with kids. Word soon gets around; you ever in Wales, there’s this cottage only gets used in a blue moon. Kids are like that. Empty place is an invite to squat.’
‘You sound sort of expert,’ she said.
‘Watch a lot of TV,’ said Joe, thinking, this is a sharp-eyed and-eared lady. Would probably find out he was a PI, no bother, but he wasn’t going to advertise the fact. Like with a doctor, being off duty didn’t stop people parading their symptoms.
‘Anyway, I think you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Anyone getting into Copa would need a key. I heard Electricity Sample charged them Haggards a fortune for making the place secure.’
‘Who?’
‘Edwin Sample. Runs a security business in Caerlindys, but everyone remembers him when he had a little back-street shop repairing hoovers and kettles. Now he’s up there hobnobbing with Mr Lewis and his other jee-um mates.’
‘Jee-um?’ said Joe. ‘Sorry, don’t know Welsh unless it’s in a song.’
‘No,’ she said, laughing. ‘Gee Em. General Motors. Little local joke. Someone in the States once said, what’s good for General Motors is good for the country. Well, there’s some round here look at things that way too, what’s good for them is good for the rest of us. Don’t know who started GM, but it stuck.’
‘So who are they?’ asked Joe.
‘Councillors, Chamber of Commerce, Freemasons, top-cops, the usual. They look after themselves and we look after their tail-lights. But none of this is your concern, Mr Sixsmith. Day after tomorrow, you’ll be back over the border, safe and sound. Will you have some more? If not, I’d better get on. Lots to do, what with your lot and the reception …’
‘Reception? What’s that?’ asked Joe, noticing with surprise that the scone plate was empty. He was tempted to take up her offer of more, but virtuously decided against it.
‘Tomorrow night, in the college assembly hall. Haven’t you read your welcome pack? No, maybe you’ve been otherwise engaged. It’s a get-together for everyone concerned in the Choir Festival. Better to have it after everyone’s settled in and got the opening nerves out of the way, says Mr Lewis. Keep everyone interested and on their toes. Keeping me on my toes, that’s for sure.’
‘I bet. Sorry to have held you up. That was really great,’ said Joe.
He stood up and headed for the door. Except there were three of them and he couldn’t recall which he’d come in by. Not good for a trained PI. Well, self-trained.
He chose one confidently and opened it. He found he was looking into a small windowless room occupied by a chair and a bank of four TV monitors.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Enjoy television, do you?’
‘What? Oh, them. It’s the security,’ she said scornfully. ‘Waste of money, I think, but I wasn’t asked, was I? Not my money, anyway.’
‘Bet it was you had to do the clearing up after the workmen though,’ said Joe. ‘And keep them topped up with tea and stuff. Worth spinning a job out an extra week for them scones of yours.’
She smiled and said, ‘You trying to get on the right side of me, Mr Sixsmith? Well, you’re succeeding. But fair do’s to Mr Lewis, he had Electricity Sample do the job while we were on holiday a few years back. That’s right, Barmouth, where else? Everything done and tidied when we came back. At first I hated the idea of those cameras looking at me as I went round the school but I don’t notice them now. Mr Lewis said it was a good selling point to parents, knowing their kids were being watched over all the time. Could be right. Not that Williams bothers checking the screens that much, and if he did see an intruder, he’d probably send me or Bron to check him out!’
Joe laughed and said, ‘Bet you’d sort him out too. Thanks again.’
He reached for another door handle.
‘Want to get back into the college, do you?’ said Mrs Williams.
Joe had made another wrong choice. Faced with only one remaining door, he finally made it into the rear courtyard formed by the college’s two main wings.
He spotted Dai Williams at the corner of the left wing, in what looked like lively debate with a youth of about eighteen or nineteen. They stopped talking as Joe approached, then the young man, who was slim to the point of emaciation and had a pale poet’s face in a net of fine black hair, turned and moved away at a pace just short of running.
‘Dai, your wife’s a treasure,’ said Joe. ‘That boy looks like he could use some of her tender loving cooking.’
‘Young Wain? Don’t feed you up over at the Lady House, that’s for sure.’
‘He lives at the Lady House?’ said Joe, concerned at the implications for his dinner.
‘Well, he would, being their son. Got a damn sight better fed when he was with the other boys being looked after by my missus, I tell you.’
And now Joe recalled Mrs Williams’s knowing smile when he’d refused her offer of seconds.
‘So he went to the college, did he?’
‘For a bit, till his ma sent him off to one of those posh English places where they train you up to rule the working classes. Lewis said it wouldn’t look good running a school and not letting your own boy be educated there, but he didn’t object, not when it was her money, not his, paying the bills.’
‘Help them with their finances, do you?’ enquired Joe.
Williams showed his home-grown teeth in a grin and said, ‘Could say that. For certain I know how much it hurts Mr Lewis to part with money, believe me. Very close relationship we have. Feudal, I mean. Master and servant. Doesn’t fancy any closer relationship between our families though.’
He cocked his head on one side as though inviting Joe to work this out.
Joe worked it out.
‘His son and your girl, you mean?’
