Chapter 11

Llanfair was still quiet and deserted when Evan returned. No sign of Evans-the-Milk delivering or Evans-the-Post reading postcards or children running to school. He looked about him in bewilderment, wondering what could have happened, until he realized that it was Sunday morning. As he opened the car door he heard the sound of a distant church bell, mingling with the bleating of sheep on the hillside. Smells of Sunday morning fry-ups wafted from windows. Harry-the-Pub came out with a bucket and started washing down picnic tables and putting up umbrellas in the hope of catching late-season tourists.

It always surprised Evan that life could go on its normal peaceful way right next door to tragedy and violence.

Evan glanced at his watch—only nine o’clock. He felt as if he’d already done a day’s work and by his reckoning it should be lunchtime. Then he remembered that he’d gone out without breakfast. No wonder his stomach was complaining. He expected he might be needed again on duty later in the day, so he’d better nip home while he could. With any luck Mrs. Williams would have his normal Sunday breakfast waiting . . .

“Oh there you are, Mr. Evans,” his landlady greeted him as he put his key in the front door. “Treadful just, isn’t it?”

“What is, Mrs. Williams?” Evan asked. Dreadful was one of the few English words Mrs. Williams often used, only she pronounced it with a t.

“They say there was a body in that chapel!” She spoke in a hushed whisper, even though they were alone.

Again Evan had to admire the efficiency of the Llanfair grapevine.

Evan saw no point in denying it. “How did you hear about it, then?”

“I saw Mair Hopkins when I went to get the newspaper.” Mrs. Williams leaned closer. “And she said that Charlie had been driving past to make an early delivery and saw the van and Dr. Owens. He knew what that usually meant so he pulled up and watched and sure enough, they carried something out on a stretcher. Poor devil. Do they know who it was?”

“Not yet,” Evan said. “They’re still checking out missing persons, vehicles left parked overnight, hotel guests who didn’t show up last night . . .”

Mrs. Williams put her hand to her mouth. “Oh esgob annwyl! Deary me!”

“What is it?”

“Mair told me that Elen Prys was worried because her husband, Glyndaff, hadn’t come home last night.”

“Glyndaff Prys?”

“You know Prys-the-Farm down beside Llyn Gwynant on the way to Beddgelert? You know the white building you can see from the road?”

“Oh, right.” Evan paused, thinking. “Maybe I should go down and talk to her. This Glyndaff Prys—is he the sort of bloke who often stays out all night?”

“Oh no. I don’t think so. He’s a good family man by all accounts. They’ve got five grown children, all fine young people. And they go to chapel . . .”

“Thanks, Mrs. Williams,” Evan said. “I’ll go down right away.” He looked longingly in the direction of the kitchen.

“But you never had your breakfast.” Evan could have hugged her. “Can’t you stop for a bite to eat first? I’ve got the kettle on the boil and Evans-the-Meat made some lovely sausages this week . . .”

“I wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea,” Evan said.

“And have your breakfast, too,” Mrs. Williams insisted. “Ten minutes won’t matter, will it? And it is supposed to be your day off.”

Evan succumbed. “I suppose you’re right. Ten minutes won’t make much difference.”

Fifteen minutes later Evan was on the road, feeling full and content. Amazing what some rashers of good bacon and sausages could do for the soul!

Ty’r Craig was a square, solid farmhouse, well maintained with newly whitewashed walls and a good slate roof. It was nestled on a narrow strip of land at the bottom of a narrow valley. Rocky cliffs rose sheer on both sides, blocking the sunlight this early in the day. Two black-and-white border collies rushed out barking as Evan got out to open the gate.

“Meg, Gel, come here at once,” a shrill voice called and the dogs obeyed, throwing suspicious looks at Evan as they slunk back to the farmhouse.

Mrs. Prys was a round, middle-aged woman with the brown, leathered face of a farmer’s wife. She wiped her hands on her apron as she greeted Evan.

“I know you. You’re the policeman from up in Llanfair,” she said. “You’ve come about my husband, have you? It’s not bad news, is it?”

She went on wiping her hands, twisting the apron nervously as she spoke.

“No, it’s not bad news. Have you reported him missing yet, Mrs. Prys?”

“Not officially like. I’ve told a few friends and the word gets around, doesn’t it? But I didn’t like to call up the police and maybe make a fool of myself.”

“Has he ever done this sort of thing before—stay out all night?”

“When he was younger, once or twice like when Wales beat England in the rugby at Cardiff Arms Park. But he’s not the type. And he was only going to his club meeting.”

“Club? What kind of club?”

