by Rhys Bowen
She put down the phone. “You’re wanted up at Mrs. Powell-Jones’ right away. She said to tell you she’s got more evidence that she’s just found.”
Evan got up, half glad to have an excuse not to eat the enormous helping of shepherd’s pie. Maybe by the time he got back, the pie would be cold and he could confine himself to the bread and cakes instead. Mrs. Williams was known for her baking. Her eccles cakes won prizes every year.
“You hurry yourself back now,” she called after Evan. “Don’t let that woman go bossing you around. She gives herself too many airs and graces. Lady of the manor—that’s what she thinks she is, just because her old dad used to own the quarry and she went to school in foreign parts.”
Mrs. Powell-Jones was waiting for Evan by the front gate. She had a scarf around her head to protect her waves from the fine misty rain that was still falling, but she still managed to look the part of lady of the manor, in spite of the well-worn gardening clothes and muddy boots.
“A crucial piece of evidence has come up,” she said. “I only spotted it a little while ago when I was about to weed the flower beds. Come this way, please.”
Evan followed obediently, wondering if Mrs. Powell-Jones had found a telltale hairpin on the trampled tomatoes. He was surprised when she didn’t head for the vegetable garden, but instead when around to the back of the house.
“There,” she said, pointing to the bed by the bay window. “What do you make of that?”
This time the evidence was clear enough. A large studded footprint was in the middle of the flower bed.
“You don’t have a gardener who wears boots like that?” Evan asked.
“Of course not,” she snapped. “We only have old Mr. Wilkins once a week and he wears Wellingtons. There was an intruder in this garden, Mr. Evans—the same person who trampled my tomatoes is now spying into my house, and we both know who it is, don’t we?”
“You’ve got me there, Mrs. Powell-Jones,” Evan said.
“Mrs. Parry Davies, of course. Wearing her husband’s boots to throw me off the scent.”
“Why would she be spying in your windows?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? I won the embroidery section in the show last year and she came second. She wants to see what needlepoint I’m doing this year. She knows I work on it in the evenings in this very room.” She glared at him fiercely. “Have you confronted her yet? Has she owned up to the tomatoes?”
“I—haven’t had a chance yet, Mrs. Powell-Jones. I’ve been down at HQ on a big case all day.”
“Then look lively and get to it, man,” Mrs. Powell-Jones commanded. “Who knows what she’ll try next. The woman is desperate, I tell you.”
With Mrs. Powell-Jones watching his every move, Evan had no alternative. He knocked tentatively on the Parry Davies’ front door. Mrs. Parry Davies looked the part of a minister’s wife, but without the upper-class air of Mrs. Powell-Jones. Her tweed skirt and brownish twinset were well worn. Her face was devoid of makeup and topped with a sensibly short hairstyle. She also appeared to have a sense of humor and, to Evan’s relief, found the whole thing mildly amusing.
“That woman—I think she’s gone bananas,” she said when Evan, cringing with embarrassment, managed to explain why he was there. “As if I’d want to trample her tomato plants. If winning the local show is the biggest thrill of her year, then good luck to her. And as far as spying on her embroidery … I think she should examine her own conscience in that matter. Last year she came over here a couple of months before the show. I had already started on a tapestry of an old English mill. Do you know what she did?”
“No,” Evan said politely.
“She went out and got herself a tapestry with three windmills on it. Three, mark you. It only won because it was bigger than mine. That’s one-upmanship for you!”
Evan left the Davies residence feeling as if he had gone two rounds in a boxing ring. He wished that the pub was open. He was just passing the front of the pub when he met Charlie Hopkins coming out of it.
“I thought it was two hours to opening time, Charlie,” he called.
Charlie grinned, revealing gaps in his teeth. “I was just making a delivery, Constable Evans. I went down to the cash-and-carry in Caernarfon today and I picked up paper napkins and towels for old Harry at the pub. Doin’ him a good turn, I was.”
“And you came right out again without wetting your whistle, right?” Evan asked, spotting a telltale wisp of froth on Charlie’s upper lip.
