Candlenight

with London and, through London, with the States had been neatly severed.

And there was Bethan.

Looking at it objectively, he had to face this — Bethan was part of the trap.

Maybe they were part of each other's traps.

Through the front window he could see Mrs. Evans inside, dusting plates — a job which, in this house, must be like painting the Brooklyn Bridge. And she saw him and put down her duster and rushed to the door.

'Oh. Mr. Morelli—' she wailed.

'Hey, listen. I'm real sorry about last night, only I got detained and—'

'You haven't seen Guto. have you?'

No he hadn't, thank God.

'Only he's gone off in a terrible mood again. Came home last night moaning about being betrayed and giving it all up, his — you know — the candidate's job. He doesn't mean it, mind, but he's terrible offended about somebody.'

A somebody with black hair and big gold earrings and eyelids you could die over.

'How, ah, how's his campaign going?'

'Oh dear, you haven't seen the paper?'

On the hallstand, among about a dozen plates, was a copy of that morning's Western Mail, folded around a story in which Conservative candidate Simon Gallier was suggesting that support for Plaid Cymru was rapidly falling away. He had based his conclusion on a Plaid public meeting in the totally Welsh-speaking community of Y Groes which, he claimed, had been attended by fewer than a dozen people.

' — And when he saw that, on top of everything, well—'

'I can imagine.'

He could also imagine how Bethan was going to feel about this. What a fucking mess.

'Can I pay you, Mrs. Evans?'

'You aren't leaving, are you?' She looked disconsolate.

'I, ah, think it's for the best. That's three nights, yeah? One hundred and—'

'You only stayed two nights!'

'I shoulda been here last night too.'

'Go away with you, boy. Two nights, that's eighteen pounds exactly.'

He didn't want to screw things up further for Guto by telling Mrs. Evans that even two nights, at the rates quoted by her son. would come out at seventy pounds. He made her take fifty, assuring her that all Americans had big expense accounts. Then he went to his room, shaved, changed out of the American Werewolf sweatshirt and into a thick fisherman's sweater because it wasn't getting any warmer out there.

Then he carried his bag downstairs, thanked Mrs. Evans again, assuring her (oh, boy…) that things would surely work out for Guto, and took his stuff to the Sprite on the castle parking lot.

Loaded the bag into the boot, keeping an eye open for the Hard Man of the Nationalists. Guto was a guy with a lot to take out on somebody, and he sure as hell wasn't going to hit Simon Gallier if Berry Morelli was available.

He got into the car and sat there watching the alley next to Hampton's Bookshop over the road, waiting for Bethan to emerge.

They'd parted outside the funeral parlour, he to pay Mrs. Evans, she to go home and change. They had said not one word to each other about Elinor and George Hardy.

After half an hour it was very cold in the car and he started the engine and the heater. She knew where he was. She'd come.

What if she didn't?

He looked across at the flat above the bookshop but could detect no movement. And yet she couldn't have gone anywhere because her Peugeot was right there, not fifteen yards away.

But what if she had gone away? What would he do if he never saw her again? If that part of the trap were suddenly to spring open?

He couldn't face it. He needed to be here now not for Winstone or Giles, who were beyond any help, but for Bethan. Accepting now that this was why he'd let his job slide away. This was how his life had condensed — around her. There was no way he could leave here without her. But there was no way she was going to leave until—

A blink of white in the alleyway, and she came out and walked quickly across the street to the car.

Berry closed his eyes and breathed out hard.

Bethan got into the car and slammed the door and they looked at each other.

And he said. 'I know. Drive, Morelli.'

The village had been called Y Groesfan, and this had interested Dr. Thomas Ingley.

Y Groesfan meant 'the crossing place,' suggesting a crossroads. And yet no roads crossed in the village; it was a dead end.

What other kind of crossing could there be?

The origins of the village were unknown, but the church was the oldest in this part of Wales, and its site, the mound on which it was built, was prehistoric.

Most of the graves in the churchyard dated back no further than the 1700s, but the tomb of Sir Robert Meredydd in a small chapel to the left of the altar was late medieval.

Around the time of Owain Glyndwr. It was recorded that Glyndwr, as a young man, had been to Y Groesfan in the late summer of 1400 to 'pay homage.' This was only weeks before he was declared Prince of Wales following a meeting of his family and close friends at his house Glyndyfrdwy in northeast Wales.

All this Bethan had learned from the red notebook found under a floorboard by the late George Hardy.

'But why does it have to be relevant'.'' Berry asked.

They were heading cast from the town now, towards Rhayader, close to the very centre of Wales, where the executive council of Plaid Cymru had met to decide on a candidate for the Glanmeurig by-election.

'The last two people to hold this notebook are dead,' Bethan said, the red book on her lap.

'That scare you?'

'Left here,' Bethan said. She pointed out of her window.

'That church is Ysbyty Cynfyn. See the big stones in the wall? They are prehistoric. The church is built inside a Neolithic stone circle. It used to be a pagan place of worship; now it's Christian.'

'Like Y Groes?'

Probably.'

'You want to stop?'

'No. Can we go to England, Berry?'

'We sure can,' he said, surprised. 'Any particular part? Hull? Truro?'

'Not far over the border. Herefordshire.'

'Any special reason for this?'

Bethan opened the red book. 'There's an address here.

Near Monnington-on-Wye. Do you know the significance of Monnington? Did you get that far in Guto's book?'

'Uh-huh.' Berry shook his head.

'You can look out from there and see the hills of Wales.'

'I think I understand,' Berry said.

Chapter LVII

He liked less and less having to go into the oak woods, particularly in winter. Without their foliage, the trees could look at you.

And into your soul.

He did not look at them, could not face them. As he walked, he stared at the ground. But he could see their roots like splayed hands, sometimes had to step over individual knobbled fingers.