Evan and Elle (26 page)

“Zee next sing I know, I wake in zee ’ospital bed. I am in zee great pain. My ’air is all burned away. Who would recognize me, zee way I look? Zay are calling me Madame Bouchard. I alone was saved from zee burning building. And zen I realize—zis is my chance. Now I can start a new life. I am Yvette Bouchard.”

She put her wig back on her head. “For a while zay did not know if I would live or die. But I lived—I went on living as Yvette Bouchard. I thought zat I am safe because Yvette had nobody in zee world who know ’er. She was an orphan, you know. She ’ad no family. I come to a distant place and start again. At last, I am free.”

“Until Jean Bouchard turned up,” Evan said. “That must have been a nasty shock for you.”

“A nasty shock you say? I almost die when he tell me who ’e ees. And ’e ees so angry. He say, ’What ’ave you done wiz my wife? You keel my wife!’ He blame me, monsieur. He think I keel his wife.”

“And so you had to kill him,” Evan said.

She spun around to face him. “I did not keel him, monsieur. I swear to you by all zee saints, I did not keel him.”

“Oh come on now,” Evan said. “You were desperate. This man would ruin your life. You had no choice—you had to stop him somehow.”

“I am very upset and confused when I see ’im. I tell ’im to go to my apartment and we will talk as soon as I get rid of zee patrons. You are zee last patrons to leave. I run up zee stairs and zen I see ’im. He is lying on zee floor—dead. My kitchen knife is sticking from ’is chest. Zere is blood everywhere . . . Mon dieu, eet is terrible! I don’t know what
to do.” She spread her hands in a very French gesture. “Who would believe me if I tell zee truth? Zay will sink, like you, zat I keel ’im. So I remember ’ow zee fire in Sussex burn everysing so well that nossing is left. I pour cooking oil everywhere and I put a big pot of oil on zee stove and I set my beautiful restaurant on fire . . . and once again, my dreams go up in flames.”

She sank down in her chair, looking frail and old. Bronwen came over to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s going to be all right, Janine.”

“How?” Janine asked in a cracked voice. “I sink it will nevair be all right for me.”

Evan didn’t know how to answer that one. He thought it was all too possible that a jury wouldn’t believe Janine’s far-fetched tale. In fact, every instance pointed to her guilt—hiding out at a friend’s restaurant so that nobody knew she was there, that restaurant burning to the ground with its owner inside, and now the owner’s husband lying stabbed with Janine’s own kitchen knife. It was all too possible that the thumbprint on the knife was the victim’s own as he tried to grab it away from her, or pull it from his chest. People had been hanged in the past on less evidence when there was still a death penalty.

“We have to help her, Evan,” Bronwen said. “She’s already had enough rotten luck.”

Evan looked at Bronwen. Her eyes were pleading.

“I’ll come with you down to headquarters, Janine,” he said. “We’ll see what we can do.” Then he picked up the phone to call the squad car.

Evan hesitated in the vinyl-tiled hallway and stood staring at the door he had just closed behind him. Usually there was satisfaction in bringing a case to a close, and a criminal to justice. Never had he felt more ambivalent than now. He wanted to believe that Janine Laroque was innocent, but reason told him that she had to be guilty. Unfortunately he was sure that D.I. Hughes would come to the same conclusion—and so would a jury. There was little hope of Janine getting off, unless he could prove that someone else committed the murder.

He sighed. He had done his job and delivered the suspect to the proper authorities. Now he could go home and catch up on some well-earned sleep. He had to learn not to become so emotionally involved with his cases, he told himself. A good policeman stayed detached.

A door opened down the hall and Evan realized, a second too late, that he should not have dawdled.

“Evans, is that you?” Potter’s voice echoed. “Where is he, then?”

“I—I had . . . I mean something else came up.” Evan was caught off guard.

“Something else came up? I gave you an order, sonny. It was up to you to obey it.”