Charlie put his finger to his nose. “Them that asks no questions, don’t get told no lies, that’s what my old mother used to say,” he said. “What were you doing up there.” He nodded in the direction of the chapels. “Popping in for a quick prayer?”
“Mrs. Powell-Jones had a Peeping Tom,” Evan said.
Charlie chuckled. “I can’t think why anybody would want to spy on her,” he said. “If I was going to peep anywhere, I can think of better windows—young Betsy, for example. I wouldn’t mind watching her undress.”
“It wasn’t undressing the peeper was spying on,” Evan said. “It was embroidery.”
Charlie’s lean frame shook with amusement. Evan laughed too, but then he grew serious again. “All the same, Charlie,” he said. “There’s no denying there’s a bloody great footprint in her flower bed and a Peeping Tom is a Peeping Tom. Who’d want to do a thing like that?”
“Sounds to me like the sort of thing Daft Dai used to do,” Charlie said.
“Daft Dai?” Evan was instantly alert.
“That was way before your time. He was well known around here. Used to go around peeping in windows and annoying people. I used to think he was harmless but they put him away in the end. He took to scaring tourists. He used to say the mountains belonged to him and nobody was allowed up there without his permission.”
“Is that a fact?” Evan asked.
Charlie nodded. “In the end he waved a knife at someone and that was that. They put him away.”
“And where is he now?”
“Still in the looney bin, I’d imagine,” Charlie said. “If they’d let him out, we’d have seen him. You couldn’t miss Daft Dai.”
“See you at the pub later then, Charlie,” Evan said. He hurried into his office and made a phone call.
“Sarge?” he said, trying to hide the excitement in his voice. “You know you said this might be the work of a madman? I think we’ve got a suspect. I want you to check on a bloke called Daft Dai. Apparently he was well known in these parts so I don’t think you’d have too much trouble tracing him. He was put in a mental home for claiming the mountains belonged to him and threatening tourists.”
“Was he now?” Sergeant Watkins actually sounded interested. “That would be the sort of person we’re looking for—if we’re looking for anyone, which it seems you are. I’ll have him checked on then.”
Evan put down the phone with satisfaction. Maybe they’d have the case closed quickly after all.
Chapter 7
When Evan entered the Red Dragon later that evening, he found the place in great excitement.
“I tell you, Mr. Harris, he pulled up at my petrol pump and before I could ask him whether he wanted premium or unleaded, he stuck a bloody great microphone in my face,” Roberts-the-Pump was saying. “He asked me what I thought about the tragedy. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.”
“I hope you gave him an intelligent answer, man,” Evans-the-Meat said. “You don’t want Wales to look stupid on national television, do you?”
“What’s this about national television?” Evan asked, breaking into the tight knot of men around the bar.
“The TV news was here earlier today,” Evans-the-Meat said. “Asking about those two men who died on the mountain. They didn’t ask me, unfortunately …”
“Or you would have told them it served the bloody English right for coming here where they’re not wanted,” Evans-the-Milk inserted getting a general laugh.
“You w
ant to be careful about saying things like that,” Charlie Hopkins warned. “People will start thinking you might have pushed them.”
“He would have, if he was still fit enough to climb up the mountain,” Evans-the-Milk said, grinning at Evans-the-Meat’s large stomach and red face.
“So what else did the newsman want to know?” Evan asked, stepping in quickly to avert yet another fight.
“He was trying to get us to say that it was too dangerous up there and that maybe parts of the mountain should be off limits to all but certified climbers,” Roberts-the-Pump said.
“I’d go along with that,” Charlie Hopkins said. “It would save us a few trips up the mountain to fetch down idiots who have got themselves into trouble.”
“They should start with Crib Goch,” Evans-the-Meat said. “I can’t even count of the number of people who have lost their nerve crossing Crib Goch.”
“That’s because he’s run out of fingers and toes,” said Evans-the-Milk, but this time everyone remained serious.
Charlie Hopkins was nodding. “I’ve seen grown men whimpering like babies up there. We’ve had to carry a couple of them back, haven’t we boys?”
