Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery (10 page)

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Authors: Rhys Bowen

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They all nodded as if this was what they wanted to believe. But it was obvious none of them did believe it.
“We won’t just assume that he’s gone to London and that he’ll call,” Evan said. “I’ll check out the places where he was
last seen.” They nodded again. “If any of you wants to come with me?”
“I’ve already called and canceled our crew for today,” Edward said. “I hope we find him soon—I can’t afford to have the crew just hanging around. If Grantley really has just run off somewhere without telling us, I’ll wring his bloody neck.”
Evan got out his small notepad. “Maybe you could tell me exactly where and when he was last seen?” he asked. “You say he dragged you up to Blenau Ffestiniog at crack of dawn yesterday ?”
“That’s right. I was in the middle of breakfast and he came rushing into the dining room. ‘I’ve just had the most brilliant thought,’ he said. ‘It came to me in the middle of the night. It’s going to give us the drama this film was lacking.’ He grabbed my arm and literally dragged me from the table.
“I told him I had more important work to do. I was needed up at the lake to help raise a plane, which was, after all, the whole purpose of the film—and the one reason we’d got any financing.”
He gave a long sigh. “But you know what Grantley’s like. He’s like a little child when he doesn’t get his own way. He whined, he pleaded. It wouldn’t take long and he couldn’t go on his own, could he? And when he’d proved his point, then even I would be excited.”
“What point was this?” Evan asked.
“He wouldn’t tell me. He said he had things he needed to check out first.”
“So you drove to Blenau? What time was this?”
“We left here before eight, I know that. Got there around eight-thirty, maybe.”
“And when you got there?” Evan asked.
“I don’t know exactly what he planned to do. He wanted to see around a slate mine, I know that. He was going to meet the custodian.”
“But you didn’t go with him?”
Edward flushed. “Me? No. I had more important things to do. I was needed back here, so I took a taxi back and left him to it.”
“So the last you saw of him was in Blenau, at around nine o’clock?”
“That’s right.”
“And you expected him to come straight back here afterward?”
“That’s what I understood, yes,” Edward answered. “He knew we had a film crew waiting to start work and that Howard wasn’t feeling up to par. I just assumed he’d come straight back as soon as he could.”
“Did he have a mobile phone with him, by any chance?” Evan asked.
“Of course. He was never without his mobile.”
“So he could have called you to let you know if he was running late,” Evan said. “That’s odd, isn’t it? I take it you’ve tried calling his number?”
“Of course, several times, but he must have it switched off. It doesn’t ring.”
Evan tucked the notebook into his pocket. “Is there any chance he might have a photo of himself in his room? It would help if I could show it around when I’m asking questions.”
“I’m sure he has oodles of photos,” Edward said. “Grantley is very much in love with himself. I’ll come up to his room with you, if you like. Maybe he’s left some kind of notebook or agenda, giving us a clue to where he might have gone.”
“All right.” Evan went to find Major Anderson, the hotel manager.
“Missing, you say?” the major asked, frowning. “He didn’t attempt to go up a mountain alone, did he?”
“No, he left his car down on the harbor in Porthmadog,” Evan said. “We’ve no idea where he went.”
“Rather worrying, what?” The major stroked his mustache speculatively. “I hope this doesn’t bring us any bad publicity like
that other time when those climbers were killed. We had a lot of reservations canceled as a result.”
They walked up the broad central staircase and Major Anderson unlocked a door at the end of the first hallway. Grantley’s room was supremely messy, with clothes, books, and papers strewn about at random. The major stepped over discarded underwear with distaste. Edward followed Evan into the room.
“He had a briefcase. I don’t think he took it with him in the Land Rover. Ah yes, this is it.”
He retrieved a pigskin case from under a sweater and a pair of socks. Evan opened it. It contained the sort of things you’d expect to find in a briefcase: an agenda, a file of possible contacts with war experiences, and, tucked into a slot on the lid, a large envelope full of photos.
