Read Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery Online

Authors: Rhys Bowen

Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery (11 page)

BOOK: Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery
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“Raw old day, isn’t it?” Mr. Prys said.
Evan nodded. “We came up here a few days ago when I took Grantley Smith to see Trefor Thomas. You know him, of course?”
“Everybody knows old Tref,” Eleri Prys said. “Poor old bloke. I don’t suppose you got much out of him. His mind’s gone, hasn’t it? That son of his has to look after him like a baby. Wonderful with him, so I hear.”
“What did you go and see him for?” Meirion asked.
“He used to work in the mine,” Evan said. “He was there when they built the sheds for the pictures and Grantley thought he’d be good to talk to, because he was quite an artist himself.”
“Old Tref was?” Eleri asked.
“Yes, I heard that, too.” Meirion nodded. “When he was a young man, anyway. I never saw anything he painted.”
They reached the mine entrance. Eleri Prys unlocked the gate and led them up a path made of crushed slate, between slag heaps of slate to a hole in the mountainside. An iron grille now blocked the opening. It was secured with a large rusty padlock. Above it a rusted sign warned: “DANGER. PRIVATE PROPERTY. Vandals and Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” If it had stated, “Go back. You have been warned,” it could not have been more forbidding.
“There you are,” Eleri Prys said. “Just as I left it.”
Evan was searching the ground for signs that the padlock might have been opened recently. But he couldn’t detect any flakes of rust lying on the slate.
“You’re right,” he said. “It doesn’t look as though anyone’s been here. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“That’s all right.” Eleri Prys managed a smile. “I’m just relieved to find the door still locked. I’d be for it if anyone had got in there.”
“This is definitely the only way in then?” Evan asked. “He couldn’t have found another entrance?”
“No,” Eleri Prys said, then he hesitated. “Well, there was an old emergency exit, in case there was a cave-in or a fire at the front of the mine, but it’s round the other side of the mountain. There’s no way he’d find it. I doubt that I’d even find it now.” He pointed to the scarred cliff face, hidden as it curved away
sharply to the right by a slag heap and a jumble of rocks. “Somewhere behind those rocks, it was. Anyway, it’s locked too if it’s still there.”
“As you say, there’s no way he could just stumble on it then,” Evan said.
Eleri shook his head. “No way at all. It would take a bloodhound to find it these days.”
“Well, it looks like he never came here then,” Meirion Morgan commented. “Unless he was stupid enough to try his hand at a little mountain climbing on those cliffs and he fell.”
Evan stared up at the cliffs, their slate ledges slickened black with recent rain. He was a pretty fair climber and there was no way he’d want to tackle those cliffs. “I can’t think why,” he said. “He didn’t strike me as an outdoor type. And he’d have had no reason … .”
“Fair enough,” Meirion Morgan said. “Well, that’s that then. It looks as though he came here, changed his mind, and went away again.” They walked back down the path with Mr. Prys and parted from him on the High Street.
Meirion turned to Evan. “Where now?”
“I’ve no idea.” Evan stared out across the bleak landscape. “I should call the hotel, just to make sure he hasn’t turned up while I’ve been out here and nobody has bothered to call me. I should call P. C. Roberts in Porthmadog, just to make sure he hasn’t found out anything down there, and then I think I’ve done almost all I can for now. If he isn’t found by tomorrow, I’ll hand it over to the plainclothes boys. He could be anywhere by now.”
“You can use the phone at the police station and then come and have some lunch,” Meirion Morgan said, putting a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I always say there’s nothing like a good meal to help things make sense.”
Evan managed a smile. “And I think I’ll just double-check at the train station and the petrol station, too, and maybe any cafés that are open today. Someone must have seen him after nine o’clock if his car was parked here until midday.”
“You’d certainly have thought so,” Meirion said. “The police station’s down here. I’ll give you the key. Just lock it after you’re finished and then come on up to my place. I live in that row of cottages up there. Number Twenty-one with the red door.”
“Thanks very much,” Evan said. “I’ll see you in a while then.”
“I hope you have some good news soon,” Meirion said. “These bloody Englishmen—always coming here and getting lost, aren’t they?”
