by Rhys Bowen
Evan looked down at his hands. “Sometimes I wonder.”
The door opened again, sending in a blast of cold air that swirled napkins on tables.
“If it isn’t Evans-the-Meat,” the milkman said loudly. “So the service at that other chapel finally got out, did it? Where are the others, or have they all fallen asleep in their pews?”
Evans-the-Meat stared at him coldly. “Just because our minister is a good Welshman who chooses to give his sermon in his native tongue, there’s no need to mock it. If only there were more patriotic men here who cared more for their native tongue and less for their beer.”
Evans-the-Milk stepped forward to meet him. “Are you saying I’m less patriotic than you? Who forgot to wear the leek last St. David’s day, huh?”
“Was it my fault that my wife forgot what day it was and put my leek in her mutton stew?” Evans-the-Meat demanded, the color rising so that his face looked like a large, round beetroot. “My side of the family can be traced back to Llewellyn the Great and that’s about as patriotic as you can get.”
“Are you trying to say I’m not as Welsh as you are?”
Evan noticed the clenched fists and got ready to intervene. It wouldn’t be the first time that the two men had come to blows in the pub. He had just begun to get to his feet when the door opened again. A young boy burst in, cheeks bright red from the wind and out of breath from running.
“Is Evans-the-Law here?” he gasped, looking around at the men at the bar. “Tell him he’s wanted on the mountain. They’ve found a body.”
Chapter 3
The next morning Evan stood beside Detective Sergeant Watkins, summoned from North Wales police in Caernarfon. They had located the body the night before, but given the difficult nature of the terrain, it had been too dangerous to do anything more until first light. The wind whipped at their clothing as they stood together on a narrow ledge, looking down at the body that lay sprawled far below. Even from this high vantage point, they could see the dark stain on the granite where the man lay.
“Nasty accident,” Sergeant Watkins said, sucking through his teeth, “but I can’t see why you called us in, Constable Evans. We’re busy down at headquarters right now. We haven’t got time to check out climbing accidents.”
Evan took his eyes from the horrifying sight of the sprawled body and glanced at the detective. He was a small, lean man, thirtyish, with a colorless, humorless face, made more colorless by light red hair and a fawn raincoat.
“You think it was an accident then, do you?” Evan asked.
Sergeant Watkins looked up sharply. “Of course. What else could it be? An inexperienced climber loses his footing or his nerve on the ledge, gets vertigo, and tumbles over.”
“Begging your pardon, sarge, but not even a bloody Englishman could fall off the ledge right here,” Evan said. “By afternoon the wind’s rushing up from the lowlands so strong that you could almost lie in it. And see how the rock angles backward? If you lost your footing or your nerve here, you’d fall back into the rock face, not down the cliff.”
“So what are you saying, constable?”
“I’m saying that someone had to have helped him get where he is now.”
“Pushed him, you mean? You’re trying to tell me this was deliberate?”
Evan shrugged. “Maybe it was accidental, sarge. Maybe he was with a companion who slipped and accidentally pushed him over, then was too scared to come forward and confess. That happens too, you know. But if you did want to get rid of somebody, this wouldn’t be a bad way to do it.”
Sergeant Watkins looked at Evan speculatively, then shook his head in disbelief.
“Come on now, constable,” he said. “How many people do you think there were up on the mountain yesterday? Somebody would have seen or heard …”
“It would only take a second. One quick shove when he wasn’t looking,” Evan said.
Sergeant Watkins shook his head again. “You’ve been reading too many crime novels,” he said. Then his tone softened. “Look, I can understand. It must be boring stuck out in a little village with only old ladies and their missing pussycats to keep you occupied. A nice juicy murder would spice things up, wouldn’t it?” He paused and cleared his throat. “Down at HQ we’ve got a real murder on our hands. Someone dumped an eleven-year-old girl’s body in a ditch beside the A55. She’d been strangled and sexually assaulted. A little eleven-year-old! I want to find the bastard that did that, Constable Evans. It’s all I can think about right now. So I don’t think I’ve got time to waste on a climber who lost his footing and fell over a cliff.”
