triumph. ‘Ah! Now I get it! I left the note in the office of a private detective and who should turn up but the spinning-wheel salesman! But then I always thought there was something funny about that handsome spinning- wheel salesman. In fact it looks like he was only pretending to be one. Nice try, Mr Detective! Am I right? No! Don’t say, you’ll only lie.’
‘You got it in one, but you mustn’t tell anyone.’
‘Oh I won’t. Have you been investigating him long?’
‘Who?’
‘Meici Jones.’
‘Oh yes, a long time, he’s a nasty piece of work.’
‘He stole some things when you came round, some stamps. That’s why I came to see you. My brother will be furious if we don’t get them back.’
‘Why don’t you go to the police?’
‘As if you didn’t know! Snuff philately! Imagine reporting that to the cops. How much is it going to cost me to get my stamps back?’
‘If you can be patient I might be able to get hold of them for nothing.’
‘No payment?’
‘I’m already engaged to spy on Meici Jones, it wouldn’t be right to get paid twice.’
She tilted her head down and looked up through her eyelashes in a slightly awkward attempt to look coquettish. Her voice dropped in timbre. ‘Maybe I could find some other way of paying you.’
‘That’s a good idea. Is this shop licensed by the Witchfinder?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Do you know his wife?’
‘Mrs Mochdre? Not very well. What’s this got to do with anything?’
‘You could repay me by spying on her for me.’
‘Why, what’s she done?’
‘I don’t know, that’s why I want to spy on her.’
‘This wasn’t quite what I had in mind.’
‘I know, but you didn’t specify.’
Arianwen looked deflated. ‘You are such a wet blanket. Or you enjoy teasing me.’
‘I’m a wet blanket and I enjoy teasing you.’
‘Do you really want me to spy on her?’
‘Not for the time being.’ I tipped my hat, thanked her. ‘I’ll see if I can find those stamps.’
‘Is it true private detectives always seduce their female clients?’
‘The big city boys do,’ I said. ‘But in Aberystwyth we decide on a case by case basis.’
Chapter 7
I went to the office to lock up and found Uncle Vanya sitting in the client’s chair. He had a bottle of vodka and two glasses on the table. The merry glitter in his eyes made it clear he had not waited for me to start. There was a copy of the evening paper on the desk folded to a story about three painters sighting Gethsemane Walters. It said they were students.
‘You are a hot-shot,’ he said.
‘I am not a hot-shot.’
‘Thirty-five years no one knew where she was, and you! Two days it took you. Even our best detectives in Hughesovka could not achieve a resolution so quickly.’
‘Yes they could, trust me. She escaped.’
‘Such charming modesty!’
‘We don’t even know if it really is Gethsemane.’
‘Who else could it be?’
‘I have no idea.’
He slapped the newspaper with the back of his hand. ‘According to this a passer-by found her hat and handed it in. Her name was written on the label inside her hat.’
‘That passer-by was me.’
‘How could she be wearing her hat if it was not her? The case is almost closed. We celebrate. We drink to the hot-shot.’
‘Even if it is her, we don’t know how she got there, or where she has been all these years. The case is not closed, not by me anyway. I haven’t earned my sock yet. Anyway, the cops are all over it now, so expect a visit from them.’
He slid his index finger across his lips to indicate that they were sealed as far as volunteering information to the authorities. ‘Tonight, my friend, we drink!’ he declared in a manner that would brook no denial, even on the remote chance that a denial was offered. ‘Please,’ he added. ‘No buts.’
‘OK, tonight we drink but in return you must help me.’
‘Of course I will help you.’
‘I want to go to the railway station buffet and speak to a man called Rwpert Valentino about this case.’
‘Who is Rwpert Valentino?’
‘He is a star in the TV soap
‘Is he so very difficult to talk to?’
‘Just pretend the case is still open.’
‘Say no more,’ said Vanya. ‘The case is still open and tonight we drink. Tonight we test the limits of that puny vessel, your Welsh heart.’
We remained in the office for a while, and drank in silence; a mute and intense seriousness as each considered his own thoughts. For many years I had been unaware of the void in my office. It was the calling card of my trade as a crime-fighter, a caped crusader. It went with the territory along with the dents in the tarnished armour, and the liquor and the Bakelite fan. Just like Sospan had his vanilla. There had been a girl, for a while, called Myfanwy, whom all the town loved but none more so than me. She was the singer at the Moulin Club and as much a part of our town as vanilla and donkey droppings and neon and heartache. She sang of them all. And then she lost her voice and the town hall clock lost its tick. In January of this year she went away to a sanatorium in Switzerland where the doctors say she would over time regain her voice. She sends postcards, but not often. And the townspeople ask about her in ways that I find painful. I smile and say in a falsely jovial voice that she is doing well and will be back soon, but she hasn’t said she will. We feel her absence almost as keenly as her presence.
I opened the drawer and took out the envelope that had contained the seance tape. I lifted it to my nose and sniffed. It was not a scent in the ordinary sense of the word, not the stuff you buy from Boots and dab behind the ears. And yet it was a scent of sorts, a fragrance from long ago that evoked an image I had seen once in my dreams: I look up from the bottom of a well, staring at blue sky framed by elm trees; the whistle of a steam engine shrieks; there is a shower of sparks and sweet smoke billows through the leaves; a woman in a cream two-piece outfit appears in the frame against the blue; she exclaims in mild dismay and says, ‘Oh sugar!’ She removes a spot of soot from her cream jacket sleeve. I do not know this woman but she has a young gentle face.
The level of the vodka began to approach the halfway mark. All true drinkers know that the second half of the bottle, like the second week of the summer holiday, passes much quicker than the first and this thought alone can induce a queasy form of angst. At times a summer night is a wide landscape to cross and a wise man provisions well before setting out. We walked to the off-licence on Terrace Road and I bought a supplemental bottle, this time of Captain Morgan rum.
We emerged from the off-licence with spirits buoyed by the knowledge that whatever befell us there was still alcohol. The actors in the drama of the coming night were putting the finishing touches to their grease paint, some were already to be seen emerging furtively from doorways, testing the night air with their whiskers like rats; in the orchestra pit the police cars were tuning up their sirens; already in some remote part of town there came that
