Candlenight

Claire did come out then. She was with the minister. They shook hands and then spoke briefly in Welsh. The minister went back into the crematorium. Claire approached her parents.

'I wondered if you would come,' she said.

The sky had darkened, with a warning of rain on the gathering wind.

'Hello, Claire.' said George. 'We had a dreadful journey and then the car broke down two miles from here and we had to be towed in. You look marvellous, doesn't she Elinor?'

George always came out with the wrong things, or the right things in the wrong order. But what were the right things, in this situation? How were you supposed to approach a daughter who had deliberately kept you in the dark about the sudden death of her husband?

And who was not the daughter you remembered.

'Yes, Elinor said. 'She looks… well.'

Claire kissed her father and looked calmly at her mother.

Elinor could stand it no longer. 'Oh, Claire. ' Face crumbling, though the muscles were fighting it. 'Why?'

She was furious with herself for this.

Claire stepped back. The wind caught her dark hair, which seemed three times as long and dense as Elinor remembered it.

'I wrote to you,' she said. The letter's probably waiting for you at home.'

'Why didn't you phone?' Elinor's eyes were glassy with frozen tears. 'I learned about it in the newspaper, for God's sake!'

Claire said. 'I'm sorry. I find this difficult to explain, but I could not invite you here. If you were going to come it had to be your decision.'

She's so remote from us, Elinor thought. Look at her, with her shaggy mane and her faraway eyes.

'How do you feel, darling?' George was saying. 'Are you all right?'

Claire smiled with dignity and composure. 'I am adjusting,' she said.

'We should offer our condolences to Claire, I guess.'

'I think you'll find.' Bethan said, 'that she doesn't need your condolences.' She turned her back on the chapel entrance. 'I have to go. I'm sorry.'

Berry watched her walk away down the gravel path. 'I think I need to talk to her.'

'I don't think so.' Guto said.

'She was the one found Giles, right?'

'Listen. Morelli, leave her alone, she's had problems.'

'Giles had problems.'

'I know, but she cannot help you. Her husband died, see, a few months ago, of leukemia. She has not come to terms with that. Her nerves are not good, they've taken her off work.'

Plaid's bearded hard-man seemed oddly ill-at-ease, Berry thought.

'I've known her a long time. Fond of her, see.'

Clearly, Berry thought.

Plaid's General Secretary appeared at Guto's elbow.

Away from the TV lights, he'd taken off his tinted glasses.

'You have twenty minutes to get some lunch, Guto, then we're off to Eglwys Fawr.'

'Eglwys Fawr?' Gusto was dismayed. 'That's practically North Wales. We really have to start by canvassing the barbarians?'

'Work North to South of the constituency, I thought. Then back again.'

'You are the boss.' Guto conceded. 'See you tonight, Morelli?'

'Sure, but I may have to barter over the bill. Or maybe tell the tabloid boys how much you're charging.'

'You wouldn't…'

'Try me.'

Guto scowled at him and followed the General Secretary down the crematorium drive. Claire Freeman and the older couple walked past Berry, none of the three even looked at him.

At the bottom of the drive Guto turned and called back. 'Remember what I said about Bethan, Morelli. I don't know what you want here, but she can't help you, OK?'

Berry was suddenly alone on the ludicrous green gravel in front of the modern disposal plant that ate Giles Freeman.

A line of Bob Dylan's went through his head, something about pitying the poor immigrant, who wishes he'd stayed at home.

He tried to analyse how he felt. Whether he was out of his mind or there was something happening here. He couldn't get a handle on any of it. All too… Words like amorphous, nebulous and numinous came into his head. Crazy stuff.

Rain began to tumble on him, and he ran down the drive and back into the town.

Chapter XLIII

This, Elinor thought, frozen into silence, could not be happening.

The ghastly little pointed spire loomed up in the centre of the windscreen and she almost screamed in revulsion.

'Rather pretty, really,' George said, and Elinor shrivelled him into the back seat with a blowlamp glare.

Claire drove the Land-Rover like a man, spinning the huge utility steering wheel, dark hair bouncing as she tossed the big vehicle through the gears. As though she were a farm girl who'd been driving Land-Rovers and tractors most of her life, Elinor thought in dismay.

It was, of course, all George's fault.

When the garage in Pontmeurig had said it would take a day, perhaps two, to get the parts, he ought to have told them to forget it and had the vehicle towed to the nearest Volvo dealer, no matter how far away that was.

But not George.

Not compliant, feeble George.

Elinor and Claire had been drinking dreadful instant coffee in some dismal teashop, saying stiff, formal things to each other when George had returned from the garage with the bad news.

'Problem is, there's nowhere to stay in this town,' he'd said. 'By-election, you see.'

And then, without even looking at Elinor, he'd turned automatically to his daughter and said…

Actually asked her, without even thinking…

'Don't suppose there's any chance of you putting us up for the night, is there, Claire?'

Elinor had wanted to pour her coffee over his head.

But she could not help noticing that, for the first time, Claire had appeared discomfited. 'I'm not sure that would be wise.'

Elinor was damn sure it wouldn't be wise, having long ago sworn never to set foot in that abominable house again.

'Well unless you can lend us a tent.' George said with a silly laugh, avoiding his wife's blazing gaze. 'I don't know quite what we're going to do. The garage chappie said Aberystwyth was about the nearest place we could hope to get in, and apparently several of the hotels there are closed for the winter. Bloody inconvenient.'

'It's absurd,' Elinor said.

And then Claire had said, 'Look, if it's only for one night, perhaps—'

'No!' She couldn't stop herself.

'I was thinking of the Tafarn' Claire said. 'The village inn.'

And now the Land Rover was rattling down from the hills, out of the forestry, Elinor next to Claire in the front, George in the back. Claire had told them she'd acquired the second-hand farm vehicle from someone called Dilwyn, in exchange for Giles's car. Which Elinor thought was a disgusting thing to do within a few days of his death, as well as a disturbing indication that Claire was now committed to living in a place where a Land-Rover was