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Authors: Rhys Bowen

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BOOK: Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery
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Classical music was playing on the radio. She hadn’t heard him come in. Evan began to back away. All he wanted to do now was to get out without being seen. But a gust of wind swirled in from the open door, sending the candle flames flickering.
Bronwen spun around and Edward looked up at the same time. For a second her eyes met Evan’s. He turned away and hurried out into the night.
“Evan!” She shouted his name as he strode across the playground. “Evan, wait, don’t go, please!”
He reached the gate and pushed it open. He heard the sound of her light footsteps echoing over the concrete behind him. “Evan, please, wait!” she shouted again.
He slipped through the gate and out into the street as she caught up with him, breathing hard from her sprint. “Don’t go, please.” She grabbed at his sleeve.
“You want me to stay and watch?” he demanded, finding it hard to get the words out.
“It wasn’t the way it looked,” she said. “I was just comforting him.”
“Oh yes? Is that what it was?”
“You don’t understand.” Her eyes were pleading.
“No, no, I don’t understand.”
“Please come back inside and I’ll explain. Edward came to me because he was desperate and he had nowhere else to turn.”
Her breath came out as puffs of smoke, like a dragon’s, and hung in the cold night air. Mist swirled around them. Evan shivered. Bronwen was hugging her arms around herself now.
“Evan, Edward is terrified they’ll think he killed Grantley. It looks really bad for him. Please come back and say you’ll help him.”
“You want me to help Edward Ferrers?”
“At least listen to his side. I know it sounds bad, but let him explain.”
“You mean because he and Grantley had an argument in public before he disappeared? Lots of people get into disagreements. That doesn’t mean they end up killing each other.”
“It’s worse than that.” Bronwen was still hugging her arms to herself, rocking in the cold. Evan wanted to comfort her and put his arms around her, but he couldn’t make the move. She looked up at him with big, hopeless eyes. “You know I told you that Edward left me for someone else?” She was chewing on her lip, like a little child. “He left me for Grantley.”
He hadn’t been expecting this. It had never crossed his mind and it hit him like an unforeseen left hook. “Grantley? You’re saying he and Edward? And yet you married him?”
Bronwen shrugged. “I was terribly naive, I suppose. We both were. I don’t think Edward even realized he was gay until Grantley—I knew that our marriage was never great, but I thought that had to be something to do with me. That I wasn’t sexy enough maybe.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’d say that,” Evan said before he remembered, and Bronwen managed a weak smile. “But I thought that Grantley and Sandie … .”
“She probably thought so too,” Bronwen answered. “Grantley was good at giving someone just enough encouragement to get what he wanted. He wouldn’t have minded flirting with Sandie to make sure he got a willing slave. He did that with me for long enough.”
Evan began to feel that he had stepped into an empty lift shaft and was just gathering speed. “You’re telling me that you and Grantley?”
“I was madly in love with him all through Uni. I used to do his washing, mend his socks, help him with his papers. He used me. I saw that later.”
“And you never caught on that he was gay either?”
“I know I sound completely stupid, but in Grantley’s case I think he’s a genuine AC/DC. I don’t think he actually finds women unattractive. Found.” She corrected herself. “I mean, found. I can’t believe he’s dead. I’d no idea it would affect me like this, after all this time … .”
Her voice wavered and she hugged herself more tightly. “I suppose that makes me a suspect too, doesn’t it? I have no alibi for yesterday morning. I was out and about shopping in Bangor.”
“I don’t think you’d be my primary suspect at the moment,” Evan said, trying to mask the tenderness he felt. “It would have had to be someone pretty strong to strangle a man and then throw his body into that pool. You’d have needed a strong accomplice.” He forced himself to stop thinking what came into his mind: Edward was big and strong enough. Bronwen and Edward, teaming up to get rid of Grantley? Absurd. Bronwen would never harm anyone. She looked so frail, so vulnerable, standing there in her light sweater, with the mist swirling about her, hugging her arms to herself.
