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  Last Tango in Aberystwyth

  ( Aberystwyth Noir - 2 )

  Malcolm Pryce

  To the girls who came to make it big in the town's 'What the Butler Saw' movie industry, Aberystwyth was the town of broken dreams. To Dean Morgan who taught at the Faculty of Undertaking, it was just a place to get course materials. But both worlds collide when the Dean checks into the notorious bed and breakfast ghetto and mistakenly receives a suitcase intended for a ruthless druid assassin. Soon he is running for his life, lost in a dark labyrinth of druid speakeasies and toffee apple dens, where every spinning wheel tells the story of a broken heart, and where the Dean's own heart is hopelessly in thrall to a porn star known as Judy Juice.

  Last Tango in Aberystwyth

  Malcolm Pryce

  I would like to thank my editor Mike at Bloomsbury and my agent Rachel for all their tremendous help, support, enthusiasm and lunches.

  First published in Great Britain 2003

  Copyright © 2003 by Malcolm Pryce

  The spinning-wheel that Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on arrived in Aberystwyth around the middle of the seventeenth century. Technically it's known as the Saxon wheel, though no one ever calls it that. There are four main parts: the wheel, the spindle, the distaff and the foot pedal or 'treadle'. This is a story about the treadle. Or, more precisely, about that sorry army of girls who pedalled it during the years after the flood. The girls came mainly from the farms up beyond Talybont — chancers who didn't know a loom from a broom but flocked to the lights of Aberystwyth to make it big modelling on the tops of the fudge boxes they sold to the tourists. They called them treadle trollops but normally they never got to peddle anything except their sweet young bodies down at the druid speakeasies on Harbour Row. You won't find much enchantment in this story. And since it all took place in the shadow of Aberystwyth Castle and not the one described by Hans Christian Andersen there aren't any knights in shining armour. Just me, Louie Knight, Aberystwyth's only private detective and more frog than prince. Not many of the people in it lived happily ever after either. But at least half of them lived, which was a good average for the town in those days ...

  Chapter 1

  I needed to find a druid, which in Aberystwyth is like trying to find a wasp at a picnic. I wasn't fussy about which one, no more than you care which one lands on your jam sandwich, but Valentine from the Boutique would have been good. In his smart Crimplene safari suit, Terylene tie and three-tone shoes, the druid style-guru should have been the easiest to spot. But tonight he seemed to have gone to ground, along with the rest of his crew; and during my lonely sweep of the Prom I met no one except a couple of pilgrims who asked directions to the spot where Bianca died.

  I pulled up my collar against the wind and turned back, and wandered disconsolately down past the old college and on towards Constitution Hill. In the bed-and-breakfast ghetto the shutters squeaked and banged and a chill low-season wind blew old newspapers down the road. There were vacancy signs glowing in all the windows tonight and here at the season's end, as September turned into October, they would be likely to remain that way for another year. Even the optimists knew better than to try their luck now. In this town the promise of an Indian summer often meant the genuine article: a monsoon.

  Misplacing Valentine was no great hardship, but the word on the street said he had tickets to Jubal's party and without a ticket there was only one way in: I would have to use the scrap of paper that lay crumpled up in my coat pocket. I'd bought it half an hour earlier from a streetwalker down by Trefechan Bridge and paid a pound for it. She assured me it would open Jubal's front door faster than a fireman's jemmy; but I somehow doubted it. I'd used tricks like this before and either they didn't work at all and you wasted a pound; or they worked so well you ended up getting a sore head. Which would it be tonight?

  Jubal Griffiths was the mayor at the time and also head of casting for the 'What the Butler Saw' movie industry. This was about as close as you could get to being a mogul in Aberystwyth and his house was easy to find: one of those stately Georgian piles on North Road, overlooking the bowling-green with a distant prospect of the pier. They were the sort of houses that had high ceilings and real cornices and a bell next to the fireplace to call the servants. In most of them, too, there was an invalid rotting away upstairs who could still remember a time when you rang and someone answered.

