From Aberystwyth with Love

‘It’s intriguing. But even if it is true, even if she made the seance recording, I don’t see how we could prove any of it.’

‘She’ll confess,’ said Calamity with quiet confidence.

‘You think so? Mrs Mochdre doesn’t strike me as the sort of shrinking violet who breaks easily, even if Llunos is doing the interview.’

‘I know a way to make her confess. We’ll make her confront her accuser.’

‘Who’s her accuser?’

Calamity pointed at the mechanical gypsy fortune-teller. ‘Remember that technique I told you about, the one the Feds use, called reverse horoscopy?’ She looked at my face and mistook slight bafflement for a rebuke and hurried through her sentence as if expecting me to cut her off before the end. ‘I’ve been thinking about superseding the paradigm and all that . . .’ She let the words trail off. ‘I guess you think we’ve heard quite enough about all that, right?’

‘No, go on and tell me what you have in mind.’

Still looking unsure, she carried on. ‘Why would Mrs Mochdre attack the mechanical fortune-teller with a hammer?’

‘Because she objected to its tone of voice, or thought Satan was speaking to her or something.’

‘What if the fortune-teller told her she would one day go to prison for what she did to Gethsemane?’

‘But how could a mechanical fortune-teller do that?’

‘It couldn’t, but Mrs Mochdre could have imagined it. We know she complained about Satan talking to her all the time. That means she was hearing voices, so just think if Gethsemane really was on her conscience and she felt guilty and then . . . what’s it called when . . . when  . . .’

‘Projection, it’s called projection or transference or something. She was racked with guilt and paranoia and heard the fortune-teller accusing her of a terrible crime and predicting a lifetime behind bars for it. So Mrs Mochdre shuts Gypsy Rosie Lee up with a hammer.’

Calamity looked at me with uncertainty in her eyes. Her face fell. ‘It’s a bit silly, really, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But don’t let that stop you. Don’t forget we are superseding the paradigm.’

‘We need to get her in an interview room with the mechanical gypsy and decorate the place to pretend the year is 1955. Then we’ll tell her it is the day before Gethsemane went missing and we are going to ask the gypsy fortune-teller for Mrs Mochdre’s fortune for the next day. Llunos can arrange it.’ Her brow darkened as a thought occurred to her. ‘Llunos will never buy it, will he?’

I grinned with sheer joy at Calamity’s crazy scheme. ‘That has to be the nuttiest crime-fighting idea anyone has ever had in the history of detectives. That doesn’t just supersede the paradigm it melts it down and turns it into a brass chamber pot. Llunos will love it. Llunos will absolutely love it.’

On the way out I returned to the dresser in which Gethsemane had stowed away and began to close the drawer that had been left open. I slid it shut, stopped and pulled it open again. The drawer was lined with a copy of the Cambrian News. I took it out. The front page was carrying a story about a bank holiday riot, a fight between Teddy boys and local police. The main photo was a dramatic close-up of a young hoodlum punching a policeman on the jaw. It was the same edition Calamity had retrieved from the archive in Aberystwyth, the one that had been censored by having the photo removed. Suddenly I knew who had been responsible for the act of censorship. I recognised the young man punching the cop. It was a long time ago, and he had changed a lot with the long passage of time; he had grown from an angry young man into a gentle and mellow old man who shuffled slowly along the Prom. It was my dad, Eeyore.

Chapter 23

Llunos was wearing ‘drapes’, velvet collar and drainpipe trousers, and strutted up and down the interview room; his hair was carefully sculpted into a quiff at the front and combed into a duck’s arse at the back. From the expression on his face it was evidently the most fun he had ever had in an interrogation. I didn’t know, but suspected he had missed the Teddy boy phenomenon first time round, not because he was too old or too young, but simply because it was inconceivable that his father would have allowed him so much as a feather of a duck’s arse and almost certainly regarded rock’n’roll as moral poison. I read the copy of the Cambrian News from 1955 carrying the story of a girl from Rhyl who had been hanged at Holloway prison. Just another girl from Rhyl who had a bagful of troubles and ended up on the end of a rope. It could happen to anyone.

