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Authors: Rhys Bowen

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BOOK: Evans Above
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“I've got the day off tomorrow,” Sergeant Watkins said. “How about you?”
“You asking me on a date, sarge?”
Sargeant Watkins chuckled. “You're not my type! I thought I might take a drive in the direction of Manchester. I like to give my car a good outing at weekends. Care to come along for the ride?”
“Yes, I would,” Evan replied. “Thanks, sarge.”
“And Evans—just don't mention it to anyone else on the force, okay? D.I. Hughes has scheduled a meeting for this afternoon to go over his plan of action, as he calls it. I don't think he'd take kindly to us poking around on our own.”
“You don't think you should put him in the picture as far as we've got and then get his blessing?” Evan asked.
“Good Lord no,” Watkins said quickly. “Methodical Hughes? I told you, he's strictly by the book. He won't get around to admitting there might be a connection with the other murders for a week or two, and the other case is still his
number-one priority. I want to catch this chap while he's still around to be caught; it's all up to us, Evans.”
“I'm game,” Evan said. “See you tomorrow then. Who knows, maybe Marshall will confess, or give us the lead we want and we'll have the whole thing sewn up before your D.I. can start on it.”
“Wouldn't that be nice?” Watkins chuckled. “Still, it's better than sitting around doing nothing.”
 
When Evan hung up the phone, he opened the slim file he had assembled on the first two deaths. He took out the snapshot of Stew Potts and his wife. It wouldn't do any harm to show that around too. Maybe someone would recall having seen Stew going up the mountain railway or talking to someone down in the town. He was a good-looking chap, Evan thought. If he'd gone into any of the local shops or cafes, the girls working there would definitely remember him. Especially if, as his wife hinted, he had a way with the ladies.
He drove down to headquarters and collected a copy of Simon Herries' photo. He felt anger rising inside him again as he looked at the open, fresh face of the young man. Even in the small black-and-white snapshot he looked healthy and full of life. Who on earth could have wanted him dead?
Up in Llanberis, he showed the photo with very little success. The hostel warden remembered him, but said he had kept himself pretty much to himself. They'd had a noisy bunch in there last night—a party of German students who had got everybody singing. But this young chap had sat aside in an armchair, studying maps and making notes. One of the German girls had even teased him about it.
“You English are so quiet and shy,” she had said.
Simon had smiled. “Not all of us, only me,” he had answered and refused her invitation to join them.
The hostel warden couldn't remember Simon talking to anyone apart from that one line.
Evan had no more luck in town. Nobody recognized him in the stores or cafes. The girl in the supermarket thought he might have come in there to buy prepackaged sandwiches, but that was that. He was the sort of person nobody would notice, Evan thought. He'd probably have had quiet good manners and would want to slip in and out of places with the least amount of fuss.
Although Evan was sure it was a waste of time, he went to show the photo to the booking office clerk for the railway.
“When are they going to let us reopen?” the man demanded even before Evan could explain the purpose of his visit. He had a shrunken, sour-looking face and the thought flashed through Evan's mind that he could hardly be the best choice to greet tourists all day.
“They keep coming here, expecting to take the train and there's no trains running, are there?” he demanded. He had that belligerence of many small men. “We've got the place packed with tourists and they all want to go up the mountain and they're all angry with me because we're closed.”
“Not until we've had a chance to search the entire crime scene,” Evan said. “A man had his throat cut up there this morning. You wouldn't want someone else to end up the same way, would you?”
“The place is swarming with policemen,” the booking office clerk said, frowning up at the mountain above him. “Nobody would be so bloody stupid as to wait around and be caught, would they? He's probably miles away by now.”
“You didn't notice anything peculiar about anyone coming down on the train, did you?” Evan asked.
“They already asked me that a dozen times,” the man snapped. “I told them that several thousand people pass through this station every day. I don't have time to go studying each of them.”
“How about this lad?” Evan asked, producing the snapshot of Simon Herries. “Do you remember seeing him?”
The man shook his head. “No. Can't say that I do.”
On an impulse Evan pulled out the photo of Stew Potts. “How about him?” he asked. “He was a big bloke. You might have noticed him.”
The clerk stared at the picture. “Can't say that I remember him,” he said. “I saw her, though.”
Evan glanced up sharply at the railway clerk. “Her? You saw this woman?”
The man nodded. “Last weekend, I think it was.”
“You're sure it was her?”
“Pretty sure. Foreign, wasn't she? Spoke with some kind of accent? Kind of tarty looking.”
“That's right,” Evan said.
The man was still staring at the picture as if he was trying to refresh his memory. “She came rushing up to me, just after the eleven o'clock train left the station. I told her she was unlucky. She'd have to wait two hours for the next one. Then she asked me if a big man with dark hair had taken the train.”
“I told her what I told you. Hundreds of people pass me all the time. I don't have time to look at most of them. She hung around for a while, then she went away again.”
“She wasn't with anybody that you could see?”
