‘Despite our small size our influence on the world stage has been quite considerable. We invented Lego.’
There was a pause and then she burst out laughing. ‘Oh Lord! What have I said? I’d better get off the line and stop wasting your money. I’ll call you next week when you might have something for me.’
‘See if you can find some coins next time.’
‘I’ll get some specially minted.’
‘Did the Danes really invent Lego?’
‘Stop teasing.’
‘I’m not, I was just thinking about the reward in your ad. Forgive me for saying this, but Lego’s a lot more popular in Aberystwyth than the works of Kierkegaard.’
‘You think it would make a better reward?’
‘I think so.’
‘My God, what a brilliant idea. We could offer the centenary set.’ She hung up.
I left the receiver cradled against my cheek and watched Calamity. She was writing out index cards with a marker pen, a frown of deep concentration on her face; acrid inky fumes surrounding her in a cloud. She wrote ‘Dead Santa, name: Absalom’ on one and pinned it to the incident board. She wrote ‘Butch Cassidy’ and pinned it to the board. She followed that with the ‘Queen of Denmark’, ‘Rocking-chair Man’ and ‘Emily’.
She felt my gaze on her and looked across. ‘Every scrap of information has to go up because you never know which ones are the significant ones. If you just concentrate on what you think is important you often overlook the crucial stuff.’
‘Is that so?’
She slapped the Pinkerton manual. ‘It’s all in here. Incident-board tectonics. It’s a new science.’
I nodded. ‘Makes me wonder how I survived all these years without that book. Where did you get it, anyway?’
‘Eeyore gave it to me. He got it from the police library.’
‘I didn’t know he was still a member.’
‘He isn’t. It’s a rarity, this book. The man at the antiquarian bookshop offered me fifty quid for it.’
‘How did he know you had it?’
‘He asked me to get it.’
‘From the police library? What’s Eeyore going to say?
‘He gets fifty per cent. He needs a new manger.’
‘Is there a chapter in there on fencing stolen goods?’
Silence.
‘So what went wrong?’
Silence.
‘What happened?’
‘Huh?’
‘Why didn’t you get the fifty quid?’
‘I started reading it.’
I watched her work, aware of a strange feeling fizzing inside my chest. It wasn’t one of those feelings we easily find names for; none seems quite right. An emotion which, paradoxically, has a physical representation: pins and needles of pride. When I first met Calamity she was an amusement-arcade hustler, with the bad complexion and glassy look that come from a troglodytic life spent in dimly lit caverns staring all day at fruit machines. She would have regarded a trip to the town library with about the same relish as dogs view their monthly bath. She was the sort of kid who was going nowhere and had it all mapped out. The sort you tend to look warily at when they congregate in groups, the sort you damn at first sight and regard as evidence that the world is going to pot. And yet.
‘You don’t believe in it, do you?’
‘I didn’t say that. If it helps you work, that’s fine. I keep my incident board in my head.’
‘It’s supposed to help you see the links and interconnections between the pieces of the puzzle. Things which aren’t obvious.’
‘I’ve got a guy in my head who does the links for me – he works the night shift.’
She pinned up another card.
And yet. And yet here she was: focused and determined. And with less cynicism than a newborn puppy. After removal from the amusement arcade her eyes had acquired a natural brightness; it would dim with the coming years, I knew, but it was still good to behold. Having her around was a tonic and I didn’t want to do anything to curb that bright heart. But sometimes I had to.
‘You do understand about what I said? Faxing the Pinkertons and that?’
‘Sure.’
‘I know you’re pretty excited about it, but really you can’t just dance off with a fresh piece of evidence and spill the beans – even to the Pinkertons.’
‘It’s all right. I understand.’
‘I mean, it’s not like they’re going to be interested or anything.’
‘It’s all right, Louie.’
‘I don’t like to stop you, but . . .’
‘Can we drop it?’
‘As long as you’re OK about it.’
‘You’re the boss, right or wrong.’
‘Honestly, Calamity, this time I’m not wrong. Who’s Emily, anyway?’
‘She rang earlier when you were visiting Myfanwy. She’s a student at the theology college in Lampeter. Apparently, everyone out there is pretty excited about the Kierkegaard books. She says she’s got information on the Father Christmas case.’
‘Really?’
‘He went to see her last week.’
‘Did you tell her the last student we had from Lampeter ended up with a “Come to Sunny Aberystwyth” knife between the ribs?’
‘I thought it better to gloss over that bit. Anyway, she’s not from the Faculty of Undertaking. She’s from Jezebel College.’
‘I don’t know that one.’
She consulted her notebook and said without understanding, ‘Comparative ethnography of the icon of the fallen woman in Cardiganshire.’
‘They study that?’
‘Seems so.’
‘Kids of today, eh? We never had the opportunities when I was young. What’s that roll of celluloid in the corner?’
‘Acetate film. Anti-glare coating for the incident board. A guy dropped it off here earlier.’
‘What sort of guy?’
‘Just a guy. He was a salesman. Left it as a free sample. He said it would work well on our incident board.’
‘In case you get snow blindness from staring at it.’
‘It was free, what are you worried about?’
I called Meirion at the
