Evanly Bodies

by Rhys Bowen

  The storm might have died down in the middle of the town, but up on the hilltop where the university was perched, it was a different story. Rain buffeted the car windows and wind whipped the bare trees into a crazy dance as Evan drove up the steep road. He parked on a double line as close as possible to the History Department building.

  "For once it's good to be on official business," He commented to Jeremy Wingate, "but we've still got a good hike. The students here must be tough."

  The full force of wind hit them as they opened the car doors, and it drove them up the hill as if an invisible hand was pushing them. They were drenched and out of breath as they stepped into the warmth and quiet of the building foyer. From the receptionist in the office they learned that Dr. Skinner was giving an early lecture until ten, but nobody else would be teaching until that hour. If they'd already come in, they'd be in their offices or making a cup of coffee in the staff common room.

  They went along the hall and found Dr. Gwyneth Humphries in residence in her office, Dr. Rhys Thomas in his.

  "You have your chat in Welsh with the Celtic witch lady," Wingate said in a low voice, "and I'll talk to Rhys Thomas. I don't see why we should waste time by having two of us present at each of these interviews, do you?"

  "Of course not," Evan said. "I think Bragg only wanted to have one of us standing behind him to make him seem more important. He asked me to take notes, but he's never once asked to see what I've written. It was just to keep me in my place."

  "Yes, he's got a thing about you, I've noticed," Wingate said. "He perceives you as a threat. Why is that, do you think?"

  Evan shrugged. "I got some publicity for a couple of cases I helped solve, I suppose. Not that I've ever sought out publicity."

  "Of course not. No, I've already spotted that our Bragg has a very fragile ego. One has to tread carefully around him. And you know damned well that we'll do the spade work on the case, and he'll take all the credit."

  "Probably." Evan chuckled. "Well, it's good for the soul, isn't it?"

  "I've no particular wish to improve my soul." Wingate slapped him on the shoulder. "Meet you in that little staff common room in half an hour then."

  Gwyneth Humphries looked startled to see Evans at her door and even more taken aback when he spoke to her in Welsh.

  "I suppose I can manage to spare you a few minutes," she said, hastily tidying up papers on her desk, "but I can't think what else I can possibly tell you that hasn't already come out. And why didn't you tell me you spoke Welsh yesterday? I much prefer using my own language in my own country, if you please."

  "Inspector Bragg, who is my boss, isn't fluent enough to conduct his interviews in Welsh," Evan said.

  "He's not that effective in English either, is he?" There was a twinkle in her eye as she sought to guage whether Evans was on her side or not. "Rather a rude and unpleasant man, I felt."

  "Not the greatest social skills in the world, I'm afraid; but I'm sure he's a good policeman, or he'd never have been given the job," Evan said.

  "No? In our world, inadequacy on the job results in being shoved upstairs," she said dryly.

  "In your particular department?" Evan asked.

  "Well, no, I wasn't trying to infer . . ." She was flustered now, playing with the long, knitted scarf she wore today. "Martin Rogers-well, he knew his subject all right. He was quite a lively lecturer. But he only got the professorship because he was a man, and it's all old-boys together, as usual. He was at school with members of the board, you know. But he knew nothing about Welsh history, which, after all, is what the department should be all about."

  Evan let her trail off into silence. After a moment she shifted uncomfortably and said, "That doesn't imply that I resented him enough to want him dead. I was actually quite fond of Martin in my way."

  And she blushed again.

  "You must have had time to think about his death by now," Evan said. "And maybe you've come up with your own suspicions. Can you think of anybody at all who might have wanted Martin Rogers dead?"

  She hesitated for a while. "Martin wasn't always an easy man," she said slowly. "We've each had our little run-ins with him over the years. I've had to fight for increased visibility for the Welsh side of the department. Paul Jenkins clashed with him immediately upon his arrival over politics. Paul's a rabid socialist you see, and Martin was staunchly conservative. Martin sat in on Paul's first lectures and accused him of coloring history with his own brand of politics. Hot words were exchanged over freedom of speech."

