Evan Only Knows (9 page)

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Authors: Rhys Bowen

BOOK: Evan Only Knows
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There were a dozen times during the two-hour drive that Evan decided to turn back. His hasty departure had been well received by Bronwen’s parents, who obviously thought he was escaping from their carefully planned social schedule. When he finally found a parking spot in a back street behind Kingsway and cut through an alley to the police station, his feet felt as heavy as lead. What did he think he was doing here? Bronwen was right. It was none of his business. The DCI would probably think he was poking his nose in and not take kindly to any offer to help. But it was too late to turn back now.
He asked for DCI Vaughan and was told he was out on a case. Evan could wait if he liked. He joined the ranks of those in the aquariumlike waiting area. From time to time the door opened and various people from the benches were summoned into the inner sanctum. Some went willingly, others glanced around uncertainly before they stepped through that doorway. That was the interesting thing about police stations, Evan thought. You never knew which side of the law anyone was on. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead. It really was extremely hot in there.
After a while Bill Howells came through the door.
“Well, look who’s here. I thought you were off yesterday. We can’t get rid of you, can we?”
“I decided to come back. I’m here for a word with DCI Vaughan,” Evan said.
“Oh yes?” Bill Howells held the door open for Evan to go through.
Evan waited to speak until they were alone in the hallway beyond. “Actually what I’d like to do is talk to Tony Mancini. Do you think they’d let me see him? I never got that chance before.”
“I don’t see why not,” Bill said. “I can ask the DCI for you, if you’d like. The kid’s not going anywhere. Just cooling his heels in the jail. Of course you’d like to talk to him”—he nudged Evan in the side—“and if you delivered a little justice of your own — a quick knee where it would make him sing boy soprano—I don’t think anyone would mind too much. We all felt pretty bad about your dad, you know. And that little fart walking out free and cocky after a couple of years playing Ping-Pong and weaving baskets. It’s about time he got what was coming to him.”
“I just want to talk to him, Bill,” Evan said. “Five years ago I’d have given anything for the chance to beat him up, but not now. I’m over that stage.”
Bill Howells glanced around. “Not everyone around here is over it, I can tell you. The DCI had to take certain members of the force off the case because he couldn’t trust what they might do if they found themselves alone with Tony. He wants to make sure it’s all done strictly by the book. He doesn’t want any loopholes for that little weasel to wriggle through.”
“That’s another thing that’s got me worried,” Evan said. “The evidence you’ve given me doesn’t seem too strong so far. Are they holding back their trump cards, do you think?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m not part of Vaughan’s Major Crimes team, but I tell you one thing, boyo, he’s a good bloke, Vaughan. He knows his stuff.”
As if on cue, the door behind them swung open and DCI Vaughan himself strode through, with several members of his team in his wake, like ducklings hurrying to keep up with the mother duck. As they turned the other way, Bill Howells called out to him
and introduced Evan. The frown lines softened on the older man’s face as he shook Evan’s hand.
“Robert Evans’s son? That’s right. You spoke up in court. Good of you to come. It couldn’t have been easy for you. You used to be on the force here, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But you’d had enough after what happened to your father. I can understand that.”
“I’m with the North Wales Police now,” Evan said. “Just about to start training with the plainclothes division.”
“North Wales Police? Good God. What on earth took you up there?”
“It’s a long way from down here.”
“So you’re up among the sheep?” The older man smiled.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I suppose you don’t have to put up with the rubbish we get down here. Your father was a good man. I started out under him in this very manor. But don’t you worry. We’re doing everything we can to nail the little bastard this time.”
“I was wondering, sir.” Evan paused and took a deep breath. “Would it be possible for me to speak to Mancini? I never got that chance before, and it’s something I feel I need to do.”
“Yes, I can understand that,” DCI Vaughan said. He paused, staring long and hard at Evan. “It will all have to be done through the proper channels and with his solicitor’s permission, but I don’t see any problem there. They’ve appointed him a little squirt still wet behind the ears. Doesn’t know his arse from his elbow if you ask me. So you go and tell him you’re there with my permission. Only, Evan — keep your hands to yourself, won’t you. At least if anyone is watching.”
“Don’t worry, sir. I’ll behave myself. Oh, and sir? I know this investigation is none of my business, but if there’s anything I could do to help … I need to feel I’m doing something, if you can understand that.”
“Of course you do. We all do. Believe me, everyone in the South
Wales Police wants to nail the little bastard this time. So go and talk to him, and Evans, you’re welcome to ride along if you like.”
Evan’s face lit up in a big smile. “Thanks very much, sir.”
He felt energized and hopeful as he made his way to the solicitor’s office in one of the few older buildings left on Kingsway. Swansea had been badly bombed in the war, and there weren’t many old buildings in the city center. The young solicitor wasn’t listed as a partner and had a small office off a dark upstairs hallway. He glanced up from a crowded desk when Evan came in and in the subdued light looked little older than a schoolboy. “Richard Brooks. Do sit down. You’re Robert Evans’s son?” He made a face. “Funny, but Tony asked to see you. Maybe it’s been playing on his conscience all this time and he wants to make amends. I hope so. It’s something we can bring up for the jury if he does apologize to you.”
“They have a strong case against him, do they?” Evan asked. The young solicitor made a face again, the sort of face fifth-formers make when asked a particularly tough question they don’t know how to answer. “I am not privy to what evidence they have against Tony, but I do understand that they are sure they’ve got their man. Tony, of course, maintains his innocence.”
“And you believe him?”
“I’m his solicitor. I have to believe him.”
“And if you weren’t his solicitor?”
The young man shrugged. “He’s not the easiest of clients. It’s hard to know when he’s telling the truth. Of course, I’ll do my best for him. I’m currently trying to get a top-notch barrister to represent him, but of course we can’t pay the fees they expect.” He got to his feet. “So, when do you want to visit Tony? I will naturally have to come with you.”
“Whenever you are free,” Evan said. “But will it be possible to speak to him alone? I’ll report to you if he says anything that could help his case.”
“I suppose that will be all right.” He looked hard at Evan, assessing him, then nodded again. “Yes, I think it will be all right. Later this afternoon then.”
Evan got to his feet. “Thank you. It’s very kind of you.”
The solicitor managed a weak smile. “Let’s hope it may be a turning point for Tony, because frankly I don’t see much hope for him.”
 
