by Rhys Bowen
“Is that him?” Sergeant Watkins stared down at the body. He had come with the ambulance team, in response to Evan’s emergency call from the mine office at the front entrance. Reluctantly Evan had had to lead the way back down to the body and now stood beside the sergeant, feeling the weight and horror of the mine pressing on him again.
Evan couldn’t see the face, but the dark curls, the black leather jacket, and tight black jeans on long limbs were easy enough to identify. Lying sprawled out like that, he looked like a giant spider. He shuddered. “Yes, I’m pretty sure it’s him.”
“Stupid bugger,” Watkins said, still staring down in fascination. “He must have blundered down here and not realized the passage went to the left and stepped straight into the bloody water.”
“I wonder why he didn’t manage to get out again?” Evan asked. “It should have been easy enough to haul himself out.”
“He might have tripped and hit his head on a rock and fallen in unconscious. Or maybe he couldn’t swim,” Watkins said. “Either way, we’ll know as soon as we get a postmortem. If he hit his head first, he probably won’t have water in his lungs.”
“And we’ll see the wound,” Evan added.
Watkins turned to the ambulance men, who were standing uneasily in the shadows. “Okay, boys. You can bring him out.”
The youngest member of the crew leaned over the side in an attempt to grab the body.
“Watch it, boyo,” the older man warned, “or we’ll be pulling you out, too. These bloody pools are deeper than they look.”
He took a pole and stuck it down into the water. It reached nowhere close to the bottom. “I reckon it’s twelve feet down at least. You’d better get your wetsuit on, lad.”
The younger man began putting on a wetsuit. Watkins moved closer to Evan. “So how did you find him down here?”
“Process of elimination and some luck,” Evan said. “The odd thing is that he had an appointment with Mr. Prys that morning. Why not wait and have a proper tour?”
“Bloody stupid, if you ask me,” Watkins said. “How did he get this far, that’s what I want to know? If he came in the back way, like you said he did, there’d have been no light at all, would there? And I don’t see his torch anywhere.”
“We checked out the area pretty thoroughly,” Evan said. “We didn’t find anything.”
“It could be under him,” the older ambulance man suggested. “We’ll know in a minute when young Rob gets all suited up.”
“I might need you to help me, Mr. Howells,” Rob said as he prepared to lower himself into the water. “I don’t know if I can bring him up alone.”
“You get him moving and I’ll use the hook when he comes within reach.” Mr. Howells took off his jacket and started rolling up his sleeves. “I’m not getting in that cold water unless I really have to. Besides, if he’s been there a while, he’ll come floating to the surface easy enough. I’m rather surprised he hasn’t already.”
Rob put on goggles and lowered himself into the water. Then he took a deep breath and plunged downwards. The eerie light of the torch made his descent throw distorted shadows across the cave roof. He reached the body, tugged at it, then came back to the surface, gasping for breath. “Bloody hell, Mr. Howells, he’s heavy. I can’t move him.”
“Have another try, lad. You’ve got the only good wetsuit. Just grab his arm and swim up with him.”
Rob went down again. He grabbed the corpse’s arm and kicked for the surface with all his might. The corpse hung beneath him like a rag doll. Mr. Howells reached in with the grappling pole and snagged the jacket.
“Bloody’ell. He is heavy.”
Evan took off his own jacket and reached in to help as the body came closer to the surface. He started as his hand closed around the wet tendrils of hair. At last, gasping with effort, the three of them managed to drag the body to the side of the pool, then lift it onto dry land. As they moved it, something fell from the jacket and tumbled to the bottom of the pool.
“No wonder he was so heavy,” Rob commented. “That was a piece of slate. Look, he’s got another bloody great piece inside his jacket, and more in his pockets.”
Watkins looked at Evan. “Someone wanted to make sure he stayed down.”
Evan stared down at Grantley’s lifeless face, with its wide-open eyes staring up as if in surprise. “In which case his death wasn’t an accident at all. Someone followed him down here and killed him.”
