Evan Blessed

by Rhys Bowen

  “Well done.”

  “Oh, and there’s a way out behind the curtain. He could have taken Bronwen out that way without being noticed.”

  “So, the next thing to do is to establish whether the young lady at the bank—Hillary Jones, is it?—saw Bronwen come in yesterday afternoon, and whether she saw her leave. I’ll get someone onto that right away.” He glanced at Evan again as they drove into the car park. “Only hopefully none of this will be necessary and he’ll lead us to her himself soon. My bet is that we have rattled him and he’ll want to make sure she’s well hidden and safe or—” He stopped abruptly. As Evan read the rest of the sentence, “or he’ll want to finish her off quickly,” the words played through his brain.

  They got out of the car. Watkins strode out toward the police station entrance. Evan lingered outside, taking deep breaths and trying to calm his racing mind. Something hadn’t been right. Something was lurking, just out of reach, in his head. Somewhere in those dealings with Shorecross he had spotted a clue. He went through the whole encounter again, sighed, and followed Watkins into the building.

  Roberts, the forensic tech, was sitting in D.C.I. Hughes’s office.

  “No luck so far, then?” Hughes asked as Watkins came in, followed by Evan.

  “Nothing concrete yet,” Watkins replied, “although Evans managed to scrape up traces of liquid spilled on the floor at the bank. We can get that analyzed. What about you, Roberts? Did you manage to get into the house?”

  “Oh yes. No problem.” Roberts grinned.

  “I always thought you had criminal tendencies,” Watkins said. “Did you find anything?”

  “A blond hair on the hall carpet. Of course, we won’t be able to identify it for a while and he could have picked it up from a customer at the bank. But apart from that, nothing.”

  “No attic or cellar?”

  “The trap door to the attic has been painted over and not disturbed for years. Those houses don’t have cellars. Just an old coal hole in most of them, but this one has been bricked over. Oh, and there was a separate garage behind the house, off a back alley. Nothing in that either apart from his car. The rest of the house was all neat and tidy. Bloody great piano he had, didn’t he?”

  Watkins nodded. “He claimed he was studying to be a concert pianist at one stage.”

  “So what now?” Hughes asked.

  “We have two men on surveillance,” Watkins said. “They’ll follow the minute he leaves the house. And we need to get that liquid tested and to establish that Miss Price was seen at the bank yesterday. Evan, why don’t you go to interview Hillary Jones?”

  Evan nodded. “All right. I’d rather be doing something than sitting around and waiting.”

  “Oh, and Evans—” Watkins called after him. “Don’t give anything away. She might be loyal to her boss and tip him off. I can trust you, can’t I?”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything that might put Bronwen in more danger.” Evan called over his shoulder as he left the room.

  “You shouldn’t really keep him on this case,” he heard Hughes saying as he reached the front doors. “No good can come from an officer being personally involved.”

  Evan lingered.

  “Have a heart, sir,” Watkins said. “He’d go crazy if you made him sit at home and wait. He needs to think he’s doing something.”

  Evan nodded to himself and pushed open the door. His shoulder, forgotten during the tension of the last events, reminded him painfully that he shouldn’t be driving. Immediately, he thought of Bronwen. Was she in pain at this moment? He’d kill the bastard if he’d hurt her. His mind pictured knocking Shorecross to the floor with one mighty blow, then kneeling on his chest while he throttled the life out of him. Instantly he was ashamed that he had such violence in him. Wasn’t that why he’d joined the police force in the first place—to make society a civilized place where thugs and violence didn’t rule? But monsters shouldn’t be allowed to exist, he argued with himself. Men who seemed civilized on the outside, who played the piano and wore tweed jackets … .

  He broke off in mid-thought. He had been trying to picture Shorecross playing the piano and he now knew what was wrong. The piano had been oddly placed in the room. If it was the only piece of furniture, why not in the middle, instead of over to one corner with the keyboard facing out into the room? Surely it would be awkward to play from that position? If he tried to play the highest or lowest notes, he’d hit his elbow on the walls.

