Last Tango in Aberystwyth Read online

  ‘I’m serious, this is a crucial aspect of the case.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘I get the feeling it all hinges on this, we can’t afford any mistakes here. I could take yours.’

  ‘I haven’t got one.’

  ‘Yes you have, it’s locked in the sea-chest. Mrs Llantrisant told me. The key’s taped behind the picture of Noel Bartholomew.’

  I changed tack. ‘Calamity, as long as you work for me, you’ll never carry a gun. I never carry one and it’s probably the only reason I’m still alive.’

  A floorboard creaked and we both looked round. The door opened and Gretel stood framed in the doorway. ‘Hi! Can I come in?’

  She was wearing a hessian trouser suit and a wide-brimmed hat and had painted her nails scarlet. I had an awful feeling it was an attempt at glamour. There was also something slightly stilted and unnatural in the way she walked, as if her recent exposure to the tarnished streets of Aberystwyth was causing her to affect a growing worldliness. I poured out another tea and Gretel told me the news. The Dean had telephoned her and pleaded with her to call off the sleuths.

  ‘He was very angry with me,’ she said. ‘He said there were some very bad men looking for him who wanted him dead and having two bungling private detectives hunting him was just making it easier for them.’

  I nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘He knew you’d been to the hotel and the Seaman’s Mission and the Komedy Kamp at Borth. And he said Mister Marmalade was … was … what’s the word?’

  ‘Whacked,’ said Calamity.

  ‘What!?’

  ‘Whacked. He got whacked. That’s what we call it in this business.’

  I looked at Calamity who ignored my questioning gaze.

  Gretel looked puzzled. ‘I don’t think he said that, it was something else.’

  ‘What does it matter,’ said Calamity. ‘Whacked, smacked, topped, zapped, greased, rubbed-out or bought the farm, he’s dead and they did it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  Gretel put her fist into her mouth and made a sort of weeping sound. ‘Do you think they’ll … they’ll … what was it?’

  ‘Whack him,’ said Calamity helpfully. ‘Who knows? But don’t worry, we know what we’re doing.’

  Gretel went to the bathroom, and Calamity said simply, ‘What a dipstick.’

  ‘And she’s paying us money, so be nice.’

  ‘She’s definitely holding back on us.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘You don’t? All this weepy stuff for a professor? It’s all fake.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Whoever heard of someone hiring a private detective to find their teacher?’

  ‘In the real world people do all sorts of things you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘And her body language is all wrong. The crying, that’s always a tough one to fake.’

  ‘They looked like real tears to me. Or has she got an onion in her fist?’

  ‘They’re real but she’s doing them in the wrong places. Textbook stuff. Crying inappropriately and not crying at the appropriate time. It’s a giveaway.’

  ‘She just did that?’

  The toilet flushed and we stopped and when Gretel came back it was to a silence that fooled no one, even someone as unworldly as her.

  ‘Talking about me, are we?’ She sat down. ‘I’ve been thinking, maybe we’d better call off the hunt.’

  Calamity went and sat down on the edge of the desk and invaded her personal space like the cops do. ‘Getting cold feet? Losing your bottle?’

  ‘B … b … but what if they whack him?’

  ‘If they really want to kill him,’ I said, ‘it’s even more reason for us to find him first. Calling us off will just make their job easier.’

  ‘That’s if he was telling the truth,’ said Calamity.

  ‘What do you mean?’ blurted Gretel. ‘Of course he’s telling the truth. Why wouldn’t he?’

  Calamity put a mean face on. ‘How do I know? Why would anyone ever dream of telling a lie? It beats me. Right from the cradle we’re taught to tell the truth, and yet there are all these people out there who don’t do it. I don’t get it, what about you, eh, Louie?’

  I tried again to flash a warning look at her but she deliberately avoided it.

  ‘The Dean never told a lie in his life,’ said Gretel.

  ‘Yeah, but what about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You haven’t exactly been telling us the truth, whole and nothing but, have you?’

  ‘W … w … what do you mean?’

  I slid down in my chair, trying to get my foot towards Calamity under the table.

