Aberystwyth Mon Amour by Malcolm Pryce

the same. I’m not getting paid for it, though; so I don’t call that very wise.’
    ‘That’s good.’
    I looked at him. He was still staring ahead, but talking to me. Which bit did he mean was good?
    ‘What is?’
    ‘If you’re helping someone and it’s not for money, stands to reason it must be for a reason that’s a lot better than money. When I was on the Force we did things because they were right, not because of the money. We’d have been stupid if we’d exposed ourselves to all that danger for money, because they didn’t give us any. Not much anyway.’
    I took a deep drink. The beer was good.
    ‘The trouble is, I’m not sure if I’m doing it for good motives or just pigheadedness.
    ‘Often there’s no difference,’ said Eeyore.
    On my way back I cut across past the town hall and heard from up ahead the jingling of Pickel and his keys, although it was too far for the smell of gin. He was scurrying with that strange bobbing, bent-over gait reminiscent of the gorillas in the Planet of the Apes movies. Some instinct made me stop halfway across the square and hide behind the slate plinth of Lovespoon’s equestrian statue. I waited as Pickel entered the side door to the clock tower. It was a strange life he lived up there in the belfry: washing in an old tin tub that collected rainwater and cooking in a cauldron donated by the Shawl & Sorcery Society. Pickel was in school at the same time as me, but we seldom saw him there. Mostly, he would be playing truant and loafing around the Square, looking up at the clock with a curious love; an emotion that was hard to explain except in the terms of the saloon bar psychologist who saw it as the surrogate for a mother’s love. The real commodity had been sold long ago to the sailors down at the harbour. Pickel got the job as clock-keeper when the previous incumbent, Mr Dombey, died after falling into the workings. It was the Aberystywth version of the Kennedy assassination, and since it took a week to clean all his flesh off the teeth of the clockwork, time really did stand still for a while. There were many in town for whom the prospect of Mr Dombey dying that way seemed as unlikely as a fireman being run over by his own fire engine. But the police were satisfied that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the accident. Yet even they could not deny that there was a strange whiff of gin in the clock tower that day, and Dombey never drank. Still, someone had to wind that clock.
    A voice interrupted my chain of thought.
    ‘Hi!’ It was Calamity.
    ‘Hi!’
    ‘Where have you been?’
    ‘The pub.’
    ‘You drunk?’
    I laughed. ‘No!’
    She stood beside me twisting her body round to look at my face.
    ‘Have you changed your mind yet?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘Aren’t you even curious to know who it is?’
    ‘Who what is?’
    ‘The murderer?’
    ‘All right. Who is it?’
    By way of answer she looked up, craning her neck and squinting into the bright blue sky.
    ‘Him.’
    I followed her gaze up at the leaf-green bronze statue of Lovespoon astride his sturdy cob. Around the hoofs at the base there was a Latin inscription recording the well-known story of how as an infant he refused his mother’s teat during Lent.
    ‘The Welsh teacher?’
    ‘Yep.’
    ‘He’s murdering his own pupils?’
    ‘You knew him didn’t you?’
    ‘Yes,’ I sighed, as my thoughts drifted back through the fog of years. ‘Yes, he taught me Welsh many years ago.’
    ‘You know what he’s like then.’
    ‘I remember he used to hit a lot of people. I don’t recall him ever murdering anyone. I could have been away that day, though.’
    I could sense the frustration gradually squelching her high spirits.
    ‘Why won’t you take me seriously?
    But before I could say anything, she started walking away, across the road.
    I leaned against the plinth, overcome by an unaccountable weariness. How could I take such a story seriously? It was just a piece of playground nonsense,