  "And the others?" Evan asked. "Dr. Rhys Thomas? Sloan?"

  "Olive has managed to glide under Martin's radar so far. She's definitely the type of person who avoids conflict at all costs. But Rhys Thomas-Martin accused him of plagiarism in an article he published. Sparks flew about that."

  "How long ago was that?"

  "Last academic year."

  "And David Skinner?"

  "Poor old David. He's too meek and mild to stand up to anybody. Martin walked all over him-swapped his classes around, downplayed the findings at his dig."

  "And what about the other chap out at the dig? Badger something?"

  "Brock. Dr. Ernest Brock. They nicknamed him Badger. Well yes, Martin couldn't stand him and, in fact, has been trying to get rid of him. Dr. Brock's a good man actually. Enthusiastic. The students like him. But he's hopelessly messy and undisciplined. He has cardboard boxes stacked with potentially valuable finds. His records are so fuzzy that nobody but he can understand them. Martin was the world's neatest human being, so naturally Brock drove him mad."

  "If he was trying to get rid of Brock, might that not have provided a good motive for murder?"

  She burst out laughing. "Dear me, no. If you knew Badger . . . he took great delight in baiting Martin. If anything it would have been the other way around. I'd have believed that Martin might have taken a potshot at Badger." Then she shook her head violently so that her long earrings danced. "This is all ridiculous. Of course we argued from time to time. Of course there were hurt feelings and thoughtless things said. But nobody decides to murder another human being for those reasons."

  Evan nodded. "I tend to agree with you," he said.

  Dr. Humphries started to gather up papers. "I really have to go," she said, "I lecture on the Black Death at ten. It's one of my most popular classes. Amazing how ghoulish the young are, isn't it?"

  "Speaking of the young"-Evan followed her out into the hall-"what about students? Can you think of one of them who might have had a particular grievance against Professor Rogers?"

  "Not that I know of. Students have always got some kind of grievance, but I'd have heard if it was anything big. They are not shy about expressing their opinions these days, you know."

  "Tell me one more thing." They were almost at the front door now. "Was Professor Rogers one for the ladies? What did the female students think of him?"

  "Martin was-could be-very charming." She paused to toss her scarf over her shoulder. "He was, however, devoted to his wife. And you'd never have found him making a grab for a female student. Such behavior was just not in his character. I really have to go now." And she fled.

  Again there was just the hint of embarrassment. Had she and Martin Rogers ever had an affair? Evan wondered. And what about the meek and mild Dr. Skinner over whom Rogers habitually walked? Didn't such people eventually snap?

  He made his way back down the hallway, deep in thought. Wingate was in the small staff room, nursing a cup of instant coffee with Paul Jenkins and Olive Sloan.

  "How did it go?" he asked.

  "Interesting," Evan said.

  Paul Jenkins looked up from his coffee. "Has Gwyneth been spilling the beans about the rest of us? About David's sordid affair with Martin and Badger filching the department funds to bet on the horses?" He looked at their faces and laughed. "Just kidding," he said.

  "Not particularly funny," Wingate said, "given that a man is lying in the morgue with a hole through his head because he represente
d such a major threat that somebody had to kill him."

  "Sorry." Jenkins made a face. "Actually, I think it's pretty beastly, but I think you're barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to find some deep, dark secret here. We're just a typical university department, and our biggest squabbles are about whether a certain document dated from 1257 or 1258."

  He stopped talking as Rhys Jones and David Skinner came in to join them. Skinner reacted to the presence of two policemen again. "Christ, not more interrogations," he said. "Are we to be browbeaten until one of us confesses? I thought I'd told you everything yesterday."

  "One thing we forgot to ask you, sir," Jeremy Wingate said easily. "It's about your movements yesterday morning."

  "My movements?" Skinner looked bewildered.

  "Yes. Where were you between about seven thirty and eight thirty?"

  "That's easy enough. Snoring my head off. I don't have a class on Thursdays until eleven, so I don't surface before nine. Sinful, I'm sure, but true."

