Constable Evans 03: Evanly Choirs

by Rhys Bowen

  “We could look into a new three-piece suite, I suppose,” Edward Powell-Jones said with a resigned sigh. “If you really think that is the best use of the money.”

  “I do, Edward. I really do. Now get on the phone and call that estate agent. Tell him we’ve changed our minds and we can be out of here by the end of the week.”

  * * *

  The young girl slowed the car to a crawl as she came to a crossroad at the top of the pass. One way led down to Beddgelert and the coast, the other to Betws-y-Coed. She stopped, undecided which way to turn. Tears were welling up, blurring her vision. She had no idea what to do now.

  Chapter 2

  Constable Evan Evans came out of the Llanfair subpolice station and stood breathing in the good fresh air. He could smell the salt tang from the ocean today. He glanced up at the racing clouds. He hoped this didn’t mean a storm coming in just in time for the weekend. He was really looking forward to his day with Bronwen.

  His friendship with the young schoolteacher had been deepening and the village was already speculating, although they had only been on a handful of dates together. Evan was keeping any thoughts of wedding bells firmly out of his own mind.

  They had a long mountain hike planned for the next day—if the weather held. It wasn’t the sort of terrain you’d want to tackle in the rain, boggy in places and high enough to be mostly in cloud. If the wind kept blowing briskly like this it might clear out all these threatening clouds by then.

  He glanced at his watch. Mrs. Williams, his landlady, would have his lunch waiting for him and would be upset if he let it get cold. It was Friday, so that probably meant fish. Mrs. Williams was very predictable in her choice of menus. He hoped it might be grilled herring today. There were wonderful fresh herrings at this time of year and Mrs. Williams cooked them to perfection, nicely crisp on the outside and moist in the middle, with maybe the added bonus of a soft row inside. Mrs. Williams was a wonderful cook and seemed to think that Evan would starve to death if he wasn’t fed three large cooked meals a day, and tea as well if he happened to be home.

  He locked the station door and set off for Mrs. Williams’s cottage, his salivary glands working in anticipation.

  “Bore da, Evans-the-Law,” Roberts-the-Pump called from his garage next door.

  “Bore da. How’s business?” Evan asked.

  “Can’t complain. Plenty of tourists around at this time of year, isn’t it? Of course we all know the one person who is complaining, don’t we now?” He laughed and indicated the butcher’s shop across the street. “Evans-the-Meat would build a bloody brick wall around the village if he had his way … and only let people through who spoke Welsh. You should have heard him ranting and raving this morning because some young fellow comes in and starts asking him questions about who lives where.”

  Evan smiled. He was all too aware of Evans-the-Meat’s firm belief that foreigners had no business in Wales.

  At that moment he heard raised voices, higher up the village street. He listened with interest. Speaking English, not Welsh. Probably tourists then. A woman’s voice had risen to a scream. Evan hesitated then started up the street. A young girl was struggling to break free from a young man’s grasp.

  “Hey,” Evan yelled but at that moment the girl broke loose, ran to a waiting maroon Vauxhall Vectra, and drove away, tires screeching. The young man yelled something after her, then turned back into the front garden and was lost among the bushes. Lovers’ tiff or something more serious? Evan wondered. It took him a moment to register in surprise that the front garden belonged to the Powell-Joneses’ house.

  “What was that all about?” Roberts-the-Pump asked him as he returned down the street.

  Evan shrugged. “We’ll never know. They’d both gone by the time I got there. And I don’t suppose it was any of my business, apart from the speeding, and I can hardly chase her on foot, can I?”

  “They should provide you with a squad car,” Roberts-the-Pump said. “I can get my hands on a lovely secondhand Ford Granada if you can get them interested.”

  Evan chuckled. “It’s hard enough to get a new supply of paper clips out of them,” he said. “And anyway, the whole purpose of having me here is that I can do all my patrolling on foot.”

  “And keep an eye on all the wicked goings on in Llanfair,” Roberts-the-Pump laughed. “Got it made, haven’t you, Evan bach?” he asked, although “little Evan” was hardly an accurate description for a six footer who climbed mountains and played rugby.

