Watermark

By R David

IT IS THE END OF THE 1960s AND THE WINDING GEAR OVER THE COAL MINE STANDS LIKE A BLACK MONUMENT TO TRIAL AND LOSS.

The memories of the missing boys are still raw and the deaths of those who tried to protect them are unexplained.

There is no known perpetrator, motive or reason.

The small town suffocates in its past and fears the future.

Dark and surreal, the culmination of the Plain Sight trilogy.

The Plain Sight novels – Aden to Zanzibar, Two Penny Blue and the last in the series, Watermark.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R David
• Release date: Apr 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781838082567

R David

Robert David writes surreal crime and psychological thrillers. His first novel in the 'Plain Sight' series, 'Aden to Zanzibar' is about the disappearance of three boys from a tight-knit mining community in South Wales during the 1960s. The sequel, 'Two Penny Blue' will be published in late 2021 and the final installment, 'Watermark', in 2022.He grew up in South Wales and worked briefly in the coal industry before going into business and owning a number of companies. Now, he writes full time.

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Watermark_BCover.jpg

Published in the UK in 2023 by Athan Press

Copyright © Robert David 2023

Robert David has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieved system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, scanning, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author and publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a completely fictitious manner. Any mention of or resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental or contextual within the story.

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-8380825-5-0

.ePub eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-8380825-6-7

Cover design and typeset by Spiffing Covers

For Thomas

and

Joanna

Contents

Trebanog…

Porth…

Pontypridd…

Cardiff, Tiger Bay…

Barry…

St Athan, Llantwit Major…

Southerndown, Ogmore...

River Ogmore…

Corntown…

Ewenny…

Porthcawl…

Rest Bay, Pink Bay…

Kenfig Pool, Kenfig Castle…

Sker…

Port Talbot, The Fiery Eyes…

Aberavon…

Neath…

Swansea, The Mumbles…

Gowerton…

Gorseinon…

Pontarddulais…

Gorslas…

Crosshands…

Carmarthen…

Bridgend…

The Dunes

Acknowledgements

1

TREBANOG…

It was nearly spring but an icy wind was blowing in from the sea and the town slept fitfully.

At the vicarage, Reverend Elwiss slept most fitfully of all. His brief peace had been an interlude. The church loomed dark nearby and, in the watchful graveyard, nothing moved between the tilting headstones.

He had told Deborah, ‘This is the opposite of what my faith stands for but it is of the same realm.’

He cannot get the thought out of his mind.

‘Was it something ungodly? Did I interfere with its purpose? Will it come for me too? I would sooner lose my sanity – but its existence is the proof.’

It terrified him.

‘Did you intervene, Lord? Was his blond hair really a shining halo? He gave me Aled to take home. I remember the gas flares over the refinery and the mountainsides lit red by the blast furnaces at the steelworks and their reflection in the reservoir like a burning plain – no,’ he cried out, struggling to breathe.

‘I remember sitting in the hall waiting for Deborah.’ He began to calm down.

He did not tell her what had happened, although she asked. He said, ‘I don’t know what I saw, perhaps it was nothing at all. Please don’t ask me.’

Deborah bided her time. She knew her husband.

When he got up in the dead of night, Deborah saw him go and whispered, ‘Ernest?’

‘I won’t be long.’

She waited, listening in the darkness.

In the church, the vicar prayed to the figurine of Christ hanging on the wall above the altar. ‘Protect me, Lord,’ he pleaded.

The answer was in the dunes. ‘An answer or the answer? Lord, are You not the answer?’ he implored the vacant holiness. ‘Here, forever in this house, so that I do not have to go back?’

There was no reply.

‘If I asked the right question then? Is that it? Is the answer a question for me to find? Help me, Lord!’

The Reverend prayed so hard it gave him a migraine with lights flashing in his head. He sat in the front pew with his hands clasped in his lap, feeling the weight of the heavens descending on his flimsy shoulders until his head was forced to his knees.

There had been many nights like this in the church: an hour, two, sometimes until the dawn began to light the stained glass and his inner church became an almost frigid grey.

In the day, he was exhausted.

He had begun to speak to himself in the third person. It made him feel braver because he could not bear to be alone but, now, it had started nagging at him with difficult truths and he couldn’t shut it up.

‘Ernest,’ said his other self, ‘it is only through what courage you have within you that you will ever know.’

‘Yes,’ the vicar answered, as himself, ‘you’re right.’ He composed himself… then the torment rushed back in, ‘But needing to know is a denial of my faith; I do not need to know. Faith is all. I do not want to know; I am afraid to know.’

‘Ernest, you must,’ insisted his other self.

