Last Tango in Aberystwyth

low for a while. I knew you'd be furious.'

'I wasn't furious. You just made a mistake, everyone is allowed to do that.'

'So I went to the rendezvous and, you know, I was too smart for them of course ...'

'Yeah, I know.'

'No way I was going to fall for a dumb trick like that.'

'No way?'

'Course not.'

'OK,' I said. 'That's fantastic. Now tell me the truth.'

She bit her lip. 'Well actually, to tell the truth,' she said reluctantly, 'I was warned.'

'Who by?'

'I don't know. I was going to the meeting-point and this old woman in a black shawl walked past me and told me it was a trap. She didn't hang around, one minute she was there, the next she was gone. Soon as she said it I realised what an idiot I was being.'

Before the half-hour was up Llunos came over and told me to put on my coat. Smokey G. Jones had been happy to talk, although she made the two officers wait while she made a cup of tea. And they had to listen to the antique case-histories of four gymslip pregnancies, two extra-marital affairs and a case of incest before they got to the bit they wanted. The love-child had been born in the hut in the Pilgrim's Pass on Pumlumon. The posse would set out at dawn, but since there was still about half an hour of daylight left ... Llunos didn't need to say any more, we both knew what we were going to do.

I turned to Calamity before I left and said, 'Is that true you didn't take the gun?'

She nodded. 'You told me not to, didn't you? I wouldn't have dared.'

Chapter 24

The pilgrim's hut was the last of the old wayfarers' stations before the pass. It used to be the main way on foot into England but once the snows set in it was often impassable. Llunos drove fast across the rolling badlands of Blaenrheidol as the first flakes of snow fluttered from the sky.

We left the car in a lay-by and followed the National Trust footpath through the valley and up the scree towards the pass. If they were keeping a watch they would see us easily, but then where would they go? In this weather the only safe route was down back into the valley. To our left the sombre waters of Nant-y-moch reservoir lapped the shore with tiny wavelets. It seemed a thousand years since we had both passed this way before; above the clouds in an aeroplane from which Herod Jenkins plunged to what we assumed was his death. We were both deeply aware of the significance of this moment, here above the lake where last time we had failed. We walked without speaking; there was nothing left to say. It was a time for deeds.

Herod was standing outside the hut, his back to us, bent over and skinning a ferret. He was dressed as a man of the woods: home-cured furs wrapping him, with the arms and shoulder bare like a circus strongman. A twig cracked beneath our feet and he spun round, a bloody skinning knife in his hand and on his face that horizontal crease that they once called a smile.

'Well bugger me!' he said. He nodded to Llunos. 'Evening, Llunos, bit parky isn't it?'

'Nos da Mr Jenkins! Looks like we might be in for a bit of snow.'

Herod spoke to me. 'Still playing detectives, are we? You should get yourself a proper job.'

'It is a proper job.'

'Could have fooled me.'

'We've come to take you in,' said Llunos.

'What for?'

'What for!?' I spluttered.

'I've paid my debt to society.'

'Like hell you have!'

'I fell out of a plane, didn't I? Banged my bloody head on the water, lost my memory, lived on berries ...'

'Tell it to the judge, Herod.'

He yanked at his fur vest, pulling it down to reveal a long ugly scar on his chest. 'See this? I sewed it myself with a nail and some thread made from the intestines of a sheep.'

'I thought needlework was for girlies.'

'Give up, Herod,' said Llunos simply.

'To you two? I'm bigger than both of you, what are you going to do?'

'There are more coming, you know that. Men with dogs, and guns. They'll get you. You can't go forward into the pass, you'd be crazy. The only way is back. You want to spend the rest of your life running?'

'I like running. If the little pansy here had done more of it at school instead of moaning like a girl we might have made a man of him.'

'I'm not talking about running round a track. I mean running like a hunted dog all your life. Never lying down at night without worrying if that night they'll come for you. Every day a new town, a new identity, always looking over your shoulder.'

'It doesn't sound any worse than rotting in jail.'

'Who says you'll go to jail? What have you done? It's not a crime to lose your memory and live in the woods. We could probably work something out.'

'I'm in it up to my neck. You said so yourself.'

'No you're not, if you turn Mrs Llantrisant in you'll probably get a deal.'

Herod spat with contempt. 'Oh that's it, is it? Turn my comrade in for an easy sentence. Well you've made a mistake there if that's what you think. I'm not a coward like Louie Knight here who was always too scared to catch the ball.'

'Is that the grave?' I asked pointing to an outcrop of rock above the hut, on which now stood a new cross, crudely fashioned from chopped wood.

Herod turned and peered upwards. The sky was milky grey and filled with tufts of snow falling as gently as a dandelion flower.

'I put it up there myself last week. His spirit can rest in peace now.'

'We can probably arrange something with the judge, let you come here now and again,' said Llunos.

Herod's voice thickened with the emotion. 'It's all I ever wanted, really, was a son. To play rugby on the lawn with. It's not a lot to ask, is it?'

'Every man has that right,' said Llunos.

'But he's dead now. Because of me. I kicked her out. Kicked Mrs Bligh-Jones out when she was seventeen and with child. Poor girl with nowhere to go. Abandoned. The poor little mite was born in a cow byre ...' Tears welled up in his eyes. 'My little son in a cow byre.'

'Jesus didn't start out any better,' said Llunos.

'Although he had a nicer dad,' I added.

Herod carried on as if he hadn't heard. 'All alone she was, trying to walk through the pass to Shrewsbury. No friends, no help, no one to comfort her ... and the boy ... my son, little Onan ... only lived a day.'

'Let us take you in, Herod,' said Llunos gently. 'You won't have to serve a long sentence, you'll be out in a couple of years and then you'll be able to come and live in the hut here.'

Herod became thoughtful. 'Up here?'

'You could probably be the hut-keeper or ranger or something. There's always a job for a strong man.'

He considered and then said, 'I had nothing to do with that thing with the girl, you know?'

'Calamity?'

'That was Custard Pie's idea. I didn't want to get involved. It was rude.'

'We believe you, Herod. We know you wouldn't do a thing like that. The judge will believe you too. But you have to help us help you.'

'Where is Custard Pie?' I asked.

'He's inside. Broke his leg in a fall. We don't think he's going to make it. Mrs Llantrisant has gone to get some Savlon.'

'If you come with us, we can get help. No point letting him die up here.'

The powerful spirit that animated the frame of the mighty games teacher wavered. It was a moment of decision so intense you could see it etched into the sinews of his flesh. He stood proud and erect, as if cast from