  Evan smiled and walked on. He knew that this sentiment was echoed by most of the villagers—that he had a cushy job with little work. He also knew that they were glad enough to have him around.

  “Is that you, Mr. Evans?” Mrs. Williams’s high voice echoed from the kitchen. Always the same greeting, even though she knew he was the only one with a key. As usual he was tempted to answer that it was a homicidal maniac.

  “Yes, it’s me, Mrs. Williams.”

  “Diolch am hynny! Thank goodness for that.” She came bustling down the dark hallway, smoothing down her apron as she spoke.

  “Is something wrong then?” Evan asked.

  “Only that I was worried you wouldn’t come home before your dinner dried out.” Mrs. Williams belonged to the old working-class tradition of calling lunch dinner and dinner supper. “I’ve made you a lovely fish pie, just,” she added.

  Fish pie—that was one he hadn’t thought of. Not one of Mrs. Williams’s usual specialties either. In fact he couldn’t remember eating fish pie at her house before.

  “I had to make it a fish pie today,” she said, by way of explanation. “Jones-the-Fish didn’t have a single decent herring in his van this morning. No mackerel either on account of the rough seas we’ve been getting.” She turned and headed back to the kitchen with Evan following her. “I blame it all on that El Niño,” she commented over her shoulder as she opened the oven door. “It’s all the Americans’ fault.”

  “El Niño? Isn’t it a natural phenomenon?”

  Mrs. Williams sniffed. “They started it with their atom bombs, didn’t they? We never heard of El Niños in the Pacific before the Americans started testing their atom bombs there.”

  Evan kept wisely silent. He was steeling himself to face a fish pie, or wondering how to politely refuse it. Fish pie had never been one of his favorite foods. He associated it with school dinners. At school, fish pie had been a concoction of watery mashed potato with slight overtones of fish. He had never actually found fish in the pie, but there must have been some somewhere as he always got one or two bones.

  While he was thinking these gloomy thoughts Mrs. Williams bent into the oven and produced a pie dish topped with a crispy, cheesy potato crust. The smell was definitely appetizing. Mrs. Williams scooped a big helping onto his plate. “Get that inside you and you won’t do too badly then,” she said proudly.

  Evan prodded it with his fork. The bottom half of the slice was composed of chunks of firm white fish in a creamy sauce, then a layer of hardboiled egg and then the potato topping, fluffy underneath and crisp on top. The whole thing was crowned with bubbling cheese. One bite confirmed that it tasted as delicious as it looked.

  “It’s very good,” he said in surprise.

  Mrs. Williams nodded with satisfaction. “Now that’s what I call a meal for a man,” she said. “Good wholesome food that sticks to the ribs.” Immediately she started ladling runner beans and marrow slices onto his plate.

  Evan lamented silently that more food sticking to his ribs was the last thing he needed. Mrs. Williams’s generous helpings were already beginning to show around his waistline.

  He had only taken a couple of bites when there was a knock at the front door.

  “Now who can that be?” Mrs. Williams demanded in annoyance. Evan often wondered if she expected him to be psychic or this was merely a rhetorical question.

  “I’ll go and see, shall I?” He got up from the table only to be pushed back into his seat.

  �
��You’ll finish your dinner. I’ll go,” she said firmly.

  “He’s in the kitchen,” Evan heard her say, “but he’s only started in on his food just.”

  Then the kitchen door opened and Charlie Hopkins came in. He was one of the older men in the village, scrawny and undersize with thinning hair. He always wore boots that seemed too big for the rest of him—a throwback to the days when he worked in the slate quarry. He might have looked frail but Evan had seen him walk up mountains as if he was on an afternoon stroll through the park.

  “Sorry to interrupt you when you’re eating, Evan bach,” he said.

  “No problem, Charlie. Sit down and join me. You can see that Mrs. Williams has cooked enough for an army as usual.”

  “Oh, no thanks. I can’t stay. I’ve got a delivery to make in Llandudno,” Charlie said. He operated a local hauling service. “I’m here on official business.”

