by Rhys Bowen
An alarm bell was buzzing at the back of Evan’s brain. What if that third killing, the one of the young Oxford student that didn’t make sense, had been because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, like Dilys’ sister?
Okay, Evan said to himself, building on this. Why was it the wrong place? Because someone was hiding up there, maybe? Because he stumbled on someone in the act of doing something illegal or wrong? He thought of Lou Walters, the child molester again. They should have caught him by now but he had eluded them so far. What if he was hiding out up there? What if Simon Herries had caught him hiding a child’s body, or killing a missing child? Then he’d have to be killed to shut him up, wouldn’t he?
Finally something was beginning to make sense. Maybe the killings were unrelated after all and maybe Lou Walters was still hiding out on the mountain, scared to move because there was still a police presence up there and the ways down were being watched!
Evan picked up the pace. He’d go and look for himself right away. He’d been so anxious to tie these crimes to a tragedy that happened six years ago that he’d overlooked the glaring fact that a suspected murderer was on the loose. He didn’t know what he’d find up at the crime scene, but he was hopeful of finding something that Hughes and his team had overlooked.
He drew level with the chapels and was deep in thought when a voice yelled, “Yoo hoo! Constable Evans. Over here!”
Evan looked up to see Mrs. Powell-Jones beckoning violently from her garden. “Get over here, man. There’s more evidence,” she yelled.
Reluctantly Evan came across to her.
“What do you make of this then?” she demanded. “I raked that bed yesterday.”
She pointed at a bed of bare earth that ran along the back of her garden, beside the back hedge. In the middle of that bed there was now one large footprint.
“It looks like you got the wrong man, constable,” she said triumphantly. “I imagine that your mentally challenged suspect is still locked in a cell, but someone continues to trample on my vegetable beds.”
Evan stared at the footprint and shrugged. “I don’t know why anyone would come into your garden to walk over your flower beds, Mrs. Powell-Jones,” he said. He looked up. The yew hedge was not equally thick all the way along and through it Evan had a good view of the Everest Inn and the yellow police tape across the path beyond it. It suddenly occurred to him that this would be a great vantage point for anybody to watch both the inn and the path up Snowdon. He couldn’t think why anybody would want to watch the inn or the path, but he couldn’t think of any other reason for wanting to trample Mrs. Powell-Jones’ beds.
“Look, Mrs. Powell-Jones, I’ve got something I have to check into up on the mountain,” he said, “but I’ll give this my full attention when I come back down.”
“Please hurry up then,” she called after him as he forced his way through the hedge and out to the meadow beyond. “I’ve got runner beans waiting to be planted and I’m not putting them in until someone can guarantee that no large feet will be trampling them. We do pay our taxes you know. We expect protection from our police force.”
Evan wondered about Mrs. Powell-Jones’ logic—she seriously thought that catching a vandal who walked on her flower beds was more important than catching a murderer. Evan supposed she was like a lot of people—convinced her own problems were more important than anyone else’s. He put Mrs. Powell-Jones from his mind and forced his legs into overdrive in an effort to get up the mountain as quickly as possible.
He took the Pig Track, the steeper of the two routes, because it was also faster. By the time he had ascended above Llyn Llydaw, he was gasping for breath and realized that he hadn’t stopped to eat all day. He was glad that nobody could see him leaning against a rock, panting. Very bad for his image, he thought. He was lucky that the mountain was still off-limits and he wasn’t likely to bump into anyone he knew.
Then he stiffened and instinctively shrunk behind the outcrop. A figure had just left the Everest Inn and was hurrying up the track, past the yellow police tape. As he came out of the shadow of a little stand of larch trees, Evan recognized him. It was Major Anderson.
Chapter 21
Evan didn’t waste another second. He couldn’t guess what reason the major could have for coming up the trail behind him, but he had to assume the worst—that he was being followed. And indeed, when he glanced back again, he saw that Major Anderson was moving carefully, trying to blend in with the shadows of the rocks.
