Evan and Elle (14 page)

Watkins maneuvered the car through the zigzag bends until they passed the burned-out shell of the restaurant. “I wonder what Madame will do now? Rebuild, do you think?” he asked Evan.

“I suppose that all depends on what we find out, and what her insurance coverage was like,” Evan said. “I can’t help feeling sorry for her—a woman all alone, in a strange country. I’d imagine her life’s been a struggle since her husband died, and now this.”

“You always were too soft where women are concerned. What if we find out that she’s a serial killer who lures men to their death and then torches their bodies?”

“I don’t want to believe that she killed anybody,” Evan said, “but I imagine we’ll know more when we find out who Philippe du Bois was and what he was doing here.”

“Thank God it’s Sunday and we don’t have to fight the traffic,” Watkins commented as they negotiated the round-about
before the police station. Evan smiled. A traffic jam in Caernarfon meant five cars at the traffic light. Watkins drove into the police station car park and parked in an Officer on Duty space.

The grandly named computer center was a smallish windowless room with two computers in it. It had, in fact, been a holding cell until quite recently. A young P.C. looked up and gave Watkins and Evan a dazzling smile. Evan had to agree with Watkins’s assessment of her. She was startlingly attractive with an elfin face, long, copper-colored hair and large brown eyes.

“I just paged you, Sergeant,” she said in cultured English with barely a trace of Welsh accent. Most business was done in English at the Caernarfon police station, where not everyone came from Welsh-speaking Snowdonia. “I think I’ve located your Frenchman for you.”

“Already? Glynis, you’re brilliant.”

Her fair skin flushed red. “Oh, it’s quite simple, really. They have a website that pinpoints any address on a map,” she said. “Do you want to see it?”

She punched several keys and zoomed in on a succession of maps until a street map appeared. “I think you’re going to find this interesting,” she said. The final screen was a detailed street map of a small town. “This is it, isn’t it? Abbeville, Seine et Oise? And there’s the street number you want,” she said, pointing at it.

Watkins leaned closer and stared at the screen.
“Hôspital?
Does that mean the same thing as hospital in English?”

“I’m sure it does. That’s why I thought you’d be interested.” “The address Philippe du Bois put on his Hertz
rental agreement’s a hospital,” Watkins said turning to Evan. “Oh, this is Constable Evan Evans by the way. I don’t know if you two have met. W.P.C. Glynis Davies, Evans.”

P.C. Davies flashed him another dazzling smile. “I’ve heard about you, of course,” she said.

“Nothing good if it was from the sergeant here,” Evan quipped to hide his embarrassment. He didn’t think he’d ever learn to handle praise or admiration.

“They say you’re a whiz at solving tough cases,” she went on. “Have you got this one figured out yet?”

“We don’t even know if we’re dealing with a crime,” Evan said. “It could turn out to be a tragic accident—an innocent person trapped in an accidental fire.”

“But you don’t really think so?” She turned her large brown eyes on him.

“The restaurant owner swears she was the only person in the place and she cleaned up before she went to bed. She does smoke, so it’s possible she left a cigarette burning somewhere, but—”

“But you don’t think so?”

“I’d just like to know what the body was doing in the building.”

“So how are we going to find out why Mr. du Bois gave his address as a hospital?” Watkins asked.

“He could work there,” Evan suggested. “Maybe he’s a resident doctor.”

“Why don’t you just pick up the phone and call them?” Glynis Davies suggested. “I can find you the number easily.”

“Call France?” Watkins looked horrified. “Just like that?
I don’t speak the lingo. I wouldn’t know what to say.”

P.C. Davies sighed. “All right. I’ll do it for you, if you like. Hold on while I find the number . . .”

“You speak French, too?” Watkins asked.

“Yes. Pretty well, actually. I did French A level and I spent a summer in France on an exchange. It was a lot of fun. I was in a little village in the Alps and then in Paris . . .”

