House of Shadows (16 page)

‘You know Mrs Ward then, do you?' My tone was severe. I liked Mrs Ward, in spite of her spiky ways, and she was invaluable to me.

‘Just gossip, you know,' Miss Grist said. ‘Just gossip, that's all. I never met the woman, of course. She and I didn't move in the same circles, you know.'

I realized I didn't like Miss Grist very much. Why on earth had I invited her to my home? I quickly drank the hot, sweet, warming coffee and then picked up my bag and gloves and twisted my scarf around my neck. ‘I'd better be getting back.' I tried to smile as Miss Grist rose too.

‘I'll come back with you, if I may,' Miss Grist said. ‘You can show me around the house, give me your list of guests, and I can get the letters done when I get back to Swansea.'

It made sense, and so Miss Grist walked beside me through the snowy streets and caught the train to Aberglasney. When my house came into view, my heart warmed with pleasure. As we passed the place where the barracks had been, I bit my lip in anxiety; would the police do anything at all to find Tom?

I suspected Inspector Morris would have to go through the motions after what I'd said about the Americans sending someone over to investigate, and I could only hope that Morris would at least do his best to track the men who had taken Tom.

I hesitated among the rubbish left when the workmen removed the huts. Those fake policemen had something to do with Tom's disappearance; who were they, and who had sent them?

A scrap of paper among the rubble caught my eye, and I picked it up. I realized Miss Grist was trying to look over my shoulder at it, and I pushed it quickly into my pocket, not really knowing why I wanted to hide it. All I knew was that I felt lost and empty without Tom and this might be a piece of him.

It was quiet in the house. I hadn't seen any sign of Beatrice for some time. I thought she'd gone away, having taken exception to my guests peering at her, poking into her privacy, but I wished – not for the first time – that she would let me know when she was going away and for how long.

‘My, this house is so quiet,' Miss Grist said as she followed me into the hall. I realized we'd been walking through the garden in so great a silence that I'd almost forgotten she was there.

Mrs Ward took one look at Miss Grist and disappeared out of the back door without a word.

‘It may be silent now, but it will be full of laughter and noise when my guests come again,' I said, realizing I would be glad when the ghost-haunting weekends began again and filled the house with chatter and warmth and curiosity and all the paraphernalia that went with hunting ghosts.

‘I've heard the ghosts are sighted along the upstairs corridor,' Miss Grist said. ‘Flickering lights, and all that sort of thing.'

‘That's what we've seen sometimes.' I sighed. ‘I think the moon makes weird shapes through the trees and that's what causes the flickering lights.'

‘Don't you believe in ghosts then, Miss Evans?'

I watched as Miss Grist took off her coat and hung it on the stand in the hall. My heart sank; she obviously intended her stay to be a long one.

She seemed to know the house well – something I hadn't expected – and she made her way to the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. She gave a deprecating smile. ‘I might as well get familiar with things while I'm here.' She almost hugged herself. ‘I can hardly wait for the ghost weekend; heaven knows who I'll meet.'

‘Mostly elderly colonels and sweet old ladies,' I said dryly. ‘They are all intelligent people, mind you, and we do have one young man who might be good company for you.'

Miss Grist brightened up immediately. ‘Really? What's his name?'

‘I think his name is Colin. And then there's young William, of course. He always comes along to the weekends. He's quite the keen ghost hunter; even keener than the colonel, I sometimes think. Anyway, I'll fetch the list for you.'

She followed me into the study and looked around, as though appraising the house and its contents. I brought the guest list out from its drawer and gave it to her.

Miss Grist put it carefully away in her handbag, and after a moment she spoke again. ‘I don't think I'll wait for that cup of tea,' she said. ‘I'd better get back to the station, otherwise I'll miss my train.'

I breathed a sigh of relief and quickly opened the door for her, in case she changed her mind.

‘See you soon then.' She gave a cheery wave, hurried off along the drive and disappeared through the archway leading to the side gate. She seemed to know her way around my house already. When had she been here, and why pretend she had never visited before? Eventually, I shrugged my questions away. So what if she had been to Aberglasney before? It was
my
house, and all she would be was an occasional guest.

