Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery (13 page)

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Authors: Rhys Bowen

BOOK: Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery
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“Someone to turn up—what do you mean?”
“I mean that nobody from the Everest Inn showed up that morning. Howard Bauer wasn’t feeling well and decided to stay in his room. Edward Ferrers arrived around midday, having left Grantley Smith in Blenau, and Sandie, the assistant, had walked out in a huff a few days before but suddenly turned up again.”
Watkins’s eyes lit up. “So they all had time to nip up to that mine, strangle Grantley Smith, and dump him in the water. The question is—would any of them have wanted to?”
“All of them, possibly,” Evan said. “There was no love lost between Grantley and Howard, or between Grantley and Edward. And Sandie was last seen stomping out and saying that she hated him.”
“Interesting.” Watkins nodded. “So I think this visit might be a little more than expressing my condolences. I might just ask a few subtle questions as well, while they’re off guard, and before they’ve had a chance to think up alibis.”
Evan grabbed the sergeant’s arm and held him back as he went to walk into the Inn. “Look, there are a couple of things you ought to know before you meet them. Grantley Smith had a near-fatal accident a few days ago. He fell out of a train.”
“He did what?” Watkins gave him a startled look.
“The Blenau Ffestiniog line. He was leaning out to shoot a film and the door came open.”
“Bloody’ell,” Watkins muttered. “And he was all right afterward?”
“A few bruises and cuts. But he was very lucky. He landed on bracken and rolled into an oak tree. A few inches in the wrong direction and he’d have gone right to the bottom of the ravine.”
“So you’re thinking that it might not have been an accident, after all?”
“It did cross my mind,” Evan agreed. “And there’s one more thing. When I was asking questions up in Blenau, several people reported that they’d seen Grantley having a heated argument around nine in the morning. They gave me a description of the person Grantley was fighting with. It sounded an awful lot like Edward Ferrers.”
Watkins nodded. “Right. Okay, let’s go and see how they take the news of his death, shall we?”
He pushed the revolving glass door into the foyer of the hotel. Evan followed. The group was sitting by the fire in the bar again, as if they had never left. Howard was nursing a whisky and soda, Edward had an almost full beer glass in front of him, and Sandie was sipping a white wine. They sat like statues, not talking, lost
in their own thoughts, and didn’t even notice the approaching policemen until Evan spoke to them.
“Mr. Ferrers? I’m afraid we’ve got bad news for you.”
Edward jumped to his feet. “You’ve found him? Something’s happened to him? Is he hurt?”
Sandie let out a wail. “Oh my God. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Dead?” Edward looked bewildered. “Grantley is dead?”
Evan nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
Edward sank to his chair again. “I knew. I knew it.”
Watkins pulled up a chair beside Edward. “Excuse me, sir. Detective Sergeant Watkins. If you don’t mind my asking a few questions.”
Edward focused on him as if he hadn’t noticed him until now. “What? Oh no. No, of course not.”
“How did you know, sir?”
“What?” Edward frowned. “How did I know what?”
“That he was dead. You just said you knew it?”
“I meant that he would have called us, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have let us sit here, worrying about him. Even Grantley wouldn’t have done that. So I knew something terrible must have happened to him.”
Howard Bauer cleared his throat. “How did he die, Sergeant? Not something like an overdose, was it?”
Watkins looked up at him. “He was found in a pool of water in a slate mine.”
Sandie sobbed. “Oh, how terrible. Poor Grantley. He hated cold water. I am so sorry. I just wish I could have told him how sorry … . but now I never can.” Edward put an awkward arm around her shoulders and she continued to sob noisily.
Watkins got out his pad. “If I could just get some details from each of you. I know you must be upset but—”
“Of course,” Edward said.
“Let’s start with your names.”
“I’m Edward Ferrers. This is Howard Bauer. Sandie Johnson.”
“Thank you, sir. And you were all part of the same film crew, is that correct? Constable Evans says you’re shooting a film about a World War Two plane in a lake.”
“That’s correct,” Edward said. “I’m actually not part of the film crew. I’m the expedition leader, so to speak. I’m the expert on World War Two planes. I was given a grant and permission from the Ministry of Defense to raise this plane and display it in a new air museum. Then I persuaded my friend Grantley Smith that it might make a good documentary. He’s been looking for a way to break into filming. He was lucky enough to get Howard, who is an Oscar-winning director, to join us and lend us credibility.”