“There’s no end to the girl’s talents,” Watkins muttered to Evan with admiration in his voice. “How come you’re wasting all this in a police station?”

She blushed again. “I’ve always been interested in police work. I’d like to be a detective someday. It must be very exciting.”

“Most of the time it’s just plain boring,” Watkins said, “but it does have its moments.”

“Like this drug stakeout they’re doing at the moment?” She saw the horror on his face. “Oh, don’t worry. I only know about it because D.I. Hughes asked me to check on some Internet addresses for him.” She looked at the screen and smiled. “Ah, here we are. Phone number for the Hôpital Bernard. Do you want me to dial it?”

She didn’t wait for Watkins’s answer but started punching numbers on the phone. After what seemed like a long wait Evan could hear a muffled
“Allô?”
on the other end of the line.

“
Bon soir. Ici le gendarmerie du pays de Galles
. North Wales Police, yes.
Je cherche un homme qui s’appelle Philippe du Bois
,” Glynis said in correct, if Anglo-sounding French.

Evan watched her nod as a torrent of French escaped
from the other end of the line.
“C’est vrai?”
She covered the mouthpiece and turned to Watkins. “He’s a patient in the hospital.”

“He’s there? Right now? Ask if we can speak to him.”

“Puis-je parlez avec lui?”

They waited while the voice at the other end of the line babbled and her expression changed from excited to puzzled. Then she said,
“Ah, oui? Je comprends. Merci bien, madamoiselle. Au revoir,”
and put down the phone.

“Well?” Watkins demanded. “Was he there or not?”

“Oh yes. He’s there, all right.” She sounded shocked. “It’s a mental hospital. He’s been a patient there for ten years and he doesn’t communicate with anyone.”

“Back to square one,” Watkins said. He lifted the heavy china mug and took a long gulp of tea.

He and Evan were sitting together in the station cafeteria, almost deserted at six o’clock, at a time when shifts changed and the day staff had gone home.

“Not exactly square one,” Evan said.

“We still have no idea who our body is. I suppose it’s safe to assume he’s the same person who rented the car, but where do we go from here? We know he rented the car under a false name, and he had a credit card in that same false name—which must indicate he was going to considerable lengths not to be identified.”

Evan poured a generous amount of sugar into his own tea. Somehow it helped to dilute the industrial strength of the police brew. “Also that he knew that the real Philippe
du Bois was safely locked away in a mental institution.”

Watkins nodded. “Good point. So it must have been someone who knew the real Philippe well—either a relative or a close friend . . .”

“Or someone who had worked in the hospital.”

“Either way, we should be able to track him down. I’m going to see if our little language and computer whiz can get back in touch with the hospital in . . . whatever that French place is called. They should be able to come up with a list of relatives, visitors, and hospital workers who have left within the past couple of years.”

“Of course, we’ve no way of knowing how long he’s been carrying on this scam,” Evan pointed out. “It might have been working beautifully for years.”

“But why? If you’re disguising your true identity you’re on the run. Usually blokes on the run eventually slip up and get caught. My guess is he took the identity to come over here and . . .” Watkins paused, searching for inspiration. “Do whatever he had to do.”

He drained the mug of tea. “Filthy stuff,” he said. “If a policeman ever dies of food poisoning, that tea urn should be the first thing tested.”

They were just leaving the cafeteria when D.I. Hughes emerged from his office. “Ah, Watkins.” His voice echoed down the vinyl hallway. “I was just about to send somebody to find you. Come into the briefing room. I’ve got Dr. Owens here. He’s completed his findings.” He noticed Evan for the first time and his eyes registered surprise. “What are you doing here, Evans?”

“Constable Evans located the car we’ve been looking for, sir,” Watkins said. “We were just checking out details of its owner at the computer center.”

“Were you? Good man. Find out anything?”

“Only that he rented the car under a false name—the name of a mental patient in a hospital in France.”

