Evans Above

by Rhys Bowen

  “I’ll be too busy to think of dancing, Mrs. Williams,” he said quickly. “I heard some of those boys might be trying to smuggle alcohol into the dance. I’m going to have my hands full enough, watching them.”

  Hastily he tucked into the pork sausages before Mrs. Williams could begin her next round of matchmaking.

  After breakfast his uniform pants felt decidedly tight around the waist as he began his morning patrol through the village. Checking out the neighborhood on foot was one of the things he liked about being a village policeman. You just didn’t get that same feel of a place from the interior of a police car. And now it had been proved—there was less crime when areas were patrolled on foot and policemen built up a rapport with the locals. Evan could have told them that when they experimented with centralization a few years ago and closed down all the local stations in favor of cruising police cars. He was glad they’d gone back to village bobbies again.

  It had been raining, but patches of blue peeped out between racing clouds. Llanfair was already awake and busy as Evan came out of Mrs. Williams’ cottage. Evans-the-Milk was making deliveries from his van, and the cheerful clatter of milk bottles echoed back from the valley walls. A tractor rumbled past with two black-and-white sheepdogs running on either side of it and a newborn lamb lying across the farmer’s lap. Front doors were open as housewives beat mats, shook feather dusters, or polished brass door knockers. The women of Llanfair were fierce rivals over who had the shiniest brass on their front doors.

  All the way up the street, Evan was greeted as a hero until his face was hot with embarrassment. He began to think that foot patrols weren’t such a great idea after all.

  The children in the school yard, waiting for the first bell, rushed across to the fence as he passed.

  “Are they going to give you a medal then, Mr. Evans? Did he have a gun? Did he really try to throw Mr. Harris down the mountain? Did you have to fight him?”

  Evan smiled good-naturedly.

  “I saw him, creeping around one night,” little Meryl Hopkins, Charlie’s granddaughter, exclaimed in her high, musical voice.

  “You never did!” The bigger boys looked at her with scorn.

  “I did too,” Meryl insisted. “I looked out of my window and I saw him, creeping around. Very big and scary looking he was! Ugly and creeping like a great monster.”

  “Get away with you! You’re such a liar, Meryl Hopkins,” one of the children said, laughing, and pretty soon they were all teasing her so that she ran away.

  Evan continued on up the street, but he wasn’t smiling. He paused to look at the Hopkins’ cottage. Meryl’s window would look straight into the Powell-Jones’ backyard. So maybe she had been telling the truth after all. And even a skinny little bloke like Dai would seem scary to a child in the shadowy moonlight.

  Evan was tempted to stop by and tell Mrs. Powell-Jones the news, if she hadn’t already heard, but he decided against it. Why spoil a lovely day by talking to Mrs. Powell-Jones if he didn’t have to?

  He got back to his office and had just put the kettle on for a midmorning coffee when his phone rang.

  “Is that the police station?” a man’s voice asked shakily.

  “That’s right. Constable Evans speaking.”

  “Constable Evans, this is Bryan Griffith from the railway in Llanberis.”

  “Oh, right, Mr. Griffith. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s dreadful, Mr. Evans. Something dreadful’s happened,” he said. He pronounced it treadful, just like Mrs. Williams.

  “What is it?”

  “Send someone up here quick! They’ve found another body on the mountain.”

  Chapter 12

  “Damn,” Sergeant Watkins muttered as he stepped off the mountain railway at the summit station to find Evan waiting for him. “I thought we’d got this bloody business all squared away. The stupid bastard confessed! You’re sure this one’s not a real accident?”

  “I don’t think so, sarge,” Evan said grimly. “He’s had his throat cut.”

  “Christ—then maybe this death has nothing to do with the others.”

  “It’s possible,” Evan said. “Although three killings in one week—that’s a little too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  “It does seem like it,” Sergeant Watkins said. “Oh well, let’s take a look at the body.”

  “Okay, sarge, but watch your footing. It’s steep.”

  Evan led him down a narrow path that zigzagged across the cliff face as it dropped toward the small upper lake, Glaslyn.

