Constable Evans 03: Evanly Choirs (18 page)

“As I said, madam, the police are trained to be discreet.”

She gave him a disbelieving stare. “Am I free to go now?”

“For the moment, yes. But please stay within reach at the inn. And make sure your son gives us the details we wanted.”

“Very well,” she said.

Evan escorted her to the front door. Watkins followed. As they crossed the front hall, Evan noticed her glancing down at the floor.

“What happened to my shoe?” she asked. She was trying to make it come out casually.

“The shoe? Oh, I think the lab boys have got it bagged ready for fingerprinting.”

“A shoe?” She attempted a laugh. “Surely nobody can think that Ifor was killed with a lady’s stiletto?”

“Just routine, ma’am,” Evan said. “Any suspicious object needs checking out. You’ll get it back. Do you remember where you left the other one?”

“I…” she looked around. “I expect Gladys must have tidied it up by now. She must have missed this one.”

Right,
Evan thought. She was hardly likely to miss a shoe right outside the drawing room door.

He opened the front door for her. “We’ll be in touch,” he said.

“And … you will be … tactful?”

“Yes madam. We will be tactful.”

He watched her hurry to join her son, who was standing by the car.

“Do you think there’s something strange about that shoe?” Watkins asked as he closed the door.

“I’m not sure. That’s something we can ask Gladys when she gets back here—whether she noticed the shoe yesterday.”

Watkins glanced at his watch. “She should be here by now. I think I’ll give them a call and see when they’re likely to get here.”

He disappeared into the study. Evan heard him say, “Not there? Are you sure they went to the right address?”

He was frowning when he came back to Evan. “The stupid woman wasn’t there. The constable knocked several times.”

“She probably took longer to do her shopping than she’d planned,” Evan said.

“Or she decided she didn’t want to be mixed up in this,” Watkins added.

Evan didn’t agree. He thought that Gladys was relishing her role as star witness.

“Ask the neighbors,” he said. “Maybe she just popped next door to tell them all the juicy details.”

Watkins nodded. “You could be right. Okay. Let’s follow up on the Llandudno business, shall we? That was a turn up for the books, wasn’t it? Went to meet her lover?” He winked at Evan. “What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, eh?”

“And it gives her a motive for killing her husband,” Evan pointed out. “If he’d found out about the relationship and refused to give her the divorce…”

“She might have been desperate enough to get him out of her way,” Watkins finished. “I wish we could turn up the murder weapon, or I don’t see how we’ll ever be able to tie her to the crime.”

Evan nodded. “Nobody that I questioned saw her sneaking back earlier. Of course I haven’t been house to house yet.”

“And, as we know, it’s easy enough to park up at the Everest Inn and come down that footpath without being seen at all,” Watkins agreed with a sigh. “She used that way herself this morning.” He put his hand on the drawing room door and went in. “Are you still here?” he demanded. “What do they do—pay you double time on Saturdays? Or are you trying to get out of the weekly shop with the wife?”

“We’re about to leave, Sarge,” one of the technicians said with a grin. “I think we’ve given everything a good going-over.” He was carrying a tray full of plastic bags, all neatly labeled.

“Found anything new and interesting?”

“Only this.” He held up a small Ziploc bag. It contained a black hair about six inches long. “We found it on the carpet beside him. It might be his, of course. He wore his hair long for a man, didn’t he? But his hair was curly and this is dead straight. And it seems finer than his, too.”

Wheels were turning inside Evan’s brain. Successive pictures flashed through his head … a girl’s black hair plastered to her face as he dragged her to shore. That same girl saying emphatically, “He’s not my boyfriend!”

He took the photo out of his pocket and stared hard at the two children … a skinnier version of Justin was smiling up at the camera and beside him a shy, scowling face, half-hidden by black hair.

Evan grabbed the sergeant’s arm and pulled him aside.

“I think we should go after Mrs. Llewellyn and tell her we’d like to speak to her daughter,” he said.

Chapter 15

“So you managed to get away after all, Constable Evans.” Roberts-the-Pump greeted Evan as they met in the
eisteddfod
car park that evening. “We thought we’d have to go ahead and sing without you.”

“Yes, they took pity on me and let me off for the night,” Evan said.

