Evan and Elle - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,49
tiny patches of sand between the pebbles. Watkins blinked in the late afternoon sunlight.
“Are you sure you didn’t overshoot and land us on the Riviera? This can’t be England. I’ve been on holiday in England enough times. It always rains.”
“That’s because you always go in the summer time. You know August is the monsoon month.” Evan looked around with approval. “It looks nice, doesn’t it? Maybe we can stretch this investigation out to a couple of weeks. I rather fancy lying there in a deck chair and reading a good book, or staying at one of these posh hotels and having tea in the conservatory.”
“We’re on an NWP expense account. You’re lucky they didn’t provide us with a tent.”
Evan chuckled. “So the first thing to do is find a place to stay and then a meal. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Watkins nodded. “My thoughts exactly. We’re too late to do any business today, anyway. We’ll get an early start in the morning.”
“Do you think we should make a courtesy call on the local police before we start poking around on their turf?”
“Yeah, I suppose we’ll have to do that, but I’d rather get my facts straight first. I want to get all the details on this restaurant, so that it looks as if we know what we’re talking about.”
“The town hall will have the records of business licenses, won’t they? Maybe we should start there.”
“Good idea. We’ll see what they’ve got and go on from there.” Watkins sucked air through his teeth. “I wish I knew what we were looking for.”
“We’re checking out Madame Yvette’s past, aren’t we? We’re trying to find out why a man with a false identity should choose her restaurant to be murdered in.”
“I just hope we can come up with something substantial.” Watkins sighed. “If we come back with facts we could have got over the phone, we’ll never hear the last of it.”
“There has to be something here, Sarge.” Evan pulled up at a zebra crossing and waited patiently while an elderly couple shuffled across the broad esplanade. It seemed to take forever. “People don’t suddenly show up in a remote part of North Wales for no reason. Yvette must have had a good reason for opening her restaurant there. And I bet our victim had a good reason for seeking out her restaurant. Something more than wanting a lobster dinner. Once we’ve established a connection, it will all fall into place.”
“You and your connections,” Watkins said dryly. “So you’re saying it was something more than educating the Welsh peasants in the culinary delights of French cooking that made her choose that site?”
The crosswalk cleared and Evan drove on, past elegant hotels with pillared porches and glassed-in lounges. The sort of places that would be serving tea on silver trays at this very moment, Evan thought wistfully. He wrenched his thoughts back to the matter at hand. “If you were French and you had to close one restaurant, you’d open up another one nearby or go back to France, wouldn’t you? Why would anyone choose Wales without any Welsh connections?”
Watkins nodded. “I think you’re right. Just say your prayers that we stumble across the answer down here. It’s about time we got a lucky break.”
Half an hour later they checked into the Seaview Hotel.
It was an old-fashioned establishment on a back street, half a mile from the seafront. “We could report them for violating the trades description act,” Watkins muttered as they went up the front steps. “You certainly can’t see the sea from here!”
“And it’s not really a hotel,” Evan added. “When I was a kid we called a place like this a boarding house.”
The woman who opened the door reminded Evan instantly of the old landladies he had encountered at those boarding houses during childhood holidays.
“No noise after ten o’clock,” she informed them, eying them as if she suspected they might be all-night ravers, “and the front door is locked at eleven sharp. There’s no reason to be out after that in Eastbourne. We’re a quiet, refined establishment.” She took a key from the rack and led them up a flight of carpeted stairs. “The bathroom rules are posted on the inside of the door,” she went on, puffing a little from the exertion. “Basically it’s no baths after ten o’clock at night. The geyser makes a noise, you see, and people like to sleep.” She reached the landing and put a key in one of the doors. “You’re