Evan's Gate

by Rhys Bowen

  The weather was fast deteriorating again as Evan made his way up the mountain track, clutching a spade. For the first time he reconsidered Mr. Pilcher’s thoughts on not finding the view so thrilling when he had to stagger home with groceries. Of course they’d have a car, wouldn’t they? Bronwen wouldn’t have to carry the shopping up from the road on foot. But they only had one car, and he’d need it to drive to work. Possible complication ahead. He brushed it from his mind and set about attacking the task in hand.

  There was a low stone wall around the cottage, and the previous occupants had made some attempt at starting a garden. It hadn’t been too successful, given the exposed setting and the fact that it had been a holiday cottage and they had only shown up sporadically. There were a couple of good-sized bushes growing by the front gate. There had been roses along the house walls, but the fire had wiped them out. Still, the beds had been dug and it was a start. He stood at the gate, picturing the finished product—the beds a mass of blooms, a small kitchen garden at the rear, new roses climbing over the front door. He had never done much gardening himself, having lived in a terraced house in a city for most of his life, but Bronwen loved to garden and possessed a green thumb. If anyone could make a go of this, she could.

  The first spatters of rain in his face reminded him that he’d better get on if he wanted to dig out the sewer line today. He had seen the septic tank on the plans, and he knew that the sewer and water lines pretty much followed the front path. That involved taking out flagstones before he started. He put his spade under the first of them and prized it up. Then the next. He was red faced and soaked in sweat by the time the front path was only dark earth and the flagstones were stacked in a neat pile beside the gate. In spite of the rain, which was falling quite steadily now, he took off his jacket and placed it under the large bush. Then he picked up the spade and started to dig. The soil was heavy and wet and each spadeful came away with a loud sucking sound. He realized that his plan to dig this whole thing out in one afternoon was maybe a little ambitious, but he had no idea when he’d get any more free time while the missing child case was ongoing. He dug down six inches, then another six, and still hadn’t located any lines. At last he felt the chink of something solid as his spade cut through the earth and met resistance.

  “Finally,” he said, and dug more carefully. The last thing he wanted to do was damage either line. He bent to scrape away the earth from around what was probably the waterline. To his horror, what he took for the pipe moved and a piece of it came away in his hands. He found he was standing there, holding a long, thin bone.

  More careful scraping revealed more bones. It could be anything, he decided—a sheep that had died, even a former shepherd’s favorite sheepdog. Then he came upon the shoe.

  Chapter 10

  “Where’s the fire then, Evan bach?” Charlie Hopkins shouted as Evan came running down the track and almost passed him without a word.

  “Not a fire, Charlie,” Evan paused, gasping for breath. “I’ve just found a skeleton outside my cottage. I’ve called my inspector and he’s on his way, but he told me to tape off the area, just in case.”

  “A skeleton, outside Rhrodri’s old cottage, you say? A human skeleton, do you mean?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean, Charlie.”

  “Escob annwyl! Now who could that be, I wonder?”

  “I’ve no idea. I didn’t like to unearth any more, once I saw what had to be a shoe.”

  “I don’t recall anybody dying and not getting a proper burial, and old Rhodri’s wife died in the hospital so we know he didn’t knock her off on the quiet, although I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had, miserable old witch that she was.”

  “I think this might have been a child,” Evan said. “It was only a little shoe.”

  “I only recall the one child up there—old Rhodri only had the one daughter on account of his wife dying young—and she’s still going strong, so it must have been before my time.” Charlie slapped Evan on the back. “With your luck, boyo, you’ll find that it’s a listed skeleton—probably some ancient Celt, sacrificed by the Druids, and you’ll have archaeologists digging up your entire front yard forever more.” He gave one of his wheezy laughs that turned into a cough.

  “Don’t say that!” Evan exclaimed. “Besides, it can’t be that old because it’s above the waterline, and I don’t imagine the cottage has had running water that long, has it?”

