"What?" Evan was enjoying a day off and a real Welsh breakfast, neither of which happened often anymore.

"Bloody Inspector Bragg," Bronwen said. "Talk about aptly named! A whole big article about how he solved the murders single-handedly, and his stupid face grinning from a picture. He's taking all the glory for himself. Listen to this: 'I saw the wives as the primary suspects from the beginning, and it was just a question of finding the link between them. Luckily one of my team stumbled upon that link at a women's shelter.' He doesn't even name you by name, Evan."

Evan smiled as he went back to his sausage. "That doesn't worry me, love. Let him get the glory if he wants it, although personally I can't see how anyone with any feeling could get any satisfaction from solving this case."

Bronwen nodded. "Those poor women. I feel terrible for them. Evan, when we get a second car, would you mind if I signed on as a volunteer at that shelter?"

"You do what you want to, love," Evan said. "It's your life. You don't need my permission to do anything, you know that. I'm not about to turn into a domineering bully like those men."

Bronwen came over and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "That's lucky because I don't think I'm the type who would stand for bullying. Although who can say? Those women might have started off as brave and confident and just been gradually worn down by years of abuse."

"And we've seen for ourselves that sometimes women try to be brave and stand up for themselves, and it pushes some men over the edge. Jamila was lucky to escape with her life."

Bronwen rested her cheek against his. "It sounds terrible, but in a way I'm glad that Rashid was killed. Now at least she can come back to her parents, and I don't think they'll be in a hurry to let go of her again."

"I wonder what the Khans will do now?" Evan asked. "They idolized that boy."

"What can they do? Go on with their lives without him."

But the corner grocery store stayed locked and shut the next day and the day after. Mrs. Williams, basket over her arm and needing some custard powder in a hurry, arrived to find the shop in darkness and the door locked and had some unkind things to say about unreliable foreigners.

"Probably yet another of their heathen feast days, I shouldn't wonder," Mrs. Powell-Jones commented, when she came across a very irate Mrs. Williams standing at the bus stop.

Thanks to tight police security, the nature of Rashid's real intention had not been allowed to leak out, and for once the Llanfair underground telegraph system had not picked up the true story right away. Of the other young men in the house, two maintained complete ignorance about Rashid's true intentions and his building of a bomb. The third, the one who visited Pakistan frequently, had vanished by the time the police arrived back at the house with a warrant.

But snippets of news of the Khan's tragedy eventually filtered through to the villagers, and there were mixed feelings in the Red Dragon.

"Nothing but trouble, didn't I say it from the first?" Charlie Hopkins stated. "We'd have had a terrorist cell in the village, you mark my words."

"I suppose they'll be moving away again now," Barry the Bucket said. "They won't want to stick around here after a tragedy like that."

"Good riddance, I say," came muttered from a corner.

But the women did not reflect their attitudes.

"I hope they're not thinking of moving out and shutting up shop," Mair Hopkins said to Charlie. "Just when I've become used to having eggs and baked beans on the doorstep again and not having to ride in that drafty old bus. I tell you, Charlie, if they go, you're going to have to buy me a car and teach me to drive. I'm sixty-nine years old and I've had enough of waiting in bus queues."

Mrs. Khan managed a smile. "You're most kind," she said. "Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?"

Other women followed suit, and by the end of the next week Jamila had come home and the shop had opened again.

"I suppose one can say that occasionally good things do come out of tragedy," Bronwen said to Evan as they walked together up the track to their cottage. "I think the women showing up on the Khan's doorstep with food like that really touched their hearts. Maybe it will lead to better understanding."

Evan smiled at her. "If it leads to the Welsh welcoming foreigners, it will be a bloody miracle," he said, and looked back fondly at the village nestled below, bathed in afternoon sunshine.