Evanly Bodies - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,12
around the room. "Where is the dog now?" he asked.
"I shut him in the summerhouse. He's a highly strung animal. I thought he'd get terribly upset with what would be going on here."
"Good idea," DI Bragg said, glancing across at Evans. Evan couldn't tell from the glance whether the DI was annoyed that he had spoken up. "So your walk started when?"
"I always leave at eight o'clock, and I'm out for about an hour."
"When you went out this morning, did you notice anything suspicious? Something that caught your eye as not quite right?"
"You mean did I glimpse someone lurking in the bushes? I'm afraid I didn't. And Lucky would have growled if he'd sensed somebody was in the garden. He has a wonderful sense of smell."
"Do you always take the same route?"
"It depends on the weather. On nice days I like to walk as close to the water as possible and enjoy the view across the strait to Anglesey. When the weather is not so fine, I stick to the town route, past the park, so that Lucky can have a bit of a run. I take a tennis ball for him. He loves retrieving balls."
"This morning was fine, so you did the water route then?"
"Exactly."
"Did you pass anybody along the way?"
She frowned, as if digesting this request. "Cars passed me. A boy on a bike, on his way to school. I don't recall any people-" She broke off as the full implication of the question came to her. "You want to ascertain that I really was on a walk with my dog when Martin was shot? Surely you can't think that I had anything to do with his death?"
"This is all purely routine, Mrs. Rogers. We have to examine every option."
"Yes, I suppose you do," she said. "Very well, I did say good morning to a man as I passed his garden. He's out there most mornings, and he has a little white dog who has become Lucky's friend. They always exchange a sniff and a tail wag through the gate."
"Do you happen to know the name and address?"
"I'm afraid I don't. Isn't that terrible? You pass the time of day with somebody for years, and you never take it to that next level and find out their name. I can take you and show you the house. It's very easy to find. It's black and white, pseudo-Tudor, and there's a white, fluffy dog in the garden most of the time."
"Pseudo-Tudor. On which street?"
"Ffordd Telford," she said. "Or Telford Road if you prefer it in English-which it always used to be, of course."
Bragg glanced at Evans again. "Got that, Evans?"
"Yes sir."
"Right, let's get back to your account of the morning. So your walk lasted the usual hour, did it?"
"More or less. I never time it to the minute. I came back and got Lucky a drink in his bowl outside. Martin doesn't like him eating or drinking in the house. Then I hung my jacket in the hall cupboard. The radio was on in the kitchen, and it was playing a Beatles' song. 'She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.' It made me remember happier days. Then I went through to the kitchen, and it took me a minute to notice Martin lying there, sprawled across the table, and the pool of blood on the tablecloth . . ." She put her hand up to her mouth and fought to compose herself. "It was a terrible shock. I'm sorry," she said at last.
"Did you try to move him?"
"No. I didn't touch him. It was so obvious that he was dead, you see. I walked around him and his eyes were open, staring at me. It was horrible. I ran to the phone and dialed nine-nine-nine, and then I went and locked up Lucky and waited for the police to arrive. That's about it, really. I'm afraid none of it seems real, almost as if I was describing a film I'd seen last night."
"Do you have someone to go to for a few days, Mrs. Rogers?" the WPC asked. "Family close by?"
"I've no real family anymore." Missy Rogers shuddered as she said it. "My parents died some years ago. I've a sister, but she lives in the south of France now. We see each other once a year at the most."
"Close friends living nearby?" the WPC insisted.
"We have plenty of friends among the faculty, and there's the altar guild at church."
"Any of them you'd like me to call to come and