even the customary susurration of the sea, it was leaden, unmoving; the sand grains stopped tumbling and hissing like snares on drums; not even a dog dared to bark.
The noise of a van pulling up disturbed the silence. A door slid open, followed by the crunch of a man jumping down on to gravel. I sat up and looked over. He was outside my caravan, knocking on the door. He was wearing a light summer macintosh and a panama hat with the brim pulled down low over his eyes; it didn’t look like the postman. In this twilight he could have walked up to the caravan carrying a bloodstained chainsaw and no one would have batted an eye, but the hat brim pulled down was like a big advertising hoarding announcing nefarious intent. I could hear a thousand net curtains rustle, hear the quiet melancholy of eyes staring out in the night at a stranger. I climbed to my feet and wandered down the face of the dune, annoyed at the intrusion. He climbed the caravan steps and peeked inside.
‘If you’re selling encyclopaedias you’re wasting your time, the guy in there already knows everything.’
He turned to face me. ‘Looks to me like he needs a brush salesman.’ He stepped down off the step. ‘Or maybe I’m not here to sell anything, maybe I came to set a cross up outside his caravan and set it alight.’
‘That would certainly get his attention. Tell me what you want to tell him and I’ll see he gets the message.’
‘They told me you were an entertainer, but I’m not in the mood, I’ve got a bad stomach, so maybe you’d like to get in the van.’
‘Where is the van going?’
‘To see some of Mr Mooncalf’s friends.’
‘Stamp collectors, huh? That explains why they sent a tough guy.’
‘Don’t waste your time trying to pump me. I’m just here to take you. You need to put this on.’
He handed me a blindfold.
‘Is it all right if I get in the van first?’
‘That would be the smart way to do it, but no one’s insisting.’
I climbed in and put on the blindfold. The driver checked to make sure it was placed properly, started up the engine and drove off.
All things have their polar opposites: hot, cold; day, night; love, hate; the Roman Catholic mass is sometimes refracted through a dark lens of wickedness into the black magic rite, the cross inverted and the ritual debased. So it is with stamp collecting. Generations of schoolboys sifting through the little squares of coloured paper have given this pastime a reputation for dullness. The snuff philatelist however is a different beast. He lives in the shadows and meets under the arch of the railway bridge, out of the penumbra of the streetlamp, his collar raised to the level of his eyes, the brim of his hat pulled down low. His trade is one that must hide its face from the light of day. He delights in murder and mayhem, but only at the arm’s length of correspondence that passed through the hands of the crook. Letters that are decorated with the fingerprints of the criminally insane, letters postmarked Sing Sing or San Quentin, Holloway or, better still, because insanity adds an extra frisson of terror, Broadmoor. He takes the necromancer’s delight in the bizarre, perverse and crepuscular ravings of man, in the freak shows that are played out after hours in the hinterlands of the human heart. The snuff philatelist is not concerned about the lives of the various heads of state, the profiles of Victoria or George, but lives only for the tongue of the serial killer who licked the back of the stamp, or failing that the tongue of his mum or someone who knew him. Except when writing deliberately badly spelled letters to the press to taunt the cops for their lack of success the serial killer seldom writes letters. And this makes his stamps all the more rare. For the collector, the thought that within those molecules of glue on the stamp’s back can be found the saliva and DNA of a monster, who once made the front page and caused a whole town to avoid the streets at night, makes his viscera quiver with pleasure.
I listened intently. When we reached the main Borth Road we turned right and continued for about two minutes and then left the road and drove on to a car park of rough stones from the beach. We drove around this a bit, doing some reversing and three-point turns, clearly intended to disorientate me, but when we returned to the main road we turned left so we were going back the way we came. We kept to the main road and omitted the turning to the caravan park, not long after that we went over the railway tracks. A couple of minutes after that, I got lost.
