Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery (2 page)

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Authors: Rhys Bowen

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Constable Evan Evans often regretted that the one window in his little sub-police station faced toward the mountains and not onto the street. Firstly, he couldn’t see what was going on in the village from his desk—an oversight he had reported to his superiors more than once—and secondly because he found it a constant distraction to be able to look up at his beloved mountains when he was bogged down in paperwork, as he was today.
It was time for his quarterly expense report. He knew in advance that he was going to receive a rebuke for turning the heating on in mid-October, but his superiors down in Caernarfon and at HQ in Colwyn Bay had no idea how cold it could be, a thousand feet higher on the flanks of Mount Snowdon. He glanced out of the window at the mountain slopes and sighed. It was a sparkling day, after almost a week of rain. New rivers were cascading down the steep slopes in bright parallel ribbons. The lower slopes glowed with emerald green grass on which raindrops still sparkled like diamonds. The sheep looked like advertisements for laundry bleach. Even the rockfaces glowed warmly in the soft November light.
A perfect day for walking or climbing, and he was stuck in an office. It had rained all weekend so that he had been trapped
indoors, watching rugby on the telly and playing Scrabble with Bronwen. The latter hadn’t been a good experience; she was too well-read to make it a fair game.
The moment Bronwen came into his thoughts, his gaze went to the shell of the ruined cottage, perched high above the village. An English couple had owned it until arsonists burned it down. Was it an impractical dream to think that he might be able to rebuild it, finally giving him a place of his own? He was sure that the English owners would have claimed on their insurance and wouldn’t be likely to return. They’d probably be only too glad to sell it for a song, but he’d still have to get permission to rebuild from the National Park Service. They were very sticky about issuing building permits, but it was worth a try. He doodled the shape of a cottage, with solid walls and smoke coming out of its chimney, on the edge of his notepad until the sound of the telephone made him jump.
“Constable Evans?” A woman’s voice. “It’s P. C. Jones from HQ. Chief Inspector Meredith would like to see you right away.”
“Damn,” Evan muttered as he got up. It was never good news if the old man wanted to see him right away. As he got into his car and drove through the village of Llanfair and down the pass toward Caernarfon, he tried to think of what he might have done wrong this time. He couldn’t come up with anything, though. The only things his chief had cause to complain about were the times he’d poked his nose into murder investigations. And even then he hadn’t been able to make too much fuss, since Evan had been instrumental in solving several major cases.
There had been times when his superiors had suggested that he might want to apply for a transfer to the plainclothes branch. But when he’d finally taken the plunge and sent in his application, they’d turned him down. Oh, they’d been very nice about it. Nothing to do with his ability or lack of it, they’d told him. But the directive had come from Colwyn Bay to appoint more women detectives before hiring any more men.
He swung the car into the Caernarfon police station car park
and took a deep breath. Better get it over with as quickly as possible. Just as he neared the door, a slight, sandy-haired man in a fawn raincoat was just coming out.
“Hello there, boyo, fancy seeing you,” Sergeant Watkins called to Evan. “Don’t tell me you’ve found another body—I’ve been enjoying a quiet life for the past few weeks.”
Evan grinned. “No body, Sarge. My chief wants to see me.”
“Been a bad boy, have you? Cheating on your expense report?”
“Not that I know of,” Evan said. “I’d better get in there and find out. The suspense is killing me.”
“And I’ve got to get back to my thrilling stakeout at Tesco’s.”
“Tesco’s? Is someone planning to rob superstores then?”
“Nothing so glamorous. Someone’s been nicking Christmas puddings and wrapping paper—nonperishables that have been turning up on market stalls a week later. We think it’s a local gang but they’re quite good at it. The security cameras haven’t managed to catch them yet.” He rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I think a quiet life is overrated.”
Evan went into the building and was surprised by the pleasant warmth. They certainly had their heating on high enough. So they couldn’t begrudge him his humble gas fire.