“Maybe we’ll know more when we find out who he is, sarge,” Evan said. “If he’s a missing heir or police informant, then will you believe me?”
The detective managed a smile. “Very well, constable. Maybe we’ll know more when we can get the body out, but I doubt it. You’re not going to find a handprint in the middle of his back.”
“Someone might have seen something,” Evan said. “You could ask people to come forward if they saw anything suspicious.”
Sergeant Watkins looked at him. “I can tell you’re dying to get yourself involved in a murder, constable, but you’re wasting your time. I’ve got my photographer coming to take pictures, then we’ll have to decide the best way to get him out.”
Evan let his gaze move down to the body, which was lodged among jagged rocks at the base of the cliff. Below it the ground fell away again and ended in a murderously steep slope of scree that met the western shore of the mountain lake Glaslyn.
“And that’s not going to be easy,” Sergeant Watkins added. “I might have to call down to HQ and see if the chief can spare us the helicopter.”
“My lads can probably do it,” Evan said.
“Your lads?”
“We have a local mountain rescue squad in our village. All the men there grew up when the slate quarries were still working. They’re used to walking up and down cliffs. Born to it, they are around here. They walk up and down these mountains like they’re crossing an open field—and in their best Sunday polished shoes if there’s a real necessity for it.”
“Is that so,” Sergeant Watkins said, fishing in his pocket for his notebook.
There was the scrunch of boots farther along the ledge and a young policeman came toward them, jauntily swinging a camera.
“Hello, sarge. I got the pictures you wanted.”
What do you mean, you got them?” Sergeant Watkins asked sharply.”Where did you get them from?”
“Over above Llyn Llydaw where you’re looking down on the body. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Above Llyn Llydaw? What are you talking about? The body’s right here.”
The young policeman peered down over the edge. “Christ,” he exclaimed. “Then there are two of them!”
It took fifteen minutes to pick their way back up to the main trail and then around the lip of the mountain until they were overlooking Llyn Llydaw, the lower of the two Snowdon lakes. From the summit of Snowdon, the mountains extended in a horseshoe, almost encircling the two lakes, but a spur jutted out at one point, separating Glaslyn, the higher of the two, from the lower lake. The ridge was knife-edged all the way around and the cliffs ringing the lakes were unrelentingly sheer.
“Down there,” the police photographer said. “He must have fallen over the edge of the ridge, don’t you think? It’s steep enough around here and the wind gusts are nasty too. It nearly knocked my camera out of my hands when I was trying to get the pictures. I hope you don’t want me to get down to him—I never did have a good head for heights.”
Again the man was lying face down at the bottom of a cliff, his arms sprawled outward as if he had tried desperately to break his fall.
“It’s a wonder nobody reported seeing this happen,” the young photographer went on. “It was a fine day yesterday, wasn’t it? The mountain must have been swarming with hikers and tourists.”
“This isn’t on any of the main routes up
the mountain,” Evan said, gazing down. If either of these men was the climber missing from the Everest Inn, then they hadn’t taken the quickest way up to the summit. “The only real path is the one we’ve been taking along the ridge,” he said. “It goes over the top of Lliwedd before it drops down to the valley.”
“Maybe he’d been to the top and was attempting a short-cut down,” the photographer suggested.
“A shortcut, down here?” Sergeant Watkins eyed the sheer granite below. “He’d have been bloody stupid, unless he was trying to do some climbing.”
Evan shook his head. “He wasn’t a climber. Look at his feet. He’s wearing ordinary running shoes. He’d never have tried climbing in those. He probably came up on the train. And he doesn’t have any rope with him.”
“Maybe he got it into his head to try his hand at it, even though he didn’t have the equipment,” Sergeant Watkins suggested. “People are always doing daft things, aren’t they? They see it on the telly and it looks easy enough. He was trying to climb up this cliff, lost his grip, and fell.”
