Friday morning saw more visitors to the village. First was a young man in a tweed jacket, carrying a notepad and pen. When he was out of sight Ahab peeped into his car. Nothing unusual there, until he looked back at the windscreen. Toll tickets from the booth on the Penrhyndeudraeth road. Not far from that airfield with the experimental planes. Half an hour later came a black Vauxhall Velox, direct from the late 1950s; clean and shiny, with gleaming chrome bumpers, looking like it had just been driven out of a time-warp car showroom. There was a badge on the radiator grill; an entwined scroll with the words “IN THE UNREAL”. Stranger still were the two men who stepped out of the car. They were as alike as identical twins, dressed in dark suits and with black brimmed hats. Their eyes swept up and down the village, seemingly taking everything in just one glance. Their eyes appeared exceedingly alert, but their faces remained expressionless. Satisfied, they each took a device from the car, and in tandem they went to one end of the High Street and proceeded back. One of them stopped villagers on the street and the other knocked on doors and went in the shops. They introduced themselves, not by name, but as Scientific Surveys Ltd. Politely that asked each person accosted if they could spare a few minutes of their time for questions about Tuesday evening. The devices they carried were portable tape recorders. The questions were quite simple to answer at first. “Did you see or hear or feel anything? Did you notice the time? Describe the experience. Was any damage caused to your property? Were you inconvenienced by the army restrictions?” Then came questions like “Has anything gone missing since the event? Have you seen anybody unusual in the last three days? Have you heard any rumours?” When interviewees asked what happened that night, the answer was always “That’s what we are trying to find out”. Further questions were ignored.
Ahab meanwhile had followed the tweed man, and found him outside the pub, under the crowned lintels of the doorway, looking up at the hill and referring to a large scale Ordnance Survey map of the area. Noticing Ahab, he pointed to the hill and asked if that was where it happened. “What do you mean by ‘it’?” asked Ahab cautiously. The man explained that he was a science graduate working as a freelance reporter. He had been over on the west coast watching the activity at the airfield. Hastily he added “I’m not a Russian spy though. Here’s a piece I wrote”. He took a cutting from the back of the notebook, unfolded it and pointed to the author’s name. “That’s me. I’m doing a follow up, but I got a tip-off that a meteorite had crashed here-about.”
Ahab told him about Tuesday evening, missing out all the police and army activity. “Could it have been a remote controlled plane from the airfield?” he asked.
“No”, came the reply. “There’s no way any of those little planes could have flown this far, and they don’t have anything bigger and secret there. I have actually been shown around the base and there’s nowhere big enough to hide secret planes. I’m hoping to find where the meteor landed and hopefully find a fragment or two. Apart from getting it analysed I can sell it to collectors. They will pay hundreds for a decent piece.”
“Best of luck” said Ahab, heading into the pub, knowing he would need it after the military had been up there for two days and must have combed the area thoroughly. He was the first customer that morning. Taking his pint, he settled in a chair where he would benefit from the fire without being uncomfortable. The Captain busied himself arranging glasses behind the bar. Presently one of the dark-suited men came in, glanced around and introduced himself to Ahab. Ahab saw no reason not to answer the questions but kept his answers short. He was intrigued by the man. His languid way of speaking was betrayed by his eyes, which seemed to be looking for any signs that Ahab was lying or hiding information. His accent wasn’t English either; a hint of American, but not native; as if he had picked up a way of speaking from Hollywood films. Before the interview was finished though, a beeping sound was heard. The man reached into his jacket and pulled out a small walkie-talkie. Ahab heard something spoken, but it sounded scrambled. The man hastily excused himself and left. Ahab picked up his pint and was about to leave when he remembered The Captain’s unfortunate comment the other night. “I’ll be back for that” he told the landlord.
On reaching the street he was surprised to see how far the man had walked in a matter of seconds. The man soon reached the Velox, started it up, and swung it around and headed to the other end of the village, parking outside the church. There was his ‘twin’, standing sentinel-like, in front of the old notice-board that announced the times of services, stencilled, worn away. The other got out of the car, collected a large brief case from the rear seats, and together the two entered the churchyard. Ahab caught up and waited across the road to see what unfolded. It was not long before the two reappeared, one carrying something in his arms covered in a blanket or similar. A thin silvery arm hung from one end and a thin silvery leg from the other. His colleague opened the rear door of the car, and the man climbed in with the bundle. The door was slammed shut and the driver took his seat. The engine kicked into life, but as the car sped away Ahab saw the blanket fall away. He could see a face, a head; elongated, silver, hairless; a small thin mouth and no nose. What struck him most though, were the large, almond shaped, oversized eyes, looking pitifully at him, and the thin reedy voice in his head that seemed to be saying “Help me, help me.”
What could he do?

Postscript