Chief Inspector Meredith was a large, florid man with sagging jowls and rolled up shirtsleeves. He looked up as Evan came into his office. “Ah, Evans. Good man. Glad you got here so quickly.” He pointed to a chair. “Take a pew.”
“Is something wrong, sir?” Evan couldn’t help asking.
“Nothing. I called you down here because I’ve got a little assignment for you, strictly hush-hush at the moment.” He leaned confidentially forward, although they were alone in the room. “I’ve had a request for police assistance from the Ministry of Defense.”
“Oh, yes, sir?” Evan’s brain was racing. IRA terrorists or Libyans might be infiltrating through the mountains at this very moment and he was being called in to help catch them … .
“As I understand it, it’s something to do with raising a German bomber from Llyn Llydaw.”
“A German bomber, sir?” Evan wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “A plane, you mean?”
“Of course I mean a plane. A German bomber that crashed into the lake during the Second World War. They’re attempting to raise it, so I understand. Don’t ask me why after all this time. Another bloody waste of government money, I expect. Oh, and a crew is going to be filming the whole thing, so naturally they don’t want local people getting in the way.” He paused again. “Your job will be to keep the gawkers away and make sure everything goes smoothly for them. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.” Evan felt deflated. From terrorist fighter to security guard in one fell swoop.
“They’re staying up at the Everest Inn,” the chief inspector went on. “They’d like you to make contact with them.”
“Actually, I’ve already met them, sir,” Evan said.
“How the devil did you manage that? I understand they wanted to sneak in with no fanfare. The damned Llanfair bush telegraph again, I suppose.”
“No, just pure chance,” Evan said. “They stopped to ask me for directions a couple of days ago. They looked like film people. One was actually wearing a beret.”
“Very observant of you, Constable.” The chief inspector gave Evan a patronizing smile. Evan smiled back, through clenched teeth.
He got to his feet. “Will that be all, sir?”
“Yes, I think so. Go and introduce yourself to them and offer them any assistance they need. I’ve told them you know the area like the back of your hand. You might want to show them the best way up to the lake, to transport their heavy equipment.”
“I hope they’re fit, sir,” Evan said dryly. “It’s a stiffish climb.”
“I imagine they’ll be driving up there—Land Rovers, that kind of thing. I suppose there is some kind of track you can get a vehicle up, isn’t there?”
“I wouldn’t want to drive it myself,” Evan said. “But I suppose it might be possible.”
The chief inspector smiled at Evan. “Do your best, Constable. We don’t want any complaints. I understand they’re pretty high-powered types and these film people can be temperamental.”
“Very good, sir,” Evan said. “Will you be sending a replacement to cover for me in the village, if I’m stuck on the mountain all day?”
“I’ll put it on a squad car route, and have them cruise by from time to time,” the inspector said. “I don’t think there’s enough crime in Llanfair to warrant an extra man up there full-time.” He looked down at his papers again. “Off you go then.”
Dismissed—like a schoolboy from the headmaster’s office. “Very observant of you, Constable.” The words echoed through his head.
He strode down the hallway, intent only on getting to his car and driving as fast as he could back to Llanfair.
“Aren’t you speaking to me now, Constable Evans?”
Evan turned at the sound of her voice. “Oh, hello, Glynis, or should I say Detective Constable Davies?” She even looked different. Her red hair had been cut into a sleek bob and she was wearing a very masculine, gray pin-striped pantsuit, which somehow managed to look feminine on her. “What are you doing here? I thought you were still in training at HQ.”
“Oh, I am,” she gave him a happy smile. “I’m shadowing D.I. Johnson this week and he has a case he wants to discuss with our D.I. Hughes. It’s nice being back on my old stomping ground. I hope they assign me here when I finish training.”
“So you’re having a good time then?” he asked.
“Brilliant.” Another big smile. “I was worried that they might resent my being a woman, but everyone has been very supportive so far. They’re all really nice to me.”
Maybe that has something to do with your dating the chief constable’s nephew, Evan thought.
“Well, nice seeing you again, Glynis,” he added. “I have to get back to work.”
“This detective stuff is a lot of fun, Evan,” she called after him. “You should apply. You’d be good at it.”
