‘I say that to all the customers.’
‘I know.’
‘I have to say it.’
‘That’s all right, the one thing all men in places like this have in common is they think they are different.’
‘In one respect you are like all the rest.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Sweet-talking me, saying you’d take me to the land where the bong trees grow.’
‘I meant it.’
‘Really?’
‘When’s your day off?’
‘The day after tomorrow.’
‘I’ll pick you up at 9.00.’
She narrowed her eyes slightly and tilted her head. ‘You serious?’
‘Of course. If you want.’
She didn’t speak immediately, but watched me closely for signs that I might be joking. ‘Do you know what I really want? You’ll laugh at me if I tell you but I don’t care, I’m going to tell you anyway. Even though I know you’ll laugh. Will you laugh?’
‘How can I tell? It sounds like I might.’
‘If I tell you, it will confirm all your prejudices about girls from Cwmnewidion Isaf.’
‘If you are going to tell me you want to go on the Devil’s Bridge train it won’t shock me.’
‘Worse than that. Promise you won’t laugh.’
‘I promise.’
‘I want to go on an escalator.’
Chapter 6
The next morning was damp and grey – chilly. On such days, the Prom never looked more forlorn. The only hint of colour was the glossy scarlet tube of the human cannonball they were erecting, pointing like a finger at God. This was how we chose our mayors: on the premise that public men may lie, but you can’t fake flying through the air.
Calamity was sitting on the floor of the office, amid photocopies of newspaper cuttings, and an OS map of the area spread on her knees like a blanket. She looked up and smiled. I went into the kitchenette, put the kettle on and returned to sink down to the floor opposite her. I did so without the easy grace that Calamity displayed.
‘We must get a table,’ she said.
‘Yes, the room looks bare without it.’
‘I’ve been checking out the
‘Found anything interesting?’
‘Loads. There were three perps: two brothers called Richards from Llanfarian, and Iestyn. There was a lot of bad feeling about the case; a cop got run over in the chase. They pinned that on Iestyn. The Richards brothers each got twenty-five. I’m still trying to find out what became of them.’
‘What about the hangman? If we are investigating the claim that a hanged man might still be alive, he would be a good place to start.’
‘Died ten years ago, but I’ve found the doctor who presided at executions; he lives at the top of town in Laura Place.’
‘We’ll have to pay him a visit. Ask him if he might have made a mistake about the hanged man being dead.’
‘Stop making fun!’ said Calamity. ‘Here’s something else. The cop who arrested them turns out to be our old friend Preseli Watkins, the mayor.’ She let her gaze linger on me for a second. She knew this was significant.
‘So the mayor claims to have a premonition that I will be poking my nose into his business and chops up my desk to teach me a lesson. The very same day a man walks in with a case involving Iestyn and two crooks who robbed a cinema twenty-five years ago. The cop who arrested them just happens to be the mayor. Sounds like he has a good soothsayer. Or he knew Raspiwtin was coming to see us.’
‘Isn’t that the same thing?’
I formed my hand into a mock pistol and shot her. She grinned, then smiled shyly and said in a small voice, ‘There’s something else. Something you . . . you won’t like.’ She placed the palm of her hand down on a cutting and twisted it round. The headline read, ‘MORE STRANGE LIGHTS IN CARDIGANSHIRE SKIES’.
‘Don’t get angry.’
‘I won’t get angry.’
‘It’s the Ystrad Meurig incident – the Welsh Roswell. Just like Raspiwtin said.’
‘I told him Roswell was just a crashed weather balloon.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘It’s what the US Air Force said.’
Calamity rolled her eyes. ‘What do you expect them to say?’ Her tone suggested that she expected better of me than to fall for the official narrative. ‘They performed autopsies on three aliens; that was
‘We don’t know that.’
‘We do! I’ve seen the footage.’
‘So have I – on a documentary once. But I don’t understand – how come the footage is so shaky and grainy?’
‘Because they . . . they’re shooting covertly.’
‘But the cameraman must have been in the same room as the medics. You can’t hide in an autopsy room, so why not just use a proper camera and a tripod and shoot a proper film?’
‘I don’t know . . . loads of reasons.’
Calamity’s spirits began to sink under the weight of my obtuse refusal to see the dark truths of this world. I backed off.
‘Tell me about the Welsh Roswell.’
‘It took place the same week as the raid on the Coliseum cinema; it happened in a wood outside Ystrad Meurig. There had been a number of flying-saucer sightings in the days leading up to it, and then, so the story goes, a saucer crashed and the military sealed off the area. They found wreckage and dead aliens in silver suits. Some say there were three, others five. Some say they were still alive.’ She looked at me, not crestfallen but fully expecting the eventuality. ‘I know you don’t believe this stuff.’
‘I don’t want to be a killjoy, but aliens in silver suits? Looking humanoid? Why would they look like us if they were from a different star system?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe they just disguise themselves to look like us so as not to frighten us, the same way people who shoot ducks have whistles that sound like duck calls.’
‘Don’t you think it’s odd, though, that these super-advanced beings from another star system keep crashing their saucers?’
She began to lose patience with me. ‘They don’t
‘Yes, they do! It seems to happen a lot. How can they master the intricacies of inter-stellar flight and then hit a tree?’
‘You’re making assumptions.’
‘Yes, I’m assuming there is probably a simpler explanation located in the realm of human psychology. People have been seeing strange visions throughout history; once upon a time they attributed it to the Devil or his works; now we live in a more rational scientific age and people are embarrassed to profess belief in the Devil –’
‘Not in Ystrad Meurig, they aren’t.’
‘Most people are, so they find a more scientific explanation. I’m not saying they are lying; I’m sure they genuinely experience the hallucination and their mind provides an interpretation with which they can feel comfortable.’
