"Coffee. Aled?"
"What?"
"Coffee. I won't ask you for a pint, but I wouldn't mind a coffee."
"What are you doing here?"
Dai was thrown by this. All right, he was early and some landlords could be expected to be inhospitable. But not Aled. Aled was flexible.
"Something wrong, is there?"
"No… Well. Gwenllian's not so good. Bad throat. Awake half last night. Got a bit behind, we have."
"Oh. I'm sorry. In that case I won't bother you."
"No. no," Aled said, opening the door wider. "Come in. I want to talk to you."
Aled made him coffee in the bar. There was no sign of Gwenllian. But then, in Dai's experience, there rarely was; she kept to herself to the kitchen and served infrequently in the bar.
"Another body then." Dai said.
"What?" Aled dropped a saucer.
"A body. Up by the woods. Hiker. Strung himself up, poor bugger."
"Oh." Aled was staring at the broken saucer as if someone else had dropped it. He began to pick up the pieces.
Dai drank his coffee in silence, burning his mouth in his haste to be away. There was clearly something wrong here, more than a bad throat.
Aled said, a bit hoarsely, "How did you get on with Dr. Ingley?"
"The Prof? Shipped back to — where was it now? Basingstoke."
"Gone?"
"Gone," said Dai.
"Where did you keep him?"
There was an odd question.
"How do you mean?"
"Where did you put the body?"
"Well, chapel of rest,"
"No… no problems?"
What the hell did that mean?
"I was asked to embalm him. Usual thing. Why do you ask?"
"No reason," Aled said. Though it was not quite dark yet, he moved to the switches on the wall and put all the lights on.
Blinking in the sudden glare, Dai thought at first he must be seeing things when he noticed how badly the landlord's hand was shaking.
Part Three
SICE
Chapter XIV
"I know what you're thinking," Giles said.
They were driving inland on roads that became narrower, through countryside that got bleaker. Camouflage country, Berry thought. Weathered farmhouses were hunched into the hillsides; tough, cynical-looking sheep grazed mean fields the colour of worn khaki. And then the forestry began, rank upon regimented rank of uniform conifers, a drab army of occupation.
"But you're wrong." Giles was trying vainly to stretch his legs. Claire had taken the BMW to Norwich while her own car was being serviced, so they'd come in Berry's little old Sprite, lanky Giles wedged awkwardly with his knees around his chin because of the bags and stuff behind his seat.
They were passing a derelict lead mine in a valley, broken grey walls and tin-roofed shacks. A thin river seeped along the valley bottom, tired as a drain.
"Just you wait," Giles promised.
Berry's first time in Wales. They'd driven in from the South-East, which he found pretty much like England, except more of it was rural. Wherever they stopped for a meal or cigarettes everybody seemed to speak English too, in quite intelligible accents.
Then they'd hit the west coast, checking into a hotel in Aberystwyth where quite a lot of the people around them were speaking a language Berry didn't understand. It sounded European, but it had a lilting quality, and the speech of people in the street was flecked with English phrases. They were only a couple hundred miles from London. Weird.
"So this cottage," Berry said. "All comes down to Claire, right?" He was quite enjoying himself. A whole new scene.
They came to a T-junction. A sign pointing right said: Pontmeurig. 5 miles.
"Go left," said Giles. "Yes. What basically happened is that sometime back in the fifties Claire's grandparents split up, and the old man — well, he couldn't have been that old then — he came back to his native Wales. Back to the actual village where he'd been born."
"How Welsh does that make Claire?"
"Not very. Second generation, or is it third generation? Point is, Claire's mother was furious at Granddad, just buggering off like that, so they never had anything to do with him again. But then he dies — and he leaves his house to the granddaughter he never knew. Rather romantic, isn't it?"
"How far now?"
"No more than four. Of course, Claire's kicking herself now, that she never came to see the old chap while he was alive."
"He, ah, had a lot of dough?"
"He was a judge." said Giles. "Qualified as a barrister in England, worked in London and the South East for years then became a circuit judge or a recorder or something — one of those chaps who used to take the old Quarter Sessions in provincial towns, it's all changed now. But yes, he did all right. She's English, of course, his wife, Claire's granny. She did all right, too. out of the settlement. Nobody in the family talks much about why they split up. He'd just retired. Maybe he wanted to come back to Wales and she didn't."
"Kind of a drastic solution."
"Ha. When you see the village, you can imagine people doing pretty drastic things to get back."
"Not if it's like this," said Berry.
There was forestry now on both sides of the road. Berry liked country roads, as did the Sprite. But this route was no less claustrophobic than some concrete canyon in Brooklyn.
"Here?"
The sign said Y Groes, 2. Giles gave a confirmatory grunt.
They turned left. At the entrance to the road another sign had a broad red line across it: dead end. After Y Groes— nothing. For over a mile the forestry stayed close to the road on both sides.
"What's it mean, this place? The name."
"Y Groes?"
"Yeah."
"It means The Cross," said Giles.
"Like in religion?"
"Must be. It has a very impressive church. Look, there it is — see?"
"Oh. yeah. Hey—" Berry's head swivelled. "Where'd the forest go?"
Something lit up underneath Giles's freckles.
"Great, isn't it. the way you come out of the forestry so fast and everything changes. Notice how the trees are all broadleaf now? Look at the variety of wild flowers on the verges, don't see that in many places nowadays. And, look — what about the sun, for Christ's sake!"
"What about the sun?"
"It's come out!"
"Big deal." said Berry.
All the same, he was getting an idea why Giles was so excited. Something in the light, was that it? Maybe it was because the journey across the hills had been through such harsh and hostile country that Y Groes seemed subtly translucent and shimmering like a mirage. Maybe the sun looked suddenly brighter and warmer here because, along the road, its rays had been absorbed by the close-packed conifers. Something like that.
They drove on down, and it got better. Most of the other villages Berry had seen on the way from Aberystwyth had consisted of a single street, with cold-looking houses, a shop and a big grey chapel all strung out like damp clothing on a frayed washing line. Here, chunky, timber-frame cottages were clustered below the old church in a way that seemed somehow organic, like wild mushrooms in a circle. An image came to Berry of the cottages pushing themselves up out of the ground, chimney first each one in its naturally-ordained space.
Weird thought, but kind of charming. And natural — none of that manicured Cotswold gloss. You went behind that ochre Cotswold stone and you were in Hampstead. Here. he didn't know.
For the first time this weekend, he wished Miranda was here. She'd approve, although she hadn't approved when he'd said he would not be seeing her that weekend and explained why. "Morelli," she'd snarled, "as far as I'm concerned you don't ever need to come back. You can bloody well stay out there with the leeks and the seaweed bread and the Bibles." Then things had gotten heavy.