“You’d better get back inside,” he said. “You’ll catch cold out here.”
She nodded. “Won’t you come back inside with me and talk to Edward? Please?”
He had to force his mouth to form the words. “All right,” he said.
She spun and hurried ahead of him to the open front door. Evan followed, still feeling that he hadn’t yet reached the bottom of that lift shaft. This was Bronwen, Bronwen that he had thought he knew and loved, and yet she had been in love with
Edward Ferrers and with Grantley Smith. Had she and Grantley been lovers, too? He couldn’t bear to think about it.
Edward was sitting by the fire in Bronwen’s armchair, staring into the flames. He got to his feet as Evan came in.
“It’s very good of you,” he muttered. “You see, I know they’re going to come back and ask me more questions and I really don’t have an alibi and it will look as though—” He ran his hands through his thick wiry hair. “Oh my God. They’re going to think that I did it. I know they are.”
“Why are you so sure of that?” Evan asked.
“Because we had a horrible, flaming row in public. People will have overheard what we said.”
“And what did you say?”
“Among other things I think I told him that he’d better stay away from me or I’d break his bloody neck.”
Evan pulled over one of Bronwen’s kitchen stools and perched on it. Without being asked, Bronwen poured a glass of red wine and handed it to him. “Here, drink that.”
“Thanks.” He took a sip. “Okay, Edward, so you had an argument in the street and you exchanged some heated words. Were you really fighting about the film?”
“To begin with, yes. I thought all of this business of the mine was a silly waste of time. First the train, then the mine. Grantley had the attention span of a small child. He was always being distracted and dropping one toy for a bigger and better one. He was all excited about this mine business. I reminded him that he wouldn’t have a job at all if it hadn’t been for my involvement and my money. That’s when he got very upset.” He looked across at Bronwen. “Bronwen told you about us, did she? We fought a lot over money. He was unemployed; I had a good job, you see. Grantley hated being dependent, but at the same time he wasn’t above spending my salary without telling me. It was one of the reasons we split up.”
“When was this?”
“Right before we came here. We had just broken up. Grantley
moved his stuff out of my place the night before we left on this little jaunt. That’s why it’s going to look so bad for me.”
“I see.” Evan took another sip of wine. “So go on about the fight.”
“Grantley got upset when I mentioned that it was my money that was funding it. He told me what I could do with my bloody plane. He’d make his own movie. He didn’t need me anymore. He’d got something much better.”
“Which was what? The pictures in the slate mine story?”
Edward shrugged. “I presumed that was it. But it could be something quite different again. I know he made a lot of phone calls the day before. Maybe he’d come up with a new story entirely. That would have been like him.”
“Edward.” Evan paused. “Have you any idea what would have made Grantley go down that mine on his own—to find a back door and break in, when he was about to go down with the caretaker later that morning?”
“I have no idea at all. He didn’t mention wanting to go down alone. All he told me was that he was meeting this chap who was going to give him a tour. Mind you, we hadn’t exactly been in a very sharing mood. We hardly said a word to each other unless we had to.”
“So why didn’t he just drive up alone? Why bring you along?”
“That was me, I’m afraid, being petty. He asked to borrow the Land Rover. I told him it was mine—lent to me specifically. I was afraid he’d take it for the whole day if I let it out of my sight and I didn’t want that to happen. So I said I’d drive him.”
“So you fought and then what happened? You drove back alone?”
Edward studied his hands again. “No. I took a taxi. He kept the vehicle.”
“Why didn’t you drive back in the Land Rover?”
“I wasn’t quick enough.” Edward blushed. “We parted company with a few last hurled insults. I told him to go to hell. He wished me the same. Then he ran to my Land Rover, jumped
in, and drove off before I could stop him. I had to get a taxi home.” He looked up at Evan. “It doesn’t look good for me, does it? People will have heard what I said. And the police will find out about us, and that we just broke up.”
