by Rhys Bowen
“You’re not going to kill me, Michael,” she yelled. “Not like you killed Rebecca. She warned me, you know. You didn’t think I was really psychic, did you? But she came up from the bottom of the sea and warned me. Why did you kill her, Michael?”
“I had to. She realized the truth about Kathy. She wanted me to turn myself in—stupid cow!” Michael slithered to his feet and made a lunge for her. “It won’t help you, you know. I’m still stronger than you.”
The boat was leaning heavily to starboard. Betsy took a calculated risk. She flung herself toward the boom and pulled it downward, so that it had her weight and Michael’s on it.
“What are you doing, you idiot!” he shouted as the boat teetered and then capsized.
Chapter 25
Michael Hollister clung to the swaying channel marker, his arms wrapped around it for dear life. “Help me!” he shouted again.
Evan brought the dinghy nearer. “Where’s Betsy?” he demanded. “What have you done with her?”
“Betsy? What are you talking about? I’ve no idea where Betsy is. I was sailing alone—just get me off here.”
“What happened to your boat?”
“It capsized. Freak wind.”
“I thought you were supposed to be a good sailor.”
“I am. A bloody good sailor.”
“Who lets his boat capsize? How far away?”
“Out there, somewhere. I grabbed onto the top of an ice chest and the current brought me this far.”
“I’m asking you again—what happened to Betsy? You’re not getting off that buoy until you tell me.”
“She—she went down with the boat. I’m sorry. Freak accident. I’m not the greatest swimmer. There was nothing I could do.”
“Like hell there was,” Evan said. “Just like there was nothing you could do when you killed Kathy Sparks and Rebecca? Did you throw both of them over the side? Convenient way of getting rid of somebody, isn’t it? It’s no good denying it, Michael. The police know everything.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” Michael started to cry. “How was I to know? She’d had sex with plenty of other blokes—I I didn’t think she’d mind. She said she’d report me for rape, so what else could I do?”
“And Rebecca? Did you have to kill her too?” Evan shouted.
“Rebecca started following me around. I think she was keen on me at first. But then she began to put two and two together. Now get me off this bloody thing. I can’t hold on much longer.”
“When I’ve found Betsy,” Evan yelled. “Now where did the damned boat capsize?”
“I told you, it’s too late. I saw no sign of her in the water when I swam away.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll go home and forget I ever saw you,” Evan roared. “If you ever want to get off that buoy, you’ll tell me exactly where it is.”
“Sort of due southwest from here. It can’t be too far. I’m not a strong swimmer.”
Evan gunned the motor, leaving Michael yelling after him. “Don’t leave me. I can help you find it. I can’t hold on much longer!”
There was more of a swell now. The little dinghy rose and fell as it cut through the waves. Spray splashed into Evan’s face and his wet clothing clung to him. His hands were stinging like crazy. He was shivering, though, more with fear than with cold. How would he find her out here? How would he ever spot the hull of a capsized boat, if it hadn’t sunk completely by now? Betsy! He felt tears warm on his cheeks. He should have done more to protect her. He should have forbidden her to go to the Sacred Grove again. He stood up in the bobbing boat, scanning the sea for anything that could be a body. Then he saw it—the upturned hull of a small boat.
He made for it, his heart racing.
“Betsy!” he yelled. “Betsy? Can you hear me?”
Then a small white hand rose from behind the boat. She was clinging to the rudder, her arms wrapped around it, looking like a small, lost mermaid. Her face broke into a big smile when she saw him.
“I’m glad you got here, Evan,” she managed to croak. “I couldn’t have held on much longer.”
It took him a while to haul her into the dinghy. She slithered to the floor and collapsed, coughing and gasping. “Michael,” she managed to say. “It was Michael. He was going to kill me. I had to capsize the boat. It was the only thing I could think of doing.”
“It was bloody brilliant,” Evan said.
“I don’t know what happened to him. I ducked under the boat and stayed there. I thought he might give up looking for me and think I’d drowned. I suppose he must have drowned by now.”
“He was alive when I last left him clinging to a channel marker,” Evan said. “We’ll go in to Porthmadog and get the police launch to pick him up.”
“How could I have been so stupid?” Betsy sat hugging her knees to herself. “I thought he was the one person I could trust, but he killed Rebecca.”
“How did you find out?” Evan asked.
“She told me.”
“What? When?”
“I saw her, Evan. She came up through the water and she told me who she was. That’s when I realized she was warning me.” She looked up, her face alight with excitement. “Oh my gosh, you know what that means, don’t you? I really am psychic after all. That’s why I dreamed about the right cave. I really do have powers.”
“Is this the way you take it easy when you’re given the day off?” Sergeant Watkins stormed into police headquarters, followed by Glynis Davies.
“We went to the Sacred Grove—the whole place is in an uproar. Rhiannon called us,” she said.
“And we’ve got Michael Hollister in custody,” Watkins added. “He’s blubbering like a baby, asking for his mother.”
“His mother suspected him all along, can you believe that?” Glynis demanded. “She brought him home from Oxford because of another missing girl. She said she couldn’t turn him in—her own flesh and blood.”