He had the grace to turn back with a little smile as he pushed open the door. Her words echoed through his head as he drove back up the pass. And she had called him Constable Evans. To think that he had once thought she fancied him. He was too bloody naive, that was his problem.
It wasn’t her fault, he told himself as he calmed down. She was too good to stay a glorified office girl for long. She was brainy, wasn’t she? She had a university education and she was very savvy when it came to computers. She’d probably make, a bloody good detective, too. And it wasn’t her fault that she was a smashing looker.
The road began to climb as it left the town of Llanberis with its long, glistening lake dropping away to his left. He wound down the window and crisp mountain air rushed in to meet him. It smelled of green and growing things. A flight of seagulls dipped to land on the lake. On the breeze came the distant bleating of sheep.
He had Bronwen, he reminded himself. He was a lucky man. She, too, was smart and good-looking. What more could a bloke want? He knew the answer right away—something more to offer her than being a humble bobby on the beat. Oh well, there was no point in dwelling on it. He’d had his chances and he’d turned them down. He’d just better make sure that he did his job and did it damned well.
Evan found the filmmakers alone in the paneled oak bar of the Everest Inn. They were seated at a table close to the fire, which blazed away in a huge river rock fireplace. There was a pot of tea and a half-eaten plate of scones in front of them. The rest of the table was covered in papers and maps, plus an ashtray full of cigarette stubs. The two armchairs by the fire were occupied by two young men, one dark, one fair. Evan recognized the fair, chubby one as the driver who had asked him for directions. He was dressed in jeans and a denim shirt and looked very much at home in this setting of paneled walls and hunting trophies.
The other armchair was occupied by a slim, dark-haired young man. He lay sprawled across the chair with one leg thrown over the arm and a cigarette dangling from his fingers.
They were direct contrasts, Evan decided, figures from an allegorical romantic painting of good and evil, Cain and Abel, day and night.
The older man who had worn a beret was sitting on an upright red leather chair, with a notepad in one hand and a half-empty glass of whisky in the other. Evan could now see why he wore a beret. Thin strands of hair were combed across a pronounced bald spot.
The fourth member of the party, whom Evan hadn’t seen before, was a pale, slender girl who perched on the edge of a straight-backed chair, a pen poised over a clipboard. She was too thin, Evan thought, eyeing her more closely. Not unattractive but definitely too thin. He didn’t care for chubby girls, but this one looked as if a good breeze would blow her away.
They all looked up as his footsteps clattered on the slate-tiled floor.
“Oh, it’s our helpful policeman,” said the dark young man. His voice was languidly upper-class. He gave Evan a charming smile and motioned toward the table. “Grab a chair and help yourself to tea. I don’t think it’s too stewed. There should be a clean cup because Howard’s already started on the scotch. I’m Grantley Smith, by the way.” He held out his hand. “I’m producing our little epic. Howard here needs no introduction, of course. World-famous Hollywood, Oscar-winning director … .”
He let the words hang in the air. Evan nodded to the older man. “I’m afraid I’m not too well up on films,” he said.
“I doubt you’d have heard of me anyway,” the older man said. “I got an Oscar in the documentary category.”
“The Heart of Darkness
. About genocide in a civil war in Africa. Very dramatic stuff. He’s very respected within the profession, aren’t you, Howard?” Grantley Smith gave him an admiring smile.
Evan sensed an undercurrent of tension. He pulled over another upright chair and sat. “I’m Constable Evans, sir,” he said. “My chief inspector has assigned me to help you. I understand you’re planning to make a film about a German plane?”
The fair-haired man leaned forward. “Actually, the primary object of the expedition is to raise the plane,” he said in an accent that might have originated in Yorkshire but had been polished by contact with the South. “I’m Edward Ferrers, by the way.”
“He’s our expert expedition leader—the World War Two plane buff,” Grantley chimed in. “Some men go trainspotting.
Edward drools over old planes.
Chacqu’un à son gout,
I suppose.”
