CHAPTER 55
I really, really couldn’t accept that in any meaningful way. Miserable bigot goes to stay with Magic Monks, and lo and behold she is turned back onto the fluffy paths of rainbow unicorns, kittens and righteous tolerance. No, not likely at all. There were better-documented cases of airborne pork. Ambrose had a wry smile on his face, though.

“She also predicted that you wouldn’t believe her, either of you. I can see a lot of her in you, Siân: the stubbornness for a start. Look, my cards on the table. You are not the only ones who do not believe her. I gather that neither of you share her faith—no, please. Distorted, unpleasant, confused, call it what you will, she still has faith. Still a deep belief in our Saviour, strange as her image of Him may be. Please…”

He stopped, sipping his tea as a clear hesitation movement, then grinned directly at me.

“Do you always watch people so intently, Inspector?”

I gave him the teeth of a smile and no more. “Always, Ambrose. It comes with the job. Particularly, it comes with staying in one piece. My wife and I are quite attached to that concept”

He didn’t even flicker at the w-word, so I let him gather his arguments again. He shook his head as if to clear it, then continued.

“No, I do not believe that Damascene conversions are as common as some evangelicals may claim, especially those of a trans-Atlantic persuasion. There is something else going on with Angharad Roberts, and I do not yet know what it is. All that I can do is my duty, and pass on her message”

Siân sniffed loudly. “Cheaper by post, ah?”

Ambrose smiled again, and I had to admit that the more I saw of him, the more I found myself thawing.

“Ah, Siân, by duty I do not mean job description. I am referring to my duty to others, to humanity. This is not a small issue, is it? Now, your sister-in-law, I believe she had a Roman Catholic wedding-“

“Like hell she did!”

My wife pushed me back as Ambrose once more shook his head. “Your mother is very good at seeing external surfaces. Please enlighten me”

Thawing was stalled for a while. “We had a good friend of hers officiate at the service. He happens to be a Catholic priest, or was, anyway. So?”

“Angharad listens, listens intently. Her interpretation is a filter, though, one of confirmation bias. Are you familiar with that one?”

Siân laughed. “Aye. When you see lots of cars being driven badly, you notice the BMWs because you already know they’re driven by idiots, and so you disregard all the non-Beemers because they don’t fit what you’ve already decided. You’ve got my mother spot on there!”

I snorted. “Aye, but BMW drivers are still arseholes, and I am beginning to suspect that your mother is…”

I waved a hand in the air, and Siân took it, taking it to her lap to ease the strain in my forearm. I tried again. “Look. Either Mrs Roberts is not as big an arsehole as we thought, or there is something else going on, and that would mean that she is an even bigger one than we could imagine”

Ambrose coughed. “Not necessarily, Inspector Powell”

I made the choice. “Elaine, please”

“Elaine. Look... There are many reasons people come to our little space of contemplation and calm”

Siân muttered “And bloody awful weather”

He nodded. “Yes. Yes indeed. Some come for a short space, some for longer, and some join us indefinitely. Your mother is in the last group, I feel. The reasons vary, but we are occasionally used as a sort of Betty Ford for the less well-known and, indeed, less well-off. We therefore have a type of local Customs control. No alcohol or other substances that harm, no links to addiction such as gambling, so on. As a result, we notice what does arrive on the boat, and for your mother it is analgesia. Do you have any idea why she would require such?”

My wife shook her head. “Mam was always like that idiot nun in India. You know: pain is god’s way of teaching people some lesson or other. She never used them”
I shook my head. “Only lesson pain ever taught me was that it bloody well hurts. What are you saying, Ambrose?”

“Would you have more tea? Please?”

I did the honours, for it was clear he wanted a moment alone with my lover. I did the domestic goddess bit, realising how even such a silly joke would have driven Angharad into paroxysms of rage and disgust, and when I rattled the tray back into the living room the other two had a couple of OS maps of North Wales out. Ambrose was sadly shaking his head.

“How many years, Siân?”

