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Authors: Rhys Bowen

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BOOK: Evan's Gate
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Fr. Nicholas Thomas stood at the doorway to the bar at the Everest Inn and looked around with distaste. Even at this hour of the afternoon, a smoky haze curled around the oak beams. Having lived in Canada for so long, he had forgotten how much the British smoked. Then he spotted his brother at the far end of the bar at the same time that Val looked up and waved.
“What can I get you?” Val Thomas asked.
“It’s a little early for me, thanks,” Nick said.
“Aw, go on, we’re on holiday,” Val insisted.
“Okay. A white wine then please. A chardonnay.”
Val threw back his head and laughed. “Do real men in Canada drink wine? I’m surprised you weren’t chased out of town.”
A momentary spasm crossed Nick’s face, then he smiled too. “You forget, I’m not a real man. I’m a priest. We’re supposed to be different, aren’t we? And Canada has become very European these days.”
“Funny, isn’t it?” Val said. “You and I—what very different lives we lead. Who would have thought it when we were kids? You a priest! You were never particularly holy, were you?—I seem to remember you sneaked out of chapel at school as often as I did.
And our parents certainly didn’t encourage any more observance of our religion than church on Christmas Day.”
“And who would have expected you to be an artist?” Nick countered. “I always thought you’d take over the family business and be the driven CEO type.”
“I discovered I don’t like being tied down to one thing,” Val said. “I get bored easily, and I seem to have a knack for painting pictures for which people pay large sums of money. Suits me just fine. I don’t think I could ever have been the proverbial starving artist, any more than you could have been the humble, starving priest. We were obviously brought up to expect the good life.”
“After boarding school? The food was abysmal, and we had to have cold showers.”
“Ah, but that made men of us, didn’t it?” Val laughed and tossed across some pound coins to the young woman who had put a glass of wine in front of Nick. “Between you and me, I was damned glad to go away to school. I don’t think I’d have survived if we’d been stuck at home.”
“Me too. I couldn’t wait to get away. That was why I went to Canada, I suppose. The farther, the better.”
“You can’t go far enough though, can you? I don’t think even Australia would work.” There was no longer a smile on Val’s attractive face.
Nick nodded agreement. “No, it sort of follows you, doesn’t it?”
After leaving Mrs. Paul, Evan visited holiday bungalows farther down the beach. Two of them were occupied by families who recalled seeing the little girl on the beach on several occasions but had only been on the beach briefly that morning. They had seen no strange men or cars parked along the road. But then they wouldn’t, would they? Evan reasoned as he walked back toward the caravan park. When he’d been on holiday as a boy, he’d been so intent on having fun and making the most of his time on the beach that a spaceship could have landed nearby and he wouldn’t
have noticed it. And parents on the beach watch their own children, not other people’s.
He was walking toward his car, when he remembered what Mrs. Paul had told him about the heart transplant. It was just possible that she had got it wrong, but if not … he was sure that transplant patients had to take antirejection medication on a regular basis. And it could be fatal if they stopped taking it. Mrs. Sholokhov had been clearly distraught when she’d spoken to them, but how could she have forgotten to mention such an important factor for the child’s survival? Evan almost broke into a run as he crossed the caravan park. The small blue car Mrs. Paul had mentioned was parked in front of Shirley Sholokhov’s caravan, but when he tapped on the door, he got no answer. He knocked louder, wondering if she’d fallen asleep, then clambered up on the wheel to peep in the window. The caravan was empty.
He turned and hurried back across the field. Did that mean the child had been found? Had he missed all the action while he was out here, doing useless legwork, repeating what had been done before? He sprinted the last few yards and jumped into the car.
As he drove back along the road, the wind got up and sand peppered the seaward side of his car. Evan glanced down at the beach where there was a gap between the dunes, then pulled over abruptly. A man was standing on the beach, looking up at a flight of gulls through binoculars. A bird-watcher with binoculars might be just the break they needed. He might not even know a little girl was missing and might have witnessed something he hadn’t understood that morning.
Evan crossed a field and waded through the soft sand of the dunes. The man continued to stare through his binoculars. Evan didn’t want to startle him, so he yelled out, “Hello there!”
The man put down the glasses and turned toward the sound of Evan’s voice.
“Could I have a word with you, sir?” Evan asked.
“Am I going to get in trouble?” the man asked in Welsh. As Evan came closer, he saw a small, skinny man whose clothes
seemed to be one size too big for him and a head that seemed too big for the rest of his body. He was looking at Evan with an innocent, boyish face, but his graying hair and the creases at the sides of his eyes indicated that he was probably a lot older than Evan. There was something familiar about him, and Evan tried to place him. “Have you come to take me away?”
“Why, what have you done?” Evan asked.
“I don’t know, but I’ve been arrested before. They gave me nice tea and buns and they showed me how the car radio worked. I thought the police had come to arrest me when I saw all the cars this morning. Are you with the police?”
Now the penny finally dropped. Daft Dai. He almost said the words out loud, then checked himself at the last moment. He was well-known in the area around Llanfair, up in the mountains where Evan lived. He had turned himself in for a murder he hadn’t committed when Evan was first a constable in Llanfair. He was a few sandwiches short of a picnic was the general consensus. Crazy but harmless.
“Dai, isn’t it?” Evan asked.
