Evanly Bodies - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,52

saint was scowling down at him. The hymns were unfamiliar and sung without the zest of the usual Welsh congregation. There was incense too, that curled around the pillars and made him want to sneeze.

The church was by no means full. The majority of the congregation was over the age of fifty, but there was a sprinkling of young families. As soon as mass was over, Evan made for the priest, now standing at the front door to shake hands.

It appeared that there was only one Italian family who were regular mass goers, the Salvatores, and they were in their seventies. The priest had only been assigned to this parish for the past two years, and the name Luigi Alessi didn't ring a bell. Not a regular churchgoer then. One item they could cross off their lists.

Reluctantly Evan drove on to police headquarters to meet with the rest of the team. Pritchard hadn't much to report from the night before. Most of the customers at the pub knew Luigi. They could confirm that he was inclined to talk big and get easily riled when he'd had a few, but the general feeling was that there was no real malice in him. Nobody with whom he sparred on a regular basis, anyway. Another item to cross off the list.

"I've got a list of recent phone calls here." DI Bragg waved sheets of paper. "Nothing that stands out as suspicious. Mrs. Alessi called her doctor quite a lot. Mrs. Rogers, on the other hand, hardly made any phone calls at all."

"No numbers in common then?" Evan asked.

"No, they didn't both call the same hired killer, Evans. So you can put that theory out of your mind." Inspector Bragg smirked.

"So where do we go from here?" Wingate asked, with obvious frustration in his voice.

"You have suggestions for things we're not doing and should be, Wingate?" Bragg asked.

"Well, no sir. Finding the link. That's what we've got to do."

"And how do you propose to find it?"

Wingate frowned. "Well, I thought one of us should follow up on Simon Pennington, the student."

"Can I assign that to you, then, since you're so keen?" Bragg said. "I take it you know how to contact Interpol and British embassies and all that kind of stuff you're going to need to find out where in the world he is?"

"I think I could handle it, sir," Wingate answered stonily.

"Then you go for it, son." Bragg looked at Pritchard and Evans. "Any other bright ideas? Any volunteers?"

"I wouldn't mind tackling Dr. Brock again," Evan said.

"Brock?"

"The one they call Badger. He was the one who wasn't surprised that Martin Rogers had been killed. In fact he seemed delighted. Dr. Humphries said he enjoyed baiting Professor Rogers. It might be interesting to get more of his take on things."

"Do that, if you think it's worth doing," Bragg said, with a resigned shrug. "Frankly I have a gut feeling that this has nothing to do with the university. Okay, a faculty member could have shot Rogers, but what connection could any of them have with a pizzeria ten miles away? None of them lives in Llandudno, do they?"

"No, they all live within reach of the university," Evan said. "But something's got to come out eventually. The killer had the habits of the Rogers's household down pat. Exactly when Mrs. Rogers took the dog for the walk. The fact that Martin Rogers sat at the window to have breakfast."

"Ditto for the Alessi murder," Wingate added. "Although it wouldn't be hard to establish that he cleaned the kitchen alone late at night with the TV on loudly. Any one of the neighbors could have told him that."

"I'm going to stay here and take a look at old arrest records," Bragg said. "I want to see where Alessi's name comes up and in what connection. As you say, we have to stumble upon something eventually."

"Bragg is about to throw in the towel," Wingate muttered to Evan as they walked down the hall together. "I get the feeling he's never had to handle a complicated case before. He likes the sort of murder where they catch the bloke red-handed with a smoking gun, and he hands over the weapon saying, 'I shot the bitch. She had it coming to her.' "

Evan chuckled. "It's true that most of us don't come up against a really complicated crime often. Let's hope that you and I can get somewhere on our own. He might eventually come to trust us with a