In a corner of the room a Wurlitzer played ‘Rock around the Clock’ and you could tell this was the type of music that Llunos liked. Mooncalf had done us proud. I attributed his willingness to help to the expression on his face when I walked in with Calamity; it was the expression of a man who had not been expecting to see her back. We made a deal: I would undertake the difficult task of not throwing him out of the third floor window if he would get hold of the ingredients of a 1950s party for us; nothing too fancy, just enough to fool a mechanical gypsy fortune-teller. In the space of a few days he managed to dig up the On the Waterfront cinema poster; the jukebox and its precious cargo of vintage vinyl; he found the drapes and blue suede shoes that Llunos and I were wearing, and all in the right sizes. He gave us the steam radio and rigged it up with a tape recorder to relay the sad news of Einstein’s death and the stirring story of Rosa Parks in Montgomery refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. This was Montgomery, Alabama, not the one between Welshpool and Shrewsbury. There were seven or eight months separating those two events in 1955 but something told me Mrs Mochdre was no history teacher. The mechanical Gypsy Rosie Lee had been given to us by Pyotr along with the complimentary tickets on Air Hughesovka Flight 003 that had landed at Aberporth military base a couple of days before.

Calamity was outside watching through the two-way mirror as we reversed the horoscope and superseded the paradigm in ways the writers for Gumshoe magazine could never have imagined. She had spent the past two days making a concerted attempt to keep the smug expression off her face. It was a very mature performance and did her credit, but she was fighting a losing battle. It was good to see. I no longer had any worries about Calamity’s crisis of confidence.

Llunos put another penny into the jukebox and selected ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ by Johnny Cash. Oh yes, he was enjoying himself.

I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on

But that train keeps a rollin’ on down to San Anton  . . .

He paced around the room for a while to let the irony of his music choice sink in and then, as if inspired by a sudden decision, he walked up to the high-backed chair in which Mrs Mochdre sat, placed his palms on the table next to her and leaned round to speak into her face. It was the ‘invading the personal space’ routine that you saw in all the cop shows. He even had the authentic sweat stains under the arms. ‘It’s up to you, Mrs Mochdre,’ he said. ‘We already know the facts, about the terrible thing you did to your sister’s little girl, but we need to hear it from you. You recognise Gypsy Rosie Lee here, don’t you? You thought you’d seen the last of her, didn’t you? Thought you’d done her in good and proper that time when you took a hammer and smashed her face in.’

I re-read the report in the Cambrian News, strangely moved, and threw it down on the desk taking care that the story fell under the nose of Mrs Mochdre. Maybe it would help concentrate her mind. A smarter woman might have noticed the yellowing and fading of the aged paper, or wondered why the masthead had changed, but a smarter woman wouldn’t even be here. Mrs Mochdre held herself erect, too proud or stubborn to look at the newspaper. She held her handbag pressed against her chest and trembled. No one, not even a tough guy, knows how to play it cool in a police interview room. The ones who tell you they can are just bluffing.

Llunos grabbed a desk calendar which was opened to the date 30 August 1955 and slid it across the desk towards Mrs Mochdre. ‘Tomorrow’s the day, Mrs Mochdre. Tomorrow’s the day you take little Gethsemane to Aberystwyth and tomorrow’s the day she disappears never to be seen again. Tomorrow is when it all happens. We’re a bit cloudy about the details, we don’t know exactly what happens tomorrow, but we’ve got a good idea. And Gypsy Rosie Lee here knows everything. All I have to do is put the coin in and she starts singing. You remember the gypsy, don’t you? You are probably surprised to see her back, in view of the beating you gave her. But mechanical fortune-tellers are not like little girls,’ said Llunos, ‘they can be repaired. We hunted her down and brought her back. She recognises you. She picked you out of the line-up. She remembers the beating you gave her. You see the calendar. As soon as we turned her on she took one look and presto! She thinks it’s August 1955. It