The choir members looked serious and self-conscious in their black Sunday suits and stiff white collars—
like a lot of overgrown boys,
Evan thought.

“The crowd of reporters has thinned out,” he said. “They lost interest when we wouldn’t let them speak to Mrs. Llewellyn or see inside the house. Now there’s just one or two diehards camped out for the night. The rest are pestering the D.I. in Caernarfon.”

“So it’s true what we heard, is it, Evan
bach?
” Charlie Hopkins moved closer to Evan. “Someone really coshed him on the head?”

“It looks that way, Charlie,” Evan said. “The D.I. hasn’t said so officially, so I can’t say any more.”

“We saw them out searching along the riverbank and in the fields,” Harry-the-Pub said with excitement in his voice. “Was it the murder weapon they were looking for?”

“Possibly,” Evan said. “I’m just the village bobby. They don’t let me in on their detective work.”

“Go on with you!” Evans-the-Meat gave him a hearty shove. “Thick as thieves with that sergeant, you are. Everyone knows they couldn’t solve crimes without you, so they just call you in secretly, like.”

“That’s not true,” Evan said uncomfortably.

“Well they can’t be onto anything or they’d never have let you come down here and sing,” Evans-the-Meat said firmly. “Charlie’s wife reckons it was that Mafia hit man who did it. Have the police found him yet?”

“Not that I know of,” Evan said. “They’re making enquiries.”

Evans-the-Meat snorted. “Making enquiries! That’s what they always say when they’ve bloody well gone and lost the suspect.”

Evan decided it was high time they changed the subject. He looked around. “Where’s Mostyn then?”

“We’re supposed to be meeting him at the pavilion. He wanted to listen to the other performances,” Evans-the-Meat said. “He’s certainly a glutton for punishment, isn’t he?” He broke off and stood there, listening. Over the other sounds, the strains of a male voice choir singing “Men of Harlech” floated on the breeze toward them. “He’ll probably have to hear “Men of Harlech” sung a hundred times today.”

Evan smiled. “He loves his music, doesn’t he?”

“Loves his music? It’s the only thing he lives for,” Evans-the-Meat agreed.

“I think it’s very good of him to agree to go ahead with our performance tonight.” Evan was remembering Mostyn’s ashen face as he looked down at the corpse. “He must know we won’t sound as good as the other choirs without Ifor.”

They left the trampled grass of the car park and showed their passes at the competitors’ entrance into the main field. A strong, salty breeze from the ocean was flapping all the banners and bunting. The setting sun had tinted all the tents with a rosy glow. Good smells greeted them from the many food booths around the periphery. Sizzling sausages and frying onions, the more exotic scent of curried chicken kebabs, fish and chips, donuts, toffee apples, and candy floss all competed to lure the hungry traveler. There were also stalls devoted to pure Welsh produce—bowls of thick steaming lamb cawl, or grilled lamb chops, laver bread made from seaweed, local oysters and crab sandwiches, and local baked goods like Welsh cakes and bara brith.

Evan was reminded painfully that he hadn’t had a good meal in weeks and no proper meal at all today. After their performance he’d stop and treat himself to a big helping of fish and chips—and a pint of Brains beer.

They were passing the tents that housed the crafts exhibits now. Suddenly he heard the sound of shouts and screams. A scuffle seemed to have broken out in a pavilion designated “Handicrafts Made from Local Wool.” He could see arms flailing in the middle of a crowd of people. He looked around for police or security guards, then decided he had better intervene himself.

The tent seemed to contain displays of knitted baby clothes, crocheted afghans and sweaters, woven rugs—nothing that could possibly attract a thief or a vandal. He pushed his way through the crowd that had gathered. “Alright. Calm down everyone. North Wales Police,” he announced. “What’s going on here?”

“Fighting like wildcats they were,” an elderly official said, taking out his handkerchief to mop a perspiring bald head.

“She started it,” an angry woman’s voice cut in.

“You had no right to try to copy me!” Another voice retorted. Evan knew that voice instantly. He saw that the two fighting wildcats, now being held apart by obliging spectators, were none other than Mrs. Powell-Jones and Mrs. Parry Davies.

“You two should be ashamed of yourselves. Ministers’ wives, too!” He stepped in between them.