‘But it could have been the fumes of the box-car. All those old sacks were soaked in diesel. But the sparks, what were they?’ He pushed at his forehead with the palm of his hand, but it didn’t ease the pain. ‘That’s what it was, a headache, a migraine like this, brought on by the fumes.’

‘Ernest, someone took the boys and murdered Eve and Raymond. They were real crimes. They can’t be imagined. And who saved Aled?’

‘It was not me, I know it was not me. I was useless. I played no part, I was only a witness… wait, no, it could have been me, I could have done it in a kind of trance because of the fumes? My hair was lighter when I was younger. There was nothing ungodly, it was me.’

‘You, Ernest? Your hair was never blond, was it?’

‘So perhaps I wasn’t there at all and Aled was really at home in bed the whole time? Should I put it down to a bit of a turn? I can see the doctor.’

‘No, Ernest,’ said his other self, ‘you must confront it. There must be justice. This is your responsibility alone now.’

The vicar’s migraine grew to a pitch until it was unbearable.

‘Raymond gave his life for it, Ernest, and so must you, if you are called upon. Somewhere beyond these walls, evil is at large.’

‘Evil, yes,’ Reverend Elwiss protested, ‘but in the embodiment of a man, surely?’

‘How much proof do you need; why do you doubt so, Ernest?’

‘I have my faith…’

‘So leave it be, Ernest, tend to your flock. But you can’t, can you?’

‘Lord, please?’

If only Christ would descend from his place on the wall and rest his hands on the vicar’s shoulders and look into his eyes once more.

‘Out there, perhaps somewhere close,’ said the vicar, as himself, ‘is whoever did these terrible acts and maybe others of which I have no knowledge. Raymond knew it; that’s what he discovered. Let whoever did it be a simple criminal, flesh and blood, who can be locked up and punished and put away forever. A matter for the police, not a humble parish priest.’ But he knew the police would not help him and he could not ask again.

Reverend Elwiss was now so low in the pew, his head was pressed against the back of his clasped hands. He was sweating. ‘I am safe here,’ he reassured himself, ‘safe.’ He looked into the swathed darkness. ‘It is only an absence of light.’

But his other self was indefatigable. ‘The church is of the same realm, Ernest, your realm, but it is not safe for you to be here. It is only a building and you are not stones and mortar, are you?’

‘How will I ever sleep?’ the vicar asked.

He went slowly back to bed where Deborah was waiting, lying with her eyes open, as he got in beside her.

‘You were a long time,’ she said.

‘Was I? I hope I didn’t wake you.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ she replied. ‘Please try and sleep, Ernest. You mustn’t go into the church during the night. Whatever it is will wait until morning.’

‘But it isn’t there in the morning.’ Not yet.

The vicar would be summoned back to the box-car, but not by God, who would have to let him go alone, naked except for his tremulous belief. Such is the nature of free will: the right and responsibility to choose. He didn’t want to have to. He wanted to be told.

He had brought himself to this time and, soon, to that place. Retribution was coming.

‘Go back to sleep,’ he told Deborah.

Little Raymond was asleep in his cot in the corner of Bryn and Laura’s bedroom. He murmured to himself with what, one day soon, would be words.

Rose Davies and Douglas Protheroe were in separate houses: marriage was Rose’s price for her bed and Protheroe eagerly wanted to pay it.

Herald Andrew dreamt of headlines that were other people’s nightmares; Lloyd was cuddling a long lens… flash.

Dewi and Brenda, still officers of the law, had decided to marry but had yet to set a date. They slept side by side.

No one heard former detective Prosser cry out in his drunken stupor; Symonds, the callow detective who replaced him, had much to learn, which he did not until it was almost too late.

Mr Topliss, the old soldier who had slept in the desert beneath the stars, slept most soundly of all.

Mr Rees, the young teacher, twitched like a child.

Only Jean was not asleep, but she was never awake. She was happy with halcyon memories of a place that might never have existed, but existed for her. She did not know that it might end.

Not so far away, Jack was cradled by the beautiful girls in their silkweed tresses of brilliant green beneath the gin-clear waters of Kenfig Pool.

Further, at the top of the Rhondda Valley, to Trebanog, high on its precipitous hill, Nesta and Delia breathed softly beneath their eiderdowns (it was colder in the mountains). Idris and Emlyn were in adjoining bedrooms and there was an empty bedroom where Howell had slept and Gerhard dwelt.

Further still, in Carmarthen, Gwen was pregnant. Alan was nominally in the spare room until he crept across the landing to be with her. He knew which boards creaked. Aled was asleep… asleep? A pair of binoculars rested on his bedside table.

