Constable Evans 03: Evanly Choirs

by Rhys Bowen

  Evan put a hand on his shoulder. “Come along, let’s go now.”

  Mostyn came with him willingly enough. As they passed the next pavilion Mostyn hesitated.

  “Just a minute, Mr. Evans,” he said. “I just need to get something out of my briefcase.”

  Evan waited patiently. Mostyn rummaged around, then he said, “You really are very naive, aren’t you? Did you think I’d come without a fight?”

  His hand emerged from the brief case and Evan saw that he was holding a gun. It wasn’t just a little pistol, either. It was a sleek new semiautomatic, the sort of gun Evan had seen in the hands of drug dealers but the last thing in the world he would have expected to see in the hands of Mostyn Phillips.

  “Where on earth did you get a thing like that?” he blurted out.

  Mostyn gave a satisfied smile. “You can buy them quite easily these days. I got it on my last trip to Ireland. Everyone is armed there. Nobody asks questions. I always sensed I’d have to protect myself someday.”

  “Come on, Mostyn, don’t be—” he was about to say “a fool” and stopped himself. Being labeled as a fool and a failure had already made him kill once. He had to make sure that Mostyn didn’t do anything stupid with so many people milling around them. “Don’t make it harder on yourself,” he finished. “I’m sure the judge and jury will understand that there were extenuating circumstances. We can testify that Ifor goaded you to the limits of your endurance. You’ll probably get off with manslaughter—maybe only a couple of years.”

  “A couple of years?” Mostyn’s voice was high and dangerous. “Do you know what prison would be like for a man like me? You saw how Ifor picked on me. That’s what it would be like every moment, only worse.” He shook his head. “I’m not going to jail, Mr. Evans. I’m going out in a blaze of glory. I’m going to make bigger headlines than Ifor, for once!”

  Suddenly he dodged into the tent behind him, ran up the center aisle, and leaped up onto the stage. “Nobody move,” he instructed. “And nobody gets hurt.”

  There were screams and the sound of chairs being knocked over as people dived for cover.

  “I said nobody move!” Mostyn’s voice was almost a scream now. “And stay in your seats!”

  But some people had already left. Spectators standing near the entrance had managed to slip away. It was only a matter of time before the police got here in full force, and then what would happen? Evan was sure Mostyn was serious about going out in a blaze of glory. He’d probably be quite prepared to shoot it out with the police, and how many other people would wind up dead?

  Evan ducked out of the back of the tent and ran around to the stage entrance. He slipped inside and for the first time he was able to assess the true horror of the situation. Mostyn was standing in the middle of a group of young folk dancers. There were white dresses and flower garlands all around him. They were standing rooted to the spot with expressions of bewildered horror on their young faces. The audience also sat as if mesmerized as Mostyn’s gun swept over them, first left and then to the right. Then Evan’s heart missed a beat. Bronwen was sitting in the middle of the front row, her arms around two little girls. Nothing was going to be allowed to happen to Bronwen!

  It was now or never. Go on, he commanded himself silently. Get on with it, before it’s too late! But his legs didn’t want to move. He was fairly sure that Mostyn wouldn’t shoot him in cold blood, but Mostyn was not himself tonight. He was already a man driven over the edge. Who knew what he would do?

  Evan took a deep breath and stepped up onto the stage. Mostyn turned at the noise and pointed the gun at him. He heard gasps from the spectators.

  “Come on, Mostyn bach. You don’t want to do this,” Evan said, fighting to keep his voice calm and genial. “We don’t want one of these little children to get hurt by mistake, do we?”

  “Stay away from me, Evan,” Mostyn said, waving the gun dangerously. “I’m warning you!”

  “Just think what you’re doing, Mostyn. Any jury would understand how you killed Ifor. But if a little child gets killed tonight, they won’t forgive you so easily. They’ll put you away for life.”