The kettle had boiled so I made some tea and stoked up the fire so I could make some toast. I had some good Welsh salt butter, and my mouth watered at the thought of eating the hot toast with the butter almost liquidizing into it. But then I thought of Tom, and abruptly my appetite faded. Where could he be, and what had happened to him? I almost wished it was the real police who had taken him. At least then I would know he was safe.

I remembered the scrap piece of paper I had picked up from the site of the barracks and took it out of my pocket and tried to read it. The writing was in pencil, the spelling all awry, with letters turned back to front as though written by someone illiterate or foreign.

I took my cup of tea and the note and sat near the fire, but it might as well have been written in Chinese for all the sense I could make of it. I needed a pen and ink and a fresh piece of paper – and perhaps a magnifying glass would help.

At last, seated with all my bits and pieces, I pored over the scrap of paper, slowly writing down what I thought each letter represented. The words made little sense, and at last I realized the note wasn't written in English at all.

I sat up straight as I heard the rattle of the front-door lock, and my heart leaped with a mingling of fear and excitement. Was it Tom returned to me, intruders bent on robbery . . . or worse?

It was Beatrice who stood in the doorway, her white hair covered in misty rain and her funny little bag, wrought with flowers, clutched in her hand. For a moment she did look like the ghost my guests believed she was, and then she spoke. ‘Carry my bag to my room for me, dear.' Her voice sounded weak, as if she was very tired.

‘Where on earth have you been this time?' I asked irritably. ‘Why do you keep coming and going like some sort of ethereal spirit?'

‘Just help me to my room, dear, I've only been visiting relatives. Do I have to report to you every time I wish to come and go, then?'

I remembered our bargain, when I'd assured Beatrice she could stay at Aberglasney any time she liked. I decided I was being unfair. ‘No, of course not, Beatrice, I'm sorry. I'm a bit touchy today. Such a lot has been happening here. You get changed and rested, and I'll come up with a cup of tea and we'll talk. How's that?'

‘Very good, dear. I'm very tired so I might just get into bed, if you don't mind, but we can still talk, if you like.'

‘No, the morning will do, Beatrice. I'm being thoughtless.'

I helped her upstairs, and she disappeared into her room, shutting the door pointedly in my face. I shrugged. She was old, and she was entitled to be a bit eccentric.

It was the next day that I saw the advertisement in the
Daily Messenger
. ‘Hunt the Ghost,' it read, ‘in the beautiful surroundings of Oystermouth Castle in Swansea.' I gasped in disbelief. Someone else was doing a ghost weekend! The headline was followed by a mouth-watering description of the ruined castle near the sea, where the ghost of a minor royal was meant to haunt.

I sighed. I supposed I had to expect competition. My idea had been a good one, but I couldn't keep it to myself for ever. In any case, I had my guest base, my regulars. I would be all right. Still, I hurried to Beatrice's room to show her the newspaper, and she sat up in bed against her pillows, pale and ethereal in her little lace bed cap, and her hand shook as she read the piece.

She threw down the paper at last and shook her head. A stray grey curl drooped over her forehead. I suddenly realized how fond I was of the old lady. ‘Makes no difference,' she said. ‘Our ghosts are real. Your friends will soon realize and come back to us.'

‘But I never expected to lose them in the first place, Beatrice,' I said. ‘Do you think they'll desert us then?'

‘Something new, my dear, is always an attraction at first, but they'll come back, you'll see.' She stared at me shrewdly. ‘Now, what else is there?'

I told her about Rosie, about the terrible night she vanished. ‘The police don't seem to be doing very much about it,' I said. ‘Nor about the baby. The poor girl and her child seem to have vanished into thin air.'

‘I expect the police will carry on the same way they did when Eddie died: show little concern and hope the matter is quickly forgotten.'

There was silence for a moment, and then I dipped into my pocket and brought out the transcription of the note I'd found in the rubble of the barracks. ‘Tom's disappeared,' I said. ‘I found a note but I can't make sense of it.'

