Constable Evans 03: Evanly Choirs

by Rhys Bowen

  Mrs. Powell-Jones gave a cry and darted in to retrieve the bronze bird from among the rags and brushes. “My valuable sculpture, tossed into a broom cupboard!”

  Sergeant Watkins took it from her. “Just a moment, madam.” He turned to Mrs. Llewellyn. “Any idea how the statue wound up in there?”

  Mrs. Llewellyn was still trying not to smile. “I can tell you exactly when it was put in there, Sergeant. It was placed there the day we arrived, by my husband. He said it was a god-awful Victorian horror and he couldn’t stand to look at it on a daily basis.”

  “Well, I never did! The cheek of it!” Mrs. Powell-Jones clutched at her throat, stricken. “If you’ve quite finished, Sergeant, I think I’ll be going now. I promised my mother I’d check in on her and I want to see if they’ve finished judging my tapestry … besides which it’s too painful to stay here any longer.”

  “I understand, madam,” Sergeant Watkins said. “Thank you for your assistance. We have your phone number, don’t we? We may be calling on you again.”

  “Not to tell me that more valuable pieces of artwork have been flung into cupboards, I hope,” she snapped. Then she made a grand exit.

  “Whoops,” Justin said, grinning at his mother. “You really put your foot into that, didn’t you?”

  “Well, for once I agreed with Ifor. It is truly hideous,” Mrs. Llewellyn said. Then her eyes widened as she focused on the bronze bird. “Why were you so interested, Sergeant? You can’t think … are you suggesting that my husband might have been hit with … that?”

  “We’re not ruling out any possibilities, madam.”

  “Let the poor man rest in peace, Sergeant,” she said. “Why try and find a mystery when there isn’t one?”

  “No, madam. Just trying to get to the truth,” Watkins said. “Now if we could go somewhere to talk where we won’t be disturbed?”

  “I think the minister’s study is across the hall,” Evan said. He led the way to a dark, book-lined room. Watkins took the chair at the desk and offered the two leather armchairs to the Llewellyns. Evan stood at the doorway. Mrs. Llewellyn was no longer smiling.

  “Well. Get on with it,” Justin said.

  He was tense, Evan noticed, perched on the edge of his chair, his fingers plucking at the fabric of his trouser leg.

  Watkins cleared his throat. “You arrived in this country only this morning, is that correct, sir?”

  “That’s correct. I got in at ten-thirty. Nine o’clock flight out of Milan. You gain an hour coming this way, you know. I’ve got my ticket and boarding pass somewhere…” He started fumbling with his jacket pocket.

  “That won’t be necessary for the moment,” Watkins said. “You were in Milan when you got the news?”

  “In Bellagio. We have a summer home on Lake Como. That’s where I was.”

  “Were you alone in the house?”

  “Apart from the servants.”

  “You have a sister, I believe,” Watkins asked. “She wasn’t there with you?”

  “My sister is a career woman,” Justin said with something close to a sneer. “She is very busy in Milan, arranging fashion shoots. She pops up to the lake when she gets a chance but I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  “So how long since you were in England, Mr. Llewellyn?” Evan asked.

  Justin spun around to stare at him, as if he had completely forgotten his presence. “In England last? Gosh, that must have been awhile ago now. Last spring sometime? I’ve forgotten. Can you remember, Mother?”

  “I think you came over when Dad did that gala performance at Covent Garden back in March,” Mrs. Llewellyn said evenly. She was looking steadily at her son.

  “Oh, that’s right.” The young man sounded relieved. “Of course. I remember now.”

  “And you haven’t been over since?” Evan asked. He noticed Watkins’s querying look.

  “Not that I can remember,” Justin said.

  “So you’ve never been here before?”

  “Good God, no. Why would I want to come to a dump like this? Especially if my father was here. I’d keep well away, believe me.”

  “As a matter of course, sir,” Watkins said, making Justin turn back to him, “can you detail for us your movements this week?”

