by Rhys Bowen
“Old enemies? The only enemy we had was that drill sergeant. What was his name? Stinks, that’s what we used to call him. Bad Ham Stinks! Apart from that we got along with everyone, I think. They used to like us because we were always in trouble. They used to say we broke the monotony.”
They reached the front door and Jimmy opened it for them.
“What do you know about a man called Simon Herries?” Watkins asked suddenly.
“Simon?” Jimmy Marshall looked confused. “I don’t know anyone called Simon. Posh kind of name, isn’t it?”
“So you don’t think he had anything to do with this reunion?”
“There was nobody at Caterick called Simon,” Marshall said. “If there was, he’d have had the stuffing knocked out of him for having such a fairy kind of name.”
“Thanks again, Mr. Marshall,” Watkins said, extending his hand.
Jimmy Marshall shook it solemnly. “If someone did push Stew and Tommy off that mountain, I hope you hurry up and catch him,” he said.
“We hope so too,” Even said, shaking Jimmy’s hand.
“He seemed like a nice enough chap, didn’t he?” Evan commented as they drove away. “On the level, wouldn’t you say?”
The detective nodded. “And he does have an alibi for the whole weekend too. Besides, what motive would he have? He clearly wants to put that part of his life behind him. He wasn’t even going to go to the reunion.”
“So we’re almost back to square one again,” Evan said. “Greta admitted she was there, but I can’t see her having the strength to push two men off different cliffs, and she’d never have cut anyone’s throat. Marshall was somewhere else all weekend and doesn’t appear to have a motive anyway. So who else is there?”
“I thought you were going to tell me, Sherlock,” Watkins said, giving Evan a grin. “I tell you what—I’m dying for something to eat. You want to pull off and get a bite?”
“We just had tea,” Evan reminded him.
“A couple of fancy biscuits. I didn’t get breakfast this morning.”
“Okay with me then, if you’ve got the time,” Evan said.
Watkins grimaced. “The later the better as far as I’m concerned. I know I’m going to be whisked out to see washing machines the moment I step in the door. There’s a good transport cafe just outside of Chester. All the truck drivers stop there. They serve coffee and tea in pint mugs. And that’s just the small size.”
Evan laughed. “Pull the other one, sarge,” he said.
“You don’t believe me? You wait,” Watkins said.
About half an hour later he pulled off the road and drove into a huge parking lot full of trucks and cars. A neon sign was flashing above an undistinguished-looking building. May’s Kitchen flashed in big red letters above Truckers Welcome in green.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Sergeant Watkins said as they got out. “They don’t believe in small helpings.”
They found a free table and Watkins ordered the breakfast special, even though it was already lunchtime. Evan followed suit. Almost immediately two pint mugs of milky coffee appeared.
“See, you didn’t believe me, did you?” Watkins chuckled. “You wait until you see the size of the breakfast.”
It also came up promptly, a big oval platter with three eggs, three long strips of bacon, three sausages, fried bread oozing bacon fat, a big pile of baked beans, fried tomatoes, and thick-cut chips, plus a tottering tower of toast to go with it.
“And I thought Mrs. Williams was overfeeding me,” Evan commented as he attacked one corner of the food mountain. “There’s enough cholesterol in this lot to kill every trucker in Northern England.”
“Yeah, but it tastes good, doesn’t it?” Watkins said, his mouth already half-full of sausage. “The wife is on a health food kick at home—grilled chicken, no skin, and lots of salad, so I stop here every time I get the chance.”
The room shook suddenly. Even looked up. “That sounds like a pretty big truck outside.”
“It’s not a truck, it’s the railway,” Watkins said. “It goes under here in a tunnel.”
Evan was feeling like a turkey stuffed for Christmas when they came out again. It had all been too greasy for him and he realized that he underestimated the quality of Mrs. Williams’ cooking. She was, he realized, a very good cook. He must remember to tell her so.
As they got back into the car Evan noticed the road sign for Chester city. “You know, sarge,” he said. “I’ve been thinking. Might it be an idea just to check up on Marshall’s alibi? I’m sure he’s on the level, but we’re almost in Chester.”
