Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery (17 page)

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Authors: Rhys Bowen

BOOK: Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery
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They pushed open the pub door and were met with a blast of warmth, smoke, and Frank Sinatra on the jukebox.
Betsy’s eyes lit up when she saw Evan come in—something that had been lacking in his last couple of appearances.
“Here he is himself then,” she said loudly. “You can tell us all about it.”
“About what?”
“Why, the murder, of course. It was murder, wasn’t it? That’s what we heard, anyway. That poor man found down in the slate mine. No wonder you looked so terrible last night. I thought you were going to pass out on us. All right now, are you?”
Evan was conscious of Sergeant Watkins’s amused gaze. “I’m fine thanks, Betsy. Now if we could just have … .”
“So you’ve got yourself another murder to solve, is it?” She
was leaning over the counter, smiling at him. “You’ll like that, won’t you? Liven things up a bit.”
“Betsy, I’m not solving any … .”
“Pity it had to be the handsome one, though. I thought he was ever so good-looking. All dark and brooding, like. Of course, I never got the chance to really meet him, because someone spoiled it for me every time … .”
“Betsy, I’ve got things to discuss with Sergeant Watkins, so if we could just have a couple of pints?”
Betsy’s smile faded. “Oh well, if you’re too busy. Still, I suppose you’re not meant to be chatting when you’re on duty. What will it be, then?”
Watkins stepped forward. “I’m buying. Guinness, is it? Let’s go through into the lounge. We can’t hear ourselves speak in here.”
They seated themselves at a table against the far wall. The lounge was deserted except for a couple of older women, who looked up and nodded at Evan.
“So how’s it going so far?” Evan asked. “Any promising leads?”
“Nothing really,” Watkins said. “The D.I.’s been in touch with the Met and we’ve notified the next of kin. A Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Smith, of very’umble origins, I might add. It seems our boy was christened plain old Arthur Smith after his dad, who works on the railways. The Grantley bit appeared when he got a scholarship to Cambridge. Started signing his name A. Grantley-Smith, hyphenated. That was also when he stopped visiting the old folks, or even admitting to their existence.”
“Interesting,” Evan said. “So are they going to be looking into his background further?”
“What, and see if anyone might have had a big enough grudge to come up here and bump him off?”
Evan smiled. “It does sound rather stupid when you put it like that.”
“Who knows? I gather he’s being thoroughly checked out,
but I tend to agree with the D.I. for once. It had to be someone up here who did it. Someone close to him.”
“One of his colleagues, you mean. The D.I. was about to work on them when I left,” Evan said.
Watkins grinned. “That’s right. But apparently he didn’t manage to make any of them break down weeping and confess. Must be losing his touch.” He took a long drink of his bitter, then put his glass down again. “So, tell me—what do you think? You’ve been working with them. You must have ideas.”
“I’d say that any one of them could have done it,” Evan said. “Edward Ferrers had a violent row with him and they parted hurling insults, but he swears he took a taxi back and didn’t kill Grantley.”
Watkins made a note. “Should be easy enough to find the taxi and get the exact time. We’ve got a time for their very public fight, so we can easily see if he had long enough to strangle someone and drop the body into the water. So what about Howard the Yank?”
“He’s a strange one,” Evan said. “I haven’t quite made him out. He’s a famous director, he claims Grantley offered to act as his unpaid intern and he was only directing this as a favor to his pupil, but—”
“But what?”
“But to hear them talking, you never got the impression that Howard was the mentor and Grantley his adoring pupil. It was definitely Grantley who called the shots.”
“Maybe the power was going to his head.”
“Then why did Howard stay? He didn’t have to. He hadn’t even been paid.”
“Did they like each other?”
“I can’t say I ever got that impression,” Evan said. “In fact, I’d say that Howard definitely disliked Grantley. Grantley enjoyed needling Howard, but then he enjoyed needling everyone. That’s probably what got him killed. He pushed one person too
far. That person overreacted and lost his temper. They happened to be down a mine with nobody else around.”
“That would point to Edward Ferrers,” Watkins said. “Who else would he take down a mine with him since we know it wasn’t Howard?”
“It might have been Howard claimed he didn’t feel well and stayed in his room all day. But Betsy at the bar saw him hurrying down the village street. So he was out and about that day. It wouldn’t have been hard to get a taxi up to Blenau Ffestiniog. Maybe he showed up saying he’d changed his mind and wanted to see the mine after all.”
“But that would be premeditated murder. That’s a different kettle of fish altogether, isn’t it?”
Evan shrugged. “I’m only giving you possibilities.”
“And what about the girl?”
“Sandie? She’d make a good suspect—unrequited love, had a big shock.”
“Fatal Attraction
all over again, you mean?”
“But I don’t think she’d have had the strength. She’s so thin and frail, she looks like the wind would blow her away. It’s not easy to strangle someone.”
“Had some experience, have you?” Watkins chuckled.
“No, but I can think of a few people I’d like to try it on.”
Watkins drained his glass and leaned toward Evan. “So you think it has to be one of them, do you?”
“Not necessarily,” Evan said, and told Watkins about Robert James.
“And you say he always goes to Blenau Ffestiniog on Saturday mornings?” Watkins scribbled notes. “Now that’s very interesting. And you actually caught him a few days earlier with his hands around Grantley’s throat?”
“Yes, but … .” Evan began. “I think he’s one of those people who is all bluster when he’s het up and then quickly calms down again.”
“Like your friend the butcher in there.” Watkins indicated Evans-the-Meat’s broad back. “Come on, drink up. How about another?”
“Let me get them this time.”
