The Earth Hums in B Flat (21 page)

Mam glares at me and her cup jigs on its saucer but I have to do what the real detective says, don't I? I won't mention flying. What else should I not mention?

‘Take your time,' the real detective says. ‘Put your thoughts in order.'

That Saturday morning seems a long time ago. The man behind me sighs. Sergeant Jones mops his face and his head again. A wasp is becoming angry in the window trying to find its way out. But it won't be able to find a way through the closed panes. We're completely sealed inside the room. My gymslip feels scratchy on my legs, and Mam's face is beginning to melt.

‘Mrs Williams had just been talking to Guto'r Wern when I saw her,' I say.

The real detective holds up his hand. ‘In English, Gwenni,' he says. Then he turns to Sergeant Jones. ‘Guto'r Wern?' he says.

‘Griffith Edwards, Wern Farm,' says Sergeant Jones.

‘Carry on, Gwenni,' says the real detective.

‘She said she didn't know what would become of him,' I say in English. ‘And then she talked about Nain and she said I'd be late to Brwyn Coch if I didn't get on.'

‘Why did she say that about Guto?' says the real detective.

‘Because his mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby,' I say. ‘And it made him odd. Tada says there's no harm in him, though; he's innocent as a child. He's teaching me to fly.'

The man behind me chokes on his tea or his biscuit and Mam's cup gives a loud chatter. I forgot not to mention the flying.

‘What was Guto doing when you saw him?' says the real detective.

‘Running down to town,' I say. ‘He always runs. He almost flies. But not quite.'

The real detective leans his elbows on the desk and leans his fingertips together. ‘Did he come from the direction of Brwyn Coch?'

‘He was probably coming from the Wern,' I say. ‘That's where he lives. He hadn't had any breakfast and Mrs Williams had given him some bread and butter.'

‘But could he have been coming from Brwyn Coch?'

‘I suppose so,' I say. ‘You have to come down the same bit of road past Penrhiw from both places. He does go to see Mrs Evans sometimes; she's kind to him. But Angharad and Catrin didn't say anything about him visiting them that morning.'

‘Right, Gwenni,' says the real detective. ‘Now, when you got to Brwyn Coch, what did you do?'

‘I knocked on the door and said sorry I was late and gave Mrs Evans the violets.'

‘Violets?' says the real detective.

‘I picked Mrs Evans a bunch of violets on the way up. She likes violets.'

Mam glares at me. Her knee is jerking up and down, up and down under her tight winter skirt.

‘I picked you a bunch of primroses on the way home,' I remind her.

‘And after you gave Mrs Evans the violets, what did you do?' asks the real detective.

‘Then I went into the house and I made her some salt water to wash her mouth with, and . . .'

‘Why?' says the real detective. Maybe he isn't such a real detective after all.

‘Because Price the Dentist hadn't had his whisky and made a brutal job of pulling her teeth,' I say.

‘Dentist?' says the detective. ‘Had Mrs Evans already been to the dentist? I thought you were going there to look after the girls while she went to the dentist.'

‘Yes, but I was too late,' I say.

The detective looks at Sergeant Jones, but he's busy mopping his face.

‘And she'd bled all over the kitchen floor,' I say. ‘She bled worse than you, Mam, when you had your teeth taken out. And she was shaking.'

‘I didn't bleed all over the floor,' says Mam. ‘Don't be silly, Gwenni.'

Did I say she had?

The detective leans his elbows on the desk again and lays his forehead on the backs of his hands. He looks up at me.

‘So, what were the girls doing, Gwenni, when you were doing all this? Angharad and Catrin, where were they?'

‘Sitting in the parlour, reading,' I say. ‘
Alice in Wonderland
. I think they'd been told off for hitting the black dog.'

‘Black dog? What black dog?' says the detective.

‘Ifan Evans's black dog,' I say. ‘Catrin said Angharad threw a plate at it and Angharad said Catrin hit it with the poker.'

