Sympathy for the Devil (24 page)

Catrin knew he was right. The reports in the press on Jones after he’d been sent down were of an entirely isolated figure, one who had chosen to remain silent, who never had visitors, never communicated with the outside world, and had no means of doing so. But it occurred to her now what else had troubled her about the figure with the van. ‘Didn’t Jones often use to wear an anorak? His hair long or a black wig to cover his face?’

‘So what?’ She didn’t reply at first, tried to piece together those few fragments she’d seen of the man who’d followed her. Something in her mind seemed to be blocking off the memories, pushing them further out of reach.

She looked up, held Huw’s gaze. ‘Something’s telling me we should look at a connection with Jones here. It may not be an obvious one, but let’s stick with this for a moment.’ She thought back to what Pryce had said. ‘In some pictures, Jones’s hair looked black, came down to the shoulders, as Pryce described that older man having.’

Huw appeared resigned now to having to eliminate the direction she’d taken by argument rather than blanket dismissals. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘but in some pictures Jones had black hair, in others short blond, in others he was shaven-headed. Jones was good at disguise. That is why fifteen years of surveillance in the BDSM scene failed to catch him.’ He looked at her. ‘Let’s say for a moment Pryce was right, there was this older man in a big car, keeping out of sight. This doesn’t sound like Jones’s MO. Jones was unpredictable, he didn’t lay down patterns of behaviour, but here we already have a pattern. The man always came in a big car, waited some distance away. Jones wouldn’t have done it like that. He’d have approached in other ways, used different disguises.’

Catrin tried to work out what had first formed a link in her mind between the figure Pryce had described and Jones. She knew something must have done, but it was not something she could put a finger on consciously.

‘Shut your eyes,’ Huw said, ‘try to picture Jones. Can you do it?’

She tried, and he was right, she couldn’t. But that begged another question.

‘At the trial, Jones’s victims positively identified him. They were drugged, Jones masked all the time, so how did they do that?’

‘Jones always covered his face, but sometimes his chest was bare. He had a tattoo. No one was clear what its significance was, it seemed to represent a stylised raven’s beak. It was a brand tattoo, not an ink job, one of those applied in a single go with a hot mould.’

Catrin’s mind filled with the footage Huw had shown her. She saw the stains on the wall lit by the candles, on the floor the dark pool in which there was a paler shape, four limbs neatly arranged, barely distinguishable. Along the wall a shape was rising up, large and feathered, the shadow of some sort of apparel or mask. Dripping from its beak was dark liquid, the camera spinning, the images no longer clear, the walls shivering with a weak light. The shivering passed into her body, she felt herself grow suddenly cold.

‘You’re right, it was a raven. But isn’t that what the shadow showed in the film with Face in the tunnel?’

Huw seemed impatient. ‘Come on, that shape could have been almost anything.’

‘But it meant something to Rhys also.’ She’d pulled her jacket on but the feeling of cold persisted.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Rhys made origami ravens.’

‘And other birds – swans and crows, all kinds.’

‘Yes, I know, but he made ravens when he was under pressure. They had some significance for him. Like a talisman.’

Catrin took out her purse and from one of the pockets some yellowed and creased paper. What it represented was immediately obvious, the stylised feathers, the long, hooked beak.

‘This is one of them,’ she said, ‘Rhys dropped it the last night I was with him.’

Huw was barely looking at it. ‘Shadows, Cat. Shadows of shadows.’

She felt embarrassed, began to put it away. Then she felt his hand on hers, its heaviness, its warmth, reassuring her, but of what? She raised her head and he was looking straight into her eyes. Briefly she felt he could see into her innermost thoughts.

‘Cat,’ he said quietly. ‘I heard about how Rhys found you in the woods. You probably think Jones had something to do with that. And maybe you’re right.’ He paused, lowered his eyes, as if aware of their intensity. ‘But you mustn’t let your thing with Jones haunt this case. You mustn’t follow lines that just aren’t there.’

