Evan Blessed

by Rhys Bowen

  “Yes, we have to do everything we can to find her.”

  For once Evan felt a spark of camaraderie between them.

  “This place is chaos,” Hughes grumbled as they drove through Llanberis, looking for a parking space. “What’s the matter with all these people? Why can’t they go abroad on holiday like everyone else?”

  “I think they’re mostly from abroad,” Evan replied with a grin.

  “Bloody nuisance,” Hughes muttered. “Park there. In the handicapped zone. We won’t be long.”

  Evan turned into the handicapped space, glad that he was in an official police vehicle for once and glad that the suggestion to take up a handicapped space had been from Hughes. He retrieved the aluminum stepladder he had brought for the task and led the way past the line waiting for the Snowdon Railway, past the little train itself, puffing as it disgorged its passengers onto the platform. They joined a steady stream of hikers setting off on the Llanberis path up the mountain. Some of them were well equipped, with sturdy boots, sticks, water flasks, and backpacks. Among them were also some families with little children in shorts and sandals, even one young mother in a halter top and flip-flops. How on earth far did they think they would get? Evan wondered. And if the weather changed, drenching them in freezing rain, what did they intend to do then?

  They hadn’t gone far when Evan noticed Hughes breathing heavily. He also noticed the polished Italian shoes were now covered with the dust of the trail. Hughes was definitely not an outdoorsman. Evan wondered what he was good for—certainly not people skills. Didn’t speak good Welsh, didn’t do well in the outdoors … How did someone rise to the rank of D.C.I. with apparently so little going for him? he asked himself. Another case of the useless being bumped upstairs.

  The stand of woodland appeared, nestled into a curve of the mountain’s flank over to the left of the path. “This way, sir.” Evan struck out across the rough terrain. The whole area was still taped off with white police tape.

  “Didn’t anyone station an officer on watch up here?” Hughes asked.

  “I believe they did to start with,” Evan said. “I suppose they’ve finished taking forensic evidence from the site. I suggested they put a surveillance camera up here, but I don’t know if anything was being done about that.”

  “Expensive and apt to get vandalized,” Hughes said, so Evan had a pretty good idea who had shot down that suggestion.

  They ducked under the tape and followed the trail of trampled grass and bracken to the site of the bunker. Evan hadn’t been there since the first evening and for a moment he couldn’t recognize where the bunker was located. Then he saw that an attempt had been made to disguise the site. The sods that concealed the trap door had been put back in place and a blackberry bush trailed across it. Evan lifted back the brambles and removed the sods that had concealed the wooden trap door.

  “Well disguised, I must say,” Hughes said. “Presumably the profiler was brought up here?”

  “Definitely.” Evan swung the trap door open with some difficulty. Cold, stale air came up to meet him, accompanied by the sense of dread he had felt the last time he was here.

  As Hughes said nothing, Evan lowered the ladder, then climbed down onto it.

  “Mind how you go, sir,” he couldn’t resist saying as Hughes’s foot appeared above him. Hughes climbed down with surprising agility, pausing to dust off his jacket at the bottom.

  “Now, let’s take a look at what we’ve got here, shall we?” Hughes took the flashlight from Evan and shone it around the walls. “Rather well done,” he commented. “Quite cozy, in fact.”

  “Take a look on the wall up there, sir,” Evan said. “You won’t find that cozy.”

  The flashlight arced up to the area Evan had indicated. Evan stared, then grabbed the flashlight without asking. He shone it on the other walls, then back to the first spot he had indicated.

  The handcuffs were missing.

  Chapter 14

  “They can’t have gone!” Watkins reacted with an expletive when Evan called him on his mobile at D.C.I. Hughes’s instruction. “Was there evidence they’d been torn from the wall? Vandals, do you think?”

  “There was no sign that they had ever been there,” Evan replied. “If I hadn’t seen them myself, I wouldn’t have believed they existed.”

  “So someone took the trouble to take them down carefully,” Watkins said. “Either it was a thrill-seeker, or our man is one cool customer.”

  “He’s one cool customer,” Evan agreed.