“I was pushed beyond my limits, Constable Evans,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “I am a Christian, God-fearing woman, but that woman riles me to the extent that I can no longer control myself.” She grabbed Evan’s arm. “Look you, what she had the nerve to do this time!”

She indicated a table full of tapestry work. Side by side were two tapestry pictures, one labeled, “Caernarfon Castle,” by E. Powell-Jones. The other “Caernarfon Castle at Sunset” by J. Parry Davies.

“How was I to know the stupid woman was also doing a tapestry of Caernarfon Castle?” Mrs. Parry Davies demanded.

“Because you spied on me, that’s why,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “You know I always work on my tapestry in the living room and I don’t always draw the curtains.”

“How do I know that you didn’t spy on me?” Mrs. Parry Davies asked. “I always work on my tapestry in MY living room and that gives directly onto the street.”

“Of course your house, or should one say cottage, is visible to all and sundry, not set back in its own grounds, that is true,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “But I can assure you that I have never had the desire to peek in at your windows. I have been working on this particular tapestry for almost a year now.”

“What do you think I did with mine—run it up last night?” Mrs. Parry Davies demanded. “I’ve been working on mine for over a year.”

“Hmmph. Obviously a slow worker,” Mrs. Powell-Jones shot back.

Evan held out his hands as the two women were about to start again. “Ladies. There’s no law that says you can’t do the same subject, is there? Why not let the judges decide who has done the better work?”

“Because mine is worked in the true subtle hues of North Wales and hers has the lurid glow of a Caribbean sunset,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “Naturally those overbright colors will attract the judge’s eye first.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you admit that mine is more outstanding,” Mrs. Parry Davies retorted.

Evan glanced at the worried-looking official, then frowned at the two women. “If this gentleman wishes to press charges of disturbing the peace, I shall have to confiscate these two works of art as evidence,” he said. “Then neither of you will have a chance in the judging.”

“You couldn’t … you wouldn’t!” Mrs. Powell-Jones’s face flushed brick red.

“I most certainly would.” Evan couldn’t resist a smile. “So are you going to promise to behave, or do I take the pictures with me?”

“Really!” Mrs. Parry Davies glared at Mrs. Powell-Jones. “I don’t see why my chances of winning should be spoiled by a jealous imitator.”

“Me, the imitator?”

Evan picked up the two pictures and tucked them under his arm. “Do I take these with me or do you promise to go away and not come back until the judging is over?”

“Oh, very well, Constable,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said at last. “Put them back. I expect the judges will be able to detect superior needlework when they see it.”

“I want you both to leave first,” Evan said.

The two women glared at him, then swept out of the tent like two ships in full sail.

“
Diolch yn fawr,
Constable,” the official said, tucking his handkerchief back into his breast pocket. “Thanks very much. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them. Proper pair of wildcats they were.”

“I know. I have to live in the same village as them,” Evan said. He left the tent and hurried to catch up with his choir.

Applause was spilling from one of the larger pavilions. Evan glanced inside and was rooted to the spot. A young woman sat on stage, holding a harp to her. Her long blond hair spilled over her shoulders like spun gold. Her dark blue skirt was spread out around her so that she looked like an exquisite white nymph in the middle of a pool of blue water. For a second Evan’s heart flip-flopped. He thought it was Bronwen. Then he realized that this girl was younger and a stranger.

He walked on, still shaken by what he had seen and by his reaction. He hadn’t realized it before, but Bronwen was beautiful. She had that same otherworldly quality of the young harpist, a special something that made people turn and stare … and that made his heart lurch.

He looked around hopefully. Was it possible that she was still here? Hardly. It was getting late. She would have taken her young schoolchildren home by now. And she hadn’t displayed any great enthusiasm for coming to his performance tonight. He had spoiled everything by agreeing to go on a meaningless date with Betsy. How could he have been such a fool? Of course Bronwen misunderstood. As soon as he got back, he’d tell Betsy that the date was off. He had to stop trying to please everybody. It never worked. If only he could find Bronwen and …

He wondered for a second if he was hallucinating. She was coming toward him through the crowd, her long braid over one shoulder, wearing a red cape that flowed out behind her and made her look ridiculously like a children’s book illustration of Little Red Riding Hood.