Constable Evans 03: Evanly Choirs

by Rhys Bowen

  “Thank God.” The relief was obvious on Mrs. Llewellyn’s face. “Do you really mean he’s not a suspect?”

  “For the moment. It was tactfully suggested that he not try to leave the area while they check with the servants at Como.”

  Jasmine got to her feet. “Now we can go and find some edible food. I’ll die if I have to drink another cup of this filthy tea. Do you think there’s a halfway decent restaurant in this godforsaken place?”

  The solicitor put a restraining hand on her arm. “The inspector would like to see you, Jasmine.”

  “Me? What on earth for?”

  “He needs names and numbers to corroborate your movements last week.”

  “Bloody cheek!” Jasmine’s face flushed scarlet. “Oh well, I suppose I’ll have to give them to him to shut him up.”

  “Don’t worry, darling, we’ll wait for you,” Mrs. Llewellyn said. “Even if it means drinking more disgusting tea.”

  Evan had been studying Jasmine Llewellyn’s legs. She had very nice legs, for one thing, but he had seen something else that interested him. “By the way, Mrs. Llewellyn,” he said, “they never found the other shoe when they searched your house. That was strange, wasn’t it?”

  “What shoe, Mummy?” Jasmine asked.

  “A black shoe with a thick sole and a high heel,” Evan said. “I suppose that type must be fashionable right now. Looks sort of dangerous to me.”

  Jasmine laughed. “My mother doesn’t wear shoes like that, Constable. Que stupido.”

  “No, but you do, Miss Llewellyn,” Evan said, glancing again at Jasmine’s feet.

  “Then it was lucky that Jasmine was far away in Italy, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Llewellyn said smoothly.

  There was definitely something going on here that he didn’t understand, Evan decided as he went looking for Justin Llewellyn. He found him standing in the waiting area with Sergeant Watkins.

  “We have reached an impasse, Constable,” Justin said in an amused voice. “I keep trying to tell the inspector I did it and he keeps insisting I didn’t. Strange but true. Anyway, the shackles are off for the time being and I am going to faint clean away if I don’t get something to eat soon.”

  “I’m going back to Llanfair,” Evan said. “I’d be happy to drive you back to the inn if you like.”

  “What about my mother and sister?” Justin looked around.

  “The inspector has a few details he needs to get from your sister first. I understand that their solicitor is going to be driving them.”

  “That settles it,” Justin said. “I’ll ride up with you. I couldn’t stand being in a car with that pompous old snot.”

  “You asked for him a few minutes ago,” Evan pointed out.

  “Only because I was tired of answering questions,” Justin said with a grin. “I knew once he was there nothing would be accomplished. And I was right. The inspector soon gave up, didn’t he? The old fool bores everybody into submission.”

  Evan held open the door for Justin and buttoned his jacket as they faced the blustery day outside.

  “Bloody Wales,” Justin muttered as he climbed into Evan’s car and slammed the door shut on the rain. “Thank God mother had the sense to move out of that cold, damp house. At least the Everest Inn has efficient central heating.”

  “But they had the central heating on at the house when I was there,” Evan said.

  “My father? With central heating? You’ve got to be joking. Mother always called him the Welsh mountain goat because living with him was like being on a bloody hillside—all the windows open and a howling gale blowing through the place.”

  “But I thought—” Evan began, then shut up.

  “Anyway, I’ll be back in sunny Italy soon.”

  “I hope so, sir,” Evan said evenly.

  Justin shot him an alarmed look. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Only that this case is far from being solved and nobody goes anywhere until it is. Now if you could help us in any way…”

  “I’ve tried to help you, haven’t I?” Justin said petulantly. “I’ve confessed to the bloody crime. What more do you want?”

  “The truth would be nice.”

  “I don’t know why they won’t believe me. Do I look too fragile to be a killer?”