“And then he went and killed her husband,” Watkins added.
“Do we know why he killed Randy?” Evan asked. “Was it just to get him out of his mother’s life?”
“No, he had a better reason than that. Randy saw him going out on the sailing boat with Rebecca. When you came showing pictures, he remembered and questioned Michael about it. So he had to go. Luckily, Michael has a good brain. He overheard Randy extolling the virtues of the cave he’d just discovered on his jogs. The rest was easy.”
“And he established the perfect alibi for himself too,” Evan added. “I only realized afterward how easy it was to cut across country to the point.”
“Ah, so that’s how he did it,” Glynis said. “His mother was still swearing that he couldn’t have killed Randy because he was in Porthmadog all afternoon.”
“Some family,” Evan commented.
“Yes, so much for the aristocracy,” Watkins agreed. “Too much inbreeding, I suppose.”
Evan sighed. “In a way I can’t help feeling sorry for that boy. Abandoned by his mother when he was little more than a baby.”
“Don’t start on that,” Watkins said. “The psychiatrists will have a field day trying to prove that he was a product of his unhappy childhood. I didn’t have the best childhood but I don’t go around killing people.”
Evan smiled.
“She’s a plucky kid, young Betsy, isn’t she?” Watkins went on. “Kept her head out there in the boat.”
“Yes, she’s something else,” Evan said.
“She told me she only kept going to work at the Sacred Grove because she wanted to help you,” Glynis commented, watching Evan start to blush.
“Well, she does sort of—” he was about to say, “fancy me,” when Watkins finished the sentence.
“She said you were being so clueless that somebody had to get to the bottom of things.” He looked at Glynis and they started laughing. He pulled up a chair and sat beside Evan. “But I think I’ll keep that remark to myself when I put in my recommendation to Colwyn Bay.”
“W
hat recommendation?” Evan asked.
“For you to fill the vacancy in the department. Now that I’m being promoted, I’m hopeful we can take on an extra trainee.”
“I hope you get it,” Glynis said. “I really like working with you.”
“That’s great.” Evan nodded as he got to his feet, digesting this information. “Thanks, Sarge—oh, and I can’t call you Sarge anymore now, can I? What do I call you instead?”
“God will do,” Watkins said. “Or sir. Your honor. Your worshipfulness …” He laughed as Evan gave a mock bow.
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
“Yes, you were told to stay home and rest, not shred your hands to pieces out in the ocean. Now go home and stay there, or I’ll tear up my recommendation.”
“I’ve got to see Bronwen first. I haven’t been able to see her since they took her into hospital. I don’t even know how she’s doing. She’ll think I don’t care.”
“Go on then. Off you go,” Watkins said.
“Good luck, Evan,” Glynis called after him. “And if she thinks you’ve been ignoring her, I’ll come and tell her that you’ve been heroic again.”
“No, don’t do that!” Evan could just picture Bronwen’s reaction to the gorgeous Glynis. If he got the transfer to CID, Bron would have to get used to his working with Glynis, but she’d have to get her strength back first.
The ward sister was nowhere to be seen when Evan arrived at the hospital. He went down the ward, looking for Bronwen, then stopped when he came to an empty, made-up bed. It had Bronwen’s chart at the end of it. His heart did a complete flip-flop.
“What happened to this patient?” he yelled at a nurse who passed the ward.
“Miss Price? She’s getting ready to go home,” the nurse called back, “and don’t yell. You’ll have Sister in here.”
He turned around and there was Bronwen, still looking very frail and white, coming into the ward in her street clothes.
“Bron, you’re okay!” He ran to embrace her.
“More than I can say for you,” she said, turning her cheek as he went to kiss her. “What happened to you?”
“I got my hands burned yesterday and I fell into the ocean today. Apart from that I’m fine.”
“I leave you alone for two days and you nearly destroy yourself,” she said. She looked up at him tenderly and she was smiling.
“Bron, I’m so sorry about what happened. I’ve been going out of my mind with worry. I tried to see you but they wouldn’t let me.”
“I know. The nurses told me. And it’s I who should be sorry. I suppose it was because I was so weak and dehydrated that I flew off the handle like that. I should have known better. As if you would have jumped straight into bed with Betsy the moment I wasn’t around.”
“I did spend the night with Betsy,” he said, watching the reaction on her face. “She came to me in a terrible state. I couldn’t send her home again in the middle of that storm, could I? But you don’t have to worry. Nothing happened.” Almost nothing, he corrected himself mentally. He had kissed Betsy, after all, and he had been tempted. Still, he was only human … .
“I’m really sorry, Evan,” Bronwen said again.
Evan slipped his arms tightly around her. “We have to trust each other if we’re going to have any kind of life together.”
“Who said anything about life together?” Bronwen asked, looking up at him with serious blue eyes.
“It’s about time we started thinking about it,” Evan said.
“So what exactly are you suggesting?”
“I want you to marry me. You know that.”
“No,” she said shakily. “I never really knew that before. You never asked me.”
