Constable Evans 03: Evanly Choirs

by Rhys Bowen

  As they talked the road was dropping steadily between steep green hillsides. The bleating of sheep came in through the open car windows. They had to slow through Llanberis, which was full of tourists. Hikers and climbers wandered across the road, heading for the mountain trails. Day trippers lined up for the next train up Snowdon and children dragged their parents in the direction of ice-cream shops. It seemed strange to Evan that this kind of life was still going on with death so close by.

  Bangor railway station was also busy on this summer Saturday. The car park was full and Watkins had to park in a No Parking zone.

  “Let’s just hope they don’t have the nerve to tow the police car,” he muttered to Evan. “I’d hate to have to explain that to the D.I.”

  They crossed the parking lot and pushed through a busy booking office to the ticket collector at the gate. A train had just come in and they waited until he had collected the last of the tickets before approaching him.

  “Were you on duty here last night?” Watkins asked him.

  “What if I was?” He was a little man and he looked up belligerently.

  Evan got out the photo. “It’s not a particularly good picture, but do you think you saw this woman? She was wearing a gray-green raincoat last night and had an expensive silk scarf around her head. She looks elegant and fashionable and slightly foreign, I’d say. I think she’d stand out among the usual crowd.”

  The ticket collector took the photo and studied it intently. “Can’t say that I remember her,” he said, “but there was a big crush of people getting off last night, on account of it being Friday. Was she on the five o’clock train?”

  “No, the one after it—it got in around seven-thirty, I think she said.”

  The little man shook his head triumphantly. “Is that what she told you? There wasn’t a seven-thirty train last night. It was delayed—points failure at Crewe. It didn’t get in until after nine.”

  “Is that so? Thanks a lot. You’ve been very helpful,” Watkins turned to Evans with a knowing look. “So she didn’t get back from London last night,” he muttered, as they moved out of earshot of the now-curious ticket collector. “Now I’m dying to hear whether she was ever there at all. Great. That gives us one person with motive and opportunity. We’re getting somewhere, Evans.”

  “Excuse me, mate.” The ticket collector tapped Evan on the arm. “You were here a few weeks ago, weren’t you. You put a young girl with black hair on the London train.”

  “You’ve got a good memory,” Evan said.

  “Ah well, in my line of work, I’ve sort of trained myself to notice things.” The ticket collector was now bursting with importance. “I noticed her because there was something odd. She had wet hair for one thing. And you were all wet, too, weren’t you. That’s what stuck in my mind.”

  “Quite right,” Evan said. “Her car went into a lake. I pulled her out.”

  Watkins looked surprised.

  “Hiding your light under a bush…” he began but the ticket collector cut him short. “You know she came back, sir.”

  “What?”

  “That girl came back. Earlier this week. I recognized her right away.”

  “Did she now,” Evan said. “Do you remember what day it was?”

  “Could have been Tuesday. There was a go-slow down in London on Tuesday and the train got in late. Yes, I think that was it.”

  “And do you remember anything else? Was anyone here to meet her? Did she get into a car?”

  The man shook his head. “I didn’t see. I had to take the tickets, didn’t I?”

  “Well, thanks very much,” Evan said. “That’s very interesting.”

  “Is she a wanted criminal?” the man asked excitedly. “One of those drug pushers? She looked shifty to me.”

  “No. Nothing like that,” Evan said. “Thanks again for your help.”

  “What was that about?” Watkins asked as they headed back to the car.

  “Oh, just something that happened when Bronwen and I were on a hike. A car went into a lake. I got the girl out and put her on a train to London.”

  “Oh, nothing to do with this business then?”

  “I don’t see how…” Evan began, but then he paused, his mind racing to connections he hadn’t considered before. “The strange thing was that the first time I saw her, she was coming out of the Powell-Joneses’ house, right before the Llewellyns moved in. I suppose it was just coincidence…”

  “We’ve got one good lead to go on already today,” Watkins said. “Let’s get back to Llanfair and wait for Mrs. Llewellyn to show up with her son. I’m interested to hear how she’s going to explain this.”