A while later, we drove over a cattle grid and then the world became muffled and my nostrils filled with the smoky, woody smell of old forest and dry pine-needles. We stopped and the driver helped me climb out. We began to walk through the forest, somewhere to my left a stream babbled. We walked for a while and then emerged into a clearing, the smell of pine needles was replaced by cooking smells and woodsmoke. A dog barked and a voice cried out, ‘Gelert! Here boy!’ The sounds took on a modulated quality that suggested there was a body of water nearby. There was also the crackle of fire burning bone-dry twigs and a wooden pole stirring a heavy metal receptacle that my heightened sensitivity and general knowledge of the vicinity led me to imagine was a cauldron. A girl’s voice sang a soft melody on the scented breeze of the summer night.
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips . . .
I was taken into a cottage or barn, a low lintel at the entrance was kindly pointed out. I walked down a corridor of stone flags, under another low doorway, and was ushered on to a wooden chair with a wide back. A man spoke to me.
‘This is the last time we will ever talk so listen carefully. Firstly I apologise for the theatrics necessary to bring you here but, as a dealer in our hidden world, you will no doubt understand. All further communication between us will take place via Mr Mooncalf who will deny at all times that the merchandise of which we talk even exists. He will tell you that you are bonkers but you must not be dismayed by this essential security measure. In a minute your blindfold will be removed and you will be left alone for ten minutes to examine the stamps. We have a First Day cover celebrating the formation of the SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, circa 1957; a letter addressed to 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Holloway, London, the house where the notorious Dr Crippen murdered his wife, although the letter post-dates this incident; a letter from a soldier at Maindiff Court Military Hospital in Abergavenny, written at the same time that Rudolf Hess was an inmate there. We also have a ransom note from the kidnappers of a German businessman in Kinshasa in 1978. And the envelope and tape that was sent to Mrs Walters. You have ten minutes, no more. After your ten minutes you will be taken back to the main road at Tre’r-ddol, after which you may make an offer through the office of Mr Mooncalf if you so wish.’
The blindfold was pulled off, the door slammed, I was alone at a kitchen table with some old letters spread out in front of me. Next to them was a cigar box in which they had been stored. The room was small with a low ceiling in which wooden beams could be seen. A cold empty fireplace yawned in one wall, and next to it was a traditional oak dresser. It was set with plates and cups and some tins of paint and glue stood on it with brushes soaking in turpentine, giving off a strong odour. Next to that was a spinning wheel. At the time it was just a wheel, but a week later and I could have told you it was a Semi-Saxon horizontal, sheathed bobbin, slip-backed flyer with five-speed twin treadle array – basically a souped-up ‘Cinderella’; you could cover a lot of yarn on a job like that. The owner of the house was a pro. I turned my attention to the letters.
The envelope was postmarked Aberaeron and contained a small spool of tape and a typewritten letter from a spiritualist who explained that she was familiar with the story from the newspapers and had made the recording at a recent sitting. There was no name and no signature. On impulse, I held the letter up to my nose. Despite the passage of time it still held a scent, that was the remarkable thing about paper, you can leave it lying in the back of the cupboard drawer for years and when you take it out it retains a trace of scent, sometimes enough to ambush the heart with the memory of a long-lost love. I sniffed again and my heart quivered, my head filled with a dizzy sensation of long ago. What it was I didn’t know, but I knew that I had smelled it before. The sound of footsteps outside made me realise time was short. It was too risky to steal the tape now, I needed to come back, and to do that I needed to know where I was. There were more footsteps outside, voices, whispered conversation. I looked at the spinning wheel and wondered. Tomorrow morning I had been booked for a day on the road with the spinning- wheel salesman. Maybe if I just . . . more footsteps. I walked across to the spinning wheel, picked up the brush from the glue pot and smeared it on the axle of the flywheel. I sat down again. The man came in and put my blindfold back on. I heard the cigar box snap shut. The man walked over to the dresser on my right, I heard a door being opened, a drawer opened and shut. Then we left. Behind me, the resin slowly thickened and turned to stone, fusing two pieces of wood. All I had to do was ask Meici Jones about reports of jammed wheels on his patch. Piece
