'Myfanwy!'
She moved up to the other end of the bus shelter.
'Myfanwy, please!'
She looked round. 'You leave me alone, mister, do you hear?'
'Myfanwy, it's me, Louie.'
She peered at me and then gasped.
'I need to talk to you.'
'Don't come any closer.'
'Do you think I would hurt you?'
'Is that what you said to Bianca?'
I sighed. This was all wrong.
'Myfanwy!' I begged. 'Please. I didn't kill Bianca, it's all wrong what they are printing in the paper. It was the Druids. I can prove -'
She looked back up the street as the green bus trundled up to the lights. They were on red. The yellow electric glow from the interior of the bus looked warm and inviting in the chill evening gloom.
'That's my bus.'
'Get the next one.'
'I can't, I'm already late.'
Without being able to stop myself, I made a move towards her lifting my arm out to touch her shoulder. She started backwards, raising her arms, but then stopped. We both stood frozen in our respective positions. She looked at me and our eyes met.
'I didn't do it,' I said simply.
She nodded. 'Promise?'
'I loved Bianca. You know that.'
She rushed over and I took her in my arms. 'But not as much as me, right?'
I hugged her.
'You smell.'
'I know.'
She breathed deeply and pressed her head into my chest. 'Louie, take me away.'
'Where?'
'Anywhere.'
'OK.'
She pulled away and looked up into my face. 'You mean it?'
'Yes.'
'When can we go? Tonight?'
I shook my head. 'No, not tonight.'
The lights changed and the bus eased forwards.
'Please, Louie, it has to be tonight.'
'A few days won't make any difference.'
'They will, oh they will, Louie, if only you knew.'
The bus approached.
'It has to be now.'
'If I go now, they will track me down. I'll go to prison.'
'We'll go somewhere where they won't find us.'
I shook my head sadly. 'I locked Llunos in a toilet, he'll
find me.'
The bus stopped and the doors swished open. Myfanwy broke
away and took a step towards the bus, looking back over her
shoulder. As she stepped aboard she bit her lip and her face
became disfigured with grief.
I walked the seven miles back to the caravan; on the beach between Borth and Ynyslas there was a bonfire surrounded by a group of War veterans. They were cooking rabbits and drinking from cans of strong lager. One of them had a guitar on which he strummed tuneless ditties. I skirted round them, not anxious to come into contact with a group of people who would quickly see through my disguise. But I was too late, they called out to me. I tried to pretend I hadn't heard and carried on walking, but one of the tramps stood up and came towards me.
'Hey, friend, come and share some supper.' I twisted on the spot, uncertain what to do. Could I convince them I was a real veteran? Almost certainly not. How would they react to an impersonator? Laugh? Or get angry? If they got angry, what would they do? When you're on the lowest rung of society's ladder you don't have a lot to lose. Damn. The soldier walked up to me.
'Come and have some supper. I owe you a dinner, remember?' 'I think you've got the wrong person, my friend.' He chuckled. 'I don't think so. It's not every day I get to eat strawberries and Black Forest Gateau. Especially in the company of a famous night-club singer.'
He laughed at the expression on my face. 'Do you think you can go round dressed like that and we won't notice?'
* * *
The rabbit was good, and so was the company. There was an easy informality about it and genuine sense of brotherhood. No one asked me the first thing I expected to be asked: what I was doing pretending to be a vet. It seemed to be understood that I must be in dire straits. And these were men with an instinctive understanding for suffering. They could sense my plight and knew better than to make it worse by asking stupid questions. For the first time in weeks I felt good. We sat there until late in the night, sucking the hot juicy goodness out of the roast rabbit and swapping stories; War stories mostly and sometimes stories from that life, impossibly distant to most of these men now, before the War. A life which was distinguished by a boredom and normality for which they could only ache. I'd never understood until now how beautiful a normal life could appear to those who can never possess it. For eight years I had been a private detective in Aberystwyth, never making any money and seldom getting a case that was remotely interesting; certainly never fighting off the hordes of beautiful female clients that Myfanwy was convinced from watching TV were a staple part of my routine. Every day I had bantered with Sospan, wandered up and down the Prom, stroking my father's donkeys and drinking pints in silence with him, a silence which I now recognised could only be enjoyed between two people whose love has gone beyond the artifice of words. And of course I had exchanged the most excruciatingly banal platitudes with Mrs Llantrisant about the weather. And now I was an outcast, wanted for the murder of one of my own friends, and the thought of being able to discuss the weather again with Mrs Llantrisant appeared to me as a distant dream.
I thought about the circumstances which had brought me to this pass, and when finally the conversation died slowly down and the only sound was the crackling of the fire and the distant sighing of the sea I turned to Cadwaladr.
'Remember what you once told me about Rio Caeriog? About the version of events they never tell anyone?'
Cadwaladr threw a bone into the fire, sending bright sparks up into the night sky.
'Yes, I remember.'
'Would you tell me that story now? The true story of Rio Caeriog?'
There was a murmur around the fire. Cadwaladr laughed softly and said, 'By rights there's only one man who should tell that story.' His words hung in the air and were followed by a rustling around the fire as the men shifted their positions and turned their gazes to a man sitting in the shadows next to the guitarist. He eased himself forward into the glow from the fire; an air of expectancy spread round the circle.
'You ask about Rio Caeriog?'
'Yes.'
'Tell me what you know about it.'
'I know what the history books say, that it was a great military victory -
Scoffing sounds erupted from all sides of the circle.
'Oh yes,' the man laughed bitterly, 'a great military victory. That's why there's no statue of General Prhys