Watkins nodded. “It couldn’t do any harm to check, could it? And that would definitely mean that the shops were shut by the time I got home.”
They drove through an area of new factories until they stopped outside a glass and concrete building. The girl at the reception desk was very helpful. “We have to send the sign-in sheets back to the employer,” she said, “but we always keep copies, in case the originals get lost in the mail.”
She was gone a few minutes then returned. “What name did you want to look up?”
“Marshall. James Marshall,” Watkins said.
The girl scanned down the page. “Yes, he was here Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon,” she said. “See, there’s his name twice.”
Watkins and Evan looked at the scribbled signature beside the girl’s long red fingernail.
“Well, that answers that,” Sergeant Watkins said.
“Here, hold on a minute, sarge,” Evan said suddenly. “In the morning he signed himself J. Marshall and in the afternoon he signed James Marshall.”
“What of it?”
“You usually sign your signature the same way, don’t you? I don’t think the same person signed this,” Evan said. “Of course, I’m no handwriting expert, but look how he does his Js. Not quite the same, are they? And look at the line above—Jenny Prentice? Same J, isn’t it? I think he got her to sign in for him.”
Watkins was peering at the sheet now. “You know, you may be right,” he said. “Which means that Marshall might not have been here on Sunday after twelve o’clock, and it’s only an hour’s drive to Llanberis.”
“He’s a damned good actor, I’ll give him that,” Evan said. “I’d have thought he was completely innocent.”
“It’s always the innocent-looking ones you have to suspect,” Watkins said. “Let’s give him a chance to relax and then we’ll pay another call on Mr. Marshall and see how he’s going to wriggle out of this one.”
Chapter 17
“Here you are at last then,” Mrs. Williams said, wiping her hands on her apron as she ran down the hallway to meet Evan. “Past four o’clock, is it just, and your dinner still waiting for you in the oven.”
“Oh, Mrs. Williams, you didn’t cook lunch for me, did you?” Evan said, feeling the meal he had just eaten still sitting like a lead weight on his stomach. “I told you I’d be out.”
“And I thought you’d be wanting a good meal on your return. You must be famished, all the running around you do, and on your day off too! It’s not fair the way they make you work,” she said. She went ahead of him into the kitchen and opened the oven door. “I baked your favorite as a treat. Steak and kidney pie, is it? I know you like that.”
Then, like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat, she reached into the oven and whipped out a huge steaming volcano of a pie with a golden brown crust. Rich brown gravy had oozed out of the vents she had cut in the crust and was trickling in thick, congealing rivers down the sides. She placed it on a trivet on the table and then reached in again to bring out a plate on which there were mounds of mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and peas.
“Sit you down right away and get that lot inside your belt and you’ll feel better,” she said, “and while you’re eating, I’ll be ironing your best white shirt.”
“My white shirt?” Evan’s mind went blank.
“You’ll be wanting to look your best
tonight, won’t you—for the dance?”
“Oh, the dance.” With everything else going on in his life, the dance had once again completely slipped his mind. Now the full horror flooded back to him—all those little girls, trying to drag him onto the dance floor and then giggling at the way he danced, and Betsy, wearing a dress even she had described as sexy. Evan sighed. Life was very complicated.
At seven-thirty, feeling horribly self-conscious in a striped tie and a shirt that Mrs. Williams had starched to paper stiffness, Evan made his way through the village and up to the hall. The village hall was tucked in behind the school and Chapel Bethel. It was used for every function requiring space for more than twenty people, from Boy Scouts to the Women’s Institute. It hadn’t been built with atmosphere or festivity in mind. When Evan had first seen it, he had thought it had been built as a temporary structure, raised from the meadow below it on blocks. Its walls were merely asbestos panels nailed to a wood frame, its roof was corrugated iron, and it always felt cold and damp, although a two-bar electric fire was making a valiant effort in one corner. He was therefore surprised when he found it had been built before World War Two.
