Evan Blessed

by Rhys Bowen

  He wrapped her in his arms and she nestled her head on his shoulder.

  “You’ve had a bad day, have you?” he asked.

  “Horrible. I worked like crazy up here all morning and came down to your place to make myself some lunch, only to find your mother in residence. How she had got in, I didn’t ask. Anyway, she told me my services weren’t needed and she was there to see her son got some proper food before his wedding. Then she went on to lecture me about how a man needed meat and two veg at every meal and if I wanted to make you happy, I’d better learn to cook. She even offered to give me some cooking lessons.”

  “Well, at least she was trying.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Evan laughed at the double meaning. “I meant she only had my welfare at heart, however annoying she was being.”

  Bronwen wriggled out of his embrace. “Anyway, since you are finally here. You can come and see the fruit of my labors.” She took his hand and led him up the garden path and in through the front door.

  “There,” she said. “It’s still lacking a lot but when that Welsh dresser is against the far wall and we find two nice armchairs, it will be quite cozy, won’t it?”

  Evan looked at the room, which had been piled high with boxes the day before. Now there was a rug on the floor, a little table and two chairs in the front window, a sofa facing the fireplace, and a low bookcase filled with books running along the side wall.

  Bronwen slipped her arm through his. “I know it’s your house too, so I don’t want you to think I’m taking over, or anything. This is just temporary, because I wanted to establish some kind of order here. But of course we can rearrange things the way you’d like them.”

  “It looks lovely,” Evan said. “You’ve been working miracles again.”

  Bronwen beamed. “It is beginning to look like a home, isn’t it? And you know the very best thing about this place?”

  “The view?”

  Bronwen shook her head. “The hill is too steep for your mother to walk up it!”

  They fell into each other’s arms, laughing.

  “We may have to do something about that steep hill, though,” Evan said, becoming serious again.

  “What can we do about it? It’s steep. We can’t change that.”

  “I meant we may have to bite the bullet and invest in another car. I really don’t think my old bone-shaker can make it up here, and we can’t always expect to go up and down on foot.”

  “We could never afford a Land Rover. They cost the earth,” Bronwen said. “And the walk will be good for us. It will stop us from getting old and fat.”

  “But what about when it’s raining or snowing? What about if we start having children?”

  Bronwen thought about this and nodded. “I admit I don’t fancy carrying the week’s shopping up the hill.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a Land Rover. Any four-wheel drive would do. Those English people who bought this as their summer cottage used to drive up in a Jag, didn’t they? So we know it’s doable.”

  “I’d imagine four-wheel drives don’t come cheap.”

  “We are both working, and we’re saving by living together, and we’ve just established that line of credit at the bank.”

  “Which you just said you didn’t want to touch.” Bronwen smiled at him.

  “For a good cause.”

  “Oh I see. A car is always a good cause for a man.”

  “Bronwen!” Evan looked hurt. “You have to admit that my old thing is on its last legs. We need a vehicle that will make it up the hill. And a second car would be handy too, now that you’ll be working at that new school. You won’t really want to rely on the bus to take you up and down the hill every day, will you?”

  “A car would be nice,” Bronwen agreed.

  “So I’ll pick up the local papers and we’ll take a look at secondhand cars, and if I have time, I’ll pop in and see our friendly bank manager to find out how much he might want to loan us.”

  “All right.” Bronwen looked around. “You weren’t expecting me to have cooked you supper, were you? I’m almost out of supplies and of course I haven’t had a chance to shop.”

  “Of course I didn’t expect you to cook tonight. I came to get you. My mother’s got liver and bacon waiting.”

  “I bet she only cooked enough for you.” Bronwen gave a wry smile.

  “We’ll share.” Evan took her hand. “Sooner or later she’s going to have to get used to the idea that you are part of my life, whether she likes it or not.”

  He led her out of the cottage. The clouds that had blotted out the mountains all day had dispersed in a strong west wind. The peaks glowed in the clear air while occasional clouds sent shadows racing over the hillsides. A flock of seagulls rode the wind, their cries competing with the bleating of sheep. Evan and Bronwen paused to smile at each other in satisfaction.

