Evan Blessed Page 4

  “You certainly surprised me all right,” Evan said.

  The stony expression didn’t waver. “I thought to myself that my boy might need some extra help in the busy time before the wedding and he might need someone to make sure he was eating properly. But I see you’ve already got extra help.” Her gaze traveled over Bronwen. “But don’t tell me you’ve already had the wedding?”

  Bronwen flushed and went to say something. Evan put a hand around her shoulder. “No, Mother. The wedding is still two weeks away, as you very well know. And I’ve been out all night on a particularly nasty case, so Bronwen was making me some breakfast.”

  Mrs. Evans’s face struggled, as if she wanted to believe this, but couldn’t. “Well then,” she said. “I could do with a cup of tea, after sitting in that bumpy old lorry all night. Evan can bring my case in for me.”

  “I’m afraid I was making coffee,” Bronwen said. “Evan hardly got any sleep so I was helping him to stay awake. But I can put the kettle on for some tea.”

  “And maybe you’d like to pop upstairs and put your dressing gown on at the same time, Miss Price,” Mrs. Evans said. “You’ll catch your death of cold running around in your undies like that.”

  “All right.” Bronwen kept her face composed until she was out of sight, then bounded up the stairs.

  “Mother, now you’ve upset Bronwen,” Evan hissed.

  She stared at him with the same stony gaze. “I should hope it was her own conscience that upset her. What on earth do the neighbors say when the policeman brings women in for the night?”

  “Women? Mother, she’s my fiancée. And I’d like you to try and be nicer to her.” He left his mother standing in the hallway and ran up the stairs. He found Bronwen standing at the window, staring out.

  “I’m sorry, love,” he said.

  “I know she’s your mother,” Bronwen said in a low voice, “but she’s a miserable old harpy.”

  Evan came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “You’re right. She is.”

  “She’s never going to accept me as a daughter-in-law.” Bronwen’s voice cracked. “She still calls me Miss Price, for God’s sake. And the way she looked at me. You’d have thought I’d been entertaining an entire army regiment!”

  Evan laughed and squeezed her to him. “I don’t know what she can have against you, but I’m sure she’ll improve.”

  “Of course we know what she’s got against me. I’m taking her precious son away from her control.”

  Evan reached behind the door and took down a velour robe. “Here, put my dressing gown on, and as soon as we’ve given her a cup of tea, we’re going to march her over to Mrs. Williams and get her settled in there.”

  “Lucky Mrs. Williams,” Bronwen muttered as Evan led her downstairs.

  “Hello, Evans, been oversleeping again?” Sergeant Howell Jones asked as Evan came into Inspector Watkins’s office. “They’ve done studies, you know. Too much rest isn’t good for you.”

  There was a general chuckle. Evan looked around to see that he was, indeed the last, although the clock on the wall only said 8:03.

  “Sorry,” he muttered as he pulled out a chair. “Last-minute complication. My mother arrived from Swansea—took us by surprise.”

  “If Bronwen was with you, I’d imagine it did give you a nasty shock.” D.C. Glynis Davies gave Evan a knowing smile. Glynis was Evan’s fellow detective constable and should have been his rival for promotion, except that a close friendship had developed between them—one that Bronwen didn’t always understand, since Glynis was unattached, clever, and gorgeous. Today she was wearing an open-necked blue and white checked shirt that showed off her sleek copper hair and porcelain skin to perfection.

  “Come on, folks. No time for chitchat, we’ve got serious business to attend to.” Inspector Watkins clapped his hands like a schoolteacher quieting an unruly class. Evan remembered the time, not so long ago, when Watkins was a humble sergeant and always had a ready quip.

  “Right.” Watkins leaned forward over his desk. “For those of you who weren’t in on last night’s fun, we received a report of a missing hiker at around four p.m. Became separated from her boyfriend while coming down from the summit of Snowdon. He waited, then went back to look for her. No sign of her. Since she was seventeen and therefore still a minor, we sent out a search team. It was suggested that she may have found the Pyg Track or the Miner’s Path too steep and elected to take the easy way down following the railway, so that area was also searched. A couple of dogs were brought in. One of them picked up a scent and led us to what turned out to be an underground bunker, in the woods just above the Llanberis station. Fully equipped with bed, provisions, and even a CD player.”