“I see.” Watkins turned to Sandie. “And you, Miss?”
“I’m just the production assistant,” she said, blushing.
“Would you happen to know the names of his next of kin? We’ll need to contact them.”
Edward looked down at his coffee cup. “His parents live in London,” he said. He produced a small diary from his inside pocket. “Thirty-two Brunner Road, Walthamstow.”
Evan suspected from Edward’s expression that the address wasn’t in one of the better parts of the city.
“No other next of kin that you know of. No wife?”
“No,” Edward and Sandie said at the same moment. They shot each other a quick glance.
“And I understand that you were the last person to have contact with him, Mr. Ferrers,” Sergeant Watkins went on. “Could you tell me where and when you last saw Mr. Smith?”
“I already told all this to the constable,” Edward said. “I left him around nine o’clock in the morning up in that place I can’t pronounce.”
“Blenau Ffestiniog, sir,” Evan said.
“What were you doing up there?”
“A new idea of Grantley’s. He wanted to feature the slate mine in his story.”
“So you went up to Blenau Ffestiniog to look at a slate mine?”
Watkins looked at Evan for help. “I may be dense, but what does a slate mine have to do with a plane in a lake?”
“The film’s going to be called
Wales at War,”
Evan explained. “I told Mr. Smith about the National Gallery pictures being stored in a slate mine during the war.”
“Were they? I didn’t know that.” Sergeant Watkins nodded appreciatively. “It just shows, you learn something every day. So Mr. Smith wanted to see the slate mine for himself?” He directed the question at Edward.
“That’s right.”
“And did he?” Watkins was still looking directly at him.
“Did he what?” Edward shifted uneasily on his seat.
“Did he go and see the slate mine for himself?”
“I couldn’t tell you that. I know he had an appointment with the man who had the keys to take a look later that morning.”
“And you left him around nine o’clock, you said?” Watkins asked.
“That’s right.”
“You didn’t want to stay and see the slate mine?”
“I had more important things to do, Officer. Someone had to supervise the work on the plane—the work we are supposed to be doing up here.”
“So you came back alone?”
“That’s right.”
Watkins leaned his elbows on the table. “If you don’t mind my asking, sir. Was Mr. Smith not able to drive himself for any reason?”
“No. Why do you ask that?”
“Only that it seems a bloody long way to drive with Mr. Smith and come straight back again on your own, before you’d seen anything.”
Edward’s fair skin flushed pink. “If you must know, we had a bit of a tiff. I thought he was wasting our time and money on something irrelevant and I told him so. Grantley had a minor tantrum. He always liked to get his own way. I didn’t want to
be around him when he was in that kind of mood, so I came back.”
“I see, sir.” Watkins looked around the table. “And you others, Mr. Bauer and Miss—uh—Johnson. You weren’t involved in this jaunt to the slate mine?”
“I was ill that morning,” Howard said. “I had some kind of twenty-four-hour bug, so I stayed close to my bathroom. I still feel pretty rotten, come to think of it.”
“And I wasn’t here,” Sandie said. “I was down in Bangor. I just got back yesterday afternoon.” She gulped another sob. “So I never saw him to say good-bye.”
Watkins closed his notebook. “Well, that seems to be that. Thank you for all the helpful information. I must ask you not to go anywhere for the present—just in case we need to ask you any more questions.”
“We’ll be here, Sergeant. We still have work to do,” Edward said. “There is a plane in that lake waiting to be raised. It will help take our minds off … .” Edward’s voice cracked and he swallowed back emotion.
Watkins got to his feet and looked at Evan, who had been standing quietly in the shadows by the fire. “Oh, one more thing I wanted to ask you. About that accident the other day—Constable Evans tells me that Mr. Smith had a brush with death only a few days ago. He fell out of a train, is that right?”
Three bewildered faces looked up at him.
“Yes, but that was an accident,” Edward said. “I know. I was in the carriage with him. I saw him fall out. Nobody was anywhere near him. It was his own stupid fault. He was leaning out of the open window, which is specifically forbidden. The door came flying open.”