  “I think we’ve got the best view in the world,” Bronwen said. “I can’t wait for the wedding.”

  Evan slipped his arm around her waist. “I wish you had already bought that brass bed,” he said.

  “Bridegrooms aren’t supposed to jump the gun,” Bronwen said with mock severity. “You’ve only two more weeks to wait.”

  “No, that wasn’t what I had in mind,” Evan said. “I’m so tired that I could fall asleep this minute. I don’t think I’ve got the strength to walk back down the hill.”

  Chapter 8

  The next morning the morning paper displayed a picture of Shannon Parkinson on the front page. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? the caption read. Evan resigned himself to having breakfast with his mother at Mrs. Williams’s house. It was either that or have his mother come to his place and complain about his lack of cooking equipment, his inadequate stove, and the grease spatters on his walls. He even resigned himself to eating the full Welsh breakfast without which his mother and former landlady both felt that a man shouldn’t start his day.

  Evan was just using the fried bread to soak up the last of his egg yolk when he stopped with food poised on his fork, listening in amazement. The radio had been going in the background, along with the chatter of the two women, throughout breakfast. It was the morning show that Mrs. Williams always liked: Bore Da North Wales—a light mixture of music, local news, interviews with local celebrities, and bad jokes from the compere, comedian Dewi Lewis.

  “I hear there’s a wedding coming up in the village of Llanfair,” Dewi said in conspiratorial tones. “Or at least so I’m told by the postcard that has been sent in, requesting some special music for the happy couple. So this is for Constable Evan Evans, of the North Wales Police, and his lovely Bronwen. In honor of his upcoming nuptuals our listener has requested that we play a piece by Rimsky-Korsakov—and I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly, being one of those lowbrow types, you know. The piece requested for them is the Shipwreck sequence from Sheherazade. I don’t know the piece myself, being more of a Beatles fan, but I’m sure it has special significance for the happy couple. So here’s to you, Evan and Bronwen. Iechyd da. I’m raising my glass in a toast to your future life.”

  “Well now, wasn’t that nice?” Mrs. Williams was beaming.

  “Funny piece to choose, though,” Evan’s mother said. “Does it have a special meaning for you two? Did you meet on a boat?”

  “I’ve never heard of the piece before in my life,” Evan said. “I’ve no idea what they’re talking about.”

  The music started, slow, ponderous chords of which Russian composers seem so fond.

  “Dear me,” Evan’s mother said, shaking her head. “What a dreadful gloomy choice of music for a happy occasion. Who on earth would have chosen that for you?”

  “They didn’t say the name, did they?” Evan asked. “Maybe it’s a joke. One of the blokes in the force having a laugh—you know, like I’m sailing into dangerous waters, getting married.”

  “That’s not very nice,” Mrs. Williams said.

  Evan got up. “I expect I’ll be in for more teasi
ng by the time the event takes place,” he said. “It’s all in good fun, isn’t it?”

  “You haven’t had your toast and marmalade yet,” Mrs. Evans complained.

  “Sorry, Ma, can’t stop any longer. I’m due at the station at eight.” Evan took his jacket from the back of his chair. “Thanks very much for the breakfast, Mrs. W. You do a lovely fried bread.”

  “I expect she could teach it to your future wife, if you asked her nicely,” Mrs. Evans said, giving the other woman a knowing look.

  As he went out he heard Mrs. Williams’s soft high voice saying, in a stage whisper, “It’s too bad he never really hit it off with our granddaughter I told you about. Lovely little homemaker she is.”

  Evan shuddered as he closed the door, remembering the overbearing personality and annoying laugh of her lovely little granddaughter.

  “I heard you mentioned on the radio this morning,” the receptionist greeted Evan as he pushed open the swing doors into the police station. “I didn’t know you were a fan of classical music.”

  “I’m not,” Evan said. “I suspect it was a joke. Probably one of the lads here.”