  “Who found him?” Sergeant Watkins asked.

  “A young climber. He saw the blood, trickling down the rock and went to investigate. If the poor bloke hadn’t bled so much, we might never have found him. The body’s back in a little cave and you don’t even notice the entrance until you’re right on it.”

  “Where’s the chap who found the body? Did you get his particulars?” Watkins asked, picking his way with great caution as showers of pebbles bounced down from his feet and dropped into the lake below.

  “I told him to wait at the snack bar in case you wanted to question him, sarge,” Evan said. “He needed a cup of tea anyway. He was as white as a sheet and I don’t blame him.” He started to clamber across a rocky area of scree and rubble, looking back to make sure Sergeant Watkins was okay.

  “This is the old mine workings, sarge. There used to be a copper mine up here. It’s my guess that this was a tunnel that partially collapsed.”

  At first glance Watkins couldn’t see the cave. A big slab of rock lay across the entrance. But he saw the trickle of blood, coming out from behind the slab and running over the light gray of the granite below it.

  “You didn’t touch anything?” he asked Evans.

  Evan shook his head. “Don’t worry, sarge. I’m not a complete idiot, you know.”

  “I know, but …” Sergeant Watkins began.

  “It only took one look to know he was dead. Then I cleared everybody out of this area and called you.”

  Sergeant Watkins looked back to the two constables he had brought with him. “I want the whole summit area cleared of people, Morgan,” he said. “Send them down on the train and don’t let anybody else up here until we’re done. And get a police cordon around the site.”

  “And you’ll want to stop them coming up the other tracks too,” Evan said. “Not everybody takes the train, you know.”

  “Ah, right,” Sergeant Watkins said as if this had never occurred to him before. “You hear that, Morgan? Send down a message to have all the access routes to the summit cordoned off too. Knowing Inspector Hughes, he’ll definitely want to take over this case himself, as soon as he gets back—and he’s a stickler for everything done by the book.” He stepped cautiously across a trickle of water that crossed the path. “He’s away today, thank God, gone down to Scotland Yard and going through files on this child killer.” He looked at Evan. “So it’s up to us at the moment. We have to make sure we get all the details and don’t overlook anything. If there’s a big rainstorm tonight, it could all be washed away.” He looked up at the sky, which had become threatening again.

  Evan noticed he had said “us.” So he was no longer thought of as the stupid village bobby. At least that was gratifying.

  He stood back as Sergeant Watkins crawled gingerly into the cave, then followed him. The bile rose in his throat at the thought of what he was going to find there. It could hardly be described as a cave or a tunnel any longer, just an indent into the cliff, the passage behind it now blocked with boulders from an old collapse. The great slab across the entrance allowed only a thin strip of daylight to enter. Inside the damp mustiness was mixed with the acrid stench of death.

  He had been a young man, healthy, fresh-faced, dressed as if he was used to the outdoors with well-worn boots. This had been a real climber, not an amateur from the Everest Inn. He was sitting up, leaning against one of the great boulders that now blocked the passage behind, and he looked
, at first glance, as if he was resting. But his eyes were open wide in surprise and there was an ugly red gash, almost from ear to ear.

  “Whoever did that had to have a very sharp knife or be very strong,” Watkins commented. He looked around. “Pity the floor’s solid rock. Not much chance of footprints,” he said. “How long do you reckon he’s been dead?”

  “Not long. The blood was still flowing when I got here.”

  “Which means the killer is still on the mountain?”

  “There are enough ways to get down the mountain without being noticed,” Evan said. “He could have taken the train down with everyone else.”

  “He would have had blood on him, wouldn’t he? I’ll tell my men to take a good look at everyone as they go down, and I’ll notify the local dry cleaners.”

  “I hardly think he’d be stupid enough take his jacket in to be cleaned around here,” Evan said.

  “Criminals do the stupidest things sometimes,” Sergeant Watkins said. “You’d be surprised. Any sign of the murder weapon?”