  Hughes made impatient fluttering gestures that Evan should hand over the phone to him.

  “Hughes here, Watkins. They were there when you brought the profiler yesterday?”

  “Of course they were. I pointed them out to him.”

  “And nobody’s been there since?”

  “None of our blokes,” Watkins said. “Forensics had already finished their sweep of the place, so we didn’t leave a guard posted on the site, just taped off the whole area. So theoretically anyone could have found it. Had they broken the police tape across the top of the bunker?”

  Hughes repeated the question for Evan.

  “There was no tape,” he said.

  “Then someone removed the tape.”

  “Watkins, arrange for forensics to send someone up here right away, to check for fresh fingerprints,” Hughes barked into the phone.

  Evan thought this would be a waste of everyone’s time. A man who had been so meticulously careful about fingerprints so far, who had been so daring as to remove handcuffs from under the noses of the police, would not have made so easy a mistake at this juncture. The big question was where he had now taken the handcuffs and whether they were being put to use.

  As they arrived back at the police station car park, Evan saw a young man running toward him. It was Paul Upwood.

  “Constable Evans. I’m so glad you’ve shown up.”

  “You don’t have any news on Shannon, do you?” Evan asked.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Paul replied. “I left the youth hostel yesterday. I couldn’t stand being cooped up there, and people giving me strange looks as if I had something to do with it. Well, I did, didn’t I? I mean, if I’d taken care of her the way I promised her mum, she’d still be safe.”

  Evan couldn’t deny this last statement. “So where are you staying now?”

  “I checked into a B&B near Bangor Station last night,” Paul said, “but I really don’t know what I should do next. If I can still be of help here, I’ll stay, of course, but I’m due back at work on Monday. I’ve got a summer internship and I don’t want to blow that. So do you think it’s all right for me to go?”

  “We know where to contact you, don’t we?” Evan said. “And as you say, you’re not doing any good by sticking around here, worrying.”

  Relief flooded across Paul’s face. “Thank you. I can’t wait to get home to familiar surroundings. This whole thing is like living a nightmare.” He paused and reconsidered. “Of course, if I go home, I’ll have to face Shannon’s family, and that will be pretty nightmarish too. But at least I’ll be home, with my own things.”

  “Just one thing,” Evan said. “Did you and Shannon ever meet an older man at any time you were here?”

  “An older man?” Paul frowned. “What kind of older man?”

  “I wish we knew,” Evan said. “There is some hint that maybe Shannon may have been abducted.”

  “Oh no.” Paul stood there, his mouth gaping open.

  “So you don’t recall any encounter with an older man?”

  Paul screwed up his eyes. “Just in passing, like? You meet people on the trail when you’re hiking, don’t you? You say a few words and then you forget about it. Now you mention it, I do remember saying hello to several older men. There was one nice old bloke with lots of white hair. He told us he was seventy-four and he still walked five miles every day of his life. He came from the Potteries—Stokeon-Trent, I think he said. And then there was anot
her man, not so old. Middle-aged, I suppose you’d call him. The type that looks very fit—army type, you know. Short hair, jersey and cords, big boots. Shannon was sitting on a rock and she’d taken off her boots because her feet hurt her. This bloke stopped and said she’d wreck her feet if she didn’t get better boots.”

  “Anyone else?” Evan asked.

  Paul screwed up his face in concentration. “There was an older Frenchman at the hostel. He didn’t speak much English and Shannon’s taking A-level French so she translated for him. He seemed very pleasant.” He paused, then sighed. “I can’t think of anyone else.”

  “You have my phone number, don’t you?” Evan said. “Call me if you remember any other encounters at all. It could be something quite harmless like sitting next to someone in an ice cream parlor. Any time you noticed an older man looking at Shannon.”

  “We didn’t go to ice cream parlors,” Paul said. “We were here on a strict budget. We’re both students, you see. We had breakfast at the hostel, packed sandwiches for lunch, and brought along those dried packets of curry for our dinners. Look, can I go now? If I hurry, I can catch the twelve-thirty train from Bangor.”

