coming thick and fast as he entered an urban environment.
The streets were pretty empty, not surprising at this time on a Sunday, but he indulged in a complacent sneer at this evidence that he was deep into the provinces.
In a few hundred yards he was warned he would need to turn right on to a road running alongside a river. Here was the turning and there was the river. Loudwater Villas should be in view in half a minute.
Ahead he saw flashing lights and some vehicles pulled on to the verge, among them a van bearing the logo of Mid-Yorkshire TV. Beyond them there seemed to be a barrier across the road. As he slowed, figures came alongside the car, some with cameras. A flashbulb directly into his face almost blinded him, forcing him to stop some yards short of the barrier. He wound down the window and swore at the cameraman. A woman thrust a microphone through the window and said, ‘Excuse me, sir, MYTV. Can you tell us who you are and why you’re here?’
He said, ‘No, I bloody can’t. Get that thing out of my fucking face.’
He pushed the mike away forcefully and a man’s face replaced the woman’s. It was a lean, weathered face with bright probing eyes that were scanning the contents of the car as if committing them to memory.
‘Sammy Ruddlesdin,’ said the man. ‘Mid-Yorkshire News. Sorry to bother you, sir…’
There was a pause as the man focused more closely on Jones’s face.
Then he said in a lower voice, ‘Don’t I know you?’
‘I doubt it. What the hell’s going on here?’
‘Just a little local murder. I’m sure I’ve seen your face somewhere. You’re press, aren’t you? Don’t be shy. National, is it? Listen, you want local colour, I’m your man.’
He was being ambushed by reporters! The irony of the situation might have been amusing, but the man’s words had roused emotions that left no room for amusement.
‘What do you mean, murder? Who’s been murdered?’
‘That’s what we’re all trying to find out,’ said Ruddlesdin. ‘Look, if you’re not here after the story, what the hell are you here for?’
He didn’t answer but climbed out of the car and went up to the barrier with the media pack in close attendance.
A uniformed policeman confronted him.
‘Can I help, sir?’
‘Not in front of this lot you can’t,’ said Jones, who knew that every word he spoke was being recorded by those nearest him.
The policeman took his point and led him behind the barrier. Even here he took care to keep his back firmly directed towards the press pack and dropped his voice so that the policeman had to lean close to catch his words.
‘Yes, I need to get into Loudwater Villas. I’m visiting my brother.’
‘Your brother, sir?’ said the man, looking at a list in his hand. ‘Can I have the name and flat number please?’
‘It won’t be on your list. He’s staying with a friend. Alun Watkins, number 39.’
The man looked at him with new interest.
‘And your name, sir?’
‘Jones. Gwyn Jones.’
‘Could you hold on here a tick, sir?’
The officer turned his back on the journalists and spoke into his personal radio. After listening for a moment he turned around and said, ‘If you’d like to bring your car forward, sir, I’ll raise the barrier.’
Ruddlesdin, who’d clearly got close enough to hear this last remark, fell into step beside him as he returned to his car.
‘You must have clout,’ he said admiringly. ‘Else you’re very clever. Any chance of a lift?’
Jones ignored him. There was a tight feeling in his stomach as if he’d eaten something so bad his digestive juices didn’t even want to get to grips with it.
He got into his car and edged forward. The reporters were still taking photos. He found he hated them so much he could gladly have run them down.
As the barrier slowly rose, the passenger door opened and a young man slipped in beside him.
‘Get the fuck out of here!’ he yelled, thinking it was another journalist.
But the man was holding a police warrant card before his face.
‘DC Bowler, sir,’ he said. ‘If you just drive towards the caravan there and park alongside.’
‘What’s all the fuss about?’ Gwyn said as he drove slowly forward. ‘I’m just visiting my brother, and he’s only staying here, he’s not a resident. Have you come across him? He’s a lot like me, people say, only eight years younger. Have you seen him?’
It was as if by talking about Gareth he could create the cheeky young sod’s physical presence.
‘And his name’s Jones, is it, sir?’
‘That’s right. Gareth Jones. Not surprising as Jones is my name too.’
‘Yes, sir. Are you Gwyn Jones of the Messenger, sir?’
He said, ‘Yes, I am,’ hoping that the young cop would say, ‘Thought I recognized you. Good try, mate,’ then tell him to drive the car back to the barrier.
Instead he just nodded as if this confirmed something he already knew.
‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.
‘Just park here, sir. Now if you come with me, DS Wield will fill you in.’
He climbed slowly out of the car. He felt he was getting very close to a place he didn’t wish to arrive at. He looked back towards the distant barrier and found himself longing to be on the far side of it, one of the assembled pack, chatting, joking, smoking, drinking, passing the boring hours that any decent reporter knows have to be put in if they are to get a decent story to put out.
Then in a sudden fit of revulsion he told himself savagely that all that interested those bastards were bloody facts to grab their readers, saccharined with ‘human interest’ to make the readers feel less guilty about enjoying the gore.
‘This way, sir,’ urged DC Bowler, with an encouraging smile.
He was a nice-looking boy, with a fresh, open face, not at all the kind of messenger you’d expect to bring you bitter words to hear and bitter tears to shed.
Perhaps I’ve got it wrong, thought Jones as he walked towards the caravan. Perhaps this sense of ill- bodement clutching my heart is just some atavistic throw-back, as meaningless as those claims to foreknowledge always made by Great Aunt Blodwen twenty-four hours after any disaster.
Then at the top of the steps leading up into the caravan a very different kind of man appeared, this one with a face as ill-omened as Scrooge’s door-knocker.
And as if in confirmation of this sudden downward lurch of his spirits, a voice cried, ‘Gwyn, oh Gwyn boy! This is terrible, truly terrible!’
He turned his head in the direction of what he presumed was Loudwater Villas and saw a man running towards him, his face contorted unrecognizably. But Gwyn Jones recognized him.
So did Edgar Wield, standing on the caravan steps. Where the hell did he come from? This is getting to be a habit!
‘Bowler, grab him!’ he yelled.
But it was too late for any useful grabbing.
As Bowler intercepted and folded Alun Watkins in his arms, he was already close enough for his haggard, tear-stained face to be clearly visible. And now Gwyn Jones came at last to understand that though words could not create another’s physical presence, they could certainly take it away forever.
‘Gwyn, bach, he’s dead!’ cried Watkins in a voice powerful enough to carry all the way down to the straining ears at the barrier. ‘He’s dead. I’m so so sorry. Dear Gareth’s dead!’
18.33-18.35