  Evan’s heart started beating faster. The piano had to be in that position for a reason. And there had been a vacuum cleaner in the room. Was that to get rid of the marks when a piano was moved?

  He swung off the A55 at the last moment.

  Neville Shorecross stood with his forehead resting against the smooth cool surface of the front door until he heard the police car drive away. Then he went through into the dining room and poured himself a sherry. His hand was trembling so much that the crystal stopper clinked musically against the carafe. Music. He needed music to calm him. He switched on the radio and the strains of Tchaikovsky’s Seventh Symphony filled the room. Not what he would have chosen. The finality and overwhelming melancholy hit him like a stab in the chest. He would have to do it now. No turning back. On the long roller coaster ride to destruction.

  But they didn’t suspect, he told himself. They had no clue what they were looking for. Idiots, all of them. He had thought that he might just leave her there, forget about her until it was too late. Now he realized he couldn’t risk the house being searched. He would do the deed before they came back and then he could bury the body at his leisure under the cellar floor. Then he’d seal off the room forever and nobody would ever know. His hand shook violently as he contemplated this. It was one thing stringing a wire across a path where a young woman would be riding. It was one thing tampering with the brakes on a car so that his father lost control on a dangerous hill. But it was another to be physically involved in taking a life. Could he do it? Could he actually put his hands around her neck and squeeze until there was no more life left in her? Or smother her? He had no choice. He couldn’t let her go, so he had no choice.

  Another drugged drink, then. That would make it easier on both of them. He’d offer her a cup of cocoa and when she was asleep, he’d smother her. Thus satisfied, he went through into the kitchen to put some milk on the stove.

  Bronwen lay on her mattress, staring into darkness. She had no idea if it was day or night or how long she had been there. Hallucinations floated in front of her eyes. Tiredness overcame her and she drifted in and out of sleep. It was hard to tell the sleep from the waking, except that in the sleep Evan was there. “Don’t worry, cariad. It’s all a bad dream,” he was saying, but then she woke and knew that it wasn’t a bad dream. It was reality.

  She reached out and touched the bucket beside her. She was ready for him when he came. But he might not come for hours, or days. He might never come. Just leave her there to die slowly. That was the biggest fear of all.

  She must have dozed off again when she was woken by a sound. Slowly, a square of light appeared above her head. Bronwen sprang to her feet, grabbed the bucket, and stood in the shadows in one corner as the square of light became bigger and the ladder was lowered. She watched him come down, step by step.

  “Here, my dear,” he said. “My conscience got the better of me. I’ve brought you a drink. You see, I am a humane man, after all.”

  She waited. He lowered himself down the last step, the cup in one hand. “Miss Price?” he asked, looking around and surprised not to see her on the mattress.

  She stepped from the shadows and swung the bucket at him with all her force. She aimed directly at the cup in his hands. Shorecross let out a shriek as the hot cocoa splashed over him. The cup clattered to the floor.

  Bronwen raced for the ladder and started to scramble up. She had reached the top rung and was attempting to haul herself out of the hole when his hand grabbed at her foot. She kicked out but h
e held on ferociously. Then he grabbed the other ankle and pulled with all his weight.

  Gradually she felt her hands losing their grip until she let go and fell to the floor. The fall knocked the breath out of her. Shorecross loomed over her. “You stupid female,” he said. “You’ve ruined a good jacket. I thought I was going to regret killing you, but I have to tell you that now it will be a pleasure.”

  Bronwen tried to scramble to her feet, but his shoe came to meet her in a violent kick, sending her reeling backward. She put her hands over her face to defend herself as he loomed over her.

  At that moment the front door bell rang. Then someone knocked loudly.

  “Mr. Shorecross. Police. Open up,” a voice shouted.

  Shorecross looked around wildly, then started to scramble up the ladder. Bronwen returned the favor and grabbed onto his ankle. He tried to kick her off.