  “But not inhabited?” Glynis Davies asked.

  “Not inhabited. The early forensic reports have come in. No traces of blood, which is good. The bed appears to have new sheets on it and not to have been slept in. No hairs or fibers gathered. The bucket toilet has not been used. The place is almost devoid of fingerprints. Obviously he used gloves or wiped things clean. We have managed to pick up some prints, however, and we’re matching them now to our files.”

  Glynis raised a hand. “What reason do we have to think that this could have anything to do with the missing hiker, sir? There are all kinds of strange survivalists, or even a teenager who wanted a secret space away from home.”

  “If he’s a teenager, then I’d say he’s got a sick mind,” Watkins replied. “One thing I didn’t mention. Show her the photo, Dawson.”

  A gawky youngster who looked like an overgrown schoolboy sorted through a pile of photos and handed one to Glynis.

  “Here you go. Take a look at that, then.”

  It was a close-up of the chains with handcuffs attached, high on the wall.

  “Oh, goodness,” Glynis said, glancing across at Evan. “So it looks as if we made a lucky discovery, doesn’t it? Someone was planning to bring a victim to the bunker, but hadn’t already done so.”

  “Or a willing participant,” Sergeant Jones suggested. “There are those whose idea of kinky sex might involve being shut in a bunker and handcuffed to a wall.”

  “You’re right, Howell,” Watkins said. “As P.C. Davies says, this may have nothing at all to do with our missing hiker. It may be pure coincidence that we stumbled upon it when we did.”

  “On the other hand,” Evan began, never comfortable at speaking out at meetings like this, “we do have a girl who vanished in good weather on a mountain that must have been crowded with other hikers. I agree there are some dangerous parts of the mountain where she could have slipped and gone over a cliff, but the paths are easy to follow when there are other hikers on them, and if she was injured, she would have been found by now.”

  “I agree with Evan,” P.C. Dawson said. “I do a bit of climbing myself, but it’s like a zoo out there in the summer holidays. Crawling with tourists. If you’re a serious walker, you stay away from Snowdon in August.”

  “So you don’t think it’s possible that someone could have grabbed the girl and taken her off without being seen?” Watkins asked.

  Evan considered this. “In that wooded area where we found the bunker, maybe,” he said. “It was quite warm yesterday afternoon. If she went into the woods for some shade, and he was in there …”

  “Then why not take her straight to the bunker, if it was all prepared and nearby?” Glynis asked.

  There was silence as the group digested this.

  “He was waiting until it was dark, and by then our men were out on the mountain?” someone suggested.

  “So what’s he done with her? Is she still alive? Is there any hope of rescuing her?”

  Silence again, then Glynis said in a tight voice, “He may have more than one of these bunkers prepared, sir. He may have gone to plan B.”

  “So what do we do now, sir?” Sergeant Jones asked impatiently. “Have the girl’s parents been called, just in case she’s gone home or contacted them?”
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br />   Watkins nodded. “They were called last night. They hadn’t heard from her then. We should check in again this morning before we do anything else.”

  “And if they still haven’t heard from her?” Sergeant Jones continued. “It was sheer luck we stumbled upon that bunker last night. The chances of finding another one are pretty slim. But we should take another look at the whole area in daylight, just in case we’ve overlooked anything.”

  “Yes, we should definitely do that.” Watkins looked strained—tired and old and strained. “Can you arrange a team, Howell? See if you can get help from the Parks Service again. Pay special attention to areas where she could have fallen as well as looking for any signs of a scuffle.”

  “And what’s our next step with the bunker?” Glynis asked. She looked at the faces around the room. “Do you want me to check the national sex offenders database? Find out if anyone has been released from a mental facility and is now living in the area?”

