Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery (25 page)

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Authors: Rhys Bowen

BOOK: Evan can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery
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The postal clerk in Porthmadog nodded brightly when Tudur Thomas’s name was mentioned. “He was in here, like he always is, same time, regular as clockwork, to get the old man’s pension for him.”
“What time was that?”
“Oh, nine-thirty? Quarter to ten, maybe. We’re awfully busy around that time.”
“Thanks,” Evan said. It was a half hour’s drive between Porthmadog and Blenau Ffestiniog. So it looked as if the Thomases were safely out of the way as Grantley was entering the mine. And if they had been to the supermarket as they said, then they wouldn’t have returned home until long after Grantley was dead.
Evan went to a pay phone and checked his messages. The American Embassy had come up with a Sandra Davies from Merthyr Tydfil. Also two U.S. airmen called Bauer who had married English girls, neither of whom were called Davies. None of these was promising. Even if Mwfanwy was using an alias, she’d never have claimed to come from South Wales. No North Walesian would.
There was the predicted message from Mrs. Powell-Jones, who had just noticed the bigger, better star on the other chapel’s roof. Then one from Mrs. Parry Davies, saying she had heard that the Powell-Jones woman was planning to use live animals in her Christmas pageant and she suspected it was against health regulations as well as very sacrilegious to bring animals into a chapel. Evan sighed. More trouble brewing. Then Watkins’s brusque voice. “Listen, boyo. Thought you’d like to hear this. Several large sums were paid from Howard Bauer’s account to Grantley Smith. And I mean large sums. Interesting, eh? I’m going to have a little chat with him later today if I get the time. Don’t think of getting there first.”
The messages clicked off. Large sums paid to Grantley Smith. Grantley had been Howard’s intern, but interns didn’t get paid large sums. Which made it sound like some kind of hush money. Had Howard Bauer told Grantley what he planned to do and paid Grantley to keep quiet, or had Grantley found out and demanded hush money? Evan would have liked to question Howard Bauer right away, but Sergeant Watkins had made it very
clear that he was to keep away. He certainly didn’t want to upset his one ally in the plainclothes division.
Just as he was returning to his car, he saw Constable Roberts coming down the street. Evan eyed his car, wondering if he could sprint to it undetected. He didn’t feel like an encounter with Roberts right now. But Roberts saw him.
“Hey, Evans,” he called. “I was going to call you. We came up with something.” Evan waited patiently for Roberts to catch up with him. “Not that it’s likely to be any use now. I heard they’ve got a man in custody for the murder of your missing bloke. But I finally came up with a woman who saw someone parking the Land Rover.”
“You did? Fantastic.”
Roberts looked pleased with himself. “Yes, and it wasn’t Grantley Smith.”
“Was it a big fair chap?”
Roberts shook his head. “The one who’s in custody, you mean? No, it wasn’t him. This woman says it was a local man, she’s sure she’s seen him around. Big chap, wearing a cap. Couldn’t describe his face. Just ordinary, but local. That’s how she put it. I don’t know if that’s of any help?”
“It might be. Thanks, mate. If you can give me her name and phone number, I’ll pass it along.”
“Not that they’ll give us any credit if it does help,” Roberts said as he wrote down the details on a sheet of notepad and handed them to Evan.
“Still, it’s catching the perpetrator that counts, isn’t it?” Evan said tactfully.
“What are you, the bloody police training manual?” Roberts grinned. “Good luck, anyway.”
“That’s what I need right now. Luck.” Evan got back in the car. Big chap, wearing a cap. Robert James fitted that description pretty well. But why was he driving Grantley’s Land Rover—unless he wanted it to be thought that Grantley had gone away
from the area? Whoever drove the Land Rover down here did not expect the body to be found.
Evan drove to Tesco Supermarket just to be thorough, but didn’t get a positive response there. It was like a madhouse on Saturday mornings. If the gentleman had paid cash, they probably wouldn’t have remembered him. No matter, Evan thought. He had no reason to believe that the Thomases hadn’t carried out the rest of their Saturday morning routine, since they were at the post office when Grantley Smith was poking around at the mine.