  “Don’t come in. I’ve got the girl,” Shorecross screamed. “I’ll kill her!”

  “Evan. It’s me. I’m here. Come and get me!” Bronwen shouted.

  “I’m warning you, I’ll kill her!” Shorecross yelled.

  The next moment, the front door shuddered as an attempt was made to break it down. Evan grunted as his body was jolted against the front door and pain shot through his injured shoulder. He pulled out his mobile. “Backup right now. Shorecross’s house. He’s got her here. I can hear her. He’s going to kill her!” he shouted.

  Then he pushed past bushes to the front window. The light was on behind the curtains in the front room. Evan wrestled a large stone free from the rockery in the front garden and hurled it at the window, smashing the pane. Then he kicked out an opening big enough to crawl through and climbed into the room. The piano had been pushed forward and the carpet folded back to reveal a trap door cut into the floorboards. He ran to it and yanked it open.

  “Don’t come any closer. I have a knife at the girl’s throat,” a voice said from the darkness.

  Evan froze.

  Suddenly there was a yelp and Bronwen’s voice shouted, “He hasn’t got a knife, Evan. Come and get him.”

  “I want my solicitor present,” a calm voice said. “I’m not going anywhere until my solicitor is here. I’ve heard about police brutality. I haven’t been well. I need a doctor.”

  “Let Miss Price come up to me,” Evan said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. Let her up now.”

  He waited and soon Bronwen’s head emerged from the hole. Evan hauled her up.

  “I knew you’d find me. I knew you’d come,” she said, and fell into his arms, laughing and sobbing at the same time.

  Chapter 27

  It was almost midnight before Evan returned from the hospital to which Bronwen had been taken. Apart from dehydration and some bruises and scrapes, she had weathered her ordeal well, but the doctor insisted they keep her overnight for observation.

  He felt utter elation as he drove back from the hospital to the police station. She was safe. Nothing else mattered in the world. Shorecross had given up without any kind of struggle. In fact, he had been like a deflated balloon when he emerged from the underground room. When Evan came into the station, he found Shorecross in the interview room with a solicitor on one side of him and Watkins and Hughes on the other.

  “May I be present, if you don’t mind?” Evan asked, and was given a nod, indicating he should take the chair in the corner.

  “D.C. Evans has just entered the room,” Watkins said into the tape recorder. “Now, Mr. Shorecross, to recap—you had your Scouts build the bunker on the mountain. Is that correct?”

  “We were doing a survival training weekend,” Shorecross said. “They only dug a primitive shelter. I went back later and finished it.”

  “For what purpose, sir? Was it built with Miss Price in mind?”

  “No, not at all,” Shorecross said. “It was only during the last couple of weeks that I learned that Miss Price now lived locally.”

  “Then what was your intention, sir?”

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business.” Shorecross looked at his attorney. “I don’t have to answer, do I?”

  “Not if you feel it incriminates you further.”

  “Then I choose not to answer.”

  “I have an idea,” Evan said, making the others look around at him. “Hillary Jones. It was you, wasn’t it? You were her stalker. You fantasized about holding her prisoner.”

  “But I wasn’t really going to do it, you stupid boy,” Shorecross snapped. “It was all play-acting. Fantasy. You can see for yourself that the bunker was never used.”

  “So where did you take Shannon Parkinson?” Watkins asked.

  “Who?”

  “Shannon Parkinson. The girl who disappeared on the mountain last week. If you didn’t take her to the bunker, what did you do with her?”

  “The girl who disappeared on the mountain last week? I know nothing about her,” Shorecross said angrily. “I offered to help you search for her, remember.”

  “You offered to help us search for Miss Price,” Evan said.

  “But the first offer was genuine. Why would I want to kidnap some girl from a mountain? Besides, I was in my office at the bank when it happened. Everyone will vouch for me.”

