Candlenight (52 page)

   
"Bilge." Mortlake
said.

   
"
What's
bilge?" Berry said. "What's he saying here? That's
all we want to know."

   
"You a Welsh schoolteacher
too?"

   
"I'm a friend of Mrs.
McQueen. You have a problem with that?"

   
"Look," Mortlake
hefted the axe and the log onto the chopping block and stood back panting.
"Did you ever meet the man?"

   
Berry put a foot on the log,
hit the axe handle, freed it and gave it to Mortlake.

   
"No," he said.

   
"He had a crackpot theory
about Glyndwr. Who, you may remember, was supposed to have ended his days a few
miles from here, at Monnington."

   
"We are going there
next." Bethan said.

   
"Can't see what good that
will do you. None of its proven. There's an unmarked stone in the churchyard
there, which they say is Glyndwr's grave. I doubt that."

   
Berry said, "What was the
crackpot theory?"

   
Mortlake threw down the axe.
"You know, half the foolish myths in British history begin like this. In
my view, when someone cobbles together a lot of patent rubbish and
then dies without publishing it, we should all be damned thankful and let it
lie."

   
"Dr. Mortlake." Bethan
said. This is only a little village project. What harm can that do?"

   
"What d'you say the
village is called?"
   
"Y Groes."
   
"Never heard of it."
   
"It's near Pontmeurig."

   
"Oh, the by-election
place." Mortlake gave in. "All right, there's a legend—I mean, when
you're talking about Glyndwr, half of its legend—and the story goes that some
years after his death— No. actually, there are two different stories, one says
it was after his death, the other says it was when he was dying. Both come to
the same conclusion— that four patriotic Welshmen couldn't stand the thought of
the old hero dying in exile, came across the border and took him home. Or carted
his remains home, whichever version you prefer."

   
Berry sensed Bethan's
excitement.

   
"Ingley was convinced this
was true," Mortlake said. "He maintained there was a place in Wales
where all the heroes went to die or whatever, according to some ancient
tradition. You see, it's complete nonsense—man was bonkers."

   
"Did he say where the
place was?" Bethan asked.

   
"Wouldn't tell me. Big secret.
As if I really wanted to know."

   
"What evidence did he
have?"

   
"Oh, he claimed to have
discovered the names of the four Welshmen who came for Glyndwr. He suspected
there may have been some collaboration here with John Skydmore, of Monnington
Court, who was Glyndwr's son-in-law. Which was why he came to me."

   
"You helped him?"

   
"He left me the names. I
said I'd look into it. Didn't bother, to be quite honest. I can tell a crank
from fifty paces. And don't ask me for the list because I've probably thrown
it away."

   
"Well, thanks," Berry
said. "We'll leave you to your logs."

   
"Very good memory, though,
as it happens."
   
"I'm sorry?"

   
"My memory. Very good. If
it's any use for your . . . village project ... the four men were a farmer, a
lawyer, a coachman and ... a carpenter, yes. He was said to have made an ornate
coffin, fit for a prince, as they say. And their names, d'you want their names?
Very well . .

   
He leaned on his axe, pursed
his lips. "Vaughan—John Vaughan. Robert Morgan. William, or Gwilym Davies and—"

   
Mortlake paused triumphantly.
He'd plucked all four straight out of his head.
 
 
"—Thomas
Rhys."
   
He beamed.

   
"Don't tell me,"
Berry said. "He was the lawyer."
   
Mortlake, in a better temper now,
picked up a big log with both hands and set it on the block, 'You know more
than I do, sir," he said.

Dusk now. A pair of black swans glided across the pond behind the
church. It was cold and utterly still.

   
"He was right." Berry
said. "Gonna snow."

   
The sky was taut and shiny,
like a well-beaten drum.

   
"Snow is for the Christmas
cards." Bethan said. "You won't find a country person who likes
it."

   
"This is a wonderful place."
Berry said, putting an arm around her.

   
Like Y Groes, Monnington was a
dead end. Like the immediate environs of Y Groes, the surrounding land was soft
and peaceful. But although the church was in a secret
place, approachable only by foot along a shaded green lane, the landscape
around was opened out, mostly flat, the hills serene in the distance.

   
They found one small, unmarked
stone close to the entrance of the church. There was nobody around to ask if this
was the supposed grave of Owain Glyndwr.

   
"This is totally
England." Berry said. "You know, this is more like the real old
England than any place I ever went to. No cars, no ice-cream stalls, no parking
lots, no information bureaux."

   
"I wish I could interpret
what we've learned." Bethan said, pulling away and going back to the stone
which might or might not be Glyndwr's.

   
"Did I gather by your reaction
that the families of these four patriotic Welsh guys still live in Y
Groes?"

   
"I can't be sure. Yes,
there's a Dewi Vaughan. F—O—N, he spells it, the Welsh way—how they spell it
now, rather than then, I should imagine. And yes, he's a carpenter. Like
his father before him. Davies—Dafis. Several of those. Thomas Rhys, well—"

   
"Very weird," Berry
said. "Judge Rhys feels he has to return to preserve the family tradition.
He leaves his house to his granddaughter, his chosen heiress. She changes her
name to Rhys. Her husband, who is irrelevant to all this—"
   
His voice dropped. "—dies."