So what now? He drove back across the estuary in the direction of Blenau Ffestiniog. The next step was to see if his friend Constable Meirion Morgan had returned and to discuss his suspicions about Robert James. If Meirion had James’s fingerprints on file, they could be checked with Forensics against the prints in the Land Rover. Maybe he was getting somewhere at last.
It had started to snow again as he drove into Blenau, soft flakes that drifted across his windscreen. The sky above was yellowish and heavy with the promise of more to come. Evan was disappointed to find the police station closed and a note on the door reading: “Gone to lunch. Back around 2.” So Meirion obviously hadn’t returned from court yet. Evan wasn’t sure how much longer he should hang around. He went to a phone box at the end of the High Street and left a message on the station’s answering machine, saying he was in the area and hoped to see Meirion.
Evan wasn’t very good at answering machines. He could never seem to think of what he wanted to say in the time allotted. He was in the middle of stammering his way through the message when he glanced out of the call box and realized that he was looking directly at the entrance to the mine. “Hold on a minute,” he said to the answering machine. He was almost sure he had seen movement over there—a figure darting out of sight between slag heaps as if someone didn’t want to be seen heading toward the old back entrance.
The message clicked itself off and he hung up hurriedly, running across the street to the place where the movement had been. He slowed and moved cautiously as he came to the first of the slag heaps. No sense in walking into what might be a deliberate ambush. But there was no sign of anybody. He must have imagined it, he decided. Maybe he had just caught the movement of blowing snow, or snow falling from a bramble branch. But he went on a few yards, down the path that led to the back entrance, stepping cautiously among snowy brambles. Every now and then he paused to listen, but there was only that heightened silence that comes with snow. He looked down at the path for footprints but the earlier rain had turned the path into a series of puddles.
He had reached the entrance to the passageway. No clear footprints here either, but there were some small clods of snow that could possibly have come from a boot. He stood in the semidarkness, watching and listening. Nothing. Too much imagination, he told himself.
He was about to turn back when a sudden wind sprang up, shaking snow from branches with a soft pattering. And from behind him came a sudden, horrible, creaking groaning sound. He spun around, his heart thumping. The rotten wooden doorpost had come away from the wall and the door swung free in the wind.
Evan hesitated for a moment, then ran back to his car. Lucky he always kept a good torch in the glove compartment, and a spare battery, too. It had come in useful before, as a potential weapon as well as a light source. He might need both now. He grabbed it and ran back to the mine entrance. Cautiously, he pushed the door open, looked around, and stepped into the passageway. The door swung shut behind him, leaving him in darkness. He switched on the torch and started hesitantly down the steps, trying to move silently, pausing often to listen for sounds ahead of him.
Down and down he went. The blood was singing in his head and his heart was pounding so violently that he felt its sound must be echoing from the rock walls around him. He could feel cold sweat running down between his shoulder blades. Only the torch felt solid and reassuring in his hand.
How many steps had there been? It seemed like thousands, going down and down. His legs were like jelly. He felt as if he was part of a nightmare. He had almost given up and turned back when the floor flattened out and he stood, muscles quivering, on the floor of the first chamber. He put the torch into his jacket and waited, hoping to see a glimmer of light or hear the crunch of a foot on the loose slate to betray another presence
down there. He waited what seemed an eternity, but couldn’t have been more than five minutes, before he decided to move on.
He thought he could remember the way. The first part had been pretty straightforward, the passages wide and square. He passed into the second chamber, then at last he came into the great cavern where the pictures had been stored. He entered cautiously, shielding his light again, but nothing moved and there was no other light. He began to think that the other figure had been all in his imagination. So the door had finally broken free. It had been rotting for years and the police investigators could have finished off the process. Anyway, he decided, if someone had tried to lure him into the mine to kill him, they had had plenty of opportunity already.
He felt himself relax slightly. Actually, he was rather proud of himself for having made it this far. He realized that his biggest fear had been of the mine itself, of all that rock over his head and the total darkness around him, not of a potential killer lurking in wait. Well, he had come down the steps and he had reached the biggest cavern, and even though it was bad, it was nothing he couldn’t handle. He started to breathe more easily.
