by Rhys Bowen
“I knew I should never have let her go with that boy,” Mrs. Parkinson said bitterly. “She’s never been allowed off on her own before and now look what happens.”
“Accidents happen, Mrs. Parkinson. People get lost in the mountains all the time. The good thing is that it was a fine night and quite mild.” Even as he said it he noticed Paul Upwood staring out of the window at the swirling mist.
“That no-good boy promised to take care of her.” Her voice trembled this time.
There was no answer to that one.
“Please rest assured that we are doing our very best to locate her as quickly as possible, Mrs. Parkinson,” Evan said. “You have our phone number and if you hear from her at all, please let us know.”
“Why wouldn’t she have called us before? That’s what I want to know.” The voice trembled. “If she’s all right somewhere, she’d have been able to call home, wouldn’t she?”
“There may be a simple explanation for all this,” Evan said. “She could have dropped her phone, taken a wrong turn on the mountain, finally fallen asleep, and just now be making her way down to us.”
“But why was she by herself? Why wasn’t he looking after her?” Mrs. Parkinson insisted.
Evan decided not to mention the tiff they had had. No sense in putting the boy even deeper in their black books. “He feels as badly about this as you do, Mrs. Parkinson. In fact, he’s waiting to tell you how sorry he is. But try not to worry too much. I’ll call you again when I’ve got any news.”
“All right.” The voice sounded defeated, almost as if she suspected she wasn’t going to hear from her daughter again.
Evan handed the phone to Paul, who took it reluctantly.
“Look, I’m really sorry, Mrs. Parkinson,” Paul stammered. “I looked everywhere. I won’t rest until we find her, I promise.” Then he hung up quickly before anything else could be said and handed back the phone.
“All right. Let’s get moving,” Evan put a hand on Paul’s shoulder.
“Moving?”
“That’s right. You and I are going to retrace your steps up the mountain, exactly as you went yesterday, and you’re going to look out for any clues—”
“Clues?”
“Anything she might have dropped along the way. Anything that might have belonged to her.”
“In this weather?” Paul asked. He was wearing a T-shirt and his adam’s apple danced up and down nervously. “Isn’t it dangerous to go up there in weather like this?”
“You want to find her, don’t you?” Evan asked. Then he took pity on the hunched shoulders and patted the boy’s back. “Don’t worry. I’ve been up and down that mountain so many times I can do it in my sleep. You won’t come to grief if you’re with me. Go up and put your boots and jacket on. And while you’re about it—do you happen to have any photos of Shannon? I’d like to show one around and get it blown up into flyers.”
“Just this one.” Paul pulled out a wallet and extracted a snaphot. It was of him with his arm around a pretty, petite girl. They were gazing at each other, smiling. “It’s not very clear, but it’s better than nothing,” he said as he handed it over.
“Good-looking girl,” Evan commented as he took the picture.
“Yeah. Best-looking bird in her class at school.”
“Are you still at school?”
“No, I’m at university, studying accountancy.”
Evan wondered why a mother could possibly disapprove of a young man who hiked and studied accountancy. “Go on, get those boots on,” he said.
The moment Paul had disappeared up the stairs, Evan went looking for the hostel warden. He found him in the kitchen, scraping out the last of a giant porridge pot. “The fun part of breakfast, and guess who gets stuck with it?” he said, looking up with a smile.
Evan explained why he was there and showed the warden the photo.
“What can you tell me about this couple?” he asked.
“Quiet. Keep themselves to themselves. You say she’s missing?”
“Yes, she didn’t come back from a hike yesterday.”
“Is there a search team out looking for her?”
“Yes, we had men out there yesterday evening and more today.”
“I could round up some additional chaps if you’d like,” the warden said. “I’m sure everyone staying here would want to help find her.”
“Thanks. You’re very kind. I’ll relay that message to the officer who’s coordinating the search,” Evan said. “I’m about to take Paul up to retrace their route. I just thought I’d ask whether anything might have happened here that was worth mentioning.”