  “I suppose we have to be satisfied with that outcome,” Watkins said wearily as they left the interview room later that night. “I’m not thrilled about his pleading insanity, but at least it will ensure that he spends the rest of his life locked away.”

  “In a nice parklike setting, not a cell like the place he kept Bronwen,” Evan said bitterly. “But I’ve got Bronwen back safely and that’s really all that matters, isn’t it?”

  “Do you think he was telling the truth about Shannon Parkinson?”

  “I’m inclined to believe him,” Evan said.

  “In which case, we’re back to square one where she’s concerned.”

  They walked together to the canteen and Watkins shoved a pound coin into the beverage machine. “In the good old days we’d have had real cups of tea all night,” he said. “Not this bloody dishwater.”

  “Better than nothing,” Evan said, putting his own coin in.

  “You’d better get home to bed,” Watkins said. “You look a wreck.”

  “I’m all right now,” Evan said. “It’s like coming out of hell.”

  “I’m glad for you, son,” Watkins put a hand onto Evan’s arm. “We’re all glad for you.”

  Evan looked away and cleared his throat. They sat in the semi-darkness at a Formica table, waiting for the tea to be cool enough to drink.

  “I don’t quite know what else we can do about Shannon Parkinson,” Watkins said. “We’ve had divers search the lake. We’ve had people check mine shafts. Someone must have taken her.”

  “Unless she went of her own free will,” Evan said, stirring his tea with a plastic straw.

  “Meaning what?”

  “She could have staged her own disappearance. What if she was fed up with her current boyfriend and she’d met somebody new? Or what if she was fed up with the tight restrictions her family placed on her? She could have come down the other side of the mountain, even caught the train down, and gone off on her own for a while.”

  “In which case no crime has been committed and we’re off the hook.” Watkins took a sip of his tea, made a face, and put it down again. “Tastes like piss water,” he said. “But I don’t like to walk away like this, especially with her family waiting for news of her. You know how you felt when we didn’t know where Bronwen had gone.”

  “I do,” Evan said. “Why don’t we go and talk to her family and friends. Maybe one of her friends knows something, a secret she hasn’t shared until now.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Watkins said. “Go home and get a good night’s sleep and we’ll head for Liverpool in the morning.”

  Evan stopped at Bronwen’s bedside at the hospital first thing in the morning, to find her bed surrounded by flowers and her parents already in residence. He stood a
t the entrance to the ward feeling strangely superfluous until Bronwen looked over at him and her face lit up in a radiant smile.

  “Evan,” she said, holding out her hand to him.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked and bent to kiss her.

  “Absolutely fine.”

  “That’s wonderful. I was so worried.”

  “I know.”

  “You were so brave.”

  “Survival instincts kicked in.”

  “I hope you have that bastard securely behind bars and you aren’t going to let him out on any amount of bail,” Bronwen’s father said.

  “Don’t worry. He’s not going anywhere. He’s pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.”

  “Insanity—I should say insanity!” Bronwen’s mother said, smoothing back her daughter’s hair. “It’s too bad we don’t have the death penalty any longer.”

  Evan shook his head. “We’re talking about a man who handed out his own death penalty to anyone who crossed him. He killed his own father because his father despised his musical talent.”

  “And my friend Penny,” Bronwen said. “He killed her, too. He put a trip wire across a path so she tumbled from her horse and broke her neck. And he was going to kill me.” Her voice wavered. “I still can’t believe it really happened. It’s like a film I was watching. All the time he was so civilized, offering me a cup of cocoa …”

  “That cup of cocoa had enough drugs to make sure you went to sleep and didn’t wake up,” Evan said.

  “What turns a person into a twisted monster like that?” Bronwen’s mother asked.

  Evan shrugged. “Maybe some people are just born that way.”

  He paused and looked up as a doctor entered the ward. “I thought you were supposed to have peace and quiet,” he said to Bronwen, and then he glared at Evan, “and you were supposed to come back to have that shoulder X-rayed properly.”

  “What happened to your shoulder, Evan?” Bronwen asked.