Constable Evans 02: Evan Help Us (12 page)

“Mr. Evans? This is Annie. Annie Pigeon,” a voice whispered. “I think someone’s trying to break into my house.”

Chapter 10

The rain had stopped as Evan hurried out of the house. The street was deserted and the faint sound of dramatic music punctuated with explosions came from TV sets behind heavy curtains. The pavement glistened in the street light but there was a large patch of shadow before the next light up by the school. Wisps of cloud hung like ghostly shadows on the slopes above. Evan’s feet echoed from the stone walls as he broke into a run.

Annie must have been watching for him because she opened the front door before he reached her cottage. She wasn’t wearing makeup this time, and her face looked deathly white against her red hair. She was dressed in old dark sweats and Evan wondered if she had already undressed for bed. Her eyes darted nervously around as she let him into the narrow hallway.

“What happened then?” he asked.

Annie glanced toward the back door and then up the stairs. “I think he might still be there,” she whispered. “I didn’t dare go into the kitchen, because I thought I could see the glow of a cigarette.”

“Stay there,” Evan said. He went down the hall and into the tiny kitchen without turning on the kitchen light. The back door was shut. So was the kitchen window. Without hesitating he crossed to the back door and wrenched it open.

“Alright, what’s going on out here?” he demanded.

Silence. His flashlight strafed the little back garden and the bushes beyond. He waited, holding his breath but there was no sound, only the sigh of the wind. A concrete path led to the back fence with flower beds on either side of it. He walked down the path, examining the beds for footprints. Of course an intruder need never have stepped off the path to reach her kitchen. There was a rickety back gate that wasn’t properly latched. Someone might have gone out that way. He opened it and shone his flashlight along the footpath in both directions but there was no sign of movement except for branches swaying in the wind.

“Did you see him?” Annie’s anxious voice asked as he headed back into the house.

Evan shook his head. He shone the light over the window and door frame. The paint was peeling on both but there was no sign of recent interference.

“Tell me what happened,” he said as he went inside and shut the door behind him.

“I was upstairs, putting my Jenny to bed,” Annie said, still talking in whispers. “I heard people go past talking and then it got quiet. I went into the back bedroom where I sleep to get something and I just happened to glance out of the window and I thought I saw a shadow streak across my back garden toward the house. And then I heard this scratching sound, like someone trying to get in. I tiptoed downstairs and I could see his cigarette. He was standing there in the dark.”

“Any idea who it was?” Evan peered out of the window again.

She shook her head.

Evan went over to the window, then he turned back to her with a grin. “Are you sure you didn’t mistake this for a cigarette?” he asked, pointing to the little red light that glowed on the electric stove. It was reflected in the window glass.

Annie bit her lip. “Oh, I see,” she said. “Yeah, I might have done. I was that scared.”

“The wind does strange things up here,” Evan said kindly. “You might have heard a branch scraping on something and the trees moving in the street light can throw strange shadows.”

She nodded, still wide-eyed. “You may be right,” she said. “Perhaps my imagination is getting the better of me, except…”

“Except what?”

She looked away. “It almost sounds daft to say it now, but I suspected someone had been here yesterday. You know when we were out up on the hill? When I got back the kitchen window was open and I’d swear I closed it before we left. I looked around and it didn’t seem as if anything had been taken, but I just got the feeling that someone had been snooping around and hadn’t put things back how I left them.”

She led him out of the darkened kitchen into a sparsely furnished living room. There was a green vinyl armchair, a bean bag, and a clothes basket full of toys. A small TV sat on top of a bookcase that held a few children’s books.

“It wasn’t robbery, was it?” he said. “Or they would have taken the TV. You’ve no idea why anybody would want to get into your house?”

She shook her head. “No idea at all.”

Evan looked directly at her. “You don’t think someone might have found out where you were living? Someone who might have been looking for you and followed you here?”

He thought she hesitated before she said, “Nobody at all. Jenny and me have no one. We’re all alone.”

