Free Last Tango in Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce

skimming off some surplus production.’
    â€˜Didn’t I tell you to stop all this wheeling and dealing?’
    She sighed. ‘I know, you did, Louie, but it’s just not that simple.’
    â€˜Where’s the hard part?’
    â€˜You can’t roll an empire up overnight. I’ve got people relying on me.’
    â€˜One of these days you’ll get into trouble.’
    â€˜Everyone’s paid off, don’t worry. They’re all looking the other way.’
    â€˜And what’s all this about Smokey G. Jones and some placebo?’
    â€˜I’m trying to cut her down – she’s getting through three bottles a week.’
    â€˜That’s not what I meant.’
    She shrugged. ‘You know how it is. She took part in a trial at the hospital for some new drug and they gave her the placebo. She said it worked a treat. Placebos are the –’
    â€˜I know what they are.’
    â€˜Faith can move mountains, Louie.’
    â€˜But you can’t go round prescribing drugs.’
    â€˜It’s only vitamin C. And anyway, she’s hooked now, I can’t stop it.’
    The sound of a man unconvincingly barking like a dog cut through the air. The noise set off a frenzy of activity. The men stopped unloading and scurried hither and thither, slamming doors and flinging tarpaulins over crates. Shouts of ‘police’ and ‘stop’ came from the other room. Calamity grabbed her stuff and fled to the far side of the hall. In less than two seconds I was alone. Calamity rushed back, grabbed my arm and dragged me to the cupboards where they stored the protective clothing and pulled me inside.
    * * *
    We stood in the dark cupboard and held our breath, listening intently to the sounds from outside. Footsteps approached. Stopped. The door was pushed slightly, teasingly. And then opened. It was Llunos. He made a soft gulping sound as he recognised us, his eyes jumping in their orbits. We smiled. He closed the door. Five minutes later, a piece of paper was slipped through. It said, ‘Not you as well!’

Chapter 6
    THE DEATH OF one of the ventriloquists had shaken the others quite badly and some had agreed to talk. I was shown into a room upstairs at the Seaman’s Mission in which sat two very old men, with fine wisps of white hair on their shiny pates, and old suits that had stayed the same size for years as they both gradually shrank. They were drinking tea and still chewing their breakfast with grizzled unshaven jowls and false teeth that suggested the necessary lip control to be a working vent was no more than a distant memory for them. They were twins, Bill and Ben.
    â€˜Few years ago he probably performed at their birthday parties,’ said Ben. ‘Their little faces glowing with excitement.’
    â€˜All pink and freshly scrubbed, their hair neatly combed and everyone smelling of vanilla,’ said Bill. Then he turned to me again as if just remembering something.
    â€˜Are you sure the confrère spoke after Mr Marmalade was dead?’
    â€˜The what?’
    â€˜His confrère, Señor Rodrigo.’
    â€˜You mean his dummy?’
    â€˜We never use that word, it’s insulting. Are you sure he carried on speaking?’
    â€˜No, I’m not sure, I’m just saying that’s how it seemed. It was probably the wind.’
    â€˜How could it be the wind, the wind doesn’t speak Spanish!’
    â€˜No I know, but it’s like –’
    The old man stamped his foot in a strangely uncalled-for stateof agitation. ‘But that’s a stupid thing to say, the wind goes: Woooooooaaahhh-ooooo …!’
    â€˜Or: Phweeeeeeeeeee!’ added Ben.
    â€˜Not like Spanish at all,’ said Bill.
    â€˜OK, you win.’ I raised my hands. ‘It couldn’t have been the wind.’
    The two old-timers looked at each other with an air of intense earnest. Bill hissed the words, ‘It’s the Quietus!