Edward shot him a momentary glance of annoyance. “I’m overseeing the whole business,” he said. “It’s a very delicate operation. That’s why we need you around, Constable—to make sure nobody tampers with the equipment or generally gets in the way.”
“Nobody has any desire to tamper with your equipment, Edward.” Grantley Smith stubbed out his cigarette fiercely in the ashtray and took another from the packet. “And you make it sound as if the filmmaking is merely incidental.”
“Well, it is. I could get the plane raised with or without you. It’s just nice to have it documented for the museum. And must you smoke those filthy things, Grantley?”
“Don’t suggest I give up my Gitanes, Edward. One has so few pleasures in life, don’t you think?”
Evan detected a distinct chill. He cleared his throat.
“So I understand the plane is in Llyn Llydaw,” he said. “You know that for a fact, do you? I’ve been past that lake a hundred times and I’ve never seen anything looking like a plane in it.”
Edward Ferrers’s smile was patronizing. “It’s a deep lake, Constable. You couldn’t actually see the plane from the surface. We sent down underwater cameras and located it last summer. Maybe you noticed our camera team.”
Evan returned the smile. “Not especially, sir. We have all kinds of strange people on the mountain during the summer—most of them with cameras.”
Edward cleared his throat. “This would have been a little larger than your average Sony and luckily it confirmed what I had suspected. I’ve been writing a history of wartime plane crashes in Snowdonia. As you probably know, an awful lot of planes were lost up here during the war, both RAF and enemy bombers. The mountains and the cloud proved a lethal combination. This particular Dornier-17 is shown on German lists as
missing. We know it took part in a bombing raid on October 11, 1940. It was attacked by Spitfires and caught fire. But then it disappeared. Judging by the flight path it must have taken, and the fact that no debris was ever spotted, I assumed it had to have slid into one of the deep lakes up here. Finally we located it, a couple of hundred feet down and pretty much intact. So we’re hoping to raise it in one piece, maybe with its flyers still inside it.”
“You mean, men might still be in there?”
“Oh yes, I hope so. She carried a crew of three. I’m hoping their uniforms are still identifiable.”
“I think it’s creepy.” The girl spoke for the first time. A well-bred little voice. “I don’t want to watch when you fish out bodies.”
“You are just too sensitive for words, Sandie, my love.” Grantley leaned over and patted her knee. She gave him a shy smile.
“Anyway, they won’t be bodies,” Edward went on. “They will be skeletons. If they are still sitting in their correct seats, we’ll be able to identify them.”
“That could be a touching moment if the brother gets here.” Grantley turned to Howard.
“The brother?” Evan asked.
Grantley roused himself slightly from his recumbent position. “We’re trying to get some human interest into this,” he said. “A fifty-year-old plane coming up from the depths might be exciting to some people like Edward, but it won’t sell to the BBC. When Edward came to me about the project, I decided we needed to expand the idea to sell it. I’m calling my documentary
Wales at
War.
We’ve located a woman who was evacuated here as a young girl and we’re bringing in the brother of Gerhart Eichner, who was the pilot of the plane.”
Howard Bauer looked up from the list he had been studying. “And you might be able to help us here, Constable. Can you ask around the village for us?”
“Great idea, Howard,” Grantley added. “We can get some old biddies to share their wartime memories—you know, ‘I can remember when we had to queue up three days to get a cod’s head to boil and it had to feed a family of ten and we were grateful,’ that kind of thing. The public laps up other people’s hardships, doesn’t it?”
“I haven’t lived in the village very long.” Evan hesitated. Usually he was more than willing to be helpful—Bronwen described him as an overgrown Boy Scout—but he hadn’t exactly warmed to these people. He had the feeling that he could easily be turned into their general dog’s body if he wasn’t careful, “I could ask around for you,” he said slowly. “Better still, why don’t you come down to the pub one evening? Some of the older men like Charlie Hopkins know everything there is to know about the local people.”
