Candlenight

fum?'

Chapter LXVI

Aled did not like this.

Every Friday night was more or less the same, summer or winter. By seven-fifteen, Glyn Harri would have come in, or maybe Dilwyn. Morgan, with or without Buddug, around eight.

These were the constants.

Others were regulars, not bound to a time: Dewi Morus, Mair and Idris Huws. Meirion. Dr. Wyn. And then the occasionals, who included the rector.

Tonight, gone eight now, and none of them had arrived.

There was no precedent for this.

Nearly a dozen people in the bar, but none of them locals and half of them English. Reporters. Loud people, practised drinkers.

'What's that stuff?'

Man in an expensive suit, well-cut to hide his beer-gut. Late forties, going unconcernedly to seed, leaning over the bar by the spluttering Tilley lamp, pointing to the bottle of Welsh Chwisgi.

'Whisky.' Aled said. 'Like any other. Blended over in Brecon.'

'Welsh whisky? You're bloody joking.'

'Try some.' Aled said neutrally.

'Is it cheap? It should be.'

'Cheaper than some. Dearer than others. There is also the Prince of Wales twelve-year-old malt. What you might call Wales's answer to Chivas Regal.'

'Stone me. Better just give us a single then, Alec. No soda. Got to savour this one. Bloody Welsh whisky, Ray! One for you? Make it two then, Alec.'

'We'll have the bottle,' Alun, of Plaid, said generously. Put it on my tab.'

Aled brought the bottle of Prince of Wales twelve-year old malt over to the cluster of tables. A brass oil-lamp hung from a great brown beam above them. A log fire blazed.

'Isn't this cosy?' a woman said. The chubby one, not the glamorous red-haired one.

Shirley Gillies had had two gin and limes very rapidly.

'Yeh, if you like the rustic bit,' Gary Willis said, looking uncomfortable. 'Not very into the primitive, personally.'

'Trouble with you, Gary, is you have no soul.' Shirley said. 'A nice body, but no soul. I think it's rather wonderful, all the power lines down, the mobile phones useless.'

'And in a pub!' said Ray Wheeler.

'I told you,' Alun whispered to Guto. 'I told you it would be an adventure for them.'

'You know,' Ray said. 'This reminds me in a way of poor old Winstone Thorpe.'

'Winstone's Welsh Experience,' said Charlie Firth. 'Miserable landlady, every bugger speaking Welsh, all the pubs closed 'cause it's Sunday, and only Jack Beddall to talk to.'

Bill Sykes leaned into the lamplight. 'You know I really think it's time I scotched this one for good.'

'Belter than Welshing it.' said Charlie Firth. 'Although actually, this stuff's not bad. I reckon what it is, somebody bought a case of Glenfiddich and switched the labels.'

'Sod off, Englishman.' Guto said. 'One of my mates, it is, makes this. But I shall pass on the compliment.'

'Go on, Bill.' Ray Wheeler topped up Sykes's glass with twelve-year-old Welsh malt. 'Winstone Thorpe.'

'Well… I suppose he told you he'd been sent out on a story about two Welsh farmers who'd been shot by their housekeeper.'

'Back in the sixties,' said Ray.

'Definitely not in the sixties, old boy. Long, long before that. And he only had Jack Beddall on the story because Beddall's been dead twenty years.'

'Oh, wonderful!' Shirley Gillies finished her drink. 'A mystery story. Can I have one of those?'

'On top of gin, Shirley?' Gary passed over the Prince of Wales bottle, two-thirds empty already.

'It did happen. The shooting. One of those peculiar rural menage-a-trois situations. The housekeeper was an English girl who innocently answered an advert and found herself sharing a bed with two hairy yokels smelling of sheepshit. Most distasteful.'

'Oh, I don't know. Shirley giggled and looked across at Guto, who had an arm discreetly around Miranda's waist. Shirley spotted the arm and looked disappointed.

'Anyway, the girl inevitably got pregnant and the farmers, being unable to decide which of them was the father, resolved the argument by throwing her out.'

'Typical,' Charlie Firth said.

'Only, when she left, she took their shotgun with her and returned that night and re-plastered the bedroom wall with the pair of them.'

'Heavy,' said Gary Willis.

'Quite a controversial court case in its day,' said Bill Sykes. 'She got off very lightly, perhaps because of the baby. I can't remember whether Winstone was actually born in the prison hospital or whether she was out by then, but he certainly—'

'You're joking!' Ray Wheeler put down his glass in astonishment.

'Hated the Welsh all his life,' said Sykes. 'Had it instilled into him at his mother's knee that no self-respecting English person should ever venture over Offa's Dyke. Been recycling the story as a sort of parable ever since.'

'Just a minute,' Miranda said. 'Where exactly did all this happen?'

'Oh, somewhere up North. Snowdonia way. I imagine. I think I was the only one he ever told, but he didn't go into details, even with me.'

'You mean this Winstone never actually came around here?'

'He never went to Wales in his life,' said Sykes. 'And he warned everyone else to stay out as well. Very fond of his mother, Winstone was. So now you know. I was sworn to silence, but it can't do any harm now, can it?'

'I can hardly believe it,' Miranda said in a low voice to Guto. 'Just wait till I tell Morelli. The only reason he got dragged into all this was old Winstone and his Cassandra routine.'

'I'm confused,' Guto said. 'And I think I would prefer to stay confused.'

Dai Death, who had no interest in any of this, was at the bar quizzing Aled about Bethan.

'I don't know where they went,' Aled said. 'But if you find them, get her out of here. This is no joke.'

'I don't know whether I should be asking you this, Aled but why would they want to go up to the church with two crowbars and a hydraulic jack?'

Aled was silent, but Dai could tell this had cut him like splinters from a suddenly shattered bottle.

Eventually, Aled said slowly. 'I shall have to tell them. If they don't already know.'

'Tell who? What?'

'But I will not.'

Unseasonal sweat shining on his head, rivulets rolling into his silver sideburns. Dai said, 'I am finding it hard to work out who is mad here.'

'Assume that everyone you meet is mad,' Aled said.

Shirley had taken off her ski-jacket and unbuttoned her blouse to a dangerous extent. Charlie and Ray were taking an interest, but it was clear Shirley wanted Gary Willis.

It was very hot in the bar, the log fire superfluous in its inglenook. 'Alec,' Charlie Firth called out. 'We'll have another bottle of that Welsh Scotch.'

Aled brought the whisky and went over to the window, high in the wall behind the journalists.

Where were they?

There were few lights visible in the cottages across the street, but there was a glow about the cottages themselves, and a milky layer in the air. Premature snowdrops poked out of a tub under the window. He was sure