by Rhys Bowen
Jimmy Marshall laughed. “No chance,” he said. “I was teamed up with a character called Billy Patterson and he’s the most obnoxious little prick you could ever meet. Talk about a stickler for rules and procedures! And a right crawler too—he’d report me to head office if I overcharged by ten pence on my expenses. We even had to share a room at the hotel and he snores. I can give you the name of the hotel and the address of the clients we met if you want to check on me.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate that information,” Evan said. “We have to follow up on everything, you know.”
“I understand. If my friends were murdered, I’d like to see the killer caught as much as you would.” He went over to a desk in the corner and scribbled down phone numbers on a sheet of paper. “It’ll all check out,” he said, handing it to Evan. “Good luck. I hope you catch him.” He shook Evan’s hand.
Evan drove back feeling satisfied that at least one part of the investigation had ended the way he wanted it. He had liked Jimmy Marshall from the beginning. He hadn’t wanted to think of him as a possible murderer. And he understood Jimmy’s motive for deception completely. Only once in his life he’d had to attend one of these psychological seminars. It had been back in Swansea when they had brought in outside behaviorists to make the police image more positive with the public. Evan had found the session excruciatingly painful. It might be fine for Americans to go up to strangers and say, “Hi, I’m Evan. I want to be your friend,” but the British were raised to be reserved. They could travel on the same commuter train for thirty years and only raise their hats to each other. They would never presume to start a conversation.
He had been deep in thought when his engine developed a higher-pitched whine, reminding him that he should check the oil. The old clunker had been burning a lot lately. He pulled into the slow lane and dropped his speed to fifty until he got to the next exit. He was negotiating the off-ramp when he glanced across the road. Someone was standing at the on-ramp on the other side, thumb hopefully out and waiting for a lift. He drove by too quickly to be sure, but Evan could have sworn he’d just seen Dilys. Evan braked and turned to look back, getting an angry honk from the driver behind him.
He waited impatiently for the traffic light at the underpass to turn green, praying that nobody had picked her up before he got to her. He shot forward as the light changed and came out of the underpass to see a VW van pulling up beside the girl. He screeched to a halt behind the van and jumped out.
“Dilys!” he yelled.
Dilys looked up with big, fearful eyes.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded. “We’ve got half of Wales out looking for you.”
“I’m going to my auntie’s house in Liverpool,” she said defiantly. “They don’t want me at home any more. I’ve run away.”
“Don’t be so silly,” Evan said, realizing as he said it that this probably wasn’t the most tactful way to talk to her.
“You don’t have to go with him if you don’t want to,” the driver of the VW van called to her, opening the van door. “You’ve got rights, you know.”
Evan stalked over to the young van driver, badge in hand. “Go on, get moving,” he said angrily,” or I’ll book you for parking illegally.”
The van moved off, leaving Dilys clutching her bag protectively to her chest. “Come on, love,” Evan said quietly. “Get in the car and we’ll go and get a cup of tea. I don’t suppose you’ve had much to eat today, have you?”
“Only a Crunchie Bar,” she said. She let him take her knapsack and lead her back to his car. “But I’m not going home,” she said defiantly. “I’ve had enough of being treated badly.”
Evan got in beside her and they drove off slowly. He didn’t say any more until they were seated in the same transport cafe where he had eaten with Sergeant Watkins and Dilys had a big mug of tea and a hamburger in front of her.
“They treat you badly at home then, do they Dilys?” Evan asked quietly.
She nodded. “It’s not fair,” she said and her voice caught in a sob. “They never take my side. It’s always her. Melanie can’t do anything wrong, can she?”
“Your sister?” Evan asked.
Dilys nodded again. “They like her better than me. They wouldn’t even care if I wasn’t around any more,” she said.
“Did something happen that made you decide to run away all of a sudden?” Evan asked. “Or have you been thinking of this for a while?”