“No,” Evan said. “It doesn’t look good. But if you really didn’t kill Grantley, then you don’t have to worry. We’ll find the person who did.”
“But they’re always picking on the wrong person.” Edward sounded close to panic. “You read about it all the time in the papers—how some poor sod spends years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Bronwen put her hand on his shoulder. “But you’ve got Evan on your side,” she said. “He’s the best. If anyone can find out who really did it, he can.”
“But he’s only a P.C.,” Edward said, glancing at Evan. “No offense, but I don’t think you’ll have too much say in a murder investigation, will you?”
This was his way out, Evan thought. He could say, “You’re right. I’d be no help at all in a murder investigation. I’m just a village constable, nothing more.”
But Bronwen reached out at that moment and laid her hand on his. “Evan will get to the truth for you—won’t you, Evan?”
And he heard himself mutter, “I’ll do what I can.”
Ginger had never taken much interest in my work before, apart from telling me that I tasted of slate and needed a bath. “I don’t know why you put up with it, Tref, I really don’t,” she used to tell me. “I wouldn’t do anything I didn’t like.”
“What else could I do?” I asked her.
She laughed. “There’s a war on. There’s labor shortages all over. A girl I work with at the convalescent home, her boyfriend got a job driving lorries down to London. Sometimes it’s sheep and sometimes it’s butter or produce. Either way, they don’t count too exactly and nobody notices if a pound or so of butter goes missing.”
“I don’t know how to drive, do I?” I said. “And no chance to learn either. Who do I know with a car?”
She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “You’re a defeatist, Trefor Thomas. When I want to do something, I find a way to do it. Like dancing lessons—there’s this bloke at the convalescent home who used to be a ballroom dancing instructor before the war. He’s been teaching me to tango. Lovely, it is.
”
I shook her hands from my shoulders. “I told you, I don’t want you mixing with those servicemen, and I certainly don’t want you dancing with one of them.”
She looked at my angry face and started laughing. “If you could only see us, Tref. He’s in a wheelchair, you dope. Had his legs shot
off, didn’t he? He tells me the steps and I dance with his wheelchair. It’s a riot. We have good laughs.” She moved closer to me. “And I’m doing it for us, aren’t I? For our future. How am I going to get a job in films if I can’t do all the latest dance steps?”
“Well, I don’t want you dancing with any man with legs,” I said.
For some reason she thought this was awfully funny. “I could dance with you,”she said, moving very close to me. “You’ve got legs, and everything else that matters, too. I could teach you the tango. It’s ever so romantic. You press your body against mine, like this, and our lips are only this far apart, and then we start to sway, like this … .
”
She was driving me insane. I could feel the points of her nipples digging into my chest and she was thrusting her leg between mine as we moved. I tried to kiss her but she broke away, laughing. “It’s a dance, Tref. Don’t get carried away.”
“Come on, Ginger, stop teasing. Do you know I’ve been alone all week down that blasted mine, thinking about you?”
“Oh poor sweetie-pie, honey lamb.” She turned her face up and kissed me. “You know, Tref, I’ve been thinking about those paintings.”
“My paintings, you mean? I haven’t had time recently … . .”
“Not yours, you dope. The famous paintings down your mine. It was Pamela’s boyfriend got me thinking—the way he said he could nick a pound or so of butter and they never noticed. If you could slip out with one of those famous paintings under your shirt, we’d be made for life.”
I laughed. “Oh yes. No problem about that. Only alarms on all the sheds and a guard at the door, too.”
“Pity it’s not me down there. I always find a way to get what I want. You would too if you wanted it bad enough.”
In his dream he was drowning in deep, cold water. He could feel it pressing down on him, meters of water over his head. He fought his way to the surface, but as he came up, he saw that
someone else was above him, kicking and thrashing and preventing his escape. Through the water he could see Bronwen standing on the shore. He tried to shout her name but no sound would come out. He tried reaching out his hand to her. Help me, Bron, I’m under here. But when she reached out her hand, it was to the thrashing man above him, not to Evan at all.
