Evan and Elle (5 page)

“I can’t pretend I’m sorry that their place burned down. Good riddance is what I say, Constable Evans,” the butcher called after him.

All in all, it was a pretty unsuccessful interview. But then it’s not up to me, Evan decided. I’m supposed to get along with the locals. I’ll leave the interrogation to the CID.

He glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost two. Mrs. Williams would have his lunch ready and be upset that it was spoiling. He went back to the station to check his messages, then hurried down the street to his landlady’s house. It was one of two semidetached houses, opposite the row of terraced cottages, and Mrs. Williams therefore felt herself very superior. It even boasted a small front garden, complete with rosebush and, at this time of year, chrysanthemums.

“Is that you, Mr. Evans?” The high voice greeted him as it always did as he let himself in.

“Yes, it’s me, Mrs. Williams. Sorry I’m late. I got held up.”

“Oh well. It can’t be helped. A policeman’s life isn’t easy, is it?” She bustled over to the stove as she spoke, opened the oven and produced an earthenware casserole with the same flourish as a conjurer bringing a rabbit out of a hat. “Luckily I made your favorite”—she hesitated for a second while Evan tried to guess which dish was supposed to be his favorite today—“lamb cawl.”

She took the lid of a bubbling pot of the traditional welsh lamb stew. Carrots, turnips, and big succulent chunks of lamb lay in a deep brown gravy that smelled of herbs. She reached into the oven again and produced an enormous baked potato.

“Get that inside you and you won’t do too badly,” she said, putting it on his plate.

Evan sat down, his mouth watering in anticipation.

“You make a beautiful lamb cawl, Mrs. Williams,” he said.

“I’m a fair enough cook, I’ll grant you that, Mr. Evans,” she agreed modestly. “Plain food, though. Nothing fancy. That’s why I’m thinking of taking this course.”

“Course?”

“Yes, there was a letter come in the post today from that new French restaurant. It seems this Madame Yvette is going to be giving cooking lessons. Charlie Hopkins’s wife wants me to take the course with her, so I said I would.”

“You’re going to take French cooking?” Evan looked up in astonishment.

Mrs. Williams blushed pink. “I’d like to know how to make some fancy stuff. Our Sharon did that cooking course—remember I told you? And now she’s a lovely little cook. She’ll make some man a wonderful wife someday.” She looked at Evan wistfully. Unfortunately Evan had met her granddaughter—a large girl inclined to giggle.

“I’m sure she will, Mrs. Williams,” he said on hastily returning to his plate of stew.

He had only taken a couple of bites when there was a knock at the front door.

“Now who can that be?” Mrs. Williams was completely reliable in her responses. “Don’t move. I’ll go.”

Evan heard her opening the door. “I’m sorry, he’s having his dinner, just,” Evan heard her say in English.

“Well, tell him to stop having his dinner and get himself back to work,” a voice barked. “I haven’t got all day.”

Evan put down his fork and went to the front door. The man outside was thirtyish, dark haired, with the kind of very short haircut favored by football players. He was dressed in an oversize navy sweater and faded blue jeans. Evan took him to be a hiker or climber. “Hello. What can I do for you?”

“You can jump to it and take me to the cottage that burned down, laddie.” The man barked out the words with a decidedly Home Counties whine.

“Oh, you must be Peter Potter,” Evan said. He held out his hand to the newcomer.

“Sergeant Potter to you, son. I suppose you’ve got used
to taking long lunch hours where there’s nobody to keep an eye on you.”

“Actually I didn’t get off duty until ten minutes ago,” Evan said, “and quite often I get no lunch hour at all, and no weekend off either if something important’s going on.”

“Important, up here?” Peter Potter chuckled. “Like car keys dropped in the grass, you mean?”

“We’ve had our share of crimes,” Evan said, determined not to let this man annoy him, “and it looks like we’ve got another one now.”

“Oh, so you’re the arson expert, are you?”

