Evanly Bodies - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,60

transportation if he suddenly needed it. He reminded himself that Jamila's case was now in the hands of other officers. He also knew that he would find it hard to stay uninvolved until she was found again.

The village street was just springing to life. Evans-the-Milk's electric milk float hummed pleasantly as he made his way up the street, delivering the morning pints to doorsteps. The sound of children's voices came from the bus stop where they waited for the school bus to take them down to the valley. Some of the older women were already out sweeping and washing their front steps, as women in the village had done since the dawn of time. The younger ones hadn't picked up this habit, much to the dismay of Mrs. Williams and Mair Hopkins. If a house didn't have a spotless front step and polished brass door knocker, what hope was there for tidiness inside?

Evan was about to get into his car when he changed his mind. He knew that Inspector Watkins would have his own people on the job, but Evan couldn't just drive away. He went up to the children at the bus stop.

"Hello, kids," he said, smiling at them. "How's the new school then?"

"Horrible," one boy said. "Not as nice as Miss Price. The teachers are mean."

"It's all right," a little girl said. "They have a lovely art room and a beautiful library full of books. There's more to do."

"More work, you mean," the boy growled.

"Tell me, kids," Evan went on. "You know the new family at the grocer's shop?"

"The Paki's, you mean?"

"Pakistani, Alud," Evan said firmly. "We don't call people nicknames. Did any of you happen to see their daughter yesterday? You know her? About fifteen years old with a long plait down her back?"

They looked at each other, then shook their heads. Nobody had seen her.

Evan then went up the street, stopping the women on their front steps, the younger women and men leaving for work and asking them if they had seen Jamila. They all vaguely knew who Jamila was, but nobody could remember seeing her the day before. Some of them had been to chapel in the morning. After that they'd either been indoors watching football on the telly or out doing the big weekly shop.

Evan wandered on aimlessly, looking up above the village to the top of the pass where the giant Swiss chalet outline of the swank Everest Inn dominated the skyline. He supposed he could ask up there. He could even check out the various hiking trails up Mount Snowdon. If Rashid had taken Jamila somewhere, he'd have had so many choices. There were mountains and deep lakes and pine forests and even mine shafts in the area. Too many places to hide a body if that was what he had in mind. But he'd have to have carried her somewhere, and Jamila would have put up a good fight, Evan was sure. She wouldn't have left the house willingly with Rashid. That was his only hope. And if Rashid had killed her first, someone must have seen him loading her body into his car. The villagers of Llanfair didn't usually miss much.

Evan paused as he reached the two chapels at the top of the village. As usual there was a biblical text on each of their billboards. Although he was now in a hurry, Evan couldn't help glancing at Capel Bethel. The text read: "Honor thy father and mother, that thy days may be long in the land of the living." Expectantly he turned to Capel Beulah and was not disappointed. Their quotation was, "For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother. Matthew 10, 35." Thus did the ministers of Capel Bethel and Capel Beulah wage polite and Christian warfare. Only this time Evan didn't smile. He knew they couldn't know about Jamila, but the text was too close to home.

Evan got into his car and drove away. When he came to the junction at the bottom of the pass, with the A55 going to Caernarfon in one direction and toward Colwyn Bay, Chester, and England in the other, Evan changed his mind at the last second and put his foot down, heading toward Caernarfon. He parked in the police station lot and sprinted toward the building.

"Any news yet on the missing girl?" he asked the duty sergeant.

"What missing girl is this? First I've heard of it," the sergeant replied.

"I reported her