“I don’t think we want it generally known that we’re up here filming.” Grantley Smith lowered his voice. “I’d rather not broadcast our presence in the pub. In fact, I’d much prefer that you asked around discreetly and let us know who might be worth interviewing. If everyone knows, we’ll have sightseers traipsing across the set and spoiling our shots.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to keep the locals from finding out what you’re doing,” Evan said. “Everyone knows everyone else’s business in a village like this.”
“Then your job is to make sure they stay away, Constable,” Grantley said, a pleasant smile still on his face. “Time is money when you’re filming.”
“In which case we don’t want to waste too much footage on interviewing old biddies and local color, Grantley,” Edward warned. “It’s only a sixty-minute documentary, not a six-part series.”
“Now there’s a thought.” Grantley turned to Howard again. “We could always stretch it to a six-parter if we get enough material.
Wales at War
—the mini-series.”
“We’ll be lucky to get enough material to fill a sixty-minute slot,” Howard said dryly. “I’m not sure how hot anyone is on the old days anymore. We need up-to-date stuff—”
“Like children being hacked to pieces in Africa,” Grantley finished for him. “Well, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Howard?”
“So when exactly do you want to start?” Evan asked, feeling uncomfortable with vibes he didn’t understand.
“Right away,” Edward said. “We have the salvage equipment and operators standing by. If we could go up to the lake tomorrow, we’ll be able to assess whether we can get our equipment in by vehicle or whether we’ll have to have it helicoptered in.”
A well-funded expedition, Evan thought. Where was the money coming from? And which of these men controlled the purse strings?
As he walked back down the pass from the Everest Inn and drew level with the two chapels, he saw that new texts had been posted on the billboards outside each. Capel Bethel on his left today had chosen as its text “I to the hills will lift mine eyes.” Psalm 121. Capel Beulah, on his right, had replied with “Every valley shall be exalted and every hill made low.” Isaiah. Thus did Reverends Parry Davies and Powell-Jones wage polite but ongoing warfare.
As he paused to smile at the billboards, the side door of Capel Beulah opened and a group of schoolchildren came running out. They grinned at Evan as they ran past.
“’Ello, Mr. Evans. Are you looking for Miss Price?” Terry Jenkins called to him. “She’s just coming out, I think.”
“She’s wearing ever such a pretty dress today, Mr. Evans,” young Megan Hopkins added slyly. “I think she looks lovely.”
Evan was well aware that the schoolchildren were determined to get him married off to their teacher and thought that he was being painfully slow about it. Sometimes he thought he was being slow as well. It was just that he was enjoying things as they
were at the moment—his needs taken care of by motherly Mrs. Williams, free time for hiking and climbing at the weekends, and Bronwen living just up the street in the little house attached to the school.
As he stood there, Bronwen came out of the chapel door. The stiff breeze caught wisps of ash-blond hair and blew them around her face like a halo. She was wearing that blue denim dress again—the one that matched her eyes—with her Little Red Riding Hood red cape over it. The cape swirled in the wind as if it was alive. Evan had no problem agreeing that she did look very pretty.
“Hello, what are you doing?” he called as she hurried toward him. “I didn’t know you’d joined the rival chapel. Teaching Sunday School now, is it?”
“No, thank you.” She wrinkled her nose. “I like my Sundays free and childless. Mrs. Powell-Jones bullied me into helping her with the Christmas pageant this year. You know what it’s like trying to say no to her.”
Evan nodded. He knew very well. “So how’s it going so far?”
“We’ve just had our first meeting and already there are big problems. Mrs. Powell-Jones is insisting that the Angel Gabriel was male and none of my top-class boys will volunteer to wear a white nightie.”
Evan laughed. “Mrs. P.-J is directing, of course.”
“Directing, making costumes, painting scenery, and probably making the sandwiches for tea afterward. I’m there to hold the clipboard and say, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”
“Sounds like the people I’ve just met up at the Everest Inn,” Evan said.
“Oh, the film crew? Then the kids were right. They are shooting a film in the area.”
“How the devil do they know so quickly?” Evan asked. “I really think that inhabitants of Llanfair could hire themselves out to the Secret Service.”

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