Candlenight (38 page)

   
"Bethan, this is Morelli.
He was a friend of Giles Freeman." Guto turned to Berry, "Bethan was
teaching him Welsh."

   
"Without great success,
though, I am afraid." Bethan said, solemnly shaking hands with Berry.

   
Reporters came out in a bunch.
Charlie Firth taking out one of his thin cigars. Ray Wheeler saying.. .
"down the pub and give the poor sod a decent wake, eh?"

   
The sixtyish couple hung around
the doorway, apparently waiting for someone. The woman pointed at the man's forehead
and he look out a handkerchief and wiped away
the black mark.

   
"What did you mean."
Bethan said to Berry Morelli. "by waste disposal?"

   
"I wouldn't mind so much,
but the bloody thing was serviced a fortnight ago," George Hardy said.
"I don't suppose you happened to notice a Volvo garage in the town."

   
"You fool," Elinor's features
were pinched with contempt. "Is it likely?"

   
"Suppose not. I wish she'd
come out. Get this over."
   
"All you've ever wanted, George,
is to get things over."

   
Claire did come out then. She
was with the minister. They shook hands and then spoke briefly in Welsh. The
minister went back into the crematorium. Claire approached her parents.

   
"I wondered if you would
come," she said.
   
The sky had darkened, with a warning
of rain on the gathering wind.

   
"Hello, Claire." said
George. "We had a dreadful journey and then the car broke down two miles
from here and we had to be towed in. You look marvellous, doesn't she Elinor?"

   
George always came out with the
wrong things, or the right things in the wrong order. But what were the right things,
in this situation? How were you supposed to approach a daughter who had
deliberately kept you in the dark about the sudden death of her husband?

   
And who was not the daughter
you remembered.

   
"Yes, Elinor said.
"She looks . . . well."

   
Claire kissed her father and looked
calmly at her mother.

   
Elinor could stand it no
longer. "Oh, Claire . . " Face crumbling, though the muscles were
fighting it. "Why?'
   
She was furious with herself for this.

   
Claire stepped back. The wind
caught her dark hair, which seemed three times as long and dense as Elinor remembered
it.

   
"I wrote to you," she
said. The letter's probably waiting for you at home."

   
"Why didn't you
phone
?" Elinor's eyes were glassy
with frozen tears. "I learned about it in the
newspaper
, for God's sake!"

   
Claire said. "I'm sorry. I
find this difficult to explain, but I could not invite you here. If you were
going to come it had to be your decision."

   
She's so remote from us, Elinor
thought. Look at her, with her shaggy mane and her faraway eyes.

   
"How do you feel, darling?"
George was saying. "Are you all right?"

   
Claire smiled with dignity and
composure. "I am adjusting," she said.

"We should offer our condolences to Claire, I guess."

   
"I think you'll
find." Bethan said, "that she doesn't need your condolences." She
turned her back on the chapel entrance. "I have to go. I'm sorry."

   
Berry watched her walk away
down the gravel path. "I think I need to talk to her."

   
"I don't think so."
Guto said.

   
"She was the one found
Giles, right?"

   
"Listen. Morelli, leave
her alone, she's had problems."

   
"
Giles
had problems."

   
"I know, but she cannot help
you. Her husband died, see, a few months ago, of leukemia. She has not come to
terms with that. Her nerves are not good, they've taken her off work."

   
Plaid's bearded hard-man seemed
oddly ill-at-ease, Berry thought.

   
"I've known her a long
time. Fond of her, see."
   
Clearly, Berry thought.

   
Plaid's General Secretary
appeared at Guto's elbow.
   
Away from the TV lights, he'd taken
off his tinted glasses.
   
"You have twenty minutes to get
some lunch, Guto, then we're off to Eglwys Fawr."

   
"Eglwys Fawr?" Gusto
was dismayed. "That's practically North Wales. We really have to start by
canvassing the barbarians?"

   
"Work North to South of
the constituency, I thought. Then back again."

   
"You are the boss."
Guto conceded. "See you tonight, Morelli?"

   
"Sure, but I may have to
barter over the bill. Or maybe tell the tabloid boys how much you're
charging."
   
"You wouldn't . . ."
   
"Try me."

   
Guto scowled at him and
followed the General Secretary down the crematorium drive. Claire Freeman and
the older couple walked past Berry, none of the three even looked at
him.

   
At the bottom of the drive Guto
turned and called back. "Remember what I said about Bethan, Morelli. I
don't know what you want here, but she can't help you, OK?"

   
Berry was suddenly alone on the
ludicrous green gravel in front of the modern disposal plant that ate Giles Freeman.