“I don’t understand what’s wrong with it,” Cut-Price-Harry said. He was Charlie’s young nephew who worked down at the cash-and-carry and thus had been given the nickname to differentiate him from Harry-the-Pub. “It’s wider than the path to the pub and I’ve never seen anybody fall off that yet, even when they’ve had a drop too much.”
Evan said nothing, but he could understand why people froze on Crib Goch. The path went along the top of the ridge leading to the summit of Snowdon, and although it was wide and smooth enough, the ground fell away, a thousand feet sheer on either side. To some people it felt like walking a tightrope.
“Turn on the telly, Betsy,” Evans-the-Meat called. “We don’t want to miss seeing ourselves on the news, do we?”
“I think it’s all very exciting.” Betsy reached up to turn on the set above the bar. “I just wish they’d have interviewed me.”
“And what would you know about mountain rescues then?” Cut-Price-Harry demanded.
“Nothing, but I might have been discovered by a film producer, mightn’t I?” Betsy smoothed down her silky blouse. “I might have been the next Madonna.”
Cut-Price-Harry spluttered. “You? Madonna?”
“And why not? I’ve got the looks!” Betsy said haughtily.
“Yeah, but could you stand up there and sing ‘Like a Virgin’ without blushing?” Cut-Price-Harry gave his uncle a wink.
“You’re just sore because I wouldn’t go to that dance with you, Harry Morgan,” Betsy snapped.
“Coming up on the nine o’clock news,” said a disembodied voice from the TV set. “Tragedy strikes twice in the Welsh mountains.”
“There you are, that’s us,” Evans-the-Meat said, nudging his neighbors.
“This is exciting,” Charlie Hopkins said. “It reminds me of that last time we had the newspeople here.”
“What was that then, Charlie?” Evan asked, suddenly alert.
“It was before you came,” Charlie said, looking at the other men for confirmation. “About six, seven years ago, wouldn’t you say?”
The other men nodded.
“And what happened?” Evan asked. “Another climbing accident?”
“No, that wasn’t it,” Evans-the-Milk said. “They were having some kind of army training exercises on the mountain and some poor man froze to death. He got left behind somehow—twisted his ankle I think—and the weather turned nasty and they found him frozen next day. There was an awful fuss about it—they had an inquiry at the war office, so we heard.”
“You might have read about it in the papers,” Charlie said to Evan. “The place was swarming with reporters. About this time of year too, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right, because I remember everyone said it was a freak snowstorm, this late in the year,” Roberts-the-Pump said.
“Local boy too, wasn’t he?” another voice added.
“That’s right. He came from Portmadog, if I remember right,” Charlie Hopkins said.
“Then he should have known better,” Evans-the-Meat said.
“Meaning what?” Evans-the-Milk demanded. “That he should have known his way around the mountain better?”
“No,” said Evans-the-Meat. “That he shouldn’t have joined the bloody English army in the first place.”
The next day the phone rang as Evan was attempting to catch up with his paperwork.
“This is Tommy Hatcher’s mum,” the sharp cockney voice echoed down the line. “You asked me to call you if I saw anything in his room. I was turning the place out yesterday and I come across a postcard on his chest of drawers. It was a picture of Mount Snowdon.”
“It was?” Evan felt his pulse quicken. “What did it say?”
“I’ll read it to you,” Mrs. Hatcher said. “The writing’s not too good but I think it says ‘We never got a chance to hold a memorial for Danny, did we? Meet you up there, May 5th, two o’clock.’”
“What was the name?” Evan asked.
“It wasn’t signed,” Mrs. Hatcher said, “And it had a London postmark.”
“A memorial for Danny,” Evan said speculatively. “Any idea who that was?”
“None at all,” she answered. “Like I said, Tommy never told me much about what was going on in his life. When he was in the army he only wrote when he wanted me to send him a food parcel. He didn’t think much of army food.”
“Could you put the postcard in an envelope and mail it to me?” Evan couldn’t think exactly what he might want it for, but it was one small step toward solving this thing. “And please call me again if you come up with anything else, any little thing.”
