by Rhys Bowen
“Mummy! Where are you? I want you up here.” Jenny’s voice wailed.
“I better go up to her,” Annie said. “Poor little kid. She could tell I was scared. I tried not to let her see, but she could tell.” She headed for the stairs. “I won’t be a moment, I hope. Then maybe you’d like a glass of wine or something? I’ve got a bottle of Spanish plonk.”
Without waiting for him to answer she ran upstairs. Evan went on standing in the living room, unsure whether it might be wiser to go home now. She’d have to file an official report, of course, but she could do that in the morning. He looked around a little, wondering what an intruder could possibly have wanted in here. He pulled back the curtains and looked out onto the street. Then he went through to the kitchen and examined the back of the house again. The fences were low and anyone could have easily come and gone via a neighboring back garden—but why, if nothing had been taken. Unless Annie wasn’t telling him the whole truth.
“I’ll never get her to sleep now.” Annie came up behind him without his hearing her. “She’s scared of burglars getting into her room.” She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. “I wonder if you’d go up and say goodnight to her. It might reassure her to know that a policeman is here.”
“Alright, if you think it will help.”
“I’d be ever so grateful,” Annie said, leading the way upstairs. Jenny’s room was also sparsely furnished except for a shelf full of dolls and stuffed animals, but her bedspread had a pretty animal quilt on it and there was a Noah’s ark lamp on her bedside table. It was clear that Annie put any money she had into her daughter. Jenny looked up at Evan with big scared eyes. He thought he must look like a giant to her in that tiny room.
“Hello, Jenny. Your mum wanted me to come and tell you that I’ve checked the house and everything is quite safe,” he said.
“So you see, love, you’ve nothing to be scared of,” Annie said. “Why don’t you shut your eyes and go to sleep now. I tell you what—would you like Mr. Evans to read you a bedtime story?” She turned to Evan. “She loves stories. You can read to her for hours and she never gets tired of it. Would you mind?”
Evan didn’t feel that he had much choice. “I don’t know if I’m good at reading stories,” he said. “I haven’t had much practice.”
“I’m sure Jenny would love it,” Annie said. “Here, this is her favorite.” She picked up a book and handed it to him.
“Not that one, The Three Bad Monkeys,” Jenny said, sitting up suddenly animated.
“But you like this one,” Annie said. “It was your favorite last week.”
“This week I like the Three Bad Monkeys,” Jenny said.
Annie looked around. “I don’t know where the monkey book is right now. How about we settle for this one, okay?”
“Okay,” Jenny said, lying back again.
“Go on, sit down,” Annie instructed Evan. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll go down and see if I can find that bottle of wine and a corkscrew.”
Evan opened Puss in Boots. From what he could remember it was a gruesome story and not what you’d want to read to a nervous child late at night.
Jenny sat up, wanting to see all the pictures as he read the story and offering her own comments on each page. “Look, he doesn’t have any clothes on! See—that’s the bad ogre. He eats people.”
It took a long time to get through the book and when he had finished Jenny begged him to read another one. Evan looked around but there was no sign of Annie.
“I expect your mum wants you to go to sleep now,” he said.
“Just one more story first,” Jenny said.
“Okay. Just one, then you must promise to shut your eyes and go to sleep.”
“Alright.” Jenny gave him a sweet smile.
He read a book about a puppy’s busy day, and Jenny’s eyes were nodding shut by the time he had finished. He got up quietly and switched off the bedside light before tiptoeing down the stairs. He met Annie just about to come up the stairs with a glass in her hands.
“Oh, you gave me a turn.” She gasped as she suddenly caught sight of him.
“She’s asleep,” Evan whispered. “I was creeping.”
“I found the wine. Then I thought I’d leave you two to it,” Annie said. “To give you a chance to get to know each other.”
Evan decided that his suspicions might well have been correct. It was just possible that Annie had made up an excuse to get him here. Was she also trying to win him over by using Jenny?
“I really ought to be getting back,” he said as she held out the wine glass to him. “We’ll have to file an official report on your prowler, but we can do that down at the station in the morning.”
“What’s the hurry?” Annie asked. “You can sit and have a glass of wine with me, can’t you? I need a chance to get my nerves calmed down.”
Evan noticed that her hand was trembling as she handed him the glass and he felt ashamed of thinking that she might have lured him here under false pretenses. He took the glass she was offering. “Where’s yours?” he asked.
“On the kitchen table.” She led him through to the kitchen.
Again he was struck by its bleakness. A red Formica dinette set with two chairs, a white chipboard cupboard, a tiny fridge, a sink, and a stove. No pictures on the walls, no plants, no photos anywhere in the house. It was a far cry from most of the homey cottage kitchens in the village, and it emphasized that she was an outsider here.
“God—what a night!” she exclaimed, slumping onto a chrome and vinyl chair and taking a big gulp of wine. “And I came here looking for peace and quiet. That’s a laugh, isn’t it?” She finished the wine with one more slug and put the glass back on the table. “In the first week my kid nearly gets run over and then this.” She looked up at him. “There’s nowhere really safe, is there?”
