why all their names were on a list left in the pocket of a coat. And I understand why a man met a woman in the reading room of the library and went across the street with her to a cheap hotel. And in the morning this woman stole the man’s coat and with it the list of names. She sold it to a soldier and that man was you. And when a while later some spooks turned up asking about the coat, this woman, who it turns out was Mrs Llantrisant, sent her lover to get the coat back and he stole it from you as you lay wounded in hospital. That thief became the celebrated Hoffmann.
‘Over the years, many men have searched for the list. Some have sought the woman who stole the coat; and they have taken the path of genealogy; because she was, it seems, the granddaughter of the Sundance Kid. Others have sought the man called Hoffmann, and their quest led through the dark, sequestered vales of physiognomy. Because he was, it seems, defined by that tantalising, insubstantial horizontal crease in his face which generations of school children have been informed was a smile. All the people – be they wayfarers on the high road of genealogy, or pilgrims on the low road of physiognomy – have reached journey’s end in the chimerical town called Aberystwyth. And there they have all come to a sticky end at the hands of two men who were guardians of the secret; men called Erw and the Pieman. Oh yes, I understand it all now, except two things. What was the crime? And if Hoffmann stole your coat, how come you’re still wearing it?’
Caleb nodded like a schoolteacher pleased with my progress. He looked down at Tiresias, who appeared to be listening intently; as if I had put my finger on the two aspects of the case that had always puzzled him.
‘You see,’ he said, ‘there were two names on the list that shouldn’t have been there, two men who had no business being in that weekly card game. One was General Llanbadarn; and the other was Sanchez, the bandit leader.’
‘Llanbadarn was playing cards on the eve of battle with the enemy?’
‘Yes. Llanbadarn had four of a kind; Sanchez had a straight flush. Sanchez would raise and Llanbadarn would see him and that old pot just got bigger and bigger. Sanchez put his boots on the table, and Llanbadarn his shirt. Then came Sanchez’s hat and Llanbadarn’s Sam Browne. After that they bet the dog, the mistress and the locket containing a picture of dear old Mama. Llanbadarn bet the farm; and Sanchez raised him with a gold mine. Eventually they had nothing left in the world to bid with, and that’s when Llanbadarn played the big one, the ultimate stake; perhaps the greatest since the gods on Mount Olympus played dice with human destiny.’
‘What was it?’
‘He bet the 32nd Airborne.’
I gasped, and stumbled against the railings. ‘He bet his own troops?’
‘Yes. Agreed to send them into an ambush.’
‘And you were one of them?’
‘Yes. I was there.’
I paused to reflect. ‘I can understand why the military would want to keep it secret, but why should you?’
‘Because of what we did when we found out.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘General Sanchez was kind enough to tell us. After the battle the son-of-a-bitch sent us a message via the secret passage.’ He shook his head as he relived the horror of it. ‘The crazy bastard told us about the card game! You can imagine how we felt. We weren’t bad men; we were just like everyone else out there. Good boys, mostly; lost in something we didn’t understand. That day we had been twisted beyond the limits of endurance. We saw our comrades slaughtered by an enemy blessed by an uncanny fore-knowledge of our battle-plan, who seemed to anticipate our every move. It was as if they knew we were coming, we said. And of course they did.’ He reflected for a moment and grasped his head in anguish. ‘If only that damned stupid angel hadn’t turned up again.’
‘So your terrible sin has something to do with the angel, but you will never say what because of your vow.’
Caleb took a folded newspaper from inside his coat. It was the late edition, carrying a report of Erw Watcyns’s death. ‘It doesn’t matter any more. He was the last one. They are all dead now; only me left . . . me and Tiresias.’ He hesitated and looked down at Tiresias, who seemed to nod in encouragement. Caleb said, ‘We nailed her to the church door.’
I groaned. ‘But it wasn’t a real angel, just a girl in fancy dress.’
‘Yes, we could see that the second time round.’
‘Did she die?’
‘No, but she was never the same again. It was Miss Evangeline, the old woman up at the nursing home. She was General Llanbadarn’s niece.’
‘And the priest went mad.’
‘Yes. He knew her, you see, from back home. A lovely girl, she was; sixteen years old, sweet as candy, always a bright smile for everyone. She’d won the Borth Carnival Queen and then someone had got her up the duff. The social services took away the kid and her uncle shipped her off to Patagonia out of harm’s way. The priest was supposed to keep an eye on her. When we grabbed her, he tried to intervene. We tied him down and made him watch.’
‘Why didn’t she tell you who she was?’
‘She did. She screamed, “No, no, please don’t, please don’t! There’s been a mistake, I’m not an angel. I’m Evangeline, General Llanbadarn’s niece. Please don’t, please don’t! I’m not an angel, I’m the General’s niece.” And the priest looked on in horror and heard what we said next and lost his wits.’
‘What did you say?’
‘We said, “Yes, we know.”’
He spoke no more for a while, just stood there still holding my arm, as if only the touch of another mortal could save him from the abyss.
I said, ‘Who killed Clip?’
He hunched himself deeper into his old leather coat as the snow fell more thickly, and said, ‘The peasants. They watched it happen, you see. And then the little goat girl said her angel had stopped appearing to her. It reeked of opportunism to me, but you could hardly tell the peasants that. Word got round that the Welsh gringos had killed the little girl’s angel. It was a hearts-and-minds disaster. Someone poisoned his sausages.’ He shook his head in sad disbelief, as if that was the real tragedy. Perhaps it was.
‘You know, sometimes when I wander this Prom late at night, when the drunks have all gone home and the only sound is the rasp of the sea on the shingle and Tiresias’s breathing, sometimes I think I can hear the sound of that dog barking.’
‘I met a girl whose father killed himself because of that dog’s smile. The taxidermist.’
Caleb nodded wistfully. ‘Yes, that is something else that will for ever lie heavy on my conscience. It was me who killed him.’
‘I thought he hanged himself from Trefechan Bridge.’
‘He did. But why? What made him do it? I made him do it. I met him in the cinema queue, you see. He told me all about himself. How his heart and indeed his whole life had been broken by that extraordinary expression on the dog’s muzzle. “How on earth was it achieved?” he asked me. And in one of those stupid moments one regrets for the rest of one’s life I told him.’
‘About . . . about the . . . secret passage?’
‘
He laughed without mirth and began to move away, then stopped and turned. ‘As for this coat you see me wearing, it’s simple. Hoffmann took the wrong one. I wasn’t wearing it that day. I keep it for best, you see.’
We locked gazes, perhaps simultaneously amazed at how a simple mishap like that could have affected the destiny of so many people.
‘You seem . . . wistful,’ said Caleb.
‘No, I’m just a bit surprised. It seems to me that, despite having become the greatest spy enigma of the Cold War, Hoffmann’s role in all this was rather minor.’
‘That’s right. Very minor.’
‘He wasn’t present at the Mission House siege?’
‘No.’
‘And he wasn’t connected to you at all?’
