Evanly Bodies Read online

  "They're Pakis," Charlie Hopkins said, as Betsy put a foaming mug of Guinness on the counter for Evan.

  "I know. I went over just now. It's a father and son, doing the carpentry themselves."

  "It's going to be trouble if you ask me," Barry-the-Bucket commented, between swigs from his glass. "You saw how the young one was dressed-like one of those Muslim priests you see on the telly. I wouldn't be surprised if they're not a terrorist cell hiding out here. You want to keep an eye on them, Evan."

  "Give them a break, Barry," Evan said. "I'm sure they're a perfectly normal family. It's up to them how they choose to dress. They've got their religion, and we've got ours. That doesn't make them dangerous. I suggest we all work hard to make them feel welcome in the village."

  "If they want us to make them feel welcome, then they've got to learn to be a bloody sight friendlier than they were today," Charlie Hopkins said. "My Mair poked her head around the door, just to exchange a friendly word with whoever it was, and they cut her dead. The younger one wouldn't even speak to her."

  "Ah well, they're Muslims, look you, and she's a woman," Barry said. "Women don't count for anything in their religion. They'll probably start making all the women in the village wear veils when they go into the shop."

  Evan laughed, a little uneasily. "Come on, Barry. They're as British as you or I. Give them a chance, all right?"

  "I'd like to see anyone make me start wearing a veil," Betsy said. "I've got a good body, and I don't mind showing it off a little."

  She smoothed down her T shirt, pulling the low neckline even lower, making every man in the bar look up from his glass.

  "You get back to your pouring," Barry said firmly. He and Betsy had been dating for a while. "That's enough showing it off for one evening."

  "Mind you"-Betsy gave him a teasing smile-"one of those see-through, filmy veils would be dead sexy. Like Salomé doing the dance of the seven veils." She wiggled her hips, making the men laugh.

  Evan drained his glass and replaced it on the bar. "Thanks, Betsy love. I'd better be going, then. I don't like to keep Bronwen waiting, and I've had a tough day."

  "Big case you're working on?" Charlie Hopkins asked.

  "No, worse luck. Big meeting. It's the new Chief Constable. He's shaking up the whole police force. You want to hear the latest thing? New uniforms. He's going to have the poor blokes on the beat wearing black cargo pants and black turtleneck sweaters instead of the old shirts and ties."

  "What? Cargo pants and sweaters? They'll look like a bunch of thugs. Where's the authority in that? People like a policeman to look like a policeman. They respect the brass buttons and the neat tie." Charlie Hopkins shook his head in disgust.

  "I agree with you, Charlie," Evan said. "But the new Chief Constable says the ties are a liability during a scuffle, even though they're only clip on and come off easily, and he says the shirts only get crumpled when you wear them with body armor."

  "Body armor?" Barry burst out laughing. "When have you ever worn body armor?"

  "Never, personally, but some of the force has to, sometimes."

  The rest of the men were laughing now.

  "It's not as if you blokes are breaking up a gang fight or an international terrorist cell every day of the week now, is it?" Evans-the Meat chuckled.

  "There's nothing I can do about it, Gareth," Evan said. "I'm at the bottom of the pecking order. My opinion doesn't count for much. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that this new uniform is only the tip of the iceberg. We've got special meetings of the Plain Clothes Division going on for the next couple of weeks, and he's scheduled us for sensitivity training."

  "For what?" Barry asked.

  "We have to learn how to be nice to the public so that they don't regard us with hostility."

  He broke off as the men around him were laughing.

  "So when you catch a young thug you have to say, 'Oh no, you naughty boy. Please don't bash in that old lady's head and take her purse. It isn't nice,' " Evans-the-Meat said in high falsetto.

  "You think it's funny, but that's just about what it's going to be," Evan said gloomily. "Oh well, there's not much I can do about it. I'd better get on home or Bronwen will worry."

