Tir Dial

VENGEANCE-LAND

by Dyfed Edwards

(Sample, 3,000 words)

Translated from the Welsh by the author.

© Dyfed Edwards

A Man Coming Out of the Darkness

Mike Ellis-Hughes — so angry his own shadow flinched — says, “Your old man would’ve written a poem about this, then turned the place into a ruin.”

Owain Iwan —Mike’s top yob, with him that night at Godreddi — says, “The place is full of coppers.”

“You think that would’ve fretted your old dad?”

“I don’t know,” says Owain, blank.

Mike chips at the lad’s pride. “Your father would’ve known.”

Owain says nothing.

Mike’s baiting him — what he did when the mood hit, when he felt that void in his chest where Owain’s dad, Iwan, should’ve been: that sound-and-fury of a fella who’d been at Mike’s shoulder since school, his mate, his muscle, his wingman. Now all he’s got is the son, half the man.

Owain’s twenty-four, still haunted by his father’s murder ten years before — one of those gunned down at a Mike Ellis-Hughes soiree by John Gough in ’79.

The eulogy at Iwan’s funeral still echoes in Mike’s skull: “A kind father, a loving husband, a patriotic Welshman.”

Since that night, Owain’s had vengeance on his mind. Blood for blood. Eye for eye. Hand for hand. That kind of Old Testament shit, right here right now in 1989.

But the man whose blood, whose eye, whose hand he wanted lay out of reach, locked up. His father’s murder had drenched the boy in malice, and that hate — raw, useful hate — had served Mike well for a while in the battles being fought lately over Wales’s future; it helped to have a fury chimp willing to act before thinking.

But tonight was a different kind of trouble: not a fury chimp kind of situation.

8:00 p.m., 29 April 1989.

Cold. A reedy, irritating drizzle — April on Anglesey being flinty after a mild March.

Mike and Owain stand at the edge of the site. Police tape flaps in the wind —

NORTH WALES POLICE — DO NOT CROSS

Beyond it: half-built houses, skeletal homes, half-structures. And now, real skeletons, dug up that afternoon.

“Fucking pain in the arse,” says Mike. “This sort of thing kills progress; death and shit; bones.”

Godreddi had been the Densley family farm, just outside Llannerch-y-Medd on Anglesey. Hugh Densley — Chief Inspector Hugh Densley, mind — was another of John Gough’s victims.

After the funeral, Mike went to see the Densley widow. He reeked of sympathy; it came off him like aftershave. Offered her a fair price for the land, for Godreddi. She accepted — grief-blind, highway-robbed.

Planning application went in straight away: two hundred houses.

“There’s a significant need for affordable homes in the area,” Mike told the County Timeswhen the locals went nimby on him.

He didn’t give a toss. Started building before approval — which was guaranteed anyway, even though the council officers said no —

“Against the local plan,” they said.

“Bollocks,” said Mike.

Most of the committee were in his pocket. A few brown envelopes here, a few quiet threats there. He reminded some of what he had on them, their trysts with the teenaged girls he supplied.

And besides, he was Plaid Cymru through and through — acting for the good of Anglesey, for the good of Wales, a good man. A hero, they said, after the massacre in ’79. Who’d argue with a hero?

The papers drooled in ’79—

Mr Ellis-Hughes risked his life to save his friends when the madman John Gough stormed into his home.

The island honoured him.

Made him a Bard — for services to industry and culture.

And what came next?

Planning permission.

Ellis-Hughes Properties’ planning application, those two-hundred homes, approved against all recommendations.

“Local homes for local families,” Mike told the press.

“Local homes for local families,” echoed his pals on the committee.

Progress on the march. Until tonight. Now North Wales Police are crawling all over the site, and they’ve shuttered it. No work, no progress. Forensics swarm around the pit where the remains were found.

Mike whistles, like he’s summoning a sheepdog. A detective turns: Sunday-best suit, cigarette glowing.

“E.H.,” he says — short for Ellis-Hughes.

“Gwynfor, how’s the wife?”

Detective Inspector Gwynfor Taylor shrugs, shakes his head: not good, says his gesture. Don’t give a shit, says Mike’s. He looks around, ignoring whatever domestic woe Taylor’s carrying.

He says, “How long are you and your pals going to stand in the way of progress, Gwynfor?”

