White Trail (12 page)

‘Doged,' said Culhwch. ‘Isn't it? Your wife's so-called dead husband?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘You know, I never killed him. He's here. Alive and well. Did your parents tell you about Doged? Was that it? Did they tell you I killed him?'

‘I found it in Arthur's notes. The day I arrived in the town I broke into Arthur's flat. I was searching for things – anything I could find. I saw it scribbled in Arthur's notes. ‘I think Cilydd has something to do with Doged's death.' It was such a little detail – he may not really have even believed it at the time. But it was all I had. And when I heard your voice all shaky on the phone I thought, well, I thought it must be true.'

This left Cilydd reeling. The thought that Arthur had begun to investigate him – to suspect him. And yet he saw that Arthur had more intuition than he gave him credit for. Arthur, for all his vagueness and indecision, had read something in him after all.

Culhwch finally hesitated by a door at the far end of the building. The birds twittered and screeched around them, rupturing the silence. They flocked to the door, covering every inch of it, a brawny dark force, until the door gave way. The birds swept in, gathering in a little coven around a bed by the window. When their feathers had stilled, he saw a blonde-haired girl lying there, with a ballooning stomach. Right next to her, slumped unconscious in his chair, was Ysbaddaden Bencawr. Culhwch knelt by the bed and stroked his lover's hair.

‘I've come to get you...' Culhwch said. ‘Me and my father, we'll get you out of here. If we go now we'll be away before everyone wakes up.'

The birds were getting frantic, poking around in the room, pecking ferociously at things. One of them got hold of a pillow and started to wave it around like a flag. Another joined it, tugging and tugging at the seams until eventually the cotton ripped, sending a splay of feathers over the bed. These feathers were pale and long, at odds with their own dark wings –duck feathers, or goose. Many others descended and collected them in their beaks, laying them down on the ground to form a trail. The biggest bird in the room shook a gust of them overYsbaddaden's head. ‘What are they doing?' Cilydd asked Olwen. Her beauty took him off guard, and he saw what his son saw – something quite extraordinary, a porcelain perfection – fragile, breakable – he wanted to cup her in his hand. Hold up her up to the light. Her eyes seemed almost transparent, looking not at him, but through him, somehow. She held out her fingers to the birds and they shuffled towards her.

‘They're faithful creatures. My father has always prided himself on it. But what he doesn't know is how easily they change allegiances. For years now, they've been on my side. They're Rhiannon's birds after all, they're conditioned to respond better to women. Or to those on the margins. Lonely people, yes, they like their lonely people. They'll follow a lonely soul to the ends of the earth, all the while singing a sweet melody, trying to comfort them. They've comforted me for years, you see. Ysbaddaden lost his power over them a long time ago – though he's never realised it. Because they keep up the charade. But anyone who looks closely enough knows what they're doing. And what they're doing now is imitating me. They create their own white trail wherever they go, from whatever they can find.'

It slowly dawned on Cilydd. The flour aisle. The white shells on the ledge after Doged's fall. All the while Ysbaddaden believed that the birds were working for him while they were merely executing their silent rebellion, waiting to undo him.

‘I'm so happy you came Culhwch,' Olwen said, stroking his hand. ‘I really am. I feel that, I feel that I could truly love you. But I can't come with you. I'm too... too heavy. And the baby's near. So near now. I can't ask you to carry this burden with me.'

‘It's not a burden... we'll sort it out. My father... my father has a house. We can bring up the baby together. All of us. Can't we... Dad?'

Cilydd looked down at Olwen, but all he saw this time was Goleuddydd. Making a run for it in the forest. Giving in to the darkness and the damp in that pigsty. He had a bad feeling about that baby. He didn't want it in his house. It was nothing to do with him. But he nodded his head silently, all the same.

‘It's up to Olwen,' he said. ‘We can't force her to come if she doesn't want to. What do you want, Olwen?'

There was a muted anger in his voice, and he realised he was not speaking to Olwen at all but to Goleuddydd. What had she wanted, all those years ago? What on earth had driven her here, of all places?