Now that he was down here, he shouldn’t waste the opportunity. Grantley Smith came down here alone for a reason. He must have thought he was onto something pretty big—big enough to make him change the focus of his film. Either he had found what he was looking for and had it taken from him when he was killed, or he hadn’t found what he was looking for, but was getting too close for someone’s comfort.
Evan moved around the cavern wall, trying to remember which passage they had taken when they discovered Grantley’s body. This time, it wasn’t too hard. Enough booted police feet had tramped through recently and there was even a length of incident tape dropped on the floor. He crouched over and entered the tunnel. This one wasn’t as easy to handle. The low ceiling, brushing against his hair, gave him the constant feeling
that someone was right behind him, and made him feel very vulnerable. If someone jumped him here, he’d have a hard time defending himself.
The passage twisted and turned until his torch lit up the black waters of the pool where Grantley Smith had lain. He must have been killed here, because there were no signs of a body having been dragged—which must mean that Grantley was surprised in his search in this area. Evan looked around. Something could have been hidden in the water, but why, when there were piles of loose slate cuttings in almost every corner. Myriad places to hide anything as small as a painting. Carefully, he put the torch down on a rock to light up the area and patted the spare battery in his pocket for reassurance. Then he started to dig through the nearest pile. It was wet and muddy. Any painting hidden here would have been ruined long ago.
Then he came to a long, narrow alcove, half filled with rocks. It was drier here, but it would take time to move these larger pieces of slate. He lifted them aside, one or two at a time. There was a symmetry about them that made him feel they were more than randomly stacked. As he worked, the pile of rocks grew in the passage and diminished in the narrow cave. But still his torch failed to pick out anything like paper or wood from a crate—only more and more gray rock. Then he lifted a particularly large, flat piece of slate and stood looking down at something that made him go cold all over. It was a bone.
Evan dropped to his knees and picked it up. A thin bone, about eighteen inches long. Had animals ever wandered into the mine? he wondered. He knew that sometimes there were sink holes into which sheep disappeared. But he was now standing many stories underground. Anything that got in here would have had to come down all those steps. Too big for a dog. A pit pony, maybe. They had used pit ponies down the coal mines. He wasn’t sure if they’d been used in the slate mines, too. But if this was a pony’s leg bone, then a nearby hoof would confirm it.
He scrabbled at the rock again, lifting another big piece and seeing the torchlight shining on something beneath it. Not a hoof, but the decayed greenish leather of a woman’s shoe with a peek toe and a square, high heel.
She was right, as usual. It was a brilliant idea. I’d been panicking for nothing. But for some reason my legs were trembling as I went down the steps into the mine. I’d been up and down those steps hundreds of times. I couldn’t understand why my legs felt like jelly now. The torch seemed to have no strength at all. Down and down I went and this voice in my head was whispering that I was going down to hell. I tried to shut it off, but it wouldn’t go away.
At last I made it to the sheds and stood there, panting as if I’d run a long race. Steady boy, I told myself. All you have to do is open up the shed, find the fake picture, and drop it into a pool for a while. The wet wrappings should make sure that it’s moldy and rotten by the time they get the paintings out. I was in the middle of prying the board off the back of the shed when I got the uncanny feeling that someone was watching me. I could feel the prickle at the back of my neck. I spun around and nearly died on the spot. A white figure was standing in the shadows behind me. I swung my torch onto it and Ginger’s laugh echoed around the huge space as if twenty people were laughing at me.
“Your face, Trefor,” she exclaimed. “You should see your face!”
“What are you doing down here? You nearly scared me to death!”
“If you want to know, I followed you down because I wanted to make sure you weren’t going to go soft on me at the last minute and put the real painting back. But you aren’t, are you?”
“I said I’d go through with your idea and I will,” I said. “Now you’re here you can help me by holding the torch.” I handed it to her. The wooden board came away easily enough and she followed me inside the shed.
“Ooh, look at all this,” she exclaimed. “I bet every one of these is worth a few thousand quid. Pity I didn’t bring my shopping bag.”
“You’re not to touch anything!” My voice was harsh with fright.
