Finders and Keepers (49 page)

Above it and to the side was a metal shelf. He crawled towards it, stretched up, gripped the sides and used it to haul himself upright. His trousers slipped and he recalled handing over his belt and braces. He grabbed the waistband. The shelf held an enamel jug of water and a small tin cup. He filled the cup and fumbled in his pockets. He didn't even have a handkerchief left to wipe his face with and there was no sign of a cloth.

Leaning heavily with one arm, he managed to pull the other out of the sleeve of his jacket. He dipped the cuff in the water and gently sponged his face. His skin felt stiff when he tried to move his muscles, and he realized that his bruises were caked with dried blood. Judging by the light, he must have been lying on the floor for hours.

Dizzy and faint, he continued to cling to the shelf. He felt as though a herd of miniature bullocks was pounding through his head. A tide of bile rose from his stomach. He looked for something other than the cold floor that he could lie on. A long metal shelf, reinforced by two chains, was bolted to the wall behind him, a blanket folded at one end. Even in the receding light he could see that some parts of it were stained darker than others. He swept the blanket to the floor with his forearm. Shrugging his other arm out of his jacket, he folded the damp part inside and made a pillow for his head. Clutching it, he sat on the bunk, lifted up his legs, lay back and waited for someone to come.

When he next opened his eyes, he found himself in darkness as unrelenting as the coal store in Ynysangharad House, which, to Mari's annoyance, he and Bella had occasionally used as a hiding place when they'd been children. He touched the sheet of steel beneath him and recalled where he was before slipping back into unconsciousness.

A loud clatter woke him some time later, he had no way of knowing whether it was hours or minutes, and later still he heard a drunk belting out ‘Alexander's Ragtime Band' at the top of his voice.

He considered banging the door of his cell to attract attention. He was thirsty and in pain. But it hurt to move and it was easier to close his eyes. The next time he opened them, the thin grey light of dawn had lightened the skylight above his head. A key turned in the lock, the door opened and Constable Smith, freshly shaved and smelling of soap, stood, steaming mug in one hand and a plate holding a sandwich the size of a doorstep in the other. His eyes rounded when he saw Harry.

‘You all right?'

‘Do I look all right?' Harry swung his legs over the side of the bunk, sat forward and cradled his head. ‘I need a doctor.'

‘You hurt yourself in the night?'

Harry sensed it wasn't so much a question as a plea for reassurance that his injuries were self-inflicted. ‘Didn't your colleague tell you?'

‘He said you fell against the door, but that happens quite often here. Well, it would, wouldn't it?' Smith muttered defensively. ‘It's difficult to walk down a flight of steps when you have to hold up your trousers and keep your shoes on without laces.'

‘It's even more difficult when you're pushed from behind.'

‘You making an accusation?'

‘Do you really think that I fell, Constable Smith?' Harry enquired heavily.

‘That's what Constable Porter said, and I've never known him tell a lie.'

‘Well, I suppose you could say I did fall, in a manner of speaking.' Harry took the mug of tea Smith handed him, and wrapped his hands around it.

‘There you are, then.' Constable Smith was clearly relieved.

‘But I wouldn't have if Constable Porter hadn't put his boot behind my knees.'

‘That's slander, and I wouldn't repeat it if I were you. You could face even more charges -'

‘Can I or can I not see a doctor?' Harry repeated, suffering too much pain from what he suspected was a broken nose to be diplomatic.

‘I'll ask the sergeant when he comes in.'

‘And when will that be?' Harry enquired testily.

‘It's Sunday. His wife likes to go to morning mass – she's Catholic, he's not, but sometimes he goes with her. It's difficult to know when he'll be in because we don't have what you might call a regular routine on Sundays, but he usually calls here during the afternoon.'

‘Can I at least have my handkerchief?' Harry lifted his jacket and unfolded it. The right sleeve was crimson with blood.

‘It's against regulations. A man can hang himself with a handkerchief.'

‘Not this man. That is unless Constable Porter chooses to join me in this cell,' Harry added acerbically.