Evan shook his head. “He fell forwards, sarge. If he’d been climbing up he’d have landed on his back.”
“It was bad luck, whatever it was,” Sergeant Watkins said. He was already starting to turn away. “Got enough pictures, Dawson? Good, then let’s get back and radio HQ to have them brought out.”
Evan fell into step with him. “You still think it was a coincidence, sarge?” he asked. “Two men falling off the mountain in one afternoon?”
Detective Sergeant Watkins was staring straight ahead. “Yes, I think it was a couple of unlucky accidents, Constable Evans,” he said. “If it wasn’t, what’s the alternative? You think we’ve got a madman running around pushing people off the mountain?”
Young Constable Dawson squeezed in between them. “You think it could have been deliberate then?”
“Constable Evans does,” Sergeant Watkins said, “but then he leads a lonely life with all these sheep up here. He’s just itching for a touch of excitement.”
“Not really, sarge,” Evan said calmly. “I saw plenty of excitement when I was in detective training, down in Swansea. We had a murder a night sometimes, down in dockland.”
“You were in detective training down in Swansea?” Constable Dawson asked with envy in his voice. “So what on earth made you give that up to come here?”
“You can have too much of a good thing,” Evan said. “Let’s just say I’d seen one murder too many.”
“I can understand that,” Sergeant Watkins said. “That little kiddy we’ve got now. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how she looked when we found her in that ditch. I’ll never be able to get that little face out of my mind as long as I live. Looked as if she was asleep at first—just like our little Tiffany when I check on her.”
His voice cracked and he put his hand to his mouth and coughed as if embarrassed about showing such emotion. Evan began to feel more kindly toward him.
“Got any leads yet, sarge?” he asked.
“One that looks promising. We’ve found out that a convicted child molester called Lou Walters was released from Pentonville Prison early and has a mother who lives in Caernarfon. Have you heard about this latest stunt they’ve pulled on us? They’ve been quietly letting prisoners out of jail early to avoid overcrowding and not telling anyone. The Home Secretary is livid. Heads are going to roll, mark my words, but it’s too late to lock the stable when the horse has already bolted, isn’t it?”
“Have you managed to track this child molester?” Evan asked.
“No, but we’ve got a watch on his mother’s house. He’ll show up there sooner or later. We’ll be sending out a description of him to all the substations for you to keep your eyes open.”
“I hope you get him before he gets his hands on any more kiddies,” Evan said.
“Me too,” Sergeant Watkins said.
“And what are we going to do about these two?” Evan asked.
Sergeant Watkins looked back. “Get them out and notify their next of kin. That’s all we can do, isn’t it?”
“Better hurry up about it then, before the weather changes,” Evan said. He glanced out across the foothills to the ocean. The sun was still shining but the horizon was now a hard line. That meant rain before too long.
“I’d imagine our men could get them into a position where a helicopter could pick up the bodies,” Sergeant Watkins said. “We can hardly send them down on the train with the tourists.” He put a hand on Evan’s shoulder. “Maybe you should go to the inn where they reported the missing climber and find out who he was, and bring the manager down to HQ to make a positive ID on him.”
“He’s not going to like that very much,” Evan said, grinning.
“Difficult chap, is he?” Sergeant Watkins asked with the ghost of a grin.
“Let’s put it this way. He acts as if he bloody owns the mountains,” Evan said.
“And I tell you what, constable,” the detective said. “If we get them down and find out that they are both missing heirs to the same fortune, then we’ll take the matter further, okay?”
“Fair enough, sarge,” Evan said.
There had to be a connection, he thought. Somehow he was determined to find it.
