by Rhys Bowen
Bragg grinned. "Yes, she does look the type, doesn't she? I should have had you interview her in Welsh. She might have opened up more. In fact, why don't you go back tomorrow for a chat with her. Go and ask her the car question and take it from there. Let's go and find that common room and see if the other faculty members are there. I could do with a cup of tea myself."
It was a first confession of weakness from him.
The common room contained the two younger lecturers, Paul Jenkins and Olive Sloan. They answered the rapid questions fired at them politely enough, but both were newly arrived at the university and seemed to know little about their department chair, except that Rogers seemed a pleasant enough chap and their colleagues also pleasant enough people. They both looked surprised at being asked to say where they were that morning. Jenkins had a live-in girlfriend who breakfasted with him at eight, and Olive Sloan was dropped off by her husband on his way to work at the hospital in Prestatyn.
Owen Rhys Thomas hadn't arrived home when they called at his house nearby. His wife said he often stopped off at the fitness center after a long day. As to what time he left the house in the morning, Ann Rhys Thomas said that he did the morning school run, leaving the house at seven forty-five to drop off two children at two different schools.
This seemed to rule out all three of them, and Evan was glad when Bragg finally admitted he'd had enough for one day.
Chapter 10
It was after seven when Evan parked his car on the gravel strip beside the pub in Llanfair and set off up the track to his new home. The promised rain had begun-that fine, misty rain that seems peculiar to Wales and Ireland and is described by locals as "a soft day." From the gusts of wind that buffeted his back as he scrambled up the steep slope, Evan suspected that worse was to come tonight.
The sun had long set, and Evan was grateful for the lights that shone out of the cottage windows through the mist. It was a good feeling to know that this place was home, that Bronwen was there, and that supper would be waiting for him. He reached the front door, wiped the worst of the mud from his shoes, and brushed the rain from his jacket before he entered.
"Hello, cariad. One husband dying of hunger," he called, as he stepped inside. There were good cooking smells coming from the kitchen, and a fire was crackling in the grate.
"About time." Bronwen rose from the sofa in front of the fire. "I'd just about given up on you. I thought it was supposed to be more meetings today. Don't tell me they kept you at a meeting this late?"
"The day started off in a meeting and ended in a murder investigation," Evan said. "I've been put on a new Major Crimes Team out of HQ, and we were sent out right away to cover the murder."
Bronwen had come to meet him and threw her arms around his neck. "Evan, that's wonderful. I'm so proud of you." She kissed him firmly on the lips.
"I'm not so sure how wonderful it will be," he said. "The DI is going to be an absolute bugger to work with, but if I get that kind of reception every time you're proud of me-" He drew her to him and started to kiss her hungrily.
"Evan!" She pulled away from him. "Hold on a minute before you get carried away. We've got a visitor."
"What?" Evan looked around the room for the first time. Jamila rose from the low chair on the far side of the fire where she had been sitting.
"Oh hello, Jamila," Evan said. "Sorry, I didn't see you there. Sut wyt ti?" he asked in Welsh.
Jamila attempted a smile. "Not so good, Mr. Evans."
"Jamila's had some startling news, to say the least," Bronwen said. "She came straight up here to tell us."
"Bad news, Jamila?"
"Terrible, Mr. Evans. Absolutely terrible." He could see now that she had been crying. "I've just found out something really awful is going to happen to me."
"What is it?"
Jamila gave a hopeless glance to Bronwen.
"Jamila's family plans to take her to Pakistan to marry her off to a man more than twice her age," Bronwen said. "A man she's never even met."
"Surely not?" Evan shook his head in disbelief. "I could believe that your brother might want to do something like that, but your father seems like a sensible man, perfectly westernized in his ways."
