white dust with the tip of her boot. 'It's almost warm here, isn't that odd?'
'I can't understand it,' Alun was saying, walking round the building, looking into windows. 'I was talking to the FUW not two hours ago. They said it was definitely on. I said, 'Look, if there is any change, get back to me.' I gave them the mobile phone number, everything.'
'Oh, gave them the mobile phone number, did you?' Guto leaned against the bonnet of the Land-Rover and started to laugh.
'What's wrong?' Alun was affronted.
Headlights hit them, the Daihatsu crunched to a stop, and presently Bill Sykes wandered over, his long overcoat flapping. 'Are we here, old boy?'
'We seem to have a problem, Bill,' Alun said.
'The problem is Alun.' Guto told him. 'He is a city boy. Alun, do you have your mobile phone on you?'
'It's in the Land-Rover.'
'Well, if you go and get it, I think you will find the words 'No Service' emblazoned across its little screen.'
'No way. That phone functions everywhere around here. It's the best there is.'
'Dickhead.' said Guto. 'They haven't even got television in Y Groes.'
'You're kidding.'
Guto stepped back and held open the door of the Land Rover for his colleague. When Alun emerged, the five reporters were clustered around the Plaid candidate in the beam of the Land-Rover's headlights. They turned to face the General Secretary, all looking quite amused.
'Right.' Alun said briskly. 'I don't know why it's been called off, but it obviously has. Well… As you can see, it's stopped snowing, so I don't think we'll have any problems getting back. I think the least I can do is buy you boys a couple of drinks. The pub is just over the bridge.'
There was a small cheer.
'You're a gentleman.' said Ray Wheeler, of the
Dai and Idwal arrived in the Fiat Panda, and Guto explained the problem. 'I'm not having a drink,' Dai said. 'Bad enough getting here as it is.'
'Well, have an orange juice,' said Guto, as Miranda appeared at his shoulder, frowning.
'I've just had a peep round the back,' she said. 'Morelli's car is there, parked very discreetly under some trees. And another car, a Peugeot, I think.'
'Bethan's car?' said Dai sharply. 'They came to see me earlier, wanted to know about—' He looked across the village to the church hill. 'Oh, bloody hell.'
They knew Aled was shaking because the table was shaking.
'Go,' he said. 'All right? Go from here.'
Berry found his lighter, relit the candle.
'Draught,' he said.
'Remember what you said when we got here?' Bethan asked him.
'OK. Not draught.'
The candle flared and Aled's white face flared behind it. Can you not feel it. man?'
Berry didn't know what he was supposed to be feeling, so he looked around the room and out the window. It was still not snowing. There were still no lights.
'The snow will melt before morning,' Aled said.
'No chance. You shoulda seen it on the mountains.'
'The village is generating its own heat,' Bethan said. 'Is that what you're saying?'
'Bethan, I once told you, see, this village makes demands.'
'I remember.'
'Demands, you know — sacrifices.'
'You did not say anything about sacrifice.'
'The old Druids, see.' Aled said. 'They did not sacrifice each other, their — you know, virgins, kids. None of that nonsense.'
History lessons. Berry thought. Wales is all about history lessons.
'But I've heard it said they used to sacrifice their enemies,' Aled said. 'Their prisoners. A life's a life, see, isn't it? Blood is blood.'
He stood up. 'That is the finish. You have had enough from me.'
Bethan was too shocked to speak.
Aled picked up the candle and they followed him out of the dining room and through to the bar, where he unbolted the oak front door.
'Opening time soon,' he said. 'And you won't want to see the Morgans, will you?'
'One more thing,' Berry said in the doorway.
'No. No more things.'
'You have a flashlight I could borrow?'
Aled did not reply but went behind the bar and fumbled about and then presented a long black torch to Berry.
'Rubber,' he said morosely. 'Bounces, see.'
The crescent moon was curling from the tower like a candle flame. A huge, symbolic corpse candle, Bethan thought.
The smell in the December air was a little like the summer night smell of wild flowers, but heavier, sweet with decay, as though the flowers had sprouted unnaturally from the dead earth, like bodies in rotting shrouds thrusting their hands through the grave dirt. The ground, with its thin veneer of snow, had a blueish, sometimes purplish tint, like the cheeks of the newly-dead.
Bethan felt sick. She felt Y Groes closing around her. Bloated with blood, greasy with human fat.
'I want to leave,' she said. 'Now.'
'Not till we take a look at the church.'
'I will not go in there.'
'I'll go in then.'
'Did you realise what he was saying just now? About sacrifices?'
'I'll think about it later. Right now, I need to see that tomb.'
Bethan cried out, 'What good will it do now?'
She stood at the top of the deserted street, her back to the bridge, white raincoat drawing in the unnatural incandescence of the night so that it turned mauve.
Irradiated, Berry thought. He felt love and fear, and he almost gave in, hurried her back over the bridge to the cars.
Foot down, out of here.
Then they heard voices from the other side of the bridge and he took her arm and pulled her into the alley between the
Laughter.
'… hey Shirl, you can't be cold now.'
'No, but it's awfully dark — Whoops!'
'Shit,' Berry whispered. 'What the hell are
'Guto,' Bethan whispered back. 'I can hear Guto's voice, and isn't that—?'
'Christ,' Berry said. 'It's Miranda.'
The bunch of people crossed the bridge and they heard a banging on the pub door and Dai's voice. 'Come on then, Aled. It's gone seven.'
'And don't tell us the beer pumps don't work,' shouted an English voice. 'Won't affect the Optics.'
The snow in the street seemed to sweat, and there was a kind of liquid hum in the air, as if the dead sub- station was a church organ and there was a hidden choir somewhere poised to sing out into the night.
Voice thick with growing nausea, Berry said, 'What's the Welsh for