He was angry. Angry at her for being such a wilful, silly wife – thinking she was so eccentric, making wild, inappropriate choices because it seemed like fun. Because it seemed like
living
. All he wanted now was to be reunited with Gwelw. Lovely, sensible Gwelw, whose business was fixing other people, making sure something as essential, as important, as their bones were in order – who would click things back into place in one swift movement, with a smile.

Olwen rose to her feet uncertainly and walked towards her father. The birds moved with her as she got closer to him, scattering more of the spindly goose down across his body.

‘You're right, Culhwch, I can't stay any longer. The baby... the baby needs to be safe. If we wait too long it might... it might die. And even if it doesn't, there isn't any kind of life here for a child. But it's only if Ysbaddaden dies that I can start living. He has to die. Do you understand?'

Cilydd looked at Culhwch and Culhwch looked at Cilydd.

‘We can't... we can't kill him,' Cilydd said, laughing nervously. ‘That makes us no better than him. And besides, we'll be... we'll be prosecuted, and I'm not risking that...'

‘No one's going to be prosecuted for anything, haven't you realised that yet? This has been going on for years and years and the police, the government, everyone – they've let it happen. They'll find some way of bringing it all to a halt if he dies. No one's going to look into it, trust me. It needs to stop. It can only stop if Ysbaddaden dies. Otherwise, I'm staying here.'

She sat back down on the bed, her cold eyes challenging them both. Ysbaddaden's eyes flickered momentarily, but he remained solidly asleep. Neither Cilydd nor Culhwch uttered a word.

‘OK, well, I'll shave him, then,' said Olwen suddenly, pushing herself back up. ‘He needs a good shave – he's simply not had the time these last couple of days, what with all the excitement that's been going on around here. Yes, a good shave. Clean him up, good and proper.'

For a moment Cilydd thought that the dark thought had passed suddenly and that Olwen was stepping back from the murderous brink of her thoughts. But then he saw her hands trembling as she assembled the equipment. She swished some lather in a bowl and rinsed a razor under the tap.

‘Yes, that's right,' she muttered to herself. ‘I'll start off by lathering him up, and then perhaps one of you two could... could finish things.'

Olwen's hands worked quickly over Ysbaddaden's face, moving in swift, white circles, foaming tiny waves all over his face. The more she gushed the sicker Cilydd felt. He was up on that ledge again, watching Doged fall. Except this time, he really was going to push someone. Slit someone open like someone had slit his own wife open. Ysbaddaden's head tilted back, and the pale white throat seemed to grin at him.

He saw Culhwch step forward. He pulled him back.

‘I think you two should go now,' he said, in a voice he did not recognise as his own. ‘I think you should start moving before people start waking up.' He gave Olwen a meaningful nod as he took the razor away from her. ‘I'll take over here.'

The steel was against his hand – cold and urgent.

Olwen nodded appreciatively at him and got up to leave the room. Culhwch helped her to the door. Neither one of them looked back. He listened to their footsteps receding down the corridor. The birds, in a confused flurry, flitted back and forth across the room as if not knowing whether they should stay or go. A few remained, hanging on the huge, cast-iron curtain rails, with one bird swinging upside down, its huge orange claws grappling with the dull gold. Cilydd stared down at Ysbaddaden's face, and rested the razor on his neck.

Was it really just a matter of sliding it against the skin? And then how would he know where to stop? The blade glinted at him, dazzling him. It didn't look sharp enough. If it wasn't sharp enough, it might get stuck. He might only cut enough to wake Ysbaddaden up. Maybe he should try it out first on himself. He looked down at his own body. What bits of himself could he try to cut? He raised a finger up to the light. Just a little prick, just to see how sharp it was. Then he saw how ridiculous it was, this dilly-dallying, turning the knife on himself. Thinking that he had to suffer first, if he was going to hurt someone else. If you're going to do it, just do it. He was reminded of Gwelw at that moment, how she hated his indecision, his tendency to circumnavigate. Often, when they were going out to some event, some party or other, he'd make things complicated. Suggest going somewhere for a drink first, or to call in at a friend's house. Gwelw would just do up her seatbelt and say quite firmly: ‘If I'm going to a party, then
I'm going to a party
,' and he'd drive straight there, forgetting all the other engagements, which he could see, on arrival, were just not necessary.