  “How about seeing whether the modus operandi has come up before?” Watkins suggested. “That would narrow it down for us. Any cases of girls abducted and taken to bunkers, bodies with signs of handcuffs on the wrists.”

  “The National Criminal Intelligence Service should have that kind of thing on file, shouldn’t they?” Glynis looked up from the pad on which she was scribbling notes. “That would save contacting every regional police force.”

  “Start off with them, definitely, but I think we should double-check with the regions too, just in case something hasn’t made it to the database yet. If they’ve got an ongoing investigation that’s similar, it might not have been put into a database yet.”

  “So you want me to contact NCIS and all the regions?”

  Watkins grinned at her. “You’re our computer whiz.”

  “I wish I’d played the helpless female when I first arrived here,” Glynis said. “And while I’m at it this morning, do we have access to a profiler, or should I check who does?”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Evan interrupted. “It seems to me that we’re jumping the gun a bit with this sex offender database and profiler.”

  “The sooner someone can give us a profile on the type of man who might have built the bunker, the sooner we know who we’re looking for,” Glynis countered.

  “What are you getting at, Evans?” Watkins asked.

  “Well, sir, I was thinking that one of us should start with the boy who reported the missing girl. Maybe go over their route with him, and talk to the other hikers at the hostel. Something might have been going on there.”

  “Like what?” Watkins asked.

  “All sorts of strange people stay in hostels, don’t they? One of them may have had his eye on her and waited for an opportunity to get her alone. Perhaps someone overheard or noticed something out of the ordinary. We know she had a row with her boyfriend—”

  “I didn’t know that,” Watkins interrupted. “Nobody told me that.”

  “That’s how they became separated on the mountain. She wasn’t as good a hiker as he was. He said she was going too slowly. They had words and she told him to go on ahead. He did, then felt guilty and came back to look for her.”

  “I see. Well, maybe you’re right, Evans. We’d better go and question him again. And ask around at the hostel.”

  “A couple of other suggestions,” Evan said. “Apparently she had a mobile phone on her. So why didn’t she call if she was in trouble? We can check if any calls have been made from it since she disappeared.”

  “I can do that, I suppose,” Glynis said, jotting down notes on a pad.

  “And we can make sure your search team keeps an eye out for the phone, Jones,” Inspector Watkins said. “If someone grabbed her, he may have discarded it.”

  “And check with the local police stations in case someone has found it and handed it in,” Evan added. “And I think we should ask around Llanberis and higher up the pass too, just in case anyone saw her trying to hitch a ride.”

  Watkins nodded. “All worth doing. I’ll drop all those in your lap, then. I’m going to meet the forensics team at the site and we’re going to take another look at that bunker in daylight. Then maybe I’ll catch up with you, Evans. At any rate, let’s meet again down here at two o’clock.”

  Sergeant Jones got to his feet. “You plainclothes types can go to your computers and your forensics,” he said slowly, “but there’s one thing that seems obvious to me that nobody has mentioned.”

  Heads turned in his direction.

  “What I want to know is how someone carried a bloody great shovel and all those supplies up a mountain path. Who could have done that without drawing attention to himself?”

  Chapter 5

  Red fury seethed inside his head. How could they possibly have stumbled upon his hideaway, after he’d put in so much effort and planned so well? Meddling, interfering little busybodies. Well, he’d show them. They weren’t going to stop him now. He was going to go ahead in spite of them. Let them do their worst.

  His breath came in rapid gasps as he opened the door to the piano room, sat down, and thumped out the somber chords of the Funeral March. Then a smile crossed his face as an idea came to him and he jumped up from the piano again.

  “Maybe,” he said to himself, a slow smile spreading across thin lips. “Their wits against mine. No challenge at all, really. Peasants, the lot of them.”

  He turned from the piano and began to write.

