Constable Evans 02: Evan Help Us

by Rhys Bowen

  “Annie?” The gun wavered. “She wrote about Annie in her suicide note. She said she was sorry she had to leave Annie alone with them.”

  “Well, Annie’s not alone any more,” Evan said. “She’s got a child and she probably can’t even guess who the father is. You can imagine what she’s been through, can’t you? Do you want her to go to jail for you now? And what about the little girl? What’s going to happen to her?”

  He saw a spasm of pain cross Dawson’s face.

  “Do you really think you’ll find peace if you kill me?”

  “No,” Dawson said. “I’ll never find peace, not as long as I live. I’ve been living in hell, ever since she ran away. It was all my fault, you see. I was too strict on her. She was so precious to me, I worried something would happen to her so I wouldn’t let her out. I drove her to that life and that end.”

  “Then give another girl like her a chance,” Evan pleaded. “Don’t let Annie Pigeon go to jail for a murder she didn’t commit.”

  Dawson’s face quivered, then he shook his head violently. “Damn you,” he said. He threw down the gun and ran back to the car. The engine was still idling. Evans wasn’t sure whether Dawson intended to run him down. The big car seemed to come right at him. He flung himself aside, slipped on the wet gravel and staggered into the wall as the car passed him, inches away. He scrambled to his feet and started to run after it in a futile chase back down to the valley. Dawson was driving absurdly fast. He came to the first hairpin and didn’t even bother to swing the wheel around. The car mounted the low wall, was airborne for a moment. Lights cut a crazy arc in the black emptiness. Then there was a sickening crash of glass and metal, followed by an explosion. A ball of flame shot into the air. Then silence.

  Chapter 22

  Bronwen opened her front door to put out her milk bottles. The storm had passed over and stars shone from a clear sky. Above Glyder Fawr the moon was rising, bathing the peaks in a cold light. The air smelled fresh and green and Bronwen stood in the doorway, breathing deeply. She was about to shut the door again when she saw a dark figure running down the road from the pass. Curiosity prevented her from closing the door again. A late-night jogger? Surely not on a night like this.

  Then a cracked voice called out, “Bron? Is that you?”

  She ran down the path to her front gate. “Evan? What are you doing here? They said you’d gone away for the weekend.”

  “I came back early,” he said. She started as she got her first good look at him in the light. His hair was plastered to his forehead and blood was running down his cheek from an ugly-looking wound. His clothes were covered with mud.

  “What on earth have you been doing to yourself?” she asked in horror. “You’re soaked to the skin. And you’re bleeding.”

  “I’m alright,” he said, his breath coming in big gulps. “I’ve got to phone HQ. There’s been an accident, up above Llyn Gwynant.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “Car went over the edge.” He was still gasping for breath.

  “You weren’t in it?” There was horror in her voice.

  “No. He drove away without me.”

  “You ran all the way here from Llyn Gwynant?”

  “It was quicker than running down to Beddgelert,” he said, “and that’s where I left my car.”

  She took his arm. “Come inside,” she said. “I’ll make you some hot cocoa while you phone.” She led him in as if he was one of her students. “You’re shivering. Take that wet jacket off,” she instructed and came back with a big pink and white towel, which she draped around his shoulders. “The phone’s on the kitchen table. Go ahead while I heat up the milk.”

  She watched him as he talked rapidly into the phone. Water still ran down his face and dripped from his hair onto his shoulders. He looked completely exhausted. Bronwen felt her heart go out to him. She longed to enfold him in her arms, to tell him that everything was going to be alright, but she restricted herself to spooning cocoa into a tall ceramic mug. It was nice to have the chance to look after him for once. She hoped he might also realize how nice it was.

  The milk came to a boil and she stirred it into the cocoa. Then she added a generous measure of brandy.

  “Here,” she said and handed it to him with a smile.

  Evan took a sip, then a look of surprise crossed his face. “It’s got brandy in it.”

  “You looked as if you needed it.”

  “What are you doing, keeping brandy in the house—a respectable schoolteacher like you?”

  “Medicinal purposes,” she said calmly. “Go on, drink up. Hot liquids are good for shock.”

  “Thanks. I needed that,” he said, taking another sip.

  Bronwen appeared again with a basin of warm water and some cotton wool. “Hold still. You’ve got a nasty cut on your head.”

  “Have I?” He put his hand up to his temple in surprise. “I was trying to get out of the way of the car. I think I must have hit it on the wall. I didn’t notice before.” He winced as she sponged it. “Ow, that stings.”

