wary eye on me; trouble was never far away at this time of night. Some instinct had long ago told me that the kid on the answerphone was not going to turn up, but I had to stay just in case. So I waited, grimly crunching the gritty pickled delicacies. After half an hour, and soaked to the skin, I gave up and left.
When I got home there was someone in the office, standing at the window with his back to me. It was Detective Inspector Llunos. Short and portly with a permanent look of weary sadness.
'You keep late hours,' he said without turning.
'Is that a police matter?'
'Depends what you get up to during them.'
I went into the kitchenette, picked up two glasses from the draining board and poured us both a rum. By the time I returned he was sitting in the client's chair, just like Myfanwy had done earlier in the day. It seemed like last year.
'What did you get up to?'
I waited a few seconds and let the fire of the rum chase out the late-night damp.
'I was at the Moulin.'
'I know. What did you do after that?'
'Went for a walk.'
'A walk?' He pretended to consider my answer. 'That's nice. Anywhere in particular?'
'No, just around.'
I wondered what he was getting at; he wasn't here for a chat.
'With a girl were you?'
I shook my head.
'Or was it little boys?'
I poured another drink and looked at him sleepily.
He sighed. During his years on the Force in Aberystwyth he'd seen everything there was to see and had long ago lost the energy to be offended by it. Just as the man who cleans up after the donkeys on the Prom no longer notices what it is he sweeps up. I'd run into him a number of times before. There was a sort of uneasy truce between us. Like any cop he didn't like having private operatives sniffing around on his turf. I didn't blame him for it; when I was walking the beat in Swansea I didn't like them either. But I had a right to operate, as long as I kept within certain limits; and as long as I did, he tolerated me. The key requirement was that I dealt straight with him; if I did, things ran smoothly enough. But if I played what he called 'silly buggers', he could be very, very hard. Sadly, my instinct was telling me that on this case I was going to be playing silly buggers.
He drank his rum slowly and then started again.
'Did you have an appointment with anyone tonight?'
I shook my head.
'An appointment with Giuseppe Bronzini?'
I paused for a second, and then said, 'Who?'
He laughed. The hesitation had been for the tiniest fraction of a second but the wily cop had seen it. I didn't like where this was heading.
'We spoke to his mother earlier; he told her he was going to meet you this evening. Know anything about that?'
'Llunos, what the fuck do you want?'
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the business card I had given Calamity Jane in the afternoon.
'Recognise this?'
'It looks like one of my cards.'
Llunos examined it as if he'd only just noticed it. 'Yes it does, doesn't it?' He flicked the card with his thumb. 'We found it on Bronzini earlier this evening. I don't suppose you can explain that?'
'Bronzini?'
'Yes. He was dead, by the way.'
I stared at him across the desk, fear starting to flutter in my stomach. He raised one eyebrow, prompting me to explain.
'I went to the Moulin, I left and went for a walk. I had some whelks and came home. I had no meeting arranged. And I've never met this kid.' It was silly buggers time.
'Any idea how he came to have your card?'
'I don't know. Maybe he picked it up off the floor.'
The tired detective stared at the ceiling and considered my reply with an air of sarcastic thoughtfulness.
'I see,' he continued. 'So you've never seen the dead boy. You didn't have any arrangement to see him this evening, you were just out walking. Hmmm.' He examined my story like someone trying on a hat they know doesn't fit, just to be fair to the hat. 'And you say he probably picked your card up off the floor. Hmmm. Any idea why he stuck it up his arse?'
Chapter 3
THE CELL DOOR clanged open and banged shut throughout the night as rhythmically as a pile-driver. I sat in the corner and gazed through red throbbing eyes at the lurid pageant: drunks and punks and pimps and ponces; young farmers and old farmers; pool-hall hustlers and pick pockets; Vimto louts, card sharps and shove ha'penny sharps; sailors and lobster fisherman and hookers from the putting green; the one-armed man from the all-night sweet shop, dandies and dish-washers and drunken school teachers; fire-walkers and whelk-eaters, high priests and low priests; footpads and cut-throats; waifs, strays, vanilla thieves and peat stealers; the clerk from the library, the engineer from the Great Little Train of Wales ... it rolled on without end. At about 2am they brought in the caretaker from the school, Mr Giles, wearing the same tree-coloured tweeds he wore when I had been in school two decades ago. He slumped on to one of the benches lining the wall and held his head in his hands. Everyone was in a bad way here, but he looked more unhappy than most. I went over to him.
'Mr Giles?' I said placing a gentle hand on his broad back. I could feel silent sobs quivering through his large frame.
'Mr Giles?'
He looked up. He was a friend of my father and knew me well.
'Louie!'
'You OK?'
'Oh no, no, no, no I'm not.'
'Did they beat you?'
He shook his head.
'What did they get you for?'
'They haven't told me.'
I nodded. It was the usual way. You wouldn't find the procedure outlined in any of the pamphlets issued by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, but Llunos had his own methods. Most people were picked up, thrown in and thrown out again the following morning without being charged or any sort of paperwork involved. It helped keep the crime figures down.
'I know what he's up to, though,' Mr Giles said. 'It's about that dog.'
'What dog?'
'At the school. He's going to pin it on me. It just isn't fair.' He buried his face in his hands again. It was unusual to see Mr Giles as upset as this. For a man who spent his life stockaded into a potting shed at the corner of the rugby field at St Luddite's, his hoe swapped for a night-stick, fortitude was a way of life. It was probably the drink making him emotional.
'What's this about a dog?'
He answered into the palms of his hands. 'One of the Bronzini boys killed Mrs Morgan's dog and they're blaming me.'
There was a fresh bout of silent sobbing; I patted him gently and moved off, leaving him to his pain.
Just before breakfast, Llunos released me. I stood blinking in the bright morning sunshine on the steps of the jail.
'You're letting me go?'
He nodded. 'You've got friends in high places.'
