Singing the Sadness

‘Pity. That Beryl says you always hit the notes on the head. Here, I’ve just been baking some scones, they won’t take up much space.’

Joe felt a warm glow at this reported praise. Many choristers do good service by being able to take a note when given it, but a choir needs at least one member of each section who can actually give the notes first time.

‘But what I meant was, they’ll be wanting you to tell them about the fire,’ continued the woman as she put a plateful of scones and a potful of jam in front of Joe.

‘Expect so,’ said Joe. ‘Good folk to work for, the Lewises, are they?’

She viewed him thoughtfully for a moment as if trying to assess his motive in asking the question. He gave her the wide-eyed smile of one who had no ulterior motive, which was easy because he hadn’t.

‘Williams seems settled,’ she said finally.

‘And you?’ asked Joe, trying a scone. It was as delicious as it looked.

She smiled.

‘My gran always said, complaining loses old friends and doesn’t make new,’ she replied.

‘Name wasn’t Mirabelle, was it?’ said Joe. ‘Sorry. My auntie. You may have noticed her?’

‘Now you mention it, I think I did spot someone who reminded me of Gran.’

They laughed together and things got even easier between them. Joe took another scone, promising himself it would be the last, and said, ‘Sorry we messed up your holiday, having to come back early for us.’

‘Williams been moaning? He never got on with Gran. Pay him no heed. Couple of days less in a boarding house in Barmouth is no great loss, specially when it’s run by my sister-in-law. Expects me to help in exchange for special rates, least that’s what she calls them. If that’s a holiday, give me home every time.’

‘Yeah, I’m not great on holidays either,’ said Joe. ‘Lot of folk are, though. Buying up country cottages for a few weekends a year. Can get up local folks’ noses, that, I’ve read.’

‘That what they’re saying about the fire up at Copa?’ she asked, circumnavigating his subtlety as if it wasn’t there. ‘May be something in it. Beer talk for most, but there’s always someone daft enough to take their little boys’ games further. She going to be all right, this woman?’

‘I hope so,’ said Joe. ‘She deserves to make it. She was very brave.’

‘Thought that was your line.’

Joe thought of the injured woman’s attempts to draw herself up into the attic, the pain she must have felt.

‘No, she was the brave one. I just did it on the run. She had to make herself do what she did. And there’s no way I could have got her out less’n she’d helped.’

Mrs Williams took a reflective sip of tea.

‘You’d just have left her then?’ she asked.

It occurred to Joe that if the injured woman hadn’t been able to pull herself through the hole in the ceiling, the only way he could have got out was to pull her back down.

Would he have done that?

Could he have done that?

‘Man don’t know what he’ll do till he finds out,’ said Joe.

‘Well, what you found out is what I call brave,’ said the woman. ‘Who is she anyway, this woman?’

‘No one knows,’ said Joe. ‘The Haggards, who own the cottage, are here so maybe they can help. Specially if they’ve got kids, or close friends with kids. Word soon gets around; you ever in Wales, there’s this cottage only gets used in a blue moon. Kids are like that. Empty place is an invite to squat.’

‘You sound sort of expert,’ she said.

‘Watch a lot of TV,’ said Joe, thinking, this is a sharp-eyed and-eared lady. Would probably find out he was a PI, no bother, but he wasn’t going to advertise the fact. Like with a doctor, being off duty didn’t stop people parading their symptoms.

‘Anyway, I think you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Anyone getting into Copa would need a key. I heard Electricity Sample charged them Haggards a fortune for making the place secure.’

‘Who?’

‘Edwin Sample. Runs a security business in Caerlindys, but everyone remembers him when he had a little back-street shop repairing hoovers and kettles. Now he’s up there hobnobbing with Mr Lewis and his other jee-um mates.’

‘Jee-um?’ said Joe. ‘Sorry, don’t know Welsh unless it’s in a song.’

‘No,’ she said, laughing. ‘Gee Em. General Motors. Little local joke. Someone in the States once said, what’s good for General Motors is good for the country. Well, there’s some round here look at things that way too, what’s good for them is good for the rest of us. Don’t know who started GM, but it stuck.’

‘So who are they?’ asked Joe.

‘Councillors, Chamber of Commerce, Freemasons, top-cops, the usual. They look after themselves and we look after their tail-lights. But none of this is your concern, Mr Sixsmith. Day after tomorrow, you’ll be back over the border, safe and sound. Will you have some more? If not, I’d better get on. Lots to do, what with your lot and the reception …’

‘Reception? What’s that?’ asked Joe, noticing with surprise that the scone plate was empty. He was tempted to take up her offer of more, but virtuously decided against it.

‘Tomorrow night, in the college assembly hall. Haven’t you read your welcome pack? No, maybe you’ve been otherwise engaged. It’s a get-together for everyone concerned in the Choir Festival. Better to have it after everyone’s settled in and got the opening nerves out of the way, says Mr Lewis. Keep everyone interested and on their toes. Keeping me on my toes, that’s for sure.’

‘I bet. Sorry to have held you up. That was really great,’ said Joe.

He stood up and headed for the door. Except there were three of them and he couldn’t recall which he’d come in by. Not good for a trained PI. Well, self-trained.

He chose one confidently and opened it. He found he was looking into a small windowless room occupied by a chair and a bank of four TV monitors.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Enjoy television, do you?’

‘What? Oh, them. It’s the security,’ she said scornfully. ‘Waste of money, I think, but I wasn’t asked, was I? Not my money, anyway.’

‘Bet it was you had to do the clearing up after the workmen though,’ said Joe. ‘And keep them topped up with tea and stuff. Worth spinning a job out an extra week for them scones of yours.’

She smiled and said, ‘You trying to get on the right side of me, Mr Sixsmith? Well, you’re succeeding. But fair do’s to Mr Lewis, he had Electricity Sample do the job while we were on holiday a few years back. That’s right, Barmouth, where else? Everything done and tidied when we came back. At first I hated the idea of those cameras looking at me as I went round the school but I don’t notice them now. Mr Lewis said it was a good selling point to parents, knowing their kids were being watched over all the time. Could be right. Not that Williams bothers checking the screens that much, and if he did see an intruder, he’d probably send me or Bron to check him out!’

Joe laughed and said, ‘Bet you’d sort him out too. Thanks again.’

He reached for another door handle.

‘Want to get back into the college, do you?’ said Mrs Williams.

Joe had made another wrong choice. Faced with only one remaining door, he finally made it into the rear courtyard formed by the college’s two main wings.

He spotted Dai Williams at the corner of the left wing, in what looked like lively debate with a youth of about eighteen or nineteen. They stopped talking as Joe approached, then the young man, who was slim to the point of emaciation and had a pale poet’s face in a net of fine black hair, turned and moved away at a pace just short of running.