  ‘This Bad Girl stuff for instance –’

  ‘I don’t talk about her –’

  ‘That’s a lie for a start – you never stop!’

  I managed to get my foot across and kick Calamity. She jumped slightly and shot me a furious look. Then she eased herself down off the desk and stamped on my foot.

  ‘I … you … how dare you?’ said Gretel.

  ‘You didn’t tell us he made a pass at her one night and tore her blouse, did you?’

  ‘He didn’t … who says … how did you know?’

  ‘It’s my job to know, I’m a detective.’ She took out a notebook and read from it. ‘She was a hussy and she shouldn’t have been there, huh? More interested in drinking and partying than learning about Abraham; and when it came to the Ten Commandments she only knew how to break them. And then there was the incident with the Dean; by rights he was the one who should have been thrown out on his ear but the wives of all the other tutors got together and hey presto! off she goes. Not that she cared of course, it’s what she wanted all along … am I getting warm?’

  Gretel stood up angrily. ‘I won’t stay another second to hear the Dean’s good name dragged through the mud like this. Good day to you both.’

  After she had slammed the door I held my hand out for the notebook. Calamity snapped it shut and put it in her pocket. I stood up and took a step towards her. She moved round to the other side of the desk.

  ‘Let me see.’

  ‘What for, don’t you trust me or something?’

  ‘There’s nothing in it, is there? You made it all up.’

  She shrugged. ‘So what if I did? They’re in it together, you mark my words.’ She walked out.

  I took the cowgirl’s gun out of my pocket and put it on the table. It was a real beauty. Replica cowboy Colt 45, the ‘Peacemaker’. It had been adapted to light cigarettes with a flame that appeared where the hammer hit the pin. Everything worked as on a real one: the chamber spun, the blanks slid in and out, the trigger mechanism worked. You’d need to know a lot about guns to tell it wasn’t real. I slid it into my jacket pocket and went out to make my peace with Father Seamus.

  The inside of the confessional booth was warm and dark and comforting, like the inside of a womb, and almost as intimate with its air of shared secrets. I leaned my head against the wooden side and said, ‘Father I need spiritual guidance.’

  ‘That’s why I am here, my son.’

  ‘It’s not easy.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  ‘I need to know whether shooting a priest is a mortal or a venial sin.’

  The sound of forced, uncertain chuckling came through the grille.

  ‘I suppose it depends which priest,’ I added.

  ‘Louie, that’s you, isn’t it? What are you doing? This is God’s house.’

  ‘How come he let you in?’

  ‘This is no place for jokes.’

  I stuck the gun through the grille. ‘Who’s joking?’

  ‘My God! Dear Louie, what on earth has got into you?’

  ‘I could ask you the same question.’

  ‘This is about last night, at the club, isn’t it?’

  ‘How was the Vimto?’

  He forced a laugh.

  ‘Or did you turn it
into wine first?’

  ‘Louie, when the Lord calls upon you to do his work, you cannot quibble at the sort of establishment –’

  ‘Of course not. Jesus was never too proud to enter a house of fallen women.’

  ‘That’s what I tell myself.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet you do. I don’t remember the bit in the Bible where he drank Vimto from their shoes, though. Must have missed that bit. Still,’ I said, slowly twisting the gun chamber and letting the sound of the clicks fill the booth, ‘you must get thirsty standing on that battlement all night. Eyes smarting in the frost. Denying the soft pleasures of Mrs Bligh-Jones’s palliasse.’

  ‘Mrs Bligh-Jones is a very holy woman,’ he said coldly. ‘Now I must remind you that this is the House of God. If you’ve come to make a confession –’

  ‘No,’ I said, pulling back the trigger. ‘I’ve come to take one.’

  He gasped. ‘What do you want!?’

  ‘I want the answer to a question. If you choose not to answer or give me one I don’t like I’m going to shoot you. If you don’t believe me, I’ll shoot you. That makes three ways to end up dead and one that doesn’t.’

  ‘Have you gone mad?’

