Desire Line, page 37
Appendices
A
The Murderer At The Fair
In 1961 it was a Londoner called James Hanratty who came to Rhyl after shooting a man dead and raping his girlfriend. Hanratty like many a drifter before him got work at the fair, on the Dodgems, no questions asked. Dodgems would have been his choice— the cars with the trapped inside girls, having to be unjammed back into circulation, Hanratty perched on the flanges, a ready stream of dirty jokes. First day, Hanratty met up with some ‘like minded individual’. A vicious loner straight off the bus, where else could he meet up with a ‘like-minded individual’ but in good old Rhyl, already on its way to being the sink-hole of north Wales? His new friend was Terry Evans who let him sleep on his sofa that night and gave him a pair of shoes. Well that was one story. Another is that at the time of the murders, Hanratty was already tucked up in a Rhyl guest house, Ingledene a grim sounding bolt-hole. A dozen assorted Rhyl residents could vouch for him. If you’re charged with murder this is definitely a better story than a stint on the Dodgems and a night on a couch. Which makes it all the odder that Hanratty didn’t try it out on the police in the first place. But he didn’t. Perhaps there’s something about witnesses from Rhyl. They weren’t called to testify. None of them. So Hanratty – though he must have been innocent, mustn’t he? – was hanged, as they were just about to stop doing back then. He was the sort that bad luck followed around like a stink— which is why he became the eighth last person to get the death penalty. But wait a bit. Once DNA was discovered, surely that could settle the score? Sothere’s an appeal goes in on Hanratty’s behalf. It failed. How? DNA at the scene of the crime was— James Hanratty’s. So Hanratty may or may not have worked at Ocean Beach. And a man called Terry might have given him a new pair of shoes, while in London, 200 miles away, someone else, that one in a billion match with his DNA was committing murder. Or not.
B
The Kicker
The history of Rhyl’s riddled with plans and schemes that went pear-shaped. From attractions that bankrupted everybody involved to the small-scale shaggy dog stories. Or shaggy bird.
Reginald Cobb was a comedian, singer and acrobat. You could find him at the bottom of the bill in music halls up and down Britain. He surfaces in Rhyl in 1902, one half of Reggie and Roma, a musical duo. 1903 has him back, solo, at The Pier Amphitheatre, as The H’archbishop of Humour. By 1904, Cobb’s living alone minus his Roma at an address in Butterton Road. It’s here, according to local legend, he somehow got hold of and started to train a young ostrich. It was called The Kicker.
At first a backyard was big enough to keep the bird in. Training on the beach often drew a small crowd and Cobb could take round the hat for pennies. There would be a bit of added knockabout when The Kicker tried to eat the coins. Cobb was always short of money and ran up bills at a local corn-merchant as The Kicker’s appetite grew. But the act seemed like a real prospect. The bird could soon ‘do a simple dance with wings outstretched in elegant fashion’. It also dribbled a football. The Kicker became a local celebrity and Reggie Cobb had hopes of a spot at the newly opened Queens Palace. He told people it had been promised him.
On a Sunday morning in June, 1904, Cobb and The Kicker were on their pitch and by ten o’clock were into their act. Then it all went wrong. Perhaps it was the church bells. Maybe someone brought along a dog that The Kicker hated.
The ostrich stopped listening to Cobb’s instructions and started making dives into the crowd. A big man in a straw boater (another of The Kicker’s pet hates) shouted he’d been pecked. Women screamed, children yelled and in trying to control the bird, Cobb got a blow to the head. Some thought The Kicker had done it. Others said the man in boater hat had punched him. It must’ve taken a superhuman effort for poor Cobb to get the ostrich back to its pen, a good two hundred metres from the beach. But he did. And he fed and watered it and then seems to have sat down in the corner of the yard. He spent long hours here anyway, keeping The Kicker company so if any of his neighbours looked over they wouldn’t have thought it out of the ordinary. Only when it was going dark did somebody check and discover poor Reggie Cobb stone dead.