  “No, it was only put in about seventy-eight or seventy-nine, if I remember rightly. They got some kind of government money for rural water and electrification. My mother’s family on Anglesey had been getting their water from the pump at the bottom of the hill all their lives. You’d have thought they’d have been happy to have the water laid on but my old nain said she didn’t trust the tap water. At least she knew that her pump came from her own spring and not from water that somebody’s sheep might have peed in.”

  Evan laughed. “Some people just don’t like change,” he said. “But I can’t stand talking, Charlie. I’ve got to get the area taped before the boss shows up, or I’m in trouble.”

  In fact he was just tying off the last of the yellow tape across the gate when he saw a white incident van coming up the pass at a speed that was definitely exceeding the limit. It stopped outside the small police station, which had been closed since Evan went into plainclothes training.

  Evan saw D.I. Watkins get out, plus a tall, red-haired man he recognized as a forensic tech.

  “Up here!” he shouted, indicating the track, and watched them struggling up the slick, steep surface.

  “You want to actually live up here?” Watkins gasped, as he reached Evan on the bluff. “You want to walk up and down this bloody mountain every time you run out of milk?”

  “It will keep me fit, Sarge—I mean sir,” Evan said.

  “All right, show me what you’ve got, and it better be good, boyo.” Watkins looked around him. “Because I’ve had to postpone my television appearance thanks to you. If you hadn’t been so bloody insistent, I’d never have come, not when we’re in the middle of an important case like this.”

  “It’s over here, just inside the gate.” Evan led the way. “I didn’t like to dig it out, without permission, but I think it’s another child. That could be significant, don’t you think?”

  He pointed down at the trench he had dug. “See—right there. That’s a child’s foot, isn’t it?”

  Watkins squatted and poked the object gingerly. “Certainly looks that way,” Watkins said. “What do you think, Lloyd?”

  “Looks that way to me, too,” the tech replied.

  Watkins stood up again and looked at Evan. “So are you suggesting there might be a connection with our missing child?”

  “I’m suggesting we find out who this was and how long he or she’s been here,” Evan said.

  “If the body’s already down to a skeleton, then some time, I’d imagine,” Watkins said. “What do you think, Lloyd?”

  “No way of knowing.” The young man gave an unconcerned shrug as if the object in the trench had been nothing more than a discarded cigarette packet. “Could be two years, could be twenty-two or forty-two,” Lloyd said. “I’d prefer not to touch it, myself. I’m trained in crime scene techniques, but you really need a forensic anthropologist for something this old. He’d know what to look for. I’d be scared of disturbing evidence.”

  “Where do we find a forensic anthropologist?” Evan asked. “Do the North Wales Police have one?”

  “What do you think we are, the bloody Met?” Watkins demanded. “But I seem to remember that there is one on call from the university in Bangor.”

  Lloyd nodded. “Some bloke from the university came out a couple of years ago when we found some bones down an old well. It’s wonderful what they can do. He’ll probably be able to tell you exactly how old this body is and how the kid died—all that sort of stuff.”

  “However old it is, we’ve definitely got a crime scene, haven’t we?”
Evan asked, staring down at the little foot with growing unease. “And I think we should act quickly, sir. It’s just possible that it wasn’t Ashley’s father who snatched her, but someone who’s taken a child before.”

  “But this could have lain here for years. It could have been a child who died from natural causes, and they were too poor to pay for a funeral. They did that kind of thing in the old days, didn’t they?”

  “In the old days, yes.” Evan continued to stare at the foot. “But I’ve been digging out this trench to locate the waterline and I haven’t reached it yet, so apparently this child was put here after the line was connected, which makes it less than twenty-five years ago.”

  “You’re suggesting that someone stole a little kid, killed him or her, and then buried the body inside this cottage gate? Why would anyone do that when there are miles of wild mountains he could have chosen? Look up there. Mile after mile of opportunity to dig a grave where nobody would see it. No, there has to be a reason for the skeleton being here. Who owned the cottage before those yuppie English people?”

