by Rhys Bowen
Evan went around to the back door and let himself in. The lounge was deserted tonight. Ladies were not supposed to drink on Sundays. But the main bar was as full as usual. Evan stood taking in the comforting, familiar sights and sounds—the big fire flickering in the fireplace, the oak-paneled walls, the low hum of conversation, and the pleasant hiss of Betsy filling a pint glass. This was how the world should be. Every time he felt frustrated about not getting that promotion, he should remind himself that a promotion would mean moving away from this, working in the towns.
As he edged through the crowd toward the bar, he anticipated Betsy’s usual excited yell. Instead, he reached the long oak bar without making any impression at all—almost as if he’d become invisible—adding to the sense of unreality he was already feeling.
He leaned on the bar. “Noswaith dda, Betsy fach. How about a pint of Guinness for your favorite policeman then?”
Betsy’s wide blue eyes looked up at him coldly. “I don’t happen to see my favorite policeman at the moment. That would be Constable Dawson from Caernarfon, wouldn’t it? I think he’s ever so handsome, and friendly too.” She went back to the pint she was pouring. “There you are, Mr. Roberts. Get that down you and you won’t feel the cold.”
“Betsy,” Evan said. “Have I done something to upset you?”
“You know very well what you’ve done.” Her gaze was still icy.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t. I’ve been so busy the past few days … . .”
“You stopped me from breaking into show biz, that’s what. If it hadn’t been for you, I might have been discovered by now.”
“I told you, they’re not Hollywood producers. It’s a documentary about a plane.”
“The older one is.” Betsy pouted. “He won an Oscar, they said.”
“Yes, for a documentary about civil war in Africa. Do you see yourself running around in his next film wearing a loincloth and waving a spear then?”
Evan was only conscious that the other men had been listening in to this conversation when there was general laughter behind him.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” Barry-the-Bucket chuckled. “You know what women wear on their tops in Africa, don’t you?”
“Yes, and men have to kill a lion single-handed before they can be men!” Betsy retorted. “Which means you’d stay a boy all your life, Barry-the-Bucket.”
“Anyway, they don’t hire actors for those kind of films,” Mr. Parry Davies, the minister, explained, leaning out from his chair in the corner. Although he condemned the demon alcohol from his pulpit as heartily as his rival at the other chapel, he wasn’t averse to following his flock down the back path to perdition after evening service. “Documentaries are shot from real life. No actors.”
“Oh, I see.” Betsy was quiet for a moment, then her face lit up again. “But he’d know real directors, wouldn’t he? If he’s won an Oscar and all that. I saw him walking down the street yesterday. He’s got a real American accent and everything, hasn’t he? Next time I’m going to speak to him.”
“Yesterday?” Evan asked.
Betsy nodded. “I would have run out and spoken to him then, but Harry had me cleaning the windows and the American looked like he was in a hurry.”
Interesting, Evan thought to himself, as he took the pint of Guinness Betsy put in front of him. Hadn’t Howard claimed he was too sick to leave his room?
“Didn’t I hear one of those film people was missing?” Evans-the-Milk asked.
Evan nodded, surprised that he was ahead of them with the news for once. “He’s been found—dead, I’m afraid. His body was found in a slate mine.”
“Ooh, how terrible,” Betsy said. “It wasn’t the lovely dark one, was it? I thought he was ever so sexy.”
“That’s right. Mr. Grantley Smith.”
“Was that his name?” Betsy looked up with interest. “We had someone in here the other day asking about him, didn’t we, Harry?”
Harry-the-Pub looked up from the glasses he was wiping. “Grantley something? Yes, that was the name. We sent him up to the Inn.”
“Who was asking about him—was it an Englishman?”
Betsy looked at Harry for inspiration. “No, he spoke Welsh, didn’t he?”
“He did.” Harry frowned in concentration.
“Did he say why he wanted Grantley Smith?” Evan asked.
Harry shook his head. “I’ve no idea. We’re not the bloody police force, you know. We don’t interrogate them.” He grinned at Evan. “And we’d never heard of this Grantley Smith bloke.”
“So he had an accident down a slate mine, did he?” Evans-the-Milk asked. “Dangerous places, those old mines.”
“What was he doing down there?” Evans-the-Meat asked. “I thought they were here to get a World War Two plane. Not too many planes crashed into slate mines, did they?”
The other occupants chuckled, but Evan stood staring at his Guinness. What was Grantley Smith doing in a mine? he wondered. What could have been so important to him that he’d risked going down there on his own, half an hour before he was scheduled to go on a full conducted tour?
As these thoughts passed through his mind, Evan was back down there, ducking through those low passages, feeling the darkness pressing down on him, hearing the faint dripping of water, knowing there were three hundred steps between him and the outside world. He felt beads of sweat forming on his forehead again and his heart started to race. It was no good. He needed to be out in the fresh air. He drained his glass and put a couple of pound coins on the counter.
“Thanks, Betsy love, but I’ve got to go.”
“They’re surely not making you work at this time of night?” Harry-the-Pub demanded. “They don’t pay you overtime, do they?”