“Don’t worry. I’m not stupid. One picture is all I need to get me where I want to go.” She stood right behind me. “Is this it?”
I nodded and handed it to her. “There’s a pool of water over by the wall. We can lie it in that to make sure it’s good and soaked.”
We crossed the cavern and dropped the package into the pool. It floated until I held it under. The water was icy cold. I kept holding it under until no more bubbles came up. I jumped a mile as there was a splash right beside me and icy water hit me.
“What on earth are you doing?” I demanded.
Ginger was squatting beside me now. “I’m making it look authentic. You can’t just have one picture getting wet. If water came in, then several pictures would get wet, wouldn’t they?”
The enormity of what she was doing hit me. I scrambled to my feet and yanked her up too. She had a pile of packages beside her. One was already floating in the pool. I reached for it and dragged it out. “Those are priceless treasures. I’m not going to let you damage them.”
“Oh, don’t be so stuffy. They’re just boring old things that nobody likes these days anyway.” She reached for one of the pictures. “You have to make it believable, Tref. We’ll just chuck in a couple more then, all right?”
“No!” I grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the pool. The picture clattered to the floor and slid into the water. “Now look what you’ve done!” I shouted. I must have shaken her and she lost her footing, falling against me. That’s when I felt something
—
the hard, rounded curve of her stomach.
“What’s that?” I demanded.
“Nothing.”
“Yes it is.” I knew. My married sister had had a baby the year before. I’d felt her stomach once. “Ginger, you’re going to have a baby!” I felt a great surge of manly pride. “Why didn’t you tell me, you dope?”
“I couldn’t, could I? Not with you slaving away down that
mine. I was going to before you joined up. I was just trying to find the right moment.”
I put my arms around her. “We’ll get married before I go.”
“All right,” she said.
I started laughing. “Let me look at you!” She laughed and tried to pull away. But something else was beginning to register. I hadn’t touched her since Christmas. That was all of seven, eight months ago, and she wasn’t that big. My sister was enormous by the time the kid was born.
The laughter had died away.
“It’s not mine, is it?” I asked her quietly.
“What do you mean? Of course it’s yours.” She was still trying to pull away from me. I was still gripping her wrist.
Pieces of a jigsaw were falling into place. “It’s his,” I said, and my voice was harsh again, like the way I spoke when I came back parched from the heat of the coal face. “That Johnny bloke I saw you with. I heard you talking to that girl in the laundry room. You said he’d do the right thing. That’s what you meant, wasn’t it? You and that Johnny bloke.”
She was looking at me defiantly now. “I suppose you had to know sometime,” she said. “He’s going to take me back to America with him. He lives in California, Tref. I’d be right there, close to Hollywood. Just what I dreamed of.”
“And me?” I demanded. “What about me? You were fooling around behind my back when I was slaving away down that hell-hole.”
“You shouldn’t have gone away and left me alone,” she said.
“As if I had a choice.”
“Yes, you did have a choice. Everyone has choices. You could have refused to go down that coal mine. They’d have had to have found you another job if you’d made enough fuss. Other men did.”
This had never occurred to me before and I was angry that she had known all along and not told me. “You weren’t going to tell me, were you? You were just going to go away with him and never
tell me.” Then I realized something else. “And you were going to take the picture and bugger off to America and let me get caught. Let me and my family go to jail!”
“No, I wasn’t. Honest. I was going to write.” Her voice was tight and scared now.
“Don’t lie to me anymore!” I was yelling now. The whole cavern was echoing with angry sound. “You’re a filthy little tart. I bet you slept with all those blokes. You were probably laughing at me behind my back. Poor stupid Trefor Thomas who doesn’t know any better than working down a mine. He’s only a boy. A stupid village boy.” Without warning I started crying. “Well, I won’t let you go.”
“You can’t stop me.”
My hands came around her throat. “You’re not going away. Not to him. I won’t let you.” I was shaking her like a rag doll. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I kept on shaking until there was no more life in her.
I found a nice quiet spot where it was always high and dry. I arranged her nicely too, with her yellow hair around her face and her arms crossed across her chest. She looked like she was sleeping. Then I buried her under a pile of slate.

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