Watkins nodded. “Not a bad place to hide a body. If that torch hadn’t been waterproof, you’d never have seen him. He could have lain there for years.” He turned to the ambulance men, who were now pulling off Rob’s wetsuit. “Good work, lads. Now let’s get him to the morgue and see what the postmortem shows.”
As the men lifted him onto a stretcher, Grantley’s head fell back. Evan nudged Watkins. “Look at his throat, Sarge.”
Watkins looked where Evan was pointing at the areas of discoloration. “Badly bruised. Could mean he was strangled. I should call the D.I.” He got out his mobile phone, then laughed. “Of course. It’s not likely to work down here, is it?”
The somber procession set off back to the surface. Evan was surprised to find it was still daylight, a dusky pink twilight in which the smoke from fires hung in the still air. It felt as if he had been down there for days, weeks, years. He stood breathing in the crisp winter air.
Watkins tapped his arm. “You all right? You look like you could do with a drink.”
“I’m fine now,” Evan said.
“It must have been rough for you down there,” Watkins muttered. “I remember how claustrophobic you were when we went through the Chunnel to France that time. It doesn’t normally affect me, but I have to say that place gave me the willies. It must be something to do with knowing there are millions of tons of rock over your head.”
Evan managed a smile.
Watkins snapped open his phone. “Right. I should call the D.I. and see what he wants me to do. Then I think I’ll come with you and break the news to his mates. This is going to be rather a blow to them, isn’t it?”
They hardly spoke as they drove the fifteen miles back to Llanfair. Evan, still recovering from being in the mine, was glad that he had to concentrate on driving the winding road.
“So, what do you think?” Sergeant Watkins asked as they walked across the Everest Inn car park together. “You’re the one who’s good at solving murders. What sort of bloke was Grantley Smith? Were you around him enough to get an impression of him?”
Evan nodded. “He was the sort who liked to push people’s buttons. I think he got his kicks from antagonizing other people. He certainly got my hackles up and I hardly knew him.”
“Ah, so you might turn up on the suspect list, might you? You were the one who knew where to look for him, that’s always suspicious.”
Evan chuckled. “Unfortunately, I’ve got a perfect alibi,” he said. “At the time he must have been killed, I was up at the lake with the film crew, waiting for someone to turn up so that they could start work.”
“Someone to turn up—what do you mean?”
“I mean that nobody from the Everest Inn showed up that morning. Howard Bauer wasn’t feeling well and decided to stay in his room. Edward Ferrers arrived around midday, having left Grantley Smith in Blenau, and Sandie, the assistant, had walked out in a huff a few days before but suddenly turned up again.”
Watkins’s eyes lit up. “So they all had time to nip up to that mine, strangle Grantley Smith, and dump him in the water. The question is—would any of them have wanted to?”
“All of them, possibly,” Evan said. “There was no love lost between Grantley and Howard, or between Grantley and Edward. And Sandie was last seen stomping out and saying that she hated him.”
“Interesting.” Watkins nodded. “So I think this visit might be a little more than expressing my condolences. I might just ask a few subtle questions as well, while they’re off guard, and before they’ve had a chance to think
up alibis.”
Evan grabbed the sergeant’s arm and held him back as he went to walk into the Inn. “Look, there are a couple of things you ought to know before you meet them. Grantley Smith had a near-fatal accident a few days ago. He fell out of a train.”
“He did what?” Watkins gave him a startled look.
“The Blenau Ffestiniog line. He was leaning out to shoot a film and the door came open.”
“Bloody’ell,” Watkins muttered. “And he was all right afterward?”
“A few bruises and cuts. But he was very lucky. He landed on bracken and rolled into an oak tree. A few inches in the wrong direction and he’d have gone right to the bottom of the ravine.”
“So you’re thinking that it might not have been an accident, after all?”
“It did cross my mind,” Evan agreed. “And there’s one more thing. When I was asking questions up in Blenau, several people reported that they’d seen Grantley having a heated argument around nine in the morning. They gave me a description of the person Grantley was fighting with. It sounded an awful lot like Edward Ferrers.”
Watkins nodded. “Right. Okay, let’s go and see how they take the news of his death, shall we?”