Betsy was gazing at him with concern. “Are you all right, Evan? You’ve gone awfully white. Harry’s right. They’ve been working you too hard. Why don’t you sit down for a moment. Harry will bring you a brandy, won’t you, Harry?”
“Always giving away my liquor, she is,” Harry commented good-naturedly. “She’s too generous by half when it’s someone else’s money.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just go home,” Evan said. “The fresh air will do me good.”
He pushed his way out of the room and came out into the cold night air. The mist had thickened and the cottages along the village street loomed as unidentifiable shapes. Evan didn’t feel like being indoors. He turned up the street and began to walk fast. Cold strands of mist blew past him. He passed the rows of cottages and the shops. Then he came to the school playground. The schoolhouse was invisible in the fog, but Evan could see the glow of light from Bronwen’s window.
A whole weekend had gone by without his seeing her. He had stayed away because he hadn’t wanted to know the truth about her dinner date with Edward and Grantley. But now he needed to see her. He had to talk to someone about what he had been through today and Bronwen was the only person he could talk to. And he wanted her comforting arms around him.
The playground gate squeaked as he pushed it open. His footsteps echoed as he crossed the playground to Bronwen’s living quarters at one end of the school building. He was about to knock on her front door when it swung open. Evan shook his head, smiling, as he went in.
“Hey, Bron, did you know you hadn’t shut your door properly ? And you’re the one who’s always complaining how hard it is to heat … .” He broke off in midsentence. Bronwen was standing on the far side of the room, at her bedroom door. Her back was to him and her arms were wrapped around Edward Ferrers. As Evan watched in horror, she raised her face to be kissed.
Chapter 15
Classical music was playing on the radio. She hadn’t heard him come in. Evan began to back away. All he wanted to do now was to get out without being seen. But a gust of wind swirled in from the open door, sending the candle flames flickering.
Bronwen spun around and Edward looked up at the same time. For a second her eyes met Evan’s. He turned away and hurri
ed out into the night.
“Evan!” She shouted his name as he strode across the playground. “Evan, wait, don’t go, please!”
He reached the gate and pushed it open. He heard the sound of her light footsteps echoing over the concrete behind him. “Evan, please, wait!” she shouted again.
He slipped through the gate and out into the street as she caught up with him, breathing hard from her sprint. “Don’t go, please.” She grabbed at his sleeve.
“You want me to stay and watch?” he demanded, finding it hard to get the words out.
“It wasn’t the way it looked,” she said. “I was just comforting him.”
“Oh yes? Is that what it was?”
“You don’t understand.” Her eyes were pleading.
“No, no, I don’t understand.”
“Please come back inside and I’ll explain. Edward came to me because he was desperate and he had nowhere else to turn.”
Her breath came out as puffs of smoke, like a dragon’s, and hung in the cold night air. Mist swirled around them. Evan shivered. Bronwen was hugging her arms around herself now.
“Evan, Edward is terrified they’ll think he killed Grantley. It looks really bad for him. Please come back and say you’ll help him.”
“You want me to help Edward Ferrers?”
“At least listen to his side. I know it sounds bad, but let him explain.”
“You mean because he and Grantley had an argument in public before he disappeared? Lots of people get into disagreements. That doesn’t mean they end up killing each other.”
“It’s worse than that.” Bronwen was still hugging her arms to herself, rocking in the cold. Evan wanted to comfort her and put his arms around her, but he couldn’t make the move. She looked up at him with big, hopeless eyes. “You know I told you that Edward left me for someone else?” She was chewing on her lip, like a little child. “He left me for Grantley.”
He hadn’t been expecting this. It had never crossed his mind and it hit him like an unforeseen left hook. “Grantley? You’re saying he and Edward? And yet you married him?”
Bronwen shrugged. “I was terribly naive, I suppose. We both were. I don’t think Edward even realized he was gay until Grantley—I knew that our marriage was never great, but I thought that had to be something to do with me. That I wasn’t sexy enough maybe.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’d say that,” Evan said before he remembered, and Bronwen managed a weak smile. “But I thought that Grantley and Sandie … .”
“She probably thought so too,” Bronwen answered. “Grantley was good at giving someone just enough encouragement to get what he wanted. He wouldn’t have minded flirting with Sandie to make sure he got a willing slave. He did that with me for long enough.”
Evan began to feel that he had stepped into an empty lift shaft and was just gathering speed. “You’re telling me that you and Grantley?”
“I was madly in love with him all through Uni. I used to do his washing, mend his socks, help him with his papers. He used me. I saw that later.”
“And you never caught on that he was gay either?”
“I know I sound completely stupid, but in Grantley’s case I think he’s a genuine AC/DC. I don’t think he actually finds women unattractive. Found.” She corrected herself. “I mean, found. I can’t believe he’s dead. I’d no idea it would affect me like this, after all this time … .”
Her voice wavered and she hugged herself more tightly. “I suppose that makes me a suspect too, doesn’t it? I have no alibi for yesterday morning. I was out and about shopping in Bangor.”