  A spasm of pain crossed Mostyn’s face. “I don’t care,” he said. “Why should I care about anything? Who’s ever cared about me? Now get back. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Evan took a step closer. “I know you don’t. You don’t want to hurt anyone, Mostyn. You’re not a violent person. And you like children, too. You’ve devoted your whole life to children. Why undo all that good in one stupid moment?”

  He took another step closer. “Give me the gun, please, before someone gets hurt by mistake.”

  “Don’t come any closer!” Mostyn was crying now, the tears mingling with beads of sweat that ran down his face. “I’m not going to let them take me alive. I’m going out in a blaze of glory.”

  “You call this glory?” Evan demanded. “Little kiddies getting hit by stray bullets is glory? Look at those little faces, Mostyn. Look what you’re putting them through. Don’t do this to them. Come on. Give me the gun.”

  He took the final step. He saw the muscles in Mostyn’s forearm tighten, his fingers curl around the trigger. Mostyn let out an almost primal “No!” as Evan grabbed the gun and wrenched it out of his hand. Mostyn sank to the floor with a great sob as security men leaped onto the stage and yanked him to his feet.

  “Go easy with him,” Evan commanded. “He’s sick. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  Mothers scrambled onto the stage, sweeping up and enveloping now-crying children. Evan stood on the stage, unnoticed for the moment, too stunned to move. He was just coming down the steps when flashbulbs went off in Evan’s face.

  “How does it feel to be a hero? Were you scared? What made you do it?” He was being buried under an avalanche of questions.

  “I’m a policeman. It’s part of my job,” he said, squinting in the glare of the lights. “If you want to know any more, you’ll have to talk to my boss in Caernarfon.”

  “Wait. Let me get to him,” a female voice yelled and someone pushed through the circle of media. “Evan, darling, you were wonderful! So brave! You saved us all! I was so proud of you!” Maggie flung herself into his arms as the flashbulbs popped around them.

  “I realize now what a fool I was and how badly I treated you,” she went on. “Please come home and let’s start over.”

  Evan removed her arms from his neck. “You don’t understand, Maggie. I am home,” he said. “I’ve no desire to go anywhere else, or to go back to any part of my old life. Now, if you’ll all excuse me…”

  He walked calmly past the microphones and cameras. As he came down the steps from the stage he heard the wail of an approaching siren. It hadn’t taken the police long to get here. He had only just been in time.

  Bronwen was standing now, her arms still around the little girls who were crying.

  “It’s alright,” Evan said, bending down to them. “It’s all over.” He looked up at Bronwen. “Are you okay?” he asked simply, because that was the first thing that came into his head.

  “More to the point, are you okay?” she said fiercely. “I never want to go through that again, as long as I live. Must you always be the Boy Scout and do the good deeds?”

  “I was pretty sure he wouldn’t really have shot me,” Evan said, recoiling at her anger.

  “Pretty sure?”

  “I had to do it, Bron,” he said simply. “If I hadn’t got the thing away from him before the police got here he would have been happy to die in a Rambo-style shootout.”

  Bronwen let go of the little girls and came up to him. “You were incredibly brave,” she said. She slipped her arms around his neck. “Just don’t ever do it again!”

  “I can’t promise that,” Evan said, wrapping his own hands around her waist. “As I said to those media types, I’m a policeman. It’s all part of the job.”

  “Miss Price, I’m scared. Can we go home now?” One of the little girls tugged at her ski
rt.

  “I have to get them home,” Bronwen said regretfully.

  “Of course you do. And I suppose I’d better make my way to HQ and file my report when they bring Mostyn in,” Evan said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He ushered them through the confusion in the center aisle, pushing aside persistent cameras that were still following him.

  “Don’t you want to say good-bye to your girlfriend?” Bronwen asked as they reached the exit.

  Evan glanced back. He could no longer see Maggie amid the chaos on stage. “That was all over and forgotten long ago,” he said. “She let me down rather badly once. When we’ve got time, I’ll tell you all about her.”

  “Is that why you’re so reluctant to get involved again?” Bronwen asked.

