by Rhys Bowen
“Here we are. Alison will find his record for you,” the major said. “The missing climber—what was his name again?”
“You mean the man who didn’t come back to room 42?” the young girl asked. Her fingers flew over the keyboard and a record appeared. “Mr. Thomas Hatcher,” the girl read out. “Eighty-seven Milton Road, Kilburn, London.”
“A Londoner, eh?” Evan said, because he felt that he needed to say something. “Do you have any record of his phone calls after he arrived?”
“I can’t see what his phone calls have to do with falling off a mountain,” Major Anderson snapped.
“We’re just trying to trace the friend he said he was going to meet,” Evan said calmly.
“Ah.” The major’s face relaxed. “We only log calls out and he didn’t make any, I’m afraid.”
“Too bad,” Evan said. “Maybe we could take a look at his room now. It’s always good to know who we’re contacting before we send someone blundering in to announce a death to the family.”
“Er, quite,” Major Anderson said. “Key to number 42, please, Alison.”
Evan got the impression that Major Anderson had been hired as a figurehead. He probably wasn’t too good with the day-to-day details needed to run a hotel. Alison’s quietly long-suffering look confirmed this. “Here you are, major,” she said. “Room 42 is up the main staircase on the right.”
“I know where it is,” Major Anderson snapped. “Follow me, please.”
He led Evan up an impressive wooden staircase to a carpeted upper hallway. Room 42 had a view of the pass with just a glimpse of the ocean beyond. A first glance conveyed that Thomas Hatcher was a neat man. Folded pajamas lay on the bed. An electric shaver and toothbrush were beside the wash basin, otherwise there was no sign that the room had been used.
“He didn’t bring much stuff with him, did he?” Evan asked. He opened a top drawer and saw a neatly folded sweater, underclothes, and socks.
“He probably has his wallet with him with all the details you’d need,” Major Anderson said. “You’ll know more when you get him out.”
“Probably,” Evan agreed. He opened the closet. A jacket was hanging there and Evan went through the pockets. “Hullo,” he said, drawing out a slim plastic wallet from the inside pocket. “Now that’s very interesting.” He flashed the laminated card at the major. “Metropolitan Police. The man was in the force.”
Evan looked forward to seeing Sergeant Watkins’ face when he told him that one of the victims was a London policeman. Now the detective would have to take the case more seriously, wouldn’t he? All sorts of scenarios came to mind as he drove the silent major down to Bangor to identify the body. At first he thought that the major was reluctant to come with him because it was taking up his valuable time. Now it occurred to him that the major was definitely looking pale as they approached Bangor. Maybe he wasn’t relishing the thought of having to look at a battered body. Maybe his branch of the army hadn’t actually seen any real fighting!
Evan couldn’t help grinning to himself as he turned the car into the yard outside police headquarters in Bangor.
“I’ve got the major in the waiting room,” Evan said when he located Sergeant Watkins in his cubicle.
“So he came without a fight, did he?” Sergeant Watkins asked.
“Yes, but he’s looking a trifle green,” Evan said. “Did they manage to get the bodies out yet?”
“Yes, they’re here. The police surgeon’s already taken a look at them. He puts the time of death sometime late afternoon for both of them. The cause of death was extensive trauma, in case you’re wondering if they were drugged or poisoned first.”
“You still think there were two separate accidents, don’t you?” Evan asked.
Sergeant Watkins nodded. “And I’m going to go on thinking it because we’d never have a way of proving otherwise.”
“And if I told you that the man from the inn, Thomas Hatcher, was a copper from London? You don’t see any significance in that?”
Sergeant Watkins shook his head. “And if I told you that the other bloke was a burglar alarm salesman from Liverpool? We’ve spoken to his wife and she’s getting someone to drive her over to identify the body. Her husband had the only car with him. We’ve found it parked in the lot up at the cog railway station.
“What about the other dead man?” Evan asked. “Did she know whether her husband was going to meet him?”
“She didn’t even know he was going to Wales,” Watkins replied. “You can stick around and ask her yourself, if you are interested.”
