Evanly Bodies

by Rhys Bowen

  "Ah yes, well that is a considerable number. If you'll meet with us after the meeting, we'll take commuting distance into consideration when forming our first teams."

  "And what about the female officers?" Glynis asked in her clear voice. "You can't expect us to bunk down with the men."

  There were several muttered comments along the lines of "we wouldn't mind a bit."

  "Good point, Miss-uh?"

  "Detective Constable Davies, sir."

  "We'll definitely include your concerns in the feasibility study, DC Davies." The big man gave her an encouraging smile.

  "They just don't get it, do they?" Glynis muttered to Evan.

  "This will require further study, I can see. Obviously an officer is of no use to us if he's going to take over an hour to respond to a crime scene. Chief Superintendent Morris, would you like to tell everyone where we are so far?"

  "Right, sir." The older man rose to his feet. "We are setting up response teams within the Major Incident Division. Teams will be composed of a DI, a detective sergeant, and two detective constables to each unit. When a call is received, the next available team will be dispatched. We're going to start with three teams and see if this is sufficient for our needs. We want to have all situations covered, but we don't want officers sitting around drinking tea and doing the crossword all day either."

  "Sounds all right to me," a voice muttered.

  "A roster of the first teams to be selected will be placed on the notice board after the meeting. Now if you'll-"

  He broke off as the door to the room opened and a young female dispatcher came in, looking distinctly embarrassed as the attention of all the senior officers was suddenly on her. "Excuse me, sir, but we've just had a call from Bangor. They are reporting a homicide. The Bangor duty officer says he needs their detectives back on the job right away."

  Chief Constable Mathry clapped his hands together delightedly. "Our first test, men. Superintendent Morris, whom have we assigned to the first response team?"

  The superintendent glanced down at the sheaf of papers he was carrying. "We had DI Bragg from Central, DS Wingate from Eastern, DC Pritchard from Central, and DC Evans from Western. Let's have you four lads up here right away for briefing."

  The Chief Constable was still beaming. "I realize this will be a baptism of fire, men, throwing you together like this before you've had time to get to know each other; but I have great confidence in your abilities, and I know you'll be a credit to the force."

  It took Evan a moment to stand up.

  "Good luck, Evan." Glynis gave him an encouraging smile.

  Watkins leaned close to him and grabbed his wrist as he began to make his way to the front of the room. "Watch out for Bragg. Word is that he's a right bugger to work for. Likes all the credit for himself."

  Evan nodded. He gave Watkins and Glynis Davies what he hoped was a confident grin as he moved forward to join the other men.

  Chapter 4

  The house was a big Victorian, set back from the road amid spacious lawns. The garden sloped downhill, giving glimpses of a view over the Menai Strait and the Isle of Anglesey. The water in the strait sparkled in morning sunlight as a small fishing boat chugged out toward the Atlantic. It looked most peaceful and inviting. Evan had always been shaken by the contrast between a violent crime and life going on peacefully around it. He noticed that late roses were still in bloom along the driveway as they walked up to the house. The garden was immaculate, obviously tended with a loving hand.

  As they approached the front door, a uniformed sergeant came out to meet them.

  "What's this then?" he asked, looking at them suspiciously. "Where's our lads? Where's DI Lewis?"

  "There's been a reorganization at headquarters," Inspector Bragg said, in what sounded like confrontational tones. "And you are?"

  "Presley, sir. But Ifan, not Elvis, even though I've got the looks for it."

  The other men grinned, but no muscle moved on DI Bragg's face. During the high-speed ride from headquarters, which had taken place in almost complete silence, Evan had already decided that he wasn't at all happy with this assignment. If someone thought they were giving him a bump up the career ladder, he wasn't especially grateful. He rather suspected that DCI Hughes, his former boss, had had a hand in it. Hughes had not appreciated being outsmarted by Evan on a couple of occasions. Evan suspected that this new DI would like his toes being trodden on even less.

