Gary Russell - The Twilight Streets

Obituaries, Western Mail, 14 July 1986

Brennon, Bruce Peter: Widower. Accidentally taken from us during the Tretarri fire.

Extract from Fortean Times, issue # 867

… amongst the weirdest bodysnatching rumours is that of Gideon Tarry in Wales, England. This bizarre reclusive landowner disappeared from the city of Cardiff in or around 1881. Some years later, a grave was located in a North Cardiff churchyard he never frequented as it was quite some way from his adopted home in Penarth. A frequent subject of gossip during the twentieth century, Tarry’s body was exhumed twice – the second time because of what occurred the first time. Reports state that the headstone was taken down during the excavation to discover if money, jewellery, etc were secreted in the coffin with Tarry’s body. The headstone was broken in two accidentally and put inside the church vestry for safekeeping. The coffin itself revealed no treasures, or indeed anything else – because there was no coffin, no matter how far down they dug. A day later, investigators returned to find the ground replaced and looking untouched, and the headstone seamlessly repaired and resituated. The ground was consecrated once more and after a lengthy legal battle, the headstone was removed and the grave freshly dug eight years later, using more sophisticated equipment to find where the coffin was. No coffin was found and once again, the ground was re-laid, the stone reset by persons unknown.

Obituaries, Glamorgan Voice, 21 May 1856

Haworth, Tarri: Master craftsman and respected businessman, of Penarth. A swift and shocking sailboat accident took this beloved husband and devoted father, aged 63. Funeral at St Teilo’s Church, Wednesday week. All welcome, including working classes to whom he holds a special place in their hearts.

Extract from Building Commission, 1st quarter 20??

Reversal of 2005 submission and subsequent approval. Application to restore Tretarri without any substantial building work and no demolition to occur. Uplighters to be placed in the pavements, new street lighting to be installed and each forefront of the houses to be cleaned and restored. Trees to be trimmed back. The ground floors of 1 and 3 Coburg Street to be redeveloped as a retail unit. No other houses are to be entered, or interfered with in any way. Approved by Cardiff Council.

[NB: Date of issue and proposer and seconder illegible]

With a sigh, a really quite loud, one might almost say melodramatic sigh, Ianto closed the last file on the screen, and picked up the buff folder containing pre-electronic age sheets of paper. It had two Torchwood logos on it, the modern hexagonal one and a sketchier version, which, experience told him, meant this particular file was started around the 1920s.

‘Problem?’

Owen was coming up the small stairway from the Autopsy Room. Ianto thought that Owen was spending too long down there in the cold, sterile atmosphere. Since giving up his desk on the upper level to Gwen, he’d buried himself down with the tables and cold storage trays. It couldn’t be healthy.

That said, Owen smiled more these days. Perhaps being away from the watchful eye of Jack made him more cheerful. Or perhaps he was even weirder than Ianto had previously thought.

Ianto held up the folder of real paper items. ‘Everything is incomplete, out of order and a mess. The online files aren’t much better.’

Owen didn’t take his eye off his PDA and whatever readings he was inputting, but he did pause before carrying on. ‘Well, you know what, I blame whoever is in charge of keeping everything up to date and efficiently ordered. Now. Who would that be?’ And he then looked up and grinned that slightly lopsided grin he had. ‘Oh, wait. That’s you, isn’t it?’

He was heading towards the back of the Weapons Room, to the steps that took him up to the walkway level and the Hothouse. After clattering up the steps, he paused before pulling open the Hothouse door and entering the world of bizarre alien botanics inside.

‘You need to stop worrying, mate. If Jack’s not fussed about Trewotsit, why are you?’

Ianto opened his mouth to reply, and realised he didn’t have an answer. Was it because it was about Jack? Was it because he didn’t like mysteries? Perhaps it was simply that, having started the research and found it a bit of a mess, his dedication to perfection – or anal retentiveness, depending on who you asked (oh, he was aware of what the others said about him) – was drawing him into the strangeness that was Tretarri.

By the time he was ready to admit that he didn’t actually know, Owen was shut away with the plants, spraying a couple of them with a small nozzled water-gun, and occasionally reading off from his PDA.

With a shrug to himself, Ianto returned to the files. And was immediately disturbed by the huge cog-shaped doorway rolling aside to reveal a giggling Gwen and Toshiko as they scuttled in, carrying a couple of pizza boxes each.

‘Hiya,’ Gwen called sweetly. ‘What’s your poison tonight?’

Ianto looked at the pizzas and shook his head. ‘Oh. No, thank you. No. No pizza. For me. You carry on. Enjoy.’

Gwen looked strangely at him. ‘You OK?’

Ianto nodded. ‘Sorry, just distracted. And not hungry.’

She and Toshiko were out of his eyeline now, obscured by the base of the water tower sculpture that housed the Rift Manipulator.

He’d worked with Gwen for a year or more now, but something about her still made him slightly flustered, like he felt he was being judged and so was always trying to impress her. Which was daft, but he couldn’t stop it. Jack had noticed it; he’d made some joke about Ianto’s schooldays and asked whether he’d had a crush on a teacher.

Stupidly, Ianto had started to tell him about Miss Thomas – and Jack hadn’t let him forget it.

He needed to say something normal to Gwen.

‘So, how’s the wedding? Rhys all right? Found a hotel yet for the reception?’

Gwen’s frowning face popped back into view. ‘Fine. Great and, umm, no not yet. Oh, know any good DJs?’

‘My mate Paul,’ Ianto said. ‘But you probably wouldn’t want his kind of music. A bit… cheesy…’

Now it was Toshiko’s turn to pop her head round. ‘Cheese pop? It’s very in apparently.’

‘No,’ Gwen said. ‘I think Rhys’s best man knows someone. So long as he doesn’t play “Agadoo”, I’ll be happy.’ There was a pause, then Gwen suddenly spoke seriously. ‘Ianto, have you spoken to Jack? What’s with these days off? He’s not crashed out here, as far as I can tell.’

Ianto instinctively looked towards Jack’s office, where Jack spent his nights down in a small bunker. Where, frankly, there wasn’t room for two, whatever Jack said.

‘Hasn’t he? Oh. Well, I imagine he’s found a hotel or something.’

‘We wondered,’ Toshiko threw in, ‘if he was at your place?’

‘No,’ said Ianto, a fraction too quickly. ‘No, why would he be at mine? What’s at mine that Jack would want? I mean he could be anywhere, why my place?’

‘Blimey,’ said Owen from behind and above. ‘Someone’s a bit jumpy about jolly Jack Aitch tonight.’

Ianto looked up and saw Owen, a plant in one hand, water-gun in the other. And hoped he hadn’t gone red. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, trying to cover his overreaction, ‘we need to look into all this stuff. There’s something about Tretarri that is… off.’

‘“Off”?’ queried Owen.

‘As in “not good”?’ Gwen asked, as Toshiko fired up her screens.

Ianto joined them at their workstations, as they both started looking stuff up, Toshiko obviously a bit faster at creating a database to filter the words ‘Tretarri’, ‘Gideon Tarry’ and ‘Gideon ap Tarri’.