Against the Tide

by Stephen Puleston

  ‘Is Tony Halpin available?’

  ‘One moment,’ the voice said without asking his name.

  ‘Halpin.’

  ‘Ian Drake. I need to speak to you.’

  ‘Is it urgent?’

  The old uncertainties filled his mind. ‘It’s just that…’

  There was a rustling of papers and Drake could hear his breathing.

  ‘I could see you first thing Wednesday morning, if that would be convenient.’

  After agreeing a time Drake rang off. A feeling of relief washed over him and he slumped back in his chair. He settled into thinking about the day ahead. He read the post mortem report on Jane Jones. She’d been strangled, and the pathologist guessed that she’d fought with her assailant who must have been strongly built with large hands from the size of the bruises. Suede-like material, similar to garden gloves, had been found under her fingernails.

  The telephone rang and he cursed silently, despite interruptions like this being commonplace. He grabbed at the handset. ‘Drake.’ It wasn’t hard to sound severe.

  ‘Detective Inspector Drake, good morning.’

  Immediately, he recognised the voice of Kate French. His throat tightened. ‘Good morning Mrs French.’ But he had no idea if she was married.

  ‘Call me Kate,’ she said, solving his problem. ‘Can you bring me up to date? Have there been any developments?’

  ‘We’re pursuing some current leads and we’re building a much better picture of both victims at present.’ There was a limit to how much he could tell her.

  ‘Is there an arrest imminent?’

  She really has no idea.

  ‘Operationally we have a number of lines of inquiry ongoing this week—’

  ‘But you can’t tell me the details.’

  ‘Ah…’

  ‘I do hope that when the time comes we’ll be fully informed. I would like to hope that you’d consider me as part of the team. Thank you for your time.’

  Drake replaced the handset and stared at the telephone. He didn’t need anyone – particularly Kate French – implying that he wasn’t in charge; he was having enough trouble convincing himself that he was. Price had wanted to know how he was going to cope but that had been before his conversation with Sian, before his family began to fall apart. Telling Price about his marriage could wait; he wondered if there was any protocol in the WPS handbook about marital problems. How was he going to cope?

  Caren appeared at his door. ‘Good morning. How was your weekend?’

  Drake looked up at her blankly.

  Then Howick joined her. ‘I thought you should know, sir, that I worked on Jane’s old mobile over the weekend. The only number she called that I could trace belongs to Maldwyn Evans.’

  ‘The old dog,’ Caren managed through gritted teeth.

  ‘Very good.’ Drake sat back. ‘I wonder what he’ll have to say to that?’

  *

  It was a journey of no more than twenty-five minutes from headquarters to the home of Maldwyn Evans, but Caren could tell that there was something on Drake’s mind. It had played on her mind that he’d been breaking protocols by ignoring the Sexual Offences and Child Protection team. She had wanted to say something, perhaps suggest he reconsider, but had decided against it.

  Uneasiness that Drake’s judgement was flawed crept into her mind. She indicated off the A55 towards Llanfairpwll, with Howick and Winder following behind her. They pulled up near the pavement by Evans’s bungalow and got out. The housing estate was quiet, families at work, children on holiday.

  Enid Evans opened the door. She narrowed her eyes, folded her arms and then stood in the doorway.

  ‘I need to speak to your husband,’ Drake said.

  Enid Evans barely moved. ‘He isn’t well.’

  Drake pushed past her and walked into the house, Caren behind him. She noticed the dark glare that Enid Evans gave Drake. It was still hot, although Caren noticed that one window pane was open a fraction. The piles of newspapers had gone and the room felt larger. Evans was already standing when Caren followed Drake into the room; he looked even shorter than Caren remembered.

  ‘Maldwyn Evans, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder and indecent assault,’ Drake said before explaining his right to remain silent.

  Evans had a lost look in his eyes, as though he had no idea what was happening. He followed Drake and Caren out to the car, passing his wife standing in the doorway of the kitchen as Winder and Howick began rummaging through cupboards.