  Evan nodded to his friends and stepped out into the brisk evening breeze. It was quite a climb up the hill to the cottage. It had been easy enough during dry weather when the daylight lasted until after nine o'clock. Now, at the beginning of October, the evenings were closing in, and the valley was plunged into darkness by seven. Evan stumbled and slithered his way upward, wishing he had a car that could make the slope. But he still had only his old bone shaker, and in this weather the track really needed a four-wheel drive.

  Light was streaming out of the cottage windows, sending a welcoming beacon down to him. As he approached the front door, Evan paused to savor the satisfaction of the moment-his own home built mainly by his own hands, his wife waiting for him with dinner on the table. What more could a man want from life?

  He pushed open the front door. "Bron?" he called. "I hope I haven't kept dinner waiting too long, but I just had to pop into the pub . . ."

  "Oh yes?" Bronwen appeared from the kitchen, taking off the apron she was wearing over her jeans and sweater. "Just had to pop in, did you?"

  "I was only there a few minutes," Evan said, "and I just wanted to find out what the blokes in the village had heard about the Harris's old shop. Did you know it's been sold, and a Pakistani family has bought it? They're down there now, refitting the shelves and counters."

  "I do know all about it," Bronwen said, "and I didn't have to pop into the pub to find out. It just so happens that we've got company."

  "What?" Evan looked around the room for the first time. Perched at the edge of one of the kitchen chairs was a young girl, dressed in a navy blue-and-white school uniform. She looked to be in her mid-teens, with light brown skin and one long, luxurious dark braid of hair down her back. She rose awkwardly to her feet and smiled shyly. "Oh hello," Evan said. "Sorry, I didn't see you there."

  "Evan"-Bronwen took his arm-"I'd like you to meet Jamila. She's the daughter of the new people at the grocer's shop. We met on the bus coming home from school and got talking, and she very kindly offered to help me carry my shopping up the hill. So I thought the very least I could do was invite her to stay for dinner with us. Our first dinner guest."

  "Nice to meet you, Jamila. This is all right with your family, is it?"

  "Oh yes. I asked Mummy, and she it would be fine to stay and help Mrs. Evans, especially when she found out that Mrs. Evans was the schoolteacher. I'd only be in the way at the shop while Daddy and Rashid are working anyway."

  "So has your family moved in yet?"

  "We're in the process of moving in. We had the van bring up some things today, and the rest is coming tomorrow. Daddy says they'll have the shop opened on Saturday." She spoke, like her brother, with a slight Yorkshire accent.

  "Where are you living now then?" Evan asked.

  "We've been renting a couple of rooms in Bangor so that Rashid and I could start the school year here. But now we'll be living in the flat over the shop. It's going to be rather crowded, but I expect we'll survive. Rashid wants to move into student housing at the university as soon as they can find a suitable place."

  "That shouldn't take long, should it? I thought the university would find housing for students."

  "Well, there is plenty of housing, but not what Rashid wants. He'll only live with other Muslim students, you see, so they're trying to find a house to rent-and not everybody is too keen to rent to a group of Pakistani boys, as you can imagine."

  "That's illegal, isn't it?" Bronwen said angrily.

  "I'm sure it is," Evan agreed, "but you're not surprised to hear that an old Welsh landlady finds an excuse not to let out rooms to anybody who looks so different, are you? It's very hard to prove a discrimination case. But I'm sure the university will have to come up with something if your brother perseveres."

  "O
h, he's good at pushing to get his own way, believe me." Jamila smiled. "Rashid is a great one for his rights."

  "Well, don't just stand there, Evan," Bronwen said. "Dinner's all ready, and I'm sure you're starving as usual. Let's eat, and we can continue our conversation at the dining table." She put a hand on Jamila's shoulder. "I hope you don't mind eating in the kitchen, Jamila, but we decided the living room would be too cramped if we tried to fit in a dining table."

  "Oh no, I think what you've got here is just lovely," she said. "So warm and friendly, like something out of a storybook."

  "That was the idea," Bronwen said. "Sit down, you two. It's a chicken casserole tonight. You don't have any dietary restrictions about chicken, do you, Jamila?"