  As Evan drove into the small tourist haven of Llanberis, he realized what a difficult task it would be to find anyone who had spotted the missing girl. On this sunny August morning, the town was crawling with tourists. Tour buses from strange corners of Europe belched diesel smoke as they disgorged their passengers. Families wandered across the road, trailing children and pushing prams. Serious climbers, with ropes slung over their shoulders and big, solid boots, seemed intent on getting out of the crush as quickly as possible. There was already a long line for the little train up Snowdon. If Paul Upwood’s girlfriend had come down the mountain and into this town, she could have drifted unnoticed among the crowd. Even if she had walked alone down the pass, or tried hitch-hiking, she would have joined a procession of other young people doing the same thing. A hopeless task, really.

  Anyway, first he needed to meet Paul Upwood again and get a detailed description of the girl from him, and hopefully a photo. Then they could make posters and he’d have a photo to show around on the Sherpa bus and in the cafés.

  Evan stopped off at his house as he passed through Llanfair to change into hiking gear. Bronwen was nowhere in sight. He suspected she’d be up at the new cottage, trying to put her belongings into some kind of order. He grabbed his hiking boots and an anorak and raced out again before the bush telegraph which worked so efficiently in Llanfair could alert his mother to his presence. As he drove past the two chapels he noticed that the minister of Capel Bethel, the Rev. Parry Davies, was out pasting up a new biblical text on the billboard outside his chapel. It read: Faith without works is dead. St. James.

  Evan couldn’t resist looking across at the identical billboard outside Capel Beulah and saw instantly why Mr. Parry Davies had made his selection. The other minister, Rev. Powell Jones, had chosen as his text: St Paul says, “You will be saved by your faith.”

  In spite of the grimness of the day, he smiled as he drove on. By the time he reached the youth hostel at the top of the pass, the cloud had closed in, so that the young people who loitered smoking outside the door were huddled in little groups, shivering in the cold wind. Evan changed into his hiking boots in the car, then hurriedly put on his jacket as he got out. Cloud swirled, turning the hostel into a ghostly shadow in the mist and obliterating the peaks beyond. If it had been a day like this when Shannon disappeared, Evan could have understood it. He’d been on the mountain enough times himself when the world was suddenly swallowed up into the mist and one false step could have sent him tumbling over a cliff. But yesterday had been sparkling clear.

  He
paused on the gravel outside the hostel, thinking. If someone had kidnapped her, how could he have done it? Where could he have taken her without being noticed on such a bare and well-populated mountain? Then he reminded himself that the bunker had existed, unnoticed, almost within shouting distance of a well-traveled path and a railway. The person who dug it had taken a terrible risk by situating it there. Obviously a person who enjoyed taking risks. He’d remember to mention that to Glynis when she was making her profile.

  Paul Upfield was sitting in the common room, halfheartedly flicking through a magazine, as Evan came in.

  He jumped up, letting the magazine fall to the floor. “Any news yet?”

  Evan shook his head and pulled up a chair beside the boy. “I’m afraid not. Have you been in touch with her family again this morning?”

  “No, I’ve been putting off talking to them until I really have to. They don’t like me very much,” he said.

  “Why’s that?”

  The boy’s face flushed. “They don’t approve of us going out together. They told her she was too young for a serious boyfriend, and she’s almost eighteen. Some people get married at eighteen, don’t they?”

  Evan nodded. The boy sighed and sank his head into his hands. “They’ll probably blame me for this. Her mum didn’t want her to go on this holiday with me, you know. She thought we’d get up to—you know. They keep her in a cocoon—don’t let her go dancing or anything.”

  “So you don’t know whether she’s shown up at home this morning?”

  Paul Upwood shook his head.

  Evan pulled out his phone. “I think they’d like to hear from you, Paul. What’s their number again?”

  Paul Upwood winced as he gave Evan the numbers.

  “Hello?” The woman’s voice sounded tense.

  “Mrs. Parkinson? It’s D.C. Evans of the North Wales Police.”

  “You’ve found Shannon?”

  “Not yet, I’m afraid. We still have men out there looking. I’ve got Paul Upwood here with me and—”