Evan Blessed

by Rhys Bowen

  “No, nothing like that.” Evan tried to think quickly. “We’re just checking on the report of a vehicle sighted on the mountain the day the girl vanished.”

  “Could have been one of ours. There’s someone out on patrol all the time.”

  “Alone?” Evan asked.

  “Usually they take a volunteer with them in the summer,” the receptionist said. “In the off season, when things quieten down, then they’re mostly out alone.”

  “So you can’t tell me definitely whether any of your people was out alone on the day the girl vanished?”

  “Why would that be important?” She was definitely looking suspicious now.

  “Well now.” Evan paused. “Because the vehicle reported seen on the mountain had just one person in it. I wanted to rule out whether it was one of yours.”

  “I can’t think what other sort of vehicle might have been up there. It’s off limits to traffic, even if someone did have a four-wheel drive capable of tackling that sort of terrain.”

  This wasn’t going to lead anywhere productive, Evan decided. He might learn more from talking to the summer volunteers. He was told that they were out clearing brush. He drove to the spot where they were working and found a group of noisy, lively students busy hacking away at rampant brambles that threatened to cover a stile. They all knew about the missing girl and had all taken part in the search.

  “How did you get up the mountain?” Evan asked. “Did you have to walk up?”

  The students laughed. “Not bloody likely. We’re not that fit.”

  “No, several of us piled into the back of Eddie Richards’s Land Rover and you lot went with Jenny Henderson in hers, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t think it was going to make it up there with all our weight,” one of the boys said.

  “Speak for yourself.” A slender girl tossed back long dark hair.

  “So, Eddie Richards—who’s he? One of the permanent employees?” Evan asked.

  “Yeah, he’s the head honcho. Old bloke. Like a bloody drill sergeant.”

  “Used to be in the army once, before he retired,” someone else chimed in.

  “And what are the others like?” Evan asked.

  “Jenny’s cool. Roger’s all right.”

  “All right?” Evan asked.

  “Quiet sort of bloke. Not too chatty. He’s okay when he’s not singing.”

  “Not singing?” Evan asked.

  The students grinned. “He’s in one of those male choirs and he tends to practice a lot. Having Welsh hymns sung in your ear all day can get to be a bit much.”

  “And what about Diana?”

  “Diana’s a bit standoffish. Frightfully upper class. She went to a snobby girls’ boarding school.”

  “So did I,” the slender girl said, “but I don’t act the way she does. She’s just a cow.”

  “You lot all seem to get along really well,” Evan said. “I suppose you have to enjoy being one of the gang if you choose summer work like this.”

  “You have to be a bloody masochist, mate,” the chubby boy said gloomily. “I’ve lost over a stone since I started here.”

  “Not that anyone could tell!” They were laughing again.

  “So you were all up on the mountain that day. And you didn’t see anything suspicious?” Evan asked.

  “Such as what?”

  “We found the girl’s glove yesterday. Which meant it had been overlooked the day before.”

  They now faced him with worried looks.

  “We weren’t told to look for gloves and things. People are always dropping stuff on the mountain paths. We were told that she might have wandered in the wrong direction or fallen and hurt herself.”

  “We searched, we didn’t find her, and we piled in the vehicles again to ride down when it got dark,” the chubby boy said.

  “It seems really strange that she hasn’t been found yet,” one of the girls said. “I hope nothing’s happened to her.”

  “Like what?” Evan asked.

  “You never know who you’ll meet on a mountain, do you?” the girl asked. “There are some weird types out there.”

  “Yeah, but look at all the people there were up there that day,” a boy countered. “If you tried to drag someone away, she’d only have had to scream and tons of people would have heard her.”

  “We’ve got divers searching Glaslyn at the moment,” Evan said. “She may have fallen in.”

  “Ooh, how terrible.” The dark-haired girl shook her head. “Yes, I can see that might have happened. There are places on the Miner’s Path where you could lose your footing if you weren’t paying attention. Poor girl.”

  “So, nobody remembers seeing a red glove then?”