Evan was half tempted to go back down and confront him, but more urgently he had to get up to the place where Simon Herries was murdered and find out why it had been a fatal mistake for Simon to have sheltered there.
His heart was hammering from the exertion as he took the rocky steps up the mountain in giant strides. When he drew level with Glaslyn, the little upper lake, he skirted carefully around the edge and then scrambled up the sheet of scree and loose rocks to the cave where Simon’s body had been found. There was still another ring of yellow police tape around it, but no policemen were in sight. The light clouds had thickened into a heavy, gray layer, only occasionally broken by patches of blue that let shafts of sunlight down onto the rocks. A shaft hit the rocks above Evan as he scrambled up carefully, not wanting to set off a slide of the unstable scree. For a moment it lit up the entrance to the cave, like the hand of God from an old Romantic painting. Evan found the hair at the back of his neck prickling.
He didn’t know what had made him come up here and only now realized that it might have been a very foolish move, as well as a defiant one. Until now his only concern had been possible trouble with his superiors. Now it occurred to him that he might be risking more than an unpleasant session in his chief’s office. Cloud had already blotted out the summit above him. He had never felt alone in the high country before, but now he felt completely cut off from the world below, beyond help if it was needed.
But he couldn’t turn back now. He was sure that something that held the key to three murders had been overlooked in that cave and he had to find it now, or never. He reached the mouth of the little cave and eased his way past the slab of fallen rock across its door. The smell of death still lingered. The floor had now been swept smooth, and presumably every fragment was currently being analyzed by the lab, but it was impossible to clean the bloodstains off the rock. They lay in spatters and trickles, like a modern painting.
Why? Evan asked himself. Why was he killed here?
As he examined the back of the cave, he saw that his initial theory was wrong. Simon Herries couldn’t have surprised someone hiding out in the cave. It was impossible for anyone to have been hiding behind the rock where Simon had rested. True it had been a former mine entrance once, but the ceiling had come down and filled the passageway with large rocks. Whoever cut Simon’s throat must have come up behind him and taken him by surprise, so Simon would have had to be facing into the cave, maybe checking out what had once been a passageway into the mine. Evan squeezed past the boulder where they had found his body and tried to see how extensive the collapse had been. Was there still a passageway behind it? Was it possible to get through if he tried to move some of the rocks out of the way?
He cursed himself for not bringing a flashlight. He tried lifting the first few rocks aside. Most of them were too big for one man to handle alone and Evan soon stopped, not sure of the point of the exercise any longer. If he couldn’t move the rocks to get through, then nobody else could either. A waste of time and effort.
You don’t really know what you’re doing, do you? He chided himself. You’re just playing at detective.
Then he glimpsed it at his feet—just a fraction of what looked like a belt or a strap sticking out from under the rock pile. He tried to get to his knees in that narrow space and to move the rocks so that he could see what he was looking at. He had to hold his breath and squeeze down between rocks, but he could definitely see now that someone had been at work before him, trying to do the same thing. Loose rock
s and earth had been scraped away. He tried pulling on the end of the strap, but whatever lay beyond was trapped by large rocks. He managed to dig out some more loose material until he had exposed the corner of something that felt like canvas. It was dark with mould, but there appeared to be markings on it. Evan managed to free his handkerchief and attempted to wipe it clean. The markings were letters, stencilled on. He could just make out 1BN, then a space and then something that started with Y.
IBN Y. Evan had seen those kind of stencilled letters before, and he could make a good guess at what they stood for. First Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment.
“Danny Bartholemew’s pack,” he said out loud.
“Nice work, copper,” a voice said behind him and before he could stand up or turn around, he felt something hard jabbed into the small of his back. “Quite right,” the voice went on. “Danny’s pack. And you’re going to help me get it out.”
Evan turned his head slowly to look up at the owner of the voice. In the semidarkness he could make out a gaunt, hardfaced man, looking at him with expressionless eyes. Evan couldn’t see the gun he was holding, but its barrel was already beginning to hurt as it dug into the soft flesh around his kidneys. He tried to match the face to the posters that had been circulated around HQ.
