Candlenight

entire Sitka spruce, its roots ripped out of the shallow soil.

This never happened to the oak trees in the old woods.

The reason, Buddug would probably say, was not only that the soil was thick and deep and the area so sheltered. But that the oak woods were protected by the Gorsedd Ddu.

Most parents and infant-teachers, in fanciful mood, might tell children the woods were the home of, say, the Tylwyth Teg, the Welsh fairy folk. But that would not satisfy the streak of cruelty in Buddug. First she had refused to consider that the child, Huw Morus, might be ill, and then she had made wetting himself seem the safer option by invoking the insidiously horrifying image of the mythical assembly of black-robed bards who were said to convene to judge the traitors and the cowards.

Bethan decided there were certain aspects of the Welsh national heritage which she disliked intensely — and most of them were represented by Buddug, who would not be happy until children were sitting at their desks dressed stiffly in Welsh national costume, drawing pictures of corpse candles and sin-eaters consuming their lunches from the shrouded chests of dead people.

There was still a strong wind, but no trees had been blown down on the lower slopes of the Nearly Mountains, and Bethan arrived in Y Groes well before seven to find the last few lights glimmering in the collages, the village enfolded in the dark hills like antique jewellery In velvet, under a delicate oyster sky.

But the wind was high, the sky unbalanced, a sense of something wild beyond the horizon.

Bethan parked in the entrance to the school lane and set off across the bridge. Below it the swollen Meurig frothed and spat. 'Big, tough river now, is it?' Bethan said. 'You never had much to say for yourself in the summer.'

She walked past the Tafarn and up the lane towards the church and then between the two sycamores to the judge's house.

The iron gate was open, but nobody was in sight. The wind perhaps? Bethan closed the gate behind her, walked up the path, knocked on the door.

She would tell Claire everything, including the probable reasons for the attack on Giles. Everything except the involvement of Guto who must, for the sake of his image, remain an anonymous hero.

Claire could pack a change of clothes and Bethan would take them — and Claire, if she wanted — to the hospital. There should be plenty time to get back to school before the first children arrived

The door opened.

'Oh Claire, I tried to ring you—' Bethan said, then stopped and drew back.

It was Buddug.

Chapter XXXV

Buddug did not seem surprised to see her. But then Buddug never seemed surprised.

She wore a high-necked, starched white blouse and — Bethan would swear — a smudge of make-up. As if she had arrived for an Occasion. She filled the doorway. Bethan could not see if Claire was in the room behind her.

'Where is Claire?' she said flatly.

Buddug stared impassively at her.

'Where is Claire?'

'Not here,' Buddug said calmly.

'Out? So early?'

She'd been out last night too. The answering machine.

'And what are you doing here?' Bethan demanded. Her mind could not grasp this situation. Buddug in Claire's house. At little after seven in the morning. And formally attired. Looking quite grotesque — there was no other word for it.

'Are you alone here?'

Buddug did not reply. There was a silence in the room behind her but it was the kind of silence which implied presence, as if a still company was sitting there. Bethan found herself thinking of the drawing in Sali Dafis's exercise book, dark brown stick-people around a coffin on a table.

'Are you not going to answer me?' Her voice shook. 'Where is Claire?'

Buddug did not move. The thought came to Bethan that this woman was big enough and strong enough to kill her, as simply as she killed chickens and turkeys, huge hands around her throat. A swift, dismissive jerk of the wrists.

'Look, I want to know. Where is Claire? What have you done with her?'

Buddug came alive then, bulging out of the doorway, the veins in her face suddenly lighting up like an electric circuit.

'What is it to you?' she shrieked. 'Who said you could come here? Get out! Get back to your school, you stupid, meddling little bitch!'

Bethan went pale. 'How d—!'

The front door leapt on its hinges, as if hit by a gale, and Bethan lurched back, clutching at the air, as the door crashed into its frame and shuddered there.

A sudden stiff breeze disturbed the giant sycamores and prodded her down the lane. There was a ball of cold in the pit of her stomach as she walked back towards the river.

What she felt for Buddug had gone beyond hatred to the place where nightmares are born.

'You are early, Bethan.'

He was sitting on a wooden bench under the Tafarn sign, which was beginning to swing now in the gathering wind.

'You are also early, Aled.' Bethan said, groping for composure. 'For a landlord.'

'Could not sleep, girl. The wind rising.'

'The wind's nothing here, compared with Pontmeurig. Well, last night…'

'Ah, well, see, so little of the wind we get here that the merest flurry we notice. I do, anyway. Because the river is so close, see. The river goes mad.'

Aled's hair was as white and stiff as the icy snow on the tops of the Nearly Mountains. Bethan had always found him a droll and placid man, easy to talk to, in Welsh or English.

She wondered if she could trust him.

'Do you…?' She hesitated.

He looked quizzically at her.

'Do you find things are changing, Aled?'

'Changing?'

'Here. In the village.'

Aled looked away from Bethan, over the oak woods and back again. 'Things changing? In Y Groes?' He smiled.

'Perhaps it's me. Perhaps I should not have come back.'

'Why do you say that?'

'I don't know. Too many memories, perhaps.' Although, of course, that was not it really.

'He was a nice boy, your man. A terrible shame, it was, that he… well.'

Bethan asked him, 'What do you think of Giles Freeman?'

'Nice fellow.' Aled said. 'Well meaning, you know.'

'He was—' No, she could not tell him what had happened. Not even that Giles had fallen in the car park. Not until she'd told Claire.

'I think, Bethan,' Aled said. 'I think you have a decision to make.'

'What kind of decision?'

'Well, as you said… about your future. Whether you stay here, perhaps move into one of the cottages.'

'There are no cottages for sale.'

'No, but… well, Tegwyn Jones's old place. It might be available. If you—'