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find out that the fat man's half-sister was a prostitute in Bristol. All Lewis could think was: Manon. Tomorrow. Two-thirty p.m. It became like the rhythm of a train in his head: Manon, tomorrow, two-thirty p.m. Manon, tomorrow, two-thirty p.m. A runaway train, an out-of-control train. A train he couldn't stop, even if he wanted to.

Chapter Eight
    The next day, round about noon, Jonathan 'Cakes' Cunningham crossed over into Wales, over the Severn bridge. Half-way across the bridge he wanted to get out and admire the structure, the awesome feat of engineering that it represented, but of course he couldn't. Like all restrictions on his behaviour, this made him grit his teeth and grip the steering wheel tighter. Angered him slightly. He took the motorway past Newport and Cardiff and then Port Talbot, like a city of soot on his left with the glittering sea behind it. Richard Burton was born around here, he thought. Anthony Hopkins too. Strange how such talent can be born in such places, such dirty places, dusty and black and polluted. At Swansea he continued towards Carmarthen, where he had to pull into a lay-by to check directions. He took the crumpled envelope out of his pocket and smoothed it out on the dashboard. He tried to read the words, smudged with sweat. He could make out 'Ferryside'.
    He drove on. At Ferryside he checked the directions again and took the road up into the hills. The ground rose around him, green and wooded. He began to feel a little uncomfortable, in his van on these high hills. He didn't trust the higher ground. He wanted to be back on a flat road again. Wanted to be back down at sea level, where he felt he belonged.
    He entered a village, but he had a feeling it wasn't the one he was looking for. He stopped at the kerb outside a small general store and wound his window down. An old man came out of the shop carrying a loaf of bread and a two-pint plastic bottle of milk. Cakes beckoned him over.
    'Scuse me, mate.'
    The old man approached the van. 'Ga i’ch helpu chi?'
    'Erm…d'you speak English?'
    'Yes.'
    'Good. I'm looking for this place.'
    Cakes pointed to the place name written on the envelope. He didn't want to try and pronounce it – all those 'ch's and double 'l's. He'd make a fool of himself.
    'Ah yes,' the old man said. 'You're not there yet. It's about another five miles that way.'
    The old man pointed to a small lane, Cakes thanked him and took that lane. A tiny lane, barely wide enough for his van and hemmed in by high hedgerows. God knows what he'd do if he met any other traffic, he thought. But he didn't, and the next village he entered was the one he was looking for. He knew this without even consulting his directions; an affirmative feeling in his heart and stomach told him that this was the place where he'd get back what was his. There was a church on a hill and a shop and a garage and oh yes, look, a pub called the Miner's Arms. This was the place.
    Cakes drove the van up the hill above the village and parked by the church where, he reasoned, neither he nor his van would be seen. He got out of the van and pulled his jacket tighter around him to keep the chill out and entered the churchyard where, to kill time, he read the inscriptions on the gravestones. He liked doing that, Cakes did; reading evidence of lives too short or lives too long although, in his more relaxed moments, he was of the opinion that all lives were too short. At a big marble headstone under a yew tree by the Garden of Rest he stopped and lit a cigarette while gazing out over the village below. Smoke rose from chimneys, the sound of some industrial machine came from the garage workshop. Little people were coming and going. A peaceful scene. A rural idyll, some might say, and despite himself Cakes felt his pulse slowing, felt his heartbeat calming. He felt at home amongst traffic and noise and crowds, but he had to admit to himself that here, in this little village in the middle of the hills, he didn't feel