Pulp Fiction | The Stone-Cold Dead in the Market Affair by John Oram (4 page)

When he was near enough to get the full bouquet of the Cwm Carrog cow pens he called a halt and sat down. He was almost through the bracken, which was now no more than knee-high. Before he started across the paddock he needed a rest.

A hint of moonrise in the east warned him that he would have to get going again. Already it was light enough for him to see ahead the outline of the farmyard wall, a shed or two, and the great macrocarpas looming black against the sky.

He slipped off his walking shoes and took the sneakers and flashlight out of his knapsack. He clipped the flashlight to his belt, packed the shoes in the knapsack, slung the bag over his shoulder again.

As he was lacing the sneakers he got his first jolt. It was a light — a cold greenish light about as big as a fair-sized grapefruit. And it was moving slowly along the base of the farmyard wall. Suddenly it stopped, wavered, changed direction and came uphill toward him. It moved with a queer jerky roll.

There was only one thing to do. Illya crossed his fingers, said stoutly, "Ghosts are only your father, like Santa Claus," and went to meet it.

It came on unsteadily, a wobbling disembodied eye, glowing weirdly.

When it got within reach Illya grabbed.

His hand blotted out the light. Closed on something hard and smooth. The thing stopped, went dead under his grasp.

Wriggling closer so that he got it under cover of his body, Illya fumbled with his free hand for the flashlight and pressed the button.

The beam stabbed briefly, flooding a small tortoise. Some humorist had thought up the idea of painting its shell with phosphorescent paint. Illya let it go and lay still. After a minute or so a puzzled crustacean wobbled off to spread panic and despondency elsewhere.

Illya pressed on, much heartened. The
tete-a-tete
had not only put paid to David Davis' fairy tales, it had also proved that whatever funny business was going on at Cwm Carrog, it had human brains behind it. In a way Illya was disappointed. If luminous tortoises were the best the Price Hughes faction could do they didn't come in the same class with some of the gangs he had bucked.

Between the edge of the bracken and the yard wall there was a short stretch of open turf. Illya covered it very slowly like Napoleon's army. On his belly.

Once safe in the shadow of the wall he straightened up and felt his way back to where it joined the lane wall. He tucked his knapsack away in the angle, where he could find it again. It was too awkward to lug around on his sleuthing. On the other hand he did not fancy the long hike back to Corwen in sneakers.

Getting a toehold among the rough stones, he pulled himself up and with a hand cupped over the lens of the flashlight examined the top of the yard wall for possible alarm wires. There was none. A second later he was in the yard.

By this time the moon was well up. He thanked his stars that the sky was cloudy. A clear night would have been fatal. He hugged the wall for a space, getting his bearings. Fifty feet away was a Dutch barn, half full of hay. If he could make that safely it was an easy step, all in shadow, to the shelter of the macrocarpas around the house. Offering up a prayer against shepherd dogs and watchmen, as soon as the moon passed behind a cloud drift he sprinted.

It was then that he got his second taste of the amenities of Cwm Carrog. And this time it shook him.

He had just made it to the barn and was cuddling the hay when it came — a ghastly sound that began with a low sobbing wail and rose to a long-drawn-out hysterical scream with insane laughter in it. It sounded as if a dozen cougars had sat down suddenly on the same number of electric stoves. Illya could feel every one of the hairs on his scalp rising individually and icy fingers played along his backbone.

The cry died away into broken moaning. Illya strained his ears but nobody in the house seemed to be paying any attention. Not a light went on. The only sound now was the whisper of the wind through the barn. He got a grip on himself and went on, picking his steps carefully. He did not want to tangle with trip wires or spring guns, and Mr. Price Hughes was evidently a considerable joker.

At last he was on the father side of the trees, looking up at the house. He could see six windows, three up and three down, all shuttered tightly.

He scouted along to the left and found himself at the back of the premises. Here, too, the windows were close-shuttered. The blackness was relieved only by one of the fiery tortoises, which was pottering about moodily. Illya tried the solid-looking door. It had no latch or handle. Nothing but some kind of patent lock that fit flush. He ran his hand over the surface of the door. It was cold metal.

