Evan and Elle - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,17

doesn’t it?” Potter barked. “Two fires in a week, both around Llanfair. Which makes me ask, why here? It’s not exactly a tourist mecca, is it? I mean, who cares if Llanfair burns down? So it has to be a local. And the fuses—I understand that all the men around here used to work in the slate quarry before it shut down. They’d all have had access to fuses like that, wouldn’t they? Start putting the screws on, Constable. Find out who might have kept a fuse or two around the house. Get a statement from everyone in the village and see who has an alibi for the half hour before the building went up. I want this bloke nabbed before he does any more damage.”

He didn’t wait to hear Evan’s answer as he stalked out again.

Evan did as he was ordered and made the rounds of the village once more, but with no obvious success. Nobody admitted to having old fuses around the house. There had been a European league game between Real Madrid and Manchester United on the telly that kept a lot of men home from the pub. Evans-the-Meat remained sullen and unhelpful. And he had a cast-iron alibi for the night of the second fire. He said he was down at a darts club meeting in Caernarfon. Evan noted the name and address of the club; that might prove worth looking into.

Evan arrived at Mrs. Williams’s house for lunch with a good appetite and great expectations. They’d had leg of lamb yesterday, which should mean shepherd’s pie today, and Mrs. W. made a top-rate shepherd’s pie.

Mrs. Williams’s face looked flushed and nervous as she opened the oven. “Here,” she said. “I hope you like it!”

Then she put a plate in front of him. It contained three round dabs of food, each about the size of old half crowns.

“Uh—what is it?” Evan asked cautiously.

“It’s French cooking, that’s what it is,” she said with a hint of pride in her voice. “What we learned in our class. That’s a lamb noisette”—she pointed at the brown morsel—“that’s puréed leek, and that’s whipped potato made with garlic.”

“Mmmm—very nice, I’m sure,” Evan said. It was very nice, too, but it only took six mouthfuls to finish his plate.

“There—wasn’t very much, was there?” he said as he put his knife and fork together.

“That’s the French way,” Mrs. Williams said. “Just enough to excite the taste buds, that’s what Madame Yvette said. If you want to fill up, you eat bread in France . . . and of course she said we had to have red wine, but I’m not going that far.”

Evan sighed and reached for the bread.

On his next visit to the Red Dragon he discovered he wasn’t the only one who was now on a starvation diet.

Betsy had put a new blackboard on the wall above the bar. Underneath heading Red Dragon Bistro there was written Tonight’s special: Leek and Gruyère Soufflé.

“What the devil is a soufflé?” an old farmer demanded. He pronounced it to rhyme with shuffle.

“It’s soo-flay,” Betsy said, “and I learned to make it at our cooking class.”

“Bloody cooking class,” one of the men growled. “You should see what my wife served me last night. Bloody mashed-up muck with garlic, that’s what it was. I told her any more of this and I send her back to her mother.”

“Don’t worry, this Madame Yvette won’t last long,” Evans-the-Meat said.

“Oh, why not?” Evan’s ears pricked up.

Evans-the-Meat looked flustered. “Stands to reason, doesn’t it? Nobody wants that kind of food around here. And have you heard what she’s charging? You can get a whole serving of fish and chips for what she charges for a bit of lettuce and a couple of spring onions. No, she’ll be out of here by Christmas, you mark my words.”

“You wouldn’t be thinking about helping her to make up her mind, would you, Gareth?” Evan asked quietly.

“Meaning what?”

“Someone sent her a threatening note.”

“Well, it wasn’t me. More likely to be Mr. Parry Davies, if you ask me. I gather his sermon about her was a real scorcher. He called her a Jezebel and worse.”

Evan decided it might not be a bad idea to get a sample of printing from the minister in the morning—and one from the butcher as well.

The next day Evan collected samples of printing from most of the villagers. Evans-the-Meat gave his, complaining all the time about duress and the police barking up the wrong tree as usual. Rev. Parry Davies