“Thanks, sarge,” Evan said.
“You don’t have to thank me,” Sergeant Watkins said. “You’d be doing me a favor if you took her off my hands. I can’t stand hysterical women. If I have her and her little kids crying all over me, it gets me started too.” He paused reflectively. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the right job.”
Evan nodded in understanding. His mind flashed back to a grave site, standing surrounded by all those blue uniforms, trying to look in control and professional when all he wanted to do was to yell and punch somebody.
“So she’s coming here later today, is she?” Evan asked.
“Yes, she said she’d try and find someone to give her a ride, but it could take a while. And it’s a good two-hour drive from Liverpool, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think I can stick around that long,” Evan said. “I’ve got to drive the major straight back to Llanfair, haven’t I?”
“I’ll give you a call when she gets here if you like,” Watkins said. “Strictly unofficial, of course.”
“Of course.” Evan was thinking that he might have underestimated the colorless Sergeant Watkins. “So what was his name then, this other man?” he asked.
“Stewart Potts,” Sergeant Watkins said with only the ghost of a smile.
“Stew Potts? It’s a wonder he didn’t change it. I bet he got teased about it at school,” Evan commented. “Don’t tell me his wife’s name’s Honey?”
“Greta,” Sergeant Watkins said. “Sounds foreign. And she didn’t sound too upset over the phone. Of course it takes awhile to sink in sometimes, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Evan said. “It does.”
“Well, I suppose we’d better go and take your major to identify the body,” Sergeant Watkins said. “We might as well get this over with as quickly as possible.”
Major Anderson’s face was set grimly as he followed Watkins and Evan down to the morgue. Evan noticed that he swallowed hard as the attendant pulled out the drawer containing the body.
“Yes,” Major Anderson said after he had stared long and hard at the body. “I think that’s the man who was staying at the Inn. Of course, I can’t be one hundred percent sure in the circumstances.”
“Quite,” Sergeant Watkins said, looking down at the battered and bruised face.
“But definitely same build, same hair color. Poor chap,” he added. “Rotten way to end, what?”
“Did you know he was a policeman, Major Anderson?” Sergeant Watkins asked as the attendant shut the drawer again.
“We found out when the constable and I went through his things,” Major Anderson said.
“So he hadn’t mentioned it before?”
“No, why on earth should he?” Major Anderson said sharply. He glanced at his watch. “If we’re through here, I really should be getting back. I’ve got important guests arriving at three and I should be there to welcome them.”
He sat drumming his fingers on his knee and staring out of the window in stony silence as Evan drove him home.
“That’s him all right,” Greta Potts said as Evan showed her the photo taken on the mountain. It hadn’t been easy for her to identify the corpse. His face had been pretty well smashed by the fall and she couldn’t bring herself to take a good look. “I’d know those shoes anywhere,” she added in disgust. “I was that mad at him when he came home with them. Almost a hundred pounds for shoes, I said to him when I found
the box in the closet. Me and the children could have bought ourselves enough clothes for the summer with that money. But he said he had to have them—I didn’t expect him to go barefoot, did I?” Her accent was an interesting mix of foreign overlaid with the flat vowel sounds of Liverpool. “That was Stew all over,” she added. “He liked to treat himself well.”
She looked at Evan with her lip curled in a sneer. She was light-haired in a Germanic sort of way with sharp angular features, and she wore far too much makeup. She was dressed in a shiny neon green blouse over a tight, short black skirt and she wore very high heels. As she spoke she got out a packet of cigarettes and nervously tapped one into her hand. “You don’t mind, do you?” she stated, rather than asked. Evan didn’t imagine she’d been very easy to live with.
“So he didn’t say anything to you about going to the mountains?” Evan asked gently.
“He never told me where he was going. If he said he was going to climb a mountain, I’d have thought that was just another excuse.”
“Excuse for what?”
The lip curled again. “My Stewart fancied himself as a ladies’ man. You know how sailors have a girl in every port? Salesmen are the same. He had a big territory. Sometimes he was gone all week. Who knows what he got up to? I should never have married him and come to this godforsaken country.”