  They looked at each other, then shook their heads.

  “I’d have noticed a red glove, I’m sure,” one of the girls spoke up at last. “Because it was a warm day. Who would be wearing gloves?”

  Who indeed? Evan thought as he drove home. Unless it had fallen from her backpack as she slid down the screen slope. But why hadn’t anyone noticed it sooner? Unless the man who had taken Shannon had planted it there after the search had concluded, to throw everyone off the scent. However much Evan wanted to believe that Shannon had fallen and drowned, he knew that in his heart, he didn’t believe that at all.

  Chapter 10

  After leaving the volunteers, Evan drove to the first of the four addresses he had been given. It turned out that Eddie Richards lived in a National Parks bungalow, not far from Parks Headquarters. He wasn’t there as Evan had expected, but his wife was preparing dinner.

  “Yes, Eddie told me about this missing girl,” she said, “and I saw her picture in the paper today. What a sad business. I hope she turns up safe and sound. Such a worry for her parents. Eddie was quite cut up about it. He used to worry about our two girls before they went off to university. If they weren’t home the moment they said they’d be, he’d start pacing the floor.”

  Evan left with the feeling that he could probably rule out Mr. Richards as a suspect. Anyone who worried about his own daughters’ welfare was not likely to have evil intentions about other young girls, he decided.

  Jenny Henderson, the driver of the other vehicle that day, had the day off. She lived at home and Evan was told by her mother that she’d gone shopping. That left Roger and Diana, who were out on patrol together.

  As he got back into the car, Evan decided that he should probably interview each of the rangers in person. Even a man who sang hymns all day! Of course the two women weren’t likely to be suspects. But even if they weren’t involved themselves, one of them might have seen evidence of the bunker being built. Or have glimpsed something that hadn’t seemed suspicious at the time but had resulted in the disappearance of Shannon Parkinson. He went back to Parks Headquarters and had the receptionist call up the two park vehicles on the radio. Eddie Richards was on his way back to headquarters. Evan drove to intercept him. He saw immediately why the students referred to him as a drill sergeant. Short, buzzed hair. Lean. Sharp-eyed. No-nonsense sort of bloke. Quick on the uptake, too. After Evan had asked him a couple of questions, he demanded, “All right. What’s behind all this? You don’t think the girl met with an accident, do you?”

  “Possibly not,” Evan said.

  “I don’t know. There are still places it’s impossible to check out properly. She could be lying at the bottom of a mine shaft. There are still a couple of those not properly sealed off.”

  “Possible, yes.”

  He regarded Evan with his sharp blue eyes. “In my business you go for the obvious, until it’s been disproved.” He paused. “Unless there are things you’re not telling me, of course.”

  “We may have reason to believe that someone abducted the girl,” Evan said.

  “Ah. I see. So that’s it.”

  “Were you in that area on the day she disappeared?”

  “Tuesday, was it? Yes, I think I was. Not up on Snowdon, though. I was driving around, resto
cking our information centers with materials. I got the emergency call and took a carload of kids up with me to look for her. Believe me, we did a thorough job.”

  Evan left Richards feeling sure that he was not the kind of man they were looking for, a man of action, family man, not a secretive loner. It took him another half-hour to locate Roger Thomas and Diana on a nearby beach. He saw instantly that the students’ assessment of Diana as a snobby, boarding school type had again been accurate. She had one of those lazy, upper-class drawls not often heard these days and she looked as if Evan might be a bad smell under her nose.

  “Sorry,” she drawled. “Tuesday was my day off, Roger’s too, wasn’t it?” She turned to him and he nodded, averting his eyes from Evan’s gaze. Roger Thomas was not unlike Evan in build—big, dark-haired, but with a fresh, schoolboy’s face that made him look much younger than he probably was. Like a schoolboy having been sent to the headmaster, he shifted nervously when Evan addressed him.

  “Your day off too, sir? So you weren’t involved in the search and rescue mission on the mountain that day.”