“Most interesting. You can brief us on it after we’ve heard what Dr. Owens has to say.” His gaze skimmed over Evan again. “You’d better come along, too, Evans, since you’re looking into this car business and you’re the one most familiar with the scenario.”

He strode down the hall with Watkins and Evans in tow. Dr. Owens was standing at the front of the briefing room. The two detective constables were sitting with notebooks at the ready. They glanced at Evan with a certain amount of surprise as he followed the other officers into the room. Watkins sat near the back of the room. Evan perched on a chair behind him.

“Sorry to keep you, Doctor. Please go ahead.” D.I. Hughes pulled out a chair beside the doctor, facing the other officers.

Dr. Owens cleared his throat. “I have completed an autopsy on an unidentified man whose partially burned remains were discovered early this morning in the ashes of a fire at the Chez Yvette restaurant, Llanberis Pass. Probable age of the victim between thirty and forty, based on bone density and tooth condition. I was not able to determine ethnicity because skin and hair were burned too badly. Height about five feet eleven to six foot.

“The internal organs were as I suspected—in fairly good
condition, considering what they’d been subjected to. He hadn’t eaten in a while, by the way, which probably indicates he wasn’t a restaurant patron. A good amount of alcohol in the system, though. Also my examination of the lungs showed no evidence of smoke inhalation.”

He paused at a gasp from someone in the audience. “I take it you all appreciate the significance of this. This man was dead before the fire started.”

“Any idea how he died?” Hughes asked.

“I couldn’t find any traces of toxic substances in the body. I examined the heart to see if he had, in fact, died of natural causes. The exterior of the heart was—um—pretty well cooked, but contained less blood than I would have expected. On closer examination of the wall of the heart, it appeared to have been punctured.”

“Due to the heat of the fire?” Watkins asked.

“No. In my estimation, I’d say he was stabbed in the chest with a rather large knife.”

Evan felt his own stomach lurch.

D.I. Hughes rose to his feet. “You realize the importance of these findings, don’t you? We’re not dealing with a victim caught in a tragic fire anymore. We’re dealing with a homicide and a fire most probably set deliberately to cover it up.”

“You see, I told you that bloody Frenchwoman had her answers down too pat,” Inspector Hughes said. The meeting had just concluded but the D.I. had held Watkins and Evan back as the room cleared. “I thought she was a cool customer.” He perched on the edge of the nearest desk. “I’d always wondered what would make a Frenchwoman—and an outstandingly good cook, so we understand—come to a place like this. Now we know. She had something to hide.” He wagged his finger at Evan. “And the chappy you saw had obviously tracked her down. He looked up inquringly at Evan. “She said her husband was dead didn’t she? Maybe this man had come to blackmail her, maybe to threaten her. In either case she was desperate. She grabbed a knife and killed him to shut him up. Then
she panicked and set fire to the place. Only the fire didn’t do its job.”

“If she wanted the fire to burn up the body, why did she sound the alarm so soon?” Evan asked. “Why not slip out and wait until someone else called the fire brigade? One of the village boys told me that she had run to his mother and given the alarm.”

Hughes nodded. “Of course, I’m just presenting one scenario. I’m not saying that she’s guilty. But we have to go with the most likely suspect first, don’t we? She claims she was the only person in a locked building.” He paused, then sighed as he struck his fist against the palm of his hand. “Damn and blast. The last thing I need on my plate is a murder investigation right now. I’m supposed to be deploying maximum manpower for Operation Armada—a directive from the commissioner himself. He thinks it will be a feather in our cap if we manage to shut down a major point of entry in the drug trade, and I have to say I agree with him. But how can I stake out every possible landing point in our territory when we’ve got a homicide to solve? I just don’t have the manpower.” He slid off the desk and brushed off his hands. “You’ll have to do the spadework, Watkins. Find out who the man was and what connection he had to Madame Whatshername.”

“Very good, sir,” Watkins said.

“Get Evans here to give you a full description of the man he saw in the restaurant,” Hughes went on.