Evan stopped off at his mother’s house and had to endure a long interrogation session as to why he had come back alone, without Bronwen.
“Are you sure she hasn’t thrown you over?” she asked more than once. “She’s a high-class girl. Anyone can see that. Although she speaks a lovely Welsh.”
“No, Ma, she hasn’t thrown me over. I’ve just got some things I have to do here. I’ll be going back to her parents’ house tomorrow, probably.”
“I’ve already washed the sheets from your bed,” his mother said accusingly. “Now I suppose you’re going to make them dirty again.”
“I’ll sleep on the sofa.”
“Indeed you will not. You think I can’t provide a warm welcome for my own son?”
Evan sighed and went upstairs to make up his bed.
A clock somewhere on the hill was chiming four as Evan and Richard Brooks walked together down to the waterfront and approached the impressive wall that surrounded the prison. Once inside the main gate, they were searched then led across a narrow yard. Beside the original gray stone rectangle, there was a newer octagonal unit that looked like an overgrown chapel. It was to this unit that they were led. They were shown into a windowless interview room equipped with a table and two chairs. After a few minutes the door opened and Tony Mancini was brought in. When he saw Evan he reacted nervously.
“What’s he doing here?”
“He wanted to speak to you,” the solicitor said.
“Sit.” The guard pointed at a chair on one side of the table.
“You can’t make me.” Tony struck a defiant pose. “I haven’t even
been tried yet, and I’m innocent until proved guilty. I know the law.”
“You will be. Sit.” The guard put a big hand on his shoulder. Tony’s eyes darted around the room as he perched on the edge of the chair.
“I don’t have to speak to him if I don’t want to. I don’t have to talk to no one.”
“You wanted to the other day,” the solicitor said.
“Yeah, well, I changed my mind.” He eyed Evan defiantly.
“Can you leave us alone for a while?” Evan asked. The solicitor nodded and indicated for the guard to leave.
“Hey, I said I didn’t want to talk to him. Are you fucking deaf?”
The door shut behind them. The place smelled of disinfectant with just a hint of latrines; it brought back memories of the boys’ bathroom at Evan’s primary school, a place where bigger boys had waited to bully skinny undersized kids like himself.
Tony’s posture indicated he expected to be picked on in the same way. “You better not touch me,” he said. “You lay a hand on me and you’ll be sorry.”
“Not as sorry as you’d be. I’m a lot bigger than you.” Evan’s gaze challenged him.
“You’d be laughing on the other side of your face if I was carrying my knife.”
Evan pulled up a chair to the other side of the table. “Look, Tony, I’m not here to attack you, so just relax.”
“Then what are you here for?”
“Why did you want to see me?” Evan countered.
“Because—Forget it.”
“I’m here because I never got a chance to talk to you earlier,” Evan said. “I just needed to tell you that you messed up my mom’s life and my life too.”
“Look, mate, I told you. I never meant to kill nobody.”
“You fired the gun.”
“I was lookout man, see. Jingo gave me the gun and yelled for me to shoot. I pulled the trigger. I didn’t expect to hit no one.”
“Who’s Jingo?”
“A bloke I used to know.”
“I didn’t think he was prime minister. In a gang together, were you?”
“Something like that.”
“So where was this gang?”
“Up in Penlan. You’re not nobody up in Penlan if you don’t belong to a gang.” Penlan, Evan remembered, was the toughest of the council estates, sprawling in ugly rows across the hills at the back of the city. “And what happened to Jingo?”
“Nothing. He’s still around. Why?”
“Are you still with the gang?”
“Nah. Been going straight, haven’t I? Good little boy, and all that.”
“You still live up in Penlan?”
“No, I bloody moved out to a mansion on the Gower. What do you think?”
Evan felt his hand curl into a fist beneath the table. He breathed deeply. “So you didn’t mean to kill anyone. What about this time? Was that an accident too—an ‘accidental’ rape and murder?”
“This time?” Tony glared at him defiantly. “I told you, I didn’t do it. They’re trying to nail it on me, but I didn’t do it. I liked Alison. She was all right.”
“You knew her then?”

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