‘Mr Evans,' says Mam. ‘Mr Evans.'

‘What?' says the detective. ‘Why?'

‘Because the black dog was making Mr Evans cross with them all,' I say.

‘But Ifan didn't have a black dog, Gwenni,' says Sergeant Jones.

‘He did that day,' I say. Maybe the blood on the floor was the black dog's blood and not Mrs Evans's at all. I didn't think about that. ‘The poker was like the one we've got, with a phoenix on it; Aunty Lol says that's the bird that rose from the ashes. Catrin had dropped it on the floor and I nearly tripped over it.'

I can hear the man behind us scribbling over the pages of his notebook. Am I speaking too fast?

‘Yes, yes,' says the detective. ‘Then what did you do?'

‘Then I took the girls out to play,' I say and I don't mention the flying. ‘And then we went back to the house and Mrs Evans had tidied up and washed the floor and made the fire and put a stew on for dinner. And then she let me choose some books to say thank-you and then I went home. And I picked Mam some primroses on the way. We had faggots for our dinner but I couldn't eat them.' It's becoming more stuffy and more smelly in here; the thought of the faggots makes my stomach lurch.

‘Did you see Mr Evans?' asks the detective. ‘In the house or when you were out with the girls?'

‘No,' I say. ‘He'd gone off with the black dog. Catrin said he never came home until late when he had the black dog.'

‘But, Gwenni,' says Sergeant Jones. ‘Ifan didn't have a black dog. He only had Mot.'

‘He left Mot behind,' I say. Should I tell the detective about my bad dream? It would prove there is a black dog. But where did Ifan leave it?

‘Are you certain you didn't see Mr Evans that day?' asks the detective.

‘I didn't see him,' I say. ‘Was that the day he fell in the Reservoir? Alwenna says it was. Maybe he'd already fallen in.' Don't think about it.

Mam's cup is leaping about on its saucer. She tries to reach over to Sergeant Jones's desk with it. She narrows her eyes at me. ‘Violets,' she says. ‘Violets. Huh.' And her cup spills over the edge of her saucer and falls to the concrete floor and breaks into tiny pieces that skitter to every part of the room. One of Mrs Sergeant Jones's grandmother's best cups.

The detective stands up. ‘That's all . . . eh . . . thank you,' he says.‘We're trying to find out exactly what happened and when it happened on that Saturday. You've been a big help.'

I have?

27

Today, I begin my proper investigation into the killing of Ifan Evans. I didn't find any clues at the Reservoir, and the real detectives didn't tell me they had any clues, so I have to discover who the murderer is another way. Maybe if I find out as much as I can about the victim, it'll be obvious who wanted to kill him. Who knows everything about everyone? Alwenna.

It's dinner time and our class has just had double Welsh Literature with Alwenna's favourite teacher – Mr Tomos with the curly dark hair who reads poems to us in a curly dark voice. Alwenna never liked poetry until Mr Tomos came at the beginning of last term. And we had steamed ginger sponge after dinner, her favourite pudding. It tastes like washing your mouth out with soap but it'll put Alwenna in a good mood.

There she is, walking past the tennis courts, where two sixth-form boys are arguing about the score, and out towards the school field, her skirt swinging from side to side. I catch up with her a second before Aneurin and Edwin reach her. They roll their eyes at me and chant, ‘Gwenni Fo-ox.' Edwin looks more like a horse than ever with the whites of his eyes showing. Has Alwenna never noticed that? They veer off in a different direction when I glare at them and go and talk to some other girl in the year below us who's giggling at them from a distance. I can't remember her name.

‘What do you want?' says Alwenna. She lowers herself to sit on the grass and spreads her skirt out around her.

I sit opposite her and tug my gymslip down. It seems to be shrinking; maybe Mam's been using the wrong soap to wash it.