  Bragg was built like an ex-Royal Marine: lean, middle aged, close-cropped grizzled air, a body that looked as if it was chiseled from rock. He wasn't particularly tall, however, probably no more than five foot ten. He stepped forward until he was standing eyeball-to-eyeball with Sergeant Presley. "I'm DI Bragg, in charge of the Major Incident Team that will be handling this case from now on. Your men should report any findings to me and only to me. I want an interview room made available at your station immediately, and I want the report from those men who handled the first response right away."

  "Right you are, sir," the sergeant said. Evan thought he put a little too much emphasis on the word "sir." The sergeant looked around the group, and his face lit up when he spotted Evan. "Hello, Evans. I'm glad to see you're here, at least."

  "DC Evans is the junior member of this team," Bragg said. "His role will be confined to taking notes and running errands for the senior officers. Now what exactly do we have here?"

  "He was found lying sprawled across the breakfast table, apparently shot."

  "Who was?" Bragg snapped.

  "The man's name is Rogers, Professor Martin Rogers. He's head of the History Department at the university."

  "It's his house?"

  "Yes sir."

  "We've had a positive identification? It wasn't an intruder?"

  "Who broke in to eat Professor Roger's boiled egg for breakfast?" Sergeant Presley quipped, saw the steely look in Bragg's eyes, and added, "Not an intruder, sir. His wife identified him. She was the one who found him when she came back from walking the dog."

  "Where's she now?"

  "With a female PC. She resting upstairs in her bedroom."

  "How's she taking it? Hysterical?"

  "No sir. Very calm really. One of these upper-class ladies who's brought up not to make a fuss, I'd say."

  "So it was the wife who made the nine-nine-nine call?"

  "Yes sir."

  "Anyone else in the house? Servant of any kind?"

  "Not in evidence, sir. We just secured the crime scene and called in the plain clothes branch."

  "Very good." For once Bragg sounded almost pleased. "Has the doctor been summoned, and forensics?"

  "The doctor's here now, sir. It's up to you blokes to ask for forensics. Outside of our jurisdiction, you know."

  Evan thought he looked rather smug when he said this, as if he was enjoying this encounter with DI Bragg.

  "Right. Evans, get on to it. Use the squad car radio. We want the full Forensics Incident Team here right away."

  "Very good, sir," Evan said. His feet felt like lead as he walked back to the car. After working for so long with DI Watkins and then with Glynis Davies, people he had come to know and trust, this was a bitter blow. From the few words that had been exchanged, he suspected that Bragg was well aware of his past successes and was determined to keep him firmly in his place: a junior officer, whose role was confined to running errands.

  He made the calls to headquarters, then let himself into the house through the open front door. The house looked immaculate, as if it was ready for a photo shoot for Better Homes and Gardens. From the central hall Evan could see a drawing room and dining room full of good quality antique furniture, absolutely glowing with high polish. No clutter. Not a thing out of place. There were vases of fresh flowers on side tables, and exquisite, hand-embroidered cushions on chairs and sofas. Not at all the sort of place where anything as sordid as a murder should have happened.

  DI Bragg glanced up briefly as Evan entered the kitchen: Detective Sergeant Wingate w
as standing close to the window with an older, harried-looking man beside him. Evan recognized the police doctor, with whom he had worked before. Wingate was obviously from an upper-class background, dressed in well-cut slacks and sport's jacket. His hair was a little longer than Evan would have worn it. There was no sign of the other DC. Evan suspected he'd also been sent on some menial errand.

  At first glance the kitchen matched the other rooms he had seen-understated good taste and money at work: white wood, glass-fronted cabinets, blue-and-white Delft tile, blue-and-white china on the shelves, a vase of yellow crysanthymums as decoration, and a red Aga discreetly nestled into a corner. Then his eyes were drawn to the table by the window. It had been set for breakfast with a white cloth and the same blue-and-white china he'd seen on the shelves. Only now the scene was marred by a body, wearing a checked shirt and tweeds, sprawled across the table. From where he was standing Evan couldn't see the face, but he could see the red stain that had soaked into the white cloth around where the head lay.

  "Ah, Evans. Got in touch with forensics then?" Bragg asked. "Good man. Now watch your step in here, won't you? Don't touch anything until forensics has given the place a good going over. We don't want you mucking up the crime scene with your fingerprints."

