by Rhys Bowen
“I won’t be long.”
Evan went out into the moist evening air. A fine rain was falling, hardly more than a mist. Clouds clung to the hilltops and blotted out the far side of the bay. He started down the hill toward the pub. When he got close he heard the sound of loud voices and laughter and pulled up short. He didn’t feel in the mood to be jolly. And Maggie might be there. He really didn’t want to face her again. He crossed the street and walked by on the other side. As he walked, he remembered his conversation with Maggie. So much had happened that he had pushed it from his mind until now. Could she really think that he might play professional rugby for the new team in Bangor? He’d been a pretty handy rugby player in his day, but he hadn’t played seriously for five years now. He was over thirty. Ridiculous. And yet the thought gnawed at him. Professional rugby players made good money — much better than police constables. If he was about to embark on a new life with a wife and a family, shouldn’t he at least consider it?
He broke into a jog. He’d need to get in shape, and that wouldn’t be easy. He pumped his legs faster but only managed to go one more block before he was out of breath. Obviously some serious training would be needed before he tried out for the team. He walked back up the hill, making a mental training schedule in his head.
“That was quick,” his mother commented when he got home.
“You were right. I am drinking too much beer,” he said. He went through the house and out to the shed at the bottom of the garden. With any luck his old weight set would still be there and he could pump a little iron before he went to bed. His upper body muscles would need toning if he wanted to be of any use in a scrum again. In the orange light of a nearby street lamp he found the weights exactly as he had left them. A bar with weights on it rested on the stand. When he tried to pick it up, he found he couldn’t even move it. To his shame he had to exchange the weights several times before he could get the wretched thing off the stand.
“Who am I fooling?” he asked himself. He’d never manage to get back into rugby playing shape again. It was all downhill after you turned thirty. There were plenty of fitter chaps. They wouldn’t want him.
Then he chided himself for such negative thoughts. If he’d been able to lift those weights before, there was no reason why he couldn’t do so again. He’d take them back in the car with him and work on them every morning. And he’d start running faithfully too. It would be a good challenge. He’d been getting soft for too long.
As he stood there thinking in the darkness, he became aware of where he was. The old familiar smells reached his nostrils—the sawdust from his father’s workbench, the rich aroma of potting soil, fertilizer, and long-ago mown grass, together with his father’s brand of tobacco. They all lingered, almost too faint to notice. He breathed deeply and stood staring at the workbench, willing his father to appear there before his eyes. “I wish you were here,” he whispered. “I still need you.”
All his father’s tools still hung in their places as if he’d never been gone. A big box of pieces of wood stood beside the bench. His father was a thrifty man who refused to throw anything away. The wood gave Evan an idea. He rummaged around and came up with a nice smooth piece of darkish wood. Bronwen had hinted that she’d like a lovespoon. Women appreciated sentimental gestures like that, didn’t they? What better time to try his hand at one. He took down a chisel and some sandpaper and went back into the house to draw a design. It took him about fifteen minutes to remember that he had failed woodworking at school.
At last he gave up and went to bed. It felt strange lying in his old bed, in his old room. He remembered lying there as a child, listening for his father’s key in the door, the gentle hum of conversation downstairs, his father whistling “Men of Harlech,” his favorite song, as he took out the rubbish—all those comforting signs that everything was right with the world.
What was he going to do about Tony Mancini? He could take up the DCI’s offer and ride along in one of his squad cars. He could see exactly what evidence they had collected and then make up his own mind. That was, after all, what the jury would have to do. Comforted, he fell asleep.
He woke in the middle of the night to the wind battering his window frame and to the peppering of rain on the roof tiles. When he was a little kid he had been afraid of storms and run into his parents’ bedroom. He’d been afraid of a lot of things when his family first moved here. His dad was the rock he had clung to. His thoughts moved to that night, five years ago. That had been a blustery night too, with squawls of rain. He remembered the telephone call that had woken them, the squad car that had rushed them to the hospital, his dad lying there, hovering between life and death for a while. Evan had watched him slip away, knowing he was powerless to do anything about it.
Then he was in that courtroom, that cold and sterile place. He remembered Tony, looking ridiculously young and vulnerable, sitting sprawled in his seat in his black leather jacket as if he was oblivious to the significance of the occasion. When he heard the charges against him read, he had looked up with an almost cocky grin.
“Did you pull the trigger that killed Sergeant Evans?” the prosecuting barrister had asked.
“I s’pose I must’ve,” Tony had answered. Cocky—yes, that had summed it up. Almost pleased with himself, as if shooting a police officer was a pretty cool thing to have done. Suddenly Evan realized what had made him feel so uneasy when he had seen Tony in court this time. Evan had been to court enough times to have seen innocent men in the dock. The bewildered panic in their eyes; the incredulity that nobody believed them. He realized with a cold, sickening feeling of certainty that Tony Mancini was probably telling the truth. He hadn’t killed Alison Turnbull.
So what should he do? He got up and paced the room, slapping his fist into his palm as if the solid sound would crystallize his racing thoughts. This is not my problem. If he’s innocent, then he’ll be proven innocent in court. British courts are fair. They won’t convict without sufficient evidence. He tried repeating these lines over and over, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that Tony was going to spend his life in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed.
