He looked at the shards of Bakelite and nodded. I invited him in and pointed to the client’s chair, which was set opposite me at the distance of a desk. He took a seat. The desk had always presented a barrier that I appreciated between me and the clients and I felt naked in its absence. The movement of air, displaced as he sat down, wafted the faint, cloying scent of Parma Violets. He took a packet from his pocket and removed a sweet from the wrapper with the same intensity that some people show for the ritual of lighting up a cigarette.
‘You are Louie Knight, Aberystwyth’s only private detective,’ he said. He took it for granted that I was and continued. ‘My name is Iolo Raspiwtin. I was born in a croft in the district of Pontwerwyd, overlooking the Nant-y- Moch River, in 1931. Nant-y-Moch, as you know, means “river of the pig” in English.’
‘How can I help you?’
‘I bring you a case, not just any case, but a special case, probably the toughest case you have ever had; possibly the toughest case any private detective has ever had.’
‘I’m a tough guy.’
‘You’ll need to be.’
I let that one ride, leant back in my chair and crossed my legs.
‘In view of the difficulties involved, I mean to be generous. I will pay you ?200 now, and ?200 in the unlikely event that you complete the task.’
I smiled and offered him a glass of rum, which he accepted. I fetched two glasses from the drainer in the kitchenette and poured two measures. We raised our glasses in a silent toast.
‘I seek a man. One who I have reason to suspect is either in Aberystwyth now or will arrive very shortly. This man can help me with a project that has preoccupied me most of my life and which is not relevant to your inquiry.’
‘In my experience such things are almost always relevant to the inquiry.’
‘Not this time.’
‘Tell me what makes him difficult to find. I assume he is difficult to find?’
‘Absolutely. Why else would I pay you ?200? He is difficult to find because he is dead.’
‘Dead people are usually quite easy to find because they are kept in the ground.’
‘Conventionally, yes, the ground is the appointed storage for our mortal remains.’
‘Where did this man’s remains end up?’
‘On the bus to Aberaeron.’
I gripped my chin gently between thumb and forefinger, pretending to think deeply about the mystery. ‘Did he catch the bus himself?’
‘Yes.’
‘That would imply that he was alive.’
‘Precisely. His name was Iestyn Probert. He was hanged at Aberystwyth gaol in 1965 for his part in the raid on the Coliseum cinema. This raid is quite famous.’
‘I’ve heard of it.’
‘Indeed, who hasn’t?’
‘Do you have any grounds for believing the man who caught the bus was the same as the man who was hanged?’
‘The bus driver recognised him from the photos.’
I tried to stifle a mounting sense of irritation. Raspiwtin had a disconcerting way of not quite answering questions. ‘Let me put it a different way. How does a dead man perform the act of catching a bus?’
‘He was no longer dead. They resurrected him.’
‘Who?’
He paused and stared, his eyes boring into mine with an intensity in which hints of fanaticism glinted. I stared back. He walked to the window and closed the curtains before retaking his seat. Then he leaned forward slightly. ‘Have you heard of the Ystrad Meurig incident?’
‘There have been many incidents at Ystrad Meurig.’
‘This one featured a flying saucer. It crashed. They called it the Welsh Roswell.’
‘Why did you close the curtains?’
He ignored me. ‘I presume you have heard of the Roswell incident?’
‘In America?’
‘Yes, in New Mexico in 1947. They found saucer debris and exobiological remains that were secretly taken to Area 51.’
‘I heard it was just a crashed weather balloon.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you had seen the autopsy footage, as I have.’
‘How does this relate to the dead man?’
‘The raid on the Coliseum cinema took place the same week as the Ystrad Meurig incident. The getaway car drove right through the area cordoned off by the military. For some reason Iestyn Probert was evicted from the car and went on the run. A week or so later he was arrested again. You see?’
‘Not really. Don’t hanged men get put in a canvas winding sheet and dissolved in quicklime?’
‘Normally, yes, hanged men were buried in an unmarked plot inside the walls of Aberystwyth prison; but Iestyn Probert came from the Denunciationist community at Cwmnewidion Isaf, and arrangements were made to return his corpse to them for burial. While his corpse was still in the possession of the prison morgue a most remarkable event occurred. A strange woman turned up and bought the cadaver from the attendant. He described her as elfin with no thumbs and cat-like irises. She paid with a Cantref-y-Gwaelod doubloon. Cantref-y-Gwaelod is the lost Iron Age kingdom that sank beneath the waters of Cardigan Bay after the last ice age.’
‘I know. Strange as it may seem, I’ve had a number of clients with connections to Cantref-y-Gwaelod.’
He smiled, as if this fact lent credence to his tale.
I eyed him over the rim of the rum glass. ‘Perhaps you should tell me a bit more about yourself. Your name sounds familiar.’
‘You are no doubt thinking of my famous cousin Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, former Counsellor to Tsar Nicholas II and physic to his son, Alexei. It was my forebear’s proud boast that he was able to treat Alexei’s haemophilia by telegram. My branch of the family travelled to Wales via the Welsh settlement of Hughesovka in the Ukraine, shortly after the armistice of the Great War. We adopted the Welsh spelling of Raspiwtin to better assimilate.’
‘That was a smart move; the Welsh can be suspicious of foreigners.’
He looked pleased. ‘Indeed. At the age of six I was sent to live and study with the monks on Caldey Island. I applied myself to my studies with great diligence, and because of my quick wit and piety I was lucky enough to earn, at the age of ten, a scholarship to the Vatican laundry. There, for the next eight years, I passed my time listening, and learning, and attending with great solemnity the Hephaestian fires that burned night and day beneath the great steaming wash pots. I became an expert in the laundering of liturgical vestments: surplices, stoles, albs, chasubles, cinctures, tunicles, copes, maniples, humeral veils, birettas, palliums, fanons, faldas, pontifical gloves and, of course, pontifical underlinen. It was from the latter that I first descried the contradictions – the Janus-faced god-beast that is Man – that would underpin my later
I drummed my finger against the tumbler. ‘So you seek a man called Iestyn who took part in the famous raid on the Coliseum cinema. For that they hanged him. But you say he was seen alive after they hanged him.’
‘Yes.’
‘You know, a lot of people would say your story was a load of phooey.’
‘I did too. Until I made inquiries regarding this man many years ago and was assured by the authorities that no such person existed.’
‘Because he was dead.’