  The receptionist grinned. “I’ll keep my ear to the ground and let you know which one if you like.”

  “Don’t bother,” Evan said. “It could have been worse. It could have been the Funeral March.”

  Inspector Watkins, Glynis, and the uniformed branch officers were already assembling in Watkins’s office.

  “Here he is, the household name,” Pritchard commented as Evan walked in.

  “So you were really on the radio this morning?” Glynis asked.

  “I wasn’t. Dewi Lewis played a piece of music for me on Bore Da North Wales, that’s all.”

  “In honor of his upcoming nuptuals,” Dawson commented and giggled.

  “How sweet,” Glynis said. “What was it?”

  “Some classical piece,” Evan said. “Something about a shipwreck by some Russian composer.”

  “A shipwreck. That’s funny.” The uniform branch constables dug each other in the side and chuckled. “Sailing into disaster.”

  “Are you sure that one of you didn’t request it?” Evan asked.

  “Look at them.” Glynis gave them a scornful glance. “As if they’d know the name of a Russian composer. They don’t even know the name of a Russian football player.”

  “Only because Russia doesn’t produce any football players worth mentioning,” Prichard said. “Ask me the name of a Brazilian and I can tell you.”

  “Right, everyone. Down to business.” Watkins stopped conversation with one loud rap on his desk with his mug. “Let’s get ourselves up to date. Still no sighting of the missing girl. I see they’ve run her picture in the paper as we requested. Sergeant Jones has put up flyers along the route she might have taken.”

  “And the divers, sir? Have they come up with anything?” Evan asked.

  “They’re going to have another shot at it today. The weather was so bad yesterday that they said there was almost zero visibility. And the spot where she might have gone in shelves steeply down a hundred feet or more.”

  “So we’re no farther along?” Sergeant Jones asked.

  “I have a list of psychiatric patients who have been treated at Ysbety Gwynneth over the past year or so,” Glynis said. “I suggest we follow up on some of them.”

  “Any specific cases?” Watkins asked.

  “I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet. I’ve also talked to a local psychiatrist but he wasn’t very cooperative. He kept mumbling about patient confidentiality, which I suppose is fair enough. I did ask him how he’d feel if a young girl was tortured and killed because he wouldn’t share information with us. He then said he had no patients on his books at the moment who would pose that kind of threat.”

  She looked around the room, waiting for a response.

  “He’d be able to guarantee that, would he?” Evan asked.

  “He seemed to think so. He also said that the type of person we want had probably never visited a shrink and may have led an exemplary life so far.”

  “Which makes our job pretty damned impossible.” Evan sighed. “We can hardly go door to door.”

  “If Glynis comes up with any possibles from her list, we can get them fingerprinted,” Watkins said.

  “I thought you said the place was almost clean of prints?” Glynis said.

  “The tech boys managed to lift a couple here and there, apart from the very distinct ones that didn’t pan out.”

  “So the bloke you brought in yesterday wasn’t a possible suspect?” P.C. Pritchard asked.

  “Negative. We’ve concluded he probably touched the tin when he was stocking shelves at Tesco.”

  “Too bad. He’d have been conveniently easy—with a prior woman-beating charge against him,” Sergeant Jones muttered. “Right, so where do we go from here?”

  “We need a profile,” Glynis said. “We should have headquarters find a profiler for us and bring him to the scene. We need to know who we are looking for. Do you want me to send in the request, sir?”

  “Hold on a minute,” Watkins said. “I’d have to justify something fancy like a profiler with headquarters. They’ll say we have no evidence so far that a crime has been committed.”

  “A young girl disappearing in broad daylight?” Glynis countered. “And a bunker with handcuffs in it? I’d say that sounded suspiciously like a crime to me.”

  “But we found her glove, didn’t we?” Watkins countered. “At the bottom of a slope that indicated she must have fallen. And the divers haven’t managed to search the lake properly yet. We have to give them a chance to find her body.”

