The Magus of Hay(107)

‘What about the other girl, Mephista? Was she rough trade? At sixteen?’

‘She was… intelligent. But different. Her parents were old hippies. Her dad told me they’d tried to bring her up with their values – live frugally, be at one with nature. I remember thinking, she’s too young for all that. She’ll rebel. The way her parents rebelled against capitalism, consumerism, shiny suits.’

‘What did Brace have to say about her?’

‘Thought he knew which one she was. Well, yes, I’m quite sure he did. They were both to be found at Rector’s farm – Mephista dragged there by her parents, Brace helping out.’

‘With what?’

‘I don’t know. But, of all the people from the Convoy, he seems to have been the closest to Rector.’

Grainy clouds had slid across the sun, enough to bring out a breeze. Merrily zipped up her coat.

‘My information is Rector had a substantial neo-Nazi following from his first book – dealing with the occultism of Nazi Germany. He was distancing himself from it by then… but some of them clearly found that hard to accept. If they even believed it. It was as if they thought he had some secret source that they could tap into. Did Rector know what Brace was?’

‘And who is your secret source, Mrs Watkins?’

‘Erm… I think that had better remain secret for the time being. Reliable, though.’

She wondered if his interest stemmed purely from his own involvement in a case that was still on the books. Did he feel the answer was here, in Hay?

‘Did you talk to Peter Rector, Gwyn?’

‘The Messiah? Not one-to-one, having gone there as bag-carrier to my DI.’

‘The Messiah? Who called him that – the Convoy?’

‘And others. He’d stride the bare hills looking like a prophet. Hair suspiciously black for a man well into his fifties. But when you spoke to him he was unexpectedly quiet. Almost – what’s the word? – diffident?’

‘You think working with the Convoy filled some need in him? Like to help the homeless? Or was it more cynical? People who wouldn’t tell. Or, if they did, wouldn’t be believed.’

‘He certainly used to hang around with that chap, the television playwright. Jeremy Sanders…? Sandford.’

‘Cathy Come Home?’

‘You remember that?’

‘Yeah, seminal TV play about homelessness. We watched it at theological college in connection with something. Man with a strong social conscience. He was there?’

‘Lived nor far away, in Herefordshire. Still interested in the homeless. And gypsies of all kinds – a member of the Gypsy Council. And he’d written a book about magic mushrooms. Someone said it was Sandford who encouraged Rector to involve the Convoy in his activities. And there was that other chap, Bruce Chatwin, the writer, he was staying with Rector when we talked to him. Used to stay with him while writing.’

‘Both dead now.’



‘There we are. Regular little arts festival up there.’

‘So why would Brace have a hidden swastika in his shop? Inside the chimney which was obviously still in use in his time and then was blocked up. By him?’

‘Don’t know what to make of it. Set in stone, or brick, like a family crest. His father, Sir Charles, died quite recently.’

‘I don’t think I’ve heard of him.’

‘Well connected in the City. Second home in Herefordshire, to which he eventually retired. Victorian Gothic monstrosity out near Bromyard which he enjoyed making even more medieval. As Mrs Wilby said, he was a friend of the Nazi-sympathizer Lord Brocket. Also, incidentally, of the fugitive Lord Lucan.’

‘He was right-wing?’

‘Oh hell, aye. Brace was one of the people mentioned as possibly sheltering Lucan when he was being sought for the murder of his children’s nanny. A lot of it going on, then, under the surface. Talk of a right-wing coup, being planned when it was suggested that the prime minister, Wilson, was being controlled by the Soviet union  . Very dark days, and the Welsh Border… little hotbed of prominent fascists. But… being a neo-Nazi was not an offence, except to the sensibilities of some of us.’

‘Are they still around? Frannie Bliss is a bit dismissive about their continued potential as a threat. My source… less so.’

‘It’s an interesting question.’ Gwyn Arthur had his pipe going. ‘Throughout the eighties and nineties, we were occasionally alerted to the existence of extreme right-wing cells in Mid Wales, Shropshire, Herefordshire. Often indistinguishable from the survivalists in their remote farms, with more weaponry than was legal. You’ll still find them on the Internet.’