He pushed the revolving glass door into the foyer of the hotel. Evan followed. The group was sitting by the fire in the bar again, as if they had never left. Howard was nursing a whisky and soda, Edward had an almost full beer glass in front of him, and Sandie was sipping a white wine. They sat like statues, not talking, lost in their own thoughts, and didn’t even notice the approaching policemen until Evan spoke to them.
“Mr. Ferrers? I’m afraid we’ve got bad news for you.”
Edward jumped to his feet. “You’ve found him? Something’s happened to him? Is he hurt?”
Sandie let out a wail. “Oh my God. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Dead?” Edward looked bewildered. “Grantley is dead?”
Evan nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
Edward sank to his chair again. “I knew. I knew it.”
Watkins pulled up a chair beside Edward. “Excuse me, sir. Detective Sergeant Watkins. If you don’t mind my asking a few questions.”
Edward focused on him as if he hadn’t noticed him until now. “What? Oh no. No, of course not.”
“How did you know, sir?”
“What?” Edward frowned. “How did I know what?”
“That he was dead. You just said you knew it?”
“I meant that he would have called us, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have let us sit here, worrying about him. Even Grantley wouldn’t have done that. So I knew something terrible must have happened to him.”
Howard Bauer cleared his throat. “How did he die, Sergeant? Not something like an overdose, was it?”
Watkins looked up at him. “He was found in a pool of water in a slate mine.”
Sandie sobbed. “Oh, how terrible. Poor Grantley. He hated cold water. I am so sorry. I just wish I could have told him how sorry … . but now I never can.” Edward put an awkward arm around her shoulders and she continued to sob noisily.
Watkins got out his pad. “If I could just get some details from each of you. I know you must be upset but—”
“Of course,” Edward said.
“Let’s start with your names.”
“I’m Edward Ferrers. This is Howard Bauer. Sandie Johnson.”
“Thank you, sir. And you were all part of the same film crew, is that correct? Constable Evans says you’re shooting a film about a World War Two plane in a lake.”
“That’s correct,” Edward said. “I’m actually not part of the film crew. I’m the expedition leader, so to speak. I’m the expert on World War Two planes. I was given a grant and permission from the Ministry of Defense to raise this plane and display it in a new air museum. Then I persuaded my friend Grantley Smith that it might make a good documentary. He’s been looking for a way to break into filming. He was lucky enough to get Howard, who is an Oscar-winning director, to join us and lend us credibility.”
“I see.” Watkins turned to Sandie. “And you, Miss?”
“I’m just the production assistant,” she said, blushing.
“Would you happen to know the names of his next of kin? We’ll need to contact them.”
Edward looked down at his coffee cup. “His parents live in London,” he said. He produced a small diary from his inside pocket. “Thirty-two Brunner Road, Walthamstow.”
Evan suspected from Edward’s expression that the address wasn’t in one of the better parts of the city.
“No other next of kin that you know of. No wife?”
“No,” Edward and Sandie said at the same moment. They shot each other a quick glance.
“And I understand that you were the last person to have contact with him, Mr. Ferrers,” Sergeant Watkins went on. “Could you tell me where and when you last saw Mr. Smith?”
“I already told all this to the constable,” Edward said. “I left him around nine o’clock in the morning up in that place I can’t pronounce.”
“Blenau Ffestiniog, sir,” Evan said.
“What were you doing up there?”
“A new idea of Grantley’s. He wanted to feature the slate mine in his story.”
“So you went up to Blenau Ffestiniog to look at a slate mine?” Watkins looked at Evan for help. “I may be dense, but what does a slate mine have to do with a plane in a lake?”
“The film’s going to be called Wales at War,” Evan explained. “I told Mr. Smith about the National Gallery pictures being stored in a slate mine during the war.”
“Were they? I didn’t know that.” Sergeant Watkins nodded appreciatively. “It just shows, you learn something every day. So Mr. Smith wanted to see the slate mine for himself?” He directed the question at Edward.
“That’s right.”
“And did he?” Watkins was still looking directly at him.