“No, but I was the one who found the note that said ‘Go home.’ ” Evan pointed to the track. “It’s up here.”

Instead of following, the sergeant walked back to a parked car. He opened the back door and a large Alsatian dog jumped out.

“Oh, Champ the wonder dog!” Evan exclaimed. He held out his hand and the dog took a step forward, wagging its tail.

“His name’s Rex,” Sergeant Potter said coldly. “Get back here, you,” he snarled at the dog. “You know better when you’re on duty! And you’d no right to encourage him either.” He glared at Evan. “Obviously discipline is lax up here.”

“Sorry, but we don’t get to work with dogs much,” Evan said. “No need to really—not for a few lost car keys.” He started up the track at a very fast pace. To his delight Sergeant Potter was red faced and puffing by the time he caught up with Evan at the ruin.

“Keep well away, Constable. Don’t go mucking up my evidence,” he said. “Here. You hold the bags for me and give them to me when I ask you, not before.”

“Right, Sergeant,” Evan said, resisting the desire to salute.

Sergeant Potter and his dog got as far as the front door opening and stopped. “Hello? It looks like the old rags-through-the-letter-box trick again,” he said with satisfaction.

“How do you know that?” Evan was grudgingly impressed. Sergeant Potter gave him a patronizing smile. “When you’ve been doing it as long as I have, son—it’s one of the preferred methods. If the fire started somewhere else the front door would likely be scorched but not completely consumed.”

The dog was sniffing excitedly at the ground.

“See? Rex can smell traces of the flammable liquid used. He’s got a great nose—he can sniff a thimbleful of accelerant in a place the size of Buckingham Palace.”

They made their way around the cottage, with Rex sniffing, Sergeant Potter bending to take samples and then handing the plastic bags back to Evan. “He did a thorough job, I’ll say that for him.” He glanced back at Evan. “So have you got statements from potential witnesses yet?”

“No sir. I wasn’t asked to,” Evan said.

“Initiative, man! Use your bloody initiative!” Potter barked. “You want to be promoted some day, don’t you? You don’t want to spend the rest of your life in this god-forsaken place.”

Evan glanced wistfully at the mountain peaks above, clearly etched against a glass-blue autumn sky.

The mountains were one of the perks of this godforsaken place. He wished he was up there now. “Go and question all the locals. Someone must have seen something. They’re always minding everybody’s business in a small place like this. And find out who’s been buying cans of petrol lately, too!”

“It would be easy enough to get up here without being seen,” Evan said. “He wouldn’t necessarily have started from the village.”

“But he’s carrying a bloody great can of petrol, man. How far can he lug that, eh? Unless he drove up here?”

“He didn’t do that,” Evan said. Potter looked up sharply. “I was on the mountain myself only a short while before. I’d have seen a vehicle.”

“Well, ask your questions anyway.” Potter snapped his fingers for the dog, and presumably also Evan, to follow him. “I’d do it myself but I haven’t got the hang of the bloody lingo yet. They’re making me take classes, if you’ve ever heard anything so ridiculous! Apparently it’s required these days.”

Evan smiled to himself as he imagined some poor person trying to teach Peter Potter Welsh.

“Ah well, I suppose you might need to communicate with the natives someday,” Evan said. “Sign language doesn’t always work, does it?”

“Too much bloody nationalism if you ask me,” Potter said. “It only leads to trouble—like this stupid gesture.” He pointed at the cottage. “With any luck some group will
come forward and claim responsibility and we’ll have our work done for us.” He started down the track again. “Come on, don’t just stand there,” he called to Evan.

Evan was suddenly feeling more sympathy for the Welsh nationalists (as well as for Champ the wonder dog).

Although he felt it would be a wasted effort, Evan dutifully did the rounds and got statements from the villagers. He also compiled a list of all the locals who were in the Red Dragon. Nobody had seen anything unusual before the fire. Nobody even remembered seeing a stranger in the village, nor a strange car. In addition, as Roberts-the-Pump pointed out, all the local farmers, plus at least half the young men owned motorbikes and were always buying cans of petrol. The other half had lawn mowers, weed whackers, or needed cans of paraffin for their oil stoves.