“What sort of thing?”
“I don’t know, really. Paul says he and his girlfriend had a disagreement while they were hiking. Had they quarreled at all while they were here? Had there been anyone else staying here who might have tried to pick her up? Or given them a hard time? I’m just trying to come up with a reason why she didn’t come down the mountain.”
The warden scratched his luxuriant dark beard, then shook his head. “I can’t say I noticed them interacting with any of the other hostelers. There is usually a lively group in the common room. Someone has a guitar. Lots of laughter. But as I told you, they kept themselves to themselves. I don’t recall them in the common room at all in the evenings.”
Evan thanked the warden and showed the photo to all the other young people he could find, but the response was shrugs and blank faces. Some of them remembered seeing them at breakfast, but that was all. Nobody had overheard any quarrels.
Paul Upwood clomped down the stairs in hiking boots, now wearing a dark green anorak and carrying a stick.
Evan grinned. “I must say, you’re prepared for the worst, aren’t you?” He led the way out of the hostel and across the car park to the start of the path up the mountain.
“Did you say you took the Miner’s Path or the Pyg Track?” Evan asked as they reached the first grassy slopes beyond the car park.
Paul Upwood looked around uncertainly. “I’m not sure which is which. This path here.” He indicated a well-defined trail going off to the right.
“That’s the Pyg Track,” Evan said. “The Miner’s Path drops down to Llyn Llydaw. You’d remember if you’d taken that one because it crosses the lake on a causeway.”
“Not that one, then,” Paul said. “I didn’t cross any causeways.” He looked cold and miserable and a little scared. Well, who wouldn’t, Evan thought. I’d be scared if Bronwen had vanished. I’d be out of my mind with worry.
They started up the track and instantly the youth hostel was swallowed into mist. The only world was a few tussocks of grass and rocks around their feet and their footsteps echoed from unseen crags. As they came to the top of the first crest, the wind hit them full in the face, swirling cloud around them. Paul Upwood stood breathing heavily, leaning on his stick.
Evan glanced in his direction. For someone who had criticized his girlfriend for her slow pace, Paul Upwood wasn’t exactly in the greatest shape himself. The real ascent didn’t even begin until they had passed the first lake, Llyn Llydaw, which now lay invisible below them. It suddenly occurred to Evan that perhaps they were both novice hikers and they hadn’t made it to the summit at all.
“You said you parted company right after picnicking above a lake,” Evan said. “You didn’t mean the lake right here, did you? You went all the way up to the summit first?”
“Oh, are there two lakes?” Paul asked, then shook his head. “I’m getting confused. No, I must mean the lake below the summit. Little round lake, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Evan said. “A little round lake. Okay, then you did make it all the way up, then. Come on, let’s get cracking. We’ve got the hard slog ahead of us.”
The path dipped slightly, then rose again, now narrow and rocky as it hugged the side of a steep slope. The clouds parted suddenly, revealing a long, thin lake below them. The water was so still that it looked like black marble. There was
a sudden flapping sound, making both men start, and a pair of ducks rose from the smooth surface. Then the cloud closed in again, shutting them off into a private world.
After a while Paul Upwood was panting like the little steam engine that climbed the other flank of the mountain. “How much farther?” he gasped. Perspiration ran down his face.
Evan couldn’t resist commenting this time. “I thought you said you were the great hiker and your girlfriend couldn’t keep up with you?”
“I’m too tense to breathe properly today,” Paul replied. “My legs feel like jelly. I’m so scared that we’ll find her and … .” He let the rest of the sentence trail off.
“We had a team of men searching yesterday,” Evan said, “and dogs, and there were hundreds of people out on the mountain. So it’s hardly likely that she’s just lying somewhere, waiting to be found.”
He put a friendly hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You are keeping your eyes open for any signs of her, aren’t you?”