He stared back down at Ysbaddaden's neck. This was it. He was going to the party.

And just as he was about to do it, one of the birds twitched, and the door creaked open. He looked up. Standing in the doorframe was Arthur. He'd been severely beaten, his cheeks grazed and purple. One arm was held awkwardly at an angle, as though it were broken.

‘If you don't mind, I'd like to do the honours,' he said, limping forward. He was barefoot – even his toes were bleeding. A few of the birds, who'd been perfectly still until then, began to twitter. Their orange eyes slid towards Arthur. Then, it seemed, one by one, they flocked to him. Perching themselves on his shoulders, his back. One stood boldly on his head.

‘Arthur,' he said, walking towards his cousin. ‘What happened to you?'

‘Oh, nothing a warm bath won't heal,' he smiled wanly. ‘I suppose it's only what I deserve for med-dling so much these past years. Told you these cases had a connection, didn't I?'

Arthur limped over to the chair where Ysbaddaden was sleeping. The tyrant's throat rose and fell in fleshy gurgles, he rolled and winced, but still he did not wake up. How small people looked when they were sleeping, Cilydd thought, even the most powerful ones. They had no choice but to abandon every sense of themselves and become primal, thrashing, open-mouthed things. The birds looked quizzically down at their former master. One of them swooped down and tugged at an eyebrow. Plucking it right out, it drew blood, and a small kernel of life bubbled to the surface. It was evident that he had lost any power he had over them, for these birds seemed ready to destroy him now.

Arthur straightened himself. The birds stood to attention. They were waiting for Arthur's lead.

‘He looks just like I remember him,' Arthur said. ‘Smug, self-serving. Thinking he's got it all. He was like that even before all this happened.'

Arthur fished around in the top pocket of Ysbaddaden's suit and retrieved a silver card. Cilydd recognised this as the very same silver card that had allowed him access to Doged's room. Arthur held it up, letting the light bounce back and forth on its surface.

‘It's bizarre, isn't it – how a locked room can become a haven? I mean, people say it all the time, don't they. Lock me up and throw away the key. No doubt we've all thought it at times, that it would be nice to disappear, to have someone else take responsibility for us, keep us away from everything? It's just I can't believe they were all so compliant. So quiet. Sitting in their little rooms, only being allowed out when he slid the magic card in the slot. It's odd isn't it? It's like those birds send everyone into a trance or something.'

Cilydd didn't think anything was odd anymore Goleuddydd, Anlawdd, Doged – they'd all locked him into a room and thrown away the key a long time ago. They'd made him a prisoner in his own life. ‘I can guarantee you,' continued Arthur, ‘that even if I opened every single door on every corridor, opened those doors wide, they still wouldn't leave. But if we... if we somehow got them all outside –out of this house, into the fresh air – most of them would snap out of it. The question is how do you convince them to leave? Even withYsbaddaden dead, they're still going to want to stay. Which reminds me, I think you should give me the razor now, Cilydd. It really doesn't suit you.'

Cilydd had not realised how tightly he was grip-ping the blade until Arthur tried to prize it away from him.

‘Oh really? It doesn't suit me? Like Doged's death didn't suit me? Come on Arthur, I know you suspected me. For all I know you still do.'

‘Look, Cilydd. When you're a private investigator you suspect everybody. You don't just go for the obvious choices. All I know is that when I gave you that picture on your wedding day, you were unsettled. There was something about it you didn't like. And it was the fact that it was yourself, and not Doged, that was in that picture. I could read the guilt all over you. But really, now. It's OK. I don't care what happened. I don't even care if you killed him...'

‘I didn't kill him! Let go of my arm...'

They struggled in silence until the razor suddenly fell and clattered against the marble flooring. Ysbaddaden thrashed again, eyeballs turning like small tides beneath his eyelids.

‘Cilydd,' Arthur said firmly, grabbing him by the shoulders. ‘Your son is waiting for you by the front door. He's trying to get Olwen out only... only she won't move. She knows, Cilydd. She knows you haven't done it. It's like that doorstep is some kind of boundary and she won't be able to cross it unless he's dead. If we don't kill him, we'll never get out of here, I promise you. And you're not going to do it, are you? I think you should leave it to me.'