‘Sharp,’ said Williams approvingly. ‘Yes, young Wain was sniffing around there a while back. Mrs Williams got upset, like she was leading him on. Took them both by surprise, I think, when I made it clear last thing I wanted was any child of mine getting mixed up with Wain. I sent the boy away with a flea in his ear and promised him a boot up the arse if he bothered Bron again. Don’t think the High Master liked the way I talked, but seeing as we were in total agreement for once, he didn’t complain.’
Joe, who wondered how much real understanding of his daughter the caretaker had, said, ‘Ever think of moving on?’
‘Why should I?’ demanded Williams sharply.
‘Well, all this hassle, you don’t seem crazy about the Lewis family, and this is all right for an afternoon out’ – he made a gesture which comprehended all the visible landscape in this – ‘but it’s not what you’d call lively, is it?’
‘My missus been saying something, has she?’ said Williams. ‘Or our Bron? Oh yes, they’d like the bright lights and the big shops, but me, I’m all for the quiet country life, see, so long as I’m head of the family, this is where we stay. Anyway, what’s it to you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Joe. ‘Just chatting. None of my business. Sorry.’
‘No, that’s all right,’ said the man magnanimously. ‘I like a good natter. You ask all the questions you like, Joe.’
Remember, a Private Eye is also a Private Ear, said Endo Venera, Joe’s American guru. Never miss a chance to get people talking. You never know when it will come in useful.
He said, ‘So what’s this Wain do now?’
‘Bloody student, what else? Went off to America after he finished at school, working holiday they called it, more holiday than work if I know him, then back to some English university, Manchester, is it? Welsh university not good enough for him. He’ll end up a bloody Englishman. Started already. Few months over there and he’s back here telling us how to do things, just the way those bastards have always done. Useless load of wankers, the whole bleeding race of them. Best argument in favour of ethnic cleansing there’s ever been.’
Joe was momentarily knocked back by what felt like a Pearl Harbor attack out of a clear blue sky. Then it dawned on him that Williams was speaking to him as one member of a disadvantaged ethnic group to another. He thought of pointing out that the only disadvantaged group he belonged to was Luton Town Supporters’ Club, but decided against it. There were interesting tribal relationships here he’d like to find out about before he declared an interest.
‘So how does Mr Lewis take all this? I mean, he’s Welsh, isn’t he?’
‘Cardiff Welsh,’ said Williams dismissively. ‘Learnt the language from books and now you’d think he was descended from Cadwalader. Hates it when he hears Wain called Wain.’
Joe considered this for a moment but it was beyond him.
‘Why? When it’s his given name?’ he asked.
Williams wiped his nose on the back of his hand and laughed snuffily.
‘Owain’s his given name. Like in Owain Glyn Dŵr, see? But the boy started calling himself Wain soon as he got old enough to see what a prat his da was. Gets right up Lewis’s nose, I tell you. Best not to take notice, I say, but he’s not easy-going like me. You got kids, Joe?’
‘Er, no.’
‘Wise man. Meant to bring joy, they say, but look around you, what do you see with parents and kids? Lot more sadness than joy, I tell you. Oh, yes, sadness whichever way you look.’
He’s going to start singing, It’s quarter to three and there’s nobody in this bar but you and me, Joe, any moment, thought Joe. He’d heard the Welsh were a melancholic race but this was getting real heavy for such a bright sunny day.
Time to lighten things up.
‘Sadness, eh? Few nights in the sickbay with your wife would soon sort that out.’
It struck him as he spoke that there was some slight ambiguity here. He’d certainly caught Williams’s attention.
‘What’s that?’ he demanded.
‘No, just meant that she acts as matron, doesn’t she? And you talking of sadness made me think of something I just saw, some kid called Sillcroft, I think it was …’
Now all traces of melancholy had vanished from the caretaker’s face to be replaced by cold menace.
‘You some kind of reporter, Joe? You here sniffing around for a story?’
‘No!’ denied Joe indignantly. ‘Just saw this kid’s name scratched on the sickbay locker, and it said sadness alongside it, and I thought that with Mrs Williams taking care of him, and her cooking and all, that would soon cheer up most kids I know.’
Being transparently honest wasn’t much help when you wanted to deceive but when you wanted to persuade someone you were telling the truth, it came in real handy.
Williams’s face cleared.
‘Sorry, Joe. It was just that … well, never mind. Nothing to bother yourself about. Tell you what, fancy a drink tonight? I know a lot of the boys down the Goat and Axle would like to make your acquaintance. If you feel up to it, that is.’
It would have been easy to plead weakness or a prior engagement, but when a man’s trying to make amends, it’s a pity to turn him down.
‘Quick one early on, maybe. I need to be back …’
‘To get yourself an early night. Point taken. Suits nicely. We keep country hours round here, early to bed, early to rise. I’ll take you down about five thirty, then. Now I’d better get some work done. Never know who’s watching, do you?’
He glanced sideways towards a distant copse of trees with a house behind them. The Lady House?
‘Mr Lewis, you mean?’
‘That’s right, Joe. Don’t want the High Master on my back, do I?’
The idea seemed to put him in a good humour and he went off chuckling.