  “An old man called Rhodri was still living here when I came to the area, and I got the feeling he’d been the shepherd up here for most of his life.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “As far as I know. He went to live with his daughter in Bangor. That would be easy enough to check out.”

  “Right. You can do that, then.” Watkins stood up and brushed off his hands. “Only, let’s hold back until we’ve got some kind of accurate dating from our university bloke. If the bones are more than a few years old, they won’t have anything to do with our current investigation, so we can put them on hold for a while. Our number one task is to find a missing child.”

  He turned to the forensic tech, who was fishing in his anorak pocket for a cigarette. “Lloyd, can you get me in touch with the anthropologist chap? Tell him I’d like him up here as soon as possible—could be important.”

  “Right, sir,” Lloyd shoved the cigarette packet back into the pocket. “And you presumably want the site protected from the elements until it’s been gone over?”

  “Yes, we’d better. And I’ve still got to get myself down to the caravan park to meet the mother and the reporter before our team meeting at four. I’ll be interested to see what Constable Davies has come up with in the meantime.”

  “Probably solved the whole case single-handed,” Evan quipped.

  “I suspect you’re jealous because she can work the computer and you can’t,” Watkins said with a grin. “Well, don’t just stand there, Lloyd. Get cracking. I want that anthropologist up here ASAP.”

  He set off down the mountain at a great rate. Evan watched his back with interest. When Watkins had been a sergeant, he’d been easygoing and matey. Now that he was an inspector and running the show, he was metamorphosing before Evan’s eyes into another D.C.I. Hughes. Evan put on a spurt to catch up with him. “That skeleton. It’s not anyone from around here, at least during living memory. Old Charlie Hopkins—you remember Charlie from the pub, don’t you? The one with the missing teeth—he says he can’t think of anybody from the village who died and wasn’t given a proper burial.”

  “Could be donkey’s years old.”

  “But what about the water pipe?”

  “Maybe you just missed it. It’s easy enough to do—a couple of inches too far to the right or left.”

  “So you really think I should wait to check out the former shepherd until the anthropologist has had a chance to date the bones?” Evan asked.

  “Seems like a lot of extra work for nothing if we find the remains are fifty years old.”

  “It looked like a modern shoe, didn’t it? Like a trainer?”

  “Hard to tell until they’ve washed all the mud and muck away. It wasn’t a Victorian boot or anything, that’s for sure, but I don’t think kid’s shoes have changed that much during my lifetime.”

  Evan stood and watched as D.I. Watkins prepared to get back into the police van. “So you don’t need me until the meeting at four?” he asked. “Then maybe I should keep an eye on the site until someone shows up.”

  “Yes, you could do that,” Watkins agreed. “And if we can get the anthropologist up here, you can give him a hand. You might learn something.” He opened the van door. “Come on, Lloyd. I haven’t got all day.”

  “Hang on, sir. They’ve just gone to look up the anthropologist’s number for me,” Lloyd called back, maintaining his balance with one outstretched arm as he came down the mountain with the mobile phone close to his cheek. “Right. Okay, go ahead.” He had stopped and scribbled down a number. “Good. Got it then. Cheers, mate.”

  He came running down the rest of the way to the van. “I’ve got a number here. Do you want me to call or do you want to do it yourself?”

  “You can do the calling while I drive,” Watkins said. “I’ve got a lot to fit into a short time this afternoon. If anyone’s caught speeding, it better be me.”

  The van took off, scattering gravel. Evan watched it go then made his way back up the hill to the grave site. He was glad that Watkins hadn’t required him to do something else because he was feeling strangely protective about that little grave. Someone’s poor child was buried there, maybe a child who had gone missing like Ashley—a child the police had never managed to find. But that was stupid, wasn’t it? Inspector Watkins had to be right—nobody would have chosen to bury a child inside a cottage garden when there was a whole mountain range to do it in. He couldn’t wait to talk to the old shepherd, and he couldn’t rule out that English couple either. It would be worth checking whether any children had vanished from the region where they had their home in England.