  Evans sat in the back seat behind Drake and they drove in silence. On occasions like this it was the power the police had over individuals that made the work so challenging, Caren thought. It never ceased to excite her when she thought that they were within touching distance of arresting a murderer. But there was something pathetic about Evans and that morning she had to smother a nagging sensation that they hadn’t the clarity she wanted.

  *

  It was early afternoon by the time they were ready to interview. Caren had spent an hour with a bad tempered Drake, working out the questions they wanted to ask Evans and reviewing the evidence. By the end Caren was convinced that she had done something to upset Drake but, scanning her memory, she couldn’t come up with anything.

  The untouched remains of a dried-up lasagne sat in a container in the middle of the table in front of Evans. A plastic fork had been discarded to one side. The windowless room was stifling and Evans sipped slowly on a beaker of water.

  Caren fumbled with the plastic wrapping of the tapes. Drake set out the papers in front of him in neat piles. Drake began once the formalities of introductions were over and the tapes were running.

  ‘You know why you’re here?’

  Evans’s eyes bulged slightly. ‘Ah… it’s about Ed Mostyn.’

  ‘Tell me about your relationship with him.’

  ‘I hardly knew him.’

  ‘That’s not true, is it?’

  Evans blinked hard now. Caren could see the fear in his eyes.

  ‘Mostyn owned a piece of land that was preventing you selling your land. You went to reason with him, force him to sell the land. It was going to help you out of a massive financial problem.’

  Evans drew his tongue over his lips. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘How many times did you call to see him?’

  ‘It was a couple of times.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘I told him about the land. And about the money I owed to the bank and how they were threatening to repossess and that I’d lose the house unless I could sell. And that he was being completely unreasonable. And that everyone knew the power station was going to be built.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said that it wasn’t a decision he could make lightly and that there was so much to consider and that he had an obligation to all future generations.’

  ‘What did he mean?’

  Evans looked up at Drake again. ‘I didn’t know what to think. I tried to reason with him but he wasn’t having any of it.’

  After an hour Drake had established that Evans had seen Mostyn three times and Caren was convinced that on each occasion Mostyn must have known Evans was more and more desperate. Mostyn must have derived some malign pleasure from seeing Evans’s discomfort.

  ‘He just laughed at me,’ Evans replied to a question from Drake.

  ‘How did that make you feel?’

  ‘Sick… and angry.’

  ‘Angry enough to kill him?’

  Evans sat back in his chair and rocked slightly from side to side. ‘Never. Never.’

  ‘Did you know Jane Jones?’

  Evans gave Drake a puzzled look. ‘What do you mean?’

  Caren thought about interrupting, but Drake was focusing on a sheet in front of him and had barely looked over at her during the questioning, which she’d taken as a signal that he didn’t want her to interrupt him.


  ‘Do you know the cottages near the beach?’ Drake slid a photograph over the table.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s a local beauty spot. Have you ever been there?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘We believe that Jane had access to the cottages and that she may have taken men there. Let me ask you again. Have you ever been there with Jane?’

  Evans gave Drake a hard stare.

  ‘Jane had a mobile telephone and your number is in it. How do you explain that?’

  Another dark, intense glare.

  ‘Do you know Tracy Newton?’

  Evans jerked his head upright and opened his eyes wide. Drake waited, but he didn’t reply. Drake stared back. ‘For the purposes of the tape Maldwyn Evans makes no reply. Is it true that you had sex with Tracy when she was under sixteen in the cottage?’

  Maldwyn’s eyes settled into a frown, but still he made no reply.

  ‘And that it happened on a number of occasions over a period of two years.’

  No reply. Maldwyn moved in his chair, placed fisted hands on the table. ‘I didn’t kill Jane, if that’s what you’re driving at.’