“There you are—what did I tell you?” Edward reached out to lift up an eight-by-ten glossy of Grantley, looking more like Lord Byron than ever.
“His head shot,” Edward said, “from the days when he fancied himself as an actor. Imagine still carrying it around. There’s no end to the man’s vanity.”
“Oh and here’s one of Howard doing his great white hunter bit.” Edward thrust another eight-by-ten of Howard Bauer, surrounded by heavily armed African tribesmen, into Evan’s hands.
“Very impressive.” Evan smiled.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything in here to indicate where he went.” Edward was thumbing through the other folders in the case. “Maybe we should look around the rest of the room, but I don’t think we’ll find anything. Most of Grantley’s ideas were in his head.” He closed up the case and started piling clothes from the dresser onto the bed. Evan watched him speculatively. He was almost sure that while he had been studying the picture of Howard, Edward Ferrers had pocketed a small snapshot from the pile.
It was nine o’clock on a blustery Sunday morning as Evan drove down to Porthmadog. He had asked the film people if any of them wanted to accompany him, but they had rejected his offer. Howard claimed he was still feeling a little shaky, Edward didn’t want to leave the Inn in case Grantley phoned or turned up, and Sandie said she was just too upset to be of any use.
Church bells were ringing as he passed through Beddgelert. Old women in hats were walking arm-in-arm to chapel or the Anglican church as he drove through Porthmadog. He found the Land Rover easily enough, parked on the street that overlooked the harbor. It was locked. There was no sign of the keys. Unfortunately, what would have been a busy street yesterday was now deserted, but Evan knocked at the nearest houses. Nobody remembered noticing the man in the picture, or when the Land Rover had arrived. He looked around the docks. A couple of men were working on sailing boats, but the harbor wall would have concealed a view of the vehicle and they hadn’t seen the man in the photo.
He went on to the main-line station and showed the picture again. The girl at the booking office was sure she hadn’t sold Grantley a ticket yesterday. “Ever so handsome, isn’t he?” she
said, smiling coyly at Evan while assessing that he wasn’t bad-looking himself. “I’m sure I’d have noticed him.”
The ticket collector hadn’t seen him either. Not many trains ran from the station on a weekend and he was sure he’d have noticed a foreigner.
Evan wasn’t feeling too hopeful when he tried the narrow-gauge train depot. In contrast to the deserted main-line station, this one was bustling with activity. Sunday was a day when volunteers came to work on the old rolling stock and have a chance to drive the small steam engines up the mountain. The photo produced instant recognition this time.
“Of course I saw him.” The man was polishing an old steam engine with the name Linda emblazoned on its side. “He was the silly fool who fell out of my train, wasn’t he?”
“What about yesterday? You didn’t carry him back up the mountain yesterday, did you?”
The driver shook his head. “No. If I’d seen him, I would have told him to bugger off. I wouldn’t want to take that chance again. Nearly scared the daylights out of me when I heard that scream and saw him come tumbling out. I was lucky to be able to stop so quickly.”
“So you’re sure he wasn’t around here yesterday?”
The man stared out across the estuary. “Not on a train I was driving. Of course, he could have taken another train up when I was coming down. I’d ask Billy Jones over there. He drove the other engine yesterday.”
But Billy Jones didn’t remember seeing Grantley. Whatever Grantley had been doing in Porthmadog yesterday, he hadn’t made his presence obvious.
Evan paid a brief courtesy visit to the police station and made copies of the photo.
“Strange, isn’t it?” P. C. Roberts said, coming to peer over Evan’s shoulder as he worked at the copying machine. “He’s quite a distinctive-looking bloke. You’d think someone must have seen him. We’ll ask around the local B-and-Bs and maybe
you should check the buses. Either he’s still here or he took some other form of transportation out of town.”
“Unless someone stole his car,” Evan suggested. “And dumped it here.”
“Then why ditch it again? Land Rovers are pretty valuable, aren’t they? And if his car was stolen, then where the devil is he?”
