Evan Blessed (13 page)
Authors: Rhys Bowen
Hughes frowned at him. “So you suspect she may still be on the mountain, hidden somewhere?”
“It's hard to say, sir. If she is, she's well hidden. Our dogs didn't manage to sniff her out. But I have reason to think she is still alive.”
“Why is that, Constable?”
“Because somebody has been sending me musical clues.”
“Musical clues? What musical clues?”
Evan related the facts on the sheet of music and the radio request.
“Why wasn't I informed about these?” Hughes demanded, glaring at Watkins.
“Because I opened the letter yesterday evening after you'd gone home, sir,” Evan said. “Then I took it for testing at our forensics lab. It was only when we found no fingerprints on it, apart from mine and my fiancée's, that we knew we must have something relating to our crime scene.”
“I see.” Hughes was silent, digesting this. “This does put a new complexion on things, doesn't it? The question is, where we go from here?”
“Excuse me, sir,” Evan said, glancing across at Watkins, who sat sullen and silent, “but it seems to me that we have something concrete to work with for the first time. We're dealing with someone who wants us to play his game. He wants us to come and find the girl. He's giving us tantalizing hints he wants us to follow up on. We know music is important to him or he'd never have sent musical clues. And we have a nameâDeb. Deb somebody has been killed because our man thought she deserved to die.”
Evan was conscious of the complete silence in the room.
“Then the first thing to do is to conduct a search on the national crime databases,” Hughes said. “Find out if any girls called Deborah are listed as murdered or missing.”
“Already been done, sir,” Watkins couldn't resist saying. “We only have one name and she doesn't seem to fit the bill. A fifteen-year-old in Birmingham accepted a lift in a strange car and hasn't been seen since. She'd had a drug problem and fought with her parents, so is being considered a runaway.”
“Ah.” Hughes fell silent again.
“This need not necessarily be a currently open case, need it?” Glynis asked. “This could be something that happened years ago, that is not on anybody's computer list, but resides in a cold case file in someone's basement.”
“Good point, Davies.” Hughes actually smiled. Glynis had been his protégée at one stage and apparently he had forgiven her former insubordination. “Can we leave the task of calling individual police forces and digging up cold case files in your capable hands, then?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“And Watkins?”
“Sir?”
“You're very quiet. What are your priorities for this morning?”
“I was rather waiting for you to tell me my duties, sir.”
Hughes's face gave a twitch of annoyance. “Good God, no. It's not like that at all. Just because I felt that I should add my expertise to this team doesn't mean that your own roles are in any way diminished. Good Lord, no. We're a team here, people. Partners against crime, right? Every one of us should feel free to speak up, make suggestions and express opinions. So please feel free to speak up, Watkins. I hope I'm not an intimidating personality and you don't only see me as an authority figure.”
Evan heard the muttered “pompous twit” escape with Watkins's breath.
“Right, sir. I've got to pick up the profile, which should be ready by midday. I also thought I should double-check with the Birmingham police about their missing girl case.”
“I find it hard to believe that nobody saw our missing girl,” Hughes said. “Apart from sending Constable Evans out to interview people in Llanberis, what has been done to alert the general public to the girl's disappearance?”
“We put up posters, sir,” Watkins said. “And we ran the girl's picture in the local newspapers.”
“Presumably that was before we had definitely come to the conclusion that we were dealing with an abduction.”
“We still haven't come to that conclusion one hundred percent,” Watkins said. “We have a missing girl, we've found a bunker, unused, and Constable Evans has received a couple of weird musical messages. But are they all linked or just strange coincidences of timing?”
“I think we have to assume that they are linked, until we find otherwise, don't we?” Hughes said, looking around at the group for general assent. “We have to go forward as if a girl's life is at stake and every second counts. We need more media, Watkins. Get the girl's picture on the television tonight. Suggest that she may have been in the company of an older man.”
“We don't know that he's necessarily older,” Evan ventured.
“Evans, the girl is seventeen years old. If she was abducted by a seventeen-year-old boy, he certainly wouldn't have gone to all this trouble. What teenage boy do you know who would stock a bunker with classical music? No, if it had been a boy her age, he would have raped her, bashed her over the head, and dumped her down the nearest mine shaft.”
Evan couldn't disagree with this assessment. He nodded. “But the words older man' make me think of someone”âhe was about to say “your age” but stifled it just in timeâ“someone maybe fifty or more. This bloke doesn't need to be that old.”
“Older than she is, Evans. Let's not split hairs.” Again the twitch of annoyance on Hughes's face.
“Ted Bundy wasn't an older man. He was young and good-looking,” Watkins commented, probably wanting to back up Evan against Hughes.
Hughes looked startled. “We're talking serial killer now, are we? What makes you jump to that conclusion?”
“The musical clues do say that Deb and Dad are dead,” Evan said. “That's two to start with.”
“I wasn't suggesting we're looking for a serial killer necessarily,” Watkins said. “Just that criminals don't always look the part.”
“Quite so.” Hughes agreed. “But you've brought up an interesting point, Watkins. Has the modus operandi been checked? Have we been in touch with the National Criminal Intelligence Service to
find out if they have any similar abductions on the books? This man may have tried it before and enjoyed it enough to want to repeat it.”
find out if they have any similar abductions on the books? This man may have tried it before and enjoyed it enough to want to repeat it.”
Evan glanced up at the apparently nonchalant way Hughes said this. It's a girl's life we're talking about, he wanted to shout.
“I did contact them, sir,” Glynis said. “They could come up with plenty of abductions, but no bunkers dug underground.”