  "And you have no one to vouch for that?" Wingate asked.

  "He wishes," Jenkins quipped.

  "No, no one." Skinner shot him a look.

  Suddenly the door burst open, and a young man barged in. He made a dramatic picture with his leather jacket and shoulder-length black hair that had been blown every which way in the wind. "Have you heard the news, chaps!" he shouted. "Somebody's finally done it! They've put old Martin Rogers out of his misery!"

  Chapter 12

  "I'm not sure whether that was an exercise in futility or not," Sergeant Wingate said to Evan as they came out of the History Department building. The wind had subsided and the weather was brightening from the west, revealing the odd patch of blue between the strands of cloud. "Did you find out anything interesting?"

  "Gwyneth Humphries made it clear that every one of them had clashed with Martin Rogers at one time or another. Maybe that was to throw us off the scent and not have us focus on one of them."

  "Could be. Rhys Thomas said pretty much the same thing to me."

  "And Brock seemed to think it wasn't even surprising that Professor Rogers had been murdered," Evan went on. "But then he was the one who had a perfect alibi for yesterday. He was out at his dig with a bunch of students."

  "I'll tell you one thing," Evan added, watching the steady stream of students making their way down the hill like a column of ants. "Gwyneth Humphries was sweet on Professor Rogers."

  "No kidding? Do you think something was going on there? A liaison on the side?"

  "I don't think so. She took pains to tell me how morally correct Rogers was."

  "So it was unrequited love on her part-pining from afar. Maybe her theory was, if I can't have him then nobody else can. Hell has no fury, and all that."

  "I can't see her shooting somebody," Evan said. "She's a dramatic woman, I grant you, but shooting is too cold and calculated for her. I can picture her stabbing him with a Celtic dagger, perhaps."

  "So what do we tell Bragg?" Wingate asked.

  "Let's wait and hear what he's come up with this morning. And we haven't spoken to any students yet."

  "I'd imagine there are several hundred students who attend history lectures. Rather a tall order to interview them all. Where do you suggest we start?"

  "I think we're like Mohammed," Evan said, looking down the hill. "I think the mountain is coming to us." And indeed students were suddenly streaming out of buildings all over the campus, some of them now heading in the direction of the History Department building. At the same moment there were noises in the hallway behind them, and another group of students was coming down the stairs.

  Jeremy Wingate stepped out to meet them as they came through the doors.

  "Excuse me a minute," he said. "Are any of you students of Professor Rogers?"

  The young man who was leading the group looked around uneasily. "We all are," he said. "Everybody gets the head of department at one time or another."

  "I know what this is about," a girl said. She had that startlingly red hair found in the true Celt and bright green eyes. "He's been killed, hasn't he? I saw it on the telly last night."

  "That's right, I'm afraid," Wingate said. "We're police officers; and if you've got a moment, we'd like to ask you some questions."

  "Fire away," the first boy said. "I'd love a good excuse to be fifteen minutes late for Humphries."

  "The 'Black Death'?" Wingate asked with a grin. "I thought that class was supposed to be fascinating."

  "The subject is, but she's boring as hell. She drones on and on and on. Half the people who signed up for that class have already dropped it. So what did you want to know about Professor Rogers?"

  Wingate glanced at Evan.

  "We wondered whether any of you knew if he might have had a recent run-in with any of his students," Evan said.

  "He was a miserable old sod," another boy commented, putting on his anorak hood against the wind. "He was one of the faculty members on the site council, and he was always vetoing anything he didn't approve of. You know, the gay/lesbian dance, that kind of thing. Very old-fashioned and prejudiced."

  "He was really stodgy," a girl agreed. "Totally behind the times. If you showed up at one of his lectures in a skimpy top, he'd make you put your jacket on."

  "But you don't kill your teacher because he makes you put your jacket on, do you?" Wingate asked.

  They looked at him with wide-eyed horror. "Who said anything about killing?" the first girl asked. "He was annoying. My dad's annoying sometimes, but I don't think about killing him."