“Good question,” Evan said. “I’m off to Blenau Ffestiniog now, where he was last known to be. Let’s hope someone up there can tell us something useful.”
P. C. Roberts smirked. “You say you were assigned to him—what, for protection? No wonder you’re so worried, boyo. You’ll be for it if he doesn’t show up, won’t you?” He was clearly enjoying Evan’s discomfort.
“Thanks for the reassurance,” Evan muttered with a half smile. He started to go.
“Don’t worry,” Roberts called after him. “I expect he’ll come sauntering in, saying, ‘Oh sorry, old chap. Were you looking for me?’ Bloody English. Nothing but trouble, are they?”
Evan agreed with the sentiment in the case of this lot of bloody English. He put his foot to the floor and swung his aged car around the bends until the slate hills of Blenau Ffestiniog appeared ahead of him—great gray gashes cut out of the mountainsides around the village. A chapel was just emptying on the High Street, mostly older women, plus a couple of old men and a few children. Evan parked his car and hurried to question the worshippers.
“I saw him.” An elderly woman pushed her way through to the front of the crowd. She was a tiny bag of bones with a beaky nose and black flowerpot hat perched on top of pure white hair. “You saw him too, didn’t you, Gwladys?” Another elderly lady nodded. “That’s him all right.”
“When was this? What was he doing?”
The first woman screwed up her face in concentration. “Ooh, let’s see. We were on our way to catch the bus to do our shopping
yesterday. The bus goes at nine-fifteen, so it must have been before that, mustn’t it, Gwladys?”
Her friend nodded again.
“Can you tell me what he was doing?”
“Shouting, that’s what he was doing, wasn’t he, Gwladys?”
“Shouting something shocking,” Gwladys finally spoke. “The two of them, yelling at each other, right there in the street.”
“Foreigners, I said to Gwladys. What can you expect?”
“Can you remember who he was shouting at?”
“Another foreigner, it had to be. They were speaking English, weren’t they?”
“Big sort of chap,” Gwladys cut in. “Youngish. Fair hair, I think.”
“And what happened after that?”
“We don’t know. They were still at it when the bus came.”
“All right—what’s going on here?” a male voice demanded and a uniformed policeman pushed through the crowd. He eyed Evan with suspicion. “Can I help you?”
Evan extended his hand. “P. C. Evans from Llanfair. I’m looking for a missing person who was last seen up here.”
A big smile spread across the constable’s face. “Evans from Llanfair. I know who you are.”
Evan flushed. He hated the way his fame as a super-sleuth had spread around the force. It usually meant either resentment or teasing. “Yes, I know all about you, what kind of food you like, what kind of girls you like … .” The constable paused, watching Evan’s confused reaction. “I’m Meirion Morgan. You’re lodging with my auntie Gwynneth.”
Evan laughed. “Morgan, of course. That was Mrs. Williams’s maiden name. Nice to meet you, Meirion.”
“Now what can I do to help?” P. C. Morgan asked.
“It’s this Englishman from a film crew who are shooting near Llanfair. He came up here yesterday morning, supposedly to visit a slate mine, and hasn’t been heard of since. And his Land Rover was found parked in Porthmadog.”
“That’s odd, isn’t it?” Meirion Morgan agreed.
“And we saw him,” the first elderly lady tugged on his arm, “didn’t we, Gwladys?”
“These ladies saw him arguing with someone in the high street yesterday morning.”
“Right down there it was, outside the fish-and-chip shop,” the woman pointed down the street. “Yelling and screaming at each other something terrible.”
“Foreigners,” Gwladys muttered conspiratorially.
“Did anyone else happen to see this?” P. C. Morgan addressed the crowd that still hung around.
Several other women admitted hearing shouting in English. The newspaper shopowner remembered hearing the shouting and then seeing a man go running past his shop front.