  I banged on the door and a Judas window slid open. The sound of music drifted out, along with muffled screams and the aroma of smoky bacon crisps. Two eyes peered at me through the slit and before I had time to wonder what sort of mayor needs a fixture like that in his front door a voice said, 'Sorry, mister, members only.' I laughed. It didn't even convince me, but on a night like this it was the best I could do.

  'Someone tickling you, pal?'

  I chuckled some more and said brightly, 'No I was just thinking, normally to get a drink in this town you just need to be a member of the human race.'

  'Yeah, well we've had a lot of trouble with that particular organisation.' The little door slid shut.

  I walked down the side of the house to the back door, opened the letterbox and shouted, 'Coo-ey!' Carpet slippers slithered down the hall. The door opened slightly, held by a chain. Two old, grey, watery eyes peered at me.

  'Yes?'

  'I've come for the speakeasy.'

  'The what?'

  'The speakeasy. I hear it's a good party.'

  The old lady knitted her brows together and said with the sort of acting you get at a school play, 'Oh I'm afraid you must have made a mistake, there's nothing like that here.'

  She began to close the door and I wedged my foot in and leaned my shoulder against the wood. It opened a few more inches. She would have been about five foot two in her socks and was wearing a dust-coloured shawl over an indigo wool skirt. She had opaque, flesh-coloured stockings the colour of Elastoplast and on her feet were those felt relaxation boots — trimmed with fake fur at the ankle and a zip up the front. The same outfit worn by a thousand other old spinsters in this town. It fooled no one.

  'You're the one who's made the mistake, lady, there's a party going on and I'm invited.'

  She switched to Welsh. 'Beth ydych chi eisiau? Dydw I ddim yn siarad Saesneg...'

  I could speak in tongues, too. 'Edrychwch Hombrй, agorwch y drws! por favor.'

  She tried pushing the door on my foot, switching back to English. 'I can assure you there's nothing like that going on in my house.'

  'You must be in the wrong house, then. Just tell Jubal I'm here. Tell him I've got a message ...' I peered at the slip of paper in the palm of my hand, 'from Judy Juice.'

  At the mention of the name the old lady's demeanour changed. She stopped pushing the door and considered me through narrowed eyes.

  'Miss Judy?'

  I nodded.

  'Who shall I say is calling?'

  I handed her a card. It said, Louie Knight, Gumshoe. She took it and I removed my foot. As she closed the door I bent down and shouted through the letterbox, 'And drop the confused old biddy act, it stinks!'

  I waited on the step for a while and thought about the piece of paper. Two words that meant nothing to me but the whole world, apparently, to Jubal. She was, they said, the one girl in town he wanted but couldn't have. And such is the eternal perversity of man's heart that because he couldn't have her he wanted her more than all the others in the world put together. The door opened and two men in rugby shirts with chests the size of wardrobes leered at me. They were the sort of men with no necks, just extra face. They motioned with their heads and we walked down the hall, the sound of the party getting louder. One of the side-doors burst open and an old man in satyr trousers
rushed out pursued by an elderly, giggling woman. I peered into the room: a crush of people standing up, talking and drinking; a buffet on the sideboard with vol-au-vents, crisps and those pineapple cheese things impaled on miniature plastic swords. Girls in stovepipe hats and not much else wandered through with trays of punch. Before I could see any more the two tough guys grabbed me and pulled me along.

  At the end of the corridor was a study. Inside were three other

  muscle men in the same rugby-club shirts; a bored-looking blonde in Welsh national dress and fake leopard-skin coat; and a man sitting behind a desk. The girl stared mesmerised at a light-fitting on the ceiling and chewed cuds of spearmint with regular wet, clickety-clack sounds. The man behind the desk was Jubal. Short and tubby, with a hunchback and a small round head stuck on to the hunch like a pea on a lump of dough. A man with a finger in more pies than Jack Horner. He was holding my card gingerly between his two index fingers, and contemplating it as if it had just scurried out from under his fridge. Then he tore it into two bits, dropped them at his feet, and looked at me myopically through a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles. He blinked. 'I appreciate your candour, Mr Knight. Most of the peepers who come sniffing round my business usually have a card that says they've come to read the meter.'