  "Exactly," Evan said. "It has to be a life-or-death situation to make you want to kill someone in my experience. So I wondered, has there been a case where Professor Rogers might have pushed a student to the edge. Maybe he had failed somebody or was going to fail somebody?"

  They looked at each other, considering this.

  "There was Simon last year," the red-haired girl said at last, checking with her friends for confirmation in voicing this opinion.

  "Simon?" Evan asked quietly.

  "Simon Pennington. He graduated in June. He was very bright, probably one of the best students in his year. He thought he should have got a first, but he only got an upper two. He was really angry, and he thought it was all Professor Rogers's fault. Apparently Professor Rogers had assessed his special project as competent but not original. His family went to the dean and demanded a reassessment, but the dean wouldn't do it."

  "He came back here to see old Rogers a couple of weeks ago, after term had started," a boy said. "He was yelling that Rogers had ruined his life, and he was never going to get into the Diplomatic Corps now."

  "And where would we find this Simon Pennington?"

  They looked at each other and shrugged.

  "The registrar would have a contact address. He lived near London, didn't he?"

  "I think so. He was definitely not Welsh anyway."

  This got a laugh from the Welsh members of the group.

  Evan left the university with an address in Surrey for Simon Pennington, but a phone call to that address indicated that Simon was currently traveling abroad and wouldn't be back for another month.

  "Great alibi, don't you think?" Wingate asked Evan, as they headed back to the station. "There's nothing to stop him from popping back into the country, shooting the professor, and then going back to the Continent again. They never really check EU passports these days, do they?"

  "We should definitely keep him in mind," Evan agreed. "Should we find more students to interview or get back to Bragg?"

  "Much as I hate to face him this early in the day, I think he'll probably be expecting to see our keen and eager young faces sometime soon."

  They made their way down the path to the waiting car.

  "At least the university meter maids didn't have the nerve to ticket us," Wingate said.

  "I bet they don't even set foot outside in this weather." Evan smiled.

  A call to Bragg revealed that he was still at the Rogers
's house.

  "I want you two over here right away," he said. "We're giving the place a thorough search."

  "Looking for what in particular, sir?" Evan asked.

  "That missing weapon, among other things. I've got nothing new out of Mrs. Rogers. According to her, Martin Roger had no family nearby. He didn't belong to a golf club. He didn't attend a church, unlike her. No close ties at all or interests outside of the university. Doesn't she realize if she can't come up with a likely suspect, the suspicion is all going to fall on her?"

  "I think Bragg operates rather like the medieval ducking stool," Wingate said dryly, as they sped through deserted wet streets toward the Rogers's house. "If he holds her underwater long enough, she's going to confess."

  Missy Rogers, still accompanied by the same woman police constable, was sitting on the sofa in the drawing room working on a tapestry. The dog, Lucky, lay at her feet. It rose with a deep growl as they came in.

  "It's all right, Lucky." She put a comforting hand on his head. "He knows something isn't right," she said, by way of apology for his behavior. "He's such a sensitive animal."

  "Is Inspector Bragg here?" Wingate asked.

  "I think you'll find your inspector in Martin's study," she said. "I can't think what they hope to find. Martin received no threatening letters, no blackmail, nothing that might be filed away in a study."

  "What about a student called Simon Pennington?" Evan asked. "Did your husband mention him to you?"

  She frowned, then shook her head. "I can't say that he did. He dealt with hundreds of students, and he rarely discussed his work at home. His research yes, but not the petty problems of the university. He liked his home to be his haven."

  "Evans? Is that you?" boomed the voice down the stairs. "I want you up here right now. And Wingate."

  The two men gave Missy Rogers a commiserating smile as they heeded the call from above.

  "I don't remember giving you permission to question Mrs. Rogers," Bragg said.

  "We were just following up on a lead we'd got at the university," Wingate said quickly. "A student who believed Professor Rogers was responsible for his failing to get a first-class degree."