by Rhys Bowen
The Powell-Jones’ house was the last house in the village, set back in spacious grounds, conveniently close to chapel Beulah. It had been inherited from Mrs. Powell-Jones’ family, who had formerly owned the slate quarry. With its Victorian gables and turret in one corner, it contrasted strongly with the simple cottages below it. Personally Evan preferred the cottages.
Mrs. Powell-Jones herself opened the front door. She looked agitated; her normally neat waves of hair were in disarray as if she had been running her hands through them.
“Thank God you’ve come at last, constable,” she said. “I was terrified you wouldn’t get here in time.” Her voice had a hint of Welsh lilt to it, but was overlaid with expensive English schooling.
“In time for what, Mrs. Powell-Jones?” Evan asked. “Got a problem, have you?”
“A problem?” she shrieked. “A crime has been committed here, constable.”
“If there was a crime then you should have called down to headquarters,” Evan said. “Didn’t you hear the instructions on my answering machine? When I’m not in the office they page me or pick up my emergency calls. They’d have had someone up here in a jiffy.”
“It’s not the sort of crime I care to entrust to strangers,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said, glancing around in case someone was listening. “Come out to the garden now, quickly, before it starts raining and the evidence is washed away.”
Mystified, Evan followed her out to her back garden. The predicted rain was already beginning, a fine mist which clung like diamonds to Mrs. Powell-Jones’ gray-streaked hair. It was a large garden surrounding the house, protected from the fierce winds by a high hedge. First came a lawn, surrounded by neatly kept rose beds, then another hedge, and beyond that a vegetable garden, where the property stretched up to meet the grounds of the Everest Inn. The inn itself loomed like a giant surreal shadow in the mist, making Evan shiver.
“Look you!” Mrs. Powell-Jones said dramatically pointing at the ground. Evan looked but wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking at. It was all newly dug earth with some sorry-looking bits of green stalk sticking out of it at crazy angles.
“What exactly happened?” he asked at last.
“That’s what I want you to find out,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “Of course I have my suspicions. She’s eaten up with jealousy that I beat her every year at the show.”
“The show?” Evan was becoming more confused by the second.
“The flower and vegetable show down in Beddgelert,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “I’ve won first place with my tomatoes for the past three years. So this year somebody decided to take matters into their own hands and sabotage my tomatoes before they could get going.”
“Tomatoes?” Evan wasn’t much of a gardener.
Mrs. Powell-Jones pointed at the little bits of plant lying on the soil. “Those were my prize tomato seedlings until yesterday,” she said. “Someone has deliberately trampled them in a vicious act of vandalism.”
“And you think you know who did it?” Evan asked.
“Of course. Mrs. Parry Davies. Who else would it be? I just happen to do most things better than her and she can’t stand it,” she said triumphantly.
Evan was examining the soil. It contained the print marks of large boots with a marked tread.
“Mrs. Parry Davies wears a size twelve in boots, does she?” he asked.
“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said.
“Then I’d say she wasn’t the leading suspect,” Evan said. “Look at the size of these boot marks.”
“Oh.” For a second she was speechless, then a smile lit her face again. “A clever ploy, so that I wouldn’t suspect her. After all, she does play all the character parts in the local dramatic society, and her husband does have very big feet. Go and confront her with the evidence, constable. Mark my words, she’ll break down and confess.”
“I can hardly go and …” Evan began. “After all, we don’t know that … I mean it would hardly be fair to …”
“Who else could it be, man?” Mrs. Powell-Jones exclaimed. Evan was beginning to understand why her husband gave such long sermons. It kept him out of the house an extra half hour. “Nobody else wishes my tomatoes to fail, except for her. I am most generous with my garden produce. Everyone in the village is amply supplied with the bounty of my garden. And it was just the tomatoes, mark you. The vandal didn’t hit my brussel sprouts, did she?”