   
"And she's possibly pregnant,
don't forget."
   
"So Giles has served his
purpose," Berry said. "Jesus, I hate the thought of all this. Sorry,
what'd you say then?"
   
"I said, if it is Giles's
baby"
   
"Hey, what—?"

   
"I don't
know
," Bethan said desperately.
Snatching up the hood of her raincoat so that he couldn't see her expression,
she moved quickly away through the graveyard, a ghostly white lady in the dusk.

Chapter LIX

He almost didn't wear a tie.

   
In fact, if the Plaid Cymru president
had not been lined up to speak he thought he would have had difficulty
persuading himself to go at all.

   
At seven o'clock he entered the
Memorial Hall through the back door and peeped into the main hall from behind
the stage, convinced he'd be looking at half-a-dozen people and about three
hundred empty chairs.

   
To his surprise, there must
have been over two hundred in the audience already.

   
A big turn-out for the
humiliated hard-man.

   
He was still feeling depressed
and cynical when he climbed on to the platform at the Memorial Hall and took his
seat next to the party president, who was going through a patch of
unprecedented popularity.

   
Celebrity night.

   
By the time they were ready to
begin, there must have been nearly five hundred crammed in. and a full complement
of Press. He got an encouraging smile from the plump lady from BBC Radio, who seemed
to fancy him. But all the rest, he was sure, had come to watch the official
public funeral of Guto Evans's election hopes.

   
Since the report in the
Western Mail
, he was convinced, people
had actually been avoiding him in the street, out of embarrassment.

   
Fuck 'cm, he thought. You've
got nothing left to lose, boy, so fuck 'em all.
   
And he did.

   
He came to his feet feeling
like one of those athletes on steroids. Full up with something anyway, and it
wasn't the drink, thanks to Dai Death.

   
Somebody asked him the old
question about where he stood on Welsh terrorism, petrol bombs and the burning down
of property to deter immigration. To his surprise, he
didn't give the careful, strategic answer he'd spent hours working out.
Instead, he lost his temper and heard himself saying how much the great Glyndwr
would have despised
the kind of pathetic little wankers who could only come out at night with
paraffin cans.

   
Politics, he roared, was a game
for adults, not spotty adolescents.

   
Aware that this must sound
pretty heavy coming from a man who looked like a sawn-off version of Conan the Barbarian,
he felt a surge of pure adrenalin, like red mercury
racing up a thermometer. Or one of those fairground things you slammed with a
mallet and, if you were strong enough, it rang the bell. For the first time
since the London banker had performed the knocking over of the chair right on
cue, Guto Evans, fuelled by rage and bitterness, was ringing bells.

   
For over forty-five minutes, he
fended off hostile questioners with the ease of a nightclub bouncer ejecting
tired drunks. He didn't care any more what he said to any of the bastards.

   
"Ladies and gentlemen,"
the Plaid president, looking shell-shocked, said when Guto finally sat down.
"I think you have seen tonight an example of precisely why we selected
Guto Evans to fight this by-election. And why Guto Evans, without any doubt, is
going to be the next MP for Glanmeurig!"

   
And up in Eglwys Fawr, Guto
thought cynically, as the audience responded with vigour, the Tories will be
saying exactly the same thing about Simon Gallier.

   
On his way out, men he didn't
know patted him on the shoulder, and three women kissed him.

   
Groupies, by God.

   
Unfortunately, not that young,
the three women—in fact, not much younger than his mam, really.

   
But, bloody hell,
this
one was . . .

   
She had definitely come to the
wrong place, dressed like that.

   
"Mr. Evans. I wonder if I
might have a word."
   
"The night is yet young,
darling." Guto said, his system still flooded with that desperate, high-octane,
who-gives-a- flying-fart-anyway adrenalin. "Have as many as you
like."

They spent the night in a glossy new hotel on the edge of Hereford.
Country inns were out as far as Bethan was concerned. No oak beams, no creaking
floorboards, no "character."

   
This room was done out in calm
and neutral pastel shades. And that included the telephone, the TV with video and
satellite receiver, the bedside lamps with dimmer
switches and all the envelopes and containers of stuff which nobody ever opened
but which showed the management really cared.

   
Towel-swathed, Bethan came out
of the shower into this hermetically-sealed haven, where Berry Morelli was
sprawled across the pastel bed, trying to screw up the colour-
coordination with his bright orange undershorts.

   
"Sooner or later," he
told the ceiling, "you're gonna have to tell me whatever it is you haven't
told me."

   
She didn't look at him, went
over to the dressing table and began to untangle her hair.

   
Facing his image in the mirror,
she said. "Did you read the same thing as me into those notes about the
church and the tomb?"

   
Goddamn red book again.

   
"Could be," he said.
"Sir Robert Meredydd. Died 1421. That would be within maybe a year or two
of Owain Glyndwr. You're saying this Meredydd actually is Glyndwr? That these
guys brought him back to Y Groes and secretly entombed him under a false
name?"

   
"Well, there we are.
Possible, isn't it? I have also thought of something else. Dewi Fon, the
carpenter. Davies, the coachman? Dilwyn Dafis runs the garage at Y Groes.
Repairs vehicles, does a bit of haulage. It's a very old business. I didn't
realise quite how old."