Candlenight

were about to leave for a holiday and I didn't tell her. None of us went to his funeral. I didn't want her going, didn't want her anywhere near him again.'

'Oh,' said Bethan. 'Of course. You're the judge's daughter.

'He was a bastard. I think that's the first time I've ever used that word.'

'Why?' Berry asked gently. 'Why was he a bastard?'

'You don't want to know all that. No time, anyway. George'll be back soon. With the car.'

'You said you didn't want him near her again. I remember Giles telling me specifically that Claire never met her grandfather.'

'She didn't remember meeting him. We were once foolish enough to bring her here. As a small child. He…went off with her. I thought… that he wasn't going to bring her back.'

Bethan said, 'Went off?'

'I don't know where they went.'

'To the woods? To the church?''

'Does it matter? Please, all I want… Just ring me sometimes. Tell me how she is and if… You see, I think she might be expecting a baby. Perhaps that's why she's changed. I pray that's all it is.'

'Not the best time to have a kid,' Berry said. He felt very sorry for the woman. Obviously wasn't able to confide in her husband. Something not right when she had to pour it all out to strangers in a cafe.

Elinor Hardy straightened up, threw the crumpled napkin in the ashtray with two of George's cigarette butts. 'You must think me a very stupid, hysterical woman.'

'No,' Berry said. 'All the people you could've told this to, we're the ones least likely to think that.'

'I'll be better when I'm out of here. I know it's your country, but I don't like it here. Feel vulnerable.'

… not meant to be here, the English…

'Car goes wrong and you're suddenly stranded. Strange language, different attitudes. Birds pecking at your window in the night.'

Bethan's expression did not change at all, but Berry felt she was suddenly freezing up inside.

'Birds?' Casually. Hiding it.

'Pecking… tapping on the window. Kept waking me up in the night. Wasn't an owl. I saw it. Or I may have dreamt it. I don't know. I'm in a terrible state. I've got to get out of here, it's gloomy. I'll go and find George. Look, you will ring me, won't you?'

'I'll ring you before the weekend.' Bethan promised.

'Thank you. I don't even know your name.'

'Bethan. Bethan McQueen. Mrs. Hardy, you are leaving today, aren't you?'

'Oh, yes,' Elinor said. 'Count on it.'

When she'd gone. Bethan rose silently, paid the girl, collected her bag and her white raincoat from the table. She walked out of the cafe and along the street, Berry following. She didn't speak. They came to the bridge and Bethan crossed the road and walked back towards the town, on the castle side. The frost had melted now, but the sun had gone in.

When they reached the castle car park, Bethan said, 'Your car or mine?'

Berry unlocked the Sprite. They got in. Berry started the engine. Not easy. Blue smoke enclouded the Sprite, which now had a cough worse than George Hardy's. Berry backed it round, pointed it at the road.

'Where we going?'

'Turn left,' Bethan said. 'Across the bridge. Keep going. You'll see a sign pointing over the Nearly Mountains to Y Groes.'

'I know it.'

'Pass it,' Bethan said. 'Keep straight on.'

'But where are we going?'

'Christ knows,' Bethan said. 'Somewhere where nobody has ever thought they've seen the bird of death.'

Chapter L

Every second farm they passed seemed to have a political poster pasted to a gate or a placard sticking out of a leafless hedgerow. Berry counted seven for Gallier (Con), three for Evans (Plaid) and two each for Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

'Could be worse,' he observed. 'All over the world, farmers are notoriously conservative.'

She didn't reply. She was sitting as upright as was possible in a bucket seat full of holes and patches.

At least the Sprite was responding, losing its bronchitis now they were into open country. He'd been getting a touch paranoid about that, having told Addison Walls his car had broken down and therefore been half-expecting it to do just that.

Superstition. Everywhere, superstition.

Five miles now into the hills north-west of Pontmeurig, and disillusion was setting in. At first he'd been stimulated by all that 'your car or mine' stuff on the castle parking lot. Now the space between them was a good deal wider than the gap between the bucket seats, and he didn't know why.

She said suddenly, 'Death fascinates the Welsh.'

The first time she'd spoken since they passed the sign to Y Groes.

'Corpses and coffins and funerals.'

'Signs and portents,' Berry said.

'You see these farms. Each one an island. Farmers never visit their neighbours. But when one of them dies, people will come from miles around to his funeral. All the roads to the chapel lined with cars and Land-Rovers for half a mile in each direction. On the day of a big funeral, the traffic police send for reinforcements.'

'Bethan, what is the bird of death?'

She didn't reply.

'Where are we headed?'

'Keep driving,' she said.

After a few miles they came to a T-junction, Aberystwyth to the right, Machynlleth to the left.

'Make a right here?'

She pointed to the left. 'Quickest way out of the constituency.'

Sure enough, after a couple more miles there were no more political posters. The landscape became rougher and a lighter, more faded shade of green. Kind of like the Nearly Mountains, snow on the high ground giving the crags a 3-D outline.

Presently, they drove down into a pleasant town, with a wide main street and a Gothic clock tower.

'This is the town that ought to have been the capital of Wales.' she said. 'Perhaps the earliest centre of Welsh civilisation.'

We had the sociology, Berry thought, now we get the history lesson. What is this, a school outing?

'But that's not why we're here,' she said.

'So why are we here?'

'Because at the top of this street is the best restaurant in this part of Wales,' Bethan said. 'Vegetarian meals a specialty. Park anywhere along here.'

Berry grinned. A long, slow Italian grin.

'No. No! No! No!'

'I'm sorry. My wife is rather distraught.'

'Nooooooo!'

'We lost our son-in-law, you see.'

Elinor strode out then, straight through a patch of oil, ruining her sensible pigskin walking shoes.

'Is there no chance for later today?' George pleaded.

'What can I do.' the mechanic said, 'if they send me the wrong parts. Look, I will show you a copy of the order we dictated to them over the phone—'