Evan thought privately that it might have been a blessing if the vandal hadn’t overlooked the brussels sprouts. His landlady didn’t believe in wasting anything and would cook them, night after night, if Mrs. Powell-Jones donated them. Evan had never liked brussels sprouts.
“I’ll do what I can, Mrs. Powell-Jones,” Evan said. “I’ll try and clear the matter up for you.”
“Make sure that you do, constable,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “Make it your number-one priority. Vandalism can’t be allowed to flourish, can it?”
Evan gave a little half bow and beat a hasty retreat. He glanced longingly at the swinging sign on the Red Dragon. After a long and trying day a good pint was just what he needed, but he still had paperwork to catch up on, and he wanted to do some more thinking about those two men who had plunged to their deaths.
Through a knothole in the shed door, a pair of eyes watched Mrs. Powell-Jones go back into her house. When the front door closed behind her, a sigh of relief escaped through clenched teeth and the pickax was slowly lowered. A grin slowly spread across the thin lips. People really were so stupid!
Chapter 6
“Go on in, constable,” the friendly young policewoman at the front desk said to Evan when he arrived at headquarters the next morning. “Sergeant Watkins has got Thomas Hatcher’s mother here to see the body. He’s expecting you.”
Evan had driven down right away in response to a phone call. The more he thought about the two accidents, the more he was convinced he was not wrong in his first suspicion. Scotland Yard hadn’t been helpful. It turned out that Thomas Hatcher was only an ordinary copper on the beat and not, as Evan had hoped, an undercover cop pursuing some secret assignment on the mountain. He hoped Thomas Hatcher’s mother might reveal something, because Sergeant Watkins was clearly anxious to close this case and release the bodies for burial.
She looked up as he came into the room, a small, skinny woman with a sharp cockney face and even sharper eyes. She was clearly wearing her Sunday best—a wool coat that had once been black, now faded to brownish gray, and a small black hat. She clutched a large black purse and her umbrella defiantly to her.
“You were the one who found my Tommy, was yer?” she asked.
Evan nodded. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Hatcher. It must be a nasty shock for you.”
Mrs. Hatcher nodded and Evan noticed that her fingers clenched and unclenched around the handle of her purse, even though her face remained impassive and her eyes dry. “He was a good boy,” she said. “A good son, too.”
“Did he live with you?” Evan asked.
She shook her head. “No, he had his own place, but he came over to visit regular, once a month. Always tried to come to Sunday dinner and never forgot my birthday. He was a good boy.”
“Did he do a lot of walking and climbing? Was that his hobby?” Evan asked.
The small, sharp eyes opened wider. “Not that I ever heard of. He had his motorbike, of course. That was his main hobby—always working on it, he was. He loved that bike. But I’ve never heard he had any interest in mountain climbing. Of course, he liked excitement. He might have gone if one of his friends suggested it.”
“Did he have a lot of friends?”
“Oh yes. Everyone liked Tommy,” she said.
“Ever hear him talk of a friend called Stewart? Stew Potts? Funny old name, isn’t it?”
The face registered no change of expression. “I can’t say I ever heard that name. Of course, he was always close—never told me much, even when he was a little kid. I used to say”How was scho
ol?” and he’d say”All right.” That’s all I ever got out of him.”
“So he didn’t tell you why he was going to North Wales for the weekend?”
“He never even told me he was going,” she said. “You could have knocked me down with a feather when the policeman came to the door. I didn’t believe it was my Tommy, not until I saw the body …” Her voice trailed away into silence. “It seems such a waste, don’t it?” she said in a cracked voice. “He was doing so well. He was so happy now. He’d got a nice girlfriend and he loved being a policeman. We were all so glad he’d finally found something he wanted to do with his life. We all knew he’d made a mistake going into the army, but you can’t tell a seventeen-year-old anything, can you? They always know better.”
She got to her feet. “I best be getting along then. I’ve got a train to catch. They’ll tell me when I can make the funeral arrangements, will they?”