  “Oh no, sir,” Evan said. “Many of the worst killers are inoffensive people. They kill because it makes them feel powerful. It’s just that you’re left-handed. A right-handed person had to have hit your father. A left-handed blow would have been on the other side of his head.”

  “Ah. Very clever.” Justin nodded. “I should have thought of that.”

  “So why don’t you tell us why you confessed—it can’t be because you actually wanted a lifetime in jail. You must have done it because you thought you knew who the real murderer was and you wanted to spare … her.”

  “Her?”

  “Your mother or your sister, I would assume.”

  “Policemen do too much assuming.”

  They passed the housing estate, dripping drearily in the rain, and Caernarfon gave way to green fields, gently rising to the mountains. Evan dropped down a gear as the road began to climb.

  “I’m still interested in this car-in-the-lake business,” Evan said, staring past the windscreen wipers. “Who was the girl, Justin?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Oh, but it is my business,” Evan said. “I was there. I saw you behind the car. I rescued her from the lake. To me that looks suspiciously like attempted murder and being left-handed won’t get you out of that.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Justin said. “I told you before, I had no idea that her car went into the lake. We had another argument, she was being unreasonable, and I left. The car was sitting there on the lakeshore when I last saw it.”

  “Then can you explain how it got into the lake?”

  “She knocked the brake off by accident? The brake was faulty? How should I know?”

  “And if the brake wasn’t faulty?” Evan asked. “What were you quarreling about? She said she wasn’t your girlfriend.”

  “That’s right. She wasn’t.” He said it so firmly that Evan glanced at him.

  “So what connection does she have to your family? Why did she come to the house trying to find you that day before your family moved in?”

  “She wasn’t trying to find me, you idiot. I was the last person she wanted to see,” Justin snapped. “She was looking for my father.”

  “Your father?” Evan was caught completely off guard.

  “It’s rather obvious, isn’t it? She was one of his acquisitions. He liked having young girls around him. They kept him eternally youthful—at least that’s what he said.”

  Evan’s thoughts immediately went to Betsy. He saw Ifor holding her hand, inviting her to the opera in Cardiff … suggesting that black hair would suit her better.

  “I thought maybe she was your sister,” Evan confessed. “She looks very like her.”

  “They all do. That’s how father liked his women—skinny, dark, and waiflike. It didn’t matter how they started out, they all ended up looking like Jasmine.”

  “So she came here looking for your father and was upset to find you instead—why?”

  “Because it was rather uncomfortable for both of us. She used to be my girlfriend, before my father acquired her. Foolishly I brought her home. It only took him one evening.” Justin laughed bitterly. “He promised her a backstage tour of La Scala. His backstage tours always ended up in his bed. She was, as they say, swept off her feet. What she didn’t realize was that he never kept them long. He was like a little child with new toys. He soon tired of them and went on to something else.” He paused. The rain drummed on the car roof. Spray flew from the windscreen wipers as they clicked back and forth. Evan’s heart went out to him.

  “Unfortunately she fell for my father in a big way. They usually did. He was a very overpowering man. You either loved him or hated him. She wouldn’t admit that it was over.
She kept pestering him, begging him to come back to her—totally ridiculous actually. He never cared for them at all. He didn’t care what happened to them after he’d dumped them.”

  “So she came here, hoping to find your father and get back together with him,” Evan said. “Instead she saw you.”

  “And I tried to get her to see sense and go away before she got hurt again,” Justin said. “My father didn’t handle upsets very easily. He could be pretty bloody if he wanted to be. Christine and I drove up to the lake to talk. She was still convinced that he loved her and everything would be fine if he saw her again. I tried to make her see sense. I gave her a good reality check. She said some pretty crushing things about me—compared me unfavorably to him in some unmentionable ways. I was so angry I got out and walked.”

  “And then the car went into the lake,” Evan said. “Why?”

  “I presume she wanted to do something to make my father sit up and take notice. She’s unstable and unbalanced and she overreacted. As usual.”

  Chapter 21

  There was silence as they both considered the implications of this statement.