An attempt had been made to make it less gloomy for the dance, but it was like trying to dress up a pig as a French poodle: There was no way to hide the innate ugliness. Mrs. Powell-Jones, Mrs. Parry Davies, and their crews had been busy with the crepe paper, winding it around the exposed cross beams, tacking streamers to the walls and wrapping the overhead lampshades in pink so that the light was muted and bathed the room in a pink glow. They had even made crepe paper flowers and tied bunches of balloons from the rafters. It was a gallant attempt but, Evan feared, a wasted one.
The village youth now stood huddled in two groups, boys at one end of the room, girls at the other. They were too busy looking at each other to notice the attempt at decoration. Between the two groups, along one wall ran a long table, covered in a white plastic cloth, adorned with more pink paper streamers. On this was a punchbowl containing pink liquid and plates of dainty sandwiches, sausage rolls, rock buns, frosted fairy cakes, and in the middle, slices of fruit cake. Evan suspected that the adults were way off the mark with their choice of food and that the young dancers would much rather have had tacos and pizza and crisps. But such foods had probably never even entered the Powell-Jones kitchen.
The music was coming from four big speakers, one in each corner, and it was very loud. Evan could feel the bass beat quivering through the floorboards and up through the soles of his shoes. He found himself wondering how there could be such a huge generation gap between himself and those who hadn’t yet turned twenty. Evan had long ago decided that he had been born at the wrong time. He had never learned to like rock music. He loved the Beatles, even though they had already broken up by the time he knew what music was, but most stuff that came after them sounded like noise to him, especially the heavy metal that so many kids seemed to like now. One such number was playing as he walked in.
I’m goin’to kill ya. Uh huh. Uh huh.
I’m goin’to kill ya. Uh huh. Uh huh.
These seemed to be the only lyrics.
And they wonder why kids turn out badly, Evan mused. He crossed the room, carrying the plate of eccles cakes that was Mrs. Williams’ contribution to the evening. Both groups looked up, making him feel like a Christian who had inadvertently strayed into a den of lions.
“’Ello, Mr. Efans! Evening, Mr. Efans!” High voices echoed from the iron ceiling over the noise of the music.
Evan smiled and waved as he deposited the plate on the table.
“So good of Mrs. Williams,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said, taking it from him and making sure it was put behind her own plate of fairy cakes. “Please make sure and thank her from me.”
As if his entry was a cue, the two groups started to drift toward the middle of the room.
“Are you going to dance then, Mr. Evans?” one of the girls asked, while her friends giggled.
“I’m too old for your kind of music,” Evan said. “I’m just here to keep you lot in order and make sure you behave yourselves all evening.” He glanced swiftly around the group that now stood respectfully around him.
“Where’s Dilys then?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” the cheeky girl said. “I was going to call for her at her house but she said she’d meet us here.”
“She should be here by now,” someone else said.
“Trust Dilys to be missing all the fun,” another commented.
Evan didn’t think that Dilys had missed too much so far.
“Well go on then,” he said waving his arms expansively. “Don’t just stand there. Start dancing.”
“The boys haven’t asked us yet,” one of the girls said, glancing across at the tight knot of boys.
“Start dancing without them,” Evan said. “You don’t need partners for your sort of dancing, do you?”
The girls were giggling, but they did start moving around halfheartedly to the beat, their eyes on the boys all the time.
“They certainly do what you tell them,” a voice behind him said. “You’d have made a good school teacher.”
Evan turned to see Bronwen standing there. She was wearing a long denim skirt and a blue-and-white smocked peasant tunic over it. She looked ridiculously young and he realized she must have been here all the time, among the girls, without his noticing her.
“Bronwen!” he stammered, completely caught off guard. “What are you doing here?”
“They’re my former pupils,” she said, laughing at his embarrassment. “Why shouldn’t I be here? I know them better than anybody. Don’t you think I should supervise their dances?”