Mam bought a blue gingham dress with a big skirt like Alwenna's for Bethan, and she says I can have it next summer when Bethan has outgrown it. She has to save all her money for buying a house with a bathroom and an electric cooker so she can't afford to buy us a dress each. ‘I have to talk to you for a bit,' I say to Alwenna.

We used to spend all our dinnertimes talking.

‘What about?' she says.

‘Our investigation,' I say. ‘Will you tell me everything you know about Ifan Evans?' I lay my notebook and pencil on the grass.

Alwenna kicks them out of my reach. ‘I'm not going to play any of your silly detective games,' she says. ‘Or any other ones, either.'

‘Wait till I tell you what happened yesterday,' I say. I lean over and retrieve my book and pencil.

‘I know what happened,' she says. ‘I'm not helping you to do stupid things any more.'

‘But I know how to interrogate people properly now,' I say. ‘And you could take notes of what they say.'

‘No,' she says, shaking her head. ‘No. No. No.'

‘You don't have to do them in English like the real detectives,' I say.

‘I'm not doing them in any language, Gwenni,' she says.

I pick some daisies from the grass and start to make a chain with them. Their petals are open wide, their yellow centres bright as the sun in the sky.

‘So, why did they do them in English?' says Alwenna. She picks a daisy, too, and twirls it around by its stem.

‘Because you're not allowed to speak Welsh in court, I suppose,' I say. ‘And anyway, how do you know about what happened?'

‘Mam's cousin's daughter who lives in Bermo is married to Dewi Lloyd,' she says.

Her mam has got relatives all over Wales, but who is Dewi Lloyd?

‘Wake up, Gwenni,' she says. ‘The detective that was taking the notes? Remember? He said you were a funny little thing. And your mother had the shakes. Well, everyone knows why she has the shakes, but Dewi thought she'd been drinking.'

‘Drinking?' I say. I drop the daisy chain on the grass. ‘She had one cup of tea. How could that give her the shakes?'

‘Grow up, Gwenni,' says Alwenna, pulling the petals off her daisy one by one. ‘He meant he thought she was drunk, didn't he?'

‘But it's her nerves,' I say. ‘You know no one has anything to make them drunk in our house. You know that, Alwenna.'

‘I know. Boring,' she says. ‘Mam told her cousin to tell him it was nerves. Everyone knows your mam is going doolally. It's in the family, isn't it?'

‘Is it?' I say. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘He loves me,' she shouts, throwing the daisy stalk in the air and standing up. She brushes bits of grass off her dress, shaking it so that Aneurin and Edwin do their wolf whistling duet at her and clap.

‘Who loves you?' I say.

‘Edwin, of course,' she says. ‘It's only a game, Gwenni.'

I pull at the skirt of her dress. ‘You can't go without telling me what you're talking about,' I say. ‘What do you mean about being doolally being in the family? You keep saying it.'

‘No, I don't,' says Alwenna. ‘And everyone knows. Ask anyone.'

‘I'm asking you,' I say. ‘Please, Alwenna.' I tug at her skirt again.

‘Well, don't tell your mam I told you,' she says, dropping to the grass again.

‘I never tell Mam the things you tell me,' I say.

‘You do,' she says. ‘Alwenna calls Ifan Evans Paleface. Alwenna says Dafydd Owen is a dirty old man. Alwenna asked Miss Hughes when the baby was due. She complains to my mam.'

It's true. But I didn't know the things she told me were secret. ‘I won't tell her this time,' I say.

‘Swear,' says Alwenna. I cross my heart. It's thudding as loudly as the tennis balls on the courts.

‘Your nain went doolally,' says Alwenna. ‘Not your nain next door; your mam's mother. She went right off her head when your mam was expecting Bethan and got carted off to Dinbych. So there, now you know.'

But I don't know anything. ‘Dinbych?' I say. ‘What, the asylum? Do you mean the asylum?'

‘Well, they didn't cart her off to a hotel there, did they?' says Alwenna. ‘Of course the asylum. Then she died. Now your mam's going doolally. Perhaps it's catching.'