“Are you sure you don’t have a problem you’re not telling me about? Someone you’re trying to hide from, maybe?” he asked. “You can tell me, you know. I’m the police. It’s my job to protect people.”
She shook her head violently. “No. I told you. I’m not running away.”
“You must have had a good reason for coming here. It’s a long way from Manchester.”
She glanced up, and a sad, little smile crossed her lips. “You’re going to think it’s stupid,” she said. “I saw a picture once. My roommate had it on her wall. She came from around here. I thought it was the loveliest place I’d ever seen. There was a blue lake and the mountains and wild flowers and a little white cottage beside the bridge. It was like a fairy-tale scene, like something you see in films. My roommate used to talk about it all the time—how peaceful it was, no crime, no violence. I suppose she was homesick, poor kid, but she made it sound like some sort of paradise.” She reached for the bottle and poured herself another glass. “Come on, drink up,” she instructed Evan.
“So you came here to get away from crime and violence,” he said.
“I wanted Jenny to grow up in a decent place, surrounded by decent people,” Annie said.
“They’re mostly decent people around here,” Evan said, “but you can never fully get away from crime and violence, can you? I suppose you weren’t at the meeting tonight?”
“I didn’t want to leave Jenny. Why, what happened?”
“Two of the men almost came to blows and there was a rare old shouting match.”
“All over that ruin the colonel found?”
“Not just that. It was about changing the village name and then about Ted Morgan wanting to build an adventure park here. So you see, we have our own little flare-ups, even in Llanfair.”
She nodded again. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking that this place isn’t right for me after all. I’ll have a kid who grows up speaking Welsh and I won’t be able to talk to her, will I?” She played with the wine glass so that wine slopped over onto the table. “It was another of my stupid dreams. My dad said my crazy ideas would get me in trouble one day. I bet it gives him satisfaction t
o look down from his cloud and see how right he was.”
“So you’re not going to stay?”
“I don’t think I can. I think now that we’d be better off somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Annie, give it a try,” Evan said. “Don’t go running off again, just because you think someone tried to get into your house. It could be all in your imagination, you know. Or it could have a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe some of the local lads playing a prank on a newcomer. I wouldn’t put it past them.”
“Are you saying that you’d like me to stay?” she asked quietly.
“I’m just saying you should give it a chance,” Evan said hastily. He got to his feet. “I must be getting along,” he said. “Mrs. Williams will wonder where I’ve got to and send the police out looking for me.”
“I suppose everyone would talk if they found out you’d had a glass of wine with me at this time of night?” Annie said, her cheeky smile returning.
“Talk? We’d never hear the last of it.” Evan returned her smile. “In fact, knowing this place, they’ve probably all heard about it already.”
“Sorry if I’ve ruined your reputation.”
She followed him to the front door.
“Most girls would worry about me ruining theirs,” Evan commented.
“I don’t think I’ve got much left to ruin,” she said.
He opened the door and stepped out into the street. It was raining again, a fine misty rain that collected on eyelashes and hair.
“Thanks for coming, Evan,” she said. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
“Only—” Evan began, but she cut in. “I know. Only doing your job. You’ll never know what a help you’ve been. It’s a pity that—” she broke off. “See yer around,” she said and hastily closed the door behind him.
Chapter 11
The next morning Evan had just sat down to breakfast when there was a tap on the back door. Mrs. Williams was halfway from the stove with a plate of fluffy scrambled eggs and crisp bacon in her hands. She must have decided that she had been in mourning for long enough and had started to cook normal meals again. They both looked up, startled by the sudden knocking. Nobody ever came to the back door.
“Now who can that be, and at this hour too?” Mrs. Williams demanded as Evan rose to go to the door.
Outside was a young man in workman’s overalls and a cloth cap. Evan had never seen him before.
“They said the local copper lived here.” The young man swallowed hard, making his Adam’s apple jerk up and down.
“Is something wrong?” Evan asked.
“I think you’d better come and see,” the young man said. Evan could see that he was fighting to remain calm.
“But his breakfast is just ready.” Mrs. Williams appeared at Evan’s shoulder. “You’re surely not wanting him to go running off without his breakfast?”
“That’s alright. It will stay warm in the oven. I’ll be back,” Evan said. He nodded to the young man. “Alright. Let’s go then.”
The young man led the way out of the back garden and along the path that ran behind the village. He was walking so fast that Evan almost had to jog to keep up with him.
“He told me to come at eight o’clock this morning, so I turned up like he said,” the young man called over his shoulder. “But I couldn’t make anyone hear, so I started to look around.”
He veered onto the newly graveled drive that led to the four new holiday bungalows and headed toward the first one. When Evan saw where they were going, he realized who the young man must be. This was confirmed by a truck parked a little way down the drive. E. Lloyd, General Contractors, Bangor.
“You’re here to work on Ted Morgan’s place, are you?”
“That’s right.” The young man turned back to him again, his face very white.
“Have you tried up at the farm? Maybe he started working without you. He was doing things up there over the weekend.”