And if Mancini did go to prison, Evan reasoned, it was only fair. Justice would be served at last. His mother and the South Wales Police would be happy. Presumably he should be happy too. It would be so easy to get in his car, drive back to Bronwen, and put the whole thing out of his mind.
“I don’t want to do this,” he muttered. As if in answer he saw himself on a hillside, talking to Bill Owens. “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like for the greater good of the whole.” That’s what he had said, and Owens had called him a sanctimonious little bugger. He’d been right, of course. His own words were coming back to haunt him.
Chapter 11
The next morning Evan set out for the police station. If DCI Vaughan would really let him tag along with his team, then he’d be able to check out Tony’s story for himself.
He didn’t have to mention to anyone else that he had a sneaking suspicion that Tony might be innocent this time. As he drove down the hill into the town, he decided that he wanted to take a look at the scene of the crime for himself first and swung right, into the Oystermouth Road. City streets gave way to green lawns and playing fields until finally there was the bay on one side and landscaped front gardens on the other. This was where Swansea’s elite lived, behind high hedges or stone walls. He turned into Ashleigh Road and followed it as it began to climb away from the waterfront.
The Turnbull’s house was called The Larches. It was on a small cul-de-sac, almost invisible behind a high yew hedge. Somber laurel bushes and rhododendrons lined the drive, while a couple of the trees for which the house was named shielded parts of it from view. Evan parked at the end of the cul-de-sac and got out of the car. He had gone jogging again that morning and his muscles protested as he started to walk back to the Turnbull’s gateway. As Tony had said, the street had the feeling of being remote and cut off from the world. He c
ould only see a couple of other gateways, and the houses were invisible behind high hedges and tree-filled front gardens. A gloomy place, Evan thought and shivered. It was no longer raining, but the air was moist and water dripped onto him from the trees. He stood outside the Turnbulls’ house, taking in the brick gateposts and the glimpses of Victorian opulence beyond. It was a tall, ugly brick house with bay windows and a turret on one side. Ivy grew up the walls, and curtains were drawn across the windows.
At the end of the drive Evan hesitated, conscious that he shouldn’t be doing this and had no right to be here. He glanced up at the house again. Nothing stirred, no lights glowed behind those closed curtains. It gave the impression of having been abandoned long ago. Maybe the family had gone away for a while, finding it too painful to live so close to their grief. No harm then in taking a quick look at the crime scene. There was no longer any incident tape or any other sign that police had been here. Emboldened, Evan continued down the drive. Flowers were blooming in neatly tended herbaceous borders. The lawn was manicured like a bowling green. To the left of the house was a large garage, and behind a conservatory he caught a glimpse of what must be a swimming pool. No expense spared here, a little paradise behind high hedges.
He reached the front porch and stood staring down at the spot where the crazy paving of the front path met the flight of three stone steps. The steps led up to a massive front door with a stained-glass panel in it. An impressive entry, probably built by a Victorian Turnbull ancestor to let the world know that there was prosperity inside.
There was, of course, nothing to be seen on the grounds. Evan hadn’t heard how Alison Turnbull died, but he knew her body had been dumped on the doorstep for her parents to find. A particularly nasty twist—the kind of act committed by someone who wanted to get even. He reminded himself that Tony Mancini had a reason to get even with Mr. Turnbull. He had been fired from his factory. But that was six months ago, and Evan knew from experience that the desire for revenge cools with time.
Evan tried to sum up what he knew about Tony. Obviously he was capable of killing. When you have done it once, they say the second time is easy. But would someone like Tony rape and murder the boss’s daughter to get even? A girl he said he enjoyed dancing with, a girl who was easy to talk to and not snobby like the other posh birds? Evan could picture Tony hurling a brick through a window, helping himself to the family jewels, even stabbing Mr. Turnbull, but not dumping Alison’s body on the doorstep. That demanded a particular brand of sadism, and for all of his unpleasant traits, he didn’t think Tony was sadistic.
Evan glanced around. If her body had been dumped on the doorstep, where, then, had she been killed? In the garden or somewhere else and her body brought here in a vehicle? There were certainly plenty of shrubs and bushes in the garden for a lurker to have taken her unawares. And if she had been brought in a vehicle, then had someone risked carrying her the whole length of the driveway to dump her? Dead bodies, even those of young girls, are not easy things to carry. And this also brought up the question of timing. If Tony had been telling the truth, he had left Alison alive, in her own front garden, around 9:30 P.M. that night. She had sent him away when she heard someone coming—though whether that was the sound of an approaching vehicle or footsteps, Tony hadn’t made clear. Could it have been someone in a vehicle who whisked her away, killed her, and then returned to dump her body? A little hard to believe, he decided, but he had to check all the angles. He’d get the police to tell him if they had found the actual spot where she was killed.
He was about to leave the path and investigate the front garden when a great volley of deep barks echoed from the house. Tony had mentioned the dog. Alison had told him that her father set it on people he didn’t like. Evan was about to beat a cautious retreat when the front door opened and a dog the size of a young pony came flying down the steps. Before he had to defend himself, however, a voice commanded, “Brutus, come! Come here at once!” The dog stopped in its tracks, sniffing suspiciously at Evan.