  Evan looked up, his fork poised in his hand. “Official business?” Charlie was the usher at Chapel Bethel, but other than that held no office.

  Charlie cleared his throat. “I’ve been asked to come and speak to you in my official capacity as secretary of the Llanfair and District Men’s Choir,” he said importantly.

  “Oh really? You’ve got a problem with the choir, have you Charlie?”

  Charlie nodded. “A pretty big problem if you ask me. With the baritones.”

  “And you need my advice or you want police help?”

  “We need help right enough. We need another baritone,” Charlie said bluntly. “We’ve got the eisteddfod coming up in another month and we sound terrible, so Austin Mostyn asked me if I’d talk to you.”

  The choir director was Mostyn Phillips, who was also the music master at the comprehensive school in Caernarfon. He drove a very ancient Austin Mini, hence the nickname.

  “I don’t see why you’ve come to me, Charlie…”

  “We’ve heard that you’ve got a good voice.”

  “Me? A good voice? Who told you that?” Evan laughed.

  “Mrs. Williams,” Charlie said, looking up to catch her eye as she lurked by the door. “She’s heard you singing in the bathroom.”

  “I wasn’t listening, you understand, Mr. Evans,” Mrs. Williams said apologetically. “I just couldn’t help hearing like. And you do sing lovely.”

  “I might sound okay in a tiled room or after a rugby match.” Evan gave an embarrassed laugh. “But I’ve never sung properly in my life—well, not since the mixed infants choir.”

  “You couldn’t be worse than what we’ve got,” Charlie said. “Pathetic, that’s what it is, Evan bach, and the regional eisteddfod in Harlech is less than a month away. Won’t you come and help us out?”

  “I really don’t see that I’d be much help, Charlie. I can’t even read music.”

  “You wouldn’t need to. Austin Mostyn will have you going over the music so many times that it will be drilled into your head. A right stickler he is—takes his duties very seriously. He expects us to be the bloody Welsh National Opera or something.” He gave Evan a grin that revealed a couple of missing teeth. “At least say you’ll come to the rehearsal this evening. I promised you’d be there. I’ll treat you to a pint in the Dragon afterward.”

  Evan sighed. “Well, I had no other plans for the evening…”

  Charlie chuckled. “No hot dates with the schoolteacher?”

  “Give over, Charlie. Bronwen and I are—”

  “I know, just good friends, like the politicians say in the Daily Mirror when they’re caught in the Caribbean with a French bit of crumpet.” He gave Evan’s shoulder a nudge. “You want to take out young Betsy-the-Bar. You’d do more than bird watching with her!”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Evan said dryly. He was getting a little tired of the constant matchmaking efforts that went on in the village.

  “Betsy-the-Bar?” Mrs. Williams demanded. “She’s not right for him. Mr. Evans is a serious, refined young man. You can’t see him taking out a girl who wears skirts halfway up her thighs and necklines almost to meet them? What he needs is a nice refined girl who can cook. Now our Sharon, for example—”

  “Gracious, is that the time?” Charlie interrupted, mercifully sparing Evan from having to hear more about Mrs. Williams’s oversize granddaughter.

  “I’d better get a move on, too,” Evan said, turning to look at the kitchen clock above the Welsh dresser.

  “So you’ll come tonight?” Charlie paused in the doorway.

  “I’ll be there,” Evan said, “but I’m not making any promises.”

  Chapter 3

  “I’m most appreciative, Constable Evans.” Mostyn Phillips shook Evan’s hand as they came out of the village hall. It was almost dark and as they took the shortcut to the Red Dragon, the peak of Mount Snowdon glowed black against a silver sky.

  “I do hope you decide to join our little endeavor,” Mostyn continued. “As you can see, or should I say hear, we could really use the extra voice.”

  Evan thought privately that the modest addition of his somewhat-in-tune voice was hardly going to turn the Llanfair Côr Meibion into an award-winning choir, but he kept quiet. He felt sorry for Mostyn Phillips, who took his duties so seriously and was faced with a choir of aging voices. Most of the singers were more of Charlie Hopkins’s vintage—former slate miners to whom singing in the choir was almost a requirement of living in Llanfair. There were only a few young men in the village now and those teenage grandsons and nephews who were dragged along thought the whole thing was a bit of a joke.