“It need not have been underground last time,” Watkins pointed out. “He could have tried a shed or a garage or an abandoned building before and found that was too risky. Or perhaps his fantasies are getting wilder and he liked the extra element of being trapped underground.”
“Quite possibly,” Hughes said. “I think I'd better get onto NCIS myself right after I've seen the bunker, just to make sure we don't overlook anything this time.”
Evan and Glynis exchanged looks.
“And I think we should send some boys in blue out to requestion people in the Llanberis area.” He held up his hand as Evan half rose from his seat in protest. “Someone may have noticed a young girl in the company of an older man, especially if she was being coerced into going with him.”
“If she was still alive and had her wits about her, I don't see how she could have been coerced,” Evan said. “She could hardly have walked down the mountain with a gun in her back.”
“So how do you propose finding her, Constable?” Hughes demanded.
Evan flushed. “I think we should follow up on the musical angle. Talk to any local music societies, choirs, and maybe see if we can locate the shop where the CD player and the classical CDs were purchased. If by any chance our man bought that whole stack at once, someone might have remembered.”
“The music angle. Yes, that's worth pursuing. In fact, why don't you do that this morning, after you've shown me the bunker.”
Evan's face fell. A morning in the company of D.C.I. Hughes was not what he would have chosen. He was itching to follow up on his own leadsâthe music shops, the societies and choirs. And Roger
Thomas of the National Parks who sang in a choir should have his alibi for last Tuesday double-checked. Then there was Rhodri Llewelyn, whom he had been told to ignore, but couldn't.
Thomas of the National Parks who sang in a choir should have his alibi for last Tuesday double-checked. Then there was Rhodri Llewelyn, whom he had been told to ignore, but couldn't.
“Very good, sir,” he said in a resigned voice. “Would you like to go right away?”
They set off in silence. Evan was conscious of D.C.I. Hughes sitting beside him. Even his breathing managed to sound critical. Evan felt annoyed with himself that Hughes always managed to put him on the defensive.
“So tell me, Evans,” Hughes said after a long silence. “I'm curious. Why do you think that the bugger chose you to send the musical messages to?”
“I've been asking myself the same thing,” Evan said cautiously. He didn't repeat Bronwen's suggestion that he was the brightest of them. “I was wondering if it's because I was born in this area and know it better than anyone else. I'm a local. I speak Welsh.”
“Then why wasn't the musical message in Welsh?” Hughes demanded.
“You're not a Welsh speaker yourself, are you, sir?” Evan asked.
“I manage fairly well. I've taken courses.”
“You try writing anything in Welsh using only the first eight letters of the alphabet,” Evan said.
“Point taken,” Hughes said. “So you think he's singling you out because you should know something that happened locally, or you might even know him?”
“It's the only reason I can think of.”
“And you can't come up with any suspects?”
“No, sir.”
“It's certainly very strange,” Hughes said. “This whole case is the strangest thing I've ever encountered in my years on the force. It's almost as if someone has thrust us into a script and is expecting us to play our parts.”
Evan looked at Hughes with surprise and respect. Hughes had hit
the nail on the head. That's exactly how he had been feeling about the whole thing.
the nail on the head. That's exactly how he had been feeling about the whole thing.
“Do you reckon it might be a setup, sir? That someone is having a good laugh at our expense over this? A group of students trying to fool the police by dropping a series of weird and wonderful clues?”
“It did cross my mind, Evans. Maybe we are being made fools of. When we've run ourselves ragged, they'll come forward and let us know that they've been filming the whole thing, like
Candid Camera.
I don't know.” He let out a long sigh.
Candid Camera.
I don't know.” He let out a long sigh.
“Except that Shannon Parkinson really has disappeared,” Evan said.
“Except for that,” Hughes agreed.
“So we have to keep plugging along until we find her, don't we?” Evan asked.
“Yes, we have to do everything we can to find her.”
For once Evan felt a spark of camaraderie between them.
“This place is chaos,” Hughes grumbled as they drove through Llanberis, looking for a parking space. “What's the matter with all these people? Why can't they go abroad on holiday like everyone else?”
“I think they're mostly from abroad,” Evan replied with a grin.
“Bloody nuisance,” Hughes muttered. “Park there. In the handicapped zone. We won't be long.”
Evan turned into the handicapped space, glad that he was in an official police vehicle for once and glad that the suggestion to take up a handicapped space had been from Hughes. He retrieved the aluminum stepladder he had brought for the task and led the way past the line waiting for the Snowdon Railway, past the little train itself, puffing as it disgorged its passengers onto the platform. They joined a steady stream of hikers setting off on the Llanberis path up the mountain. Some of them were well equipped, with sturdy boots, sticks, water flasks, and backpacks. Among them were also some families with little children in shorts and sandals, even one young mother in a halter top and flip-flops. How on earth far did they think they would get? Evan wondered. And if the weather
changed, drenching them in freezing rain, what did they intend to do then?
changed, drenching them in freezing rain, what did they intend to do then?
They hadn't gone far when Evan noticed Hughes breathing heavily. He also noticed the polished Italian shoes were now covered with the dust of the trail. Hughes was definitely not an outdoorsman. Evan wondered what he was good forâcertainly not people skills. Didn't speak good Welsh, didn't do well in the outdoors ⦠How did someone rise to the rank of D.C.I. with apparently so little going for him? he asked himself. Another case of the useless being bumped upstairs.
The stand of woodland appeared, nestled into a curve of the mountain's flank over to the left of the path. “This way, sir.” Evan struck out across the rough terrain. The whole area was still taped off with white police tape.
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