  ‘Yes. I have. Now here is the question. Yesterday morning I showed you a picture of a girl. Just the sort of fallen woman you seem to specialise in. You said you’d never seen her before, but you were lying. Now you’re going to tell me the truth. Who was she?’

  ‘Would you really shoot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But why? Over a girl?’

  ‘I’m just an incurable romantic.’

  He took a breath. ‘If I tell you, it’s imperative … you must promise … this mustn’t go any further.’

  ‘Anything you say is automatically protected by the sanctity of the confessional. You should know that. Now tell me.’

  ‘That girl you showed me. It’s true I had seen her before. I know her because I worked with her once.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In … in … a place.’

  ‘What sort of place?’

  ‘Oh, Louie, don’t make me say. A terrible place. A wicked, wicked place where a priest has no business being.’

  ‘And where’s that, apart from Mrs Bligh-Jones’s bedroom?’

  He paused and I could hear the sweat droplets breaking out on his forehead. ‘Where does someone go in this town when they’ve reached the bottom and have nowhere left to go?’

  ‘There are lots of places.’

  ‘For you, yes! For you there are the bars and the girls and the toffee and the bingo and the whelks. For you there is a great choice. But for her. Ah! but for her? You cannot imagine what this girl was like. A filthy, lecherous Jezebel. A girl who oozed iniquity from her every pore. Who came out at night and ensnared the hearts of men with her malevolent scent like a carnivorous flower shining in the tropical moonlight … where would such a dirty bitch go?’

  ‘I don’t know but I’d like to!’

  ‘There is only one place where she would end up. The movies.’

  I paused for a second. ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Those filthy detestable engines of lust.’

  ‘You mean the “What the Butler Saw” machines?’

  I could sense his whole being twisting in pain. ‘Yes them. And not the ones from the pier. The ones in those private rooms where filth boils over like a cauldron of hot tar, where men come willingly to submit to the mortification of a bridle and other upholstery of the Devil …’

  I started to snigger.

  ‘Oh yes, you can laugh, you can laugh! Jeer away! But be warned, those who begin by mocking the degradation of the human spirit soon end up supping themselves from the cup of vileness!’

  ‘That’s a bit rich coming from you, isn’t it!? What about supping from the shoe of vileness? Look, Father, you had a little tingle under your cassock and went to see some dirty movies. Big deal!’

  The priest banged his fists against the side of the box. ‘Oh you fool, you unutterable, execrable mean-spirited fool!’ he cried in abyssal anguish. ‘You loathsome dolt, you –’

  ‘Hey, who’s holding the gun here!’

  He exhaled like a schoolmaster finally broken by the lifetime of ignorance from his charges.

  ‘Louie, Louie. I didn’t look at these things, you fool! I was in one of them! I was … was … the gimp! Oh my God, Louie, what have I done?’

  He wailed like a lorry full of sheep when the scent of the approaching abattoir reaches them. And then he added quietly, breathless, as if his spirit was now so crushed it didn’t matter what he said, ‘The girl is called Judy Juice.’

  I withdrew the gun and stood up, adding as I left, ‘Say three Hail Marys and give up the Vimto.’

  I spent the next three nights, red-eyed and weary, trailing the gossamer thread of rumour that fluttered behind the name Judy Juice. I knew the name, of course, but it was obvious now that the girl in the leopard-skin coat at Jubal’s party had not been her. It should have been obvious then, too. How could she have been when the real Judy Juice wouldn’t give him the time of day? It was just a clever trap, maybe not even all that clever – one of those gaping manholes Jubal left lying around in his conversation and which I had obligingly walked into. I had to hand it to him: he was a polished operator.

