The Dylan Thomas Murders by David N. Thomas Page B

aggressive shrieks and needle-sharp beaks. I opened up the Seebrights, and they came tumbling out of their pop-hole like wild flurries of snow. I unlatched the door to let out the Welsummer bantams but, surprisingly, they didn’t emerge. I knelt down and peered into the coop. The five hens lay headless on blood-spattered straw and the young cockerel had wedged himself up near the roof. No fox could have entered the coop so I guessed a stoat had found a small hole in the wire. Not a rat, because rats just chew away at the neck and the eyes, leaving most of the head intact. Stoats and their various relatives, on the other hand, eat the whole head and neck, leaving behind a perfectly formed headless corpse.
    No amount of rational argument would persuade us to eat poultry that had been killed by a predator, so I gathered up the hens and put them in a plastic bag, ready for the rubbish collection. I prised the cockerel away from the roof of the coop, and when I put him on the floor I noticed his leg was broken. I would have to kill him.
    I went back to the house, poured the tea, and went upstairs where Rachel was already sitting up in bed reading. I told her about the Welsummers and she simply said “Waldo.” I said I didn’t think so, and explained how the head had been cleanly taken off. No human could do that, I said, but I immediately remembered an incident in a pub in Oxford when I’d seen a student bite off the head of a pigeon as cleanly as any stoat would have done.
    Then the phone rang. It was Rosalind Hilton. “I’m coming round to see you,” she announced, “it’s extremely important.”
    I was in the shower when she arrived. I heard the bell ring, and then the sound of Rachel and Rosalind talking excitedly together. When I came out, they were in the garden room. Rosalind was sitting on the settee with a bulging plastic bag at her feet, and Rachel was laying out a small breakfast of pain chocolat , fruit, and coffee. They were discussing writing and self-discipline, and Rachel was describing the poetry workshop she went to each week.
    â€œDylan would have found a workshop useful,” said Rosalind. “All he had was Vernon.” She put down her cup and reached into the plastic bag. She took out a letter and put it on the table.
    Rachel recognised the small, cramped handwriting immediately. “It’s Dylan,” she exclaimed.
    â€œI was lying in bed last night, going through the Collected Letters . It made me very angry. It’s so unbalanced, just a mere handful of the letters he’d written to women.”
    â€œBut they were the important women in Dylan’s life,” I replied, realising too late that that was not the most diplomatic thing to have said. “Caitlin, Edith Sitwell...”
    â€œI’ve decided to put the matter right,” interrupted Rosalind. “This bag holds all of Dylan’s letters to me, plus one or two to Waldo. There’s also about twenty poems which have never been published, love poems, sent to me, and a few children’s stories written for Waldo, though I must say they are a little imperfect and mostly improvised with Waldo on his knee. How you sort them out,” she said, looking at Rachel, “is entirely up to you.”
    â€œMe?” said Rachel, rather lamely.
    â€œI’d like you to prepare Dylan’s letters, and the poems, for publication, as one collection. You’re a good poet, you know his work, and I believe you are honest – most Quakers are. And you’re Jewish, I like that.”
    â€œAnd your role? asked Rachel.
    â€œYou prepare the collection, and we’ll work on an introduction together. I can’t pay you anything, but you and Waldo can share the royalties.”
    â€œAnd the letters? What’s to happen to them?”
    â€œThe National Library can have them.”
    â€œAnd time scale?” asked Rachel.
    â€œOne that’s suitably speedy