“He belongs to a men’s social club in Porthmadog. They meet once a month to play darts, dominoes, that kind of thing. They’re mostly older farmers like Glyn.”

“Have you called any other members of the club?”

She looked down at her feet. “I don’t rightly know any names. Glyn never talked much about what he did and I didn’t like to ask him. He’s a very private person, Constable Evans.”

“Do you know where this club meets?”

“Oh yes, I know that right enough. They meet at a pub called the Old Ship right by the harbor.”

“I know it,” Evan said. “I’ll get on the phone to HQ and they’ll send someone out right away, Mrs. Prys. Don’t worry. He’ll turn up.”

“I hope so.” She choked back tears and started fiddling with her apron again. “I’m sorry. I’m that upset, I didn’t even offer you a cup of tea. Why don’t you come inside—the kettle’s on.”

“Thanks, but I just had my breakfast, and I’d like to get on this as soon as possible. We’ll find him for you.”

The dogs escorted him back to the gate and sat there, tongues lolling in silent laughter as he drove away. He was tempted to drive straight down to Porthmadog and take a look for himself, but he reminded himself sternly that he had no right to go poking his nose into other officers’ territory.

When he got back to Llanfair, the village had more or less come to life. Men and women in their Sunday best were walking up the street to the two chapels. Evan spotted Evans-the-Meat, hair slicked down and wearing his dark Sunday suit, escorting his wife to Chapel Beulah.

“Hold on a second, Gareth,” he called, running to catch up with him. “I need to ask you something.”

The butcher looked annoyed, then gave his wife a gentle push. “You go on, Sian fach. Save me a seat. Constable Evans needs to have a word with me.”

His wife opened her mouth to protest, then thought better of it. “Or gore. All right,” she said and hurried to join a group of women ahead.

The butcher turned to Evan. “You had another fire last night, so I hear,” he said. “Haven’t you found out who’s starting all these fires yet”

“Not yet. But we will.” Evan moved closer to the butcher. “Gareth, what do you know about a man called Glyndaff Prys?”

“The farmer, you mean?” The butcher looked surprised.

“Yes, do you know him?”

“I’ve met him a couple of times. I can’t say I know him well. I’ve bought lambs from him. Why? You don’t think he’s anything to do with this?”

“You don’t think he’d be a likely candidate to go around burning down foreigners’ property?”

Evans-the-Meat laughed again. “Old Glyndaff? I don’t think he’d hurt a fly.”

“So he’s not known for his nationalist sentiments then?”

The butcher stared up at the distant peak of Mount Snowdon. “Well, he’s proud of being Welsh all right. But then so are a lot of us. That doesn’t mean that we go around burning buildings.”

“And what about a men’s social club that meets at the Old Ship pub down in Porthmadog?”

“What about it?” Evans-the-Meat’s voice was suddenly sharp.

“I’m just wondering if more might go on there than the occassional darts game?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a member personally.” He started to walk on. “Sorry I can’t help more.”

Evan crossed the street with the feeling that possibly he was onto something. Evans-the-Meat was prone to ranting and raving and waving his cleaver around. This sullen dismissal might mean that he knew more than he was letting on.

Was it possible that a farmer from Nant Gwynant—a man with a round, red-faced wife and two laughing sheepdogs—was also a terrorist who had somehow been caught in his own conflagration? It didn’t make sense. Evan had been a policeman long enough to know that people who committed crimes didn’t necessarily look like criminals. Anyway, it was out of his hands now. He’d pass on the information to Sergeant Watkins, who could act on it if he wanted to.

He was about to let himself into the police station when a large gray van roared past, belching smoke. Evan watched with interest as it came to a halt outside Chapel Bethel. Rev. Parry Davies leaped out of the driver’s seat then opened the side door, assisting several large and elderly ladies out of the van and escorting them proudly into chapel.

Evan went into the station and pressed the HQ autodial button.

“Sorry, Sergeant Watkins isn’t here,” the young dispatcher said in an indifferent voice. “Can one of the detective constables help you?”

Evan hesitated. He wasn’t exactly on the best of terms with the detective constables, who felt that he had no right to go poking his nose into murder cases. Then he reminded himself that Mrs. Prys was down at Ty’r Craig farm, wiping her hands on her apron while she waited for news of her man. The sooner he was found, the better.

“All right, put one of the constables on, then,” he said. “I need to speak to someone.”

He had a frustrating conversation with D.C. Perkins, who couldn’t have sounded less interested. It finished with a “Thanks Evans. We’ll look into it and get back to you then.”

Evan waited around at the station, reading the Sunday paper, then went home to a late lunch and still the phone didn’t ring. He hoped it wasn’t Sergeant Watkins’s day off. He was sure the detective constables wouldn’t call him.

