Candlenight

The Thorpe funeral had been conducted by a retired Fleet Street chaplain, the Reverend Peters who'd known Winstone from way back. In the bar afterwards Berry had bought the old guy a drink, and it had emerged he was Welsh, from the industrial south east of the country. This had been a surprise because the Reverend Peters had seemed seriously English to Berry, hearty and genial and built like Santa Claus with a matching white heard. He'd laughed when Berry had told him of Winstone's gloomy warnings. His part of Wales, he'd said, had the warmest, friendliest folk you could wish to meet.

Up the short street Berry could see just two shops. Three women stood chatting outside one, shopping baskets on their arms. One woman had a cloud of fluffy white hair and wore a white summer dress with big red spots. Berry just knew they were speaking in Welsh. Something about the way they used their hands.

'Hey Giles—' He'd been trying to work out what it was made Y Groes different from anywhere else, even allowing for the absence of tacky modem storefronts among the old buildings.

He realised. 'Giles, we're the only car here!'

'That's right. What do the villagers need cars for? Going to drive fifty yards to pick up the groceries?'

'What I'm saying is. village this attractive — how come there're no tourists, 'cept us?'

'Well, it's not on a tourist route.' said Giles. 'Lots of attractive villages don't get hordes of visitors simply for that reason. I mean, we're in the middle of some pretty rough countryside, the sort that tourists just want to get through quick to get to somewhere else. I suppose they get a few walking enthusiasts and people of that sort, but obviously not enough to be worth catering for — as you can see, no souvenir shops, no cafes, no snack bars. Don't even think the pub does overnight accommodation.'

'Shame.'

'Not for me,' said Giles. 'I hate bloody tourists. Pull in here. We'll walk the rest of the way.'

A track led between two outsize sycamore trees. It was blocked after about twenty yards by a rusted metal farm gate.

'OK to park here?'

'Private road.' said Giles. 'Our private road. Or it will be.'

They got out and stood looking down on the village in the vivid light of early evening. To the left of them stood the church tower, like a monolith. The church was built on a big hump, around which cottages fitted — or grew, as Berry liked to fantasise — in a semi-circle. The church tower had a short pyramid for a spire with timbers around the belfry. It seemed very old, older than the village. Older than the goddamn sky. Berry thought, for some reason.

'This is not typical, in Wales, right? Like, big churches, stained glass and all?'

'Chapels.' Giles said. 'That's what you have mainly in Wales. Ugly Victorian chapels, presided over by hellfire preachers rather than Anglican vicars. Non-conformism — Baptist and Methodists. Puritanism. Fundamentalism — all that just stormed through Wales around the turn of the century. Trampling on history. And it didn't go away. Bit like your Bible Belt. I suppose.'

'How come this place escaped?'

'I don't know.' Giles said. 'But I'm bloody glad it did. There's supposed to have been a Victorian chapel here, but it's obviously gone. One of those little mysteries. Y Groes is full of them.'

A palpable silence lay over the scene, like a spell. No dogs barked, no radios played. It was calm and mature and the air was scented. The sycamores framed the view as if they'd been arranged by some eighteenth-century landscape painter.

'Nice.' said Berry. 'Hey. pal. I apologise. OK? You were right.'

'Yes,' said Giles.

'This is some place.'

'Isn't it.'

They stood in silence for almost two whole minutes. Birds sang. Butterflies danced up and down invisible staircases of warm air.

'You really gonna commute?' he asked. 'Can you do that?'

'The way I see it,' said Giles. 'I'm working this four-day week, OK? So, let's say I'm working Monday to Thursday. I get up really early and drive down Monday morning. On Thursday night I drive back. That means I only have to spend three nights in London.'

'Lot of travelling, ole buddy.'

'I don't care. I just want to spend as much time in this bloody glorious place as I can wangle.'

'Sounds good to me.' said Berry, wondering if it really did.

He thought, could I go for this, all this rural idyll stuff, four nights out of the rat race? Well, maybe. Maybe, with the right lady. Maybe for a few months. Maybe in the summer.

You put the arm on young Giles. Persuade him to sell the bloody place, soon as he can…

But what would Winstone Thorpe have said if he'd seen this place?

'Tell you what,' Giles was saying. 'Why don't you come down for a weekend, or even a holiday, when we're settled in? Bring whoever it is you're with these days.'

'Miranda,' said Berry doubtfully.

'Oh yes, the one who—'

'Thinks I look like Al Pacino. When he was younger, of course.'

Giles, face bright with pride, opened the iron gate and carefully closed it when Berry was through. Then he led the way along a track no more than eight feet wide, lined with hawthorn and holly.

They came at last to the house. And that was where, for Berry Morelli, the idyll died.

Chapter XV

The dead, lower branches of the close-packed conifers, pale brown by day, were whitened by the headlights — the only kind of direct light they'd ever known. Berry thought. He was aware of just how narrow a channel the road made between the bristly ranks. Like driving down the middle of a toothbrush. He wondered what it would be like in the frozen days of January.

Berry shivered.

'You thought of that?' he asked, needing to talk.

'Thought of what?' said Giles.

'How it'd be in winter. Like when you have to get up at 6:30 on some freezing dark morning and drive to London on icebound roads and wonder how you're ever gonna make it back if there's snow. You ever think about that?'

'Nothing's without its problems,' Giles said. 'If you start to dwell on things like that, you never try anything new.'

The forestry was thinning out now. Berry braked as a rabbit scooted across the road. How about that, something alive in this place. He shivered again. Pull yourself together, asshole.

It wasn't so dark yet, not when you got through the forestry. When they cleared the next ridge they'd get the benefit of the light coming off the sea. A sign said Pontmeurig 5, Aberystwyth 16. One-horse resort or not, he'd be glad to see Aberystwyth again. Least it had a few bars and a pier with coloured lights and gaming machines. Familiar. tacky things.

'Berry?' Giles said.

'Uh huh?' He turned briefly to look at Giles, saw only a hunched-up shape in a space too small for it and the glow at the end of a cigarette.

Giles said, 'Are you trying to put me off?'

'Put you off?'

They came into the valley of the disused lead mine, stony towers black against the western sky. It looked powerfully stark, quite impressive now it was too dark to see all the drab detail. Wales's answer to Monument Valley.