She stared down at her plate, idly dipping a chip into a large puddle of tomato ketchup. After a while she said, “I caught her reading my diary, Mr. Evans. My private diary that I keep in my undies drawer. It’s got a lock on it and everything, and she was reading it. Wouldn’t you get angry if that happened to you?”
“Definitely,” Evan agreed.
“I was so mad that I just lost my temper,” Dilys went on. “I snatched it away from her and I started hitting her. She screamed and Mum came running and dragged me away from her. There was an awful row. My dad told me I was a big bully and he’d give me a good thrashing if I ever touched my sister again. He said he’d a good mind to make me stay home from the dance as a punishment.”
“But he didn’t hit you?” Evan asked.
Dilys shook her head. “He always threatens to hit us, but he never does.”
“That sounds pretty normal to me, Dilys,” Evan said. “Most parents yell at their kids if they’ve been fighting, don’t they?”
“I don’t mind the yelling,” Dilys said. “It’s just that it’s always so unfair. They never listen to my side, Mr. Evans. She’s always bugging me and telling tales on me and it’s always me who’s wrong.” She looked up to meet his gaze. “I know I shouldn’t have hit her, but she deserved it. She had no right to go snooping into my diary, Mr. Evans. She poked her nose where it had no business to be and she got what was coming to her, didn’t she?” She picked up her hamburger again and took a big bite. “I don’t want to go back there, Mr. Evans. I want to go to my auntie. She likes me.”
“Your parents like you too, Dilys,” Evan said. “Your mother was going half crazy last night, worrying that something had happened to you. We had the whole village out searching for you and now half the North Wales police force is driving around looking for you.”
“Seriously?” Dilys looked rather pleased.
Evan fished into his pocket and brought out a handful of change. “There’s a phone on the wall. Why don’t you go and give your mother a call and let her know that you’re all right?”
Dilys got to her feet. “Okay, Mr. Evans,” she said with a little smile.
Chapter 19
Evan arrived back in Llanfair to find himself welcomed as a hero once again. As he watched Dilys run to her mother’s arms and even the silent Mr. Thomas reach out to ruffle her hair, he decided that it was moments like this that made him glad he was a policeman. If only the real crimes were as easy to put right, he thought. If only every scare ended as happily …
There was almost a party atmosphere in the village as the news of Dilys’ safe return got around, but Evan was not feeling in a party mood. He glanced up at the sky. White puffball clouds were racing past the mountain peaks and a fresh spring breeze was blowing. Snowdon was definitely beckoning, but unfortunately, it was still off-limits. D.I. Hughes was known for being exceedingly cautious. He wouldn’t release the crime scene until he’d had every blood drop checked a couple of times and every inch of ground examined with a magnifying glass.
On the other side of the valley, the Glyder range soared up to the majestic Tryfan and provided some of the best climbing in the area—but it was a good two-hour hike away. It probably wasn’t worth taking his climbing gear up there so late in the day, but at least a hike would blow away the cobwebs and maybe help him to think things through. Nothing made sense about the murders of last week, and yet nagging at the back of his mind was a feeling that he had overlooked something important. If he could only find the connection between the murders, he’d
have them solved.
He changed into cordoroys and a T-shirt, stuffed his rain jacket into a knapsack, and tried to creep out before Mrs. Williams could snare him for lunch. He caught a glimpse of the table already laid, groaning under ham and tongue, a slab of cheese, salads, and cakes—everything cold, of course, because it was Sunday, and Mrs. Williams was one of the older generation who still did no work on the Sabbath.
“You’re not going out, are you, Mr. Evans?” a voice called from the kitchen as Evan tried to open the front door silently. “I’ve got my daughter coming over later, and Sharon will be with her. They’re looking forward to seeing you again.”
“I’ve got some things that need doing, Mrs. Williams,” Evan said as she appeared in the hall, not wearing her apron because it was Sunday.
“But you will be back later, won’t you?” she asked. “Sharon would be so disappointed if she didn’t see you and I’ve got a lovely lunch all ready …” Her voice trailed off hopefully.