  As if I would, you berk, Evan thought.

  "Anything you'd like me to do now, sir?" he asked.

  "Just hang around, observe, learn," DI Bragg said. "Do you have your notebook handy? I'll need you to take notes when I conduct interviews."

  "Yes, sir." Evan produced a notebook and pen, rather wishing that he'd gone over to a handheld computer, which would have definitely scored points.

  "Right, Doctor, as we were saying." Bragg turned back to the man standing by the window. "Time of death?"

  "I can't give you to the minute," the doctor said, looking at Bragg with the same distaste Evan himself felt. "He was in the middle of eating a boiled egg. His wife can tell you at what time she served breakfast, I'd imagine. So it would be the interval between her serving the egg and his having a chance to finish it."

  "And if the scene was staged, and the egg put on the table just to confuse the investigation?" Bragg asked.

  "All I can say is he hadn't been dead long when I arrived. No more than an hour probably. Of course he was lying in a south-facing window with the sun shining full on him. That would have helped keep the body warm. But there was no sign of rigor mortis when I first saw him."

  "And cause of death?" Bragg asked.

  A bloody great hole in the side of his head, Evan was dying to say. He thought the doctor remarkably patient when he answered evenly, "A gunshot wound to the left temple, fired at fairly close range, I'd surmise."

  "Any chance it could have been suicide?" Bragg asked.

  The doctor glanced from Bragg to the body and back again. "Not unless somebody removed the weapon afterward. I'm no ballistics expert, but I would estimate the shot came from a few feet away. Your spatter experts will tell you more accurately than I."

  "In which case where did the shooter stand, I wonder?" Bragg asked. "The table's close to the window, and yet the shot is in the left temple-unless he turned around and then back again as he fell."

  "The shot could have come in through the window, sir," Evan said.

  Bragg turned on him with a patronizing smirk. "Through the window, Constable? The window, in case you haven't noticed, is closed."

  "Somebody could have closed it," Evan said.

  "He's not wrong, sir," Detective Sergeant Wingate said, looking out into the garden. "Those bushes would offer splendid cover, and someone standing right beside that yew would have a perfect line of fire at a person seated at the table."

  "And after he'd killed the poor bloke, he then went into the house and calmly shut the window, did he? Rather risky, wouldn't you say?" Bragg said smugly.

  "Not if he knew the house was empty. He'd probably observed the wife going out with the dog and knew there were no live-in servants."

  "In other words, he'd cased the joint first?"

  "Well, it's clearly not a murder committed in the course of a burglary, is it?" DS Wingate said. "I've taken a look in the other rooms downstairs, and nothing whatsoever has been disturbed. They've some nice silver, too."

  "Until we have gone over the whole house with Mrs. Rogers, we have no way of knowing whether a burglary has or has not occurred. The man's a professor. Important papers could be missing. You young officers are great at jumping to conclusions. All in aid of the hasty arrest and your picture in the paper, is it?"

  "No sir. Just trying to talk our way through the various scenarios."

  "I'll decide what we talk about, Wingate. At your former station I'm sure you were all mates together; but I like to run a tight ship, and I'm the captain, got it?"

  "Aye, aye, Captain," Wingate said dryly. He caught Evans's eyes, and Evan realized with gratitude that he had at least one ally in the camp.

  "So you'll leave us your report then, Doctor?" Bragg asked.

  "I'll have it typed up and sent over to you," the doctor said.

  "We'll be setting up shop at the Bangor Police Station. That's where you can find us. Thanks for showing up so quickly. Evans will show you out."

  "I can find my own way, thanks," the doctor said, picked up his bag, and departed.

  "Right, Constable, take this down," Bragg said. "Plan of attack: Interview wife. Go over house with her. Locate the weapon. Search outside for footprints. Possible eye witnesses. Question neighbors. That should get us started until we've got a forensic report and a possible motive. Wingate, you take Pritchard and search the grounds. Watch where you tread so that you don't disturb anything. We'll need casts of any footprints. Evans, you can come with me, and we'll talk to Mrs. Rogers. Ten to one she did it herself. Cherchez la femme. That's what they always say, isn't it?"