"You'd have thought so, wouldn't you?" Jamila pressed her lips together to prevent herself from crying again before she went on. "But now he's turned into the worst kind of old-fashioned Muslim father, practically overnight. Rashid was spying on me, you see. I stayed at my friend Rhian's house to work on a school project, and some boys from our class stopped by to say hello. There was nothing wrong with it. They're nice boys. We just had some soft drinks and chatted. But Rashid made it sound as if I'd tricked our parents and gone there deliberately to drink with boys. So now I overheard Daddy and Mummy talking, and they have been in touch with relatives in Pakistan and these relatives have found a suitable man for me."
"But they can't marry you off against your will," Evan said. "You're underage to get married anyway."
"Not in Pakistan," Jamila said. "They force girls to get married when they are eleven or twelve there."
"But surely your parents can't think that you'd go to Pakistan to get married. If you refuse to go, they can't drag you there, kicking and screaming, can they?" Evan asked, glancing at Bronwen.
"They were going to trick her, Evan. That's what's so horrible," Bronwen said. "They were going to make it seem like a family holiday over Christmas. And then, when Jamila was there, it would be too late and she'd be helpless."
"And are they planning to just leave you in Pakistan with this man?"
Jamila spread her hands in a hopeless gesture. "I don't know. I don't know any details or what they're planning to do. I just heard Daddy say, 'Don't tell her anything, just that it's going to be a lovely family holiday.'
"And Mummy said, 'But the poor child. It's not fair to her.'
"And Daddy said, 'You and I had an arranged marriage, didn't we, and I'd say it turned out well enough for both of us. He's a good man and he's rich. She'll have plenty of clothes and a chauffeur to drive her around. What more should she want?'
" 'But she's so keen on her education,' Mummy said. 'Shouldn't she be allowed to finish that, at least?'
" 'And wind up running with a bad crowd or pregnant or on drugs? Is that what you want for her?' Daddy shouted. I crept away. I didn't want to hear anymore."
Bronwen put a comforting arm around the girl. "I'm sure they're just upset at the moment, and they're overreacting, Jamila. If you like I'll go and talk to them tomorrow. I'll tell them that you've found out what they have planned for you, that you are extremely upset, and absolutely refuse to go. I'll make them see that this is blighting your future, and that they are not behaving in a reasonable manner."
Jamila's face lit up. "Oh, would you do that for me? That would be so wonderful. I can't thank you enough."
Bronwen squeezed her shoulder. "Who else would I have to help me carry my shopping up the hill?"
Later that night, after Jamila had gone home and the meal had been cleared away, Evan sat with his arm around Bronwen on the sofa in front of the fire. Fierce rain peppered the windows, and wind moaned in the chimney. Bronwen gave a sigh of content and rested her head against Evan's shoulder.
"This is the first time I've really appreciated our little cottage," she said. "A haven of peace, shutting out the horrible world."
"Is the world so horrible?" Evan asked. "I thought you were the one who always saw the glass half full."
"I did. It just seems that everything is difficult at the moment. Poor little Jamila. I feel so angry when I think of those stupid people, that I'll have to be careful I don't let them have it."
"I think you need to be very tactful when you talk to her parents," Evan said. "If they feel too threatened, they'll just send her away from here out of our reach. On second thought, it might be best if you spoke to someone at her school. They might be able to intervene for her legally and declare her a ward of the court if necessary."
; "But that would mean taking her away from her family, which I'm not sure is the best idea," Bronwen said. "Making the parents see reason is obviously what I want to achieve. I think it's the brother who is the big problem in the family. He's probably putting a lot of pressure on the father to act like a Muslim patriarch, and the father doesn't want to lose face by having his daughter defy him."
Evan stroked Bronwen's hair. "I'm glad we don't go in for arranged marriages in Wales," he said, "or your parents would have had you hitched to some gentleman farmer or boring solicitor."
"And yours would have married you off to a policewoman." Bronwen laughed.
"Oh no. My mother would have never come up with anyone good enough for me. She'd have kept me at home."
"She thought that Maggie girl was pretty special," Bronwen reminded him of an old flame in Swansea.