  * * *

  They were back in Llanfair half an hour later but there was no sign of Mrs. Llewellyn’s car. Sergeant Watkins’s face fell. “I’ll put in a call to HQ,” he said. “They were checking the departure lists checked at the airport. Lord, I hope she hasn’t run for it.”

  “Give her time, Sarge,” Evan said. “She couldn’t have made it to Manchester and back yet, and you know what airports are like, especially on a summer weekend. If she’s not back by two o’clock, then you can start worrying.”

  “I don’t care what you say, I am worrying now,” Watkins said. “We’ll have the D.I. showing up any moment.”

  “Now might be a good time for Mrs. Powell-Jones to take a look at the house,” Evan said. “And Gladys, too.”

  “Good idea. You go and find the Powell-Jones woman. I’ll put in a call for a car to pick up Gladys. I’d say that neither of them miss much. Between them we’ll know if anything was moved or removed.”

  Evan unlocked the police station for the sergeant to make his call and then went in search of Mrs. Powell-Jones. It was possible that she’d gone back to her mother, but he didn’t think so. He suspected that Mrs. Powell-Jones was as curious as anyone about a suspicious death in her house.

  * * *

  Gladys hurried along Pool Street, clutching her basket in front of her. What with all the summer visitors, Caernarfon was getting too crowded these days. They should leave the residents in peace to do their shopping, not clutter up the pavements buying postcards and ice creams!

  At least she had a little more time before the shops shut, thanks to the lift Mrs. Llewellyn had given her. A nice lady, after all. She’d always seemed a bit quiet and standoffish before. She’d left Gladys to get on with her work and never stopped to chat or gossip, but today she had been quite talkative, asking Gladys the same kind of questions the police had asked her. That was understandable, of course. She wanted to find out exactly what had happened to her husband. It was only natural, wasn’t it?

  Gladys wished she had been able to tell her more—like who the late visitor was, for instance. That was bothering her—there was something about that voice. She hadn’t heard any of the actual words spoken, but the way the voice rose and fell—she was sure she’d recognize it if she heard it again.

  The clock on the castle stuck twelve. Gladys glanced up. She just had time to pop into the greengrocers and pick up a nice bunch of leeks and some fresh peas for Sunday lunch. She wanted to be back when the police sent a car for her. A satisfied smile spread across her face. What would that snobby Mrs. Thomas at number thirty-one think now? Gladys hoped, not for the first time, that she’d been seen arriving in a Mercedes this morning.

  She stood impatiently on the corner where Pool Street came into Castle Square. So much traffic these days. She could remember when she was a girl and they didn’t even need to have zebra crossings or lights saying WALK NOW. A coach had disgorged its passengers and they swept toward her in a talking, laughing tide. Gladys glared at the DON’T CROSS light. Really, pedestrians had no rights these days. She inched forward, ready to dart across before the tourists the moment the light changed.

  As she glanced down the street a flash of color caught her attention and recognition lit up her face. So that’s who it was! Of course. It made sense now. Across Castle Square a policeman blew his whi
stle and the traffic surged forward in a roaring jumble of cars, buses, and lorries. Gladys moved impatiently from one foot to the other and shifted her basket to her hip. Suddenly something struck her in the middle of her back. She went lurching forward. She was conscious of a big dark shape in front of her, then, ridiculously, of flying …

  * * *

  Evan was met by a very harassed-looking Mrs. Williams at his landlady’s front door. “Oh, there you are, Mr. Evans,” she said. “I’ve got both Powell-Joneses here, in the sitting room. I hope it’s not much longer before she can get into her house again. She’s already found dust on my picture frames and now she’s asked to borrow my best sheets and pillowcases.”

  “What on earth for?”

  Mrs. Williams leaned conspiratorially close. “She’s got to make him new robes for the eisteddfod. The ones she made him are too tight.”

  “Oh, the eisteddfod—right.” So much had been going on that he’d forgotten about it. He was supposed to be performing tonight, wasn’t he? “The bard’s competition is tomorrow, isn’t it. I’m surprised he’s going to enter a competition on the Sabbath.”

