She’d hoped he hadn’t seen her, but he was coming towards her now. Catrin straightened up, held out her hand.
‘Sir,’ she said, ‘it’s been a while.’ Immediately she felt stupid saying it. Maybe he made a point of greeting everyone now his business was to be popular. He looked down at his feet, seemed almost lost for a moment.
‘I was very sorry to hear about Rhys,’ he said quietly.
Apart from Pugh, it was the first time someone had said it to her like that. His eyes watered over, then as quickly the wind dried them.
‘I’ll always regret not looking out for him more.’ He said this more hesitantly as if speaking his thoughts aloud. Catrin wondered if he’d been coached to sound sincere. Usually she could tell the real thing, but here she wasn’t sure.
It was on his watch that Rhys had left. She remembered Rhys joking a few times how Rix had a crush on him. There’d been nothing in it, she was sure. If there had been, Rix would have intervened in the Internals inquiry that had spat Rhys out, but he hadn’t. After the failed drugs tests, Rix had let the disciplinary procedure take its natural course. He could have saved Rhys but he hadn’t.
Rix asked a few questions about when she’d be fit for duty. He said how much they were all looking forward to having her back. He held her gaze for a moment longer. He seemed to be weighing something up, but then he walked away towards the car, his brogues gleaming in the lights over the parking area.
She noticed Huw now standing by his Lexus. He was wearing a long black cashmere coat, and he looked much like the other businessmen coming out of the station. There was no sign of his bodyguards. Quickly she walked him into the station. Inside it was much warmer, the windows clouded by steam. She glanced back: it didn’t look as if anyone had followed them in. She chose a table not exposed to the concourse.
Huw came back with the teas and was blowing on his, clearly in a hurry to drink it. He hasn’t lost the common touch, Catrin thought, still likes a warm cup of builder’s tea.
‘You ever hear rumours about Rix having a crush on Rhys?’ she said.
He raised his eyebrows. She knew what he was thinking, it was a rumour attached to almost every young male officer in the force at one time or another. If there’d been anything to it Thomas, who kept in with Rix, would have likely made an aside to her about it. She decided to let it go.
‘So, what happened in the studio?’ he asked, still holding the cup.
‘Before I get to that, I need to tell you about something that happened last night.’
He waited, his eyes on hers.
‘It was as I left a club. A man there looked like the one in the van. He followed me from the club to the Hayes. His face was covered by long hair.’
‘Did you get a look at him?’
‘No. None of his face was visible behind the hair. It was dark, and Della sent a car to pick me up.’
‘How did she seem?’
‘Frightened, very drunk. She was in some temporary office space in St Andrew’s Crescent, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. She’s been moving around for a while, living out of a suitcase.’
‘What’s her line?’
‘She said she’d met Rhys the night he died. She’d worked out from what you’d told her that the photos came from him. She heard from Rhys that I was someone the source of the photos would trust, that I was a link to the source, that was why she came to me. And presumably that’s also why you came to me?’
He nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t seem to have led us anywhere, does it?’
Catrin felt her old fear of failure creeping back like a fever. ‘You feel I’ve let you down?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course not. So what’s spooked Della?’
‘When she saw Rhys that night, she got the sense he was being watched. Then the next night her house was broken into, ransacked.’
‘So whoever was following Rhys came after her also?’
‘Seems that way.’
Huw sipped at his tea. He looked concerned, disconcerted. It was the closest she’d come to seeing fear on his face.
Suddenly she felt protective. She couldn’t bear to disappoint him. Strange to feel this about a rich, older man, but there was something lost about him, something vulnerable there. Maybe his money had protected him from the world too long. Behind his stoned eyes she thought she could sense a certain innocence.
‘I’ll need to speak to Della again,’ she said.
She sipped her tea, avoided his eyes.
‘So what happened at the studios?’ he asked.
‘Face is history, it seems. They’ve all moved on.’
‘Did you speak to Leigh Nails?’
‘Yes, and to Jonnie and Teifi. The only person who would talk was one of the old roadies.’
Huw looked up over the table, questions on his face. She put down her cup.
‘That Overseer character in the chatrooms. The roadie mentioned that he’d used other handles as well. No one has heard from the man for years. Apparently he used to be a pirate DJ. But he was seriously injured in a fire at work. Then he went to ground up-country. I did some digging online. He may be living somewhere in the Garnswllt area.’
‘What makes you think he’s out there?’
‘One of the handles he used – Captain Cato – could come from the name of a local restaurant. The place is called “Captain Cat’s”, but one of the signs has been warped by a fire so the last letter reads as an “o”. I just have a sense about it. It was the only reference I could find to the name anywhere. I don’t know what connection he might have to the place, maybe a very casual one.’
‘This character is too under-the-radar to have given a traceable address at any burns unit?’
‘I checked. Nothing for that area either at the Morriston or on the National Burns Incident Database.’
He drained the last of his tea, looked across at her.
‘But why “Cato”?’ he asked.
‘That I’m not sure about either. The historical figure, Cato the Elder, was a Roman statesman. He was firmly opposed to foreign influences, believed they would corrupt the purity of the Roman people.’