She nodded. She knew if she kept this up she’d confirm one of those doubts about female investigators that never seemed to go away: that however much they used logic and science, at some level they worked irrationally, followed fears and superstitions, not reason. ‘Pryce suggested we find Face’s family, but as far as I remember he never had much to do with them. You think there could be anything that was missed there?’

Huw seemed doubtful.

‘Face was always a bit evasive in interviews about his family, but probably only because they were so normal. His father did a stint in the merchant navy, died of lung cancer a few years back. His mother used to be a nurse at Glangwili hospital. She died more recently. They sound like regular pillars of the community. Face didn’t have much contact with them, but he didn’t avoid them. There’s no sign he had any strong feelings about them. Once he’d left for the city he didn’t go back home much.’

Huw took out a road map from his case, pointed to the Glangwili area north of Carmarthen. The roads looked narrow, the area primarily agricultural.

‘We could stop there tomorrow.’

He folded up the map and nodded at the buffet table. Catrin shook her head.

‘I’m not hungry.’

Huw walked over to the buffet table. She was able to watch him for a moment unobserved, study how his body moved, the solid torso tapering into a pair of long, athletic legs. She had to admit, she liked what she saw. Despite the dope, he’d kept in shape, there was discipline there still.

As Huw worked through his mixed grill, his eyes were half on the champions league match between Liverpool and PSV. ‘You a football fan?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ she said. She was beginning to feel quite drunk. ‘Man U, as it happens.’

‘Really?’ he said. ‘Me too.’

‘Yeah, well,’ she said smiling at him, ‘it’s not exactly an unusual choice, is it?’

‘When I was a kid though, that was a hell of a team, Bobby Charlton, Georgie Best. You just had to support them, specially if you grew up miles from anywhere like I did. How about you, how come you’re not a Cardiff City fan?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘my dad was a Man U fan.’

‘Right,’ said Huw, ‘you two bond over a match, did you?’

‘No,’ said Catrin, ‘not exactly, he’s not, well, he wasn’t really around.’

‘Oh,’ said Huw, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No need. It’s not like I ever knew him or anything. He was just a fling my mother had. Then I came along and he left. That’s what men do, isn’t it?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Leave,’ she said, ‘they fucking leave.’ She was really starting to feel the drink now and failing to keep the emotion from her voice, struggling not to think of Rhys, the one who’d really left her, not the father she’d never known, the bass player for a band she’d never heard of, the father of whom she knew nothing other than he’d been another drifter through her mother’s hippie scene.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and Huw just smiled and said something about it being a hell of a day.

As the players left the field she moved the conversation back to the Owen Face search, the quest for yet another man who, one way or another, had ducked out on his responsibilities.

‘That inscription on the bust of Cato in Pryce’s study, any idea what it meant?’ she asked.

Huw made a search on his iPhone. ‘It means something along the lines of –
In this land where each man’s face is a mask, the true face wears a mask
. Originally it referred to Rome perhaps, or Carthage.’

‘Couldn’t it also be a pun on Face’s name?’

‘In what sense?’

‘As in – where each man’s “Face” is a mask. It’s saying that Face wasn’t what he appeared to be. Face’s austere, reclusive lifestyle might have been some sort of mask – a front, that allowed him to pursue a double life. Maybe his real life was elsewhere.’

‘It’s possible I suppose.’

‘That would also explain Pryce’s own identification with the figure of Cato.’

‘I wouldn’t read too much into it. Someone in that condition and on that level of medication could be identifying with a lot of unusual things, no?’

The barman switched over to the local news. There was a short item on the fire, with an old picture of Della. Then the shot cut to DS Thomas standing outside the charred remains. He’d put on a new suit for the interview, but there was no mention of arson, no mention of any other persons being sought in connection with the incident. He stared with a glazed look into the camera and seemed to run out of things to say. Catrin smiled again but inwardly this time. He was making an ass of himself. But then he was the sort who didn’t really care what people thought of him.

She picked up a couple of rolls and some cheese and went to her room. The passage upstairs was lit by dim energy-saving bulbs. There was chipped paint on the dressing table, cigarette burns on the covers. Through the open curtains she could see the snow falling outside, swirling, grey and formless.