“No, she seemed to be on her own. But then someone
could have been waiting in a car for her, couldn't they? I didn't notice where she went or when she left.”
“Thanks,” Evan said. “You've been a lot of help. Sorry about the closed railway.”
“I don't mind for myself,” the man said. “I get paid the same wages if we run or not. But I don't like getting yelled at as if it's my fault. And I feel for Gwladys, too. She runs the snack bar up at the top and all her food's going stale on her.”
“Where would I find Gwladys?” Evan asked. “She might have seen something too.”
“She'd be home now, wouldn't she?” the man said. “Watching the telly. Addicted to telly, our Gwladys is. She lives for
Coronation Street.
You'd think those people were her relatives, the way she talks. We're always giving her a hard time about it.”
He pointed out her cottage to Evan. Evan approached her front door hesitantly. The booking clerk had warned him that Gwladys would be more than annoyed about her food going to waste. But when she saw his uniform, her face lit up. “Come about the murder then, is it? You'd better come in then, hadn't you?”
She led him into a tiny, neat parlor. As had been predicted, the television was on in the corner.
“Sit you down,” she said, pointing at a chair, piled with silky pillows. Evan sat, cautiously.
“I remember you,” Gwladys said. “You were the one who bought two cups of tea this morning, weren't you?”
Evan didn't tell her how disgusting the tea had tasted.
“I wondered if you might be able to help us,” he said. “You must see a lot from your little kiosk up there.”
“Indeed I do,” Gwladys said, nodding seriously. “You'd be amazed at what I see up there! You'd never expect those
sort of things to go on up on a mountain, would you now?” She paused, her eyes widening. “You're not saying I might have seen the murdering brute with my own eyes, are you?” she asked. “'Deed to goodness. To think I might have been up on the mountain alone with him. It makes the blood run cold, doesn't it?”
Evan produced both the photographs. Gwladys studied them both.
“This is the man, is it?” she asked, pointing at Stew Potts.
“Do you remember seeing him?” Evan asked.
Gwladys studied the photograph again. “Yes, I'm pretty sure I do. I remember thinking at the time that he looked like a shifty sort of character.” She leaned closer to Evan and grabbed at his sleeve confidentially. “And the one he was talking to—I didn't like the look of him at all. That's a pair of bad 'uns, I remember telling myself. But you still could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard there had been a murder up there. Drug dealing maybe, but murder's something else, isn't it?”
“Could you describe the other chap he was talking to?” Evan asked hopefully.
“Like I said, a real criminal type of face he had.” She focussed on Simon's picture. “And is this one of the gang too? He doesn't look the type, does he?”
“Do you remember seeing him? Early this morning, it would have been.”
“Wait a minute. It's all coming back to me,” Gwladys said, a big smile spreading across her face. “I think he was with the first man, and then they met the nasty-looking one.”
“This morning?” Evan looked puzzled.
“I might be mistaken, of course,” Gwladys said, “But I got a sort of premonition that a crime was going to be committed.
I went cold and clammy all over.” She pointed to the pictures. “You want to find those two in a hurry and put them safely behind bars.”
Evan concluded that the railway clerk had been right—Gwladys watched too much television. He'd come across this kind of thing before—someone who so desperately wanted to be helpful and involved that she'd say whatever she thought the police wanted to hear. Evan was fairly sure now that she hadn't seen any of the men or anything more suspicious than someone pouring away one of her cups of tea.
However he did have one good lead to go on now: The positive identification of Greta was quite genuine. When he got back to Llanfair he left a message on Watkins' machine, suggesting that they go to visit Greta in Liverpool on their way to Manchester.
 
It was almost six o'clock by the time Evan finally got back to the police station in Llanfair. Charlie Hopkins and Roberts-the-Pump waved as he passed them on their way into Red Dragon. A pint of Guinness was just what Evan needed right now. It had been a long, trying day. He was relieved to find no irate messages from Mrs. Powell-Davies and left a quick message on Sargeant Watkins' answering machine before heading over to the pub himself.
As he walked in the door of the public bar, he instantly regretted his decision. Being a Friday evening, the bar was full. As well as the local tradesmen, the farmers had congregated in one corner. Evan noticed a newborn lamb tucked in a shepherd's jacket and a sheepdog at his feet.
“There he is now, himself,” Evan heard someone say and there was a sudden hush as all eyes turned to him.
“What's this we've been hearing then, Evan bach?” Charlie Hopkins asked. “They're saying there's been another body found on the mountain. So Dai shoved three of them over the edge then, did he?”
“Lucky we caught him before he could do any more harm, right Mr. Evans?” Cut-Price-Harry demanded, with a deliberate swagger for Betsy's benefit.
“It looks like we might have got the wrong man,” Evan said as he joined them at the bar.
“But he confessed. That's what they were saying in the papers,” Roberts-the-Pump said.
“He confessed all right, but he was in a cell last night and some poor boy was killed up there this morning.”
