himself and then, in the morning—'
Bethan rocked her head from side to side to shut this out.
Buddug pinched Bethan's cheeks together to make her look at her. '
'What are they doing to him?'
'No matter,' Buddug said, ignoring the question. 'He will be long gone by then. He will know that soon.'
The knight smiled a victor's smile with reddened lips.
From outside Berry heard the sound of scuffling, heard talking in Welsh, a voice cry out in pain.
He recognised the voice at once.
'Bastard!' Berry screamed at the Goddamn knight, his control gone. 'Motherfucker!' All the words that had seemed so pathetic, still seemed pathetic.
He pushed the fingers of his left hand as far as they would go into the gap between the slab and the walls of the tomb, jammed the arm in so that both arms were parallel under the knight's dead weight.
He waited two minutes like that, conserving his strength, then he wrenched hard on the trapped arm and simultaneously heaved upwards with the good left arm.
The knight shifted and he felt an appalling weight on the left arm. The good arm.
He cried to the rafters in his agony and passed out with the pain.
When the long, bitter cry came through the church wall, Bethan pushed Buddug aside and made a rush for the corner of the building and the doorway.
Or intended to.
She'd moved less than a couple of feet when one of Buddug's great hands caught her by the throat and squeezed on her windpipe. She is going to kill me, Bethan thought. Like the ducks, like the chickens in the farmyard.
'We do not walk away when we are being spoken to,' Buddug said and squeezed harder.
All was quiet within the church.
'Will not be long, now,' Buddug said.
'Why are you doing this?'
'Do not make yourself ridiculous,' Buddug said.
Bethan thought of the
She thought, we must hear each other's agony and hopelessness before we die.
'
'No.'
With little effort, Buddug twisted the arm until Bethan gritting her teeth, felt the bones begin to crack.
Sobbing, she nodded and Buddug propelled her across the churchyard to the top of the steps.
A meagre light appeared.
He opened his eyes and saw both arms under the stone and there was no pain now, but he could not move at all.
And beyond the chapel, visible through the lattice of the rood screen, the little light, like a taper.
The light did not move. It seemed to cast no ambience. Like the light through a keyhole, something on the other side of the dark.
Berry felt no pain, only sorrow and profound misery.
Chapter LXXIV
When the blizzard eased a little, Guto and Alun left the Range Rover with its nose in the snowdrift and walked away in different directions.
Alun's mission was to climb to the top of the nearest hill with his mobile phone to see if he could get a signal and, if he could, to send for the police. And the ambulance.
Which was too late now, anyway. Snow matting his beard and freezing there, coming over the tops of his Wellingtons with every step, Guto looked down on the Range Rover.
Left with its sidelights on and its engine running to keep the heater going, quite pointlessly, for Miranda Moore-Lacey.
Guto didn't have a mission other than to walk. He should have stayed in the heat, laid Miranda's body out in the snow. At the thought of this, he rammed his hands bitterly down into the pockets of his presentable Parliamentary candidate's overcoat and ploughed on.
Years since he'd walked the Nearly Mountains, and that had been in decent weather, he hadn't the faintest idea where the hell he was.
However, reaching the crest of a ridge he found he was looking back towards Y Groes where the sky still was streaked with this unhealthy red, shining out like the bars of an electric fire in a darkened room. An electric fire in the dark always conveyed a sense of illness to Guto; his mam used to leave one in his bedroom when he was sick. Years ago this was, but the impression remained.
He wanted a drink. He wanted several drinks. He wanted to get blind pissed and forget the wasted years between being a sick kid in a overheated bedroom and a big, arrogant, macho politician with a hard line in rhetoric and a posh English chick in French knickers.
Stupid to think that he could make all those years worthwhile at a stroke. The rock band that almost got to make a record, the book that almost sold five hundred copies. The posh English chick in French knickers who almost survived two whole days of being Guto Evans's woman.
He glared down at the village of Y Groes with savage loathing, vowed to avenge Miranda in some way and knew he wouldn't because he'd always be too pissed to function in any more meaningful way than punching the odd wealthy immigrant. And in just over a week's time he'd be a member of the biggest political group in Wales: the FPCC — the Failed Plaid Candidates' Club.
Overtired, overstressed, overweight, Guto staggered on through the snow and the self-pity, hard to decide which was denser. The endless snow seemed to symbolise both his past and his future. As soon as he crunched a narrow path, the sides fell in.
Looking down at his plodding wellies, he did not notice the shadowy figure walking up the hill towards him until it was upon him.
'
Guto did not recognise the man. That the man recognised him was no surprise; people usually did these days.
'You live near here?' Guto asked him. 'You have a phone?'
'I've come from there.' The man gestured towards Y Groes. Guto couldn't see him too clearly: he seemed to be wearing leather gear, like a biker.
'Poor bugger,' Guto said, in no mood for diplomacy. 'They let you out. is it?'
Guto felt the leather-clad man was smiling. 'They let me out,' he agreed.
'Good,' Guto said.
The snow stopped, the air was still for a time. Guto looked at his watch, feeling this was significant. It was 12:05 a.m.
Something companionable about the stranger. Something odd, too. Something odd about the leathers he was wearing, and what would a biker be doing in the Nearly Mountains at midnight in a blizzard? Guto glanced at the man but still could not see him clearly; there was a haze about him.
They stood together on a snowy hummock, as though they were having the same hallucination, looking down towards Y Groes. Guto noticed that the sky over the village had lost its red bars, as if someone had unplugged the electric fire. The sky over Y Groes was just like the sky everywhere else: charcoal grey and heavy with suppressed snow.
'No time to waste, Guto.' his companion said and clapped him briskly on the back.
'You're right.' Guto said. 'Thanks.