Evan tried to think of a brilliant excuse for being absent until midnight, but couldn’t. “I expect I’ll be back later,” he said.
He left the village without meeting anyone else and crossed a couple of rough pastures, scattering sheep as he went. The narrow sheep track started to climb up Glyder Fawr, the larger of the twin peaks. Evan scrambled up, jumping from rock to rock until Llanfair lay below like a toy village. Down the Nant-gwynant Pass there were tantalizing glimpses of blue ocean, and he could smell the fresh tang on the breeze. He took deep breaths and felt the tension slip away.
His gaze swept in a semicircle, taking in the toy cars creeping up the pass, the Sunday coaches belching out diesel fumes as they paused for photo ops and the slopes of Snowdon itself, Yr Wyddfa, deserted for once except for the sheep. Then he looked into a little hollow on the mountain ahead of him and he saw her. What he saw made his heart skip a beat.
Bronwen was kneeling there among the tall grass and spring flowers, lost in contemplation. Her long blond hair was blowing out free behind her and her pale blue skirt was spread in a circle around her so that she looked like a creature of legend—a water sprite who lured mortals to their death, maybe. This time he made sure that he didn’t startle her.
“Hey, Bronwen,” he called, when he was still far off.
She looked up and he saw that her eyes were shining. “Look,” she said. “I’ve found one.”
Her hands were cupped around a small white, tuliplike flower. “A Snowdon lily,” she said. “I didn’t know there were any up here! I must call the Nature Conservancy to put a wire fence around it so that the sheep don’t eat it.”
Evan was reminded sharply of his boyhood. He remembered climbing with his grandfather to look for the first Snowdon lilies and his grandfather’s delight at finding one. In those days it wasn’t that unusual to see them. Now it was very rare, even though they were a protected species. It was nice to know there were people like Bronwen around who still cared. He took the last few strides and sat on a rock beside her.
“Any news on Dilys yet?” she asked, looking up at him hopefully. “I couldn’t stand it any more down there. I had to get away.”
“We’ve found her,” Evan said. “She’s okay. She was running away to her auntie’s house because she got in trouble at home.”
Bronwen let out a sign of relief. “See, I knew it would be something simple. People always underestimate how sensitive teenagers are. They make fun or they tease or they scold and they think it’s no big deal, but to a teenager it’s life or death.”
Evan nodded. “Dilys ran away because she caught her sister reading her diary. She gave her a good wop, apparently, and got yelled at for hitting her sister,” he said. “Her sister wasn’t punished. Dilys thought that wasn’t fair.”
Bronwen shook her head. “I don’t suppose there was anything incriminating in the diary to begin with,” she said, “but she’s safely back now and that’s all that matters. For a moment last night …” She looked away, staring out down the pass.” I was really afraid.”
“Yes, me too,” Evan admitted. “I really want to congratulate you on the way you handled everything, Bron. You were so good with the Thomases. I was glad to have you there.”
Bronwen shrugged but she looked pleased. “You get used to handling parents in my profession,” she said. “Pity the dance ended early. I was looking forward to watching you do the tango with Betsy.”
“Give over, Bronwen,” Evan said with an embarrassed grimace. “I don’t encourage her, you know. She just gets these ideas and …”
“It’s okay. You don’t owe me any explanations,” Bronwen said, smiling. “What are you doing up here? You didn’t come to keep an eye on me, did you?”
“I didn’t know you were up here until now,” Evan said. “I just needed to stretch my legs and try to make sense of these murders.”
“They’re no nearer to solving them then?”
Evan shook his head. “We might have ruled out a couple of possible suspects, but we don’t know if we’re dealing with one killer or two, and we’ve no idea of a motive.” He got to his feet. “Look, I’m disturbing you. You probably don’t want to hear me babbling on about my problems.”
She reached out and touched his knee. “Don’t go,” she said. “I’ve done what I came up here to do. I’ve got all the time in the world if you want to talk.”