“They're saying his throat was cut from ear to ear,” Betsy looked horrified and delighted at the same time. “How terrible for you, Evan. I'd have fainted clean away if I'd seen something like that.”
Evan was forced to admire the efficiency of the local bush telegraph. So far the police hadn't given out any details of the killing, but the people of Llanfair had found out anyway.
“A pint of Guinness for you, is it, Evan?” Betsy asked, already pouring the dark liquid into a tilted glass. “You don't expect to hear about violent killings here, do you?” she went on, putting the glass in front of him. “It's just like that film I saw last week about the Italian Mafia. Oh, it was horrible. I could hardly watch the things they did to one poor man to make him talk. Disgusting, that's what it was.” She glanced up shyly at Evan. “It's still playing down in Caernarfon, if you want to go and see it with me—I wouldn't mind seeing it again.”
“Thanks, but I've had enough of violence for the moment,” Evan said.
“That's what I said when I came out of the cinema,” Betsy said. “Next time I go to the pictures, I want a nice, quiet love story. Oh, and speaking of love stories … I already spoke to Mr. Harris and he says it's all right with him.”
Evan stared at her, his mind racing. He had just noticed that she was wearing a silky white blouse with a black bra under it. What's more, the top three buttons were undone so that Evan had a glimpse of the bra peeking out. That was disconcerting enough in itself. But he couldn't think what she was talking about, and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to find out.
“You are still going to do it, aren't you?” Betsy demanded. Evan was conscious of faces, watching him.
“Everyone's counting on you,” Betsy added.
“Uh—what exactly are we talking about?” he was forced to ask. “I've had a very tiring day. My brain's not working too well.”
“The dance, silly,” Betsy said, laughing. “You and me—we're going to be chaperons, remember?”
“Oh, the dance. Right,” Evan said. “I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it after all. Not now that we're in the middle of this new murder case. I promised the detective sergeant that I'd help him tomorrow. Who knows how late I'll be back …”
Betsy gave him a hard stare. “You just better be there, Evan Evans,” she said. “Those children are counting on you, and I went out and bought a new dress. You're going to like it—it's very sexy.” She smoothed her hands down over her waist as she said this, so that a good inch of black bra, and a lot of flesh, was visible.
“You hear that, Evan bach?” Charlie Hopkins exclaimed,
giving Evan a hearty slap on the back. “She's not going to let you wriggle out of this one. If you're still out with that detective, she'll come and find you and bring you back here!”
“I would too,” Betsy said, over the loud laughter.
 
The next morning Evan left early to meet Sergeant Watkins in Caernarfon.
“Seen this morning's paper yet?” Watkins asked as they sped along the highway beside a gray ocean. He indicated the backseat of the car. Evan turned to retrieve the paper. ANOTHER BRUTAL MURDER HAS LOCALS TERRIFIED was the banner headline. Underneath in not much smaller type it proclaimed, “Local police understaffed and undertrained says local Member of Parliament. After four tragic deaths within the space of two weeks, local residents are afraid to go out of their houses.” Evan's eye scanned down the column. The same local MP went on to suggest that Scotland Yard should have been called in immediately and hinted that the local police were not skilled enough to find the murderer.
“Your chief's not going to like this,” Evan said with a grin.
“Too right he's not,” Watkins agreed. “My word, are we going to be in for it on Monday. I'm just thankful it happened at a weekend. He'll have to wait until Monday morning to blow his top, unless he summons us all for a special meeting tomorrow.”
“Did the D.I. turn up anything at Scotland Yard?”
“If he did, he hasn't told me,” Watkins said. “And from the foul mood he's in, I rather think that he didn't. Between you and me, Evans, I'm rather thinking that maybe we've put all our eggs in one basket. We're assuming that this child molester, this Lou Walters, is the one we're looking for. We're
following his mum and staking out his house. What if it wasn't him?”
“I suppose you have to go with the most likely suspect, don't you?”
“At least all the parents are keeping a close eye on their children right now, so he'll not find it easy to strike again around here,” Watkins said. “I told the wife that Tiffany's not to go out alone ever, even if it's just across the road to her grandma's house.”
Evan nodded. “You can't be too careful, can you?” he agreed. “The schoolteacher up in our village was telling her pupils the same thing.”
As he said the words, a picture of Bronwen came into his mind and he remembered her cold gaze and the angry way she had parted from him. He had been so busy that he hadn't even had time to try and make things right with her. He wasn't even sure what he was supposed to say. It was always so complicated, dealing with women. That was one of the reasons why he had wanted to avoid any entanglements for a while, after moving from Swansea. His last experience was all too clear in his mind. He remembered the girl's expressionless face as she told him that she wasn't prepared to wait around until he was well again. It had hit him when he was at his lowest. He didn't want to go through anything like that again. Women, he thought, you're never really sure … which brought his mind back to the reason for their trip.
BOOK: Evans Above
8.57Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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