‘No suggestion this Captain character is linked to any nationalist groups? You know, of the “Buy a cottage in Wales, Come home to a real fire” school?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Some sort of code then, like the other names in the chatrooms?’
‘Probably.’
She looked for a hint of excitement in Huw’s eyes, thought she saw it there, but quickly it was replaced by something more guarded. This case had been his hobby, his passion for the last twelve years, a hobby that had suddenly become a dangerous pursuit, and here finally he thought he had a potential lead.
‘Garnswllt must be a small place,’ he said slowly.
He looked down at the silt of his tea, nodded to himself. He leant across the table, touched her hand, and smiled.
‘If he’s there, we’ll find him,’ he said.
She caught his eye. ‘We don’t know he’s there. But odds are, even if we find him, he’s just your average paranoid nut. This likely won’t lead us anywhere.’
Catrin could see the disappointment in his face. It looked like the disappointment of a boy who’d been waiting many years for something, whose whole life had hinged on that waiting, and who was now beginning to doubt if what he’d been waiting for would ever come to pass. Then the expression disappeared again. He pushed his cup away.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’m going to swing by Della’s before she moves on anywhere else. This Overseer figure we can try to locate afterwards. Doesn’t sound like he gets out much.’
She stood up and he ushered her to his car outside. He didn’t seem that stoned, but she took the key fob from him, got behind the wheel.
About a block away, the cars ahead slowed, then came to a stop. The traffic was backed up to the bottom of the terrace. Almost immediately Huw got fidgety, ran through the
radio stations, began tapping the stem of his pipe on the dashboard. Not used to having to wait, she thought, he’s impatient, like a spoilt child.
She pulled over into a parking bay.
‘Let’s walk,’ she said. ‘It’ll be quicker.’
She led the way past the line of stationary traffic. At the corner ahead a small crowd had gathered behind blue-and-white police tape. There were a couple of uniforms: she recognised the young PC who’d blocked her way at the tidal barrier.
He lowered the tape, without speaking, let them pass.
‘Christ almighty.’ Huw was pointing at something up ahead.
Between two buildings was a low, charred pile of bricks. It was the place where Della’s office had been. A curtain of smoke, thick and black, still hung in the air. Through it she made out DS Thomas and Emyr Pugh, standing under a tree. They seemed to be sharing a joke, laughing under their white masks.
Pugh came over to her through the smoke. She felt the bitterness of it in her lungs.
‘Della was in there?’ she asked.
He nodded grimly.
‘They got her out, but they don’t think she’ll make it.’
The smoke parted for a moment. Through the charred bricks Catrin saw a melted tangle of girders. The heat of the fire had been intense.
‘Anything suggesting arson at this stage?’ she asked.
‘Thomas said there are no witnesses,’ Pugh said.
‘Maybe he should look for some then.’ She tried to curb the irritation in her voice. ‘He’s really saying no one saw anything?’
‘The uniforms did the rounds. It doesn’t look that way.’
Pugh turned away. Catrin felt a little unsteady, as if she’d just been winded. The smoke caught in her lungs, making it hard to take in air. She backed away, thoughts of Della unspooling through her mind. Her drunken crawl across the floor, her fingers clicking slowly to some half-remembered beat. In the past this was the kind of fate she might have wished on Della. It felt as if some part of her was to blame for what had happened. She bowed her head to retch, but nothing came out, just a thin trail of saliva.
As she moved into the clear air, Huw was staring into the smoke, looking dazed. She shepherded him back to the car.
‘It’s time we took that trip out west,’ she said.
Huw waited in the motel bar while she packed, took a shower. She ran some checks on various police computer databases, including the National Criminal Intelligence System and the new SOCA databases. Some she had authorised access to, others she could improvise access to without leaving footprints. She tried searching all known serial arsonists with keyword ‘Face’ or ‘Seerland’. But nothing came up. She tried a number of other searches but quickly saw she wasn’t going to find what she wanted.
All she knew was that anyone linked to the Face sighting photographs had become a target. First Rhys, then Huw. Then herself. Now Della. It was as if the pictures were toxic, endangering everyone who had contact with them.
She tried calling the photographic shop again, then the neighbouring shops, checked if the absent owners had been in touch since her last call. But they hadn’t.
Next she made a call from the motel line to Captain Cat’s. An elderly voice answered straight off with a south London accent, the owner she guessed. She asked him if he had any customers with burn injuries. He told her he didn’t.
Catrin went back into the Ordnance Survey map of the area, looked at the wooded hills and tracks to isolated farmsteads. She did another search, made a list of pirate stations, those that had public contact numbers. Six calls later to a station in Port Talbot and finally she had a possible name, but not an address. She made two further calls, calls she’d have very much preferred not to make, and as she hung up she reckoned she’d got the picture. She clicked into the South Wales Police fires database and looked up the incident report on a particular fire seven years previously in Pontardawe. Then she pulled on her leathers, picked up her bags, walked down to the Lexus.
They stopped at the station, where she got on her bike and Huw followed her. She rode fast to the flyover, then turned down the lane to the estuary.