Then Evan asked about the Land Rover. Some people thought they had noticed it, but one woman was definite. It had been there when she went to fetch her son home from school for lunch at twelve o‘clock and it was gone when she went to meet him from school at four o’clock. She remembered because her son had commented on it. He thought Land Rovers were cool and wanted to know if they could buy one. She had told him they cost too much money.
“So, what do you think he was doing up here until early afternoon?” Meirion Morgan asked as he and Evan moved off together and the crowd broke up. “He must have been in someone’s shop, had a cup of tea somewhere surely?”
Evan nodded. “All I know is that he came up here to visit a slate mine and he had an appointment with the custodian.”
“Which mine would that have been? Llechwedd or Glodfa Ganol?”
“Manod.”
“That’s closed now. Been closed for some time.”
“Right. But it’s where they kept the paintings during the war.”
“Oh yes, I heard about that.” Meirion Morgan nodded. “My granddad was working in that mine in those days.”
“Mr. Smith wanted to include that story in the film he’s making on Wales in the war. That’s why he wanted a tour of the mine.”
“Oh, in that case you’ll want Eleri Prys. He used to work there and he has the keys. I’ll come with you if you like.”
“Thanks,” Evan said. “You’re sure I’m not keeping you from anything?”
Meirion Morgan grinned. “No, just making a quick patrol through the town before I go home to my Sunday lunch, and Megan won’t have that ready until one. You’re welcome to join us if you like. My Megan does a lovely roast lamb with all the trimmings.”
“It does sound tempting,” Evan said. “I’ll see how we’re going with this. I have to find some sort of clue as to where he went. There’s a main-line station here, too, isn’t there? It’s just possible he took a train to London.”
“Then who drove his vehicle down to Porthmadog?”
Evan shrugged. “I know. Nothing here makes sense.” He clapped Meirion on the shoulder. “Let’s go and see this Mr. Prys. Maybe he can shed some light for us.”
They walked together past the row of shops and then dropped down a narrow side street until they came to a pleasant bungalow on the edge of the town. Eleri Prys was a strong, square-jawed man with a young face, although his hair was streaked with gray.
“That’s right,” he said. “I used to be the mine manager until they closed it. I wasn’t there in the war, of course. I’m not that old, thank you very much, but I understand it must have been quite a sight with those sheds built right inside the slate cavern.”
Evan produced the photo. “I believe you had an appointment with Mr. Grantley Smith yesterday. Did you show him around the mine?”
“He never turned up, did he?” Eleri Prys asked with disgust in his voice. “I told him I’d meet him outside the mine at ten
o‘clock, but he never came. I waited half an hour, then I said, ‘Bugger this,’ and went home. It was bloody cold yesterday.”
“And he didn’t contact you afterwards to say why he hadn’t shown up?”
“I haven’t heard from him since,” Mr. Prys said with a sniff.
“Mr. Prys,” Evan began. “Is there any way he could have gone down the mine alone?”
Eleri Prys shook his head. “I’ve got the key, haven’t I? The entrance is padlocked.”
“And you checked the actual mine entrance yesterday, did you?” Evan asked.
A fleeting look of alarm crossed the man’s face. “No—no, I can’t say that I did. I waited by the street, like I told him. Then I did walk up the path to see if he might have gone on ahead of me, but no one was there. I could see that.”
“Would you mind going with us to take a look?” Evan asked. “Just to make sure?”
“I’m just about to have my elevenses,” Mr. Prys said. “I’ve got the kettle on.”
“The man you were supposed to meet is missing, Mr. Prys,” Meirion said. “The constable here has been searching for him. We have to check every lead at the moment.”
Eleri Prys nodded. “All right. I’ll just turn off the kettle and get my coat then, shall I? Bloody nuisance. I wasn’t too thrilled about showing him the mine in the first place. Too many hazards down there, and the emergency lighting’s not good. But he’s the kind of bloke who knows how to pull strings. I got a phone call from the mine owners saying I had to be helpful.”
They walked back up the steep alleyway and then continued on to the edge of town. The wind was blowing off the high moor so hard that they had to lean into it.

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