  “My movements this week? Do you think I killed him by remote control from Milan?” He gave a brittle laugh, paused, and then said, “That is what you’re getting at, isn’t it? The reason for all these questions—you don’t think it was an accident at all.”

  “No sir,” Watkins said. “We have reason to suspect that it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Then I suggest you start looking further afield, Sergeant,” Justin said. “There were many people in the world who wished my father dead, but my mother and I weren’t among them. There were times when he annoyed us, but we had plenty of reasons for wanting him alive … including a very generous allowance in my case.”

  “You must be tired after your flight,” Sergeant Watkins said. “If you’d just be good enough to write down for us your complete movements during the week, with the names and addresses of people we could contact as witnesses…”

  Justin rose to his feet. “I just told you, Officer,” he said in a shrill voice, “I had no reason to kill my father. None at all. Now will you stop hounding me!”

  “We haven’t even started hounding yet, sir,” Watkins said pleasantly. “We’ll be asking the same questions of everyone who was connected with your father. Show him out, will you, Evans?”

  Mrs. Llewellyn rose to accompany her son.

  “Not you, madam,” Sergeant Watkins said. “We have a few more details to go over with you.”

  “But I thought I answered any possible questions earlier,” she said. “Really, I’m very tired and I’d enjoy being able to relax with my son…”

  “Only one question,” Sergeant Watkins said as Evan came back into the room. “Where were you, really, yesterday?”

  Evan saw her visibly start. “What do you mean? I told you. I was in London. I came back on the seven-thirty train.”

  She saw Watkins look across at Evan.

  “What are you trying to tell me?” she demanded.

  “There was no seven-thirty train last night, Mrs. Llewellyn,” Evan said. “It was an hour and a half late, due to a points failure at Crewe. It hadn’t even got in to Bangor when you showed up at this house.”

  “So I’ll repeat the question, Mrs. Llewellyn,” Watkins said. “Where were you yesterday?”

  “Oh, very well.” She gave a dramatic sigh. “I suppose I should have told you right away and saved all this unpleasantness. I came back from London a day early and I spent the day with friends in Llandudno. I didn’t want Ifor to know where I was. He didn’t like these particular friends, so I had to arrange meetings around other trips.”

  Watkins opened his notebook. “The name and number of these friends in Llandudno, if you don’t mind.”

  “They’re not in Llandudno any longer. We just found it a convenient place to meet. The home address is actually in Cheshire. But I can look the number up for you.”

  “And the place you stayed in Llandudno—they’ll have a record of your stay, will they?”

  For the first time she looked really flustered. “I—didn’t actually sign the register myself. My friend’s name will be there, of course.”

  “Of course,” Watkins said.

  Evan’s opinion of Watkins’s interviewing techniques was steadily rising. He was being quiet and genial and yet succeeding in getting Mrs. Llewellyn rattled.

  “We have a picture of Mrs. Llewellyn that we can show for identification purposes, don’t we Evans?” Watkins asked, looking over her head.

  “That’s right, sir,” Evan produced the picture from his pocket.

  “That’s my personal property. You’ve no right…” she began.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of it,” Evan said. “You’ll get it back, good as new. Unless you’d like to supply us with a better one. Th
is one’s rather old now and it doesn’t show you clearly.”

  “Oh, keep it,” she snapped. “I don’t suppose you can do much harm to it.”

  “What did you want me to do, sir?” Evan asked.

  “I thought we’d take a spin down to Llandudno—see if anyone at the hotel could vouch for Mrs. Llewellyn being there.”

  The woman’s face had flushed bright red. “Is that really necessary?” she asked.

  “You’ve nothing to worry about if you’re telling us the truth, have you?”

  “Well, the truth is … Sergeant. I was there with … a close friend … a married, close friend. I’d hate him to be dragged into this.”

  “Let us have his name and address and we’ll be discreet, madam,” Watkins said. “We’re trying to find out who killed your husband. I’m sure you’d want to give us your full cooperation, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, I would,” she said.