  “She tended to … overreact, did she, Mr. Llewellyn?” Evan asked quietly.

  “She’s highly strung. Very emotional.”

  “And you think she might have killed him?”

  Justin didn’t answer.

  “Do you suspect that she killed your father?” Evan insisted. “Do you have proof that she killed your father?”

  Justin looked out of the window.

  “Mr. Llewellyn, if she’s as unstable as you say, she may take her own life, too. Is that what you want?”

  Justin sighed. “No.”

  “You must still love her, or you wouldn’t have risked your own life for her.”

  “Of course I still love her, dammit.” He dropped his voice. “Okay, I was in the house last week. I told you about coming to see my mother. She wasn’t there. I was in the house alone when the phone rang. I didn’t answer it. I didn’t want anyone to know I was there. The answering machine picked it up and it was Christine. She told my father she had to see him again. She was staying at a local hotel. She knew his wife had gone out of town for a few days. She left a number. She said … she said she couldn’t live without him and she was going to make him see that he couldn’t live without her.”

  He looked at Evan with the scared, hopeless eyes of a young man who was carrying a terrible burden.

  “So what did you do then?” Evan asked.

  “I went downstairs and erased the message.” He stared ahead into the rain. “Don’t you see—I might have been the one who drove her over the edge into despair.”

  “You did what you thought was best for everyone,” Evan said. “You don’t happen to know what hotel she was staying at?”

  Justin shook his head. “All these Welsh names sound the same to me.”

  Evan swung off the road as a petrol station loomed ahead. “I’ll call HQ. They must have taken a list of all incoming calls to the house last week.”

  He ran to the phone booth and dialed. Not too long after he was back in the car. “The Plas Coed at Betws-y-Coed. Do you mind driving over there with me? We might be able to find out when she left and where she went.”

  * * *

  Nestled in its narrow valley on the other side of the mountain, Betws-y-Coed was in the full swing of its tourist season, although strictly in a genteel way. There was nothing here for the funfair crowd. There wasn’t even much for families. There were refined tea shops, as well as shops selling local wools and crafts, the Swallow Falls just beyond the village, and bucolic pastures along the river. Well-bred tourists were strolling along the river as Evan drove through the village. They wore tweeds and brogue shoes and many of them looked like the Queen at Balmoral, with scarves around their heads and dowdy raincoats.

  Evan found the Plas Coed on the other side of the river, crossing by the narrow stone bridge with the waterfall roaring underneath. The hotel looked more like a country house—a refined black-and-white half-timbered building, set back from the road among tall larch trees. Old-fashioned and somber, with high gables and little tables on a manicured lawn, it was the sort of hotel that retired colonels and spinster schoolteachers might go for bracing fresh air and good long walks, but was probably lacking in modern amenities, like bathrooms.

  Justin and Evan leaped out of the car as soon as it stopped. Evan had driven over the mountains with a sense of urgency that Justin had now also acquired.

  “Christine Danvers?” The young redhead at the desk looked at them with interest, fluttering her eyelashes hopefully. “Hang on a sec.” She flicked through the registration book. “Room twenty-one. I think she’s still up there. Her key’s not on the hook.”

  There was no lift and their feet echoed from the uncarpeted narrow stairs.

  “Yes?” a cautious voice responded to their knock. The door was opened.

  “Oh.” She stepped back, for a moment speechless. Then she recovered herself. “What do you want?”

  Evan answered. “Remember me, miss? I’m the police officer who pulled you out of the water.”

  “Oh, but I thought everything was settled with the car.” She was clearly flustered, looking past Evan like a trapped animal, estimating whether she could make a run for it. “They said it was an accident…”

  “It’s not the car we’ve come about. It’s Mr. Ifor Llewellyn.”

  “He’s dead,” she said, then repeated with utter hopelessness. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “We’d like to talk to you, please.” Evan didn’t wait for an invitation. Justin followed him into the room.