“You think this memorial had something to do with why my Tommy died?” she asked sharply.
“I don’t know, but I hope to find out, Mrs. Hatcher,” Evan said.
His brain was racing as he put down the phone. A memorial for Danny? It couldn’t just be coincidence, could it? He ran outside and saw Charlie Hopkins getting out of his delivery van.
“Charlie,” he called. “What was the man’s name?”
“What man?” Charlie looked confused.
“The soldier you told me about who froze to death on the mountain.”
Charlie thought for a moment. “I can’t quite … something biblical, I’m sure.”
“Was it Danny something?”
Charlie’s face lit up. “That sounds as if it could be right. Danny … Danny … something biblical. I’ll give you a call if it comes back to me.”
“Thanks, Charlie.”
“What’s this all about then, Evan bach?” Charlie demanded.
“I don’t know yet.”
“You think there’s some connection with the two men on the mountain?”
Evan shrugged. “It’s possible. One of them had received an invitation to a memorial for someone called Danny. I’m going to take a look and see what I can find down at HQ.”
Without waiting for Charlie to say more, he ran to his car. There were old newspapers on microfilm down at headquarters. He knew the date and the approximate year. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out more.
It took him a while to find the newspaper reference he was looking for. It hadn’t been front page material, as Charlie Hopkins had suggested, and Evan had to go through May issues for two consecutive years on the microfilm before he found the article on the “Other News” page of the Daily Post. He could see why the story hadn’t made the headlines. It had certainly been a big news day, elsewhere in the world. Saddam Hussein was sounding threats in Iraq, Margaret Thatcher was putting up a last stand battle for her political life as her opponents sought to topple her government, and there had been a big train robbery. Evan remembered that well enough. A gang of masked men had overpowered the engineer of the London to Dublin Irish Mail train and made off with a cool two million. Evan had been a new young po
liceman at the time when the alert to keep a close watch on the ports had been sent to their Swansea station. He had patrolled the dockland constantly on the lookout, hoping to be the one who caught the robbers trying to flee the country. But they’d been smarter than that. They’d taken off in a private plane and were now probably safely in Argentina or Brazil. In any case, the loot had never been recovered.
At last he spotted the small headline: MOUNTAIN EXERCISE ENDS IN TRAGEDY. Evan adjusted the focus on the screen so he could read more easily. “Tragedy occurred on the top of Mt. Snowdon last night when eighteen-year-old Private Danny Bartholemew froze to death during army survival training.” It was just as Charlie had said. A group of soldiers from Caterick base in Yorkshire had been transported to Snowdonia for combined army—air force survival training exercises. Overnight there had been an unexpected storm which had caused blizzard conditions on the mountain peaks. Danny wasn’t reported missing until the next day, when they found him frozen near the summit of Snowdon. The strange thing was that his pack, containing foul weather gear, survival blanket, emergency rations, whistle, and flashlight, was not with him. It wasn’t found after an extensive search.
Evan pushed his chair back from the screen. He could understand that the poor boy had lost his pack. It could have come off if he’d lost his footing and fallen. Or he could have taken it off to get at his emergency supplies and the wind could have blown it over a cliff. Evan had known winds strong enough to do that. But then why was it never found? Had someone wanted to make sure that Danny Bartholomew died that night? And was it possible that his death was in some way linked to those of Tommy Hatcher and Stew Potts?
Chapter 8
The cramped living room looked as if it had been frozen in a time warp. The faded red flower print curtains were half drawn, shrouding the room in shadow. An open fireplace was still the only form of heating. A fire was laid in the grate but had not been lit recently and the room smelled damp and mildewy. The walls were papered in a different flower print and dotted with cheap reproductions of ships at sea. Every surface was cluttered with china dogs, horses, vases, photo frames. There was a fringed silky tablecloth on the table and crocheted antimacassars on the backs of the two uncomfortable-looking armchairs. To Evan it looked like a set from a BBC period piece. The room’s only concession to modernity was the small TV set in the corner.