‘I've warned you before. It's slander to make accusations against an officer of the law.'

Harry held up his blood-stained jacket. ‘Do you want me to bleed to death?' When Smith didn't move, he said, ‘If it helps, you have my permission to cut my handkerchief into four quarters. And I'd like some fresh water, if it's not too much trouble. To wash with as well as drink,' he shouted as Smith finally retreated and locked the door.

Smith returned a few minutes later with Constable Porter. He set Harry's handkerchief, which had been duly quartered, and a fresh jug of water next to the sandwich on the narrow shelf.

‘Can I see a doctor?' Harry raised his eyes to Porter's.

‘I've no authority to call one on Sunday. They charge more.'

‘I'll pay.'

‘We have to return your money to you, intact.'

‘I'll sign a waiver,' Harry offered.

‘Not allowed,' Porter snapped officiously.

‘If you're hoping the cuts and bruises will fade by tomorrow, forget it,' Harry advised. ‘The way they feel right now they will be there for months and I'll take care to tell your superiors that they are entirely your work, Constable Porter.'

‘The blood under his nose is bright red; that means it's still bleeding,' Smith observed timidly.

‘Only because he's been picking it,' Porter retorted touchily. ‘You been picking at your nose?' he demanded of Harry.

‘Of course. I love pain so much I can't stop inflicting it on myself,' Harry retorted flippantly.

Smith laughed nervously.

‘What's funny?' Porter turned on his colleague.

‘Nothing,' Smith muttered, very much Porter's second-in-command although they were the same rank.

‘We'll see what the sergeant says when he comes in.' Porter backed out of the door. ‘And when he does, the first things he'll see on his desk are Mr Pritchard's stolen watch and his sworn statements.'

‘I found
the watch.' Harry felt as though he were talking to a deaf man.

‘Even if you did, you didn't turn it in. And for that you'll be charged with stealing by finding. The sergeant thinks very highly of Mr Pritchard, Harry Evans,' Porter warned.

‘Can I make a telephone call?' Harry leaned weakly against the wall. ‘This situation is new to me but I believe that I'm entitled to one.'

‘Who would you want to telephone?' Porter demanded aggressively.

It was on the tip of Harry's tongue to correct Porter's grammar and say ‘Whom would you wish to telephone?' but he'd lost the will to fight. Locked in a cell with a bloody nose and thumping head, he felt powerless. And what was worse, he didn't even know whether Toby had managed to speak to his stepfather the night before. It would have depended on what time his parents reached Pontypridd. And his Uncle Joey's house was closest to the station. Knowing his father and uncles, they could have sat up half the night talking.

Mari and the rest of his sisters would have been at home to take a message, but his father's workload was heavy, even more so since the miners' strike. However much Lloyd would have wanted to drop everything to help him, he knew that his stepfather might not be in a position to do so.

‘I would like to let my family know where I am. They will be worried about me.'

‘You said you were staying at an inn,' Porter prompted.

‘I telephone them every night.'

‘Proper mammy's boy sissy, aren't you?'

‘You can't keep me here another day.'

‘I'm the officer of the day and I can do exactly that,' Porter contradicted. ‘You've been formally arrested so we can keep you here until you go before the magistrates' court. And there won't be one of those until Monday morning.'

‘I'm entitled to legal representation.'

‘Not on a Sunday in Brecon you're not. It's my guess that the sergeant will keep you on ice for another twenty-four hours. He'll want to talk to you before you go to court, but there's plenty of time. All day, in fact. Not that you'll be able to add much of any interest to Mr Pritchard's sworn statements. We've all the evidence we need to send you down. The only thing left for the magistrate to do is sentence you. And my money's on five to ten years' hard labour.'

‘Doesn't “innocent until proven guilty” apply in Brecon?' Harry closed his eyes momentarily against the pain.

‘We have the crache, we have hardworking ordinary people, we have layabouts and, at the bottom of the pile, we have incoming thieving scum who strut around wearing gold cufflinks and tiepins.' Porter nodded to the tea and sandwich. ‘Eat your breakfast.'