  “Hold still; you’re worse than my infants.”

  Evan grinned.

  “There. Now you look more human,” she said. “I couldn’t think what it was coming down the hill toward me all covered in mud and gore.”

  “The Nantgwynant monster.” Evan chuckled. “There—now we can start another legend to bring in the tourists.”

  “Just don’t tell poor Evans-the-Meat,” Bronwen said. “They don’t still think he killed Ted Morgan, do they?”

  “We know who killed Ted Morgan now,” Evan said. “It was Mr. Dawson, from Beddgelert.”

  “Dawson, who owns the big hotel? What on earth did he have to do with Ted Morgan?”

  “Ted Morgan wrecked his daughter’s life. He ran a prostitution racket. Dawson’s girl got trapped in it and killed herself.”

  Bronwen nodded seriously. “I remember hearing about him. He never got over her death, did he?”

  “He blamed himself.”

  Bronwen shivered. “Have they caught him?”

  “He just drove his car over a cliff, poor bloke. At least he’s out of his torment now.”

  Bronwen put a hand on Evan’s shoulder. “But what did the colonel have to do with it?”

  “He didn’t kill the colonel,” Evan said. “Ted Morgan did. He came here because London had become too hot for him and saw that the colonel was here too. The colonel was one of the regular customers at his girlie club, and we all know that the colonel liked to talk. Ted Morgan couldn’t risk the colonel going home and telling everyone where he was. He slipped out of the pub and bashed him over the head. Annie Pigeon saw Ted hurrying back from the riverbank after he’d done it, but she was too scared to say anything.”

  “Annie Pigeon?” Bronwen asked stiffly.

  “Yes, it turns out she was another girl whose life was messed up by Ted Morgan. She came here to get away, only to find him here. It must have been a nightmare for her.”

  Bronwen gazed thoughtfully out of the window, then she nodded. “So they’ll have to release Evans-the-Meat now, won’t they?” she asked, deliberately changing the subject.

  “In the morning. Although a few nights in jail might have been good for him. It might teach him not to lose his temper so easily.”

  “I doubt it,” Bronwen said. “Would you like more cocoa, or can I warm you up some soup? It’s homemade.”

  Evan got to his feet. “I’d love some, but Sergeant Watkins will be here in a minute.”

  “You haven’t got to go out again?” Bronwen sighed as he went ahead of her to the front door.

  “I have to, love.” He turned back and looked at her fondly. “It’s what a policeman’s life is like. It’s not all being friendly and helping people. Sometimes we have to handle the not-so-pleasant duties too, and the hours are rotten and so is the pay…”

  Bronwen nodded. “I understand.”

  They stood there looking at each other. “I’m sorry I had to b
reak our date tonight,” Evan said.

  “I thought you were making an excuse because you’d changed your mind,” Bronwen answered.

  “Why would I change my mind?”

  “Because you liked her better.”

  “Her?” Evan looked genuinely surprised. “You mean Annie Pigeon?”

  “You seemed to be spending a lot of time with her. I wondered if you liked the idea of a ready-made family.”

  Evan shook his head. “I like the idea of my own family some day. About next weekend, Bron…” He hesitated. “Is it really important to you to meet your old university friends?”

  “Not that important,” Bronwen said.

  “I was wondering if we could reschedule that date—or better still, make a day of it. We could take a picnic down to the beach and then go on to that Italian restaurant we talked about.”

  “Now that I think of it,” Bronwen said, “those particular friends always were a little too serious for me. I remember they yelled at me once because I walked through a sooty tern’s nesting area. How was I to know it was a nesting area? I was trying to take a shortcut to the loo.”

  Evan laughed. “Oh, Bron,” he said. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly.

  “You’re making me all wet!” she complained, laughing too.

  “Sorry, I forgot.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck before he could let go of her. It seemed very natural when his lips found hers.

  Headlights lit the quiet street and a white police car drew to a halt.

  “I have to go,” Evan said reluctantly releasing her.

  “Take care of yourself, Evan,” Bronwen said.

  “Don’t worry about me, I’m indestructible.” He started up the path.

  “Evan! You’ve still got a pink towel around your shoulders!” she called after him and ran to exchange it for his jacket.

  Sergeant Watkins greeted him with a quizzical smile. “And you were trying to make me believe that you were alone in mortal danger, battling madmen on mountaintops,” he joked as Evan got in. “Or was that the hero’s welcome home?”