“Hard to say. Crime scene, you now.”

Mike stares at him. “I do fucking know.” Then lighter: “Old bones, though. Come on, G-man, don’t make me laugh. Prehistoric, probably. Back when Anglesey and the rest of Wales just one big bit of land. We leaving people homeless over a few Stone Age carcasses?”

“Not sure they’re Stone Age, E.H.”

“Indiana Jones, are we now? The schooling you got doesn’t qualify you for that sort of judgment.”

“No, but the schooling the forensic archaeologists got does. New technique. Smart bastards.”

Mike grits his teeth — ground lost, cash drying up.

“How many skeletons?”

“Three. Bits of clothing. Look like suits. Didn’t wear suits in the Neolithic, Mike.”

Mike locks eyes with him. “Don’t get clever, lad. Or maybe I’ll visit Helen — give her a bit of a slide-show in your living room.”

Taylor pales. Says nothing.

“You know who they are?” Mike asks.

Taylor smokes, shrugs. Silent. Of course he knows. Just won’t say.

“Better be off,” says Taylor, starts to turn away, back to it.

“You’d better,” says Mike. “Call me the second you’ve got news. Me first.”

Taylor heads back toward the pit.

“Come on, I’ll drive you home,” Mike tells Owain.

They cross the field — then Mike stops dead. A figure stands against the trees, a black silhouette. The figure steps out from the shadows, heads toward Mike, the light: a man coming out of the darkness.

A cold feeling runs through Mike’s bones. Only one man had ever chilled his blood — but this wasn’t that man. This was someone else; something else — a new fear.

The stranger stands tall, a good six-foot. He gives off solid. He has blond hair, hard face, narrow eyes. Scratches fading on his skin. Looks like he’s been in a scrap. Mike sizes him up — manageable if it comes to it. Owain could take him, surely. But there something no nonsense about him.

“All right?” Mike says, smooth as oil.

The man nods, jaw tight.

“What happened to your face, mate?” Mike asks.

The stranger says nothing.

Owain squares up, like his father would’ve. Mike wishes it was his father beside him now.

The stranger stares at the scene of crime, or whatever it was, like he sees something no one else can — souls of the dead, maybe, rising from the old earth.

“This land’s mine,” Mike says.

The stranger turns slowly to face Mike — a turn that says, Don’t start with me.

Mike’s belly twitches, licks his dry lips, says, “I don’t know you.”

“No,” says the man. “You don’t.”

He turns back toward the site.

“You know who I am?” Mike asks.

The man sneers. “Some big man somewhere, probably.”

Mike stiffens. “You taking the piss, lad?”

The man looks him dead in the eye.

“Suppose I am?”

Owain snaps. “Fucking hell, mate, you want—”

“Leave him be, Owain,” says Mike.

Then to the stranger: “You’re right, mate. I am some big man. Got friends over there—” he gestures at the pit, the police — “boys in blue who do as they’re told. And if you don’t fuck off my land, you might find yourself spending the night in one of their suites.”

The stranger says, “I’d best go say hello, then, check-in.”

And he heads toward the lights — the scholars, the cops, the dead, the yellow tape that reads DO NOT CROSS.

*

Whoever the little big man and his mutt were, they head back to their car — and Vince Groves walks toward the light.

He stops at the tape that tells you not to cross. Waits a moment. Then calls out to the WPC beyond it.

“You,” he says.

She turns, slow — a look that says, Who the fuck d’you think you are?

“I’ve got a name,” she says.

“What am I, psychic?”

“I suggest ‘Excuse me, officer’ as an alternative to ‘You’.”

He ignores her. “How many bodies?”

“And you are?”

“Who’s in charge?”

“Sir—”

“DI Gwynfor Taylor, is it?”

He ducks under the tape.

“Sir! Sir!” the WPC yells, stumbling after him.

Uniforms spot the fuss, rush over — bored all night, standing around watching over bones, now ready for action. Vince heads straight for the pit, a man on a mission.

Lights flare. Forensic guys everywhere.

And then he sees who he’s after — bald head, big belly.

“Gwynfor Good Boy!” Vince calls.

Taylor turns — just as the WPC and two PCs move in; lucky for them, they don’t grab him.