“Nonsense. You’ve already earned it, giving me that information on Robert James. I like to be one up on the D.I. when I come in to work in the morning. And now I’ve got young D.C. Davies to impress too, haven’t I?”
He went into the main bar and returned with two new pints.
“Iechyd da,
boyo. One of the few bits of Welsh I can say really well.”
“So, did anything turn up today during the search?” Evan asked.
“Only one thing of interest. A bloody great footprint, halfway down the path to the mine. It’s pretty recent and that path’s not used anymore. It’s not the caretaker’s. It’s not Grantley Smith’s, either. He was wearing fancy Italian shoes, size nines. This is a boot—a big boot.”
“Not that it means anything much,” Evan said. “Anyone could have been walking a dog, or gone courting along a disused path.”
“Except this path only leads to the mine and there is a big sign posted saying, ‘Keep Out, Trespassers will be … .’ and all that stuff.”
“So you’re going to try and get a match?”
“First thing tomorrow.”
“And nothing turned up in his room?”
“Nothing I could see. It was such a bloody mess in there. He liked to live in a pigsty, didn’t he? I asked the maid if it might have been ransacked, but she said it had been like that since he moved in.” Watkins took a big gulp of beer. “It was hard to know where to start. Clothes all over the floor. Photos and papers all over the bed … .”
Evan paused in mid-swig. “Here, hang on, Sarge. Photos and papers all over the bed, you say?”
“And the floor, some of them.”
“Then someone
had
been in there. When Grantley was first missing, I went in that room with Edward Ferrers. The place was a pigsty all right, but the photos were in a folder, in his briefcase.”
“Now that is interesting. I can get the boys to go over the room for prints, but … .”
“But his colleagues have probably all been in there at one time or another.”
“Oh really?” Watkins’s smile hinted at funny business. “All of them?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. When you’re away at a hotel, you pop into each other’s rooms for a chat from time to time, don’t you? Grantley could have called them all in for a meeting.”
“But there was some funny business too, I get the feeling.”
“Grantley and Edward had been partners. Just broken up. Sandie was madly in love with Grantley—devastated to find out about Edward.”
“And Howard? It’s getting to be like a soap, isn’t it? It will take over in the ratings from
Pobl y Cwm.”
“I don’t think Howard was involved … . but on the other hand, he could have been.”
“A bit on the poncy side, isn’t he? Silk shirts and all that?”
Evan grinned. “The D.I. wears silk shirts. Howard talks about ex-wives, but then Edward had an ex-wife, too.”
“Told you about her, did he?”
Evan had only just realized that Watkins didn’t know. He wanted to keep it that way, if at all possible. The last thing he wanted was Watkins’s sympathy.
“Yes, he mentioned it.”
“So we could have been dealing with a very knotty love-knot. Knotty and naughty!”
He glanced at Evan, expecting a smile. “What?”
“I was just wondering what someone might have been looking for in Grantley’s room.”
“Something incriminating? Drugs?”
“Why take out the photos? Maybe there was a particular photo that was incriminating to somebody.” He looked up. “Did you just leave them where they were?”
Watkins nodded. “I thought we might want the lab boys to go over the room, so I gave orders for it not to be touched.”
Evan drained his glass. “Could I take a look, do you think? I saw those photos when we were looking for a picture of Grantley to show around. I can’t say I remember them all, but maybe I took in enough to know if one of them is missing.”
As he was speaking, he remembered something that hadn’t seemed too important at the time—he had suspected Edward Ferrers of taking a photograph the last time they were in Grantley’s room. It might have been purely a matter of embarrassment or vanity. He wouldn’t mention it at the moment, but it could well turn out to be one more nail on Edward’s coffin.
Watkins drained his own glass and got up. “It’s a long shot, but worth trying. Come on, then.”
“Going so soon?” Betsy called as they passed the big oak bar.
“We might be back,” Evan said. “We’ve got a piece of evidence we have to check on.”
“How exciting.” Betsy’s eyes lit up. “I bet it’s great when you’re on a case like this. Not as exciting as being in a movie, of course.” So she hadn’t completely forgiven him.
They drove up to the Inn in Watkins’s police car and got the key to Grantley Smith’s room. It looked as if a tornado had recently been through it. The briefcase was open on the bed; the file was lying empty and its contents were scattered. Evan took out a handkerchief and lifted the photos, one at a time. It wasn’t as easy as he had thought to remember what had been there before—a lot of head shots of Grantley in various poses, of course, and various press photos, World War II shots of the plane. He shrugged. “I don’t think I’m quite in Sherlock Holmes’s league yet. Nothing struck me before as odd, and nothing does now. Sorry to have wasted your time. Let’s go and have another round—this one on me.”
“I should be getting home,” Watkins said. “I get it from the wife if she has to wait dinner for me. And our Tiffany will be starving after football practice. Did I tell you she got two goals on Saturday? Too bad she’s not a boy—she’d have Manchester United hammering on our door by now.”
They closed the door and started down the stairs. Various animal heads lined the stairway, looking down at them in a supercilious sort of way. An attempt to attract the huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’ crowd, no doubt, Evan thought. Then he stopped dead. “I know one photo that was missing, Sarge. There was a picture of Howard Bauer, surrounded by African tribesmen.”
Watkins laughed. “Who on earth would want that? You’re not trying to tell me that I’m to be on the lookout for Africans who came over to kill Grantley for stealing their sacred idol, are you?”
Evan laughed. “It’s probably nothing at all. The picture might have fluttered under a piece of furniture when they were all tipped out.”
Watkins headed to his car. “If you remember any other missing pictures—shots of scuba divers with dolphins, men scaling the Pyramids, Miss World beauty contests—don’t disturb my sleep with them, will you?” He waved and got into his car. Evan walked back down the hill.

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