The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still (8 page)

It was raining on the Prom but not heavily – a drizzle. Dark rags of cloud scudded across the blue sky and turned the world to silver and anthracite. The pale blue wooden benches misted over; the charcoal grit that passed for sand on the beach darkened; there were no bathers to disturb, just dog-walkers who didn’t care, and a few students defiantly sitting on the pebbles, dressed in that strange amalgam of charity shop and high street, a sort of Dickensian-New Aquarian oddness. It probably wasn’t a good idea to see the mayor, but that was often the trouble with being a private eye: most of the good ideas were simultaneously bad ones.

I cut through the public shelter to South Road. The town hall was up ahead on the left; the mayor held an afternoon surgery every Wednesday. I entered a small anteroom and approached a counter. I gave my name and told the clerk I wished to speak to the mayor about the arrest of Iestyn Probert in 1965. Then I took a seat. There was one other person waiting. He was staring at me with a venomous intensity. It was Meici Jones.

‘I thought it was you,’ he said.

Meici was a spinning-wheel salesman I had encountered on a previous case. He was one of life’s mistfits who had lived with his mum till the age of thirty-five and still wore short trousers on her orders. As a consequence of that case – indirectly, although I was sure he didn’t see it that way – his mum had been sent to jail for murder. At the time of the trial I had wondered how he would cope on his own, and the image that presented itself to me in the mayor’s anteroom suggested not all that well. He was wearing long trousers now, but they were ragged and crumpled. His white shirt was grey and blotched, though he had managed to wear a tie. His hair was badly in need of a cut.

‘Hi Meici.’

‘I saw you come in. I was here first.’

‘How have you been keeping?’

‘To tell you the truth, Lou, things have been pretty difficult. I’m on my own, did you know that?’

‘Yes, I . . . assumed . . . at the trial I –’

‘I wash my own clothes and stuff now, and I get my own food. Mum used to be quite hard sometimes, but . . . it’s funny . . . now she’s not there . . . no one’s there . . .’ He didn’t finish the sentence, but shook his head disconsolately. People like Meici have something painful about them. An earnest, bovine simplicity, a gaucheness and the air of a soul not at home in the world and easily wounded. These traits constitute the cheese in the jaws of a psychological mousetrap that snaps shut the moment you begin to feel sympathy.

‘That’s tough,’ I said. ‘Living alone isn’t easy if you aren’t used to it.’

‘She got fifteen years, did you know that? She doesn’t find it easy either, Lou.’

I prickled with shame.

‘I died, did you hear about it?’

I turned to give him a puzzled look.

‘When they sentenced her, I was in court. I collapsed and my heart stopped beating. They put me in an ambulance. I had one of those near-death experiences, have you heard about them?’

‘No, Meici.’

‘I was in a tunnel of light, Lou, climbing towards a really bright light, like the sun. I could hear singing up ahead and then there was a gate and an angel with a clipboard. He said, “Meici Jones, you’re not due today.” I looked over his shoulder and I saw Esau – you remember me telling you about my little brother Esau who died when I was five?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘He was sitting in an orchard and he waved. I was going to say something but the angel said, “You have to go back, your task is not completed.” Then I felt a sucking force behind me, dragging me back. It got stronger and stronger, and I felt myself being pulled back and back, down the tunnel, and the light dimmed. I opened my eyes and found myself in the ambulance staring up at the medic. He was playing cards on my chest. He looked quite shocked and said, “Oh, sorry mate.” ’ Meici turned to me and gave me an intense gaze. ‘He made me promise not to tell anyone he had been playing cards on me. What do you think of that?’

‘That’s a pretty amazing story, Meici.’

‘My task isn’t finished, Lou. I’ve always sort of known I was put on this earth for a reason. That’s partly why I am here today. I’m applying for the human cannonball, I hear there’s a vacancy.’ He opened his fist and revealed a crumpled newspaper advert, roughly torn out. ‘It’s for the election, Ercwleff is looking for . . . for . . .’