Evan laughed. They parted company. Evan let himself into the police station and made his calls. P. C. Roberts had asked questions at local B-and-Bs. He’d asked the worshippers coming out of a nearby chapel. Nobody recognized the photo of Grantley Smith.
Next he called the Everest Inn. Edward Ferrers sounded distraught. “No, we’ve heard nothing,” he snapped. “Didn’t anyone see him park his car? He must have gone on by train somewhere. Have you contacted the police in England? He must have met with some kind of accident.”
Evan felt hopelessly inadequate as he put down the phone. There was nothing he would have liked more than to have looked good to Bronwen’s ex-husband. It would have been so nice to have announced breezily that he’d located Mr. Smith without too much trouble and Mr. Smith was sorry he hadn’t contacted them before. No problem, sir. All part of the job. But instead he had to admit that he was getting nowhere.
He came out of the police station and stood staring down the deserted High Street. Grantley Smith had been here until noon yesterday. Someone must have seen him. He was loud and offensive and looked so distinctive that he must have been noticed. Evan began to walk down one side of the street, showing the photo to everyone he passed. He tried the booking clerk at the train station, the man who pumped the petrol, small boys on bikes, the woman in the Gloch Las Café. The result was the same—after the morning shouting match, nobody had seen Grantley Smith.
Evan paused, watching the clouds building over the coastline. It would rain before long. He stuck his hands in his pockets and started to walk again. Based on what he knew so far, the last person to have been seen interacting with Grantley was the man with whom he quarreled—and that man, from his description, sounded awfully like Edward Ferrers.
Edward Ferrers, who now seemed so completely bewildered and distraught, was the last person who had seen Grantley Smith. Now it appeared that he was also the person who had had a very public fight with Grantley.
Evan continued on down the High Street. What was all this about? Edward sounded and looked genuinely worried, but then Edward had been an actor, hadn’t he? They’d all gone to the Edinburgh fringe with a play when they were at Cambridge. Howard looked sick and scared, too. Sandie was hysterical. Did they all know something that they weren’t telling?
Evan took this one stage further: Was someone trying to do away with Grantley Smith? He had fallen out of a train a few days previously, after all. People didn’t fall out of trains that often. And if the train hadn’t been going so slowly on the steep gradient and Grantley hadn’t rolled into an oak tree, he’d have kept on tumbling down a thousand feet into a ravine. Was it possible that someone had repeated the process, successfully this time?
Evan glanced at his watch. He had time before lunch. He should check the train’s route down the mountain for himself. He went to his car and started back down the mountain, slowing whenever the narrow-gauge railway passed over a road or river
or hugged the edge of a cliff. After a while it became too frustrating. The train tracks hugged the edge of a steep slope almost the whole way down to Porthmadog. You could push someone out and possibly kill them at almost any point along the track. It would take a whole team to search the ravines and gullies for a body.
Evan pulled over to the side of the road beside a noisy mountain stream and sat thinking again. If Grantley even suspected he had been pushed, it had to have been by one of his friends. And he wouldn’t be likely to give anyone a second chance by leaning out again, would he? But was that why he had chosen to disappear? Now that made more sense. Someone he knew—Edward?—had either threatened or tried to kill him. So Grantley had chosen to vanish for his own safety. In which case, nobody was likely to find him in a hurry.
You’re being overdramatic, he told himself. Look at them—pink pudgy Edward, seedy inoffensive Howard, and Sandie, skinny as a rake. Could any of them be a potential killer? It was too absurd to think about. Evan turned the car around and drove back toward Blenau Ffestiniog. A good lunch might well put things in perspective.
As he glanced up at the moors, another thought came to him. It was just possible that Grantley had gone back to visit Trefor Thomas again, maybe to see how he was getting on with his tape recording. He might just have fitted in a visit there before his appointment with the mine caretaker, which would mean after he parted from Edward.
Classical music was playing loudly as Evan knocked on the cottage door. Tudur Thomas opened it, saw Evan, and scowled. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Look you, I don’t think you better see my father again. He’s been quite upset since your visit. He’s a sick old man, you know. He’s been fretting that he’ll get in trouble when the man comes back for his machine because he can’t remember things properly anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Thomas,” Evan said, “but I’ve come here
because Mr. Smith is missing. Did that man I brought to see your father come by yesterday? I just wondered if he came here yesterday.”