“Up early and off to work again, is it, Mr. Evans?” Mrs. Williams greeted him as he came into the kitchen on Monday morning. “And they had you on duty all weekend, didn’t they? No wonder they’re finding it hard to get good men to join the police. I’d like to give them a piece of my mind. Working you to the bone like this.” She poured boiling water into the teapot, then placed a red knitted tea cozy over it. “You’re looking peeky, too.”
“I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“I’m not surprised, all the things you go through.” She leaned closer to Evan. “It’s true what they’re saying then, is it? That they found that poor man drowned down a mine in Blenau? I heard about it last night and I’ve been feeling so guilty.”
“Why would you feel guilty, Mrs. Williams?”
“Well, it was me told him about it, wasn’t it—that day you brought him to see me? If he hadn’t talked to me, he’d never have known about the mines and he’d never have gone there and got himself drowned.” She took out a handkerchief and held it up to her eyes. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
Evan patted her shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault in any way. You wouldn’t feel guilty if you’d told someone the way to Beddgelert and then he got himself in a traffic accident, would you?”
She managed a watery smile. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t. But what a week of tragedies this has turned out to be. First poor old Mr. James dying, and then the young man.”
“Mr. James-Fron-Heulog? He died, did he?”
Mrs. Williams nodded. “Oh yes. He didn’t last the night after his heart attack. Such a terrible shame. A nice God-fearing chapel
man if ever there was one. You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, I know, but that young man ought never to have stirred up the past—bringing that woman there. Like I said, no good ever comes of it. Look where he is now. Look where both of them are now, God rest their poor souls.”
Evan was staring thoughtfully at the mist swirling past the window. So Mr. James had died. His son had been pretty upset before—had the news of his father’s death been enough to make him go after Grantley? Evan remembered Betsy saying that a man had come into the pub asking for Grantley Smith. A farmer, Harry-the-Pub thought, from Dolwyddelan?
Evan turned back to Mrs. Williams. “Does the Jameses’ son live at Fron Heulog with them?”
“Oh no, he has his own property. He used to come over and help his folks out when they needed it, with the lambing and shearing, you know, but he didn’t live with them. He married a girl from over Dolwyddelan way and they inherited the place from her father.”
“Dolwyddelan? Do you know the name of it?”
“I can’t say that I do. But you can’t miss it. If you’re on the road between Dolwyddelan and Blenau, you’ll see fields of sheep on the right, where the railway goes through. And a pretty white farmhouse not too far from the train lines. Right after the road dips down from Blenau. That’s them.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Williams. Most helpful.” Evan got up.
“You’re not going out before your breakfast?” she asked. “I was going to do kippers for you this morning.”
“I don’t think I’ve got time for kippers,” Evan said. “I will have a cup of tea, though, and maybe some toast with your homemade marmalade.”
“Just as you like, Mr. Evans. Coming right up then.” She poured him a cup of tea. Evan sipped at it, putting his thoughts in order. He remembered that Robert James had put his hands around Grantley’s throat and had to be dragged away. A man for whom violence came naturally. And then he had called in
obvious distress when his father was admitted to the hospital. And he lived only a stone’s throw from Blenau. He might easily have spotted Grantley Smith there and followed him to the mine.
This was a definite lead that he and Watkins should look into when they started the investigation today.
He gulped down a slice of toast, then hurried up the hill to the Everest Inn. He had been all business when he left the house, but as he drew level with the school, a bleak depression swept over him again. He had promised Bron that he’d help Edward Ferrers. Given his word. He had never wanted to do anything less in his life. For one thing, he wasn’t at all sure that Edward Ferrers was innocent. He had the classic two “m’s”—means and motive. What better way of claiming innocence than playing on the sympathy of someone as sensitive as Bronwen, and through her, getting the local copper onto his side.