*

Few minutes later, Taylor and Vince lean against a police car, drinking tea from a flask.

Taylor’s wife — dying — had made it for him before the call came in.

Gwynfor “Good Boy” Taylor: teacher’s pet, snitch, arse-licker back at David Hughes School in Menai Bridge — but an old mate of Vince’s all the same; they had history, see; something deep in their earth — just like these bones.

Taylor tells it: builders found the remains that morning. Three skeletons. Bones that’ll ruin Mike Ellis-Hughes’s dreams of progress — and his profits, he says with some mirth, you have to say.

“Three of them,” says Taylor.

“Three?”

Taylor nods. “And no, Vince — it’s not her. They’re men. You can tell.”

“You sure?”

“We can’t hide what we are.”

Vince nods. Smokes.

Taylor studies him. “What happened to you?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Your face. Heard a lot of stories about you.”

“Have you? What kind?”

“Northern Ireland. RUC. Undercover. Special Branch.”

“Tall ones, then.”

“What are you doing back here, Vince? On leave?”

Vince shrugs. Says nothing, his days numbered.

Taylor says, “Bad business, those two RUC lads shot dead last month.”

“That’s the job, mate. Death’s the job.”

“Don’t get mixed up in these bones,” says Taylor.

“Not unless they get mixed up with me.”

“Don’t.”

“Sounds like an order, G-boy.”

“I’m a DI.”

“Not my DI, dog.”

Taylor says nothing.

Vince asks, “What’s the name of that prick over there who thinks he owns the place?”

“He does own the place,” says Taylor — then gives him the lowdown, warning him to steer clear.

Vince nods. “Sorry about Helen.”

Taylor just nods again. Sad.

“Send her my regards,” Vince says: cliché, but means it.

“Yeah,” says Taylor, and fixes him with a look from a long time ago.

*

After Jonesborough, Vince had been ordered to see a psychiatrist — regulation stuff.

The psychiatrist told him, “Let the past rest. There’s no such thing as closure. No ending to things, you see, Sergeant Groves.”

Back then, his mind was full of family snapshots of Veronica — Vonnie.

Vonnie at thirteen, hand on her hip, short skirt, starting to find her confidence, those first awkward steps out of childhood.

But she’d never left childhood, had she.

The pain crushed him — the pain of losing her, and the pain that loss had unleashed:

Dad more vicious than ever —

Vince standing his ground —

Dad lashing out —

Mam blaming Vince —

“Move on, Sergeant Groves. Move on.”

The psychiatrist had peered over his glasses, scribbled something in his notebook — an insult or a diagnosis, hard to tell:

Rage... propensity to violence... obsessive...

“What do you hope to achieve by holding on to the past, to what happened to your sister?”

He hadn’t wanted to be there listening to this self-help shit, but he had no choice: after Jonesborough —

After the IRA murdered Baxter and Barnard —

After Vince survived the slaughter —

And after he survived it, the questions came.

A long, bruising investigation —

The brass on his back, relentless —

HQ suits smoking behind desks, demanding every detail, please, Sergeant Groves, from the very beginning —

From “Got a job for you, Taff” to the bullets and the blood.

Chief Inspector Ray Dobbs led the investigation.

Chief Inspector Ray Dobbs, Vince’s crucifier-in-chief.

Chief Inspector Ray Dobbs: all Old Testament fire.

Fiery. Vengeful. Wrath of Almighty fucking God. Hating nationalists. Hating Catholics.

Debrief: every detail about Jonesborough demanded.

Revenge burning in Dobbs’ narrow, furious eyes — questioning, questioning, questioning.

Dobbs had connections in the UDA, in the UFF — Loyalist terror networks.

No one was surprised. Half the RUC were the same —

Protestants.

Unionists.

Loyal to Crown and Union.

Every Papist an enemy.

Every Irishman a suspect.

Rumours about Jonesborough: the Gardaí had colluded with the IRA.

Rumours: the Gardaí had played their part in the ambush.

Rumours: the detectives had led the lambs to slaughter.

The psychiatrist asked, “Did the Jonesborough incident revive emotions about Veronica, Sergeant Groves?”

Vince looked straight into the man’s eyes. And when Vince looked into your eyes, something loosened inside you —

And yes, something loosened inside the psychiatrist.