  I smiled at him.

  'Unfortunately that's the only thing about you I appreciate. Would you care to give me the message you claim to have.'

  'No.' It was just one tiny syllable but it produced a synchronised gasp from everyone in the room. Jubal stared at me inquisitorially.

  'I hope you've got something good up your sleeve, snooper ... for your sake.'

  'I'm not willing to give you the message, but I might exchange it ... For information.'

  'What sort?'

  'I'm looking for a man called Morgan.'

  'And?'

  'Dean Morgan. This is the bit where you say you haven't heard of him.' Just to spite me he said nothing, so I filled in the silence. 'He went missing as people often do in Aberystwyth. And, as people often do, someone asked me to find him.'

  'I'm struggling to see the connection to me. It's going to be very painful for you if you don't have one.'

  'He was last seen at one of your parties.'

  Jubal removed his spectacles and polished them on the girl's leopard-skin coat. 'Is that it?' he spluttered, his gorge rising. 'He came to one of my parties? You bust your way into a private gathering, drop some old tart's name at the door as a calling card and that's all you've got?'

  'Who says she's a tart?'

  'They're the only sort of girls I associate with.' He slapped the knee of the blonde. 'Ain't that right, Toots?'

  The girl dragged her gaze away from the ceiling and treated him to a smile that came and went faster than a flash from the lighthouse. 'Sure, honey.' Then she pressed her head against his chest and cooed. Jubal spoke across the top of her head.

  'She wants to be in one of my pictures; they all do.'

  'It's probably more fun than watching them.'

  He flinched slightly and said, 'Tell me what you really want, peeper, is it money? And please dispense with the witty dialogue, it's tiresome.'

  I didn't know what I was doing there, really; just looking to see if the Dean's name induced any reaction. So far it hadn't produced even a flicker. So I said, 'I've come to ask why your boys threw Dean Morgan in the sea.'

  He addressed the rugby-shirt crew. 'Have any of you boys thrown a man called Dean Morgan into the sea recently?'

  They exchanged questioning looks among themselves and then said in unison, 'Not us, Boss.'

  'Looks like there's been a mistake,' said Jubal.

  'Your boys are probably confused. His name's not actually Dean, that's his title. He teaches at the college in Lampeter. He was found last night floating face-down in the harbour.'

  'How tragic, I hear the tides can be very strong.'

  'They must have been, they broke his neck.'

  There was a slight heightening of tension, and an air of mild surprise at the news of his death, which was understandable because I had just made it up. The people in the room turned their attention to Jubal. All except the girl, who was rubbing her cheek against his chest and making a long drawn-out 'Mmmmm' sound. Jubal laughed. Not the hammed-up stage-laugh of someone trying to conceal something. But the carefree laugh of someone who knows you've thrown in your wild card and you couldn't have been further from the truth if you tried.

  'Well, shamus, he seems to have made an excellent recovery from his broken neck. He telephoned me five minutes ago.'

  I thought for a second about an appropriate expression. He could have been lying and probably was. But then again so was I and he knew it; just as I knew that he was, and he knew that I knew that he was, and I knew that he knew that I was. I put on the bright wide grin of an idiot.

  Jubal said, 'Tell me, peeper, do you really have a message from Judy?'

  'Of course.'

  'Why would she give it to you?'

  'She's a friend of mine.'

  'Is that right! A close friend?'

  'Oh so-so.'

  'This is really interesting. What does she look like?'

  I hesitated, caught in the headlights of an oncoming train.

  Jubal laughed. 'Go on describe her.'

  'Er ... well, you know ...'

  'Come, come, shamus! It shouldn't be too difficult, I'll give you a clue: tonight she's wearing a leopard-skin coat ...'

  The girl turned and gave me a sickly-sweet smile. And then everyone in the room except me laughed. As the tears slid down his reddening face, Jubal waved a hand at me and said to one of the tough guys. 'Throw this trash into the sea.'