  “No, I’m afraid we missed all the excitement,” Roger said. He had the slightest lilt of a Welsh accent, but with overtones that indicated a school or college education in England.

  “And how did you spend your day off, Mr. Thomas?” Evan asked.

  “Me? I was—my choir was practicing over in Bala for a concert we’re going to give there next week. I sing with a Cor Meibion, you know.”

  “He never bloody well stops singing,” Diana said dryly. “You should try driving around all day with hymns being sung at you.”

  Roger grinned sheepishly. “I can’t help it,” he said. “It’s in the blood. My da sang with the chapel choir and his dad before him.”

  Diana made a snorting noise of derision.

  “And you, miss. How did you spend your day off?” Evan asked.

  She met his gaze with a cold, blank stare. “I was washing my hair,” she said. “Any more silly questions? What exactly is this about?”

  Evan repeated the suggestion that a vehicle had been sighted on the mountain and Shannon Parkinson might have been abducted.

  “Sorry we can’t help you,” Diana said. “As I just told you, it was our day off.”

  “Have you noticed any suspicious vehicles on the mountain in the last few weeks?” Evan asked. “Our man may have been spying out the land.”

  “If we’d found any vehicle on National Park land, we’d have intercepted it and sent it back to the road,” Diana said. “Wouldn’t we, Roger?”

  It was clear to Evan who gave the orders in that duo. Roger was staring at the ground, clearly wishing the interview would end. Why? Evan wondered. Because he was naturally shy, or was there a more sinister reason? Still, singing with a choir in Bala, some fifty miles away, was a pretty solid alibi. And Roger Thomas wouldn’t have had use of a parks vehicle on his day off.

  “Is that all, because we’re rather busy at the moment,” Diana said impatiently. “Come on, Roger. We need to get going.” She turned her back on Evan. Roger hesitated, glanced up at Evan, then followed her back to their Land Rover. Evan couldn’t think of any good reason to make them stay.

  As he drove back to Caernarfon, he tried to assess what, if anything, he had gleaned from the afternoon’s interviews. Roger Thomas was uncomfortable in his presence. Eddie Richards wasn’t. Apart from that, the only useful piece of information that Evan had gleaned was that nobody he had interviewed that afternoon had seen a red glove when they were initially searching the mountain for signs of Shannon. He drove back fast, and pulled up at the same time as D.I. Watkins.

  “I’ve just dropped off our profiler,” Watkins said as he got out of his car. “Interesting bloke. Amazing what they can do.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He took pictures, asked questions, and will send us a written profile,” Watkins answered. “He didn’t say a word when we were at the bunker, except to ask whether we moved anything. But he was telling me about other cases when we were driving together. Amazing that they can put together a whole personality and even a physical description based on one item of clothing that they find. What about you? Anything useful?”

  “Nothing really. One of the rangers didn’t enjoy talking to me, but he had the day off on Tuesday and was in Bala singing with his choir. It would seem that the red glove wasn’t on the mountain during the original search. Oh, and one of the rangers suggested that we should double-check the mine shafts.”

  “I don’t know how we can possibly do that—unless you’re volunteering to be lowered down?” Watkins grinned.

  “Oh, right. I’ll definitely volunteer for that.” Evan smiled. “But from my recollection, it’s not very easy to fall down one of those shafts. The obvious ones are sealed off. And they’re all fenced in, with plenty of warning signs.”

  “But still, it’s a thought, isn’t it? If someone wanted to dispose of a body in a hurry …” Watkins sighed. “I’ll ask HQ if they can come up with a way to have them checked. I don’t want any of our boys lowered down there. We’d need qualified cavers, or maybe the local army base can spare us a commando or two.” He gave Evan a gentle shove. “Why don’t you bugger off for the night. I’m sure your future wife has planned a hundred and one things for you to do.”

  “It’s too late to look at antique furniture, thank God,” Evan said. “That’s her main occupation these days. The cottage has to be furnished with brass beds and Welsh dressers.”