  “Not that I could see,” Evan said. “I looked around a little, but I was careful not to disturb the crime scene. He probably took it with him, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Plenty of nooks and crannies to hide it here if he wanted to,” Sergeant Watkins looked around once more before stepping with great caution out of the cave again. “I won’t risk touching anything until forensic gets here,” he said. “Who knows, they might pick up a fingerprint or shoeprint that can help us.”

  “We might know more when we can get at his backpack and find out who he was.” Evan gave the dead boy one last glance. The anger he always felt at the senseless loss of young, healthy life made him grit his teeth. Whatever he had done, whoever he had quarreled with, this boy didn’t deserve to die.

  “Damn and blast,” the detective snapped as they headed back up to the summit.

  The mountain was now dotted with blue uniforms as policemen fanned out to put up a yellow cordon tape and to shepherd the remaining tourists back to the railway station. An absurd comparison to the sheepdogs he watched every day rounding up the sheep crept into Evan’s mind. Life was absurd, he thought.

  “So now we’re back to square one, eh, Evans?” Sergeant Watkins added.

  “Maybe not completely, sarge,” Evan said. “If we can find any link between this chap and the other two, then I think we’ve got something to work with.”

  “This army business, you mean?”

  The last load of tourists was being directed onto the train. Evan noted there was no hysteria, no protests as they lined up and obediently took their seats. That was one good thing about the English, he decided. They were great in a crisis.

  “My hare-brained scheme, I believe you called it,” Evan couldn’t resist saying.

  “Maybe it wasn’t so bloody hare-brained after all,” Sergeant Watkins said. He rubbed his hands together. “It’s bloody freezing up here. Let’s get a cup of tea while we wait for the lab boys and the photographer.”

  The tea was strong and tasted as if had been stewing since early morning. Sergeant Watkins made a face, then ladled in several large spoonfuls of sugar.

  Evan followed him to one of the concrete benches and they sat down, overlooking the sheer drop down to Glaslyn. Wisps of cloud drifted past them, giving them tantalizing glimpses of blue ocean, blue lakes, and toy villages, before blotting them out again. The wind seemed to blow straight through their clothing.

  “Okay, let’s have it,” Sergeant Watkins said. “Tell me what you’ve found out so far.”

  Evan started hesitantly, trying to put things in logical order. Sergeant Watkins got out his notebook and jotted down words from time to time, but didn’t interrupt.

  “I see,” he said at last. “So you’re saying that the deaths of the two climbers have to be linked somehow with Danny Bartholemew’s death? You think that was murder too?”

  “They never found his pack,” Evan said. “If you wanted to get rid of someone, leaving him alone on a freezing mountain would be a good way to do it. No one would ever suspect it wasn’t an accident.”

  “So what you’re saying,” Sergeant Watkins said slowly, “is that we’re looking for someone who knew all these men … someone who was in the army with them, maybe close to them—had some sort of grudge, maybe?”

  “Or needed to shut them up for some reason?” Evan suggested.

  “But why wait six years to bump off the other two?” Sergeant Watkins asked.

  “Maybe the opportunity wasn’t there before,” Evan said. “We know that Potts was in Germany. Maybe the killer wanted to wait until all the men were available at the same time.” He drained his tea and crushed the paper cup in his hand. “Disgusting stuff,” he muttered. Then he sighed. “I don’t know, sarge. I’ve no idea what kind of motive we’re looking for, but it does seem as if the answer lies back in the army. Someone sent out an invitation to lure at least one of the men here. We know there was a fourth buddy from hut 29 and he’s still alive as far as we know.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Marshall,” Evan said. “That’s all I can tell you about him.”

  “Army records would have all the details.”

  “Right,” Evan said. He thought it wise not to remind Sergeant Watkins that he had already asked for the army records to be checked on.

  “So the first thing to do is to check up on Marshall.” Watkins made a note in his book. “Any other suggestions?”

  “Not until we find out the identity of the body in the cave,” Evan said.

  “He might be Marshall.”

  Evan shook his head. “Too young,” he said. “He only looked like a kid—university student type, wouldn’t you say? I can’t guess how he fits in.”

