This is pathetic, Bethan thought.
'I know
Bethan stopped walking.
'Sometimes.' Sali said, walking on then turning round on the path, 'she asks me if I can see people in their heavenly bodies.'
Dear God.
'But I can't,' Sali said. 'Well, I don't think I can.
Lucky them, thought Bethan. They were following the path deep into the wood. It would soon be strewn with acorns. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and nature rambles and autumn leaves to press. Once, autumn had excited Bethan — the scent of burning leaves, logs gathered for the fire, newly made toast. Someone to eat it with. She thought, that's right, burst into tears in front of the child.
Instead she sat down on a big tree stump and pulled Sali towards her, gripping the girl's arms. 'Sali, look at me.'
Sali gazed into Bethan's face. Disturbingly, she was reminded of the way Buddug had looked at her that morning. Condescending.
'Sali, some… some people don't want to let the dead go. Do you remember last year… my husband died.'
The child stood stiffly between Bethan's hands. She did not seem interested.
'I was very sad.' Bethan said. 'I didn't want him to be dead. I used to think about him all the time. I still —'
'He was only English.' Sali said 'I — what did you say?'
Sali pulled quickly away and ran off.
'Sali! Come here!'
The child had vanished, as if the woods had absorbed her. Alone now in this sombre place Bethan thought, I've blown it. We're on different sides of some invisible barrier. She's gone to Buddug and Mrs. Bronwen Dafis.
'Sali, come back now, we have to go home.'
The child had disappeared.
'Sali, where are you?'
The wood was heavy with age and stillness. No birds fluttered in the undergrowth. Overhead the branches formed a great canopy of darkest green, no breath of Autumn yet among the foliage.
'Sali! This instant!'
Bethan had risen to her feet, feeling cold now in her white cotton dress. She stepped off the path and a bramble ensnared her shoe, pulling it off.
'Damn you. Sali—'
She tore her shoe away from the spiny tendril, scratching her hand, drawing blood. What was she bothering about? The kid probably knew every inch of these woods, and there were no marauding paedophiles in Y Groes.
'I'm going home now, Sali. If you want to stay here all night, that's up to you.'
What if she'd fallen somewhere? Pushing on through the bushes. Bethan suddenly became aware of the sound of rushing water
What if she'd fallen in the river?
'Sali! Shout if you can hear me!'
She saw where some of the undergrowth had recently been flattened, and she moved towards it. Overhead, the sky had darkened and mingled with the interwoven leaves. There was a harsh spattering of rain. She could hear it but couldn't feel it yet.
'Shout, Sali!'
She prised her way through the bushes towards the sound of water and felt her dress tear at the hem.
'Damn you. Sali, if you're—'
A blackberry had been squashed against her hip and she looked down and saw bubbles of juice like dark blood. Then she slipped and fell down the river bank, rolling over and over.
The crows had taken his eyes.
That was the first thing she saw.
She was winded by the fall and lay on her back, a few yards from the water. Pain rippled up her left leg: ankle twisted.
A muddy boot swung gently about a yard above her head. She must have caught it as she rolled past. The boot made a sort of click as it swung against the other boot.
Bethan retched.
'I said, didn't I. Miss Sion?'
Sali Dafis was standing at the edge of the river looking proudly up at where he hung, nylon climber's rope under his chin, knotted around the branch, his tongue out, black now.
Chapter XIII
Pontmeurig was eight miles from Y Groes, on the other side of the Nearly Mountains. A slow, messy drive, especially for a hearse.
It was an untidy town, mottled grey and brown, something that had rolled down from the hills in the Middle Ages and was still rolling, new housing estates and factories spilling over the old boundaries on either side of the river.
Still puzzled by the attitude of Aled Gruffydd, Dai Death drove the corpse into town past the cattle mart and the new car park and past what was left of the medieval castle, looming grey in the dusk. Sometime in the early fifteenth century the castle had been burned down by Owain Glyndwr, it was said, in retribution for something, and had never been rebuilt because nobody could remember why the hell they'd ever needed a castle in Pontmeurig anyway.
In a street squashed behind the ruins, almost opposite one of the town's three chapels, was an offensive new fast-food take-away. The Welsh Pizza House, owned, of course, by English people. Next to it was a small yard with a sign that said: V. W. Williams and Sons, Funeral Directors. Dai was parking the hearse under the sign when the police car drew up alongside and a constable wound down his window.
'You've done it again, Dai. He's not yours yet, he's ours.'
'Oh, bloody hell.' said Dai. 'I'm sorry, Paul. Automatic pilot I'm on today. You back into the entry and I'll turn around.'
'Daft bugger, Williams,' he told himself, switching his lights on, then putting the hearse into reverse. Understandable, though: it had been a year since the Dyfed-Powys police had last used him as a meat wagon.
He pulled out into the main street and drove past the police station to the cottage hospital at the bottom of the town. The forecourt wasn't very big and was packed with cars, because it was visiting time, so he had to park on the pavement outside. He got out, hoping the police would find him a space. He didn't like having a fibreglass shell seen in public; people would think he specialised in cheap coffins.
A thirtyish couple walked past in identical outsize lumberjack shirts and baggy corduroy trousers with turn- ups. The man had a baby strapped into a sort of sling around his chest. 'Pity, really.'' he was saying. 'Super view. I thought.' The voice carried across the quiet street.
'Look at that.' Guto Evans said, walking up behind them on his way to the Drovers. 'The Ethnic Look. Designer working clothes. And of course they have to pretend they can't afford a bloody pram. Evening, Dai.'
'What do they call those things?' Dai asked him.
'Something Red Indian.'
'Papoose.' said Guto in disgust. 'The day you show me a Welshman with a papoose around his neck is the day I emigrate to Patagonia' He peered into the back of the hearse. 'Who have you got in there?' His black beard
