Evan and Elle - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,11

stew.

He had only taken a couple of bites when there was a knock at the front door.

“Now who can that be?” Mrs. Williams was completely reliable in her responses. “Don’t move. I’ll go.”

Evan heard her opening the door. “I’m sorry, he’s having his dinner, just,” Evan heard her say in English.

“Well, tell him to stop having his dinner and get himself back to work,” a voice barked. “I haven’t got all day.”

Evan put down his fork and went to the front door. The man outside was thirtyish, dark haired, with the kind of very short haircut favored by football players. He was dressed in an oversize navy sweater and faded blue jeans. Evan took him to be a hiker or climber. “Hello. What can I do for you?”

“You can jump to it and take me to the cottage that burned down, laddie.” The man barked out the words with a decidedly Home Counties whine.

“Oh, you must be Peter Potter,” Evan said. He held out his hand to the newcomer.

“Sergeant Potter to you, son. I suppose you’ve got used to taking long lunch hours where there’s nobody to keep an eye on you.”

“Actually I didn’t get off duty until ten minutes ago,” Evan said, “and quite often I get no lunch hour at all, and no weekend off either if something important’s going on.”

“Important, up here?” Peter Potter chuckled. “Like car keys dropped in the grass, you mean?”

“We’ve had our share of crimes,” Evan said, determined not to let this man annoy him, “and it looks like we’ve got another one now.”

“Oh, so you’re the arson expert, are you?”

“No, but I was the one who found the note that said ‘Go home.’ ” Evan pointed to the track. “It’s up here.”

Instead of following, the sergeant walked back to a parked car. He opened the back door and a large Alsatian dog jumped out.

“Oh, Champ the wonder dog!” Evan exclaimed. He held out his hand and the dog took a step forward, wagging its tail.

“His name’s Rex,” Sergeant Potter said coldly. “Get back here, you,” he snarled at the dog. “You know better when you’re on duty! And you’d no right to encourage him either.” He glared at Evan. “Obviously discipline is lax up here.”

“Sorry, but we don’t get to work with dogs much,” Evan said. “No need to really—not for a few lost car keys.” He started up the track at a very fast pace. To his delight Sergeant Potter was red faced and puffing by the time he caught up with Evan at the ruin.

“Keep well away, Constable. Don’t go mucking up my evidence,” he said. “Here. You hold the bags for me and give them to me when I ask you, not before.”

“Right, Sergeant,” Evan said, resisting the desire to salute.

Sergeant Potter and his dog got as far as the front door opening and stopped. “Hello? It looks like the old rags-through-the-letter-box trick again,” he said with satisfaction.

“How do you know that?” Evan was grudgingly impressed. Sergeant Potter gave him a patronizing smile. “When you’ve been doing it as long as I have, son—it’s one of the preferred methods. If the fire started somewhere else the front door would likely be scorched but not completely consumed.”

The dog was sniffing excitedly at the ground.

“See? Rex can smell traces of the flammable liquid used. He’s got a great nose—he can sniff a thimbleful of accelerant in a place the size of Buckingham Palace.”

They made their way around the cottage, with Rex sniffing, Sergeant Potter bending to take samples and then handing the plastic bags back to Evan. “He did a thorough job, I’ll say that for him.” He glanced back at Evan. “So have you got statements from potential witnesses yet?”

“No sir. I wasn’t asked to,” Evan said.

“Initiative, man! Use your bloody initiative!” Potter barked. “You want to be promoted some day, don’t you? You don’t want to spend the rest of your life in this god-forsaken place.”

Evan glanced wistfully at the mountain peaks above, clearly etched against a glass-blue autumn sky.

The mountains were one of the perks of this godforsaken place. He wished he was up there now. “Go and question all the locals. Someone must have seen something. They’re always minding everybody’s business in a small place like this. And find out who’s been buying cans of petrol lately, too!”

“It would be easy enough to get up here without being seen,” Evan said. “He wouldn’t necessarily have started from the village.”

“But he’s carrying a bloody great can of petrol,