  "I'm not like my brother, Mrs. Evans." Jamila rolled her eyes. "I'm not particularly religious. I don't eat pork because my family never cooks it, but I've eaten a sausage at a friend's house before now. I mean, it made sense not to eat pork when people lived in a desert and had no means of refrigeration, but now pigs are as safe as any other animals, aren't they?"

  "Well, I'd agree with that," Bronwen said, ladling out a generous helping of casserole onto Jamila's plate and putting it in front of her, "but many people feel passionately about it, don't they? Wars have been started over less."

  "I know. My parents were never particularly religious either. My father has always behaved like a good Muslim-going to the mosque, saying his prayers, that kind of thing-but he was never fanatical about it. But now my brother has gone off the deep end. He's been bullying me to wear a hajib-you know, a scarf around my head. I've refused flatly. I mean, I live in the UK, don't I? And I think it's insulting to women to tell them to make themselves invisible. If it was up to Rashid, he'd make Mummy and me be hidden under burkas and never go out." She looked at their faces and laughed. "No, I'm serious. He's been going on at my father not to let me go to any parties or anywhere apart from school where I'm not escorted by a male family member. That's so silly, isn't it?"

  "Well, I say stick to your guns, Jamila," Bronwen said.

  Jamila beamed. "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Evans. You don't know how encouraging it is to hear that. Luckily I've already made some good friends at school, and they're supportive too. I'm trying hard to learn Welsh quickly; then I can talk to my friends on the phone, and Rashid won't know what I'm saying."

  "You can come up here and practice with us," Evan said. "I'm a policeman and I often work long hours. Bronwen would enjoy the company, wouldn't you, love?"

  "That would be lovely," Bronwen said. "I'll help you with your Welsh if you like. And since I'm an old married schoolteacher, even your brother couldn't object, could he?"

  Jamila gave them both a happy smile.

  Chapter 3

  The room was full by the time Evan entered. Sun streaming in through the south-facing plate-glass windows had made it too warm and stuffy. He looked around and saw his fellow detective constable, Glynis Davies, sitting next to DI Watkins in the back row. Evan went over to join them, pulling up a stackable chair beside them.

  "We wondered where you'd got to, boyo," Watkins said. "We thought you were going to incur the wrath of God by coming in after He'd started talking."

  "It rained all last night, didn't it?" Evan muttered. "It took me ages to get down the hill."

  "You drove your car up that track?" Glynis asked. "Wasn't that asking for trouble?"

  "Not the car-me. The car was parked down below, but it took me awhile to get down to it. It was so slippery, and I didn't want to risk sitting down on my rear end and arriving here covered in mud."

  "So what do you think you're going to do all winter?" Watkins asked. "In case you hadn't noticed, it does rain a lot up here, and snow, too. Is this going to be a recurrent excuse for showing up late?"

  Evan grinned. "We're going to have to do something, I know. Bronwen's father promised us his old Land Rover when he gets a new one, but he doesn't show any signs of doing so. And we can hardly keep nagging him, so it's a case of taking the track carefully at the moment."

  "Well, luckily you haven't missed anything," Glynis whispered. "The great man is running late too."

  "What is this for now?" Evan asking, looking at the other officers assembled in the room. "It looks like the whole Plain Clothes Division is here this time. Who exactly would be holding the fort if there's a major crime?"

  "Don't ask me," Inspector Watkins muttered. "I'm as much in the dark as you are. I'm too lowly to have been invited to the brainstorming sessions among the top brass."

  "What can't we have covered already?" Evan asked.

  "Maybe it's to tell us that the Plain Clothes Division will now be wearing uniforms. Plainer plain clothes, so to speak." The detective constable sitting in front of Evan turned round to him with a grin.

  "Let's hope they're not as ugly as the uniforms he's planning to make the poor blokes on the beat wear," someone else chimed in.

  "No, I bet it's nothing to do with uniforms. My bet is that it's more sensitivity training." Glynis said.

  "Oh God, please no," the first DC rolled his eyes. "Where did they find him, anyway?"

  "He's just done a stint in America."

  "As if they know anything about sensitivity training there. They just shoot first and then show great sensitivity to the corpse."

