know who they’re looking for, so I suppose it becomes part of Operation Armada.”
“Right. I can go back to finding lost car keys.”
Glynis laughed. Evan didn’t think it was funny.
“See you later maybe, then,” she said again as she rang off.
Evan hung up the phone and sat staring at his desk. So their first hunch had been correct after all. It was all tied in with the drug shipments. Of course. Why else would an outstanding chef open a French restaurant in such an out-of the way place? The drugs would arrive in small boats, be whisked up from the coast to the restaurant and get picked up from there. A great setup. It probably could have gone undetected for years if they hadn’t had the tip-off and there had been no fire.
Jean Bouchard had been the real Madame Yvette’s husband, but he was also involved in the shady world of drug dealing. That was probably why he’d chosen to fake his death and disappear five years ago. And now he’d been sent here to help with the drug shipments. It was probably pure chance that he had happened on the restaurant and discovered the woman impersonating his wife. If Janine hadn’t stabbed him, who had? Had he fallen out with fellow gang members, or crossed paths with a rival gang? Evan wondered if they’d ever know.
He felt both pleased and annoyed. He was pleased that his gut feeling was correct and Madame or Janine or whoever she was had probably not committed the murder, but annoyed that he was once again being left out just as things heated up. He thumped his fist onto the table in frustration. Then he reminded himself that he had work to do. He still had to find Terry Jenkins.
He checked the village once more, looking in all the sort of places an eleven-year-old boy might want to hide. Then he went back to his car. The sun had sunk behind the westera mountains and the valley was bathed in twilight. Evan had to agree with Terry’s mother for once—he didn’t like the thought of the boy out on his bike in the dark. Cars drove up the winding road too fast to see a boy on a bike.
He drove first to the top of the pass and looked around the Everest Inn car park, then slowly back down the hill. Terry really must have gone into hiding—perhaps he was more scared of being taken to the police station than he wanted to admit. Perhaps he knew more than he was admitting, as well.
Evan had almost reached the village of Nant Peris when he spotted something shiny, almost hidden among the thick brambles beside the road. He stopped the car and jumped out. It was Terry’s bike. Evan picked it up and stood there, his hand on the saddle. Why had Terry abandoned his bike? If he’d wanted to hide up on the mountain, there were plenty of tracks leading from Llanfair itself. He wouldn’t have had to ride down to Nant Peris first. Was he possibly on his own quest, looking for something down here—something to do with the fire?
The ruined restaurant stood at the upper end of the village, its stone walls etched in the dying light like jagged teeth.
“Terry?” Evan called. “Are you there, Terry? Your mum’s worried. She wants you home right now.”
Silence, except for the wind sighing on the hillside and stirring the ashes of the fire. He stood looking around, not sure what to do next. The Vaynol Arms sign squeaked as it swung in the wind. A car door slammed and a couple got out of a car. Evan watched them go into the pub, arm in arm and laughing.
He pulled the bike out of the brambles, then scrambled over the dry stone wall that bordered the road to the meadow beyond. As he began to climb, his nostrils picked up a smell, a little off to the left where a small track went up the mountain. Evan followed his nose until the smell became identifiable. He bent down to a large rock and sniffed. There was no visible sign, but then the smell always lingered long after it had evaporated. Petrol had recently been splashed on this rock. A little higher up another whiff . . . . Someone had been carrying petrol up the mountain.
Idiot, he muttered to himself. He had wanted to believe that Terry was innocent, so he had refused to see the