  “That’s going to cost you a pretty penny, isn’t it?”

  Evan grimaced. “Her parents are paying, apparently.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “I’m glad you think so. I’m not too thrilled with the idea myself. I sort of feel that we should furnish our own house, bit by bit as we can afford it.”

  “Don’t like being beholden to the in-laws, eh?”

  “Exactly. They’ve already taken over the wedding. Instead of a simple affair, it’s now progressed to a marquee and a fancy caterer. I’ve more or less backed away at this stage. I’m leaving it to Bronwen.”

  “Wise man. I can see you’ll have a long and happy life together if you let her take over.”

  “Bron’s not like that,” Evan said. “And I’m sure she’ll do a great job with the wedding and the decorating.”

  “Go on, then. Off you go,” Watkins said. “At least you can play the supportive groom.”

  “Wait a minute. What about that Peeping Tom I was telling you about? Don’t you think we should be checking on that young chap at the bank?”

  “He was investigated once before, and I’ve no reason to believe that our men didn’t do a thorough job.”

  “Okay, so they found he had an alibi for the times when the Peeping Tom showed up, but—”

  “There you are, then. What more do you want? Don’t tell me you’re turning someone into a suspect because he’s got a shifty-looking face? That’s not like you, boyo. You’ve been working too hard. Go on home.”

  Evan had no choice but to obey.

  Chapter 11

  “Constable Evans! A word, if you don’t mind.” Mrs. Powell-Jones, the wife of the minister of Capel Beulah, came bearing down the street toward Evan as he stepped out of his car. She was wearing a wide white cardigan that flapped out around her, giving her the appearance of a galleon under full sail. It was too late to get back in the car again. Evan took a deep breath and resigned himself to his fate. He wondered what she’d found to complain about this time. She usually found some small infraction in the village and didn’t seem to understand that he was no longer the community policeman, in charge of such things. He was on the spot. That was all that mattered.

  “What’s the problem, Mrs. P-J?” he asked.

  “You are, Constable. I’ve just heard the most distressing news.”

  “You have?”

  “I understand that you are to be married shortly.”

  “That’s hardly distressing news, is it?
” Evan asked.

  She ignored this. “Of course I had hoped—well, expected, really, that my husband, being the senior pastor in this place, would have the honor of performing the ceremony. But now I find that isn’t to be so. I sincerely hope you have not asked that man to do it instead.”

  “Which man is that, Mrs. Powell-Jones?” Evan asked, even though he knew the answer.

  “The minister of that inferior chapel across the street. The one who frequents public houses and other dens of vice.”

  “Oh, you mean Mr. Parry Davies?” Evan asked, with a grin. “No, you can rest assured he’s not going to perform the ceremony.”

  Her face turned pale. “Surely you don’t mean you’re going to be married in a registry office? Not invoking the blessing of the Almighty?”

  “Wrong again,” Evan said, for once enjoying the confrontation with her. “We’re getting married in the little church at Nant Peris.”

  “Anglican?” She clutched her ample bosom in dramatic fashion. “High Church, with incense and chanting and all that Papist nonsense? Mr. Evans—how could you?”

  “Bronwen’s choice, not mine,” he said, “but I’ve nothing against it.”

  “That’s even worse than a registry office. Incense and statues are tools of the devil. Your marriage will be doomed from the start.”

  “I don’t think so. But cheer up, you’ll be invited, of course. We’re having a marquee and everyone is invited.”

  She drew herself up into her Queen Victoria imitation. “Mr. Evans, if you think I’ll set foot in a Church of Wales establishment, then you can think again.”

  With that she turned on her heels and had started to walk back up the street when a loud popping noise echoed back from the mountainside. Evans-the-Post came roaring down Llanfair’s main street on his motorbike. Mrs. Powell-Jones leaped for safety onto the pavement as the postman passed her, a look of half terror, half excitement in his eyes.

  “You should never be allowed to ride that thing!” Mrs. Powell-Jones screamed after him. “You’re a menace to society. I shall call the postmaster!”