  “Even if they do find her body, we have a duty to find the man who dug the bunker. If he hasn’t kidnapped anyone yet, he will.” Glynis was insistent.

  “We don’t know it will be a girl,” Pritchard said suddenly. “He might go for boys.”

  “He might have a grudge against someone. He might want to string up his mother-in-law,” Sergeant Jones said, producing a chuckle.

  “True enough,” Watkins said. “We don’t know. We don’t seem to know anything much, except that this man is pretty damn slick if he has managed to kidnap her and spirit her off a mountainside full of people.”

  “That’s why a profiler is so important at this stage,” Glynis said. “We need to know who we’re dealing with.”

  Watkins nodded. “I’m not disagreeing with you. Just expecting a fight when I ask HQ for something that’s not usually done and is over budget. Knowing them, they’ll probably say we overspent on our tea money this month.”

  “And what about some kind of surveillance, sir?” Evan asked. “There is a possibility that the bloke who dug the bunker doesn’t know we’ve found it. Or perhaps he feels he might have left something incriminating there. If we could leave it intact and set up some kind of camera or alarm system, we’d catch him going back there.”

  “That’s not a bad idea, either,” Watkins said, and Evan noted the general nods. “I’ll ask the tech boys.”

  “A camera would be useful.” Glynis agreed. “One of those security cameras like they have in car parks.”

  “Of course, ten to one he does know we’ve found his hidey-hole,” Watkins said. “There was very little dust or mold down there, indicating that this had all been stocked recently. That’s why the timing on this is so worrying. A girl vanishes the moment a bunker is ready? Has to be a connection, doesn’t there?”

  “He may have tossed the glove down that slope to throw us off the scent,” Glynis suggested.

  “Good point.” Watkins nodded.

  “And done it after the fact,” Evan added, “or else why didn’t Paul Upwood notice it when he went back to look for her the day before? A red glove is a pretty obvious clue.”

  “Which would mean he’s got her somewhere close by.” Watkins sucked air through his teeth. “Let’s hope she’s still alive. And with any luck this profiler can suggest where we
should be looking for him.” He looked around him. “Right. Assignments. Davies, you’ve got enough to do pursuing the leads you’ve already turned up. Sergeant Jones, can you still spare me some of your men?”

  “What do you want done?” Jones asked. “I don’t see any point in further searches at this stage on the mountain. We must have covered every inch of it.”

  “I agree.”

  “It might be useful to show that newspaper photograph around,” Evan said. “In the cafés and at the Snowdon Railway station—and even the mainline station in Bangor, on the unlikely chance that Shannon left the area and didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Right, Evans, I’ll turn that over to you,” Watkins said.

  “I thought that perhaps some of Sergeant Jones’s boys could do that for us, sir,” Evan said, glancing across at the rotund sergeant. “It’s routine stuff.”

  “I can’t keep my lads off regular patrol indefinitely,” Sergeant Jones said. “What did you have planned for yourself then, Evans? Using your little gray cells to come up with the villain single-handed while the rest of us poor suckers do the slog work?”

  Evan chuckled with the rest of them. He knew only too well that there had been some resentment when he was selected for detective training, after he had been helpful in solving several big cases. “I didn’t know if D.I. Watkins might need help with whatever he had planned for this morning,” he said.

  “I’m going to see D.C.I. Hughes to ask him about procuring a profiler,” D.I. Watkins said. “Unless if you’d like to volunteer for that job instead of me?”

  Evan maintained the smile. “No, that’s all right, sir. I’ll go and pound the beat.”

  Chapter 9

  All in all it was a frustrating morning. The cafés and souvenir shops in Llanberis were so busy that those working had little chance to remember anybody. And Evan had to admit that Shannon probably looked a lot like a host of other young people. The Snowdon Railway station was equally busy and Evan had to wait until the next train set off up the mountain before the booking office clerk would even speak to him. He was a testy old Welshman and scowled at Evan. “Look you, boyo,” he said, “I’m run ragged handing out tickets to bloody tourists. You don’t think I have time to see who might be strolling past, do you?”