  She took the piece of paper Watkins offered her. “Very well. His name’s James Norton. He lives in Cheshire. I’m not quite sure of the post code…”

  “The phone number would be helpful,” Watkins added.

  She scribbled quickly and handed him back the paper. “He really doesn’t need to be brought into this, you know. It’s not fair on him.”

  “As I said, madam, the police are trained to be discreet.”

  She gave him a disbelieving stare. “Am I free to go now?”

  “For the moment, yes. But please stay within reach at the inn. And make sure your son gives us the details we wanted.”

  “Very well,” she said.

  Evan escorted her to the front door. Watkins followed. As they crossed the front hall, Evan noticed her glancing down at the floor.

  “What happened to my shoe?” she asked. She was trying to make it come out casually.

  “The shoe? Oh, I think the lab boys have got it bagged ready for fingerprinting.”

  “A shoe?” She attempted a laugh. “Surely nobody can think that Ifor was killed with a lady’s stiletto?”

  “Just routine, ma’am,” Evan said. “Any suspicious object needs checking out. You’ll get it back. Do you remember where you left the other one?”

  “I…” she looked around. “I expect Gladys must have tidied it up by now. She must have missed this one.”

  Right, Evan thought. She was hardly likely to miss a shoe right outside the drawing room door.

  He opened the front door for her. “We’ll be in touch,” he said.

  “And … you will be … tactful?”

  “Yes madam. We will be tactful.”

  He watched her hurry to join her son, who was standing by the car.

  “Do you think there’s something strange about that shoe?” Watkins asked as he closed the door.

  “I’m not sure. That’s something we can ask Gladys when she gets back here—whether she noticed the shoe yesterday.”

  Watkins glanced at his watch. “She should be here by now. I think I’ll give them a call and see when they’re likely to get here.”

  He disappeared into the study. Evan heard him say, “Not there? Are you sure they went to the right address?”

  He was frowning when he came back to Evan. “The stupid woman wasn’t there. The constable knocked several times.”

  “She probably took longer to do her shopping than she’d planned,” Evan said.

  “Or she decided she didn’t want to be mixed up in this,” Watkins added.

  Evan didn’t agree. He thought that Gladys was relishing her role as star witness.

  “Ask the neighbors,” he said. “Maybe she just popped next door to tell them all the juicy details.”

  Watkins nodded. “You could be right. Okay. Let’s follow up on the Llandudno business, shall we? That was a turn up for the books, wasn’t it? Went to meet her lover?” He winked at Evan. “What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, eh?”

  “And it gives her a motive for killing her husband,” Evan pointed out. “If he’d found out about the relationship and refused to give her the divorce…”

  “She might have been desperate enough to get him out of her way,” Watkins finished. “I wish we could turn up the murder weapon, or I don’t see how we’ll ever be able to tie her to the crime.”

  Evan nodded. “Nobody that I questioned saw her sneaking back earlier. Of course I haven’t been house to house yet.”

  “And, as we know, it’s easy enough to park up at the Everest Inn and come down that footpath without being seen at all,” Watkins agreed with a sigh. “She used that way herself this morning.” He put his hand on the drawing room door and went in. “Are you still here?” he demanded. “What do they do—pay you double time on Saturdays? Or are you trying to get out of the weekly shop with the wife?”

  “We’re about to leave, Sarge,” one of the technicians said with a grin. “I think we’ve given everything a good going-over.” He was carrying a tray full of plastic bags, all neatly labeled.

  “Found anything new and interesting?”

  “Only this.” He held up a small Ziploc bag. It contained a black hair about six inches long. “We found it on the carpet beside him. It might be his, of course. He wore his hair long for a man, didn’t he? But his hair was curly and this is dead straight. And it seems finer than his, too.”

  Wheels were turning inside Evan’s brain. Successive pictures flashed through his head … a girl’s black hair plastered to her face as he dragged her to shore. That same girl saying emphatically, “He’s not my boyfriend!”

  He took the photo out of his pocket and stared hard at the two children … a skinnier version of Justin was smiling up at the camera and beside him a shy, scowling face, half-hidden by black hair.