Evan gave her a grateful smile and sat again. Bronwen swivelled around to face him, hugging her knees to her. “So tell me what you have to go on so far.”
“Not much,” Evan said. “We know the two men who fell to their deaths last Sunday—a week ago today, wasn’t it?—were friends from their army days. We know they were invited by somebody to meet on the mountain on the anniversary of a fourth friend’s death. Danny Bartholemew, a local boy from Portmadog. He died during army survival training on the mountain six years ago.”
“Do you know who sent the invitation?”
Evan shook his head. “No idea. The one surviving friend, who chose not to go to the reunion, thought it was Tommy Hatcher, because it had a London postmark.”
“But it wasn’t?”
“He was one of the ones who was killed. And his mother found a similar postcard among his things.”
“Why wait all this time to hold a memorial?” Bronwen asked.
“Precisely,” Evan said. “It seems kind of ghoulish to me. I would have thought that their friend’s death would be something that everyone would rather forget.”
“Does he have relatives? A wife?” Bronwen asked.
“He has a mother—a terrible little woman with a huge chip on her shoulder.”
“No father or brothers?”
Evan shook his head. “All dead. She blames the English for taking all her men from her and leaving her alone.”
“Oh, one of those,” Bronwen said. “I was just thinking that the only reason to lure those men up onto the mountain might be revenge. What if someone close to Danny thought that his friends had let him down somehow and wanted to punish them. He or she lured them here on the pretext of a memorial service and then pushed them over, one by one.”
Evan frowned. “It’s possible.”
“What other motive could there be?” She looked up at him. “You don’t believe that’s what happened then?”
“First of all, it wasn’t anyone’s fault that Danny died. The soldiers were sent off alone, at intervals, so nobody could be accused of abandoning him. And somehow he lost his pack with his survival gear in it.”
“Maybe the person who cared about Danny doesn’t see it that way. Maybe he had a sweetheart who has been brooding about it all these years. Maybe there was another soldier buddy we don’t know about. Maybe even his mother …”
“She’d never be strong enough to push those men over a cliff,” Evan said. “They were big men, you know, and fit too.”
“She could have hired somebody.”
“A hit man, you mean?”
“She could have got hold o
f a rabid Welsh nationalist and convinced him that he’d be striking a blow against the English if he avenged Danny’s death.”
Evan chuckled.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Bronwen said, sounding hurt.
“I’m sorry,” Evan said, “but I just can’t see that happening. I think you only see revenge as a motive in Shakespeare’s plays. I don’t think people go around killing for revenge much in the real world.”
“You don’t?”
Evan shook his head. “No, I’d say revenge is a pretty poor motive for killing someone. In my experience most murders are for the basest of reasons—fear or greed or lust. Anyone who kills another human being is down at the level of the animals, and animals don’t kill for revenge.”
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?” Bronwen suggested.
“I know a bit about revenge myself,” Evan said. “I thought about it a lot when my dad was killed.”
“Your father was killed? When?”
“Not too long ago.”
“Evan, how terrible. You said he was a policeman too, didn’t you? What happened?”
“He was trying to intercept a drug shipment, down on the docks. They shot wildly as they ran away. It only took one bullet, right through the heart.” He stopped and took a deep breath. Even now it hurt physically to talk about it. “Right afterwards I was angry enough to have killed. If I’d caught the man who did it right away, I could have strangled him with my bare hands. But anger cools down. When they did catch them, they were little more than kids. They’d shot wildly because they were scared. What good would it do to take another life because one was lost so stupidly?”
“Is that why you came up here to Llanfair?” Bronwen asked.
Evan stared out across the valley. “I couldn’t take it down there any more. I wanted to be somewhere that made sense.”
“I understand perfectly,” Bronwen said gently.
“But you can’t run away from the world, can you? Here I am in the quietest, most peaceful corner of Wales, and the murders here are just as brutal and just as terrible as they were down in Swansea.”