Evan and Elle (17 page)

“You? You’ve never said a stupid thing in your life.”

Bronwen came over to him and snuggled against him. “You’re rather nice, too, did you know that? I wish I could come with you to Eastbourne tomorrow. Take care of yourself
and don’t talk to any strange women, will you?”

Evan didn’t linger over his meal and went in searching of Terry Jenkins before it was completely dark. He made for the field where he had heard the boys playing earlier. The football game had ended and the boys were coming from the field, laughing and talking noisily. Evan looked for Terry among them, but he wasn’t there.

“Have you boys seen Terry Jenkins?” he asked.

“Off on his bike somewhere, poking his nose into something, I suppose,” one of the boys said.

“So he wasn’t playing football with you boys?”

“He didn’t want to be on our team,” a second boy agreed. “Off on his own, like Gwillum said.”

Evan came out to the street again and continued up the hill to the Jenkins cottage. He was about to go in, when he noticed a fleeting movement out of the corner of his eye. He sprinted across the street and found Terry crouching behind a garden wall.

“What are you doing, Terry?”

“Nothing, Constable Evans. I wasn’t doing nothin’,” Terry said, but his eyes darted nervously.

“You’re in someone else’s front garden, Terry. That’s called trespassing, so don’t tell me you weren’t doing anything. This is Mr. Hopkins’s cottage, Terry, isn’t it?”

Terry nodded. “I didn’t mean any harm, honest, I didn’t. It’s just that . . . Bryn’s here right now. You know, Bryn the fireman? I was just taking a look at his motorbike.”

“Then why try to hide? There’s nothing wrong with looking at a motorbike. So what were you really doing?”

His eyes darted nervously. “I was . . . just trying it
out . . . that’s all. I was sitting on the saddle, seeing what it felt like. I’m going to get a motorbike when I’m old enough.”

Evan put his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “Terry, you know you’re asking for trouble, don’t you? I know you, but if another policeman saw you getting on a motorbike, you know what he’d think, don’t you?”

Terry nodded. “He’d think I was trying to steal it.”

“Right.”

Terry glanced back at the Hopkinses’ cottage. “It’s just that Bryn—” He broke off, unable to find the words. “It’s pretty cool being a fireman, isn’t it, Mr. Evans?”

“Not very cool, I’d say,” Evan said. “Pretty hot most of the time.”

Terry grinned. “You know what I mean. Exciting—all those flames and walls crashing down and windows exploding . . .”

Evan steered the boy out of the Hopkinses’ garden and across the street. “Terry,” he said quietly. “I’m going to be away for a few days, working on a case. I want you to keep your eyes open for me, and make sure there are no fires while I’m away. You’re pretty observant, so I’m counting on you, okay?”

Terry nodded solemnly. “Okay, Mr. Evans. I’ll do what I can.” His face lit up. “Tell me about the body, eh, Mr. Evans. Did you see it? What was it like—all frizzled up and cooked and gross-looking?”

Evan had to smile. “Pretty gross-looking, Terry.”

“I bet I know who did it,” Terry said.

“Did what?”

Terry’s face was still alight. “Killed him and then set the place on fire to hide the body.”

Evan wondered whether this was just a clever guess or the result of watching too many gangster films. Surely even the Llanfair grapevine couldn’t have heard the pathologist’s findings?

“That’s what they do all the time in movies,” Terry went on. “I saw him, Mr. Evans. He was all foreign-looking and he was carrying a gun in his car. I saw it on the seat beside him, Mr. Evans. He was driving a red car, wasn’t he? He stopped me and asked me where the restaurant was. He spoke funny—foreign like.”

“What did he look like?”

“I dunno.” Terry frowned. “Foreign looking. He was wearing a leather jacket, I remember that. And dark curly hair. And he looked really creepy. I bet he was a Mafia hit man.”

Evan wasn’t sure how much of this was Terry’s imagination. It was a pretty accurate description of the man in the restaurant, the probable victim. And the car had been maroon. It was quite possible that Terry had indeed spoken to him, but had added the gun and the sinister appearance for effect. No gun had been found in the car or on the body.

“Thanks for the tip, Terry,” Evan said. He didn’t like to tell the boy that the man he had seen was now almost certainly dead.

“Right, Mr. Evans. I’ll keep my eyes open while you’re away,” Terry said. “In case he comes around again.”

“Just one thing,” Evan said. “I don’t want you roaming around while I’m away. I want you to stay inside after dark.
One of these days you might be hit by a car, so be a good boy and don’t give your mother any grief while I’m not here, all right?”

“All right, Mr. Evans.” Terry grinned. Then he demanded, “Are you going to marry Miss Price, then?” He went on grinning. “I saw you kissing her.”

“You are too inquisitive by half, young man,” Evan said, forcibly shepherding the boy to his own front door. “One of these days you’re going to find yourself in big trouble if you’re not careful.”

“I’m just practicing to be a detective,” Terry said. He opened his front door. “You should marry Miss Price. She’s very pretty.”

He darted inside, leaving Evan standing alone in the cool darkness.

“We’re here,” Evan said. He had been driving since they switched positions when they joined the M25 and had made good time while Sergeant Watkins dozed.

Watkins roused himself from the passenger seat. They were driving along a wide boulevard beside a serene blue sea. Beds of late flowers separated the road from the broad promenade, along which elderly couples strolled arm in arm, and proud fathers were pushing prams. A military band was playing in the bandstand while pensioners relaxed in deck chairs. There were even a few brave children paddling at the edge of the waves or building castles in tiny patches of sand between the pebbles. Watkins blinked in the late afternoon sunlight.