"Only when it was clear I was already interested in you. When I was dating Maggie, Ma never had a good word to say for her. I don't suppose either set of parents is too happy about us right now."
"Don't say that, Evan. Mummy really likes you, and Daddy had to be impressed after you rescued me. Of course, when it comes to your mother . . . I've come to realize I'll never be good enough. But luckily, Swansea is a long way away." She turned and brushed his cheek with a kiss. "Look at the time," she said. "There were so many things I wanted to talk to you about this evening, and now it's bedtime already."
"What did you want to talk about?" Evan asked. "I'm not sleepy yet."
"Well, for one thing, you've got a new murder investigation, and you never got a chance to tell me about it."
"I suspect the actual investigation will be fairly straightforward," Evan said, and gave her basic details. "It's going to boil down to someone who had a grudge against Professor Rogers."
"One of his colleagues, do you think?"
"I can't say yet. We only just spoke to them for a few minutes today. They all seemed normal enough people. If they killed Rogers, then they all came straight in to work as usual and put in a full day with students. That would take a cool head, wouldn't it? Tomorrow I hope Bragg will listen to my suggestion and start interviewing some of the students. We can find out from them if any of their professors seemed particularly stressed or distracted that day. Also, Sergeant Bill Jones in Caernarfon suggested it might be a disgruntled student who took a potshot."
Bronwen looked up and nodded. "Quite possible. They do seem to take grades as a matter of life or death these days, and so many of them can get their hands on guns too." She paused, thinking, and sat up. "You said you hoped Bragg might take your suggestion? Why don't you go and interview the students yourself?"
"Oh dear me, no," Evan said. "I've come up against the ultimate dictator. I've been told I'm the junior officer, and my job is to run errands. I've been with him to interview people all day long, and if I open my mouth I get frowned at. It's not easy, I can tell you, especially since he has this unfortunate, pushy manner. He flings out one question after another and doesn't wait for the full answer to come out or to watch the reaction."
"Evan, that's terrible. Doesn't he know how successful you've been? Didn't you tell him that you've solved cases on your own before now?"
"I rather think he's heard rumors about that and is determined I'm not going to step into his limelight. After all, there must be a reason I was selected for the first team in this new Major Crimes Unit. It must have been a recommendation rather than a punishment, although it feels like the latter."
"Poor Evan." She swiveled around to him and stroked back his unruly dark hair. "We all have our crosses to bear, don't we?"
"I haven't even asked you about school recently, have I? Is that a cross to bear?"
She sighed. "I'll get used to it, I expect. It's just that after twenty students in my own little village school, it's quite a shock to be in a great big, modern classroom. And everything regulated by the bell, and town kids are certainly different from village kids. We've got a mixture of races. Most of the teaching is in English not Welsh, and some of those kids are hopelessly behind in their reading and writing. I seem to spend all my time helping the stragglers and dealing with the problem kids, and the bright, well-behaved kids are left to fend for themselves. It doesn't seem fair, does it?"
"You'll learn how to handle it. You're a brilliant teacher, Bron. I've watched you."
"And you're a brilliant detective. We both need to assert ourselves before we're walked over." She yawned. "I don't know about you, but that extra hour on the bus just about does me in. I'm going to have to go to bed if I'm to catch that bus in the morning." She stood up, then took Evan's hand. "You're not going to let me get into that cold bed all alone, are you?"
Evan needed no second urging.
Chapter 11
The next morning dawned bleak and wet, with the wind snatching brown leaves from tree branches and sheep huddled miserably against the stone walls. The mountain peaks had been swallowed up into cloud that came down to the cottage itself. Bron-wen looked out of the window and sighed as the village below appeared and disappeared in the swirling mist. "Now I'm beginning to have serious second thoughts about this place," she said. "It's on days like this that I realize just how isolated we are up here."
"Generations of shepherds survived perfectly well," Evan said.
"Yes, but they didn't have to get down the hill to catch the bus, did they? If it goes on like this, I'll have to wear my anorak and hiking boots to school. There's no way I'd make it down that hill in ordinary shoes and not lose them in the mud."