She pulled up at the bike shop at the end. The shop looked closed, the shutters down, but lights were on behind the blacked-out windows above. She rapped hard on the door.
After a few moments Walter appeared in his hakama and white tunic. He looked dishevelled and his face was dripping with sweat. She told him she didn’t have time to come in.
‘Take care of her, will you,’ she said. She threw him the Laverda’s keys, then gesturing to Huw to move, got into the driver’s side of the Lexus. She glanced at the trees. The branches were shaking in the wind, the first snowflakes drifting over the waters.
PART TWO
THE COUNTRY
1
The snow showers became heavier as they headed west, the wind funnelling between the cuttings of the hills, the flurries settling on the sludge along the hard shoulder. For over an hour the traffic had been down to a single lane, the tail lights ahead snaking in a long line into the dark horizon.
As they passed Port Talbot there were glimpses over snowbound fields and, in the distance, the glowing grids of industrial estates.
Throughout the journey Huw controlled the music, barely speaking. Catrin had expected nothing but rare Seerland recordings. But he’d played ‘Endless Sleep’ by Marty Wilde three times, and then the Shangri-Las’ ‘I Can Never Go Home Anymore’. He’d followed that by some mournful white soul she’d never heard before, and then Amanda Lear’s haunting ‘Follow Me’.
Catrin turned on the satnav and pointed at the dark patch on the right of the screen.
‘That’s where we’re headed,’ she said.
‘Why doesn’t the place show up on the satnav’s map?’ Huw asked.
‘Maybe it was never registered for planning permission. Or it could be an ex-government facility of some sort. A lot of those places never get put back on the maps.’ With one hand she pressed a mint out from the top of the packet, passing the packet across to him.
‘The DJ’s real name’s Gethin Pryce. Or at least that’s what he was calling himself when he worked the graveyard shift at the pirate station.’
‘You checked the FDR1 reports on the fire there?’
‘It was put down to faulty wiring in the lift motors. There was a policy on the place and the adjuster’s report says the same.’
Huw looked at her. ‘This is the third fire we know about, including Della’s.’
She knew what he was thinking. She had thought the same as she’d checked the database of known arsonists. But neither the report on the pirate station nor that on the office at Newport Road had turned up any traces of accelerants or telltale oxidisers. And with Thomas in charge she knew the report on Della’s fire could take weeks to come through. That avenue for the moment was a dead one.
‘No evidence of signatures in any of them,’ she said, ‘so we can’t cross-reference against known arsonists’ MOs. We’re blind.’
Huw nodded as if he already sensed this would be the case.
‘How serious were his injuries?’ he asked.
‘Hypodermical and tissue burns to over seventy per cent of BSA. Most people wouldn’t survive that. He needed extensive autographs and allographs.’
‘He was registered at the Morriston?’
‘Under an alias, but after initial treatment he transferred himself overseas for the graft work.’
She looked out of the window, but could see nothing through the snow and the thick hedgerows. There was only a single set of headlights following them but after a time they dropped back and disappeared.
Huw turned the music down. ‘Must have had a hefty payout?’
‘Enough to do up the place where he’s been lying low, and live off it since.’
‘How did you find him?’
‘I managed to get his name from a former colleague at one of the pirate stations. The rest came from a DJ-cum-dealer I kn
ew when I worked under on the BDSM scene.’ She explained he’d known Pryce’s name and story, but he wasn’t the sort of source she wanted to owe favours to. He was what was known in that community as a rogue dom, the type who if he didn’t get his favour returned might collect on it unilaterally. His idea of a discreet private hobby was to spike girls, use them in his dungeon for a few hours, then release them dazed onto the streets. If they were lucky they got off with no worse than a befuddled memory. He ran a sideline for a while in video nasties, usually of subs he’d gone a bit far with. His clients liked to watch the real thing, nothing faked. Nothing on the level of Jones, not even close to his stratosphere of cruelty, but still, not the sort you wanted to be in hock to. The Trainer he was known as; she didn’t know his real name, just the handle, one of many no doubt.
‘So what’s the link between this creep and Pryce?’ Huw asked.
‘Not much. Trainer heard Pryce’s story on the underground DJ scene, he never knew him.’
Catrin changed down to third gear, turning right up a steep, dark hill. A vehicle behind, too indistinct to make out, slowed for a moment then drove on along the lower road.
From the top of the hill, the lane curved between stands of tall firs. The snow had settled deeper in the hollows and was crossed by a single set of tracks. The firs gave way to high hedgerows, the darkness broken only by the occasional lights of distant farms.
She crossed a small stone bridge and turned into a track that wound slowly up a second hill. There was no indication of a house or any other building ahead of them. At times the track seemed about to peter out altogether into the muddy hillside.
Finally they came abruptly to a gate, and Huw got out to open it. She could see the upper floor of a small building with black window frames. As they came closer she saw that the structure had the simplicity of a child’s drawing. The main door was framed by two windows, on the upper floor a third window in the centre exactly replicating the shape of the door. Though the cabin looked relatively new, the cladding over the porch had already begun peeling away in the dank surroundings. The porch was approached not by steps, but by a ramp leading up from the yard.