“You’re not Lou Walters,” he exclaimed.
The man looked surprised. “Lou who?” he said.
“Who are you then?” Evan demanded.
“Not very bright, are you?” the man said. He had a definite Welsh undertone to his voice, but it was now overlaid with the harsh cockney sounds of London. “But none of you coppers ever were too bright. I’m Danny’s brother, Doug.”
“Doug Bartholemew? But they said you were in jail—how did you manage to get out?”
Doug chuckled. “It’s called the early release scheme, old son. There was shocking overcrowding so they let some of the good boys, like me, go home. Wasn’t that kind of them?” His voice dripped with bitter sarcasm and Evan could sense that this was a person who cared nothing for human life. His only chance was to play along with whatever Doug Bartholemew wanted of him.
“Look, do you mind if I get out of this position,” Evan said cautiously. “My knees are killing me.” Instantly he regretted another poor choice of words. But the pressure of the gun barrel eased slightly.
“Go on then, stand up and back out but don’t try any funny business,” Dough said. “I’d kill you right now for two pins. I’ve got nothing to lose, but you’re a big strong bloke and I need someone to move the rocks for me.”
Cautiously Evan got to his feet. His legs felt strangly detached, although he couldn’t tell if this was from fear or just pins and needles. As he stood up, the gun resumed its pressure with Doug right behind him. He knew he had to play for time.
“How long have you been out, Doug?” He asked as if he was chatting to someone in the pub.
“Almost a month,” Doug said. “I came straight back home to my dear old mother.”
Evan remembered the uneasiness he had felt when talking to Mrs. Bartholemew, the sense of being watched in her house. So Doug had been there all the time. If only he could have acted then …
“You were the one who sent the postcards and invited Danny’s friends to the reunion,” Evan said, gradually putting pieces together. “What were you trying to do, avenge Danny’s death?”
“Avenge? Don’t be so bloody stupid,” Doug said. “My brother was a dumb kid and if he died, it was his own fault. No, old son, I’m more interested in two hundred thousand smackeroos I’ve got waiting for me under all those rocks.”
Finally the last piece of the puzzle snapped into place in Evan’s mind. “Danny had the money in his pack!” he said. “Your share of the train robbery money!”
“Very good,” Douglas said with the same biting sarcasm. “It was a perfect plan, wasn’t it? No way it could get screwed up. I drove away from the train with my share of the cash and dropped it off in some bushes behind a truck stop. All done in fifteen minutes. If they caught me after that, they’d have nothing to pin on me, would they?”
Except they did pin all those prior offenses on you, Evan thought, but wisely kept quiet. He had noted in the past that criminals tended to be cocky, also to underestimate the police.
“So you left the money,” Evan prompted him.
“And Danny was due to pass by not too long afterwards. He got them to stop for him to take a leak, went back into the bushes behind the cafe, tipped out his stuff, and put the money in his pack. Then the plan was to leave the pack where it would be easy for me to pick up, and call me with the location. When the fuss had died down, I’d go up and get it. Perfect, eh? Only the stupid little bugger goes and twists his ankle and freezes to death up here in a freak snowstorm, and I get picked up for speeding.”
“Bad luck,” Evan said, hoping somehow to make some sort of connection with Doug.
“Bloody bad luck,” Doug agreed. “And that’s the stupid bloody English army for you too, isn’t it? Leave a poor bloke to freeze up there? They’re supposed to be looking after their own men, aren’t they, not killing them off?”
“I don’t quite understand what you hoped to get from this reunion,” Evan said.