The young man shook his head violently. “I don’t think so,” he said. “You’d better come and take a look for yourself, constable, but I think he’s been taken ill or something.”
He stepped off the path and peered in through the big picture window. The curtains were drawn but there was a narrow gap in the middle. The young man indicated to Evan. “Look in there,” he said. “Over behind the sofa. Can you see him?”
In the half darkness of the room the light blue shirt sprawled across the floor was all too visible.
“Yes. I see him,” he said. “Did you try the front door?”
“It’s locked.”
“And he didn’t give you a key?”
“No. He told me to meet him here.”
“What about a back door?”
“I went round the back,” the young man said. “That was locked too.”
Evan was examining the front door. “It doesn’t look too solid,” he said. “Do you reckon we could do it between us?”
“Bust it in, you mean?”
“I don’t see any other alternative,” Evan said. “We have to get in to him somehow.”
“Alright, let’s give it a go,” the young man said.
The door gave on the third attempt. “We didn’t build this place. It must have been Harrisons from Caernarfon—they always buy cheap locks,” the young man couldn’t resist commenting.
He hung back as Evan stepped inside. “Don’t touch anything,” Evan called over his shoulder. “I think you’d better wait outside.”
“Is he … dead?”
Evan looked at the body of Ted Morgan, lying with a surprised expression on his face and an ugly red hole in the middle of his forehead. “Yes,” he said quietly. “He’s dead. Would you mind standing guard on the place while I go down to the station and call HQ?”
He arrived at the police station door at the same moment as a white van. Sergeant Watkins got out. Evan looked at him in astonishment. “That was quick,” he said. “Are you psychic or did someone else call you first?”
“What are you talking about?” Sergeant Watkins said. “I came over because I thought you’d like to know that your hunch was right again. The lab found traces of blood in the soil samples. D.I. Hughes is opening a full investigation. He’ll be up here later himself.”
“Good, because I’ve got something else he’ll want to see.”
“More evidence turned up?”
“No, another body,” Evan said. “I was just on my way to call your department. You’d better come up and see for yourself.”
“You think this death is suspicious too?” Sergeant Watkins asked, striding out behind Evan as he led the way back to the cottages.
“I’d call it suspicious,” Evan said. “He’s got a bloody great bullet hole between his eyes.”
“Christ,” Watkins said. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a serial killer up here.”
“It wasn’t the same type of killing,” Evan said. “But I suppose the deaths have to be linked somehow.”
“Someone you knew?”
“Yes. A man called Ted Morgan. He just inherited the farm from his father and came back here to live after twenty years of not setting foot in the place.”
The young contractor was still standing guard outside the open front door. Evan could see the relief flood his face at their return.
“Breaking and entering too?” Watkins asked, indicating the broken lock.
“No, that was us,” Evan said. “This is the contractor who was supposed to meet Ted Morgan here. He saw the body through the front window and came to get me.”
Sergeant Watkins nodded to him. “Stick around, son. We might need to ask you some questions.”
He went ahead of Evan into the house. The front door opened directly onto the living room. It was clearly a rental property by the furniture—imitation leather three piece suite, imitation wood table and chairs, small TV and VCR in the corner, bookcase with women’s magazines and a fe
w cheap paperbacks, prints of Welsh landscapes on the walls. An efficient room with no character and only a beer bottle on the table to show that it was currently lived in.
“Did you move anything?” Sergeant Watkins asked.
“Nothing was touched at all,” Evan said. “As soon as I saw he was dead, I came straight out again.”
Watkins looked around the room. “No sign of a struggle,” he said. He took out his handkerchief and carefully pulled back the curtains. “Ah well, mystery solved,” he said with relief in his voice. He bent to indicate Ted Morgan’s right hand, half under the sofa. It was clutching a very small pistol. “He shot himself. Suicide.”
Evan stared down at Ted Morgan’s lifeless face. He looked at the expensive clothes, the gold ring on his finger. He shook his head.
“What?” Sergeant Watkins demanded. “Oh, come on. You’re not going to try and tell me it wasn’t suicide, are you? He’s lying there with the bloody gun in his hand. What more do you want?”
“I can’t believe he’d kill himself. That doesn’t make sense, sarge. I was with him at a meeting last night. He was looking quite pleased with himself when he told everyone about his grand scheme for this village. And he was due to start remodelling the farmhouse today. Hardly a man about to end it all.”
“Maybe he was manic and subject to bouts of depression,” Watkins said. “He’d just moved here, you say? What do you know about him?”
“Not much. He seemed like a nice-enough chap. Of course, everyone around here heard all about him when his dad was alive. His father talked about him all the time—how he owned property in London and had made a fortune. Ever so proud of him, Taff was. Pity, because they say he never came home to visit his dad in twenty years.”
“And yet he shows up now,” Watkins said speculatively. “Money troubles, do you think? The business not doing too well?”
“Hardly,” Evan said. “He’d just got planning permission to build a theme park, a big hotel, and a monorail to link them.”
“Up here?” Watkins looked surprised.
“He’d bought the old slate quarry. He was going to turn it into an adventure park—The Haunted Mine, he was going to call it.”