“I’m asking you now.” He took her hands tenderly into his and was about to drop to one knee.
“Bedpan, nurse,” came a petulant voice from the far end of the ward.
Bronwen looked at Evan and laughed. “Hardly the most romantic proposal I’ve had in my life.”
“Let us both get better and then I’ll do it properly, all right?”
“I don’t need it done properly. I’ve wanted to marry you since the first moment I set eyes on you,” she said. “Which is more than you can say for me, I think.”
“Miss Price, haven’t you gone yet?” The ward sister appeared at the door. “The ambulance is waiting to take you home.”
“Miss Price is coming with me,” Evan said firmly. He put his arm around Bronwen and led her out of the door.
“You don’t have your motorbike, do you? I don’t think I’m up to riding pillion yet.”
“No, just the old bone-shaker, but I think it will get us back up the hill.”
“Talking of hills,” Bronwen said as he opened the car door and helped her in. “They found out what was wrong with me at last. It was Giardia—you know, a microbe you can pick up through drinking in mountain streams. I must have picked it up on that hike I did the weekend you were working.”
“That will serve you right for going hiking without me.” He grinned, then grew serious again. “Thank heavens they found that out. I was so worried.” He climbed in beside her. “I thought all kinds of things, ranging from terminal illnesses to Betsy poisoning you.”
“Betsy poisoning me?” She looked amused. “Well, I suppose she is resourceful.”
“You have no idea how resourceful,” Evan said and told her of the last few days.
“She sounds like an ideal policeman’s wife,” Bronwen said. “Maybe you’d better marry her instead.”
“Oh, no.” He smiled at her. “I couldn’t risk having a psychic wife. She’d be able to spy on me when I was out interviewing beautiful women and—ow, don’t hit me, I’m wounded!”
Bronwen laughed as Evan swung the car up the mountain pass that led home.
The next week a large banner appeared outside the Red Dragon. “Grand Celebration of Kitchen Reopening. Welcome Back Betsy Party. Free beer to all locals on Friday Night.”
“Harry must be very glad to get her back,” Roberts-the-Pump commented to Evan, “to make that old skinflint give away more than one pint of beer.”
“Perhaps it’s South Wales beer,” Evans-the-Meat commented, “and he can’t find a way to get rid of it!”
Evan was about to continue up the street on his evening beat when he heard his name and Mrs. Powell-Jones came running toward him. “Good news, Constable Evans,” she called. “That heathen establishment has been closed down. I read it in the paper. We have taken on the devil and we have won.” She beamed at him. “Now do you believe in the power of the righteous?”
She strode up the middle of the street, back toward Capel Beulah, singing, “Fight the good fight with all thy might.” at the top of her voice. Suddenly there was a loud pop-popping noise and a motorbike came speeding down the hill at great speed, with Evans-the-Post hanging on for dear life.
“Out of the way!” he yelled.
Mrs. Powell-Jones gave a high-pitched scream that echoed from the hilltops as she flung herself to one side and the bike passed her by inches.
Glossary of Welsh Words
Cannwyll Corff —candle of death, pronounced canwheel corf.
Cwm Rhondda —the Rhondda Valley, place and title of hymn tune. Pronounced Coom Rontha.
Derin Corff —bird of death, pronounced as written.
Diolch yn fawr— thank you very much. Pronounced dee-olch en vower.
Escob annwyl— literally, “dear bishop.” Good heavens! Pronounced escobe ann-wheel.
Iyched da — good health, cheers, pronounced yachy dah.
Llanfair —name of Welsh town, pronounced Chlan-veyer.
Maredudd ap Owain —pronounced like the modern spelling of the name, Meredith Bowen.
Nain —grandmother, pronounced nine.
Or gore —all right. Pronounced or goray.
Plisman —Welsh spelling of policeman.
Ysgol gyfun —Welsh secondary school. Pronounced u-skol guffin.
Note: There are many towns in Wales called Llanfair, including the town with the longest name in Britain. My Llanfair is fictitious. I chose the name because it is so generic.
This book is dedicated to my many friends in the mystery community, with special thanks, for their support and encouragement, to certain ladies known to drink a lot of tea, tell dubious jokes, wear purple thingies, and give great hugs.
And with thanks, as always, to John, Clare, and Jane—my wonderful family critique group.
The spectacular property called Portmerion, which was the inspiration for the Sacred Grove in this book, has been many things during its existence, ranging from private home to set for the BBC’s cult classic The Prisoner to fabulous hotel. It has never been, and probably never will be, a New Age center or Druid temple.
The book The Way of the Druid only exists in my imagination. The information it contains was gleaned from various books and Web sites on Druidism, to which Rhiannon’s own brand of creativity has been added. It is therefore not to be considered accurate.
Also by Rhys Bowen
The Constable Evans Mysteries
Evan Can Wait
Evan and Elle
Evan Help Us
Evans Above
Evanly Choirs
The Molly Murphy Mysteries
Murphy’s Law
EVANS TO BETSY. Copyright © 2002 by Rhys Bowen. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
eISBN 9781429968201