He looked away — You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live — found something fascinating in his notebook, scribbled again: insult or diagnosis, same difference —

Unfit for duty...

A man of violence...

Something like that, probably.

After the long, bruising inquiry, after the debrief, Vince was called back to Dobbs’s office.

20 April. Smoke. Tension. Dobbs saying, “I’ve got one question.”

Vince nodded, said nothing.

“The question is, Groves: what would your last wish be, if your days on this earth were numbered?”

*

The psychiatrist again:

“Do you feel you’re on a crusade, to avenge what happened to—”

He paused, glanced at his notes, had a small revelation.

“—Veronica?”

Vince felt the fire drip through his blood. To this man, the name was just letters on a page; meant nothing.

Vince paused, shook his head.

“How do you define justice, Sergeant Groves?”

Vince’s blood boiled.

“Is the day Veronica disappeared clear in your mind—”

“Course it bloody is: 24 October 1966.”

The psychiatrist flinched, startled, as if slapped.

Vince thought: And I’ll give you a real one next time if you’re not careful.

He clenched his fists. Ground his teeth. Growled like a wolf.

Veronica missing nearly thirty-six hours.

Mam weeping, sobbing, at it for hours.

Dad drinking, sinking, at it for hours.

The police fumbling, clueless, at it for hours.

And one beast haunting Vince through it all:

The Dark Man.

… a man of violence.

The Evil One from the Bible. Real evil — not make-believe, not a Scooby-Do monster. A tale the boys told to frighten the girls. A tale to get into their pants. A cursed thing haunting this old land. No one knew who he was. No one sure he even actually existed. A panther lurking in the shadows. A goblin under the bridge, waiting to feed on whoever crossed after dark. A phantom streaming through the island’s ancient arteries. A folk tale. A ghost story.

The Dark Man.

The name on Vince’s mind the day his twin disappeared.

The name branded into his memory.

The name that plagued his every thought.

She was never seen again. Never came to home from Ffair Borth. No one had seen her since that morning — 24 October. Vince was one of the last to speak to her. He came home around five that afternoon, the day of the fair.

Mam, just back from cleaning, asked straight away:

“Where’s Vonnie, Vincent?”

Vince said nothing.

Dad next: “Aye, where the hell is she? You were meant to be watching her.”

No sign of her.

Mam went down the lane to the phone box, called the police.

They said, “Give it till morning, she’ll come home.”

Mam wanted to go out to look for her, argued with Dad.

He said, “Leave it, little tart’ll turn up.”

But Mam went, Vince too — all night.

Everyone saying, “She’ll come back, you’ll see.”

She didn’t.

Next day, the house in chaos.

Mam broken, Dad blind drunk.

Aunt Lena with a sandwich in her hand, looking like she’d seen a ghost — like she’d seen the dead rise again.

Mam saying, “Where is she? Where did she go?”

Dad going to the kitchen. Washing his hands. Washing and washing. Fetching more booze. Drinking and drinking. Washing and washing. Drinking and drinking.

And no one knew anything about Vonnie.

Where is she? Where did she go?

She was dust. Swallowed by the maelstrom. Scattered to the wind. Erased from the face of the earth as if she’d never been.

Now she was legend. A footnote in history. A fiction — except for the pictures of her. The image in his mind: hand on her hip, starting to grow in confidence, starting to find herself. Turning from mam’s baby into a young girl. Beginning to turn her back on childhood and innocence. Her journey had just begun.

But then it ended.

She was taken.

She vanished.

Melted like snow. Gone.

The fallout was savage. Things went from bad to worse, fast. Mam falling apart, Dad getting more violent. A blur of drink, a blur of shouting. Things thrown, smashed. Lena in the middle like Javier Pérez de Cuéllar from the United Nations — but she couldn’t secure a ceasefire.

Mam cursing her, calling her a bitch and a slut.

And after Jonesborough, at the psychiatrist’s —

Vince reached into his pocket, took out his smokes, and the psychiatrist gave him a look, said, “I’d rather you didn’t smoke—”

Vince lit up. Stood. Turned and walked out, hoping the ghosts of all these things would stay behind in that room, and haunt the psychiatrist instead.

But they didn’t.

They followed him out, and they haunted him still — as they had done for almost a quarter of a century.

End of Sample