Evan and Elle - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,35
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