Paul nodded. “I’m not sure what signs of her we’d find. She isn’t the sort of person who’d drop chocolate wrappers.”
After a long, hard climb, during which they had to stop to rest several times, Evan pointed at a stone pillar beside the path. “This is where the Miner’s Track comes up from Glaslyn to join this one,” he said. “You didn’t actually go down to the little lake for your picnic, did you?”
“No, we stopped and ate beside the track, looking down at the lake,” Paul said.
“So you stuck to this route. You didn’t do the circle like a lot of folk, up on the Pyg Track and back on the Miner’s?”
“I didn’t,” Paul said slowly. “But we may have separated above this point. Might it be possible that she took the other route, by mistake?”
Evan stared down into swirling grayness. “I suppose if she saw other people taking that route, she might have followed them. So maybe we should go back that way, just to make sure.”
“Is it longer?” Paul’s voice sounded exhausted.
“About the same. A little steeper, especially the first part. In this kind of mist you have to make sure you follow the path exactly because there are abandoned mine shafts dotted all over the place.”
“Mine shafts?” The words echoed back at them.
“There used to be copper mines all over the mountain. That’s why it’s called the Miner’s Path.”
“Mine shafts she could have fallen down, you mean?” Paul Upwood’s voice quavered.
Evan was annoyed with himself for not considering this possibility.
“I think they are well signed and blocked off, but—”
“But she could have slipped and fallen—if she was in a hurry. If she was trying to catch up with me and—it’s all my fault. I should never have been so bloody stupid. I suppose I was tired and when I’m tired, I get cranky.”
Evan looked at the serious, owlish face with more sympathy.
“We’ll call out a team to check the mines. Watch your step.” He grabbed at the young man’s jacket as he slithered on the loose shale. “We don’t want you disappearing over the edge.” It came to him that Paul Upwood was completely ill at ease in such conditions. Not a hiker, then. Shannon must indeed have been a delicate flower if she had seemed slow to Paul.
“I’ll go first,” he said, “then you can grab onto me if you feel yourself slipping. Watch where I put my feet.”
He started off again, stepping down from rock to rock. The round outline of Glaslyn became visible through the cloud, then disappeared again. Suddenly Paul shouted, “Wait. What’s that?”
Evan stopped. Paul was staring down a steep face of loose scree. “There. Down by the water’s edge.”
Evan had to wait until the clouds parted again before he saw what Paul was pointing at. A tiny patch of red, close to the waterline.
“She had red gloves with her,” Paul said.
“Stay there,” Evan commanded, and started to pick his way down the slope. Of all the things he disliked most, maneuvering across scree was one of them. With every footfall it was possible to set off a miniature avalanche that would gather momentum and send him plummeting downward, unable to stop. He slid, clambered, slid some more, until at last he was standing at the lakeshore. Then he picked his way across the scree slope to retrieve the red object. It was indeed a glove. He piled a cairn of stones to mark its position and started the long, treacherous ascent back up to Paul. Thoughts buzzed inside his head. Had she stumbled, stepped off the path, and slid down out of control toward the lake? In which case, had she gone in? Wouldn’t someone have noticed or at least heard her cries? Would someone have heard the splash? And, unless she was first unconscious, why hadn’t she been able to scream for help? If she had been wearing a heavy backpack, would it have dragged her under?
Evan regained the path and handed Paul the glove. The latter let out a sob when he saw it. “It’s hers. It’s Shannon’s glove. Then she did come back this way. But what was it doing down by the lake?” He peered downward. Strands of mist hid the surface again. “You don’t think she fell in, do you?”
“I don’t know,” Evan said. “Was she wearing a backpack?”
“Yes, she was. It was quite heavy, too. You don’t know Shannon. She always has to have her makeup and hairbrush and then she had her jacket and a camera. I carried it for her for a while, but I gave it back to her after lunch, because I thought it would be lighter after we’d eaten the food.”