“So you were in the carriage with him, sir?” Watkins turned his attention to the others. “And you two?”
“I was in the next compartment,” Howard said. “I saw him lean out and fall. He must have triggered the door handle somehow.”
“And you, Miss?”
Sandie’s blue eyes looked enormous in her white, tear-stained face. “I’d already gone. I didn’t even take the train ride with them. And anyway, are you suggesting that someone tried to kill Grantley? Why would anyone want to do that?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out, Miss.” Watkins got to his feet. “Ready, Constable Evans?” he asked.
“I tell you one thing,” he muttered as they came out of the bar. “They were all bloody jittery, weren’t they?”
Evan looked back at the figures silhouetted against the firelight. He tried to picture any of them creeping up behind Grantley, strangling him, and then weighting his body with rocks before throwing it into a pool.
The sign of the Red Dragon looming out of the evening mist was particularly welcome to Evan. It had been a long, tough day. His legs felt as if he’d gone up and down Snowdon a few times, and the horror of being in the depths of that mine still lingered.
He tried to push open the pub door and was surprised to find it locked. He stared at it, confused for a moment. After the strange events of the day, it wasn’t hard to believe that he had slipped into a twilight zone. Then he heard Evans-the-Meat’s loud laugh coming clearly from inside the pub. He rattled the door, but it wouldn’t move. Then it dawned on him—it was Sunday, of course! Even though pubs throughout Wales were now officially allowed to open on Sundays, Llanfair was one of the communities that still observed the Sabbath and kept the pub shut—at least shut to outsiders. The locals had always taken the back path from the chapel to the back door of the pub and had clearly done so tonight.
Evan went around to the back door and let himself in. The lounge was deserted tonight. Ladies were not supposed to drink on Sundays. But the main bar was as full as usual. Evan stood taking in the comforting, familiar sights and sounds—the big fire
flickering in the fireplace, the oak-paneled walls, the low hum of conversation, and the pleasant hiss of Betsy filling a pint glass. This was how the world should be. Every time he felt frustrated about not getting that promotion, he should remind himself that a promotion would mean moving away from this, working in the towns.
As he edged through the crowd toward the bar, he anticipated Betsy’s usual excited yell. Instead, he reached the long oak bar without making any impression at all—almost as if he’d become invisible—adding to the sense of unreality he was already feeling.
He leaned on the bar. “
Noswaith dda,
Betsy
fach
. How about a pint of Guinness for your favorite policeman then?”
Betsy’s wide blue eyes looked up at him coldly. “I don’t happen to see my favorite policeman at the moment. That would be Constable Dawson from Caernarfon, wouldn’t it? I think he’s ever so handsome, and friendly too.” She went back to the pint she was pouring. “There you are, Mr. Roberts. Get that down you and you won’t feel the cold.”
“Betsy,” Evan said. “Have I done something to upset you?”
“You know very well what you’ve done.” Her gaze was still icy.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t. I’ve been so busy the past few days … . .”
“You stopped me from breaking into show biz, that’s what. If it hadn’t been for you, I might have been discovered by now.”
“I told you, they’re not Hollywood producers. It’s a documentary about a plane.”
“The older one is.” Betsy pouted. “He won an Oscar, they said.”
“Yes, for a documentary about civil war in Africa. Do you see yourself running around in his next film wearing a loincloth and waving a spear then?”
Evan was only conscious that the other men had been listening in to this conversation when there was general laughter behind him.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” Barry-the-Bucket chuckled.
“You know what women wear on their tops in Africa, don’t you?”
“Yes, and men have to kill a lion single-handed before they can be men!” Betsy retorted. “Which means you’d stay a boy all your life, Barry-the-Bucket.”
“Anyway, they don’t hire actors for those kind of films,” Mr. Parry Davies, the minister, explained, leaning out from his chair in the corner. Although he condemned the demon alcohol from his pulpit as heartily as his rival at the other chapel, he wasn’t averse to following his flock down the back path to perdition after evening service. “Documentaries are shot from real life. No actors.”