“He’d have been out of luck if he had,” Tudur Thomas answered. “We weren’t here. I always drive my dad down to get his pension on Saturday mornings and then we do our shopping at Tesco’s. We were gone all morning.”
“Oh, I see. Well, thanks a lot,” Evan replied.
“Missing, you said.” Tudur Thomas displayed a flicker of interest. “Run off, you mean? Done a bunk?”
“We’re not sure yet,” Evan said. “If he does come back here, please phone me straightaway, won’t you? And give my regards to your father.”
“I will, although he doesn’t know who I am today again. Up and down, like I said, but it’s definitely getting worse. We’ve got an appointment with the Social Services next week—trying to get him into a home. Frankly, he’s getting too much for me.”
Evan nodded. “It can’t be easy for you. And you’ve got your own life.”
Tudur Thomas stared out across the bleak moors. “That’s right. I had quite a nice little life.” He looked up at Evan. “When this Mr. Smith turns up again, tell him he can come and get his tape machine. The old man’s displayed no interest in it whatsoever.”
A mouthwatering smell of roasting leg of lamb greeted Evan as he was shown into Meirion Morgan’s cottage and seated at a white-clothed table.
“A drop of red wine with it?” Meirion asked as Megan passed the gravy boat. “I brought a whole case back with me from our last holiday to France. It’s plonk but it’s not bad. Keep me company.” He pulled the cork with a satisfying
plop.
“Megan won’t. She was raised chapel.”
“So were you,” Megan retorted with a smile. “Only you’ve slipped.”
“I better not, thanks. I’m on duty,” Evan said.
“Go ahead. A little glass won’t hurt you. And it’s supposed to be your day off.”
Evan smiled. “You’re right, and I think I’ve done just about everything I can for now anyway. If Mr. Smith has chosen to vanish for any reason, I’m not likely to find him. I’ll hand it over to the CID, and let them worry about it.”
“Quite right. They’re paid to have the headaches.” Meirion grinned as he poured two glasses of wine. “There you are. Good for the arteries.”
They had finished second helpings of lamb and Megan had just brought in a jam roly-poly and custard when there was a knock at the front door. Meirion got up. “Is it like this for you?” he asked. “Whenever we’re eating, that’s when people always come looking for me.”
“It’s always the same,” Megan muttered to Evan as her husband went to the door. “They never think he deserves any time to himself. It’s like he’s village property.”
They both stopped talking and looked up as Meirion came back into the room with another man. “It’s Mr. Prys,” he said, ushering him in. “He wants a word, Constable Evans.”
“I thought I better come straight away,” Eleri Prys said. He had been wearing a tweed cap. Now he held it in both hands, twisting it nervously. “It might be nothing at all, but … .” He paused and looked from Meirion’s face to Evan’s. “After I left you, I started thinking about that back entrance to the mine and whether anyone could have stumbled on it by mistake. So I went there, just to reassure myself, and I found it without any trouble. In fact, it looks as though the path has been used lately. The brambles have been trodden down. And there used to be a big wooden door across it, all nailed shut. But the wood’s pretty rotten and I tried it—you can force it open now if you really use a little strength. So I wondered if you wanted to come and take a look for yourselves because it’s just possible that your man did find his way in after all.”
Evan looked at Meirion with a sigh and got to his feet. Without a word, Megan swept away their plates to the oven. They hurried to the mine without speaking, then followed Eleri Prys as he picked his way between rocks and slag heaps. If it had once been a path, Evan wouldn’t have known it. It was overgrown with a tangle of dead brambles and stinging nettles.
“See here.” Eleri Prys pointed at the ground. A large foot had recently crushed some dying nettles.
The rockface loomed ahead of them—a wall of gray slate rising sheer above them. “This way,” Eleri Prys said. “Mind your heads.”