Evan paused and stared across the empty schoolyard, his mind still racing. If he actually managed to prove that Edward didn’t kill Grantley, what then? Might Edward want to come back into Bronwen’s life?
“Blast and damn the lot of them,” he muttered. Now it looked as if he was going to be part of another murder investigation. He had half expected Sergeant Watkins to call him at home with the latest news, telling him where to meet, but Watkins would definitely show up at the Inn sometime during the morning, probably with the results of the postmortem. Evan expected that Detective Inspector Hughes would be with him. He wasn’t looking forward to that encounter and he doubted that D.I. Hughes would be too thrilled to see him either. He suspected that the D.I. saw him as something of a smart alec who always seemed to be poking his nose into murder cases.
Evan smiled to himself as he reached the gateway to the Inn. Lucky that he had been assigned to assist the filmmakers by his own chief inspector. So this time he had a legitimate reason for being on the spot. D.I. Hughes might even welcome his help.
After all, he was the only policeman who had been on the spot from the beginning and who knew all the details.
Evan reached the Inn and went inside. No sign of a police car in the parking lot. Also no sign of any of the film people in the dining room. He didn’t blame them. He would be dreading today if he were in their shoes. It crossed his mind to call Edward Ferrers’s room and find out if he came home last night. Then he decided he’d rather not know.
It wasn’t until about ten o’clock that Sergeant Watkins showed up at the Inn. By that time, Edward, Howard, and Sandie had surfaced and were now sitting drinking coffee, discussing what they should do next. Edward was the only one who felt that they should go on with their work immediately. “I’ll have to let the salvage crew go in a couple of days. We’ll have run out of money, and you won’t get paid, Howard, if we don’t have a product to sell.”
Howard reached forward for his coffee cup and drained the dregs. “To tell you the truth, Ed, I’d just as soon be on a plane back to California at this moment. The sooner the better for me. I was only doing this as a favor to young Grantley and now he’s gone … .” He let the rest of the sentence hang in the air.
Evan, sitting alone behind the morning paper, glanced at Howard. So Howard was anxious to leave as soon as possible, was he? Anxious to get out of the country and far away from the scene of the crime, maybe? Evan remembered Howard’s reaction the day before. What had made him think that Grantley’s death might be due to an overdose? Did he know something that Evan didn’t, or was that deliberately planted to disconnect himself from any suspicion?
“Well, I think we should finish the picture in his memory,” Sandie said. “It’s what he would have wanted. And it’s not as if Howard couldn’t do it without him, is it, Howard?”
“Honey, I’ve directed a cast of thousands, as they say,” Howard said. “That’s not the point. The point is, will the movie be
worth finishing? So far we’ve got a couple of interviews and a sunken plane. Not the stuff that epics are made of.”
“It will be exciting when it comes to the surface, Howard. You’ll see. Especially if those German flyers are still in their seats, as the cameras have indicated.”
Evan looked up again. The old German—they had all forgotten about him. He’d been very angry that day. In fact, he’d told Grantley that he’d stop him at any cost. And he looked very fit and agile for an elderly man. Could he have been staying nearby, possibly spotted Grantley going down the mine, and seized his chance? Another suspect to discuss with Watkins when he got here.
Just as his gaze went to the door, it opened and Sergeant Watkins came in. It must have started raining because his collar was turned up and his head and shoulders were wet. “Ah, there you all are.” Watkins nodded and headed toward the group at the table. “The inspector is just finishing up his notes in the car. He’ll be right in to talk to you.”
Evan put down his paper and went over to Watkins. “’Morning, Sarge. I was waiting for you to call. Did you get the results of the PM?”
Watkins nodded. “Yeah. Clear case of strangling. The hyoid bone was broken and there was quite a bit of internal bleeding of the neck muscles. Must have been a strong bloke. Did it with his bare hands.” For some reason, Watkins was uneasy. He was shifting from foot to foot and kept glancing back at the door.
BOOK: Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery
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