“I see,” he said, but he didn’t see. He found himself wondering if this was a ruse to get him round to her house for an evening visit. That’s what Mrs. Williams would have suspected. Bronwen too. But Annie was clearly upset. Her eyes darted around nervously and she was playing with the ring she wore on her right hand.

“Mummy! Where are you? I want you up here.” Jenny’s voice wailed.

“I better go up to her,” Annie said. “Poor little kid. She could tell I was scared. I tried not to let her see, but she could tell.” She headed for the stairs. “I won’t be a moment, I hope. Then maybe you’d like a glass of wine or something? I’ve got a bottle of Spanish plonk.”

Without waiting for him to answer she ran upstairs. Evan went on standing in the living room, unsure whether it might be wiser to go home now. She’d have to file an official report, of course, but she could do that in the morning. He looked around a little, wondering what an intruder could possibly have wanted in here. He pulled back the curtains and looked out onto the street. Then he went through to the kitchen and examined the back of the house again. The fences were low and anyone could have easily come and gone via a neighboring back garden—but why, if nothing had been taken. Unless Annie wasn’t telling him the whole truth.

“I’ll never get her to sleep now.” Annie came up behind him without his hearing her. “She’s scared of burglars getting into her room.” She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. “I wonder if you’d go up and say goodnight to her. It might reassure her to know that a policeman is here.”

“Alright, if you think it will help.”

“I’d be ever so grateful,” Annie said, leading the way upstairs. Jenny’s room was also sparsely furnished except for a shelf full of dolls and stuffed animals, but her bedspread had a pretty animal quilt on it and there was a Noah’s ark lamp on her bedside table. It was clear that Annie put any money she had into her daughter. Jenny looked up at Evan with big scared eyes. He thought he must look like a giant to her in that tiny room.

“Hello, Jenny. Your mum wanted me to come and tell you that I’ve checked the house and everything is quite safe,” he said.

“So you see, love, you’ve nothing to be scared of,” Annie said. “Why don’t you shut your eyes and go to sleep now. I tell you what—would you like Mr. Evans to read you a bedtime story?” She turned to Evan. “She loves stories. You can read to her for hours and she never gets tired of it. Would you mind?”

Evan didn’t feel that he had much choice. “I don’t know if I’m good at reading stories,” he said. “I haven’t had much practice.”

“I’m sure Jenny would love it,” Annie said. “Here, this is her favorite.” She picked up a book and handed it to him.

“Not that one,
The Three Bad Monkeys,
” Jenny said, sitting up suddenly animated.

“But you like this one,” Annie said. “It was your favorite last week.”

“This week I like the
Three Bad Monkeys,
” Jenny said.

Annie looked around. “I don’t know where the monkey book is right now. How about we settle for this one, okay?”

“Okay,” Jenny said, lying back again.

“Go on, sit down,” Annie instructed Evan. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll go down and see if I can find that bottle of wine and a corkscrew.”

Evan opened
Puss in Boots.
From what he could remember it was a gruesome story and not what you’d want to read to a nervous child late at night.

Jenny sat up, wanting to see all the pictures as he read the story and offering her own comments on each page. “Look, he doesn’t have any clothes on! See—that’s the bad ogre. He eats people.”

It took a long time to get through the book and when he had finished Jenny begged him to read another one. Evan looked around but there was no sign of Annie.

“I expect your mum wants you to go to sleep now,” he said.

“Just one more story first,” Jenny said.

“Okay. Just one, then you must promise to shut your eyes and go to sleep.”

“Alright.” Jenny gave him a sweet smile.

He read a book about a puppy’s busy day, and Jenny’s eyes were nodding shut by the time he had finished. He got up quietly and switched off the bedside light before tiptoeing down the stairs. He met Annie just about to come up the stairs with a glass in her hands.

“Oh, you gave me a turn.” She gasped as she suddenly caught sight of him.

“She’s asleep,” Evan whispered. “I was creeping.”

“I found the wine. Then I thought I’d leave you two to it,” Annie said. “To give you a chance to get to know each other.”

Evan decided that his suspicions might well have been correct. It was just possible that Annie had made up an excuse to get him here. Was she also trying to win him over by using Jenny?

