The Rhos Tafol's dining room overlooked the estuary, shining cobalt in the chill morning, there were perhaps twenty tables in the room, all stripped bare except for the one where they sat, by the window.
December.
"We could just walk away from it." Berry spread marmalade on dry toast. Bethan looked down into her boiled egg. He loved the fall of her eyelids; it was what put him in mind of the women in Renaissance paintings.
"Or not," Berry said.
They'd lain and talked about it until the dawn streaked the Dyfi. She'd told him about Claire in the river Meurig, washing away the English. And about Claire's photos; the tree that vanished, whatever that meant.
He'd told her about old Winstone — whatever that meant.
Also about Miranda. Who was funny and diverting but belonged to the person he used to be before last night.
"So." Crunching toast.
Bethan said, "When I came back from Swansea to be head teacher — less than six months ago, I can't believe it — I thought I was going to change everything. Let some light into the place. It was pretty hard to do coming back."
"I don't know how you could."
"The way I rationalised it, it was going to be a kind of memorial to Robin. Modernising the school, changing the outlook of the children. It was a mission. But—"
" — You didn't realise what you were taking on."
"I was very determined. Nothing left to lose. Ready to fight centuries of tradition. And Buddug."
"Buddug's this other teacher?"
"The name Buddug," Bethan said, stirring the tea in the pot lo make it blacker, "is Welsh for Boudicca, or Boadicea."
"The hard-nosed broad who took on the Romans," he remembered. "Drove this chariot with long knives sticking out the wheels, relieving whole legions of their genitalia."
"I had never thought of it quite like that, but the way you depict it, it does seem horrifyingly plausible, yes."
"She's like that, this Buddug?"
"She's worse." Bethan said.
"And what you're saying is you think you might accomplish now what you couldn't when you came back from Swansea?"
"I am not alone this time," Bethan said, and his heart took off.
"C'mon, honey," She turned over, coughed. "One more time for Berry." She turned over again, caught.
"She is very old," Bethan said.
"We don't discuss her age. It upsets her. When I'm in London, this guy checks her over every few weeks. You can still get the parts, if you know where to look."
He followed the estuary back towards Machynlleth. "I like it here. I like feeling close to the sea. You wouldn't care to stay another night, think about things some more?"
"I told you last night, I should like to stay here a very long time." She sighed. "Keep driving, Morelli."
"One point," Berry said, pushing the Sprite into the town, towards the Gothic clock tower. "You're a nationalist, right? Guto's a nationalist. This Buddug and all the people in Y Groes, they're nationalists too."
"Why, then, did Guto go down like the proverbial lead balloon?"
"Precisely."
"You have to live in Wales a long time to work it out," Bethan said. "And just when you think you've understood the way it is…"
She ran the fingers of both hands through her hair, as if to untangle her thoughts.
"You see… There are different kinds of Welsh nationalism. There is Plaid Cymru, which envisages a self-governing Wales with its own economic structure — an independent, bilingual state within the European Community. And there is another sort which you might compare with the National Front, the Ku Klux Klan, yes?"
"Extreme right wing."
"Except they would not think of themselves like that. They are protecting their heritage, they feel the same things we all feel from time to time, but—" She sighed again. "I'm afraid there are some people for whom being Welsh is more important than being human."
"And — let me guess here — this type of person sees Plaid as a half-baked outfit which no longer represents the views of the real old Welsh nation, right?"
"Yes. Exactly. Da iawn."
"Huh?"
"Very good. In moments of exultation, I revert to my first language."
"So that's what it was," Berry said, remembering moments of last night.
Driving south in worsening weather, Berry wondered why neither of them had put a name to what they were up against. Six deaths. Accident, suicide and natural causes. All English people, no other connecting factor. They couldn't be talking murder. Not as the law saw it
"Bethan," he said. "Can we discuss what happened to Giles?"
Sparse sleet stung the screen.
"Listen to me now," she said, as if this had been building up inside for some while. "There is one thing I haven't told you."
Above the whine of the wind in the Sprite's soft top, she revealed to him the truth about Giles's "fall" in the castle carpark in Pont. Why they'd kept quiet about it.
"Giles himself was particularly anxious people should believe it was a fall. I think he was embarrassed. Does that make sense to you?"
"I guess it does. Say the two guys are arrested, there's a court case. And then everybody working with Giles in London knows he got beat up on. In his beloved Wales. Yeah, I can buy that. No way would he want that out, the poor sucker."
Bethan squeezed his hand on the wheel. "I am so relieved. I was worried you would think we covered it up to protect ourselves."
"Guto, yes. You, no. So who were they, these guys?"
"Just yobs. Troublemakers. Guto threw one in the castle ditch. I would know them again. We all would."
"If it came out," Berry wondered, "is there any way we could use it to turn the heat on this thing? This guy, Inspector Jones—"
"Gwyn Arthur."
"Yeah. Seemed approachable."
"He is a nice man. But Giles did not die as a result of the attack. What could Gwyn Arthur really do now?"
"If only there'd been an inquest…"
"But what would it reveal? The medical evidence says he had an enormous tumour. What I would ask is, why did he develop the tumour? Why did Robin develop leukaemia?
Why did the hiker hang himself by the river? Why did the professor…? It's not something an inquest can go into, is it?"
"Paranoid delusions, Beth. Bethan. Listen, this may seem a distinctly American way of looking at things, and I apologise in advance, but is there anybody we could beat the truth out of?"
"Not my style," Bethan said.
"Naw, me neither."
"I am glad to hear it. But, look, there are still people we can talk to. I know… Why don't you stop at the next phone box."
"We aren't gonna see any dead people, are we?" Berry was uncomfortable. He hated these places.
"Don't be a wimp. They cannot harm you."
He shuddered. "Bad enough seeing those pictures of Giles."
"I know," Bethan said quietly. "I was there when they were taken."
"Jesus, I'm sorry." He kissed the top of her head. "Forgive me?"
"I shall think about it." she said.
"Bethan, is that you?"
"Hello, Dai. Where are you?"
"In the embalming room, come on through."
Berry felt his legs giving way.
"Only kidding," the bald man said, pushing through the purple curtains. "Oh, I'm sorry, Bethan. I thought you had Guto with you. Bugger won't go within a mile of the embalming room, see." He chuckled.
Bethan said, "This is Berry Morelli. He and Guto have a similar attitude to death."
Dai shook hands with Berry. The undertaker's hand was mercifully dry, no traces of embalming fluid. "Morelli. Italian, is it? You want to go to that pizza place next door, show the buggers how to do it properly."