of dirt on hollow wood. When there was nothing more to watch we walked down Elm Tree Avenue together and on down Queen’s Road to the Prom.
We went to the Cliff Railway station cafe and ordered two teas just as they were closing. Teas served with sullen ill-will because the appearance of two customers at this hour would make the woman late closing. Lorelei took out a metal flask and poured shots of whisky into the tea. The woman closing up with unnecessary bangs and accusatory crashes threw a look of disapproval. This was an unlicensed cafe, I could lose my licence. The last train of the evening clanked down to rest on the buffers. No one got off, no one got on. On a night like tonight there was no point trying to escape. Better to drink. To wassail.
‘Not much of a turn-out,’ said Lorelei.
From the radio in the kitchen came the haunting anthem of all troubled Christmases:
‘Mind you, I’ll be lucky to get four turn up when I go.’
I squeezed her hand in an attempt to reassure. ‘Does it really matter, once you’ve gone, who turns up to the funeral?’ I said.
Lorelei considered. ‘We were quite close in school. Then we lost touch.’
‘How long have – had you been visiting her at the nursing home?’
‘About ten years. I left town for a while, then when I came back I heard about her from someone, so I started going to see her.’
‘She kept talking about a child.’
‘Yes. I never knew about it at the time.’
‘I promised her I’d try and find it.’
She nodded.
‘Was I wrong, do you think?’
‘It’s not for me to say.’
‘A dying woman’s wish. I could hardly say no.’
‘No, I suppose not. That Erw Watcyns . . . Someone should do something.’
I asked her if she had heard of a soldier called Caleb Penpegws, because all boys who fought in that war, as in all wars, must have passed on their way to the front through the arms of someone like Lorelei.
‘There were so many boys,’ she said. ‘I never remembered the names. But there’s a man at the Pier, Eifion. He might know.’
I paid for the teas and just before we stood up to leave Lorelei said, ‘Will you kill Erw Watcyns?’
I looked at her in surprise, unsure whether she was asking me to do it or asking if I planned to. She saw the look on my face and nodded and said, ‘It’s all right. I know. I’m sorry I said that.’
We walked out into the falling snow; the Prom was hushed and filled with a soft luminescence. Light was a thing you had to be very wary of. In summer it flashed in strange, haunting fashion off the hot chrome bumpers of distant cars turning at Castle Point. All cars have chrome, so why should a flash like that stop you and make you long for things you cannot name? We stood at the brim of the Wishing Well, maintained by the Round Table, and heavily padlocked against wish-thieves.
‘Make a wish,’ I said.
‘I could do with some shoes that don’t pinch.’ She looked down at her feet, clad in old grey vinyl trainers, the ones put out by one of the high-street chains in a forlorn attempt to imitate a famous brand.
‘That Salvation Army shop has plenty on display.’
‘Army Surplice? They always charge me double.’
‘You never find charity where they advertise it.’
‘Oxfam are nice enough.’
I threw in a 50p piece and made a wish about Myfanwy and Christmas and snow.
An old man approached the Wishing Well and stopped when he noticed us. I could understand; being caught making a wish is undignified, like reading pornography. It was Elijah and he was crying. Instinct or tact made Lorelei step away into the shadows.
Elijah said, ‘I am sorry about your little girl, what I did: pulling the gun.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘I am astounded at what has become of me.’
‘You just got carried away.’
‘That is what astounds me most. All my life I have made it a point of principle not to get carried away. Giving in to passion is for fools.’
‘And for human beings.’
‘This, you see, is the poison of Hoffmann. May the ever-merciful Lord blight and curse that fiend.’
‘They say he is coming. They say the name means Hopeman.’
Elijah scoffed. ‘They! Who are they? The peasants of Aberystwyth? What do they know, the poor ignorant fools? They see a word painted in blood and they think their troubles are over.’
‘You don’t think he’ll come?’
‘You ask that of me, a man who has spent a lifetime searching for this chimera? You think this ignis fatuus will just turn up and sing “Away in a Manger”?’ He scoffed again.
‘If that’s the case, why don’t you give up your quest? Can it really be so important now, after all these years? Surely most of the people involved must be dead?’
‘Two brothers I have lost to this cause. Two lovely brothers, two of the noblest men ever to walk the earth . . . First there was delightful Ham the poet; and then delicate Absalom, the prophet and scholar. I never knew a human heart so little visited by the vice of pride as Absalom’s. He was willing to wear the ludicrous red robes of a Christian icon and work in a department store in order to fill his belly with bread – honourable bread – rather than shame his family by begging. Both those boys were superior to me in so many ways. Sometimes I wish God had taken me in their stead. You ask me to give up my quest, after such a price has been paid? After my family has lost so much? I should pack my bag and go home to the grave of my dear beloved Mama and tell her I could not save her sons; I could not find them because I lacked the strength to carry on when so near my goal? You ask me to do that? You ask me to dishonour myself.’
‘But if he’s not coming . . .’
‘Did I say that? You asked if I thought he would turn up and announce himself to the people of Aberystwyth and I said no. But all the same I feel that he is here. And so must my brother Absalom have felt it, too. Otherwise, why would he have come?’
‘But Absalom came in search of Ham.’
‘Yes, and Ham was seeking Hoffmann. By finding one you find the other. Such are the perplexities that confront me. And yet you could so easily lift my burden by telling me what your girl found in the alley.’
‘Why don’t you lift my burden and tell me what was in the coat pocket, the one stolen from Eichmann?’
‘You offer to trade?’
‘That’s fair, isn’t it?’
‘The item in the pocket was the list of names of people who attended Eichmann’s weekly card game.’
‘Just a list of names?’
‘Ah, but think who would be on that list. Think who would want to see it. Every Nazi fugitive in Patagonia would be on it. What wouldn’t the Israeli secret service give for that information? What wouldn’t Odessa give to see that they did not get it?’
‘So why did the Americans want it?’
‘Because the Israelis wanted it. And the Russians wanted it because the Americans wanted it.’
‘Who is killing all these people?’
‘The Pieman.’
‘Who does he work for?’
