LITMIR.BIZ

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where we found the empty minibus this morning – if that was the rendezvous, the place where the pimp and the girl had arranged to be picked up and taken back to Cardiff – they would never have found it. Not in the dark, not in that warren of forestry tracks. Chances are, this guy’s never driven in a night situation that didn’t involve street lights.’

      Jack Galbraith and Bryn exchanged a glance. ‘It does work, Sergeant,’ Bryn said.

      ‘Why?’

      Jack Galbraith pulled a face. ‘Because we have five solid, upright and honest citizens who all say that that was the way it happened. And we’re all so dreadfully sorry to have inconvenienced everyone.’

      ‘They even had a whip-round while they were here to pay for the damage to the minibus,’ Bryn added.

      ‘Damage caused by the pimp, mind you. These guys are nothing if not magnanimous,’ Jack Galbraith observed with an ironic chuckle. ‘And it also works because I don’t have any relevant reports of a missing person, or a woman claiming that she has been abducted and abused.’

      ‘Has anyone in Cardiff been able to talk to the girl?’

      They both shook their heads. Jack Galbraith frowned. ‘No. And do you know why? Because the sanctimonious fucks claim that they found the number in a telephone booth. And now they’ve lost it.’

      ‘Do Vice know this Miss Danielle?’

      ‘Nothing matching the description we’ve been given,’ Bryn replied. ‘Either the girl was using a false name, or the men don’t want us to trace her.’

      ‘So they just walk? It’s over?’

      Jack Galbraith nodded. ‘There’s nowhere to take it. These bastards are too respectable for us to resort to the rubber hose, never mind the thumbscrews.’

      I didn’t know whether that was a coded invitation for me to opt out of their enforced inaction. I accepted it as such anyway. And then I remembered that we had another missing person. ‘There were supposed to be six men. Only five came down the hill.’

      ‘They dropped off one of their number on the way. He never went into the forest.’ He looked over at Bryn for amplification.

      Bryn checked his notes. ‘Boon Paterson. He was on leave from the Army, going home today. He asked to be let out in Dinas.’

      That fitted in with the six pixie stools that I had counted in the hut. ‘What kind of a name is Boon?’ I asked.

      ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t know, Sergeant Capaldi,’ Jack Galbraith replied with a mean chuckle, making a drawn-out meal of my surname.

      It was already dark when they left, the afternoon colder now and winter-killed. I felt oddly lonely watching them go, like I was the patsy who had somehow been tricked into staying behind to man the empty gulag.

      The Fleece didn’t exactly lift my heart with gladness. It was virtually empty. Locked into a race memory of not being able to drink on a Sunday, the old men who usually occupied the back bar stayed away.

      I took a stool at the bar. David Williams, the owner, wasn’t around. That suited me fine. I leaned over the counter, took my glass down from its place on the shelf, put it under the beer tap and filled it. Self-service meant I could avoid the inclusion in my drink of stuff from the black plastic bilge bucket that stood under the pump, collecting everything from drips through pork-pie particles to the common cold virus.

      David popped his head round from the serving area of the front bar. He came over, picking up his drink as he passed it. The two separate bars were a godsend to him. He could keep a drink active in each one, and work on the mistaken belief that his customers were only seeing the half of what he was actually consuming.

      ‘Scandal?’ he asked with a great big eager grin.

      ‘What have you heard?’ I closed the beer tap.

      He pretended to look crestfallen. ‘You mean you’re not going to tell me?’

      ‘I want to hear your version.’

      He checked to see who might be listening, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘The story is that they picked up a couple of hitchhikers on their way back from the match, supposedly without realizing that they were working girls.’ He raised his eyebrows, waiting to see if I would respond.

      ‘One hitchhiker.’

      ‘Just one?’ He sounded disappointed.

      ‘Go on,’ I prompted.

      ‘Whoever it was turned out to have a boyfriend with her. They tried on some sort of a shakedown, and then they took the transport and abandoned our boys up in the forest.’ He leered salaciously. ‘What we’re all wondering is, what went on up there that the boys wouldn’t want their loved ones to know about?’

      He stood back and waited for my reaction.

      I just nodded, noncommittal. It was a raggedy version, maybe deliberately so, but it was interesting that the group had managed to get their spin working for them so quickly.

      ‘You’re not going to tell me?’ he asked, disappointed.

      ‘I couldn’t improve on that, David.’

      David and Sandra Williams were Dinas’s version of the Golden Couple. That status was still current only because any contenders to their throne had opted for a Bronze future in a bigger place.

      David was also the nearest thing I had to a friend in Dinas.

      ‘I’ve seen some of those guys around,’ I said. ‘Tell me about them. Two of them looked like brothers.’

      He didn’t have to think about it. ‘That’s Ken and Gordon McGuire. Ken’s the oldest. He got the family farm, Rhos-goch. A big holding out on the Penygarreg road, some hill country, but a lot of good river land.’

      ‘Good farmer?’

      ‘Yes, but you wouldn’t have to be on that land. A walking stick would sprout if you left it in the dirt long enough.’

      ‘The brother?’

      ‘Gordon’s an auctioneer with Payne, Dyke and Thomas.’

      ‘A lush?’ I asked, knowing the occupational hazard.

      David shrugged. ‘Not as bad as some. Good at his job, though. He got a nice Victorian farmhouse when Ken got the farm.’

      ‘Who’s the big guy? Shaven head.’

      ‘Paul Evans. Works for his father, a builder up at Treffnant. He’s a really good rugby player. Awesome tackler.’

      ‘He looks like a dumbfuck.’

      ‘Paul’s okay until he gets a drink in him, then you want to keep away.’

      ‘Boon Paterson?’

      ‘Boon hasn’t been around for a while. He joined the Army.’ He looked at me, interested, picking up on a new twist. ‘I’d heard he wasn’t there. Was he?’

      I shook my head. ‘Who are the other two?’ I had no real picture of them, just props swaying under Paul Evans’s weight.

      ‘Trevor Vaughan and Les Tucker. Trevor farms up in the hills, and Les has a pretty successful timber-felling business.’

      ‘Which ones are married?’

      ‘Ken and Gordon – the McGuires. Les has a long-term girlfriend though. Sara Harris, she’s a hairdresser in Dinas. You’d probably know her if you saw her.’

      So Trevor Vaughan was the other bachelor. ‘Paul and Trevor, have they got girlfriends?’

      He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t know. All I do know is that they both still live at home.’

      ‘What keeps them together as a group?’

      ‘Ken

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