“Did he what?” Edward shifted uneasily on his seat.
“Did he go and see the slate mine for himself?”
“I couldn’t tell you that. I know he had an appointment with the man who had the keys to take a look later that morning.”
“And you left him around nine o’clock, you said?” Watkins asked.
“That’s right.”
“You didn’t want to stay and see the slate mine?”
“I had more important things to do, Officer. Someone had to supervise the work on the plane—the work we are supposed to be doing up here.”
“So you came back alone?”
“That’s right.”
Watkins leaned his elbows on the table. “If you don’t mind my asking, sir. Was Mr. Smith not able to drive himself for any reason?”
“No. Why do you ask that?”
“Only that it seems a bloody long way to drive with Mr. Smith and come straight back again on your own, before you’d seen anything.”
Edward’s fair skin flushed pink. “If you must know, we had a bit of a tiff. I thought he was wasting our time and money on something irrelevant and I told him so. Grantley had a minor tantrum. He always liked to get his own way. I didn’t want to be around him when he was in that kind of mood, so I came back.”
“I see, sir.” Watkins looked around the table. “And you others, Mr. Bauer and Miss—uh—Johnson. You weren’t involved in this jaunt to the slate mine?”
“I was ill that morning,” Howard said. “I had some kind of twenty-four-hour bug, so I stayed close to my bathroom. I still feel pretty rotten, come to think of it.”
“And I wasn’t here,” Sandie said. “I was down in Bangor. I just got back yesterday afternoon.” She gulped another sob. “So I never saw him to say good-bye.”
Watkins closed his notebook. “Well, that seems to be that. Thank you for all the helpful information. I must ask you not to go anywhere for the present—just in case we need to ask you any more questions.”
“We’ll be here, Sergeant. We still have work to do,” Edward said. “Ther
e is a plane in that lake waiting to be raised. It will help take our minds off … .” Edward’s voice cracked and he swallowed back emotion.
Watkins got to his feet and looked at Evan, who had been standing quietly in the shadows by the fire. “Oh, one more thing I wanted to ask you. About that accident the other day—Constable Evans tells me that Mr. Smith had a brush with death only a few days ago. He fell out of a train, is that right?”
Three bewildered faces looked up at him.
“Yes, but that was an accident,” Edward said. “I know. I was in the carriage with him. I saw him fall out. Nobody was anywhere near him. It was his own stupid fault. He was leaning out of the open window, which is specifically forbidden. The door came flying open.”
“So you were in the carriage with him, sir?” Watkins turned his attention to the others. “And you two?”
“I was in the next compartment,” Howard said. “I saw him lean out and fall. He must have triggered the door handle somehow.”
“And you, Miss?”
Sandie’s blue eyes looked enormous in her white, tear-stained face. “I’d already gone. I didn’t even take the train ride with them. And anyway, are you suggesting that someone tried to kill Grantley? Why would anyone want to do that?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out, Miss.” Watkins got to his feet. “Ready, Constable Evans?” he asked.
“I tell you one thing,” he muttered as they came out of the bar. “They were all bloody jittery, weren’t they?”
Evan looked back at the figures silhouetted against the firelight. He tried to picture any of them creeping up behind Grantley, strangling him, and then weighting his body with rocks before throwing it into a pool.
Chapter 14
The sign of the Red Dragon looming out of the evening mist was particularly welcome to Evan. It had been a long, tough day. His legs felt as if he’d gone up and down Snowdon a few times, and the horror of being in the depths of that mine still lingered.
He tried to push open the pub door and was surprised to find it locked. He stared at it, confused for a moment. After the strange events of the day, it wasn’t hard to believe that he had slipped into a twilight zone. Then he heard Evans-the-Meat’s loud laugh coming clearly from inside the pub. He rattled the door, but it wouldn’t move. Then it dawned on him—it was Sunday, of course! Even though pubs throughout Wales were now officially allowed to open on Sundays, Llanfair was one of the communities that still observed the Sabbath and kept the pub shut—at least shut to outsiders. The locals had always taken the back path from the chapel to the back door of the pub and had clearly done so tonight.