Evan was just preparing a report with which even Sergeant Potter couldn’t find fault when the door of the police station burst open and yet another stranger came in.

Evan opened his mouth to say “Can I help you?” but before he could get the words out the man demanded, “Are
you the officer on duty here? Where’s the person in charge?”

“Yes, and you’re looking at him,” Evan said, attempting a friendly smile. “I’m the officer stationed here. This is only a sub police station.”

“See, I knew it would be bloody useless,” the man said to a woman who had entered the room behind him. Evan recognized her. He had seen her in the village street on a couple of occasions.

“You’re the couple from the cottage, aren’t you?” Evan got to his feet. “I’m very sorry—”

“Yes, but have you caught the bastards yet?”

“It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours, sir. We’ve launched an investigation.”

“I bet you have.” The remark was dripping with sarcasm. “I bet you’re all doing your private little victory dance because you got us out of here. They warned me when I said I was buying a cottage in Wales. They won’t make you welcome there—that’s what they said. I told them I didn’t give a damn whether I was welcome or not. But I never thought it would come to this!”

“Savages, that’s what they are,” the woman added. Venom distorted a perfectly made-up face. “Nothing more than hooligans and savages. Too bad they outlawed corporal punishment. A good caning with the birch—that’s what they deserve.”

“We’ve had an arson expert on the scene, madam . . .”

“And what are
you
doing about it, Constable? It doesn’t look as if we’re exactly high priority here.” The woman glared at him. “Why aren’t you out there looking for the criminals?”

“As a matter of fact, madam, I . . . ” Evan began but the man thumped his fist on Evan’s desk and leaned forward to glare into Evan’s face. “I want action, Constable! Get off your backside and find them! That’s what I pay my taxes for.”

He headed for the door. “We’ll be going to see your superiors to lodge an official complaint. Then maybe we’ll see some action!”

They stormed out. Evan heard the Jaguar rev up and drive away. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He’d had just about all he could take for one day. He locked the station and walked up the village street. Children were running past with satchels bouncing up and down on their backs. One of the boys called out to him, “Hello, Constable Evans?
Sut wyt ti?
Have we got rugby practice tomorrow night?”

Evan answered and watched them run past, carefree now that school was over for today. He just wished adult life could be that simple.

The realization that school was out made him quicken his pace up the hill. The village school was the last building before the two chapels. As he approached he noticed that Rev. Powell-Jones was busy putting a new text on the billboard outside Chapel Beulah. It read, “Many are called but few are chosen.” Evan grinned and looked expectantly at the rival billboard across the street. Rev. Parry Davies had chosen for his weekly text, “Go out into the highways and byways and bring the people in, that my house may be filled.”

Obviously Rev. Powell-Jones had found out about the van!

The school house was divided into classroom and teacher’s living quarters. Smoke was coming from Bronwen’s chimney. The last hollyhocks were still in bloom outside its windows and it looked cozy and inviting. But before he was halfway across the playground, the door opened and Bronwen came out. She stopped short when she saw Evan.

“Hello, were you on your way to see me? Is something wrong?”

“Not anymore.” Evan stood there looking at her, enjoying the way the wind blew wisps of sun-streaked hair across her face and how her eyes crinkled when she smiled. “I’ve had a rotten day so far. I needed a sanity break, Bron.”

Her face fell. “Well, actually I was on my way out. I was going to catch the four o’clock bus down to Caernarfon. I’m signing up for the French cooking class and my kitchen is woefully lacking implements.”

“You’re doing the French cooking class, too?” Evan grinned. “So’s Mrs. Williams.”

“And half the village by the sound of it,” Bronwen said. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to take lessons from someone who trained at the Cordon Bleu school in Paris—and so cheap, too.”

“I wonder what made her come here, if she’s as highly qualified as she says?”