A woman stood at the top of the steps, staring coldly at Evan. “If you are another reporter, you’d better go away quickly before I set the dog on you,” she said in a cultured voice with no trace of a Welsh lilt.
At first glance she appeared quite young, but Evan saw that this must be the result of a face-lift. Indeed, she had that surprised babydoll look that is often the product of surgery. The rest of her was superbly groomed. Her blond hair and makeup looked as if she had just left a beauty salon. She was wearing a silk dress, high-heeled shoes, and pearls. Evan didn’t think that anyone apart from the royal family wore pearls these days.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said quickly, as the dog was inching closer. “I’m not a reporter. Are you Mrs. Turnbull?”
“Yes, I am. And you are?”
“I’m Constable Evan Evans of the North Wales Police.”
Her perfect face registered surprise. “North Wales Police? What have they got to do with this?”
“I’m not here in an official capacity, madam. My father was the policeman who was shot by Tony Mancini. I wanted to express my condolences and to see if there was anything I could do to help.”
“Oh. The policeman’s son. Of course. I saw you in court. How kind of you to come. Please do come in. Brutus, leave him alone. Go to your bed.” This last was addressed to the dog, who gave Evan a questioning look before slinking ahead of them into the house. Evan came up the steps and followed Mrs. Turnbull into a drawing room on the left of the front door. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn, and she flicked a switch, lighting a large chandelier in the high ceiling. The room was mixture of Victorian opulence—Chippendale chairs, marble-topped end tables, a large brocade sofa, a good oil painting of the Scottish Highlands, and some more recent acquisitions. There was a very bright oil painting of a Spanish bullfighter on one wall, a portrait of a pretty young woman whom Evan recognized as a younger Mrs. Turnbull, and a drinks cabinet decorated with mother of pearl. Old money meets new, he decided.
“Please sit down, won’t you?” Mrs. Turnbull led him to one of the Chippendale chairs beside a marquetry card table, then pulled out another one for herself. “Will you take tea or coffee?”
“Nothing for me, thank you,” Evan said. “I know how very distressing this must be for you.”
“It’s like living in a nightmare,” she said frankly. “Every morning I wake up and hope I’ll find it was all a bad dream, and of course it isn’t. Every day I have to force myself to get out of bed.”
Evan nodded. “I remember feeling exactly the same way. Trying to stay asleep as long as possible because it’s preferable to waking up.”
She looked at him with appreciation in her eyes. “Exactly. It’s good to talk to someone else who has been through it. Other people are well meaning, but they just don’t understand. I even had one stupid woman tell me I was still young enough to have another child. As if another child could replace Alison!”
“Tell me about Alison,” he said.
Her face lit up for a moment. “She was a lovely girl. She was going to be a great beauty, you know. Completely unconscious of her good looks, of course — still at that shy and gawky stage. Of course being at a girls’ school it does take longer to learn how to move in mixed company, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I never went to a girls’ school.”
She smiled at the remark, and Evan got the impression that smiling felt strange and new for her.
“She was just going into her last year at Malvern Abbey, getting ready to apply to universities. She was quite bright, you know. Not exactly what you’d call studious, but she had a good brain when she wanted to use it—just like her father.”
“This young man—Tony Mancini—” Evan began hesitantly. “He claims that he was a friend of Alison.”
“A friend of Alison? How totally ridiculous! How could he possibly have known Alison? She was away at school all year. Only home for the summer holidays for a week or so before … befor
e …” She collected herself. “He’s from the slums, isn’t he? One of the housing estates? How could he possibly have met my daughter? She went riding or to the country club to play tennis with her friends, and I always drove her. We took good care of Alison, Mr. Evans. She was—very precious to us—our only child, you see.” Again she fought to compose herself. “There is no possible place that Tony Mancini could have met my daughter.”
Evan decided to say nothing about the club.
“Then do you have any idea why he chose to kill her?”
“Do murderers need a reason?” she asked, her voice harsh with anger. Evan noticed that she had long bony fingers, decorated with several large rings. These fingers clutched at the silk of her dress like bird’s claws. “Maybe he is deranged, on drugs—I don’t know. It’s possible he spotted Alison through the hedge, was attracted by her beauty, and tried to rape her. She struggled and he had to kill her.”
“Then surely he would have fled straight away. Why take the time to dump the body on your doorstep?”
Uncertainty flickered across her face. “I have no idea. I don’t know how the criminal mind works, Mr. Evans. You’re a policeman. Maybe you can tell me.”
“About what time did it happen, Mrs. Turnbull?”
“We found her about quarter to ten at night. She hadn’t been dead long, they tell us.”
“What was Alison doing in the garden at that time of night?”
“I have no idea,” she snapped. “We didn’t keep our daughter a prisoner, in spite of what the newspapers say. It was a warm night. She might have gone for a stroll outside. She might have been reading on one of the garden benches until it got too dark to see. I assumed she was quite safe in our own garden. I was home at the time, after all.”
“You were home? I understood her father came home and found her …”