“Where did you two meet?” Evan asked.
“He was stationed in my home town in Germany when he was in the army,” Greta said. “I met him at a dance. He was a wonderful dancer—good looking too.” She rummaged in her purse and pulled out a snapshot of a tall, dark-haired man with his arm around her shoulder. “I should have listened to my mother and stayed home.”
“Will you go back there now, do you think?” Evan asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve got the kids to think of, haven’t I? And we’ve got a nice little house in Liverpool. I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t,” Evan said. “Take your time to let this all sink in before you make any decisions.”
“What are you, a bloody therapist?” she snapped.
He glanced down at the photo again. “Mind if I keep this for a while?”
“What for?” she asked suspiciously.
Evan didn’t want to voice his suspicions to her. “We’re still trying to work out where he fell from and how,” he said. “Someone might have passed him up on the mountain.”
“What was he doing up on a bloody mountain, that’s what I want to know,” Greta demanded.
“So you say he wasn’t usually the outdoor type?”
“Stew? Outdoors? Don’t make me laugh,” she said, not smiling. “The only time he went outdoors was to watch Liverpool play football on Saturday afternoons. He was a great Liverpool supporter. He lived for his football. I used to say to him, if you loved these kids half as much as you love those bloody football players …”
“And you never heard him mention a friend called Thomas Hatcher? A friend from London?”
She frowned, then shook her head. “No, I never heard that name before. I didn’t know he had any friends in London. Was that who he went to meet?”
“He didn’t tell you he was going to meet a friend then?”
“I told you,” she said impatiently, “he didn’t tell me anything. I thought he’d probably left on the Sunday because he had to make a presentation early Monday morning. He did that sometimes. Anyway, he’d never have told me he was going to meet a friend—he knew I’d never have believed it was a bloke.” She sighed. “Anyhow he’s gone now and I shouldn’t be speaking ill of the dead, should I? Poor old Stew. He was in Northern Ireland for a time in the army and he came through that all right, and now this. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
For the first time Evan noticed the crack in her armor and thought that maybe the cold aggressiveness might be a defence mechanism to show that she wasn’t about to mourn a womanizing husband. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Come on, love. I’ll buy you a cup of tea,” he said softly.
Chapter 5
Dark clouds were racing in from the ocean as Evan drove back to the village around four o’clock. Just as he was getting out of his car the bus pulled up and disgorged a load of school children from the comprehensive school down in Portmadog.
“‘Ello, Constable Evans, Sut ywt ti? ’Ow are you?” they called out in their clear lilting voices in the mixture of Welsh and English that they most often used.
Evan waved back as he headed for his door.
“Mr. Evans?”
Evan turned back to see Dilys Thomas, a gangly thirteen-year-old.
“What is it, Dilys?” Evan asked and watched her blush crimson.
“Did you hear that we’re having a teen dance on Saturday?” she asked, playing with a long strand of hair to hide her embarrassment.
“I did hear something about it, yes,” Evan said. “Going to be one of those rave things, isn’t it? All wild music and flashing lights?”
“Oh no, nothing like that,” Dilys exclaimed in horror, not realizing he was pulling her leg. “It’s in the chapel hall. I was wondering if you were going to be one of the chaperons?”
“I said I might,” Evan said, “but I’m not so sure I can make it now. I’ve got a lot of things on my plate this week.”
Dilys’ face fell. “Oh, but you have to come,” she said. “I was hoping you’d dance with me once.”
“You’ve never seen me dance,” Evan said, laughing. “Anyhow, you’ll have the boys lining up to dance with you. I won’t get a look in.”
“No, they won’t,” Dilys said, her face still very red. “They make fun of me because I’m taller than they are. They call me Telephone-pole Thomas.”
“I wouldn’t worry if I were you,” Evan said. “That will all sort itself out soon enough. But I’ll try my best to come to the dance and I promise I’ll dance with you if I’m there, okay?”