  A general chuckle ran around the room. Evan noticed that DI Watkins tried not to smile but couldn't quite manage to keep a straight face.

  "Now, come on, lads," Watkins said. "That's not the spirit. We may not find his methods easy at first, but he is our new boss and it's up to us to learn to love and appreciate him."

  "Providing he's sensitive enough," someone quipped.

  This time there was loud laughter.

  At that moment the door opened and the new Chief Constable Mathry came in. He was followed by the division commanders of the three regions, Chief Superintendents Morris, Talley, and Jones; and behind them the various chiefs of operations, including Evan's own boss, DCI Hughes.

  The Chief Constable looked around the room, beaming. "That's what I like to see, lads, positive team spirit. That's the ticket. I know we're all going to get along splendidly. What we need is more meetings like this, more chances for the entire division to interact. There has been too much compartmentalization and not enough cooperation between the regions." He perched on the edge of the desk at the front of the room. "I've been taking a look at the logs on that recent mugging on Mount Snowdon. It was originally reported to Colwyn Bay HQ, who referred it to Caernarfon as the national park was within their jurisdiction. However, it was then handed back to Colwyn Bay because they had more manpower. Precious time lost with haggling back and forth."

  "With all due respect, sir," DCI Hughes rose from his chair. "As senior detective of the Caernarfon Station, I have to point out that we had only five men on the roster."

  "Five people," Glynis muttered, loud enough for Evan to hear.

  "This mugging happened on a Sunday when two of my men had days off after working ten days straight, and one was still on leave of absence for his honeymoon."

  "Awww," several men teased.

  "Should have called him back, lazy bugger," someone else commented.

  "Gentlemen, please." Hughes held up his hand. "As I was saying, we were undermanned that day. It made sense to call in a bigger unit."

  "Excuse me, sir." Glynis rose to her feet. "I don't wish to sound like a raving feminist, but I should like to point out, for the record, that there are two women officers present. To hear only the male members of the force being addressed is somewhat insulting."

  "Quite right, young lady." The Chief Constable nodded. "Hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what I was getting at in our session on sensitivity the other day, being aware of those around you, watching that you don't offend unintentionally. Now would you like to rephrase what you were saying, Hughes?"

  DCI Hughes turned slightly pink. "My apologies, sir. Just a slip of the tongue, I assure you. Now, as I wa
s saying . . ." he cleared his throat before repeating what he had just said, using nongender-specific language with great care.

  "You'll be put on shoplifting detail forever after this," Evan whispered to Glynis. "Making your boss blush in front of his fellow officers."

  "I know, but I couldn't sit there and hear him address the assembly as 'gentlemen.' "

  "You all know the old proverb, a new broom sweeps clean," the Chief Constable said, as DCI Hughes sat down again. "I've been studying the running of this division, and I've decided the only thing to do is a complete overhaul. Superintendents Morris and Talley have been working with me all weekend, and we've decided to avoid miscommunications and holdups like the one I just referred to by instituting a Major Incident Team to be kept on call at headquarters here in Colwyn Bay. We have selected officers from each division to rotate onto this team. My hope is that by working together with officers from all three divisions, we will create a better spirit of cooperation throughout the force."

  "How's this going to work, sir?" A detective inspector in the front row asked. "Who's going to decide what's a major incident?"

  "A 'major incident' is something a local division isn't equipped to handle at any given moment. A murder, a kidnapping-any crime that would need to coordinate with our forensics and specialist teams. Local stations will call us in when they need us, and the next available team will be dispatched."

  "Excuse me, sir?" a tentative hand went up, "but do I understand correctly that you've selected officers from all three divisions to take their turns operating out of Colwyn Bay?"

  "Quite right. Absolutely."

  "That will mean rather a long drive for some of us. I live close to Wrexham. That will be an hour's commute for me."

  "Yes, I do appreciate that this will be a problem for a few officers. We're working on a feasibility study to see if police accommodations can be provided for those officers who genuinely live too far away. How many men would be seriously inconvenienced?"

  A good number of hands were raised.