  Evan put a big hand on Paul’s shoulder. “All right, Paul. Off you go. We’ll keep in touch.”

  “Thanks.” He chewed at his lip. “Thanks for trying, Constable Evans. Do you think there’s any chance we’ll still find her—alive, I mean?”

  “There’s still a chance. Say your prayers.”

  “I’m not what you’d call religious,” Paul said.

  “Say them anyway. It can’t hurt.”

  Paul nodded. “You won’t give up on her, will you?”

  “Oh, we never do that.”

  “Right.” Paul stuck his hands into his jacket pockets. “I’ll be off then.”

  Evan watched him walk away. Should he have run this decision past Inspector Watkins? Was there any more information to be gleaned from Paul Upwood’s subconscious? And was it just coincidence that one of the older men Paul described resembled the National Parks ranger Eddie Richards?

  Another visit to the National Parks Headquarters was definitely in order.

  Evan was about to follow D.C.I. Hughes into the building, but then decided to seize the chance to take off on his own. After all, he had been given permission to check out links to a musical background. And if there was time, then Rhodri Llewelyn’s wary gaze was still nagging at him.

  A visit to the local library gave him the addresses of the various choirs and music societies in the area. He called the contact number for each of them and asked them to fax a list of members with names, ages, and addresses, and whether married or single. When this request was met with puzzlement, he went on to explain that the police were trying to track down someone who was sending musical threats. He didn’t mention the disappearance of the girl.

  None of the people he spoke to thought that any of their members would do such a thing. All upright, law-abiding, chapel-going citizens. And most of them female, except for the male voice choirs. Old Mr. Herbert was unmarried, but he was also a deacon at his church. Mr. Phibbs was unmarried, so to speak, but he did share a house with Mr. Nesbit.

  Evan was left with no good leads and a feeling that he hadn’t expected any. He didn’t need a profiler to tell him that this man was a loner. A tour of record shops in the area brought only blank stares and Evan realized quickly that to the young people serving behind the counter, he counted as old. How would they be expected to remember an older man who came in to buy classical CDs, or a CD player? He would have been dismissed as boring and not worth their attention.

  Evan did ascertain from the manager of Virgin Records in Bangor that their computerized inventory system would show which items were sold on a particular day. But if the man paid cash and nobody remembered him, there was little use in pursuing this line of inquiry.

  Of course he hadn’t expected any major breakthrough. Anyone who was careful not to leave fingerprints would have been equally careful to pay cash and not draw attention to himself. Evan suspected that he wouldn’t be the kind of man who drew attention to himself anyway. Inoffensive, quiet, shy—the sort of man who drifts through society unnoticed. Who has to live out life through secret fantasies. There were plenty of those about. But most of them didn’t turn those fantasies into reality.

  He was anxious to see the profiler’s report and was heading back when he noticed Lloyds Bank on his right. Before he knew what he was doing, he had swung off the road and parked outside. As he pushed open the glass door, he suddenly realized he had no idea what he was going to say to Rhodri Llewelyn and that he might well scare him off if he didn’t tread carefully. He stepped away from the door, and held it open to let two elderly ladies totter in side by side.

  When he finally went in, he saw the line waiting patiently at the one open window. Hillary Jones was working there. Rhodri Llewellyn’s window beside her was unoccupied. He was about to leave when the back door opened and Mr. Shorecross came out. He saw Evan, looked momentarily surprised, then smiled as Evan came over to him.

  “Back again, Mr. Evans? Can I do something for you today? More loans for antique furniture?” He smiled.

  “I just wanted a word with your employee Rhodri Llewelyn,” Evan said. “But I see he’s not here.”

  “No, he’s taking a few days off this week. Summer holiday.” A frown crossed Shorecross’s face. “Most inconvenient. I told him so. As you can see, we can’t operate efficiently with one teller, and our third person is out on maternity leave until September. It’s so hard to find good employees these days. If they are young and female they get married, if they are married they have babies, and if they are like Rhodri Llewelyn, they have no loyalty to their employers. Not like when I was growing up. My father was a bank manager too, you know. It was a respected position in those days. Looked up to. Front pew in church. Now it doesn’t mean a thing anymore. A glorified shop assistant, that’s what it’s come down to.”