  Mrs. Williams’s eyes twinkled. “It’s a very holy kind of competition, Mr. Evans,” she said.

  “Nonsense. You know as well as I do that the tradition of crowning the bard goes back to the Druids and pagan times. It couldn’t be more unholy.”

  Mrs. Williams chuckled. “Don’t you go telling him that now. Set his heart on winning, he has. This year he’s determined to beat Mr. Parry Davies.”

  She pushed open the living room door. “Here’s Mr. Evans back now.”

  The Powell-Joneses looked up in annoyance at the interruption. The reverend was standing with a white sheet pinned over his shoulders, looking like an amateur production of Julius Caesar. His wife was in the process of pinning a tablecloth around his head.

  “Very fetching, Reverend,” Evan couldn’t resist saying.

  Edward Powell-Jones merely scowled.

  “Should I make us all a nice pot of tea?” Mrs. Williams asked brightly.

  “We’ve only just had lunch,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said with annoyance. “Too much eating and drinking is unhealthy.”

  “Especially drinking.” Her husband glanced in Evan’s direction. “And gluttony is one of the deadly sins.”

  “How much longer am I to be kept here, Mr. Evans?” Mrs. Powell-Jones demanded. “I have many important things that I should be doing today. I had hoped to go down to the eisteddfod this afternoon and see if the judging has taken place for the craft events yet. I entered one of my tapestries, you know. A fine rendition of Caernarfon Castle, worked in local Welsh wool.”

  “If you’re ready to accompany me now, Mrs. Powell-Jones, I think you’d be able to do your tour of the house.”

  “Finally,” she said, giving a triumphant smile. “I won’t ask you to accompany me, dear.” She patted her husband’s hand. “You have your speech to work on, as well as your sermon for the morning. Besides, men are quite useless. They never notice anything.”

  “But what about…” Edward Powell-Jones began as Mrs. Powell-Jones made for the door. She swept out of Mrs. Williams’s cottage like a ship in full sail. Evan followed.

  “Mrs. Powell-Jones has come to do a tour of the house,” he said to the new shift of policemen at the gate. Bulbs flashed, microphones were thrust in their direction. “Hey, lady. You own the place, right?” a transatlantic voice demanded. “See any hanky-panky while they were here? Did he bring in any babes?”

  Mrs. Powell-Jones turned to give him such a withering glance that the microphone seemed to droop in his hand. Then she went on her way, unhindered.

  “Hmmph,” she said as she was shown into the drawing room by Sergeant Watkins.

  “You’ve seen something, madam?” he asked.

  “They’ve been moving the furniture around, for one thing.”

  “Really?”

  “That little desk was always against the far wall. It really doesn’t go at all where they’ve got it now. The cheek of some people. I specifically said that I wanted everything left as it was…”

  Watkins nodded to the lab technicians to move the desk.

  “Aha,” one of them exclaimed, dropping to his knees. “She’s right. This is probably where he fell. These look like blood spatters, don’t they?”

  “It would tie in with the way he was dragged,” the other agreed. “Hold on while I take some samples. Then we need to get photos of the spatter pattern, but I’d say he fell here right enough.”

  Mrs. Powell-Jones looked at them with astonishment. “Are you now telling me that he didn’t fall and hit his head on my fireplace? Somebody dragged him over there? Why?”

  “No doubt it will all come out in good time, madam,” Sergeant Watkins said evenly. “Now, please take a good look around. Has anything else been moved. Is anything missing?”

  She studied the room in silence then she let out a horrified cry. “Something most definitely is missing, Officer. One of my prized possessions—a bronze statue of an eagle in flight. It used to sit here, on the sideboard.” She pointed dramatically at the spot where there was now an innocuous bowl of fruit.

  Watkins glanced at Evan. “A bronze statue. We better search the garden and the area outside.”

  Evan didn’t like to say that the area outside extended to a hundred or so square miles of rugged mountains. Anyone who wanted to dispose of a bronze statue could do so in any number of streams or gullies, over cliffs, under bracken, even down abandoned mine shafts. Some areas were so hard to reach that there was a good chance a hidden object might never be found.