  “Different sort of crime, too,” Sergeant Watkins said. “It’s one thing to sneak up and push a bloke over a cliff. The person who did that obviously wanted it to look like an accident. Nobody would think a slit throat was accidental.”

  “A slit throat’s usually desperation, in my experience,” Evan said. “If you cut someone’s throat, they can’t make a noise. The murderer had to stop him in a hurry.”

  “From doing what, I wonder?” Sergeant Watkins looked up as a loud buzzing noise drowned out his words. “Great, this must be the lab boys,” he said, getting to his feet as a helicopter came into sight. “HQ obviously thinks this is big stuff to be sending them in by helicopter.”

  P.C. Morgan came over to join them. “That’s the last of the trippers gone down now, sarge.”

  “Good job, Morgan,” Sergeant Watkins yelled over the noise of the landing helicopter. “You didn’t see anyone who looked suspicious, did you? No bloodstain, no torn clothing?”

  “Nothing, sarge. We watched them all very carefully. Of course the killer wouldn’t have ridden down on the train, would he? There are a million places he could hide out up here, then make his own way down when nobody was looking.”

  “You’re right, Morgan,” Sergeant Watkins said. “I’ll get onto the chief and ask if we can have the mountain searched, and we should keep an eye on the areas at the bottom of all the routes down too. He can’t stay up here too long, not in this bloody weather.”

  “You want me to stick around up here?” Morgan asked.

  “No, you can go on down, Morgan,” Sergeant Wilkins said. “The lab boys will let us know when we can bring down the body. Tell Peters to go down with you and you two can take a look around in Llanberis. Ask at the station if anyone noticed a anything suspicious about the people getting off the train.”

  “And I should be getting down too, sarge,” Evan said. “I get in trouble if I leave my station unmanned.” He couldn’t resist a grin. “You don’t need me any more, do you?”

  “I don’t think there’s much we can do, until forensic have gone over the crime scene,” Sergeant Watkins said. “I’m heading down myself as soon as I can. I think it’s time we checked on the whereabouts of this Mr. Marshall, don’t you?
I’ll get onto the War Office right away and see what they can tell us about him.”

  “Right-o, sarge,” Evan said.

  “And I’ll give you a call as soon as we know the identity of this latest body. Maybe he’s our missing piece in the puzzle.”

  “I think we’ve got more than one missing piece right now,” Evan said. “Even if we can link the men together, I’ve got no idea why anyone would want to kill them … unless the army can come up with some old feud.” He paused then shook his head. “But even then … it takes a lot to make someone kill. And not only kill, but plan to kill. You have to be pretty desperate to do that.”

  “Or crazy,” Sergeant Watkins said. “I just wish we hadn’t picked up Daft Dai yesterday. It would have made it all so simple.”

  The helicopter disgorged its passengers. They ran clear of the whirling blades, carrying cameras, briefcases, and even a folded stretcher and made straight for Sergeant Watkins, their raincoats flapping in the strong wind.

  “The chief says that Inspector Hughes is on his way back. We’re not to move anything until he gets here,” one of the men yelled to Watkins over the noise of the departing helicopter.

  “Then he better bloody hurry up,” Watkins snapped, looking up as he felt a raindrop on his face. “You’d better get all the lab work done as quickly as possible. By the time D.I. Hughes gets up here, the body will probably be washed out into the lake.”

  Evan started to move off, feeling superfluous. Most of the time he liked being a village policeman. Now it was being brought home to him that he had no business up here and that this crime was going to be solved without him. It made him wish for a moment that he hadn’t resigned so impulsively from the investigation department before he had completed his training. If only he could have stuck it out, this might be him now, leading up an investigation. Of course, they had seemed like pretty compelling reasons to quit at the time …

  He headed away from the group now following Sergeant Watkins cautiously down the steep path. The train had already made the trip down to Llanberis and had begun to climb again, this time with more police on board. He wasn’t going to wait to ride it down. It would be quicker if he took the Pig Track straight down to the village.