“Oh, I see.” Betsy was quiet for a moment, then her face lit up again. “But he’d know real directors, wouldn’t he? If he’s won an Oscar and all that. I saw him walking down the street yesterday. He’s got a real American accent and everything, hasn’t he? Next time I’m going to speak to him.”
“Yesterday?” Evan asked.
Betsy nodded. “I would have run out and spoken to him then, but Harry had me cleaning the windows and the American looked like he was in a hurry.”
Interesting, Evan thought to himself, as he took the pint of Guinness Betsy put in front of him. Hadn’t Howard claimed he was too sick to leave his room?
“Didn’t I hear one of those film people was missing?” Evans-the-Milk asked.
Evan nodded, surprised that he was ahead of them with the news for once. “He’s been found—dead, I’m afraid. His body was found in a slate mine.”
“Ooh, how terrible,” Betsy said. “It wasn’t the lovely dark one, was it? I thought he was ever so sexy.”
“That’s right. Mr. Grantley Smith.”
“Was that his name?” Betsy looked up with interest. “We had someone in here the other day asking about him, didn’t we, Harry?”
Harry-the-Pub looked up from the glasses he was wiping. “Grantley something? Yes, that was the name. We sent him up to the Inn.”
“Who was asking about him—was it an Englishman?”
Betsy looked at Harry for inspiration. “No, he spoke Welsh, didn’t he?”
“He did.” Harry frowned in concentration.
“Did he say why he wanted Grantley Smith?” Evan asked.
Harry shook his head. “I’ve no idea. We’re not the bloody police force, you know. We don’t interrogate them.” He grinned at Evan. “And we’d never heard of this Grantley Smith bloke.”
“So he had an accident down a slate mine, did he?” Evans-the-Milk asked. “Dangerous places, those old mines.”
“What was he doing down there?” Evans-the-Meat asked. “I thought they were here to get a World War Two plane. Not too many planes crashed into slate mines, did they?”
The other occupants chuckled, but Evan stood staring at his Guinness. What was Grantley Smith doing in a mine? he wondered. What could have been so important to him that he’d risked going down there on his own, half an hour before he was scheduled to go on a full conducted tour?
As these thoughts passed through his mind, Evan was back down there, ducking through those low passages, feeling the darkness pressing down on him, hearing the faint dripping of water, knowing there were three hundred steps between him and the outside world. He felt beads of sweat forming on his forehead again and his heart started to race. It was no good. He needed to be out in the fresh air. He drained his glass and put a couple of pound coins on the counter.
“Thanks, Betsy love, but I’ve got to go.”
“They’re surely not making you work at this time of night?” Harry-the-Pub demanded. “They don’t pay you overtime, do they?”
Betsy was gazing at him with concern. “Are you all right, Evan? You’ve gone awfully white. Harry’s right. They’ve been
working you too hard. Why don’t you sit down for a moment. Harry will bring you a brandy, won’t you, Harry?”
“Always giving away my liquor, she is,” Harry commented good-naturedly. “She’s too generous by half when it’s someone else’s money.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just go home,” Evan said. “The fresh air will do me good.”
He pushed his way out of the room and came out into the cold night air. The mist had thickened and the cottages along the village street loomed as unidentifiable shapes. Evan didn’t feel like being indoors. He turned up the street and began to walk fast. Cold strands of mist blew past him. He passed the rows of cottages and the shops. Then he came to the school playground. The schoolhouse was invisible in the fog, but Evan could see the glow of light from Bronwen’s window.
A whole weekend had gone by without his seeing her. He had stayed away because he hadn’t wanted to know the truth about her dinner date with Edward and Grantley. But now he needed to see her. He had to talk to someone about what he had been through today and Bronwen was the only person he could talk to. And he wanted her comforting arms around him.
The playground gate squeaked as he pushed it open. His footsteps echoed as he crossed the playground to Bronwen’s living quarters at one end of the school building. He was about to knock on her front door when it swung open. Evan shook his head, smiling, as he went in.
“Hey, Bron, did you know you hadn’t shut your door properly ? And you’re the one who’s always complaining how hard it is to heat … .” He broke off in midsentence. Bronwen was standing on the far side of the room, at her bedroom door. Her back was to him and her arms were wrapped around Edward Ferrers. As Evan watched in horror, she raised her face to be kissed.

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