   
A line of Bob Dylan's went
through his head, something about pitying the poor immigrant, who wishes he'd
stayed at home.

   
He tried to analyse how he felt.
Whether he was out of his mind or there was something happening here. He
couldn't get a handle on any of it. All too . . . Words like amorphous,
nebulous and numinous came into his head. Crazy stuff.

Rain began to tumble on him, and he ran down the drive
and back into the town.

Chapter XLIII

This, Elinor thought, frozen into silence, could
not
be happening.

   
The ghastly little pointed spire loomed up in the centre of the
windscreen and she almost screamed in revulsion.

   
"Rather pretty, really," George said, and Elinor shrivelled him
into the back seat with a blowlamp glare.

   
Claire drove the Land-Rover like a man, spinning the huge utility
steering wheel, dark hair bouncing as she tossed the big vehicle through the
gears. As though she were a farm girl who'd been driving Land-Rovers and
tractors most of her life, Elinor thought in dismay.

   
It was, of course, all George's fault.

   
When the garage in Pontmeurig had said it would take a day, perhaps two,
to get the parts, he ought to have told them to forget it and had the vehicle
towed to the nearest
Volvo dealer, no matter how far away that was.

   
But not George.

   
Not compliant, feeble George.

   
Elinor and Claire had been drinking dreadful instant coffee in some
dismal teashop, saying stiff, formal things to each other when George had
returned from the garage with
the bad news.

   
"Problem is, there's nowhere to stay in this town," he'd said.
"By-election, you see."

   
And then, without even looking at Elinor, he'd turned automatically to
his daughter and said . . .

   
Actually asked her, without even thinking . . .

   
"Don't suppose there's any chance of you putting us up
for the night, is there,
Claire?"

   
Elinor had wanted to pour her coffee over his head.

   
But she could not help noticing that, for
the first time, C
laire had appeared discomfited.
  
"I
'
m not sure tha
t
would
be
wise."

   
Elinor was damn sure it
wouldn't be wise, having long
a
go sworn never to set foot
in
that
abominable house again.

   
"Well unless you can
lend us a
tent." George said wit
h a
s
illy laugh, avoiding his wife's bla
z
ing gaze. "I
don't know quite
what we're going to do. The garage chappie said
A
berystwyth was about the
nearest
place we
could hope to get in, and apparently several of the hotels
there
are closed for the winter. Bloody inconvenient."

   
"It's absurd,"
Elinor said.

   
And then Claire had said, "Look,
if it's only for one night,
pe
rhaps—"

   
"No!" She
couldn't stop herself.

   
"I was thinking of
the
Tafa
rn
"
Claire said. "The village
inn
."

   
And now the
Land Rover was rattling
down from the h
ills, out of the forestry,
Elinor next to Claire in
the
front,
George
in the back. Claire had told them she'd acquired
the
second
-hand farm vehicle from
someone called Dilwyn, in
exchange
for
Giles's car. Which Elinor thought was a
disgusting
thing
to
do within a f
ew days of his death, as
well as
a disturbing indication
that
Claire was now committed to
living
in a place where a
L
and-Rover was considered a
sensible
mode of transport.

   
A grey squirrel shot out of
the
hedge, apparently intent on
hurling
itself under their wheels. Claire ignored it.

   
"Look out!"
Elinor yelled, but Claire neither braked nor
swerved
.

   
"You've run over
it
!"

   
"Perhaps." Claire
didn't even look in the mirror.

   
Elinor was profoundly
shocked. "What's happened to
you
. Claire?
What's
happened
to you?"

   
"
Don't
be ridiculous, mot
her." Claire tossed her ragged b
lack
mane
. 'They're vermin."

   
Elinor was hunched in
the
corner, well away from her daughter, wrapping her arms around herself,
shivering
insi
de.

   
Claire spun the wheel as they rolled out of the trees and
past the sign that said
simply, Y Groes. The lumbering vehicle went across the river bridge with only
inches to spare either side. The inn lay before them, and above it reared the
church, its squat tower massive from this angle,
its weather vane pricking a
pale halo in the cloudy sky.
   
"Stopping raining, anyway," George observed from the
back seat.

Chapter XLIV

It took Berry all of twenty minutes to find out where Bethan McQueen
lived.

   
First off, he went into the
Welsh Pizza House and ordered a plain cheese and tomato from an English guy who
wore a white plastic apron. On the apron a drooling red dragon brandished a
knife and fork. The pizza was crap, but the guy thought Bethan McQueen might be
the girl who lived over the bookstore.