  “It was the message on the answering machine, wasn’t it?” she blurted out. She walked across to the window and stared out across the valley. “I realized what I’d done right away. It was so bloody stupid of me to leave that message. I knew they’d find me, so I just sat here and waited to be found.”

  “Why should they want to find you, miss?” Evan asked. “Do you know something about Mr. Llewellyn’s death?”

  “Oh yes,” Christine said. “Of course I do. Why else are you here?” She paused and then added, “I expect you found my fingerprints, didn’t you?”

  If the lab boys had found unidentified prints, they hadn’t mentioned it. Evan smiled in anticipation of pointing this omission out to them.

  “My fingers had blood on them,” she added. “I must have touched something.”

  “Are you trying to tell us that you killed Mr. Llewellyn?” Evan asked.

  She turned around, looking directly at him with surprised, innocent eyes. “Oh no. He was dead when I got there.”

  “Would you like to tell me exactly what happened?” Evan asked.

  She looked around the room. “There’s nowhere to sit, I’m afraid.” This was true. Just a narrow bed and one hard upright chair with Christine’s washing things on it. A room that belonged in a convent, not a three-star hotel.

  “Don’t worry. We can stand,” Evan said. “Go on.”

  “Alright.” She paused, biting her lip. “You put me on a train down to London, didn’t you? But I couldn’t stay there. I had to see Ifor again. See, I knew it was all a mistake. I knew he wanted us to be together when he got to Wales. Why did he tell me the address where he was going to be staying if he didn’t want to see me?” She glared at Justin. “So I came back. I called but nobody was home. I left that bloody stupid message, but he didn’t call me back. I waited and waited and then by Friday I couldn’t wait any longer. I called him on Friday afternoon. He answered the phone. He said he never checked answering machines and he was glad to hear my voice. He told me to come on over. He said his wife wouldn’t be back until quite late.” Her face had become alive again, as if she was reliving the thought of seeing him. “I’d rented another car so I drove over to Llanfair. Ifor told me to park up at the Everest Inn above the village, so that nobody would notice a suspicious car. He said people talked in villages. I went down the
little path to his house…”

  “What time was this, miss?”

  She wrinkled her button of a nose. “It must have been after six. Probably closer to six-thirty.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t later than that?” Evan asked. “Closer to seven?”

  She frowned again. “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. It could have been, I suppose. It might have taken longer to walk down that path than I thought…”

  “It doesn’t matter. Go on.”

  “The door wasn’t properly shut. I pushed it open and I called. Nobody answered. I went in. I called again. I went into the living room and then I saw him. He was lying there, sprawled on the floor. I thought he was ill or something—maybe he’d had a heart attack. I went over and I touched him and I said, ‘Ifor, are you okay…?’” The horror was clear on her face. “That’s when I saw the blood. I got it on my hand where I’d touched him. It was all warm and sticky. It was horrible…” She paused to compose herself. “I didn’t know what to do next. Then I heard this sound and I thought oh-my-god, the murderer is still here, in the house! I was so scared, I just ran. I tripped over in the back garden and I lost my shoe, but I kept on running.”

  “Wait a minute,” Evan said. “You lost your shoe in the back garden?”

  She nodded. “The heel got caught between paving stones. I didn’t want to wait around. I just kept on going in case the murderer was still coming after me.”

  “Interesting,” Evan said. “And did you see anyone?”

  “No. Nobody. Maybe I imagined the sound. I don’t know. I was so freaked out. When I got back to my car I tried to get a grip on myself. I knew I should call the police, but then I thought what if they suspect me and I remembered the message on the answering machine and I knew that I must have touched something with my bloody fingers. I’ve been so scared. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

  “I believe you, Christine,” Justin said.

  She looked up at him fiercely. “You shouldn’t be so willing to believe things about me, Justin. I’m not a nice person, I’m really not.” She covered her face in her hands and burst into noisy sobs. “Oh God, I wish I were dead.”