  That was the signal for them to take out their blackjacks, put a hood over my face, and play a tune on my head.

  When I regained consciousness I was lying at the base of Constitution Hill, a cold tongue of sea-water licking my face like a faithful dog. Dawn was breaking through thick woolly cloud and my head was throbbing. They had dumped me just above the high-water mark which meant that, all things considered, they must have liked me.

  Chapter 2

  The battered, green Crossville bus pulled up with a sigh of brakes and disgorged an old man in a cheap suit. He put two suitcases down on the floor and then squinted at the morning sun glittering on the sea. From the bus shelter, a mother and a little girl eyed him suspiciously. The man took a breath and said, 'Smell that, Seсor Rodrigo?'

  A voice answered from the suitcase, 'Back in Aberystwyth. Same old smell.'

  The man looked down at the case. 'Yes, the same old smell.'

  "We said we'd never come back.'

  'We always say we'll never come back.'

  'But here we are again.'

  The woman grabbed her little girl by the arm and dragged her briskly up the Prom, casting doubtful looks behind as they went. The old man watched them go for a while, his face lined with the wistful sadness that is the lot of the lifelong outcast. Then he bent down, the whole world on his shoulders, and picked up the cases. They were covered in faded stickers and the most faded of all said, 'The Amazing Mr Marmalade'.

  'Need any help?' I offered.

  He shook his head. 'Been carrying them for forty years.'

  'I could take the small one.'

  He jerked slightly. 'Yeah, I know, and throw Seсor Rodrigo in the sea.' He strode off, crossed the road, and entered the Seaman's Mission.

  I remained standing there for a while and then walked up the rest of the Prom to the wooden jetty by the harbour. The autumn wind was warm and blustery and held in it the promise of a season about to change. At the end of the jetty, I turned, and contemplated the vista of the town steaming in the morning sun as if still damp from its soaking three years ago.

  Looking back, it was surprising how well the old place had stood up to the great flood. The waters had passed over Aberystwyth like a giant car-wash and picked it cleaner than an alley-cat does the bones of a kipper. But not much had
actually been knocked down. We all held our breath that fateful night, closed our eyes, and when we opened them again most of the town was still there. True, most things that could be moved had gone. All the tables, chairs, spinning-wheels and grandfather clocks; all the Coronation mugs with their hoarded sixpences; all the tea cosies, the dioramas and stereoscopic views of Llandudno; all the ointment from the backs of drawers, and the lengths of orthopaedic hosiery; the china figurines, brass elephants and hairbrushes with four generations of matted hair. And, from the their picture frames atop the steam radios, a sepia generation of young men from the Great War were lost again, only this time at sea. It was all sucked out into the insatiable drain of the ocean. Even the seaside rock disappeared in a lurid pink slick before slowly sinking to rot the teeth of the bottom-dwelling fish.

  But the buildings remained, by and large. Here and there — like missing teeth — there were gaps in the rows of shops on Terrace Road and Great Darkgate Street. Little squares of rubble, filled with oily puddles, flapping polythene and broken dressers housing families of rats. And bounded on each side by the image familiar from the photos of the Blitz — sides of houses torn away to reveal the contents, floor by floor, like dolls' houses open to view.

  The city fathers from Dresden who came to advise on the rebuilding found little to advise upon. You call this a moonscape? they said. This is a walk in the park! Just do what we did in 1945. Gather together all the Old Master oil paintings with views of the town; all the watercolours and prints of the main civic buildings; all the etchings and lithographs and work from that; rebuild. Roll your sleeves up. Don't dwell on it, move on. And so we did. In the absence of canvases by Canaletto and engravings by Dьrer we resorted instead to something more modest: a nationwide appeal for old holiday snaps and postcards of Aberystwyth. Predictably it produced its fair share of pictures of the Sphinx and the leaning tower of Pisa because, as anyone who's ever been stopped by a traffic cop knows, everyone's a comedian these days. But the steady stream of ash-trays, salt and pepper shakers, and souvenir barometers with views of the town were enough to get us started.