“I know you.” The man’s face broke into a boyish smile. “You used to wear a uniform. Did they take it away from you?”
“No. I’ve moved to what they call the plainclothes branch now. I’m a real detective.”
“Oh, I see.” Dai looked impressed. “Do you drive a police car?”
“What are you doing down here, Dai?” Evan asked. “Do you live down here now?”
“I live at the home. Do you know it? It’s very nice.”
Evan remembered there was some sort of sheltered accommodation for people like Dai in Porthmadog. He’d had to visit it once when one of the residents had started exposing himself on the beach.
“Yes, I know it, Dai. In Porthmadog, isn’t it? How long have you lived there?”
“Since my mam died. Don’t know how long that is. A long time now. They said she didn’t suffer, so that’s good, isn’t it?”
Evan nodded. “Yes. That’s good. So what are you doing out on the beach? Bird-watching, is it? Is that your hobby?” A thought swiftly crossed his mind before he dismissed it. Crazy but harmless, remember.
“It’s all right at the home,” Dai said, “but they have the telly on all day. I can’t hear myself think, and I don’t like being cooped up inside. I’m not used to it, see.”
“Of course you’re not. So now you go out bird-watching, is it?”
Dai nodded. “Mrs. Presli lends me her binoculars if I’m very careful with them. They’re very good. You can watch birds flying.”
“What kind of birds do you like?”
“The white ones,” Dai said, pointing up at the wheeling seagulls. “They’re pretty, aren’t they?”
Evan composed the sentence carefully in his head before he asked it. “I bet you can see a lot of things through those binoculars, right, Dai?”
“Oh yes. All kinds of things.” Dai beamed.
“You weren’t out on the beach this morning, were you? Because if you were, you might be able to help the police.”
Dai nodded, his big head bobbing up and down on the scrawny neck. “All right.”
“Listen, Dai. A little girl was playing on the beach farther along at the caravan park. You didn’t happen to see her, did you?”
“Her name’s Ashley.”
Evan started. “You know the little girl I’m talking about?”
“Oh yes. I’ve seen her on the beach before. I spoke to her once and she told me her name.”
Evan felt his pulse quickening. “What about this morning, Dai? Were you out here this morning?”
“I think so. After the rain they said I could go out, but I didn’t get far before it was lunchtime.”
“Were you on the beach here?”
Dai mused about this. “Somewhere along here.”
“But did you see Ashley this morning? Did you see the little girl?” Evan insisted.
Dai shook his head. “The beach was empty, except for the birds.”
“Did you walk? Along the road and through Borth? You didn’t see Ashley going for a ride in a car, did you?”
Dai shook his head again, then he said thoughtfully, “She might have gone up the mountain, though. I saw some people going up the mountain.”
The German couple,
Evan thought. “How many, Dai?”
“I don’t know. They were far-off. Two or three, maybe?”
“And as you walked along the road, you didn’t notice any strange cars parked, maybe with a man sitting inside, did you?”
Dai nodded. “There was one strange car parked near here.”
“There was?”
Dai nodded again, his head going up and down like one of those animals that nod in the back of cars.
“Really? What did it look like, Dai?”
“It was white and it had a word painted on the front.”
“Oh,” Evan said in disappointment. “Did that word say ‘Heddlu, Police,’ Dai?”
“Might have done,” Dai said.
“Right. Thanks for your help then, Dai.” Evan held out his hand. “Listen, Dai. The little girl has gone missing. If you find her, you’ll come and tell us, won’t you? Or if you find any toys that she might have left on the beach?”
“She’s lost?” Dai asked, his eyes looking surprised and sad. “Ashley’s lost. Is that why all the policemen were here?”
“That’s right. So anything you can do to help find her …”
“I’ll help find her,” Dai said. “She had pretty hair, didn’t she?”
“Yes, she did. Bye then, Dai.
Hwyl
.

Dai stared at Evan like a dog that is about to be abandoned. Evan had to smile. “Do you want a ride back in my car, Dai?” he asked. “I’ll take you home.”
Dai’s face lit up. “Then I won’t miss tea,” he said, and trotted
along beside Evan like an obedient pet. On his way into town Evan radioed to HQ that he was on his way in and was told that the D.I. was expecting him at the Porthmadog police station.
“No news about the little girl then?” he asked. “I gather Mrs. Sholokhov went somewhere in a police car, so I hoped that …”
“No, I expect W.P.C. Howells took her out for a cup of tea, poor thing,” the dispatcher said.
“Oh, right. Tell the D.I. I’ll be there in five minutes then.”
He dropped off Dai at the home and arrived a few minutes later to find the room full of blue uniforms. D.I. Watkins was addressing them, perched on the edge of a table at the front. Evan was dismayed to see that D.C.I. Hughes, the senior detective in their division, was also there, looking dapper as usual in a well-cut, dark gray suit with a white silk handkerchief protruding from the pocket.
“Ah, here’s Evans at last,” Hughes said, managing to imply that he was somehow late and they’d all been waiting for him.
“Sorry, sir. I didn’t know there was to be a meeting,” Evan said. “I was out interviewing the people at the caravan park.”
“I don’t suppose you came up with anything, did you?” Again he made it sound as if Evan wasn’t capable of coming up with anything. Evan was conscious of those uniformed coppers staring at him.
BOOK: Evan's Gate
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