Chapter 4
After leaving Detective Sergeant Watkins as he put in his call to headquarters, Evan made his way back down the mountain to Llanfair, taking the Pig Track, the steeper but quicker of the two main paths. Even for someone as fit as Evan it was a good hour’s scramble down the mountain past the Bwlch y Moch, the pass of pigs. But that was just as fast as waiting for the next train down the other side on the cog railway to Llanberis. Besides, he was glad to be alone for a while. It gave him time to think. Seeing that body last night still had him feeling shaken up. And the realization this morning that the whole thing was maybe not an accident had disturbed him even more.
He glanced back at the spot where he knew one of the bodies lay, and picked out the only ledge from which the man could have fallen. What would anyone have been doing out there in the first place? Or on the first ledge, for that matter? Neither of them led to anywhere that couldn’t be reached by an easier track. Neither afforded spectacular views for a special camera shot or led to great climbs. They were ordinary but steep, out-of-the-way bits of the mountain and the fact that two people had fallen to their death from them convinced Evan that something strange was going on.
It was still early in the day for hikers, but even so, Evan was surprised not to see a living soul on this side of the mountain. He paused and glanced over his shoulder uneasily. He had been alone on the mountain all his life and usually he enjoyed the solitude and the feeling of being, literally, on top of the world. Today he was very conscious of his isolation. There was a tension in the air, almost as if the mountain itself was alert and watchful. Evan found himself thinking of Druids. He’d read once that they used to sacrifice people in high places. Didn’t they throw their victims to their deaths? He shivered. A madman running around on the mountain, that’s what Sergeant Watkins had said, wasn’t it? Maybe he was right.
He fought the desire to break into a run as he dropped down the last slope and crossed Llyn Llydaw by the causeway. The sight of familiar landmarks and the village of Llanfair lying below reassured him. He slowed his step and looked back at the mountain, trying to notice any clue that he could give to Sargeant Watkins.
The causeway had been built long ago when there had been copper mines on the mountain’s flanks and they needed a safe, speedy route for the donkeys carrying the ore down to the road. What an improbable undertaking Evan thought, glancing back at the mountain. How could they ever have made it profitable, carrying out the ore one sack at a time?
The Everest Inn rose up to meet him, its gingerbread balconies shining in the harsh sunlight. The rain was only an hour or so away now, Evan decided. He could detect the salt tang on the breeze. He hoped they got those bodies out before it set in. When it started raining in
Wales, there was no knowing when it would stop again and once the cloud came down, there was no way they could get a helicopter anywhere near either body.
“Nasty business, constable,” Major Anderson said, sucking through his teeth again in a way that Evan was beginning to find annoying. “Damn tragic.” For a moment Evan nodded with sympathy until he went on, “Can you imagine what this will do for the inn? We’ve been trying to promote ourselves as a family vacation site. Nobody is going to want to bring their children to a place where people fall off mountains.”
Evan nodded and kept quiet. No sense in voicing his suspicions to the major.
“And to think that the whole thing could have been avoided too,” Major Anderson went on, glancing up from his desk at Evan.
“How do you figure that, major?”
“If a search party had gone up when I first requested help …”
“Then we could have stopped him from falling, is that what you’re saying?” Evan demanded.
“It’s possible.” The major’s red face turned a shade redder. “He could have been stuck somewhere, clinging to a rock face, yelling for help, getting weaker and weaker until his hands wouldn’t hold him any more.”
“Not in this case, major,” Evan said. “If he’d been stuck on the rock face and yelled, someone would have looked up and seen him. If he’d let go, he would have slithered and bounced his way down and landed on his back or side. This man was lying on his front. He had fallen outward.”
“Very strange,” the major said.
“That’s what we think,” Evan said. “And of course, now we have to notify the next of kin. He filled in a registration slip when he arrived, I presume, and maybe we could take a look at his room.”
“Oh yes, he’ll be on our computer,” Major Anderson said. “We’re very modern here, you know. All automated.”
He led Evan out of his office into the main lobby. Evan found it rather gloomy, with its wooden walls and dark carpets and oversized river-rock fireplace, but it was obvious that a lot of money had gone into it.