“Are you sure you didn’t overshoot and land us on the
Riviera? This can’t be England. I’ve been on holiday in England enough times. It always rains.”

“That’s because you always go in the summer time. You know August is the monsoon month.” Evan looked around with approval. “It looks nice, doesn’t it? Maybe we can stretch this investigation out to a couple of weeks. I rather fancy lying there in a deck chair and reading a good book, or staying at one of these posh hotels and having tea in the conservatory.”

“We’re on an NWP expense account. You’re lucky they didn’t provide us with a tent.”

Evan chuckled. “So the first thing to do is find a place to stay and then a meal. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

Watkins nodded. “My thoughts exactly. We’re too late to do any business today, anyway. We’ll get an early start in the morning.”

“Do you think we should make a courtesy call on the local police before we start poking around on their turf?”

“Yeah, I suppose we’ll have to do that, but I’d rather get my facts straight first. I want to get all the details on this restaurant, so that it looks as if we know what we’re talking about.”

“The town hall will have the records of business licenses, won’t they? Maybe we should start there.”

“Good idea. We’ll see what they’ve got and go on from there.” Watkins sucked air through his teeth. “I wish I knew what we were looking for.”

“We’re checking out Madame Yvette’s past, aren’t we?
We’re trying to find out why a man with a false identity should choose her restaurant to be murdered in.”

“I just hope we can come up with something substantial.” Watkins sighed. “If we come back with facts we could have got over the phone, we’ll never hear the last of it.”

“There has to be something here, Sarge.” Evan pulled up at a zebra crossing and waited patiently while an elderly couple shuffled across the broad esplanade. It seemed to take forever. “People don’t suddenly show up in a remote part of North Wales for no reason. Yvette must have had a good reason for opening her restaurant there. And I bet our victim had a good reason for seeking out her restaurant. Something more than wanting a lobster dinner. Once we’ve established a connection, it will all fall into place.”

“You and your connections,” Watkins said dryly. “So you’re saying it was something more than educating the Welsh peasants in the culinary delights of French cooking that made her choose that site?”

The crosswalk cleared and Evan drove on, past elegant hotels with pillared porches and glassed-in lounges. The sort of places that would be serving tea on silver trays at this very moment, Evan thought wistfully. He wrenched his thoughts back to the matter at hand. “If you were French and you had to close one restaurant, you’d open up another one nearby or go back to France, wouldn’t you? Why would anyone choose Wales without any Welsh connections?”

Watkins nodded. “I think you’re right. Just say your prayers that we stumble across the answer down here. It’s about time we got a lucky break.”

Half an hour later they checked into the Seaview Hotel.

It was an old-fashioned establishment on a back street, half a mile from the seafront. “We could report them for violating the trades description act,” Watkins muttered as they went up the front steps. “You certainly can’t see the sea from here!”

“And it’s not really a hotel,” Evan added. “When I was a kid we called a place like this a boarding house.”

The woman who opened the door reminded Evan instantly of the old landladies he had encountered at those boarding houses during childhood holidays.

“No noise after ten o’clock,” she informed them, eying them as if she suspected they might be all-night ravers, “and the front door is locked at eleven sharp. There’s no reason to be out after that in Eastbourne. We’re a quiet, refined establishment.” She took a key from the rack and led them up a flight of carpeted stairs. “The bathroom rules are posted on the inside of the door,” she went on, puffing a little from the exertion. “Basically it’s no baths after ten o’clock at night. The geyser makes a noise, you see, and people like to sleep.” She reached the landing and put a key in one of the doors. “You’re here on a late holiday, are you?”

“No, actually we’re police officers,” Watkins said.

“Police?” She looked horrified. “There’s nothing underhand going on here, I can assure you. We’re a respectable establishment.”

“I’m sure you are, madam,” Watkins said. “We’re investigating a case.”

“How exciting. Just like on the telly.” Her whole face lit up. “Is it something juicy? Murder or spies maybe?”

“No, we’re checking on establishments that are trying to evade paying their VAT,” Watkins said and grinned to Evan as she suddenly remembered something she had left cooking on the stove and beat a very hasty retreat.

The next morning the full English breakfast was rather on the meager side, with two strips of very thin bacon, a fried egg and one grilled tomato slice.

“At least the wife can’t complain I’m getting too much cholesterol,” Watkins said as they left the dining room.

“Of course, she didn’t see that steak you had last night,” Evan pointed out.

Watkins grinned. “Bloody good, wasn’t it? You can keep your French food. Just give me a good piece of red meat any day.”

They had checked the yellow pages to see if Madame Yvette’s French restaurant still existed under new ownership, but there were no establishments listed which sounded promising. The only one that described itself as French was called the Oasis, and it was in a new shopping center.

In the end they had eaten at a nearby pub. The food had been cheap and well prepared, the waitress friendly. They had asked her if she remembered a French couple who had run a restaurant just outside of the town, but she shook her head. “We never eat in places like that. And Eastbourne’s a big town, you know. There are always new restaurants opening up and closing again.”

After breakfast they tried the borough council offices,
but the clerk couldn’t come up with anything that sounded remotely like the place they were looking for.

“She said it was just outside of the town,” Evan pointed out. “Would those records be kept somewhere else?”