Still further, Geraint and Huw had been to see Porgy and Bess on Broadway. Huw’s face was still lit with wonder. They roamed the world but Geraint dreaded the day when they would have to return. Huw didn’t know they would or why. He missed Jack and Aled.

Through the night, through all the dreams of those who dreamed, coursed a big, black car, bleeding its tar shadow into the coming day, into all the coming days.

It was not settled. Nothing was settled.

‘Aled’s been quiet lately,’ said Alan.

‘Yes, he has,’ said Gwen. ‘It’s not like him.’

‘But he used to play with the other boys before I came back, didn’t he?’

‘When he went to school he did. He made lots of new friends.’

‘What’s happened to them?’ Alan asked.

‘Nothing,’ said Gwen, ‘but he doesn’t seem to want to play with them anymore. When I take him to school now he goes off into a corner of the playground and waits to go in on his own.’

‘Perhaps it’s me. I’m a stranger to him and here I am, suddenly living in the same house.’

‘He seems to like having you here, Alan.’

‘What then? Is he missing the shop?’

‘I don’t think so. He seemed to get over that very quickly, especially when he found out he could go to the beach. Perhaps I should speak to his teacher to see if anything’s happened at school?’

‘Wouldn’t she have said something?’

‘I would hope so, yes,’ said Gwen.

‘Perhaps you should, though,’ said Alan, ‘or I should.’

‘She doesn’t know who you are, so why would she tell you anything and if you told her who you really are that would lead to all sorts of questions. No, it needs to be me.’

Aled was sitting on the wall near the end of the garden.

‘Those stones are damp, Aled,’ Gwen called. ‘Don’t sit on them, there’s a good boy.’

Aled’s expression was sad and did not change as he slid off the wall. He turned to look over the fields leading down to the river. He went there after school as the evenings were growing lighter. He skimmed stones across the water on the bend of the river where it was deep and dangerous, where he had bet Huw he could swim to the other side.

He picked up a flat stone from the muddy riverbank and positioned it in his hand with his forefinger round its edge, ready to skim.

Aled had seen Uncle Alan tiptoeing across the landing into Auntie Gwen’s room. Aled thought, ‘He must be cold in the night too.’ That was why Aled never went to cwtch with Auntie Gwen anymore: Uncle Alan might already be there.

The stone skipped across the water. Aled counted. ‘… four, five,’ before it tumbled over and sank.

Every night, he had the same dream about snakes in the rough sacks. When he woke up, there was that awful smell. That was when he had seen Alan creeping across the landing.

He remembered sleeping with Auntie Nesta and Auntie Delia under their slippery, satin eiderdowns, both the same colour green, and listening to the buses grinding up the steep hill outside (as Jack had done). But he liked living by the sea. He wished Huw was there to play with him on the beach and jump in the breakers. He didn’t want to play with the other children anymore and they thought he was strange.

The tide was ebbing fast and the river raced around the bend and pummelled the steep bank. Not even Aled would try to swim across when it was like that.

‘What are we going to tell him?’ Gwen asked. ‘Because we’ll have to say something soon before it starts to show.’

‘That he’s going to have a brother or sister,’ said Alan.

‘And that you’re the father, Alan?’

‘And that I’m his father.’

‘But not yet, Alan. It’ll be too much for him to take in and he’ll want to know everything. About who his mother is and where she is. We shouldn’t, not until he’s a bit older.’

‘How much older? We can’t stop the baby coming, can we? It’s going to have to be soon.’ Alan shook his head. ‘But what can we say that he’s going to understand? What should I tell him about Jack – that he used to have a brother? And what about Huw, Gwen? And I can’t stop thinking about Jean. Can you imagine if she suddenly woke up and found all this? With Jack gone and you and me living together and having a baby too?’

‘She isn’t going to wake up, Alan,’ Gwen said, quietly. ‘How long has it been?’

‘Over three years, awake but not awake.’

‘Awake but not awake, yes,’ said Gwen.

‘If Geraint hadn’t been killed it would be different, wouldn’t it?’

‘Some of it,’ said Gwen, ‘but not all of it. Would he have been able to save the boys, or change what happened?’

‘But some of it, Gwen, he would have been able to change some of it.’

‘I would still be married to him. But would he have been able to save Huw? We will never know. He has been spared that pain, at least. No, all we have done,’ said Gwen, firmly, ‘is try our best. That’s all we’ve done and why shouldn’t we? These are our lives. We didn’t make them like this.’

‘Let’s not talk about it anymore,’ Alan said. ‘But I have an idea that might cheer us all up.’

‘What?’

‘I think we should get a dog.

‘A dog? Why?’