He led them under an overhang where a passage was cut into the hillside. A few feet inside, the passage was barred by a heavy wooden door. “See what I mean.” Eleri Prys went up to the door frame and shook it. It wobbled. “You can push this enough for a skinny bloke to squeeze through,” he said, glancing at Evan’s rugby player build. “He’d have to be strong, though. But it’s all right for us. I’ve got the key, if the lock isn’t too rusted.”
He fitted a key into the rusty padlock. It opened with a squeak and the heavy door swung inward at his touch, revealing a square tunnel, a little higher than a man and about as wide. A few feet into the dark passageway, it plunged downward. Eleri Prys switched on the big torch he was carrying and shone it down into the darkness. “If anyone went down here, he couldn’t have gone more than a couple of yards without a torch,” he said. “Did your bloke have a torch with him?”
“I very much doubt it,” Evan said.
“Then he couldn’t have gone far. It’s pitch black after a few yards and those old steps are treacherous. He’d have broken his neck if he tried to go down without light—” He realized what he had just said and looked up at them with a horrified face. “You don’t think that’s what might have happened, do you? He wouldn’t have been daft enough?”
Evan shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense to me. If he was about
to meet you and get a proper tour of the mine, why go ahead on his own like that? What would it achieve?”
“And why risk this dangerous back entrance when the main entrance still has the electricity working?” Eleri Prys stared down into the darkness. “So, do you think we ought to go down and take a look?”
Evan was fighting back the rising dread he felt, looking down into that blackness. He swallowed hard to master himself. “Yes,” he heard himself saying. “I think we probably should.”
“Righto, then. If you gentlemen will wait here, I’ll just pop around to the front entrance and turn on the electricity. They still keep an emergency system with a few lights working—just in case. No sense in risking our bloody necks in the dark, is there?”
He hurried back down the path, leaving Evan and Meirion standing together. Evan tried desperately to think of small talk but nothing would come.
“I can’t say I’m looking forward to this much,” Meirion confided. “I never did like mines. I’m glad I wasn’t born in my father’s time, or I’d have been down there with the rest of them.”
“I don’t like them either,” Evan confessed. “I remember when my school class visited a coal mine. I got in such a panic they had to bring me back to the surface.”
“You don’t really think he went down there, do you?” Meirion peered into the blackness. “Christ, he’d have needed his head examined.”
“He has to be somewhere,” Evan said. “And this is the last place he was seen.”
“In which case how did his car get down to Porthmadog?”
“Good question,” Evan agreed. “Nothing about this makes sense.”
They turned around as they heard the sound of heavy feet trampling the dry undergrowth. “We’re in luck. It’s still working,”
Eleri Prys called as he came toward them. “Come on then, let’s go. Unfortunately, there’s no light until we get close to the bottom of this stair, so watch your step please.”
He started downward, his torch lighting a few steps before them. Evan put his hand on the wall to steady himself as he descended. The rock was cold and damp. He forced his feet downward.
The stairway went on and on. One hundred steps. Two hundred steps. Darkness all around, so thick he could feel it pressing on him. Their feet, echoing in that narrow tunnel, and the light bobbing further and further ahead as Eleri Prys strode confidently down. Evan wished he hadn’t gone last. He was glad that the steps were broken and uneven so that he had to concentrate on where he put his feet.
Then at last a glimmer of light and one anemic bulb lit the final steps before the passageway opened into a black cavern.
“Well, he didn’t fall down the stairs, look you.” Eleri Prys shone the torch around the rocky floor ahead of them. “So either he didn’t come down here or he went on.” His voice now echoed from a high invisible ceiling. “This way leads to the main caverns. There should be some lights working, but watch your heads. It’s low in places.”
They left the echoing space for another square passageway. Evan walked at a crouch as the ceiling was less than five feet high in places.
“They must have been small men in those days,” Meirion commented after he banged his head.
“They didn’t care about the men,” Eleri said. “As long as the passages were big enough to get the slate through. That’s all that mattered, wasn’t it? They had little railcarts going through here. Ah, here we are now.”
They stepped out into what was clearly a vast space. Even though the one light lit only a small area around it, they could sense the openness. When Eleri pointed his torch upward, the beam melted into darkness without hitting the ceiling.
BOOK: Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery
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