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For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, Rhoda Crwys cracks the bullshit code. Next, Wolfcastle comes to, while far away an over-the-hill clairvoyant named Madame Pom de Terre... Hey! Where the hell did she come from?
The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 47

‘I’ve always had a fear of being buried alive.’
‘Mmm, Taphephobia…do go on…’

‘That and being wrongly convicted of a crime I didn’t commit.’
‘Yes. Of course! How could you be wrongly convicted of a crime you did commit? I think you should be clear about just how unlikely such a situation is. I mean I don’t actually know of any legal system which imposes living burial as a sentence for any crime.’ ’

‘No, I meant wrongly convicted and buried alive as two things I am afraid of separately not together. Then again, now you mention it…’
‘Oh, I see. Yes, right. Well I must advise that there really is little for you to worry about. These are perfectly normal fears for someone in your condition.’

‘My condition? What condition is that? What are you saying?’
‘What I am really saying is that I am sorry but really I can’t help you.’

‘Why not?’
‘Yes. Well partly because at this moment I don’t have the time to fully tackle such complex phobias and get to the root of the underlying issues that lie under them, but mainly because you are still unconscious on the floor of your friend’s luxuriously deceptive house. This is all a dream, a figment of your concussed imagination. I am merely a mental representation of a psychiatrist or psychologist (you haven’t actually specified which) and as such only exist in your unconscious mind. Accordingly I am bound by the limits imposed upon me by that mind, your mind, at this time and am therefore unable to help you overcome those fears as you yourself will not permit me to do so. I do however think that a productive course of action to take now would be to wake up…wake up…wake…’

‘..up! WAKE UP, you Damiou!’

‘Does he do this sort of thing often?’

‘So far… yes’ the Librarian replied.

‘Men!’ the other woman tutted and tossed her head back slightly at the same time.

Through misted, foggy eyes Wolfcastle tried to focus on the sight before him. He wasn’t sure quite what he was seeing and didn’t know whether to believe his eyes – after all they’d lied to him in past. He felt an urge to faint once more but was distracted from this plan of action as multiple hands grabbed at him and roused him from his slumbered position on the floor.

‘You’re pathetic!’ a female voice insisted.

‘Worse!’ another added. ‘Call yourself a Private Investigator? HA!’

‘What? I never…’ Wolfcastle began to protest as he dusted himself down.

‘Pathetic!’ the first female voice repeated.

‘But I’m…’

‘Just a sorry excuse for a man. Just like all the rest’ the other woman continued.

‘LOOK! I never said I was a Private Detective OK! NEVER! What do you think this is – some kind of detective story?’

His female accusers were suddenly jointly stricken with a combination of surprise, mild embarrassment and, quite coincidentally, toothache.

‘Oh!’ they both said, echoing each other.

‘Now who is SHE, why are you here anyway and, more importantly where’s my coat?’ Wolfcastle slowly rose into a sitting position, rubbing his sore head as he did so. ‘Oh yes,’ he added as an after thought, ‘and who the bloody hell was that shooting at us earlier?’

The tension in the room was mounting. As the three individuals individually did their own thing one thing became clear to them all. With a blinding clarity and incredibly annoyingly they jointly realized that by now, by this stage in the proceedings, the chapter should really have ended!

An unease spread through the air like butter on a hot tin roof, like a cat out of Hull, like a hot knife through a bat. Neither three of the persons present knew what to do next. There ought to have been a way out by now, a convenient escape from the inevitable fix they found themselves written into.

The anxiety and apprehension they all felt themselves feeling gripped their hearts like just another over elaborate figure of speech that had just been used once too often. It was all becoming too much to bear…

The sleepy village of Wormeldange woke to find itself in eastern Luxembourg, perched predominantly on the western shores of the river Moselle. This was not unusual in the least. Such an event was in fact exactly what the (approximately) 742 residents of the village often expected to find when they woke each morning. The idea that they’d wake up one day and find themselves and/or their village located somewhere else was a state of affairs not often considered likely. However, on this fastidious day something was different. Not quite right. A little odd. And nobody could seem to put their finger on it. Possibly something minutely small – hence it was hard to see.

Madame Pomme de Terre, the local clairvoyant, knew that something was about to happen. She’d been having bad headaches for several days now but had passed it off as a result of all the HamiltonsTM gin she tended to drink. Some people drink to forget, others drink to remember. Madame Pomme de Terre never forgot to drink but often couldn’t remember why. The headaches went on but these were different, not like the usual ones which greeted her each afternoon when she woke. Sometimes, when the headaches weren’t so bad, she’d also get visions. The most recent one she’d had was of a strange gem clad figure, a stranger yes but then again strangely familiar.

Her reputation as an effective clairvoyant was long gone. For one thing she had great difficulty in time management and organizing her schedule. This was beginners stuff for any psychic worth their salt. What need had they for diaries and appointments? Surely they knew what it was they’d be doing, who it was they’d be seeing? Madame Pomme de Terre struggled with such things. Her ‘gift’ was too highly tuned – that was how she used to justify herself. Over the years she’d been hounded out of town after town, booted off the lucrative European Circus circuit and expelled from the clairvoyant trade association. Turning to drink she’d wound up in this sleepy riverside village in Luxembourg.
With the visions, the hazy, foggy even images that she’d been getting there was a voice, a fast speaking voice with an unusual accent. She didn’t know what it meant and didn’t much care. It was already three drinks past breakfast.