She moved closer to the pane, her nose almost up against the glass. Down in the whirl of flakes Huw’s parked car was just visible. Standing beside it she saw a figure in an anorak. He seemed almost motionless, only his hands moving out ahead of him, as if in a silent act of supplication.

Instinctively she drew back from the window, reached down for her phone to call Huw but it was too late. Huw had seen the man and was already running from the bar. Through the snow Catrin saw that the man still had his hands outstretched. He backed away from the car towards the road. Huw went after him through the falling flakes, almost slipping, but the man disappeared behind the trees.

As Huw reached the place where the man had gone the branches shook violently, the snow rushing down in a thick sheet. Then he too disappeared. Catrin heard a loud cry then Huw staggered back into sight, his hands clasped to his face, his knees buckling under him. From the side of the building the barman rushed forward, put his arms around Huw’s shoulders and guided him back towards the lights.

As she ran out Catrin could see Huw slumped at the bottom of the stairs. The barman held a bottle of water.

‘What just happened out there?’ She took the bottle and some tissues, then dabbed them over the end of the bottle.

‘I’m not sure. The bastard hit me from behind.’

‘Get a look at him?’

‘Not properly. It was too dark.’

Gently she began to wipe away the sludge and leaves from Huw’s face. His thick hair was matted with blood from a cut above his temple, but it wasn’t deep.

‘Did you see what he was wearing?’

‘The usual. Hoodie, trackies, those air-sole trainers.’

‘Get a look at his face?’

‘No. He had long hair, almost covered his face.’

‘It’s got to be the man who followed me from the club. He’s disguising himself as Jones used to. The hoodie, the hair over his face.’

Huw didn’t seem to be listening. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘it felt strange. Like if I’d pulled away the hair there would’ve been nothing underneath.’

‘What do you mean, nothing?’

‘Nothing, no face, just eyes.’

Catrin hesitated. It was what she’d felt too for a moment in the park. She took a deep breath. The barman had left the room, closed the door.

She walked with Huw to his door and waited outside until she heard the lock turn, then went down to check the windows. The bar was empty. She checked all the lower windows were locked, then went up to her room and turned the key.

Three hours later she was awake again. Her shoulders felt cold, numb. It was silent apart from the soft hum of the ventilation system.

She checked her phone. There were several calls from DS Thomas’s private number, but he’d left no message. She tried his number but it was switched off, no answerphone.

She picked up her tobacco pouch from the bedside table. It was almost empty. Not enough left to roll a cigarette. Beside the pouch were her sleeping pills. She took two, crunching them in her teeth to quicken the effect.

Outside the snow was falling like feathers.

She stared at the window. Nothing else was moving there. She closed her eyes and let the rhythm carry her off to a dreamless sleep.

2

Catrin stood at the window and peered out into the feeble dawn light. During the night she’d got up twice, checked the locks on all the ground-floor windows. Nothing had been disturbed, and looking out over the layer of snow that had fallen overnight, she could see no prints.

She felt for her handset, punched in the number of Emyr Pugh the pathologist. It was his home number, the one he’d left on his card at the office, she’d memorised it. His voice was still groggy with sleep.

‘Emyr?’

‘Cat?’ He still recognised her voice, she noted, after all these years. She heard him sniffing, some water running.

‘Thomas is looking for you, wants to speak to you about something,’ he said after a pause.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Last night his phone was off.’ She heard the click of a lighter, a shallow intake of breath. She didn’t remember Emyr smoking. She wondered if it was something he’d gone back to since his wife had died.

‘Also, Della left a message for you on my work line. She must have left it the morning of the fire.’

‘What was it?’

‘Nothing, just that she was looking for you, couldn’t get you on your mobile.’ Catrin remembered she’d been interviewing the band that morning, her phone would have been switched off. She wondered why Della hadn’t left a message as she had on previous occasions. Maybe because she’d never answered any of them. Maybe because she hadn’t felt safe leaving one. Now she’d probably never know what Della had wanted.