  "Do they, sir?" Evan said, and noted a grin from Wingate. "If she did it herself, don't you think she might have taken longer to call the police so that the time of death wasn't so obvious? And don't you think she'd have removed the boiled egg and established a better alibi than walking the dog?"

  "What did they teach you during detective training, Constable? Didn't they tell you 'always start with the obvious'? So until the wife is ruled out, she's logically the number-one suspect. The majority of murders are committed by family members or close friends. You should know that. It's very rare you come upon a murder among strangers, outside of the drug scene, of which, I suppose, you've had little experience in your sheltered corner of North Wales."

  "We've had a couple of cases, sir," Evan said, "now that they're shipping in drugs from Ireland through Holyhead. There are drugs pretty much everywhere these days, aren't there?"

  "I suppose there would be the odd case of drugs among the students at the university here. This man was a professor, wasn't he? The next step will be to speak with his colleagues. There is sometimes bitter rivalry among academics, so I hear. I don't think it should take us long at all to have this case wrapped up."

  "No sir," Evan said, and followed Bragg up the thick Axminster carpet of the staircase.

  Chapter 5

  DI Bragg tapped on a bedroom door then entered without waiting for a summons. Evan followed. The room was in the same good taste as the downstairs had been-pale, striped wallpaper; Regency chest of drawers; built-in, white-painted wardrobes; a good nineteenth-century watercolor of Mount Snowdon on the wall. A sewing basket and a half finished tapestry lay on the bedside table. A slim, gray-haired woman sat stiff and upright on the bed, staring away from them, out of the window, while a policewoman perched awkwardly in a white wicker chair.

  It took the woman on the bed a moment to react to the sound of the door opening and turn her head toward the men who had just come into her bedroom. She looked at them with neither interest nor surprise, her face a mask of composure apart from lips pressed firmly together.

  "I thought you were supposed to be resting, Mrs. Rogers," DI Bragg said.
<
br />   "The doctor prescribed a sedative, but she wouldn't take it," the WPC said, as if this had personally offended her. "I've tried to get her to lie down at least and drink some hot tea for the shock."

  "As if I could rest at a time like this," Mrs. Rogers said. Her voice was soft but smooth and cultured. "My husband's body lying downstairs, blood all over my kitchen, and you tell me to rest?"

  "I understand what you must be going through. I'm Detective Inspector Bragg. I'll be handling this case. This is Detective Constable Evans, who'll be taking notes as we talk. You do feel up to talking, don't you?"

  "Yes. I can talk. It's better than sitting here and thinking," she said.

  "Good. Let's start at the beginning then. Your full name is?"

  "Madeleine Jane Rogers. I'm usually called Missy. It's a childhood nickname that stuck."

  "And you've been married to Martin Rogers for how long?"

  "Twenty-nine years, almost thirty. Our anniversary would have been this November."

  "Any children?"

  "Unfortunately no. We couldn't have children. It's always been my great regret."

  Bragg cleared his throat. "Right. Let's get to this morning then, shall we?"

  "Yes. Very well. It was just the same as every other morning. I always get up first. I lay the table and prepare the breakfast; then I take the dog for a walk."

  "No servants in the house?"

  "Servants?" She made a sound that was half laugh, half cough. "How much do you think university professors earn, Inspector? When Martin's father grew up in this house, there was a pack of servants, but we're now down to a cleaning lady, once a week, and a gardener who does the heavy jobs for me."

  "I see. You don't usually eat breakfast with your husband then?"

  "No. I'm always up at six or six thirty. Martin never rises before eight. I-I don't sleep too well."

  "And this morning you were up at your usual time?"

  "Yes. I got up at about six thirty, made myself a cup of tea, ate a slice of toast and marmalade, and read the paper. I took Martin up a cup of tea about seven fifteen. Then I went outside and did a spot of gardening. Then about seven forty-five, I boiled him an egg and called up the stairs to say it was ready. He said he'd be down right away. I put the egg and the toast on the table, poured him a cup of tea, and then shouted up the stairs again to remind him not to let the yolk get hard. He hated eggs with hard yolks. Then I took the dog for a walk, the way I always do."