  “Make sure it is recovered immediately, Sergeant,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “It belonged to my grandfather. It is a priceless family heirloom.”

  “We’ll do our best, madam. I promise you,” Watkins said. He broke off as he became aware of a disturbance outside. Voices were raised. A car door slammed. Evan ran outside to see the black Mercedes waiting at the police cordon. A young man in jeans and a black T-shirt had just got out.

  “We’re his family,” he was saying to the unmoving policeman. “They sent my mother to the airport to pick me up and we were told to come straight back here. Well, here we are.”

  Evan stared at the newcomer. He was a slim young man with hair cut very short in the European way. He had an angular, boyish face and an air of arrogance. Evan had seen him before, he was sure of that. But where?

  The young man’s voice had risen until he was yelling over the background noise. “Now for God’s sake move the damned tape.”

  The voice was familiar—a young voice raised in anger. A car door slamming and a young girl shouting, “Bugger off, Justin!”

  That was it! He had seen Justin twice before—once fighting with a young girl outside the Powell-Joneses’ driveway where he now stood, and once at the edge of a lake when a car went into the water.

  Chapter 14

  Evan managed a welcoming smile as he went to meet the newcomer. “Mr. Llewellyn? We’ve been expecting you. Please come in. Sergeant Watkins is waiting.”

  “This way?” the young man asked indicating the house. He moved aside as his mother drove her car back into its parking space. “Will they need to talk to my mother anymore? She’s very tired. Naturally she didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “Just a few more questions, sir.”

  A spasm of anger crossed Justin Llewellyn’s face. “I can’t see why we’re being put through all this. Aren’t the news media bad enough? We’ve been hounded for years, you know. My poor mother—she couldn’t go anywhere without someone letting off flashbulbs in her face.”

  “I’m very sorry, sir,” Evan said. “We’re only doing our job. Following instructions.”

  Justin looked at him scornfully. “I don’t see what my mother or I have to do with a really unfortunate accident. We were both far away, minding our own business.”

  Evan opened the door and ushered the young man inside. He stood in the
hallway, waiting for his mother to catch up.

  “It happened in the drawing room,” Evan said.

  Justin looked around. “The drawing room?”

  “You’ve never been here before, sir?” Evan asked.

  “Good God no. I’ve stayed well away. My father and I were on different planets, Constable. He led his life, I led mine.”

  “So you didn’t come to visit your mother?”

  “I just told you,” Justin’s voice had risen again. “I arrived from Milan this morning. Do you want to look at my boarding pass?” He turned to his mother. “Really, this is too much. Why don’t we just get out of here and go to a hotel somewhere?”

  “This won’t take long, sir,” Evan said, “but I know the detective sergeant has a couple of questions.” He pushed open the drawing room door. “In here, please.”

  Mrs. Powell-Jones, Sergeant Watkins, and the two lab technicians looked up with interest as the Llewellyns were ushered in.

  “Oh good, you’ve arrived at the right moment,” Sergeant Watkins said. The relief that Mrs. Llewellyn had shown up again was noticeable on his face. “Maybe there’s something you can clear up for us. This is Mrs. Powell-Jones.” The minister’s wife nodded her head graciously in a sort of regal greeting. “She owns the house and she has noticed that a valuable object is missing.”

  Justin looked around the room with amusement. “Does she think you’ve been pinching the silver, Mother? Doesn’t she realize that you could buy her and her house many times over?”

  Mrs. Llewellyn gave him a warning frown. “What kind of object, Sergeant?”

  “A bronze sculpture,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “Of an eagle in flight, presented by the grateful employees to my grandfather on his fiftieth anniversary as owner of the slate quarry.”

  “It sat there on the sideboard, apparently.” Sergeant Watkins pointed. “Where the fruit bowl is now.”

  Unaccountably Mrs. Llewellyn began to laugh. “That thing?” she said. “Is that what all the fuss is about?” She started for the door. “Please come with me,” she said. “I think this is one mystery I can clear up for you.” She led them to the big oak cupboard under the stairs and opened the door. “Is that what you’re looking for?” she asked.