“Oh, seven or eight, tops. She was working with Ysgol Bro Hedd Wyn. Gwyn y byd, ond pa hyd, bloody aye”

I put the tray down. “Hedd Wyn as in…?”

“Ellis Evans, yes”

“Yffern! Sorry, Ambrose. Are you familiar? Famous poet, killed in the Great War, World War One, aye?”

“Not really, no”

“What Siân said, the Welsh: the world is a pure and clean place, but for how long? And then they put that obscenity right where he lived. What’s she got?”

He started to crumble at that, and my wife was quicker with the tissues than I had been with the tea. We gave him a minute, but he was a strong little monk.

“Ah, we don’t know, because she will not speak of it, and I have been forced to read and research when I have had time. I do not wish to breach confidence. It isn’t the confessional, we don’t do that, but there is always medical confidentiality, and simple trust between two people. I have discounted mammary because of her age, but looking at the statistics it is most likely to one of the leukaemia types or pancreatic”

In the twenties, a part of what is now the Snowdonia National Park was flooded, one of many such areas, but this time for electricity generation rather than English water needs. Then, at the end of the fifties, some bright spark decided that if they enlarged the reservoir there would be enough water for a nuclear power station, now disused. All the efflux was pumped straight back into the lake, and is still there, radiating nicely. Siân was singing quietly.

“Ac yn Nhrawsfynydd, ar lan y llyn, yr oen yn araf marw…”

“Pardon?”

“Sorry, Ambrose. And in Trawsfynydd, on the edge of the lake, the lambs are slowly dying. Song about Hedd Wyn, Meic Stevens I think, or Mabsant, not sure. Shit shit shit. Who’s she seeing?”

“She isn’t”

“Oh for fuck’s sake—sorry! If she’s got cancer she must be seeing somebody!”

“She isn’t. I suspect the pain-killers are being sourced in an unorthodox manner. Before you ask, I think I have some idea of what she is doing, and in old-fashioned terms it is simply preparing to meet her maker”

I made some sort of strangulated noise, for words had just failed me for the first time in aeons, but both of the others were shaking their heads. My wife took my hand again.

“No, cariad. She really does believe, just as this man says. Just as our friend here says, that is”

She turned to Ambrose. “You are our friend, aren’t you?”

He smiled warmly. “I do believe I am now. But still… Still I have no idea why her sudden thaw. There have to be strings somewhere. Always, with her”

I watched at least four emotions cross Siân’s face at once just then, which was interesting professionally, and she finished with a shout. “Ha! Strings! That’s it!”

She looked at our frowns with evident irritation. “Strings. Bows, ah? Full quivers?”

I started to ask what exactly the fuck just as Ambrose spoke up. “Are you talking about ‘quiver-full’ families, Siân?”

“Abso bloody lutely! Elaine, it’s an odd religious nutters’ idea of having loads of children as arrows to fire for god’s holy etc, and what’s going on here… Look, cariad, who does Mam really hate?”

“Me”

“Well, yes, but apart from that, MORE than that, who does she really, absolutely hate, despise and wish to dump shit on? Again? Dad, that’s who! I’m just guessing here, so bear with me. If she snuffs it, he gets a claim on whatever she leaves. Only other claimant is me. With me so far? So she needs ammo, arrows to fire at Dad. Kids, isn’t it?”

She turned back to Ambrose. “And I’ll bet she’s not going to be proclaiming that marriage is for a man and a bloody woman this time, not when it works to his disadvantage. Better than a trailer load of slurry through the letter box! Fuck it”

She twisted round in her seat and grabbed the phone, and to her obvious surprise it was answered after only three rounds of press-1-fors.

“Hi? Who am I speaking to, please? Ah! Julia, its Mrs Siân Powell. I’d like to book an appointment for me and my wife to come in and discuss a referral for IVF. Yes. Yes, I did say wife. Ta! We’ll wait on the post, then”

She hung up, looking a little flushed. “Well? I don’t care. For once I am totally in agreement with Mam: fuck him!”