Evan couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He was chiding himself that it had never crossed his mind that Bronwen would be at the dance. With a sinking heart he realized that any minute now the door would open and Betsy would walk in … and expect him to dance with her. What would he do? Betsy wasn’t the kind to take no for an answer. She’d be quite prepared to drag him, protesting, onto the dance floor.
He had only just finished thinking this when the door opened and Betsy entered with a great swirl of wind that sent the streamers flapping and napkins flying off the table. She was wearing a fake leopard coat, which she held closed up to her chin. She stood framed in the doorway for a moment, then she made her way across the middle of the room, walking carefully over the uneven floorboards in four-inch spiked heels. She walked right up to Evan, then let the coat slide off bare shoulders. The dress was black spandex, very short with tiny straps. To say it fitted her like a glove would be an understatement. It left nothing to the imagination.
“Hello, Evan,” she said. “I managed to get away like I said I would. How do you like my dress then?”
“It’s … uh … very striking.” Evan managed to keep his voice steady. He now saw why no heating system was needed in the hall. He could feel the sweat trickling down his back.
“Oh, is that your dress?” Bronwen asked. “I thought it was your underslip.”
Betsy’s gaze moved to Bronwen, like a searchlight cutting through the darkness. “What’s she doing here?” she asked Evan.
“I was about to ask the same thing,” Bronwen said. “I didn’t realize you were still a teenager, Betsy. You must have left school awfully early, but then I suppose you never put much importance on book learning, did you?”
“I’m here as official chaperon, Bronwen Price,” Betsy said. “Constable Evans asked me to come and give him a hand, and I can never refuse Constable Evans, can I, Evan bach?”
“I hardly think that dress is suitable for a chaperon,” Bronwen said.
“It’s a dance dress, isn’t it? And this is a dance.”
“You’re supposed to be supervising them, not leading them astray,” Bronwen said.
“I’ve nothing to be ashamed of in my body, Bronwen Price,” Betsy said. “Even young boys like a woman to look like a woman, don’t they? Not like a shapeless sack of
potatoes.” She slipped her arm through Evan’s. “How about you and me get the dancing started, eh, Evan bach? We’ll show them how the grown-ups do it!”
Evan was trying to make his brain work and to keep his eyes off Betsy’s dress.
“I’m sorry, Betsy love,” he said in a flash of inspiration, “But I already promised Mrs. Powell-Jones that I’d be in charge of the punch. In fact I see her beckoning me right now, so I’d better get over there before she starts yelling, hadn’t I?”
He realized he was probably being a coward as he slipped between Bronwen and Betsy and made his way to the punch table, leaving the two girls glaring at each other like two boxers who have just climbed into the same ring.
“I’ll take over from you here, Mrs. Powell-Jones,” he said, almost snatching the ladle from her grasp.
“Oh no, that’s quite all right, Mr. Evans,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “I’d better do it myself. It’s so hard to clean up sticky floors in here.”
“I’ve got a very steady hand—ask anyone who drinks with me at the Red Dragon,” Evan said, “and you know the young people much better than me. You should be out there, mingling with them, getting them to dance.”
“Well, it’s true they have mostly come through my Sunday school classes,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said, looking around hesitantly.
“Mrs. Parry Davies certainly seems to be getting along famously with that group in the corner,” Evan said.
“You’re right. I should be mingling more,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “I’m just so used to giving myself the humble task. I was born to be Martha and serve. But if you’re really offering, constable, then I should make the young people welcome as they come in.”
She handed Evan the ladle. “And I’d offer my congratulations on catching that lunatic so speedily,” she added. “It is certainly a relief to sleep knowing that my house and my garden and my apple pies are inviolate once more.”
Evan watched her cross the room and saw the anguished look on the faces of the boys she went to join. He felt sorry for them, but it was better than their having to watch himself in a three-way battle with Bronwen and Betsy. He found himself thinking about Daft Dai. He supposed it was very possible that he had been the one responsible for peeping in Mrs. Powell-Jones’ window and stealing her apple pie, even if he’d had nothing to do with the murders. At least that’s one small crime solved, he thought, even if we’re a long way from solving the other ones.