“Look, I’m sorry.” Evan felt the color rise in his cheeks. “But when I say something else, I mean something more important. I found the Frenchwoman who’s the murder suspect everyone’s been looking for. I’ve just brought her in. She’s with Sergeant Watkins, waiting for the D.I. to get back.”

“And you got yourself a nice pat on the back for that, did you? Well, I’ve got a case to solve as well and I want that kid brought in here. Now do you think you can find him, or do I have to send squad cars out for him?”

“Oh, I found him all right,” Evan said. “In fact he was the one who told me where Madame Yvette was hiding out. I had a long talk with him, and I think you’re making a mistake, Sarge. I don’t think he set those fires.”

Potter’s face was a mask of stone. “Oh, and what makes you the expert suddenly?”

“For one thing he hero-worships a young fireman and he wants to be a fireman too when he grows up. For another he claims he has an alibi for the cottage burning. Another kid saw him climbing down the drainpipe after the fire had already started and they ran up to the fire together. That will be easy enough to check.”

“Kids? They’ll say anything not to snitch on each other, won’t they?”

Evan wondered if Sergeant Potter had any children of his own. If so, he was sorry for them.

“So you still want me to bring him in?” Evan asked.

“Of course I bloody want you to bring him in. If it’s not too much to ask, that is?”

“Right. I’ll go and get him now,” Evan said. “Please tell Sergeant Watkins where I am, in case he needs me for anything.”

He turned and strode to the front door, his feet making a satisfying clatter on the bare floor before he slammed the door behind him.

This is what happens when you’re a village constable, he told himself as he drove, somewhat too fast, back through Llanberis and up the pass. You get walked all over. People order you around. He allowed his mind to drift into a fantasy in which he went back to detective training and did so well that he jumped through the ranks to inspector in a few months. Then he pictured himself walking in and telling Peter Potter exactly what he thought of him. It was a childish daydream and he was already smiling at himself by the time he reached Llanfair.

Nobody came to the door when Evan knocked at Terry’s cottage. He drove up and down the village street, then parked his car and checked out all the likely places—the sports field, the school playground, the sweets counter at the village shop. Nobody he asked had seen Terry Jenkins. So the boy was in hiding. Evan couldn’t say he blamed him. He’d probably have done the same thing at Terry’s age. Oh
well, give him time. He’d show up when he was hungry.

Around five-thirty he checked the Jenkinses’ cottage again. Terry’s mother had just got home and had frozen lasagna on the table, ready for a microwaved supper.

“I don’t know where he is, Constable Evans,” she said apologetically. “You know Terry. He’s never home if it’s daylight and not raining. He could be anywhere on that bike of his. I worry that some day he’s going to get run over, but he seems able to take care of himself. There’s not much I can do, is there?”

“You could try setting some rules,” Evan said and wished instantly that he hadn’t.

A defensive look spread across her face. “What, and have him hate me as much as he does his father? I’m trying to make up for his dad, Mr. Evans, and that’s not easy.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” Evan agreed. “Let me know when he gets home, will you?”

He went back to the police station and phoned HQ. Glynis answered. It seemed as if she was turning into the maid of all work down there.

“You want me to tell Sergeant Potter that you can’t find the boy and you’ll bring him in as soon as you do. Okay. I’ll probably get my head bitten off, but I’ll do it for you.” She paused then went on in a lower voice, “It’s a shame you left when you did. You weren’t here for the excitement.”

“Why, what happened?”

“We got a match on that thumbprint.”

“The one on the knife?”

“That’s right.”

“Incredible. Whose was it?”

“Nobody you’d know. A drug dealer.”

“A drug dealer—so there was a drug connection after all. Janine might have been telling the truth that she had nothing to do with it.”

“Possibly. Although I suppose she could be in it as deeply as anyone. You have to admit her restaurant would make an ideal distribution point for drugs that were coming in from around the coast here. I shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t find out that she was set up here for that very purpose.”

“I suppose so.” Evan didn’t want to believe it but it was hard not to. “So how did you manage to match the prints? That was rather clever of you.”