  *

  Drake paced in front of the board in the Incident Room. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt and turned the red elasticated links between his thumb and forefinger. Later, Maldwyn Evans would be released on bail; frustration gnawed at his mind. It was getting to the end of the day. Caren was sitting by her desk nursing a mug of tea. The remains of pastries lay on her desk.

  Drake fiddled with his wedding band, but quickly stopped when he realised what he was doing. ‘We’ll bail Evans for him to return in a couple of weeks. At least we can go through all his records in the meantime.’

  Nobody reacted. Caren said nothing. Drake didn’t even invite her to make a contribution. He glanced over at the board and noticed the photograph they’d recovered from Ed Mostyn’s cottage of the four men in dinner jackets smiling at the camera. There was still something familiar about the one face he couldn’t identify, but before he could concentrate on it the telephone rang on his desk and he hurried over to his office.

  ‘Get over here, Ian.’ Price put the telephone down before Drake could reply.

  Drake strode through the corridors and up the two flights of stairs to the senior management suite. Hannah pointed towards the door and even Drake could tell from the worry on her face that something was amiss.

  Price was standing, legs apart, a television remote in his hand, staring at the screen on the table at the opposite end of the room. ‘Press. I hate the lying toe-rags.’ He didn’t look at Drake. ‘Just in time to see this report. We were only told about it ten minutes ago.’

  The image of Calvin Headley appeared on the screen. He looked to be standing outside headquarters. ‘It is understood that the Wales Police Service have today arrested a forty-eight-year-old man in connection with the murders of Ed Mostyn and Jane Jones. Local people have confirmed his identity as Maldwyn Evans. The police have refused to confirm what the present status of this inquiry is, although it is believed that the outcome of detailed forensic analysis is expected.’

  The reporter continued with a recycling of previous reports as the images on the screen showed the original crime scenes where the bodies of Mostyn and Jane had been found.

  Eventually Price pointed the remote and the screen cut to black. ‘If I ever meet that journalist I shall put his head in a fucking blender.’

  Chapter 21

  Drake was the first to arrive at headquarters and he stood before the board in the Incident Room thinking about Maldwyn Evans. He strode over to a window and fiddled with a catch until fresh air flooded in. He returned to the board, looking for inspiration. The date upon which Evans had to return to the police station was written underneath his name. Drake hoped that forensics would find something in Evans’s computer or in his personal papers. He’d always distrusted fellow officers who boasted about their ‘gut instincts’, which he took as an excuse for not building a case from evidence, doing it the hard way. But now something nagged in his mind. Like a toothache that would inevitably get worse unless you saw the dentist.

  He leant on one of the desks and stared over at the various faces. What was the motive for the deaths of Ed Mostyn and Jane Jones? There was always a motive. He stared at the unshaven face of Ed Mostyn. He decided that to make any sense of the connection to Maldwyn Evans they’d need to go back to the beginning. His concentration was interrupted as Caren walked in. She looked startled to see him.

  ‘Good morning, sir. You’re in early.’

  ‘Caren.’

  She moved nearer the board and stared at the image of Evans in the photographs from Mostyn’s cottage, at the four middle-aged men in evening suits. ‘The only thing they had in common was membership of the Cambrian Club.’

  ‘There was a photograph of four men in dinner jackets in Somerset de Northway’s morning room.’

  ‘And one in Fairburn’s study. It must have been some special occasion.’

  Moments later Winder burst in, deep in conversation with Howick about the latest managerial sacking from a Premiership football club. Drake got up and by the time he was standing by the board Winder had slumped into his chair, yet another bag of pastries on his desk – why did he always have to eat breakfast at work?

  Drake scanned the faces of his team. ‘Gareth, what did you find out about de Northway?’

  ‘He’s got lots of important friends. There are lots of photographs of him with circuit judges and men dressed in fancy clothes.’

  ‘Anything else of relevance?’

  Winder shook his head. ‘I did find a letter from the power company to Mostyn. Looks like they were putting pressure on him. And there was a report of Huw Jones assaulting Mostyn but nothing came of it. It was no more than a pub car park brawl that got out of hand.’