“Simple, isn’t it?” Doug snorted. “I had no idea where Danny had hidden the money. I thought that maybe one of his mates could show me the route Danny had taken during those exercises. It was just possible he’d told one of them what he was going to do, even though I told him not to. So I hid out close to that inn place and then I followed the first bloke up the mountain. I thought I could get at least one of them to help me find Danny’s pack. I was prepared to split it with him, but you know what happened, don’t you? My bad luck again. The first bloke I spoke to turned out to be a fuckin’ copper! He started asking a lot of questions and then he started getting suspicious. I’m not sure whether he recognized me, but I think he did. Anyway, I couldn’t take the chance, could I? I got him to the right spot and when he wasn’t looking, I shoved him over. Easy enough to do and everyone would think it was an accidental fall, wouldn’t they?”
Not me, Evan thought, but again didn’t say. “What about the other chap?” Evan asked.
“He saw, didn’t he? I thought he’d already gone, but he hadn’t. He looked back and saw me do it. I had to get around to him pretty damned quick. Lucky I know the mountain and he didn’t. When he climbed out on that jutting rock to get a look at the first bloke’s body, it was easy enough to sneak up behind him too. But I was no nearer to finding the stupid pack, was I?”
He adjusted his stance and the gun barrel dug sharply into Evan’s side, making him wince. “So I started checking out the area, bit by bit. I didn’t find this place right away, because of the slab of rock that’s fallen across it. But when I finally found it, what good was it to me? I couldn’t shift the bloody rocks by myself and the place was crawling with coppers. I thought it would be safe enough to wait. I didn’t think anyone else would be likely to come snooping around, but that kid came in to shelter from the rain, and he found the pack too.”
Evan looked back at him. His eyes were still expressionless.
“He was all excited as I came into the cave. He told me he’d found something buried under the rock fall.”Why don’t we try and get it out together?” I suggested, but the little bugger said that no, he thought we should notify the authorities first. He was going to do that—tell the bloody park ranger!”
“So you killed him,” Evan said flatly.
“Had to, didn’t I?” Doug said. “I couldn’t have him telling no park ranger!” He sucked through his teeth. “Of course, I realized later it was a bloody stupid thing to do. All those policemen snooping around. I was sure they were going to find it, even though I took care to pile up the rocks in front of it again. And I didn’t think they were going to seal off the whole bloody mountain! I’ve had to hide out up here for three days now. I’ve hardly had a thing to eat in three days. There’s nothing much in that bloody
snack bar.”
“You had an apple pie last week, didn’t you?” Evan asked.
“Yeah. Not bad either,” Doug said. “Why, was there a fuss about it?”
“A big fuss,” Evan said.
Doug laughed. For a moment Evan hoped he was reaching him, that they were becoming mates, co-conspirators. This was dashed right away, when Doug went on laughing. “That’s nothing compared to the fuss there will be when they find a dead copper up here.”
“What makes you think I’ll help you move the rocks if you’re going to kill me anyway?” Evan asked.
“Experience,” Doug said. “Most people want to stay alive as long as possible, don’t they—on the off chance that something will turn up?”
“There are police all over this mountain, you know,” Evan said. “You’d never get away with it.”
“Nah,” Doug said easily. “Yesterday that was true. Today the train hasn’t come up once and they’re all too bloody lazy to walk, I know that. So we’re all alone, old son. Just you and me.”
“Okay,” Evan said. “Where do you want me to start?”
“It’s obvious, ain’t it?” Doug said. “Start lifting the rocks off the top until we get to the pack.”
“And where do I put them?”
“Boy, I didn’t think even coppers could be this thick,” Doug sneered. “Drop them over there!”
He turned his eyes as Evan had hoped he would. Evan didn’t hesitate. He dug his elbow hard into Doug’s middle. He heard a hissed exhaling of breath as Doug doubled over, but he didn’t lose control of the gun, as Evan had hoped. Grimacing in pain, he was already raising the gun to take aim as Evan darted out of the cave. The shot bounced off the rock just above Evan’s head and echoed alarmingly. Chips of rock fell onto him as he ran. But the one wild shot had given him the second he needed. He was out of the cave.
Cloud now covered the summits above him. Like a wild thing, he scrambled up the last few yards on all fours, until he was swallowed up into the mist.
