Read Online From Aberystwyth with Love by Malcolm Pryce - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Malcolm Pryce
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years, and had worked with and against him at various times in the past. I’d lied to him a lot, often on occasions when we both knew I was lying, and I had told him some strange stories. On more than one occasion he had thrown me down the police station steps which was his homespun method of processing criminals without the need for paperwork. I liked him.
He stood in the layby holding the hat and pondering. For once he was not wearing the standard police issue weather-stained, pre-crumpled macintosh. Without it he seemed strangely denuded like a freshly plucked hen; he stood instead perspiring in a short-sleeved shirt, wearing the melancholic expression of a bloodhound that has woken up with a hangover.
‘We’ll go and see Mrs Mochdre,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘Ffanci Llangollen’s sister, Mrs Mochdre. She lives in Bwlchcrwys. We’ll go and see her.’
Llunos drove a tan Montego with crushed velour upholstery, and tartan fabric panels in the door to add a touch of class. It wasn’t much good in car chases but he had long ago outgrown the need for such vulgar ostentation. Once you passed a certain point in life as a cop in Aber, if you weren’t already dead or invalided out of the force on a tiny pension, you achieved a sort of wisdom and maturity. Cops like Llunos didn’t need to chase, by some paradox the crooks came to him, one way or the other.
The cottage was on the right as we entered the village. It was built according to the traditional building regulations, which decreed the walls should be the colour of smoke and the smoke that issued from the chimney should be the colour of the roof which should be the same tone as a field at dusk and this should mirror a rainy sky. Mrs Mochdre stood in wellingtons in a pig pen, emptying swill into a trough and booting the pigs away as they crowded round.
Llunos explained about the hat.
Mrs Mochdre took it, gave it a cursory examination, her face twisted in a frown of disapproval. ‘Tomfoolery,’ she said and handed it back.
‘I guess Ffanci Llangollen is not in town,’ said Llunos. Mrs Mochdre didn’t deem it worthy of an answer, perhaps it was common knowledge. ‘When did you last hear from her?’ he added.
‘Never. I never hear from her. She just goes her own way, wandering around the country pushing that wretched shopping trolley, still clinging to the hope that her daughter is alive somewhere. I mean, even if she was, what would be the point of finding her now? They would be strangers. Nothing good would come of it.’
A sow started trying to sniff Llunos’s shoe; Mrs Mochdre kicked her away.
‘So you are not expecting her back any time?’ asked Llunos.
‘No, but she’ll turn up now, won’t she? After she reads about the town reappearing in the lake like that. You mark my words, she’ll be back.’
‘What’s she like?’ said Calamity.
Mrs Mochdre stared at Calamity for a while and then spoke over her shoulder, to the middle distance. ‘My sister had so much going for her. Not like me. She was always the pretty one, you see. All the lads used to come round courting her! I never minded, of course. I was happy for her, we had such great hopes . . . Then she threw it all away. Married the balloon-folder. Not much of a job really, is it? Balloon-folding. They practically fold themselves, don’t they?’
‘What was Gethsemane like?’ asked Calamity.
‘The child needed a firmer hand, if you ask me, but it was no good me saying anything, no one listened. She knocked my cruet set over once, and scratched it. Her mother wouldn’t pay for it neither. She said it was probably already scratched – as if I didn’t know my own cruet set!’
‘I hear you used to be in the Anti-Bearded-Lady League,’ said Calamity.
‘Ignore that,’ said Llunos.
It was late afternoon when we got back. The office felt like a greenhouse without the comforting warm earthy smell of peat and tomatoes. Llunos slumped into the client’s chair.
He stood in the layby holding the hat and pondering. For once he was not wearing the standard police issue weather-stained, pre-crumpled macintosh. Without it he seemed strangely denuded like a freshly plucked hen; he stood instead perspiring in a short-sleeved shirt, wearing the melancholic expression of a bloodhound that has woken up with a hangover.
‘We’ll go and see Mrs Mochdre,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘Ffanci Llangollen’s sister, Mrs Mochdre. She lives in Bwlchcrwys. We’ll go and see her.’
Llunos drove a tan Montego with crushed velour upholstery, and tartan fabric panels in the door to add a touch of class. It wasn’t much good in car chases but he had long ago outgrown the need for such vulgar ostentation. Once you passed a certain point in life as a cop in Aber, if you weren’t already dead or invalided out of the force on a tiny pension, you achieved a sort of wisdom and maturity. Cops like Llunos didn’t need to chase, by some paradox the crooks came to him, one way or the other.
The cottage was on the right as we entered the village. It was built according to the traditional building regulations, which decreed the walls should be the colour of smoke and the smoke that issued from the chimney should be the colour of the roof which should be the same tone as a field at dusk and this should mirror a rainy sky. Mrs Mochdre stood in wellingtons in a pig pen, emptying swill into a trough and booting the pigs away as they crowded round.
Llunos explained about the hat.
Mrs Mochdre took it, gave it a cursory examination, her face twisted in a frown of disapproval. ‘Tomfoolery,’ she said and handed it back.
‘I guess Ffanci Llangollen is not in town,’ said Llunos. Mrs Mochdre didn’t deem it worthy of an answer, perhaps it was common knowledge. ‘When did you last hear from her?’ he added.
‘Never. I never hear from her. She just goes her own way, wandering around the country pushing that wretched shopping trolley, still clinging to the hope that her daughter is alive somewhere. I mean, even if she was, what would be the point of finding her now? They would be strangers. Nothing good would come of it.’
A sow started trying to sniff Llunos’s shoe; Mrs Mochdre kicked her away.
‘So you are not expecting her back any time?’ asked Llunos.
‘No, but she’ll turn up now, won’t she? After she reads about the town reappearing in the lake like that. You mark my words, she’ll be back.’
‘What’s she like?’ said Calamity.
Mrs Mochdre stared at Calamity for a while and then spoke over her shoulder, to the middle distance. ‘My sister had so much going for her. Not like me. She was always the pretty one, you see. All the lads used to come round courting her! I never minded, of course. I was happy for her, we had such great hopes . . . Then she threw it all away. Married the balloon-folder. Not much of a job really, is it? Balloon-folding. They practically fold themselves, don’t they?’
‘What was Gethsemane like?’ asked Calamity.
‘The child needed a firmer hand, if you ask me, but it was no good me saying anything, no one listened. She knocked my cruet set over once, and scratched it. Her mother wouldn’t pay for it neither. She said it was probably already scratched – as if I didn’t know my own cruet set!’
‘I hear you used to be in the Anti-Bearded-Lady League,’ said Calamity.
‘Ignore that,’ said Llunos.
It was late afternoon when we got back. The office felt like a greenhouse without the comforting warm earthy smell of peat and tomatoes. Llunos slumped into the client’s chair.
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