“Yes, they’ll be in touch,” Evan said. “And Mrs. Hatcher, if you take a look in his flat and you find anything that would give us a hint what he was doing here, let me know, will you?” He scribbled his phone number and address on a sheet of paper.
“You think there’s something wrong, don’t you?” she asked, the sharp eyes darting around the room.
“We’re … not sure,” he said. “Let’s just say we’d like to look into it further.”
“I’ll give yer any help I can, constable,” she said. “I don’t like to think that my Tommy died for nothing.”
Evan escorted her to the door and watched her thank everyone politely as she walked out with great dignity.
“Any closer to solving the great mystery?” Sergeant Watkins came up behind him. “They didn’t know each other, did they? No connection?”
“As a matter of fact there was a connection, sarge,” Evan said. “They were both in the army.”
“So were a lot of working-class lads, I should imagine,” Sergeant Watkins said. “The army is one of the few jobs in high unemployment areas like Liverpool, isn’t it? And I wouldn’t be surprised if they were both in the Boy Scouts too, and that they both went to comprehensive schools and they both liked football!”
“But it wouldn’t hurt to check their army records, would it?” Evan asked. “See if their paths ever crossed?”
“And what then?” Sergeant Watkins demanded. “Even if they knew each other, we’re still only guessing that some kind of foul play was involved, aren’t we? And even if someone pushed them both off the mountain, how are you going to prove it?”
“You could start by asking some questions,” Evan said. “A lot of people must have been up there yesterday.”
Sergeant Watkins ran his hand through his hair. “Look Evans, this isn’t bloody Scotland Yard, you know. If I ask my chief to start a full investigation, we take men off that little girl’s murder. Do you want me to do that?”
“I see it was in this morning’s paper,” Evan said, pointing to the latest edition of the Daily Post that lay on the sergeant’s desk. TRADEDY STRIKES TWICE ON MOUNTAIN PEAK was the banner headline. “In a corner of the world already reeling from the brutal murder of a young girl earlier this week, tragedy has struck again, claiming the lives of two men on Mt. Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa). Killed in separate climbing accidents were …” Evan looked up. “Maybe that will jog someone’s memory and make them come forward. And would you have any objection to my getting their records from the army—just to satisfy myself?”
“I can see that life as a village policeman must be deadly dull,” Sergeant Watkins said. “What you do in your own time is up to you, constable, but I’m not giving you any official clearance to look into crimes that may or may not have happened. For one thing, I think it’s a total waste of time. For another, I don’t have the authority. I’m only a humble sergeant, you know. And it’s not like we’re bloody Scotland Yard up here. My chief has got the national press breathing down his neck to solve this little girl’s murder. It would be more than my job’s worth to waste another minute on these climbing accidents—which is what I’m calling them until someone can prove otherwise.”
“Okay, sarge, keep your hair on,” Evan said good-naturedly, then realized this was probably an unwise turn of phrase, seeing that the sergeant was already getting thin on top and could very well be sensitive about it. “I’ve heard D.C.I. Caldwell’s a bugger to work for.”
Watkins nodded. “So’s Detective Inspector Hughes, who’s my immediate boss. Believes in solving crimes like Sherlock Holmes from clues like burnt matches and bits of paper. Everyone’s a bit edgy about catching this Lou Walters.”
“I understand, sarge,” Evan said. “But I can’t see what harm it could do if I pursued my own private investigations, as they say. If it turns out to be a big spy plot, you can buy me a beer,” he added, giving the detective sergeant a challenging grin.
“I don’t mind doing that,” Sergeant Watkins said. “And if you turn up nothing, then you can buy me one.”
The two men shook hands and Evan hurried out to his car. He hadn’t exactly got a go-ahead, but he hadn’t outright been told to mind his own business either. He’d have to see how and where one faxed the army. He imagined getting records wouldn’t be that straightforward and he wanted to get started right away.
It was two o’clock when he let himself into his landlady’s house in the village.