I peered at the advertisement. ‘A surrogate?’

‘Yes. I could do that.’

‘What happened to the other guy?’

‘He hit a wall.’

‘Doesn’t that put you off?’

‘I’m ready for it. Marathon runners get the same problem, don’t they? Something to do with carbohydrates. You have to eat spaghetti. I love spaghetti hoops.’

Soon after that he was called in and I didn’t see him again that afternoon. There must have been another way out. I was next in the mayor’s private office. He had a client’s chair, like mine only grander and made from mahogany treble clefs. It was the sort of client’s chair Queen Anne used to favour before she got out of the gumshoe business. The desk was also mahogany with a glass top on which were arranged a telephone blotter and a pen holder, both even cornier than the chairs. I sat down and smiled.

The mayor removed a cigar from a box on the desk, took pains not to offer me one and spent a long time retrieving a device from the inside breast pocket of his jacket. With this he sliced off the end of the cigar. Then he belaboured the ritual of lighting it and taking the first draw, still affecting not to notice me. I made a few half-hearted snoring noises. Finally, once his cigar was satisfactorily alight, he positioned it in his cocked index finger, across the top of his other four knuckles, and aimed it at me.

‘Where have I seen you before?’ he asked.

‘Damned if I know.’

‘I’m usually pretty good with faces.’

‘You mean rearranging them.’

‘Wisecracker, eh?’

‘It was a clue to my profession. I thought it might help you place me.’

He nodded slowly. ‘In my experience, only two professions are distinguished by a predisposition for the wisecrack. Cops and peepers. You’re not a cop.’

‘This is where you do the phoney act of dawning realisation. But you can spare me that one; not even the mayor of Aberystwyth is so busy he can’t remember the face of a man whose desk he chopped up two days ago.’

‘I must admit I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.’

‘I’ve come about the human-cannonball job.’

‘You’re too tall. You would stick out too far from the end of the barrel.’

‘Why do you need a surrogate anyway? I thought the candidates were supposed to do it themselves.’

‘Delegation. The ability to find the right man for the right job. It’s an essential requirement in a mayor. You are not the right man, I’m afraid. We’re looking for someone with a better knowledge of semiotics. That’s the study of signs and meaning.’

‘I know what it is.’

‘There are a lot of danger signals involved in a job like that, red flags. You strike me as someone who ignores red flags.’

‘You shouldn’t rush to judgement; I got map-reading and signals intelligence badges in the Cub Scouts.’

‘The last thing I want to do is prejudge you unfairly. How would it be if I gave you a little aptitude test?’

‘Fire away.’

He observed me through narrowed eyes and stroked his chin. ‘Well, using all your skills and wide knowledge of semiotics, which we have both agreed is the study of signs and meaning, tell me how you would read the following situation. A man walks into your office and chops your desk up with an axe.’

I scratched my head. ‘That’s a tough one.’

‘Any red flags there you can see?’

‘This is pretty advanced semiotics.’

He put the cigar down on a vulgar onyx ashtray. Then took out a semi-automatic pistol, pointed it at the ceiling and made a clicking sound in the back of his throat. ‘Walther PPK, my favourite, the one favoured by James Bond –’

‘There are not many mayors who can say that.’

‘Adolf Hitler shot himself in the bunker with one, too. What do you think the PPK stands for?’

I shrugged.

‘
Polizeipistole Kriminalmodell
or
Polizeipistole Kurz?
’

‘You got me there.’

He looked unhappy. He put the gun down on the desk and swivelled it round to point at me. ‘Why have you come to see me?’

‘It’s about your soothsayer. I need to know how good he is. You told me that I would soon be poking my nose into your affairs and for that reason you were taking the precaution of chopping up my desk in advance. Then shortly after you left, a man entered my office with a case that may or may not constitute poking my nose into your affairs, but I need to know.’

‘Who was this man?’

‘I’m afraid that information is protected by client privilege.’

‘It was that fool Raspiwtin.’

‘I can’t confirm or deny.’