‘No wonder you can't read it,' she said. ‘It's in very fine, very old Welsh. It's the name of a place in Carmarthen. “Cwm Elwyn.” It's an old farmhouse under the mountains, near a winding stream. Of course, you'll go and look there for your Tom.'

‘What area, Beatrice? There are many mountains here in Wales and lots of streams too.'

‘I don't know!' Beatrice sounded exasperated. ‘I'll translate the address for you into English, and then it's up to you.'

‘But you think Tom might have been taken there?' I asked hopefully.

‘It's a possibility, and only a possibility. This could be the address of someone's mother or grandmother, but I have a feeling Tom is there – somewhere under the shadow of the mountain.'

I was heartened by Beatrice's words. They gave me a sense of hope that I might see Tom again.

‘Bring a pen,' Beatrice said, ‘and I'll do my best to help.'

She waved me away with a lace-gloved hand, and I hurried downstairs to find a pen and some notepaper. I felt excitement flow through me, and I realized again how much I needed Tom around me, at my side encouraging me. If only he would say he loved me, I would be the happiest woman in the world.

I carefully wrote down the address Beatrice gave me, and when I hastened to the library in town that same day I found a map and plotted my journey with care. I reckoned it would take half a day to find my way to
Cwm Elwyn
in
Craig Melyn
and wondered if I would have enough petrol to take me there. My guest weekend was coming up and I would need to stock up on supplies, but that wouldn't take much precious petrol.

The next morning I set off early with my hamper of food and a Thermos of hot tea on the seat of the van beside me. I didn't know if Tom would be hungry and thirsty, and I shuddered at the thought he might not even be alive, but I began my journey with hope and enthusiasm and headed in the direction of the mountains of Brecon.

The journey was along country lanes, past endless fields, but at last the roadway led upward and I felt the air change from chilly to near freezing. Far below me I saw a long river snaking through the hills. On one side there was a castle, and in the middle of the water was a strip of land, rising like a sleeping animal from the river. A small building that might have been a church stood on it, and my heart stopped for a second as I read a crude notice with the words
Cwm Elwyn
painted on it in large letters that were blood red.

I stopped my old van on the bank of the river and, to steady myself, poured a small cup of hot tea. The journey had taken longer than I'd thought, and soon it would be dark once more. Nearby, boats were moored – a huddle of small rowing boats, and some bigger, sturdier boats for passengers tied to the jetty – but there were no people to sail them. The place seemed deserted.

I looked desperately at the small island. I had a gut instinct that Tom was there, and somehow I had to get to him. I strolled around the boats, and then, quite suddenly, a man appeared at my side.

‘Can I help you, miss?' He had a strong accent, definitely Welsh but thick and almost intelligible. In this remote part of the country, Welsh was probably the first language.

‘I just wanted to explore the island,' I said. ‘Is that a little church out there?'

‘It is, miss, but you have to be careful of the tides on this river. They can change with the winds and turn nasty.'

‘Could you get me out there?' I searched in my rucksack for my purse.

He waved an extraordinarily large hand in dismissal. ‘No need of that. I'll take you out there . . . if you really want to go.'

I smiled in what I thought was a winning way. ‘Oh, I do. I love old, haunted places you see.'

He gave me an odd look and gestured me towards one of the boats. It was a small boat with an outboard engine that looked precarious, hanging as it was on the edge of the wooden planking.

At a fairly fast speed, we crossed the river, and I could see the boatman was right: the current swirled the water into circles around us. ‘When is the tide due to rise?' I asked, and he looked surprised that I knew anything at all about tidal waters.

‘Not for hours yet, miss.' The boat bumped against a mossy bank, and he helped me alight. ‘What if I come back for you in –' he looked at his watch – ‘say an hour? Will that suit you?'

‘Lovely.' I watched as he pulled away from the shore and had the distinct feeling I was being abandoned. I watched until he reached the other side of the shore, and then I turned to explore the island.

The church had steps leading down to a small door. The wooden posts at either side were green, and seaweed grew like strange medieval flowers in the surrounding land. That meant that when the tide came in it covered the church. Everything inside must be soaked and rotten. I realized that if I stayed here too long I would drown.