  Evan gave a sympathetic nod. “So could you give me Llewelyn’s home address?”

  “May I ask what this is about?”

  “Nothing to do with the bank, sir. We’re still attempting to tie in Miss Jones’s prowler with the case of this missing girl.”

  “Still no sign of her? Dear me, that’s bad. You can’t really think that Miss Jones’s Peeping Tom may have abducted this girl?”

  “Probably not,” Evan agreed. “We have very little to go on, but we have to follow up on any leads at this stage.”

  Shorecross leaned closer to Evan. “Surely you don’t suspect our Mr. Llewelyn? He’s an odd sort of fellow, I grant you that, but I don’t think he’d hurt a fly. He’s painfully shy around girls. Between you and me, I think he has a soft spot for Miss Jones and he was quite angry when she told us about the Peeping Tom. I think he volunteered to stand guard outside her house.”

  “She didn’t take him up on the offer?”

  “She didn’t want to encourage him.” Neville Shorecross smiled. “But by all means, question him if you must. I’ll write down his address for you.”

  He printed the name and address neatly on the back of a deposit slip. “There, that should do it. Although I don’t think you’ll find him home this week. He’s off somewhere, leaving us in the lurch. And if he thinks I’ll be recommending him for promotion when the assistant manager’s job opens up in Conwy, he can think again.”

  Evan climbed back into his car. He wouldn’t want to be Rhodri Llewelyn when he returned! Even though he had been warned that Rhodri was away for the week, Evan was curious to see where he lived. It turned out to be not too far from Hillary Jones—within walking distance, in fact. A plain grimy row house like all the others in a street that backed onto the railway line. The door knocker was well polished, however, and the front step was scrubbed to Mrs. Williams’s standard. Evan knocked and the door was opened an inch or so as a suspicious face looked out.

  “I’m looking for Rhodri Llewelyn,” Evan said. “I’m
D.C. Evans, North Wales Police.”

  The portion of the face that Evan could see through the crack in the door looked horrified. “Police? He’s not done anything wrong, has he?”

  “This is just a routine inquiry, madam.”

  The door opened wider and an old woman wearing a pinny over her clothes grabbed Evan by the arm and almost yanked him inside. “You’d better come inside before the neighbors see you,” she said.

  Evan found himself in a dark, narrow front hall with brown wallpaper. The smell of pine cleaner and furniture polish was so overwhelming that he had to fight back the urge to sneeze.

  “Are you his mother?” Evan asked cautiously, because she could equally have been his grandmother.

  “That’s right. Rhodri’s my boy. And a good boy, too. You’d better come in the kitchen.”

  She led Evan down the hall and into a small kitchen, almost filled with a well-scrubbed pine table and a Welsh dresser along one wall. Bronwen would have her eye on that, Evan thought.

  “Sit down. Cup of tea?” She motioned to a chair at the table. Evan squeezed himself in and sat.

  “Thanks. Diolch yn fawr.” He threw out the Welsh, always a sign in Wales that the other person has the chance to continue in either tongue.

  “I don’t speak Welsh,” she said as she got a cup and saucer down from the dresser. “I met Rhodri’s father when he was working in London. I came back here with him. Biggest mistake I ever made.”

  “You don’t like Wales, then?”

  “Hate it. Unfriendly people. Awful weather.”

  “So why do you stay?’

  “That’s a stupid question. I stay because I’m stuck here. He won’t leave. Neither him or my boy. They like it here. They like being Welsh.”

  “What does your husband do, Mrs. Llewelyn?”

  “As little as possible,” she said, and put the tea down in front of Evan with such a thump that some slopped into the saucer. “He works at the post office, that’s what he does. Sorting letters. Then he comes home, flops in his chair, and watches the telly. What kind of life is that? I ask you. A wasted life. That’s why I’ve got such high hopes for our Rhodri. He’s a lovely boy, Mr. Evans. Always been so good to me, never a day’s trouble. Routine inquiries, you say? Nothing my boy’s done wrong?”