The Magus of Hay(142)

‘Mrs Villiers. Someone else who seems trapped. In a private world. With ghosts. Maybe it’s catching. Just before the guy with the camera, our landlord’s wife was telling me she’d seen Dame Beryl Bainbridge, the novelist. On the day she died. In London, I suppose.’

Merrily looked up, startled.

‘Where was this?’

‘On the square, I think. The marketplace. Near where I was photographed. Does that mean something?’

‘I don’t know.’

Merrily was at the window. Just when you thought that rationality, however grim and twisted, was offering explanations…

‘I can’t see her. The old woman who whistles.’



‘You always hear her first. And afterwards. It’s as if the whistle takes on a life of its own.’

‘What does she look like?’

‘Not very big. Little round curious eyes, slightly feral. Quite thin, though you’re not aware of that because she always wears one of those long stockman’s coats. And a hat.’

‘I think I need to talk to her.’

‘You won’t get much sense out of her.’

‘I’d like to try.’ Might help Bliss. ‘Betty, if you don’t want to stay here, Mr Kapoor’s still in his shop.’

‘Nah. I’ll stay with Jerry. And his ancestor.’

‘Lock the door then,’ Merrily said.

Robin didn’t look up as he skirted the marketplace into Castle Street. A lot of people on these streets now, drifting out of the pubs: the Blue Boar, the Wheatsheaf, Kilvert’s. Sticking together, some women weeping. He’d looked everywhere for Jones and Bliss; no sign. When the lights came back on, most of the customers had left Gwenda’s Bar. Including Gwenda and Gore.

The videotape had gone. Might’ve been knocked off the VHS player. Might’ve been taken in the blackout. One of the women behind the bar said this kind of outage had happened a few times; Gore had kept saying the bar needed rewiring but nothing had ever been done.

Robin didn’t think this was down to bad wiring.

He felt alienated. Locked out of the public grief, but he hadn’t known this kid. Wished he had.

He went through the familiar opening between darkened shops, alone in Back Fold.

Well, not quite. Might’ve expected this.

There he was, outside the cafe, long closed.

‘Gore,’ Robin said.

‘Wanted a word, Robin.’

He wore a short leather jacket, over tight jeans. And gloves. The moonlight had turned his close-cut beard into a mask.



‘Caused quite a stir in there, Robin.’

‘I get overtired.’

‘What’s this all about?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘Let’s assume I don’t. Who’s pulling your strings?’

Why was he wearing gloves on a warm night? Despite his private school accent, he was… well, a dull kind of guy, especially compared with the flamboyant Gwenda. His mother.

Too much information.

Robin said, ‘You watched the tape yet?’

He didn’t reply. He probably wouldn’t’ve had time to screen it, even if he’d snatched the tape as soon as the lights went out.

‘You knew about it?’ Robin said. ‘You knew there was a tape in the wall?’

‘No.’

‘You knew it even existed?’

‘No.’

‘Not a big old family secret?’ Robin was starting to lose it with this guy, helpful, obliging, diffident Gore. ‘I was thinking with your old man being the star. Playing the killer.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘And Gwenda directing the movie?’

‘So you’ve seen the tape, have you, Robin?’

‘Yeah, I’ve seen the tape.’

‘What does it show?’

‘It’s not Toy Story 3.’

‘And does it have anything to do with me?’

‘Aw, Gore—’

‘Answer my question, Robin, and then I might go.’

‘I don’t think so.’

Robin stood in the middle of the alley. They were no more than eight or ten paces from a street with people on it. Cops cruising past. Behind Gore, Kapoor, in his shop, with his VCRs.

Gore moved. Robin lifted his stick, a reflex, and it was just as Bliss had said.



It’s a bastard, isn’t it, being disabled?

Didn’t even see it coming, like a wrecking ball into a crumbling building. Pain like a hot blade, a gloved hand wrenching his head back, leather fingers between his teeth choking his scream as he went down, and his head was crunched, once, twice into the tarmac.

He could see the doorway of the Cricket Shop, a dim light behind it and he clawed at the road, crawling away like a boot-flattened insect, the moon shining like a searchlight in his eyes. He looked up to see the castle leaning back, and he could hear its rumbling, stony laughter like it was travelling along the overhead power cables on the central pole around which the whole alley was spinning in his head.