‘You don’t need to. My soothsayer gives very detailed prophecies.’

‘Maybe you should let me have his card. I like to have my fortune told.’

‘I don’t think you would like what’s in store for you.’

‘I need to know if I had a client who wanted me to ask questions about say, for the sake of argument, a man called Iestyn Probert, would that be OK?’

He narrowed his eyes slightly and you could see he was debating whether the forced politeness was worth the effort any longer. The debate went on for a long while. Eventually he said, ‘Mr Knight, I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely frank with you. I don’t have a soothsayer. When I referred to my soothsayer I was being . . . I was just . . .’

‘Cracking wise?’

‘Call it a figure of speech. You see, Raspiwtin is a man with whom I have had some dealings in the past. Word reached me that he was in town and that he had been asking for your office. How do I know this? Because I am the mayor and I get to hear about things. I am well informed: I know where he stays and what pyjamas he wears. I know what brand of toothpaste he uses and what he has on his breakfast toast. I know because I know. Unfortunately Mr Raspiwtin is unwell in the head, and in that head there is an obsession with matters from the past that I wish to remain private. But there is no soothsayer, just a prediction that your fate will mirror that of your desk if you decide to oblige Mr Raspiwtin.’

He glanced for effect at his watch. ‘Goodbye, Mr Knight. Your time, I’m afraid, is up, both here in this office and in the wider context of life in Aberystwyth. I gave you fair warning; let’s hope I haven’t wasted my time. The mayor of Aberystwyth is not a guy who likes to have his time wasted; he’s not the sort of guy who likes to give duplicate warnings, it’s wasteful.’ He reached forward and pressed a buzzer that indicated the interview was over.

It was just after midnight, maybe 1.00 or 2.00 in the morning. I lay asleep in my caravan in Ynyslas. The far-off susurration of the waves was barely audible, but the wind coming in off the sea cuffed the caravan like the hand of a giant schoolteacher and made the metal fabric sing. There is something deeply comforting about that sensation, of feeling protected and cocooned in warmth and yet aware, too, of the proximity of the ocean. Ynyslas is 6 miles north of Aberystwyth and lies hidden from the world in a corner of sand adjacent to the estuary. During the day in summer nothing moves here except tide and cloud and, occasionally, across the estuary on the distant hill, two carriages of a toy train going north.

There was a noise. Close. I opened my eyes, knowing without knowing how that there were people inside. The deepest, darkest fear of every householder in the night. The one that has never changed throughout time. The moment when you come face to face with your own mortality. Someone shone a flashlight into my face; someone put a gloved hand over my mouth; someone pressed the barrel of a gun into my eye. I was ordered to dress, and a hessian sack was placed over my head. I was pushed out into the cold night and into a car. We drove off. Fifteen minutes later the chimes of the station clock striking 2.00 told me we were passing through Aberystwyth.

When the hood was removed, I was sitting in a hard-backed chair facing four men across a desk in a dingy room. It felt like a basement but there were no clues for thinking this. Just the conviction that the business to be transacted was probably going to be hidden from the world. An Anglepoise lamp was trained on my face. After the darkness of the hood it was unbearable. I pushed the lamp down to cast its beam on the desk. One of the men was an officer in the military, wearing combat fatigues; he had silver hair, closely cropped, and his face was red. One was dressed in the neat, sober and expensive suit of a Whitehall mandarin in his sixties, with the pallor of a snail, the Man from the Ministry but not one you can find in the telephone directory. The third had cop written all over him: standard-issue crumpled suit, police hair grease, truncheon-battered ear – he was eating an ice cream. Next to him, doing his best to counterfeit a kindly face, was a military chaplain. The brass hat looked to the mandarin for a cue regarding the lamp. The mandarin nodded acceptance. His shirt was crisply ironed, the tie knot small and rammed home without compromise. He looked tired, his face lined and pallid with the air of one used to dispensing authority in rooms that seldom saw daylight. The cop simply stared at me with a look that might have been bored contempt or maybe amusement. The brass hat spoke first.