Suddenly the howling started again, this time apparently right overhead. Illya looked up. There was nothing to see but the dark oblongs of the windows, like sightless eyes, and the denser shadow of the overhanging eaves.

The noise went through the same routine, a crescendo shriek dying away into sobbing. When it stopped there was no sound but the wind in the trees.

Illya grinned. He had the answer to Winnie the Wailer though he couldn't quite place her hideout. That could come later.

He was working around the end of the third wall to the front of the house when he heard a car approaching. Across a widish gravel drive, facing the main entrance, there was a clump of laurels. He nipped among them quickly.

The purr of the engine got louder. Headlights swept the drive. The car, a big sedan, stopped. A man got out, held the rear door wide. After an interval two more men appeared.

The door of the house opened. Light streamed out brightly, enabling Illya to get a look at the new arrivals.

The man who had got out of the driver's seat was a stocky, broad-shouldered character, clean-shaven, with horn-rimmed spectacles and a mean expression. The second had a skinny frame, nutcracker nose and chin, and a high-domed skull with just a fringe of white hair above the ears. The third man was Huge ap Morgan.

Illya took a sub-miniature camera from the inside pocket of his windbreaker. It had a special lens and was loaded with supersensitive sixteen mm. film capable of getting pictures in almost total darkness. Illya checked with his fingertips on the Braille-type indicator that the focus was set at twelve feet. Then he photographed the group and then each man in turn.

Morgan went around to the back of the car, unlocked the trunk and dragged out two heavy suitcases. He took one in each hand and lugged them with some difficulty into the hall. The other two men hurried after him and the door swung shut.

It opened again a minute later. The stocky man reappeared, got into the car and drove it around the yard.

Illya decided to call it a night. He had plenty to think about and there was no use straining the luck.

Getting out of Cwm Carrog was no trick. He went out the front way — along the edge of the drive to the lane — then walked uphill to the place where he had left the knapsack. He picked up the sack but left his sneakers on. When he had walked about half a mile he changed them for his shoes, climbed over the lone wall and nested down among the bracken for the remainder of the night.

At first light he worked his cramped muscles into a state approaching normal, climbed the hill to the ring of pines and hiked down into Corwen from the other side.

Illya timed his arrival at the hotel for a late breakfast. Since he had to pay for it he thought he might as well eat it. Afterward he had a hot bath and changed into more civilized clothes. Then he hung a sign outside his bedroom door:
Do not disturb,
and went to work on the film.

At noon he left the hotel and hunted out David Davis. He found the old man sitting hopefully on a bench outside a small beerhouse. He took him inside, propped him against the bar with a pint in front of him, and produced one of the prints he had made that morning. It showed the thin man with the nutcracker features.

Illya said, "Do you know this man?"

Mr. Davis cackled. "Der! There's a joker you are. Making me tell you all about him — and all the time you do know him well enough to carry his picture. Yes, indeed. Mr. Price Hughes himself. A speaking likeness."

Illya put a pound note in his willing palm. He said, without optimism, "Forget I ever mentioned him."

Down at the post office he met an official obviously fitted for bigger things. Without asking too many questions he got an ex-directory number in Newport and handed Illya the receiver.

Blodwen's voice said, "How're they coming, my Russian cousin?"

"Like gold," he said happily. "Has Solo arrived?"

"He's here now — punishing my Scotch. Want to talk to him?"

"Not right now. Tell him I'm sending some pictures by special delivery. I want them checked."

"The hunch came off?"

"And how! I've found a bunch of weirdies living the simple life behind bullet-proof doors — with aeolian harps and livestock in gorgeous Technicolor to keep the locals at bay."

She said, "And what the hell is a you-know-what harp?"

"Oh, that! It's a quaint gadget of piano wires or guitar strings. You fix it some place where the wind can blow through it and it sounds like slaughter on Tenth Avenue. Just the thing for the baby's nursery."

There was a pause. Then Solo's voice came over the wire. He said, "Nice work, Illya. But play it cool."