"I'll run you to school in the car," Evan said. "That way you can change out of your boots and look presentable when you get to school."
"Are you sure it won't make you late? I don't want you to start off on the wrong foot with your dictator."
"He wants us to meet at the Bangor Police Station at eight thirty. I can do that easily. Come on. We'll slither together."
Hand in hand, they picked their way down the track, while the wind whipped at their raincoats and sheep scattered in alarm at the sight of them. By the time Evan arrived in Bangor, the storm had subsided to a steady, unrelenting rain. Evan had dried off and was making a cup of tea when the other officers came in, looking windblown and miserable.
"God-awful weather," Bragg complained. "I forgot how much worse it gets the further west you go, but I expect you're used to it, aren't you, Evans."
"Born with webbed feet, sir," Evan said.
Wingate and Pritchard chuckled, and even Bragg managed a smile. "Right. I stopped by HQ on my way in, and they should have a forensics report for us by the end of the day. I hope they took all the pictures and casts they needed of the footprints because any evidence in that garden will be washed away by now."
"So what's on the agenda for today?" Wingate asked.
"We go back to the university and have another chat with those history professors," Bragg said. "We need to find one of them who is ready to dish the dirt. They were all far too polite and well mannered yesterday, didn't you think, Evans?"
"Absolutely," Evan said. "I got the feeling they might have been ready to tell us a whole lot more if there had been more time to chat."
It was the closest he could come to letting Bragg know that his rapid-fire approach might not always be the best. Bragg nodded.
"Right, especially that Humphries woman. Evans, I'd like you to go back and speak to her in Welsh. She may say things to you that she'd not say to the rest of us. And I think I'll go and speak to the widow again. There's a lot more we need to find out about the rest of Rogers's life: what relatives he had living close by; whether there might have been any disputes with family members-over a will, for example; whether he belonged to the darts club or the golf club or the County Council."
"Whether he had a mistress," Wingate suggested.
"Oh yes, and you think Mrs. Rogers would tell me that, even if she knew?" Bragg chuckled. "She's definitely a proud woman, Wingate. I get the feeling she's not going to tell us anything
she doesn't want us to know. And if she did it, I reckon she's going to be a tough nut to crack."
"You don't really think she did it, do you, sir?" Pritchard asked. Then he flushed as Bragg stared up at him. He had fair, sandy hair and a boyish face that made him look even younger than he was, and he was clearly still ill at ease with his new boss.
"Why do you think that, Pritchard? I'd say she was still the most obvious suspect."
"If you were going to kill someone, would you call the police right afterward?"
"If I thought I could get away with it, I would. An innocent person would obviously call the police immediately, and she'd want to appear innocent, wouldn't she? I'll take another crack at her today, see if I can rattle her at all."
"Vee have vays of making you talk," Wingate said, in a fake German accent. "So what do you want Pritchard and me to do?"
"Let's see. What else should we be doing right away?" Bragg looked around the group.
"If I may make a suggestion about something we shouldn't overlook, sir?" Evan began.
"Oh, and what is Hercule Poirot going to tell us to do now?" He grinned, then realized that Wingate and Pritchard weren't smiling. "Okay, Evans. What is it?"
"The students, sir. I don't think we should overlook them. They'd know if one of their professors was not acting normally yesterday. And if one of them carried a grudge, felt that Professor Rogers had failed him unfairly perhaps, or was going to fail him, he might have taken matters into his own hands."
"That's a good point, Evan," Jeremy Wingate said. "I was thinking along the same lines."
"Of course. That goes without saying." Bragg waved a dismissive hand. "We were always planning to get to the students in good time. But what do they teach you in basic training-always start with the most likely suspects, and they are the people closest to the victim. His wife, his colleagues, his relatives, if he has any. So Wingate, why don't you go with Evans and you can chat to your students and professors, then Pritchard can come with me to see how the widow is holding up today."
