Under Orders

accent and I quite expected him to add ‘Boyo’ to the end of each sentence.

‘I’ve driven all the way here from Brecon.’ He gulped and his eyes filled with tears. ‘I set out to kill you. In revenge. But… the more I drove, the more stupid that seemed. It wouldn’t bring Huw back and, by the time I’d gone half way, I realised that you wouldn’t have done it. Huw always says…’ he faltered, ‘… said… that you, look, are on the side of the bloody angels. God, what am I doing here?’

He began to cry, his shoulders jerking up and down with great sobs that he tried to suppress.

Marina squatted down next to him. ‘Mr Walker,’ her melodic tone brought his chin up a fraction, ‘let’s go upstairs and get you a cup of tea.’

She stood and pulled him to his feet and guided him towards the lift.

‘Thanks, Derek,’ I said.

Derek stood wide-eyed and uncharacteristically silent as the lift doors closed.

Marina fussed around Mr Walker like a mother hen and soon had him sitting on the sofa sipping strong sweet tea from a blue-and-white striped mug.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked while stroking his hand.

He smiled at her. ‘Evan,’ he said.

‘Well, Evan,’ she smiled back, ‘have you had anything to eat for lunch?’

‘To tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘I haven’t had anything to eat since Friday night. Since when the police came to tell…’ He tailed off, the memory still too raw to describe. ‘I don’t feel like eating.’

Nevertheless, Marina disappeared into the kitchen.

‘How did you know where I lived?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘The man from The Pump told me.’

‘You just phoned them up and they gave you my address?’

‘No, I didn’t phone them.’ He looked slightly disturbed. ‘A man from The Pump phoned me at six o’clock this morning to ask whether I had seen their newspaper. Course I hadn’t. Not at six in the morning. I’d fed the cattle but there’s no delivery on Sundays and the shop doesn’t open until nine.’ He made it sound like a major failing.

He paused and looked at me. Was he thinking what I was thinking? Why did The Pump call him so specifically to ensure he read their paper?

‘So did you go and get a copy of The Pump?’ I asked, prompting him to continue.

‘Well, I did,’ he said, ‘but not from our local shop, see, it still wasn’t open when I left. I stopped to get one in Abergavenny.’

Marina reappeared with a mountain of scrambled eggs on toast that Evan Walker devoured like a starving dog, hardly stopping to draw breath.

‘Thank you,’ he smiled again. ‘Delicious. I didn’t realise how hungry I was.’

‘But why did you set off for London if you hadn’t read the piece in the paper?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t need to read it. The man from The Pump read the whole thing out to me over the phone. I was bloody mad, I can tell you. He kept saying what was in the paper was only the half of it. He good as told me you’d done it and no mistake. “Sid Halley murdered your son,” he said, and he said you’d probably get away with it because you’d done a deal with the police. Then he gave me your address and asked me what I was going to do about it.’

‘Did he give you his name?’ I asked. I already suspected who had called him.

‘No,’ he paused to think, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Was it a man called Chris Beecher?’ I asked

‘I don’t know, I didn’t ask his name.’ He paused again and shook his head. ‘Right bloody idiot I’ve been. See that now, but at the time I was so bloody angry.’ He dropped his eyes from mine. ‘I’m glad that bloody drive was long enough for me to come to my senses.’

So was I.

He sighed. ‘I suppose you’ll call the police now?’

‘How were you going to kill me?’ I asked, ignoring his question.

‘With my shotgun. It’s still in the car.’

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘Outside on the road.’

‘I’ll get it,’ I said. ‘What type of car and where are the keys?’

‘Old grey Ford.’ He patted his flat pockets. ‘Keys must be in it.’

I went down and it was still there with the keys in the ignition, unstolen. Good job it was a Sunday, I thought, or he would have had at least three parking tickets by now. Amazingly, the shotgun was still there, too, lying in plain view on the back seat.

I picked it up, locked the car and turned to go back upstairs.

I am not sure why I noticed the young man in a car on the far side of the road take aim at me, maybe it was his movement that caught my eye. I strode straight across to him and lifted the business end of the shotgun I was holding in his general direction.

He had aimed not a gun but a camera that he now lowered to his lap. Experienced paparazzi would have gone on snapping, I thought — Sid Halley threatening a photographer with a loaded shotgun, just what The Pump would have loved for the front page.

‘What are you after?’ I shouted at him through the closed car window. ‘Put the window down.’

He pushed a button and the window opened a couple of inches.

‘Who sent you?’ I asked through the crack.

He didn’t reply.

‘Tell Chris Beecher he shouldn’t tell tall stories to Welsh farmers,’ I said.

He just looked at me, then nodded slightly. It was enough.

I slowly lowered the shotgun. There were too many windows overlooking Ebury Street and I feared that net curtains would already be twitching.

The young man took one look at the lowered gun and decided that retreat was the best plan. He ground his gears and was gone.

I strode back through the lobby, grinning broadly, with the gun slung over my shoulder. Derek, who had watched the whole episode through the glass, now had an open mouth to match his staring eyes.

I winked at him as the lift closed.

So much for my secrets, I thought. Chris Beecher knew exactly where I lived. And he knew exactly who I was ‘screwing’.

Evan Walker stayed for another hour before remembering that he had cattle to feed and 175 miles to drive home first. In the meantime, he managed to consume four more slices of toast with lashings of strawberry jam, and two more mugs of tea.

He talked about Huw and how proud he was of what his son had achieved.

‘Glynis, that’s my wife, and me, we were so pleased when he won the Welsh National at Chepstow. You should have seen us. Dressed to the nines, we were. My Glynis was so proud. Best thing that happened to us for ages. Glynis passed away last October, see. Cancer it was.’ He was again close to tears. ‘Stomach. Poor lass couldn’t eat. Starved to death, really.’

‘Do you have any other children?’ I asked.

‘Did have,’ he said. ‘Another boy, Brynn. Two year older than Huw. Knocked off his bike, he was. On his way to school. On his fifteenth birthday.’

Life is full of buggers.

‘Glynis never got over it,’ he went on. ‘Visited his grave every week for eighteen year till her illness meant she couldn’t walk down to the churchyard. Buried next to him she is.’

There was a long pause as he stared down at the floor.

‘Suppose I should put Huw with them.’

Another longer pause.