“Is that you, Mr. Evans?” a voice echoed down the narrow, dark passageway. Mrs. Williams came scurrying out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on the apron she wore every day except Sundays. She always asked the question, even though Evan was the only person with a key to let himself into her house.
He had been given Mrs. Williams’ name when he first arrived, as a lady who took in summer visitors and would welcome some extra cash in the off-season. Mrs. Williams had made him comfortable and had shown no sign of wanting to turn him out, even when the summer visitors arrived, so he had stayed on. He knew he should find his own place but he was reluctant to come home to canned spaghetti and a cold room after having a landlady who was happy to do his washing and mending and feed him three square meals a day, not counting elevenses and tea if he came home at those times.
“Deed to goodness, where have you been again?” she demanded as if he was a naughty five-year-old. “It’s past your dinnertime and a good shepherd’s pie spoiled in the oven.”
“I told you that you don’t need to make lunch for me, Mrs. Williams,” Evan said apologetically. “I am a policeman. I don’t keep regular hours. Besides, I’m trying to eat light at lunchtime.”
“Eat light?” Mrs. Williams sniffed. “You need to keep your strength up. Besides, girls like a man with a bit of meat on him. Our Sharon, for example. She thinks you’re lovely. ‘He’s nice and chubby, isn’t he?’ That’s what she said last time she was here.”
Evan winced at being called nice and chubby and resolved to jog up the Snowdon track once a day until he had run off all of Mrs. Williams’ added pounds.
“Don’t stand there. Come on in,” she said. “The pie’s still hot in the oven and I’ve got turnips and parsnips to go with it.”
Evan sighed and allowed himself to be led into the big, warm kitchen. The kitchen table was covered by a blue-and-white checkered cloth, which was scarcely visible under the various dishes that covered it. In the middle was a teapot hiding under a crocheted cozy in lurid red-and-orange stripes. Mrs. Williams kept hot tea going all day in case anyone dropped in for a chat. This was usual procedure for women of her age but happened less and less often these days. The younger women went to work or took classes instead of sitting around gossiping.
Next to the teapot was a bread board with a crusty new loaf on it. Next to that a cake stand with scones and slices of bara brith, the Welsh speckled bread, dotted with currants. On the other side was another cake stand with eccles cakes and iced fairy buns.
“Are you expecting company?” Evan asked suspiciously.
“Only you,” Mrs. Williams said. “You missed your di
nner and your tea yesterday.” She still insisted on calling lunch dinner. “I wanted to make sure you had both today so I got the tea ready early. You can have your pie first and then your tea—oh and I’ve got an apple crumble in the oven with some fresh cream from Evans-the-Milk.”
The promise of apple crumble and fresh cream was too much for Evan. He gave in to temptation and sat at the place prepared for him while Mrs. Williams fluttered around loading his plate with rich, moist shepherd’s pie, its potato crust nicely crisp on top. She accompanied this with generous helpings of mashed turnips and parsnips each topped with a large knob of butter.
“Did they find out any more about that treadful murder of the little girl?” she asked. “Treadful” was one of her favorite words. “And what about those two poor men who fell down the mountain? Treadful, that was too, wasn’t it?”
“Nothing much yet, Mrs. Williams,” Evan said, looking at the steaming mound of food in front of him and realizing that he somehow had to get through all this before Mrs. Williams would bring on the apple pie and cream.
“Treadful,” she said again. “All these people dying and being murdered. What’s happening to the world, that’s what I’d like to know.”
Evan couldn’t answer this. He had only taken a couple of mouthfuls when the phone rang.
“Now who could that be?” Mrs. Williams asked in annoyance. She always said this, as if she expected the other occupant of the room to somehow know who was calling.
“Three two one seven,” she said, in a haughty voice she reserved for phone answering and English tourists. “Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Powell-Jones.” Evan’s heart sank. “He’s just eating his dinner right now. An emergency, is it? Very well, I’ll tell him.”