By midafternoon he was feeling restless and unable to concentrate. A whole Sunday wasted when he could have been out hiking with Bronwen or even climbing again. Time for a stroll around the village to blow away the cobwebs. The clear morning had turned into a blustery afternoon with large woolly clouds racing in from the west. The wind was chilly, too, more seasonal for this time of year. It might even rain later and then things really would be back to normal.

Evan strode up the village street, past the row of shops and cottages. He gazed at the overgrown-chalet shape of the Everest Inn and wondered whether they’d come any closer to solving the fire there. It could easily have been a disgruntled employee, he thought. Major Anderson was a former royal marine. Evan didn’t imagine he’d be too soft on his employees.

But then Potter had said that the method used for starting that fire was identical to the one at the cottage. Evan wondered if Potter had come to any conclusions about the restaurant fire yet. He probably wouldn’t bother to pass them on to a village bobby. He didn’t know why he felt so frustrated about this particular case. Usually he was content to leave the headaches to the detectives.

“Penny for your thoughts?” a soft voice asked as a light hand was placed on his arm. Evan jumped. “Oh Bronwen, sorry, I didn’t see you.”

She was smiling at him. “No, I could tell you were miles away. I was working in my garden and you walked right past me. So I decided you must have something pretty heavy on your mind. The latest fire, I suppose.”

“I was just thinking about . . .” Evan hesitated. “Bronwen, do you think that a village constable is an acceptable job for—”

“For someone with your ability?” she finished for him.

He nodded, grateful that she understood.

“Usually it doesn’t worry me when I’m left out but this time—I don’t know why—I’m itching to be in on this investigation.”

“Maybe because you fancy Madame Yvette?” A quick, teasing smile crossed her face. “Sorry. It’s not funny, is it? I feel so terrible for that poor woman. I can understand that you’d like to get the case solved.”

“What really bothered me was that I came up with a good lead and I had to turn it over to Detective Constable bloody Perkins—useless young clod. I had to repeat the information three times before he got it. So now I’m going through it all again, asking myself if I made the right choice coming here.”

“I’m the wrong person to ask that question,” Bronwen said. “When I got a place at university I was sure I was going on to get my Ph.D. and then I’d write brilliant papers proving that King Richard didn’t really kill the princess in the Tower. Instead I wound up here.”

“What happened to change your mind?”

She paused and tossed her heavy braid of hair over her shoulder. “I fell in love during my final year and we decided to get married. He was going on to postgraduate studies. Someone had to earn the bread and butter. The plan was that I’d support us while he got his doctorate and then he’d support me when he became a high-powered scientist.”

“Only it didn’t work out that way.”

“As you say, it didn’t work out.” She looked away, wisps of hair blowing across her face as she stared up at the peaks. Then she shrugged. “I’d taken a job in a kindergarten. I found that I loved it so much that I took my teaching certificate and came straight here, back to where I’d spent happy childhood summers.”

Evan laughed. “It’s funny, we’ve never talked about this before.”

She looked up at him now. “I think that’s because we both have things in our pasts that are better forgotten.”

“We both came back to a place that made sense to us.”

She nodded. “So why leave a good thing?”

Evan put his arm around her shoulders. “You’re right. I should be content with my humble station in life and not want to—”

The last part of his sentence was drowned out by the roar of an approaching bulldozer. Barry-the-Bucket was coming through the village. Evan and Bronwen stepped up onto the grass verge as the huge vehicle rumbled past. As it drew level, however, Barry brought it to a halt.

“I was looking for you, Evans-the-Law,” he yelled down. “Someone told me that you’d got your eye out for cars that might have been left overnight. Well, there’s a maroon Toyota Camry in the car park outside the Vaynol Arms. It hasn’t been moved since yesterday afternoon. I just thought I’d mention it because usually overnight guests go somewhere during the day, don’t they? And it’s a rental car, too.”

“How do you know that?” Evan asked.

“Maybe because it’s got a Hertz decal in the window,” Barry said dryly. “It might be nothing, but I just thought I’d mention it.”

“Diolch yn fawr, thanks a lot, man.” Evan waved as the bulldozer continued with much grinding and clanking. He turned back to Bronwen with a delighted grin on his face. “How about that? And the D.I. walked right past it this morning! That would be a turn-up for the books if the car we’re looking for has been sitting there all the time!” He squeezed Bronwen’s shoulder. “Sorry, cariad, but I have to rush back and phone headquarters.”

“Who was just saying he was content with his humble station in life?” Bronwen called after him.