‘Why not? We can call him Sam. It’s not as if we haven’t got enough room. He can be Aled’s dog. It’ll bring him out of himself again. And, when the baby comes he won’t feel so left out.’ Alan threw back his head to the sun. ‘Look,’ he said, holding out his arms, ‘no walls. My father’s dog was called Sam.’

Gwen laughed. ‘A dog called Sam, then. You tell him, Alan. Go on.’

‘Aled?’ Alan called.

Aled looked round.

‘Come here, Aled, we’ve got something to tell you.’

Aled walked toward them through the wet grass under the apple trees when, not long ago, he would have run up with excitement.

Former detective Prosser sat alone on his usual stool in The Red Lion where he was every day from opening time, unmoving, not speaking, as the pub grew busier around him. There he would be until the end of drinking-up time at 4.20, then down to the river with bottles and chips (as he had with Ellis Maynard who had introduced him to such delights) or to the bus shelter if it was raining and back to the pub at 6.00 until his day ended with last orders. Home, weaving. Tomorrow and the next and the next.

The landlord served him wordlessly in an established ritual: pints, then pints and whisky chasers, then bottles lined up on the bar (one for each coat pocket, two to carry); back at 6.00, pints and whiskies, then just whiskies. Closing time.

Prosser thought about Maynard. They had slurred at each other without listening to what the other said: stories of what might have been, what should have been, what they were going to do. ‘I need to sort out one or two things first, and then I’ll be gone. You watch.’ Now, there was no one to say it to. When Maynard had been sitting on the stool next to him, Prosser wasn’t so obviously pitiable: the once policeman, Sergeant Phillips’ right-hand man. ‘Sergeant Phillips, well, you knew where you were with him.’

Herald Andrew ignored Prosser when he came in with Lloyd, sometimes with Detective Symonds, when they went to sit behind the piano and Symonds divulged what he had been told to say or said too much until the day came when he was told nothing to divulge and had nothing left to say that was any use.

Prosser glanced at him and took a big, knowing gulp. ‘A lamb to the slaughter,’ he told himself and caught the landlord’s eye in a rare moment of agreement.

2

PORTH…

The morning came, rising coldly out of the sea. Waves, listless as reptiles, slithered up the beach, barely mounting the rocks at its far end with lethargic plumes. If it had been any colder there might have been a frost to do battle with the salty air, but dew dripped from the weighed-down tips of the marram grass.

In the bowl of dunes, where a thin mist had gathered, the box-car was shadowed and forlorn, its doors open and dark inside, like an artefact of burial: the body it was intended for had rotted away and all its grave goods thieved. The sacks strewn over the floor still breathed a reminiscence of diesel, overpowered by a stronger smell of mould. But it held an ambience of power, of events and intentions, like the tomb of a wicked king. The single, bumpy track led away from it, through the broken-hinged gate, to the road.

The grey morning arched over South Wales and reached the dull mountains beyond the narrow flatness of the coast. The sun did not follow. It was screened off behind a uniform blanket of cloud. It was the beginning of a featureless day that would be unremembered for its dawn or dusk. The town awoke to spend inauspicious hours tolerating it. Day after day, hoping for the sun to appear and, even when it did, to be disappointed that it was not brighter, warmer and more gladdening. A malaise persisted and the souls who had seen the arid summer end with a tumultuous storm had wandered, bewildered, into a dark winter.

There were some specks of hope and colour, like early crocuses forcing their way through the grass: little Raymond and Laura hoping for a brother or sister for him; Gwen’s child to be; Alan exalting in his freedom; and Bryn’s first day as headmaster of Bridgend Primary School. But hope and colour, like flowers, are transient things.

Bryn could hear Laura breathing (almost snoring, which she always denied, ‘You’re the one who snores, Bryn Hughes.’). He hadn’t slept well. He got out of bed and searched for his slippers with his feet on the cold floorboards where he thought he had left them on the rug. He pulled on his dressing gown and pulled it tight around his neck. Laura was rolled up in most of the blankets with her back to him and didn’t move. He bent over Raymond’s cot, who was sleeping soundlessly, and smiled. Bryn was tempted to pick him up, but he glanced at Laura’s shape in her woolly cocoon and knew she would be left with the consequences and would not thank him for it. He quietly closed the door and went downstairs.

He turned off the gas just before the kettle began to whistle and filled the teapot. He sat in the armchair in the front room with his hands around a mug and watched through the net curtains at the rugby club beginning to form across the road until he could clearly see the top of the posts against the sky.

‘My first assembly, alone.’

He didn’t move for an hour, only to drink the tea, willing time to go more slowly.

When he heard Laura beginning to move about in the bedroom he