She laughed. “I found the match by sheer accident, actually. Scotland Yard sent us everything they’d got on the traffickers they suspect are behind the shipments. It’s a multinational gang, mainly Algerian and French, with connections in Europe and North Africa. They sent us several sets of prints. Just out of curiosity I ran a computer match on them and I nearly died when one of them matched our thumbprint.”

“What’s his name?”

Glynis chuckled. “He’s got a string of aliases as long as your arm but he likes to be called, get this, Le Tigre—the Tiger!”

“Sounds like something out of a bad film,” Evan said. “Congratulations. That kind of thing will definitely get you noticed around here.”

“Thanks. As I say, it was pure luck, just fooling around to see what the system can do, actually.”

“Has the D.I. been told yet?”

“Yes. He came in only a few minutes ago. He’s quite excited—well, as excited as a someone like him can get.”

“Is he in with Madame Yvette—I mean Janine—now?”

“Not yet. In fact, I don’t think he’s going to have time to question her tonight, because of everything that’s happening. We can’t keep her here because our only cell has a couple of lager louts from the rugby match in it. So I understand he’s planning to send her back to where she was staying with a W.P.C. escort—which I suspect will end up being me, because I’m the only one still on duty. So I suppose I might be seeing you later. She’s staying somewhere up near you, isn’t she?”

Evan’s brain stopped functioning rationally. All he could think was that Glynis would be arriving at Bronwen’s house.

“Are you still there, Constable Evans?”

“Yes, I’m still here. Sorry. I was thinking.”

“I know. It’s all so complicated, isn’t it. But you’re off the hook, aren’t you? Now they know who they’re looking for, so I suppose it becomes part of Operation Armada.”

“Right. I can go back to finding lost car keys.”

Glynis laughed. Evan didn’t think it was funny.

“See you later maybe, then,” she said again as she rang off.

Evan hung up the phone and sat staring at his desk. So their first hunch had been correct after all. It was all tied in with the drug shipments. Of course. Why else would an outstanding chef open a French restaurant in such an out-of the way place? The drugs would arrive in small boats, be whisked up from the coast to the restaurant and get picked
up from there. A great setup. It probably could have gone undetected for years if they hadn’t had the tip-off and there had been no fire.

Jean Bouchard had been the real Madame Yvette’s husband, but he was also involved in the shady world of drug dealing. That was probably why he’d chosen to fake his death and disappear five years ago. And now he’d been sent here to help with the drug shipments. It was probably pure chance that he had happened on the restaurant and discovered the woman impersonating his wife. If Janine hadn’t stabbed him, who had? Had he fallen out with fellow gang members, or crossed paths with a rival gang? Evan wondered if they’d ever know.

He felt both pleased and annoyed. He was pleased that his gut feeling was correct and Madame or Janine or whoever she was had probably not committed the murder, but annoyed that he was once again being left out just as things heated up. He thumped his fist onto the table in frustration. Then he reminded himself that he had work to do. He still had to find Terry Jenkins.

He checked the village once more, looking in all the sort of places an eleven-year-old boy might want to hide. Then he went back to his car. The sun had sunk behind the westera mountains and the valley was bathed in twilight. Evan had to agree with Terry’s mother for once—he didn’t like the thought of the boy out on his bike in the dark. Cars drove up the winding road too fast to see a boy on a bike.

He drove first to the top of the pass and looked around the Everest Inn car park, then slowly back down the hill. Terry really must have gone into hiding—perhaps he was
more scared of being taken to the police station than he wanted to admit. Perhaps he knew more than he was admitting, as well.

Evan had almost reached the village of Nant Peris when he spotted something shiny, almost hidden among the thick brambles beside the road. He stopped the car and jumped out. It was Terry’s bike. Evan picked it up and stood there, his hand on the saddle. Why had Terry abandoned his bike? If he’d wanted to hide up on the mountain, there were plenty of tracks leading from Llanfair itself. He wouldn’t have had to ride down to Nant Peris first. Was he possibly on his own quest, looking for something down here—something to do with the fire?