  Drake looked over at Howick who was shuffling through some papers on his desk. ‘Dave?’

  ‘I’ve been to see one of Jane’s ex-boyfriends who sent me to see an aunt of his. And she gave me some background on Mildred and Ray Jones. Apparently they separated years ago and this woman, a Mrs Fraser, didn’t think that Ray Jones was Jane’s father. Nothing is secret on Anglesey. Everybody knows each other’s business.’

  ‘And how exactly is that going to help us?’ Caren said.

  Drake was thinking exactly the same. It was another piece of a complex jigsaw. ‘We can never prove that, unless we’ve got some DNA. And find out if there’s any progress with the DNA evidence from Jane’s foetus.’

  The telephone rang in his office but when he picked up the receiver the caller had already rung off. Almost immediately Caren’s telephone began ringing. Drake heard her usual introduction – name and rank. Then she went quiet. He’d sat down for no more than a few seconds before Caren shouted his name.

  ‘You need to hear this, boss,’ she said. ‘It’s about Maldwyn Evans.’

  Drake strode out of his office. Caren pushed the handset towards him. A dark cloud enveloped his mind as he listened to the details. Caren reached for her jacket before he’d finished. He turned towards her. ‘Let’s go.’

  *

  Drake hammered the car down the A55 towards Anglesey, its hazard lights flashing. He shouted abuse at a car that was dawdling in the outside lane and nudged the speedometer to over a hundred miles an hour. Caren wanted to tell him that there was little point in rushing to the scene. Maldwyn Evans had died instantly when he’d thrown himself in front of the early morning express train from Holyhead to London.

  ‘Has anyone been to see his wife?’ Drake said.

  ‘The sergeant didn’t tell me.’

  ‘What on earth drove him to kill himself?’

  ‘The publicity, probably.’

  ‘Or maybe guilt.’

  ‘I was amazed that reporter mentioned him by name. I didn’t think they could do that.’

  Drake slowed at the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait and as soon as he crossed over
onto Anglesey took the first slip road towards Llanfairpwll. In the village he pulled the car onto the pavement near some shops and they marched down towards a level crossing, its red warning lights still flashing, a patrol car parked diagonally in front of it, faces peering down from the train carriages.

  Caren leant over the barrier and looked down the track. A small man with a swarthy beard, wearing a yellow high-visibility jacket with British Transport Police sewn into the left-hand breast pocket, eased himself between both ends of the barrier. ‘Sergeant Wallbank.’

  ‘DI Drake and this is DS Caren Waits.’

  ‘We’ve almost finished. There wasn’t much left of him. There was identification in one of his trouser pockets.’

  ‘Where’s the driver?’ Drake said.

  ‘He’s with one of my officers.’

  ‘We’ll need to talk to him.’

  Caren turned and saw a British Transport Police van slowing to a halt.

  ‘Of course. Let me get organised with the relief driver first. There are passengers all over North Wales waiting for this train.’

  ‘Who’s been to speak to his wife?’ Caren said.

  Wallbank thrust his hands deep into his jacket pockets. ‘One of my PCs went. She was in a hell of a state.’

  Another transport police officer walked up to them, accompanied by a man that Caren guessed was the relief train driver. She watched them walking down the edge of the track.

  Caren turned to Drake. ‘Shall we go and see Mrs Evans, sir?’

  Caren had worked with Drake long enough to understand his strengths as a detective, but small talk and comforting grieving relatives weren’t his greatest skills. In fact, he could be downright rude and it occurred to her that it might be better if she saw Enid Evans on her own.

  ‘I’d better check if family liaison has been informed,’ Caren said.

  She stood by the barrier contemplating how she’d suggest that he didn’t see Enid Evans. She fumbled for the mobile, hoping that making a call would give her time to think. She was halfway through a discussion with a civilian in headquarters when Wallbank returned.

  ‘I’ll take you to see the train driver.’ Wallbank marched off down the road.