“I don’t think you’d be my primary suspect at the moment,” Evan said, trying to mask the tenderness he felt. “It would have had to be someone pretty strong to strangle a man and then throw his body into that pool. You’d have needed a strong accomplice.” He forced himself to stop thinking what came into his mind: Edward was big and strong enough. Bronwen and Edward, teaming up to get rid of Grantley? Absurd. Bronwen would never harm anyone. She looked so frail, so vulnerable, standing there in her light sweater, with the mist swirling about her, hugging her arms to herself.
“You’d better get back inside,” he said. “You’ll catch cold out here.”
She nodded. “Won’t you come back inside with me and talk to Edward? Please?”
He had to force his mouth to form the words. “All right,” he said.
She spun and hurried ahead of him to the open front door. Evan followed, still feeling that he hadn’t yet reached the bottom of that lift shaft. This was Bronwen, Bronwen that he had thought he knew and loved, and yet she had been in love with Edward Ferrers and with Grantley Smith. Had she and Grantley been lovers, too? He couldn’t bear to think about it.
Edward was sitting by the fire in Bronwen’s armchair, staring into the flames. He got to his feet as Evan came in.
“It’s very good of you,” he muttered. “You see, I know they’re going to come back and ask me more questions and I really don’t have an alibi and it will look as though—” He ran his hands through his thick wiry hair. “Oh my God. They’re going to think that I did it. I know they are.”
“Why are you so sure of that?” Evan asked.
“Because we had a horrible, flaming row in public. People will have overheard what we said.”
“And what did you say?”
“Among other things I think I told him that he’d better stay away from me or I’d break his bloody neck.”
Evan pulled over one of Bronwen’s kitchen stools and perched on it. Without being asked, Bronwen poured a glass of red wine and handed it to him. “Here, drink that.”
“Thanks.” He took a sip. “Okay, Edward, so you had an argument in the street and you exchanged some heated words. Were you really fighting about the film?”
“To begin with, yes. I thought all of this business of the mine was a silly waste of time. First the train, then the mine. Grantley had the attention span of a small child. He was always being distracted and dropping one toy for a bigger and better one. He was all excited about this mine business. I reminded him that he wouldn’t have a job at all if it hadn’t been for my involvement and my money. That’s when he got very upset.” He looked across at Bronwen. “Bronwen told you about us, did she? We fought a lot over money. He was unemployed; I had a good job, you see. Grantley hated being dependent, but at the same time he wasn’t above spending my salary without telling me. It was one of the reasons we split up.”
“When was this?”
“Right before we came here. We had just broken up. Grantley moved his stuff out of my place the night before we left on this little jaunt. That’s why it’s going to look so bad for me.”
“I see.” Evan took another sip of wine. “So go on about the fight.”
“Grantley got upset when I mentioned that it was my money that was funding it. He told me what I could do with my bloody plane. He’d make his own movie. He didn’t need me anymore. He’d got something much better.”
“Which was what? The pictures in the slate mine story?”
Edward shrugged. “I presumed that was it. But it could be something quite different again. I know he made a lot of phone calls the day before. Maybe he’d come up with a new story entirely. That would have been like him.”
“Edward.” Evan paused. “Have you any idea what would have made Grantley go down that mine on his own—to find a back door and break in, when he was about to go down with the caretaker later that morning?”
“I have no idea at all. He didn’t mention wanting to go down alone. All he told me was that he was meeting this chap who was going to give him a tour. Mind you, we hadn’t exactly been in a very sharing mood. We hardly said a word to each other unless we had to.”
“So why didn’t he just drive up alone? Why bring you along?”
“That was me, I’m afraid, being petty. He asked to borrow the Land Rover. I told him it was mine—lent to me specifically. I was afraid he’d take it for the whole day
if I let it out of my sight and I didn’t want that to happen. So I said I’d drive him.”
“So you fought and then what happened? You drove back alone?”
Edward studied his hands again. “No. I took a taxi. He kept the vehicle.”
“Why didn’t you drive back in the Land Rover?”
“I wasn’t quick enough.” Edward blushed. “We parted company with a few last hurled insults. I told him to go to hell. He wished me the same. Then he ran to my Land Rover, jumped in, and drove off before I could stop him. I had to get a taxi home.” He looked up at Evan. “It doesn’t look good for me, does it? People will have heard what I said. And the police will find out about us, and that we just broke up.”
“No,” Evan said. “It doesn’t look good. But if you really didn’t kill Grantley, then you don’t have to worry. We’ll find the person who did.”
“But they’re always picking on the wrong person.” Edward sounded close to panic. “You read about it all the time in the papers—how some poor sod spends years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Bronwen put her hand on his shoulder. “But you’ve got Evan on your side,” she said. “He’s the best. If anyone can find out who really did it, he can.”
“But he’s only a P.C.,” Edward said, glancing at Evan. “No offense, but I don’t think you’ll have too much say in a murder investigation, will you?”
This was his way out, Evan thought. He could say, “You’re right. I’d be no help at all in a murder investigation. I’m just a village constable, nothing more.”
But Bronwen reached out at that moment and laid her hand on his. “Evan will get to the truth for you—won’t you, Evan?”