  “This used to be a fine choir in its heyday,” Mostyn went on, voicing Evan’s thoughts out loud. “When the slate mine was working, every man in this neighborhood was proud to sing with the choir. Has Charlie shown you the cups we won in those days? My, but they were fine—the National Eisteddfod, too, not just local ones.”

  Evan glanced at Mostyn Phillips. He was a dapper little man with a neat Hitler-style moustache. He always dressed formally in a blazer and striped tie, or tweed jacket and cravat, but he gave the impression of being frozen in a time warp in both his dress and his behavior. He could never forget that he was a schoolmaster either. It must have been a constant annoyance for him to face an undisciplined group of men who couldn’t be threatened with detention.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” Mostyn went on. “I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, entering us for the eisteddfod again. My whole reputation is riding on it. I’m well known for the quality of my choirs, Mr. Evans.”

  “Then maybe you should think twice about this eisteddfod,” Evan said. “I doubt very much that you can whip us into shape in a month.”

  “But it’s good for the men to compete. It gives them something to aim for—and we’re only entered in the small choir division—under one hundred voices.” He leaned confidentially close to Evan. “I hope to stun the judges with my choice of music.”

  Evan kept quiet about this, too. After all, what did he know about music? But none of the songs they had sung tonight were familiar to Evan. None of the old favorites that you could belt out with confidence, like “Men of Harlech” or “Sauspan Fach.” It seemed to be all modern stuff and rather strange.

  They had reached the Red Dragon at the same time as a couple of village women and Mostyn sprang ahead to open the door for them.

  “After you, ladies,” he said with a little bow, reducing both of the round village matrons to giggles.

  “Diolch yn fawr, thank you very much,” they mumbled.

  “Nice to know that old world chivalry isn’t dead yet, eh Sioned?” one of them exclaimed with a glance back at Mostyn.

  “Holding the door open for us then, Austin Mostyn?” Roberts-the-Pump gave Charlie Hopkins a nudge as they walked through the open door. “Nice to know that old world chivalry isn’t dead yet, eh Charlie?”

  Mostyn flushed and gave a half laugh to show that he appreciated the joke.

  “No, Constable Evans. I’m going to keep plowing ahead regardless,” he said as t
hey followed the men inside. “I’m an optimist. I keep hoping for a miracle.”

  “I don’t think miracles come around too often, Mr. Phillips,” Evan said.

  “Well, look you, here he is now!” Betsy’s high clear voice cut through the murmur of voices in the crowded bar. Her face lit up as Evan ducked under the big oak beam at the doorway and made his way through the crowd. “Charlie’s just told me to pour you a pint of Brains courtesy of him, to celebrate your joining the choir.” She beamed at Evan and smoothed down the Lycra tank top she was wearing, pulling the already-low neckline even lower. As Evan approached the bar, he was interested to see that the neon green top finished a good four inches above her waist, leaving a delicious exposure of flesh above her frilly white apron.

  “I didn’t say I was joining,” Evan commented as he pushed his way to the bar between Charlie and Evans-the-Meat. “I only promised to come along and see. And I did come along and I did see. And now that I’ve got my free pint…”

  The other men knew he was joking, but Mostyn Phillips turned a horrified face to Evan. “Oh, but Constable Evans, you can’t leave us now. We need you, man. We can’t do without you.”

  “See Evan, you’re going to be the star,” Betsy said, her eyes smiling into his as she handed him the overflowing glass of dark liquor. “I always knew you must have hidden talents if the right person knew how to draw them out of you.” She put such meaning into this and stared so frankly that he had to take a large gulp of beer.

  Why couldn’t he just tell Betsy that he wasn’t interested and then maybe she’d stop all this embarrassing nonsense. He wondered if, deep down, he really did want her to stop.

  “So Evan, did you hear that there’s a Musicfest down on the quay in Caernarfon tomorrow?” Betsy went on as if the two of them were alone, not surrounded by the rest of Llanfair. “Live bands and dancing and all.”