  Evan nodded. “Once bitten, twice shy, don’t they say?”

  “Oh, she did that, too, did she?” Bronwen asked. There was a challenging sparkle in her eyes.

  “Did what?”

  “Bite?”

  Evan took one of the little girls by the hand and put his arm around Bronwen’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get these little ones home. I said I’d tell you all the details later.”

  Outside the activities were winding down. The outer booths were lit by kerosene lamps and the sky was glowing pink on the western horizon.

  “We never did manage to go around the eisteddfod together, did we?”

  “There’s always next year,” Bronwen said.

  “Right. I’ll mark it in my calendar. No crime allowed that weekend.”

  They stood smiling at each other.

  “I really have to get going,” Evan said. “They’ll be waiting for me at HQ.”

  Bronwen nodded. “Why don’t you stop by on your way home, if it’s not too late,” she said. “I’ll make you some cocoa.”

  “People might talk.”

  “Let them. And anyway, they’ll be too busy gossiping about poor old Mostyn to notice us.”

  Evan smiled. “Alright. I’ll see you later then.”

  He watched Bronwen disappear into the twilight, a little girl at either hand. Then he headed back in the direction of his car.

  A burst of applause made him pause at the grand pavilion. On the stage were tiers of figures in white robes, their heads draped in what looked like tablecloths. In one case Evan knew that the headdress was a tablecloth. Although he knew that this was the traditional Druid dress, he still thought it looked bloody silly. His eyes scanned the rows until he picked out the Reverend Powell-Jones, sitting at one end and the Reverend Parry Davies at the other.

  In the center was an empty chair, decorated with vines, surrounded by several men in splendid green robes with crowns of leaves on their heads. Those were the past bards and the Arch Druids. Little girls in green dresses, their heads wreathed with garlands of flowers, sat at their feet.

  “And now we come to the most solemn moment of the eisteddfod,” one of these green-clad figures announced. “Now we pay homage to this year’s bard, by crowning him and seating him in the chair of honor. We have heard all the candidates for the title of bard. We have been truly impressed with the quality of their eloquence and the richness of their poetry this year. The choice has not been an easy one, but one contestant stood out from all the rest. He spoke with fire, he spoke with eloquence, he spoke with passion.

  “I am delighted to say that this man is one of our own, from here in North Wales. I call forth to be chaired the bard of the Harlech eisteddfod, from the little town of Llan…”

  Mr. Powell-Jones had already risen to his feet. So had Mr. Parry Davies.

  “… from the little town of Llanrwst in the beautiful Vale of Conwy, Mr. Rex Beynon!”

  An inoffensive-looking little man with a toothbrush moustache rose to his feet, his head bobbing to the applause as he walked toward the bardic chair. Powell-Jones and Parry Davies remained standing, staring in disbelief.

  Then, almost as if they had orchestrated it, they marched down the steps at either side and off the stage. They kept on walking until they met at the back exit of the pavilion.

  “Rex Beynon!” Mr. Powell-Jones exclaimed in disgust. “He had no fire, no spirit, no rhythm to his verse. No voice at all.”

  “He sounded like a mouse squeaking in a cathedral.”

  “He’d never preached a rousing sermon in his life, I’ll be bound.”

  “Never made people weep to hear him, eh Edward?”

  “Never had a conversion on the spot, eh, Tomos bach?”

  They stood there, looking slightly ridiculous in their white sheets and tablecloths.

  “You should have won it, man,” Powell-Jones said huskily. “You had the voice and the fire and the passion.”

  “So did you, Edward. So did you. Either one of us should have won it. It would have been hard to decide between us.”

  Edward Powell-Jones’s face lit up. “That’s it!” he exclaimed. “That’s why they did it! They couldn’t decide between us and they didn’t want to hurt either of our feelings, so they chose that little squeaking windbag Rex Beynon.”

  “You may just be right there, Edward. There was nothing to choose between us, was there? We were both streets ahead of the rest of the competition.”