People always want to know what happened to The Kicker. That’s the funny thing about the story— you can’t find out. They say in Rhyl that the owner of the house just opened the yard gate and let the bird walk off. Rhyl was even smaller then and the countryside a lot nearer. Perhaps it made for the hills.
But it was a six-foot-high black and white ostrich.
You’ll find Reggie Cobb’s overgrown grave in the churchyard at St George, a village 6.5 kilometres ‘backaways’ from the coast. His brother-in-law and sister Anne Foulkes are listed as poultry dealers there.
C
How Sato Tomiko Lost His Name
My father’s never married. He returned to Japan to the small property his parents left, and is a poorly-paid teacher of calligraphy for his living. His own art lies in smallness and obscurity, designed to duck even the possibility of reward. For instance, when he learned a painter from the ancient city of Kochi (Sato Tomiko) was being mentioned as a notable practitioner in ink, he took immediate action. To his most promising pupil he gave away his name. This isn’t quite as weird as it sounds, not for a Japanese. The great Hokusai himself did the same and then faced with the commercial success of ‘The Floating World’, was tempted to barter it back. Search for my father, any method, and you’ll come up with a smug-faced young man from Osaka, but recently moved to San Francisco and becoming collectable— it says. You’ll also find an image of him. Prominent ears and unchipped teeth. No scar.
D
No Such Thing As Good Luck
I did find her.
As I told Tess, some things shouldn’t connect. Sara, for example, shouldn’t have trusted in Kim Tighe’s ‘talent’ or let her latch on in the first place. Where was the scholar in her? You only had to look at this shell of a person to ask yourself how likely isit? Tomiko’s sayings make more sense. No wonder I wanted to forget the woman last seen running from Avonside with money in her pocket, fear in her wake, wearing black and totally right too.
Here’s my Kim Tighe file:
1. A photograph taken at an outdoor party. In the crowd is Eurwen next to a dog-suited person, identity unknown, and someone blonde and familiar. Stare at it for long enough and you’re left in no doubt. The red-haired girl and the blonde know each other.
2. The newspaper story of a female body found in an empty building off the Parade. (It turned out to be one of Clive Upton’s properties). Her age was put at ‘around sixty’. An appeal was made for next of kin or anyone else with information to contact the police without delay. Date? Well the body had been there for some time. A spree with Sara’s money would be my guess.
3. Two more snippets from the following week reporting the body as Kim Tighe’s, aged, it is believed, 35. Cause of death? Drug toxicity.
4. A crude painting of a young bikini-clad girl, the caption is ‘This little smasher once gave passersby the come-on above an arcade near the corner of Sydenham Avenue, the edge of the funfair—’ More text beneath carries over from a previous page and reads ‘and nobody’s sure what the name Rhyl actually means. Tourists, when there were any, must have thought it was just one more Welsh word they were unable to say because of lacking vowels.’ The book-plate had been so faded it was a wonder Kim Tighe’s still recognisable as the face of Old Rhyl.
Painted Kim Tighe is disturbing— too pitiful, too scabby, too real. But when I finally did ask, Eurwen claimed they’d never met.
Acknowledgments
The lines from Book Ends are quoted with the generous permission of Tony Harrison.
Celebrity is quoted with the generosity of lyricist Shane Renton Mellor.
Extracts from the libretto of Peter Grimes (Benjamin Britten/Montagu Slater) appear with the permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.
My agent at MBA, Laura Longrigg, has been an unfailing support while this novel was in the making. Susie Wild, my editor at Parthian, took over and brought a clear, fresh look to the product. I’m grateful to both and all at Parthian.
Also thanks are due to Rhyl and all its inhabitants, friendly, cynical, funny, expecting little and rarely disappointed.
Parthian, Cardigan SA43 1ED
www.parthianbooks.com
First published in 2015
© Gee Williams 2015
ISBN 978-1-910901-08-3 ePUB
ISBN 978-1-910901-09-0 Mobi
Editor: Susie Wild
Cover design by Robert Harries
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Gee Williams, Desire Line