  Everyone I spoke to had heard of her, but no one could say where she was at the moment. They said she was bitch, they said she was a babe, they said she was gorgeous and equally they said she was vile; but they didn’t say where she lived. Some people said she was slime and others said she was smart, smarter than all the men who longed to paw her; and being a bitch was all really just an act. Some said she put herself about and others said she never went near any man except on screen. They said she was easy but from the resentful looks in their eyes you somehow doubted it. They said she’d been raped as kid and that’s why she hated men and others said it wasn’t true and why would she need an excuse like that anyway? Some said she was beautiful and all said she was contemptuous. Some said she stayed in the hotels, a different room every night, depending on who was paying and the house Johns at the hotels said they’d never once seen her. Some said she lived on the council estate at Penparcau and others said she was rich and owned a house on Llanbadarn Road. One person said she lived at Borth and someone else said she had a houseboat at the harbour. Another person told me she lived out at the caravan park on the south bank of the Rheidol and the security guard there told me it was true but he hadn’t seen her for weeks. In short, after three nights in which I got no sleep and even less joy, the only thing I knew about her for sure was the one fact everyone in town agreed upon. The thing between her and Jubal.

  *

  Everyone you talked to said Jubal was a bag of slime, but everyone you talked to smiled and cringed like a beaten dog whenever he appeared. Jubal the movie man with his hunchback and his pea-size head and his glasses thicker than portholes. Hi, Jubal! How’s it going, Jubal? Saw the latest flick, Jubal, fantastic! You’re looking great, Jubal! It might not be true to say every waitress was an out-of-work actress and every waiter had written a script, but Jubal slept with a lot of waitresses and it was difficult to see what else they found attractive in him. He wasn’t scared of a challenge either. They said he’d promised to make Mrs Bligh-Jones a star, but it hadn’t happened yet so maybe the job was too big even for him. Yeah, Jubal was the movie man in Aberystwyth, and so vain and girlish were the hearts of the townspeople he could have anything he wanted, any woman and any thing. Except Judy Juice’s heart. He tried buying it, he tried bribing, he tried threatening and cajoling. But nothing worked so she got all the parts she wanted; passed the auditions without ever having to disrobe, or even turn up. It was the only thing in Aberystwyth money or influence couldn’t buy.

  *

  After three days of getting nowhere I drove east along Llanbadarn towards the mountains of Pumlumon. I pondered the case and started to wonder, as I sometimes did round about this stage, whe
ther it was really all that it seemed to be. Maybe there was something all a bit too glib about it. Almost rehearsed, this story of a man within whose soul the repressed Bohemian dream breaks free. This plummet from the top of Mount Parnassus via the ventriloquists’ ghetto and the Komedy Kamp to the swirling waters of the ‘What the Butler Saw’ sewer. Even though I hadn’t found him, it seemed a bit too easy, a bit phoney. His trail led like the footprints of a man in deep-sea diver’s boots across wet concrete. And the fact that, despite all that, I still felt nowhere nearer to finding him only confirmed my suspicions. Maybe he wanted to be trailed, but wasn’t ready to be found. Maybe he was playing with me; or someone else was not being straight with me.

  Rain had started to spit at the windscreen as I pulled into the lay-by and looked ahead at the sanatorium. Now that I was here I suddenly saw what a forlorn task it was. A twelve-foot perimeter wall, razor-wire on top, guard-dog patrols … I sighed and stepped out of the car. The air was cold and fresh, the ground sodden. I squelched over the turf and wandered along the wall for a while, looking for entrances. There weren’t any. At one corner there was a tower and I could see a guard watching me through binoculars. It was hopeless. I doubted even Llunos could get in. I walked back to the car. I hadn’t been away more than five minutes but another car had arrived in the meantime and parked behind mine. Two men had got out and were leaning against my car. One was dressed in a police constable’s uniform and the other wore a shabby raincoat. It was Harri Harries.

  Chapter 13

  WE DROVE SOUTH through Ysbyty Ystwyth, towards Pontrhydfendigaid, and then turned off on to a minor road into the hills; driving too fast for any chance of jumping from the moving car.

  ‘Why have you picked me up?’ I asked. ‘Or is that a stupid question?’

  ‘It’s a stupid question.’

  I flexed the muscles of my forearm; the cuffs, deliberately on too tight, bit into my flesh.

  ‘This isn’t the direction of the police station.’

  ‘Well done, pathfinder. This is not the direction of the police station.’ Harri Harries turned in the front seat of the prowl car and said to the driver, ‘I told you he was smart.’