  Evan grabbed the sergeant’s arm and pulled him aside.

  “I think we should go after Mrs. Llewellyn and tell her we’d like to speak to her daughter,” he said.

  Chapter 15

  “So you managed to get away after all, Constable Evans.” Roberts-the-Pump greeted Evan as they met in the eisteddfod car park that evening. “We thought we’d have to go ahead and sing without you.”

  “Yes, they took pity on me and let me off for the night,” Evan said.

  The choir members looked serious and self-conscious in their black Sunday suits and stiff white collars—like a lot of overgrown boys, Evan thought.

  “The crowd of reporters has thinned out,” he said. “They lost interest when we wouldn’t let them speak to Mrs. Llewellyn or see inside the house. Now there’s just one or two diehards camped out for the night. The rest are pestering the D.I. in Caernarfon.”

  “So it’s true what we heard, is it, Evan bach?” Charlie Hopkins moved closer to Evan. “Someone really coshed him on the head?”

  “It looks that way, Charlie,” Evan said. “The D.I. hasn’t said so officially, so I can’t say any more.”

  “We saw them out searching along the riverbank and in the fields,” Harry-the-Pub said with excitement in his voice. “Was it the murder weapon they were looking for?”

  “Possibly,” Evan said. “I’m just the village bobby. They don’t let me in on their detective work.”

  “Go on with you!” Evans-the-Meat gave him a hearty shove. “Thick as thieves with that sergeant, you are. Everyone knows they couldn’t solve crimes without you, so they just call you in secretly, like.”

  “That’s not true,” Evan said uncomfortably.

  “Well they can’t be onto anything or they’d never have let you come down here and sing,” Evans-the-Meat said firmly. “Charlie’s wife reckons it was that Mafia hit man who did it. Have the police found him yet?”

  “Not that I know of,” Evan said. “They’re making enquiries.”

  Evans-the-Meat snorted. “Making enquiries! That’s what they always say when they’ve bloody well gone and lost the suspect.”

  Evan decided it was high time they changed the subject. He looked around. “Where’s Mostyn then?”

  “We
’re supposed to be meeting him at the pavilion. He wanted to listen to the other performances,” Evans-the-Meat said. “He’s certainly a glutton for punishment, isn’t he?” He broke off and stood there, listening. Over the other sounds, the strains of a male voice choir singing “Men of Harlech” floated on the breeze toward them. “He’ll probably have to hear “Men of Harlech” sung a hundred times today.”

  Evan smiled. “He loves his music, doesn’t he?”

  “Loves his music? It’s the only thing he lives for,” Evans-the-Meat agreed.

  “I think it’s very good of him to agree to go ahead with our performance tonight.” Evan was remembering Mostyn’s ashen face as he looked down at the corpse. “He must know we won’t sound as good as the other choirs without Ifor.”

  They left the trampled grass of the car park and showed their passes at the competitors’ entrance into the main field. A strong, salty breeze from the ocean was flapping all the banners and bunting. The setting sun had tinted all the tents with a rosy glow. Good smells greeted them from the many food booths around the periphery. Sizzling sausages and frying onions, the more exotic scent of curried chicken kebabs, fish and chips, donuts, toffee apples, and candy floss all competed to lure the hungry traveler. There were also stalls devoted to pure Welsh produce—bowls of thick steaming lamb cawl, or grilled lamb chops, laver bread made from seaweed, local oysters and crab sandwiches, and local baked goods like Welsh cakes and bara brith.

  Evan was reminded painfully that he hadn’t had a good meal in weeks and no proper meal at all today. After their performance he’d stop and treat himself to a big helping of fish and chips—and a pint of Brains beer.

  They were passing the tents that housed the crafts exhibits now. Suddenly he heard the sound of shouts and screams. A scuffle seemed to have broken out in a pavilion designated “Handicrafts Made from Local Wool.” He could see arms flailing in the middle of a crowd of people. He looked around for police or security guards, then decided he had better intervene himself.