Constable Smith murmured, ‘Perhaps we should -'

‘Eat our own breakfast, Smith,' Porter interrupted. ‘Good idea. Lock him in.'

Harry shuddered when he heard the key grate in the lock again. He jumped down from the bunk and leaned unsteadily against the small shelf. He tipped the bloodstained water from the cup into the bucket, rinsed it out and filled it with clean from the jug. Dipping a square of handkerchief in, he bathed his face again. The water was tepid, and soon it was as red as the water he had discarded.

Holding a dry piece of handkerchief over his nostrils, he pinched them in an effort to stop the blood from flowing. He wasn't hungry but he was thirsty. His cup of tea had cooled, and there were greenish lumps of discoloured milk floating on the surface. He placed it back, untouched, on the saucer and poked the sandwich. It was hard and stale. He opened the enormous slices. A thin layer of peculiar pink meat lay between the pieces; there was no butter.

He returned to the steel shelf, bundled his jacket back into a makeshift pillow again, lay down and, having nothing better to do, tried to formulate a plan of action.

Top of the list was to get himself out of the cell, he reflected grimly. Then he would find Brecon Workhouse, and get the Ellises released, if not into his care, then into his parents'.

And once he'd taken them out? What then? Find out who owned the Ellis Estate and employed Bob Pritchard, and take them to task. He wondered what kind of unprincipled individual or organization would employ a criminal so devoid of principles that he'd rape and steal from defenceless people.

If he could track down enough current or past tenants to speak out against the agent, he'd ask his solicitors to make a case against the man. But would any of the women admit to being raped when it would be their reputations that would suffer, not Bob Pritchard's?

He didn't doubt that his mother would help him to get Mary out of the workhouse and the children out of the orphanage wing, but even if he paid all their debts he might not be able to get the Ellis Estate back for them, and that left him with the problem of finding somewhere for the family to live and some way for them to earn their keep.

He imagined Mary Ellis in the grey uniform dress and wooden clogs he had seen the inmates wearing in Pontypridd Workhouse. She was used to hard work but not the mind-destroying scrubbing of outside yards and paving, which he had seen the female inmates being forced to do on the rare occasions when the huge double doors at the side of the building had been left open. And he could only imagine how desperate she felt at being separated from her brothers and sister.

His nose hurt and his head ached, but he was too restless to continue lying on the bunk. He started pacing the cell. Seven steps one way, three the other, and they weren't big steps. He looked up at the narrow window. The sill began about a foot above his head. He reached up, locked his fingers around the bars and pulled himself up. The pavement was at eye level.

‘What a way to spend a Sunday morning,' he muttered. He lowered himself to the floor and pulled himself up again – and again and again – in an effort to work off the frustration and the anger he felt towards Porter for pushing him downstairs, the authorities for allowing a hardworking family like the Ellises to be separated and destroyed, but most of all towards Robert Pritchard, who had abused the power with which he'd been entrusted.

He started counting the number of times he pulled himself up – one, two – and when he reached sixty the key turned in the lock. He dropped to the floor.

Constable Smith coughed in embarrassment. ‘Your solicitor and your father are here. Why didn't you tell us that your father is an MP?'

‘Because it shouldn't have made any difference. Every man is innocent until proven guilty – that is the law of this country, isn't it? The one you swore to uphold.' Harry walked to the bunk and picked up his jacket.

The officer shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. ‘The sergeant's with them. They're waiting in his office.' He held out Harry's belt, braces, sock suspenders and shoelaces. ‘Do you want me to help you to put them on?'

Harry took them from him and handed him the jug. ‘I can manage but I'd appreciate some clean water and a towel so I can clean up my face. A mirror might be useful as well,' he called after Smith.

Chapter Twenty-one

Lloyd jumped up in horror when Harry walked through the door. ‘You had a few bruises yesterday but nothing like this. What happened?'

‘Should we send for a doctor, Harry?' Mr Richards asked. The elderly man had been his mother's solicitor and their closest family friend ever since Harry could remember.