  “Something like that, sarge.” Evan couldn’t resist a big grin as he climbed into the front seat beside Watkins.

  * * *

  On Monday morning things were back to normal in Llanfair. Evans-the-Meat opened his shop and started arranging lamb cutlets in the window display. He stuck a sign in them. “Best local Welsh lamb.”

  Evans-the-Post came out of the post office with a manila envelope in his hand.

  “Miss Roberts said I should take this to Mr. Parry Davies straight away,” he called to Evans-the-Meat. “She said it’s from the university.”

  Evans-the-Meat came out to look at the envelope. “It will be the official letter from the archaeologists,” he said excitedly. “Now we’ll find out whether our ruin was really the saint’s chapel.”

  He accompanied Evans-the-Post up the street, calling out to other villagers as they passed. Soon Llanfair looked like Hamlin with Evans-the-Post as pied piper. By the time he reached Chapel Bethel, half the village was in tow.

  “This is a great day for Llanfair,” the reverend Parry Davies said as he took the envelope and turned it over in his hands.

  “Go on, man. Open it. Don’t keep us in suspense,” Evans-the-Meat exclaimed.

  Mr. Parry Davies put on his glasses and opened the envelope. His expression changed as he read down the sheet of paper.

  “Well, what does it say?” someone asked. “Isn’t it the saint’s chapel after all?”

  Mr. Parry Davies cleared his throat. “‘We regret to inform you that the ruin we examined last week is nothing more than a former shepherd’s hut and sheep byre, not more than one hundred years old.’”

  “Not Saint Celert’s grave? Not even King Arthur’s fort?” Evans-the-Meat asked in stunned disbelief.

  Mr. Parry Davies shook his head angrily and crumpled up the letter.

  “A good thing, if you ask me,” Mrs. Williams muttered to the woman standing next to her. “Now we can go back to being plain old Llanfair again with none of these silly notions.”

  * * *

  Evan had been down in Caernarfon all morning, meeting with the D.I. and Sergeant Watkins. One of the things he learned was that Gwyneth Hoskins had called the police while he and Watkins had been in London. She had lost her nerve, apparently, and had to tell them that Sam had been up to Llanfair to see Ted Morgan the night he died. He had accosted Ted after the meeting and asked for a loan. Ted had turned him down. Gwyneth wanted the police to know that she’d been against it all along. She’d never wanted him to go and she’d tried to get him to own up.

  “So much for loyalty,” Watkins had muttered to Evan. “What a family, eh?”

  By the time Evan drove back to Llanfair the excitement about the letter was all over, but he found there was another form of excitement going on. A moving van was parked outside Annie Pigeon’s house. Evan hurried over and found Annie coming out with Jenny’s Noah’s ark lamp in her hand.

  “You’re going?” Evan asked.

  Annie nodded. “That’s right. Moving on.”

  “But why? You’re safe now. You don’t have to keep running away.”

  Annie smiled. “This isn’t the right place for me. I’d never learn Welsh in a hundred years. If only poor Glynis could have had the chance to come back here, instead of me.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Back to Manchester to start with. I’ve got friends there. And then maybe the Lake District. That’s pretty too, isn’t it, and they speak English there.”

  “I wish you all the best, Annie,” Evan said. “I hope things work out well for you, and Jenny too.”

  “Thanks to you she won’t be growing up in a foster home while her mum is in jail. I expect we’ll do just fine.”

  “Take care of yourself,” Evan said.

  “You too. Find yourself a nice girl and settle down. You’ll make a smashing dad.”

  “I’ll get around to it some time soon, I expect,” Evan said.

  * * *

  Across the street at the Red Dragon, Betsy was dusting tables when she noticed the moving van outside Annie’s house.

  “Harry. Look you here!” she called out excitedly. “She’s going!”

  “Who is?” Harry came to join her at the window.

  “That woman who’s been chasing Evan Evans.” She glanced thoughtfully up the street. “Now if I could only persuade Bronwen Price to take a teaching job in Antarctica…”

  Also by Rhys Bowen

  Evans Above

  EVAN HELP US. Copyright © 1998 by Rhys Bowen. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  Production Editor: David Stanford Burr

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bowen, Rhys.

  Evan help us / Rhys Bowen.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-312-19411-0

  I. Title.

  PR6052.O848E88 1998

  823'.914—dc21

  98-22796

  CIP

  First Edition: October 1998

  eISBN 9781466840188

  First eBook edition: February 2013