  An hour passed and no policeman appeared to guard the site, so Evan used the time to dig out more of the trench, well away from the little grave. He located where the water pipe emerged from the house and began to dig it out, hoping to find the sewer pipe beneath it. But he couldn’t concentrate on the digging. That little foot and leg bone had strangely affected him. He couldn’t shake off the sense of urgency that nagged at him and the fear that this could be happening to Ashley at this very moment somewhere in these mountains.

  He squatted beside the open grave and stared down. That really was a little shoe he was looking at, wasn’t it? He bent and carefully scraped away some of the mud.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” A woman’s voice behind him made him almost lose his balance and fall into the hole.

  He righted himself and looked up to see a young woman in jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt staring at him. She had a fresh face, free of any makeup, freckles, and a light brown ponytail. An American student, obviously, he thought, and got to his feet. “I’m sorry, miss, but this area’s off-limits at the moment. See the crime scene tape? Now if you’d just move away.”

  “I can see the crime scene tape,” the girl said, “but I thought its purpose was to keep people out.”

  “It is.”

  “Then why were you messing around, touching things?”

  “Because I’m a police officer, miss. A detective constable.”

  “Then didn’t they teach you at detective school not to go messing up crime scenes?” she demanded.

  “Hold on a minute—I can assure you I wasn’t messing up any crime scene—”

  “I saw you, digging around down there,” she interrupted.

  Evan had heard that American women were assertive, but this one was downright aggressive. He was longing to tell her it was none of her bloody business, but he suspected that she’d be on the phone to the chief constable at the first hint of rudeness on his part. So he managed what he hoped was a pleasant smile. “Well, you can rest assured that no harm is coming to any crime scene, so thank you for your concern and please move along.”

  “Please move along?” she demanded. “Didn’t they tell you I was coming?” Then she added, in response to his blank face, “I’m the anthropologist.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see.” Evan blushed, feeling stup
id. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting the anthropologist to be a woman.”

  “Strangely enough, they do allow women to be things other than nurse, secretary, or teacher these days.” She gave him a patronizing smile.

  “What I meant was that I was told the anthropologist at the university was a man, and you look too young to be a professor.”

  “I age well,” she said. “Clean living and all that. What were you doing down there?”

  “Well, I was the one who dug it out in the first place,” Evan said. “It’s my property, look you. I stopped as soon as I came upon what I thought was a shoe. I was just scraping away a little more mud to make sure I hadn’t got it wrong.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped on you like that,” she said. “I didn’t see a uniform, and I thought you were some thrill seeker helping himself to a bone or two. It’s so easy to disturb good evidence.” She held out her hand. “Jan Telesky. Dr. Jan Telesky, associate professor of forensic anthropology. I’m on sabbatical from Cal State, Chico.”

  Evan took her hand. “Constable Evans, North Wales Police,” he said.

  “Do you have a first name? I’m not big on formality.”

  “It’s Evan.”

  “Evan Evans?” She started to laugh. “Did your parents lack imagination or what?”

  Evan smiled too. “It’s quite common around here to have two names the same—I can think of a Robert Roberts, Thomas Thomas—” He stopped, his mouth open. “Hang on a minute,” he said, “that reminds me of something.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I think I might know who this child could be.”

  Chapter 11

  Suzanne Bosley-Thomas moved around the tent like an automaton, putting baskets of primroses in the middle of each table. Only a few more hours and it will be over, she thought. Then I can go home. She glanced up at Val and Nick, laughing and shouting at each other as they strung fairy lights across the ceiling. They actually appeared to be enjoying themselves. But then Nick had always been a happy little boy, and Val had always been good at concealing things. Henry, as usual, was doing his duty, ordering the caterers about as if they were army recruits and he was the drill sergeant. And her father was conspicuous by his absence. He had popped in to say good job, looks splendid, and other such waffle and then gone again. To her he had hardly said a word, but then she knew how he felt about her. He had always disliked her and blamed her, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Tears welled up and she brushed them away. She was not going to crumble today. They were not going to feel sorry for poor, misguided Suzanne.