  “Next year you should enter alone. I’ll bow out and give you your chance for glory,” Edward Powell-Jones said.

  “That’s very good of you, Edward, but maybe I’ll step down next year and let you have your chance.”

  “Oh no, I insist. You’ve been working for it longer than I. It’s only fair.”

  “Let’s not think about next year yet. Let’s go and get a drink and toast the true winners, eh Edward bach?”

  “I don’t usually imbibe, Tomos bach, but seeing the solemnity of the occasion…”

  The two men set off together, white sheets flying in the breeze.

  Who would have thought it, Evan mused. It was definitely a night of minor miracles.

  Chapter 23

  The next morning Evan was back at work at the Llanfair subpolice station when Mrs. Llewellyn came in.

  “I suppose we’ll be free to go now, won’t we, Constable?” she asked.

  “I expect so, Mrs. Llewellyn.”

  “And Ifor’s body will be released to us?”

  “I see no reason why not. They’ve got a full confession from Mostyn Phillips and he’s in custody. This time I think the confession was genuine.”

  Margaret Llewellyn smiled, then the smile faded. “Poor Mostyn. I feel so sorry for him. He could never understand why I chose Ifor … but it was no contest, was it? How could anyone want Mostyn when they could have an Ifor Llewellyn?” She smiled sadly. “In spite of everything he put me through he was the only man I ever loved. I truly loved him, Mr. Evans. Mostyn could never understand that.”

  Evan could think of nothing to say.

  “I’m taking the body back to Italy for the funeral,” she went on. “They want to give him a state funeral with all the trappings—black-plumed horses, the lot. Ifor would appreciate that. Going out in style.”

  Evan smiled. “Pity. Mrs. Williams was rather hoping for a good funeral here.”

  * * *

  Back at Mrs. Williams’s house Mrs. Powell-Jones was busy packing up her husband’s clothes.

  “It will be so nice to be back in our own place, won’t it, Edward,” she said. “It’s not easy living out of a suitcase.”

  “It has been disagreeable,” Mr. Powell-Jones said. “The whole thing has been very uncomfortable and inconvenient. I think that’s why I lost the competition—I couldn’t put my mind fully to the task in hand, because I wasn’t in my own house and you weren’t there to look after me.”

  Mrs. Powell-Jones put her arm awkwardly around his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Edward. I won’t go running off again. And next time anyone offers us a large sum of money for our house, I’ll resist the temptation and turn it down.”

  “They won’t want a refund, will they?” Edward Powell-Jones asked. “Just because they’re
going home early?”

  “I hope not!” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “I’ve already got a deposit on a new three-piece suite!”

  * * *

  Over in the Red Dragon Betsy was doing the morning dusting.

  “You can wave bye-bye to that date with Constable Evans, Betsy my girl,” Harry-the-Pub commented as he came in with a tray of clean glasses. “Rumor has it that he was seen going into Bronwen Price’s house very late last night.”

  “I heard that, too,” Betsy said. She looked at herself in the mirror decorated with the words WHAT WE WANT IS WATNEYS. “I don’t understand it, Harry. What’s she got that I haven’t, I’d like to know. I keep myself looking nice, don’t I? I wear trendier clothes than her. I’ve got a better figure…” She paused and examined her hair. “Maybe it’s my hair. Maybe Mr. Llewellyn was right and I should dye it. How do you think I’d look with black hair, eh Harry?”

  “Bloody daft,” Harry said. “Now stop gawping at yourself and put away those glasses.”

  Also by Rhys Bowen

  Evans Above

  Evan Help Us

  EVANLY CHOIRS. Copyright © 1999 by Rhys Bowen. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Production Editor: David Stanford Burr

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bowen, Rhys.

  Evanly choirs : a Constable Evans mystery / Rhys Bowen.— 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-312-20539-2

  I. Title

  PR6052.0848E9 1999

  823'.914—dc21

  99-19879

  CIP

  FIRST EDITION: May 1999

  eISBN 9781466840171

  First eBook edition: February 2013