Evan took out his mobile phone. “I’ll call my boss and let him know what we’ve found. He’ll take it from there. I just hope the phone works up here.”
“Watkins here,” came the voice on the other end.
“Sir, it’s Evans. We’ve found the girl’s glove. At the bottom of a steep slope beside Glaslyn. It looks as if she could have fallen down the scree and gone in.”
“Bloody hell,” Watkins said. “Right. I’ll get men onto it. And how fast can you get down here, Evans?”
“Down where, sir?”
“My office. Forensics was able to match one set of fingerprints on a can of baked beans we found in the bunker. Young bloke who was arrested last year for beating up his girlfriend. He’s being brought in as we speak. I’d like you present when I question him.”
Chapter 6
It took a frustratingly long time to get Paul Upwood back to the youth hostel. He was so tired that he stumbled frequently and seemed close to tears.
“Sorry to rush you like this,” Evan said, “but my boss wants me down at the station right away.”
Paul looked up sharply. “Have they found something you’re not telling me?”
“It’s someone they’ve brought in for questioning,” Evan said. “Nothing to do with this.”
“You mean finding Shannon isn’t even your number one priority? You’ve got other cases?”
“We’re doing all we can to find Shannon, trust me,” Evan said. “We’ve got men out on the other side of the mountain right now …”
“Why would they be looking on the other side?” Paul asked. “She wouldn’t have gone back to the summit and then down that way, would she?”
“You can’t think of any reason why she would?” Evan asked, looking directly at the young man.
“Such as what?”
“If she was really upset after your row and decided to go home without you?”
“Shannon wouldn’t do that,” Paul said, but Evan could see the doubt written on his face.
“Maybe she was just too tired to walk down and decided to take the railway,” Evan suggested.
“In which case, why would they be looking for her on the mountain. She’d catch the train and it would take her all the way to Llanberis, wouldn’t it?”
Evan sighed. “I don’t know the answer any more than you do, Paul. I just know that they gave this side a pretty good going over yesterday.”
“But they missed her glove, didn’t they?”
“That’s true. We’ll know more when they bring in a team o
f divers.”
Paul stood shivering. “I just wish I knew, one way or the other. Not knowing is the worst.”
“You’re right. Not knowing is the worst.”
The indistinct black humps of cars in the car park loomed ahead of them. “Do you want to ride down to Caernarfon with me?” Evan asked. “At least you can get a cup of coffee and wander around a bit—better than sitting and biting your nails at the hostel.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Paul said.
“And you’ll be on hand in case Inspector Watkins wants to talk to you.”
“Inspector Watkins?” The boy looked startled.
“He may want to talk to you himself. After all, he’s only had all the information secondhand so far. Hop in.” He opened the car door and the young man climbed in. They set off down the pass. Just as they reached Llanfair, they saw the Sherpa bus groaning its way up the pass. Evan stopped, got out, flagged it down, and climbed on board.
“Hello, Constable Evans,” the driver said. “Got car trouble, have you?”
“No, I just wanted to show you a photo,” Evan said. “We’ve got a young girl missing on Yr Wyddfa. I just wondered if you remembered giving her a ride yesterday.”
The driver took the snapshot and looked at it carefully. “I think I recognize her,” he said. “Yes, I’m pretty sure she’s ridden on my bus before, with the young man. I recognize him too.”
“But not yesterday? Not on her own?”
The driver chewed on his lip. “Not that I can remember,” he said. “But it was a sunny day yesterday. We were chock ablock full all day. Standing room only, so I probably wouldn’t have noticed her.”
“Right. Thanks again. And if you do see her, or you can think of anything that might be useful to us, give me a call, will you?”
“I’ll do that, Constable Evans. And I hear you have a wedding coming up?”
“I do, but I can’t stop to talk now. I’m wanted down at the station.”
“Looks like you’re also wanted up here,” the driver said, glancing in his rearview mirror. “There’s an elderly lady running up the street waving her arms.”