Illya grinned into a fly-specked mirror tilted above the switchboard. "I won't life a finger till the gang arrives. Just a unit in one great army, that's me."

He put a bunch of prints into a distinctively colored envelope, gave the postal official some instructions, and walked out into the sunshine.

Illya pottered around the town for the rest of the day, looking in at the cattle market, buying picture postcards, sharing the joys and sorrows of the granddads on the bowling green. He let it be generally understood that he was a footloose Canadian with no more on his mind than a few days' relaxation. David Davis might have his own ideas, but as long as the free beer held out, Illya didn't think he would talk.

Around dusk he went back to the hotel. The landlord said there had been no messages for him. He ate a leisurely dinner and spent the rest of the evening in the bar. Neither David Davis nor Hugh ap Morgan showed up. At ten o'clock he shut himself in the telephone box in the lobby and dialed Blodwen's number.

Solo answered the call.

Illya asked, "Did you get the pictures?"

"I did, and I've run a check. The old man is Price Hughes, all right. He seems to be a professional eccentric but otherwise his reputation is unblemished. He has more money than Fort Knox and he spends it on good works. Apart from the nut colony you've uncovered he heads an organization for reforming ex-convicts, which he runs from his apartment in Newport Street, London."

"In Soho? That's an odd address for a philanthropist."

"I told you. He's an eccentric."

"Sure." Illya sounded unconvinced. "What about the other two?"

"The guy in the cheaters is one of his strayed lambs. A simple soul called Rafferty with a list of convictions from here to Glasgow. Grievous bodily harm, shooting with intent, mugging — you name it, he's done it. He's worked as a strong-arm man in race-track protection, organized prostitution and smuggling. But now, he claims, he's seen the light. He's been in the clear since he came out of Dartmoor a year ago."

"And Morgan?"

"That," said Solo, "is the jackpot question. You know some of the answers. He got mixed up with politics and did three years for arson. Maybe that's how he got in touch with Price Hughes. But here's the interesting thing. Before he got into trouble he was in line for a professorship at the University of Wales. It seems he was some kind of boy genius with a special bent for electronics. According to my sources he was tinkering about with one of the first experimental computers when the blow fell."

"Intriguing," Illya murmured.

"Wait. It gets better. He did his time in Wakefield, where a prisoner gets a reasonable choice of studies. Morgan elected to work in the printing shop. He knew he was washed up academically and he wanted to learn a trade.

"When he was released the Ministry of Labor found him a place with a firm that specializes in fine printing and engraving, but it didn't work out. He got restless and quit. He joined the army, volunteered for special duties, and was next heard of in one of the hush-hush outfits, forging document for the Resistance movements.

"After the war he drifted from job to job and finally dropped out of sight. He wasn't heard of again until six years ago when Price Hughes bought his farm. Morgan was the first man he hired."

Illya said, "Well, well! Things begin to add up."

"They do, indeed. There's not much doubt that the farm is the center of operations. I think it's time we stopped the presses."

"High time," said Illya. "But getting near them will be quite a trick."

He replaced the receiver and went up to bed.

At nine o'clock next morning he walked into the dining room for breakfast. And there, working earnestly through a plate of ham and eggs, sat Blodwen. She was wearing a suit of cheap tweed with a chain-store blouse. Her black hair was combed lankly and she wore all the wrong kinds of makeup.

She looked up uninterestedly when Illya walked in, then resumed her assault on the ham.

He took a chair opposite from her. The waitress brought him a bowl of cereal.

"Nice morning," he said.

Blodwen scowled. "Dim saesneg," she answered with her mouth full.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The lady do say she don't speak no English," the waitress interpreted. "A Welsh lady she is," she added unnecessarily.

"'Lady' is right," Illya said as a heavy shoe landed on his shin. He got his revenge by making the cereal really audible.

He had got to the toast and marmalade stage when Blodwen brought out a packet of cigarettes. She lit one, then started to transfer the others to a case. Somehow she fumbled the job. The case made a clatter on the table and the cigarettes spread over the floor.

Illya bent down to pick them up. So did Blodwen. Her hair brushed his cheek and he liked it.