“I really ought to be getting back,” he said as she held out the wine glass to him. “We’ll have to file an official report on your prowler, but we can do that down at the station in the morning.”

“What’s the hurry?” Annie asked. “You can sit and have a glass of wine with me, can’t you? I need a chance to get my nerves calmed down.”

Evan noticed that her hand was trembling as she handed him the glass and he felt ashamed of thinking that she might have lured him here under false pretenses. He took the glass she was offering. “Where’s yours?” he asked.

“On the kitchen table.” She led him through to the kitchen.

Again he was struck by its bleakness. A red Formica dinette set with two chairs, a white chipboard cupboard, a tiny fridge, a sink, and a stove. No pictures on the walls, no plants, no photos anywhere in the house. It was a far cry from most of the homey cottage kitchens in the village, and it emphasized that she was an outsider here.

“God—what a night!” she exclaimed, slumping onto a chrome and vinyl chair and taking a big gulp of wine. “And I came here looking for peace and quiet. That’s a laugh, isn’t it?” She finished the wine with one more slug and put the glass back on the table. “In the first week my kid nearly gets run over and then this.” She looked up at him. “There’s nowhere really safe, is there?”

“Are you sure you don’t have a problem you’re not telling me about? Someone you’re trying to hide from, maybe?” he asked. “You can tell me, you know. I’m the police. It’s my job to protect people.”

She shook her head violently. “No. I told you. I’m not running away.”

“You must have had a good reason for coming here. It’s a long way from Manchester.”

She glanced up, and a sad, little smile crossed her lips. “You’re going to think it’s stupid,” she said. “I saw a picture once. My roommate had it on her wall. She came from around here. I thought it was the loveliest place I’d ever seen. There was a blue lake and the mountains and wild flowers and a little white cottage beside the bridge. It was like a fairy-tale scene, like something you see in films. My roommate used to talk about it all the time—how peaceful it was, no crime, no violence. I suppose she was homesick, poor kid, but she made it sound like some sort of paradise.” She reached for the bottle and poured herself another glass. “Come on, drink up,” she instructed Evan.

“So you came here to get away from crime and violence,” he said.

“I wanted Jenny to grow up in a decent place, surrounded by decent people,” Annie said.

“They’re mostly decent people around here,” Evan said, “but you can never fully get away from crime and violence, can you? I suppose you weren’t at the meeting tonight?”

“I didn’t want to leave Jenny. Why, what happened?”

“Two of the men almost came to blows and there was a rare old shouting match.”

“All over that ruin the colonel found?”

“Not just that. It was about changing the village name and then about Ted Morgan wanting to build an adventure park here. So you see, we have our own little flare-ups, even in Llanfair.”

She nodded again. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking that this place isn’t right for me after all. I’ll have a kid who grows up speaking Welsh and I won’t be able to talk to her, will I?” She played with the wine glass so that wine slopped over onto the table. “It was another of my stupid dreams. My dad said my crazy ideas would get me in trouble one day. I bet it gives him satisfaction to look down from his cloud and see how right he was.”

“So you’re not going to stay?”

“I don’t think I can. I think now that we’d be better off somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Annie, give it a try,” Evan said. “Don’t go running off again, just because you think someone tried to get into your house. It could be all in your imagination, you know. Or it could have a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe some of the local lads playing a prank on a newcomer. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Are you saying that you’d like me to stay?” she asked quietly.

“I’m just saying you should give it a chance,” Evan said hastily. He got to his feet. “I must be getting along,” he said. “Mrs. Williams will wonder where I’ve got to and send the police out looking for me.”

“I suppose everyone would talk if they found out you’d had a glass of wine with me at this time of night?” Annie said, her cheeky smile returning.

“Talk? We’d never hear the last of it.” Evan returned her smile. “In fact, knowing this place, they’ve probably all heard about it already.”

“Sorry if I’ve ruined your reputation.”

She followed him to the front door.

“Most girls would worry about me ruining theirs,” Evan commented.

“I don’t think I’ve got much left to ruin,” she said.