“Thanks, Mr. Evans,” Dilys said. She gave him a dazzling smile. “Bye now. I have to get home or my ma will kill me.”
Evan watched her run off, marvelling at her innocence. Why couldn’t childhood be like that for all kids, he thought, her biggest worry that she had grown before the boys of her age. How come some lives were trouble-free and others were cut short by tragedy? It didn’t seem fair and it didn’t make sense. Evan liked things to make sense.
“Are you not speaking to me today then?” A soft, smooth voice made him jump. Then it was his turn to blush. “Oh, Bronwen, I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you. I was thinking.”
“That’s all right. I forgive you,” she said, and gave him a smile that warmed him right down to his boots. “So they let you go hiking on work days now, do they? I saw you coming down the track through the classroom window.”
“I’ll have you know I’ve been up that bloody mountain twice within the last twenty-four hours,” Evan said, a little put out. “Once last night and then again first thing this morning. And it wasn’t too pleasant, either.”
“I know—the climbing accident,” she said. “I was only teasing because I imagine it can’t have been too nice for you, getting out a body.”
“It wasn’t just one body,” Evan said. “It was two.”
“Two? Were they roped together?”
“No, it wasn’t even the same accident.”
“That’s very strange.” Bronwen shielded her eyes to gaze upward at the peak. “You and I were both up there yesterday and I’d have said it was perfect weather for climbing or walking. No excuse for falling, was there?”
“Like you say, it was very strange,” Evan said. “Sergeant Watkins thinks it was just a horrible coincidence.”
“And you don’t?”
“I’m still thinking about it,” Evan said. “One man’s wife came today to identify him. I expect the other man’s next of kin will show up soon enough. Maybe we’ll know more then.”
“You look tired,” Bronwen said. “Long day, huh?”
“And I’ve only had a packet of cri
sps and a cup of tea since seven,” Evan said. “I could eat a horse right now.”
“I got the impression that was what Mrs. Williams had in mind for your tea,” Bronwen said, smiling. “I met her in the shop and she was very upset that you’d missed your lunch. She seems to think you’re about to waste away any moment.”
Evan gave an embarrassed smile. “I feel like a prize turkey being fattened up for Christmas sometimes,” he said. “I keep telling her I don’t need lunch but she cooks it anyway, and it’s there, dry and nasty on a plate in the oven, waiting for me whenever I show up.”
“That’s one of the problems with landladies,” Bronwen said.
“She means well and she’s good-hearted enough,” Evan said. “It’s just this food thing, and her granddaughter.”
“Her granddaughter?”
“Sharon,” Evan said. “She seems to think we’d be a good match.”
“Everyone in this place is determined to get you married off,” Bronwen said, giving a nervous laugh.
“Don’t worry, I intend to take my own good time about that,” Evan answered.
“So I’ve noticed,” Bronwen said under her breath. Then out loud she said, “Well, I best be getting along now and leave you to finish up your work and get home for your tea. I’ll be seeing you then, Evan Evans.”
“Right-o, Bronwen. Take care now,” Evan said.
He let himself into the little room in the end cottage that served as the police station. It was next to Roberts-the-Pump, the gas station and repair shop which also served as the local fire station, RAC facility, and snack shop. A light was flashing on his answering machine. He punched the button. “This is Mrs. Powell-Jones,” an impatient, stridently upper-class voice said. “Constable Evans, I’ve been trying to contact you all day on a matter of great urgency. Please come up to the house as soon as you return.”
Evan sighed. He doubted if it was a real emergency. Mrs. Powell-Jones, wife of the reverend who preached his sermons in both languages, was one of those autocratic, well-born women who think that the term public servant is to be taken literally. She never hesitated to call Evan if her cat was missing at two in the morning or if she saw something she thought looked suspicious—and Mrs. Powell-Jones found a lot of things suspicious, like a young couple parked with the engine idling at midnight. But he knew he had to go. Mrs. Powell-Jones had friends in high places, like the major. He didn’t want to risk facing an angry commissioner of police in the morning.