Constable Evans 02: Evan Help Us (3 page)

Evan ran to meet her, in case she needed help getting over the wall. But she scrambled over and jumped down the other side, her eyes still wide with fear. She ran down the bank, gathering speed as she went, and shot straight out into the road. Subconsciously Evan’s ears had picked up the whine of an approaching car some time ago. The whine had now become a roar. The little girl heard it too and froze in the middle of the road as the car came speeding up the pass.

Evan rushed out into the road, snatched her up, and flung her to one side as the car swerved, breaks squealing and horn blaring. It passed them within inches and screeched to a halt.

“Phew, that was a close one,” the driver yelled, his face a sickly green.

“No harm done luckily,” Evan called back. He waved to the driver as the car took off again. “It’s alright, love. You’re fine.” He smiled down at the child who had started to cry.

A scream made him look up. A young woman was running across the street, her eyes wide with terror. Her hair was a darker shade of red than the girl’s, but she was unmistakably her mother.

“Jenny! Ohmygod, Jenny! What happened? Is she all right?” she shrieked.

Evan set the little girl down. “She’s fine. Had a bit of a scare, didn’t you, love?” he asked the little girl. He didn’t add that he’d had a bit of a scare too. He could feel his heart still thumping.

“The bear chased me,” Jenny said, rushing to cling to her mother’s legs. “It growled at me.”

“Bear?” The mother looked at Even for explanation.

“She means sheep,” Evan said. “She picked up a lamb and its mother came after her.”

The young woman looked apologetically at Evan as she enfolded the child in her arms. “We’re from Manchester. She’s never seen a sheep before.”

The little girl sobbed against her mother’s shoulder, her thin body heaving with each sob. The woman held her more tightly. “You were a bad girl to go out without Mummy, weren’t you?”

The little girl nodded, her lower lip trembling.

“It’s my fault, I suppose,” the woman said, straightening up again. Evan was interested to hear that her accent sounded more London than Manchester. “It was such a lovely day that I had the doors open. She must have gone out the front door while I was busy cooking her tea.” She glanced across to the row of cottages opposite, where one front door stood wide open. “I didn’t think too much could happen in a place like this if you left the doors and windows open,” she added.

“There are still cars on the street,” Evan said. “You can never be too careful with kids, can you?”

“You’re right there.” She shook her head, giving him an exasperated smile. “She’s a little monkey, she is. Into everything the moment my back’s turned, aren’t you, you horrible little monster?” She nuzzled at the child’s neck, making the little girl stop crying and squeal with delight.

Now that the trauma was over, Evan noticed that she was a good-looking young woman, although her bright red hair, plucked and pencilled eyebrows, and heavy makeup seemed out of place in Llanfair, as were the skimpy white shorts and Hawaiian print halter top she was wearing. Not that they didn’t suit her with those long legs …

Evan forced his mind back to business. “Here for a holiday, are you?”

The young woman looked up, the little girl still clinging to her neck. “No, we just moved here a couple of days ago.”

“Moved here? For good, you mean?” Evan was surprised. Usually the village grapevine would have found out the moment anyone new arrived. This one seemed to have slipped in unnoticed.

“I can’t say how good it will be yet.” The woman smiled again. There was a wistful quality to her smile. “I thought we’d give it a try here. I wanted her to grow up somewhere healthy and safe, away from all the drugs and crime.”

“But why here?” Evan asked. “You’re not Welsh, are you?”

She chuckled. “If you heard me trying to say Chlanfair, you’d know the answer to that one. No, I’ve no connections with the place, which is part of the attraction, I suppose.”

“Then why here? Had you been here on holiday when you were a kid?”

She paused for a moment, staring out past him to the green hillsides. Evan wondered if he was being too inquisitive. “I’m sorry, I’m giving you the third degree,” he said. “I’ll leave you to get back to your tea.”

“I don’t really know what made me come here myself,” she said as he started to move away. “I’d never even seen the place before—not in the flesh anyway. I’d, uh, heard about it and it just seemed like a good place to bring up a kid.”

“So what do you think about it now that you’re here?” Evan asked.

She glanced up and down the street. A couple of men were walking past on their way to the pub, hands in their pockets and their caps pulled down over their eyes. A woman came out of her cottage further down the row and yelled back a torrent of Welsh insults as she left.

The young woman turned back to Evan. “I didn’t expect it to be so … foreign. There’s no way I’ll ever learn to talk Welsh. I suppose I’ll always be an outsider.”

“Give them time,” Evan said. “They’re friendly enough, once they get used to you. It’s just that we Welsh are a little shy and suspicious around strangers.”

“You don’t seem too shy.” The woman gave him a challenging smile.

“Ah well, it’s my job, isn’t it?” Evan could feel himself flushing and cursed his fair Celtic skin that showed the least embarrassment.

“So you’re the local bobby, are you?”

Evan nodded. “Constable Evans. I run the community police station here.”

She managed to free one arm while the little girl still clung to her and extended her hand to him. “Pleased to meet you, Constable Evans. I’m Annie. Annie Pigeon.”

“Nice to meet you, Annie.” Evan took her hand. “Welcome to Llanfair. If you need any help, just come to me.” He gave her a friendly smile. “I’d better get going. I’ve got to report in to HQ before I close up shop for the night. See you around then, Annie, and you too, Jenny. No more running out into the street without your mum, okay?”

The little girl glanced at him shyly then buried her head in her mother’s shoulder.

“She’s kind of shy around strangers, just like you Welsh people,” Annie said, her eyes challenging again. “I’d best be getting back to my cooking, if you can call baked beans and frankfurters cooking. See you then, constable, or do you have a first name?”

“It’s Evan.”

“Evan Evans?” She let out a shriek of laughter. “That’s about as bloody Welsh as you can get, isn’t it?”

Evan started to walk away as she made for her front door.

“Bye, Evan,” she called after him. “See you around. Go on, Jenny, say good-bye.”

He turned back, but Jenny’s face was still buried. He continued down the street, intrigued by Annie Pigeon who just appeared spontaneously in a place she had never seen before. Why? Why would a big-city girl from England come to live in a remote village in Wales? He got the feeling that there was no Mr. Pigeon around, probably never had been. It wasn’t going to be easy for a single mum, that was for sure. There was no denying that the Welsh took a long time to warm to strangers and most people in Llanfair spoke Welsh rather than English. He’d have to do what he could—

He stopped abruptly as he sensed, rather than saw, someone watching him. Bronwen Price was leaning on the gate to the school playground. Her ash blond braid hung over one shoulder, and the wind was blowing stray wisps of hair across her face. She was wearing a long blue cotton skirt and a blue denim shirt that matched her eyes.

“Good evening, Evan,” she said, repeating his name exactly as Annie had called out after him.

Chapter 3

“Damn,” Evan muttered under his breath.

He gave her a smile as he strolled over to her. “Oh, hullo there, Bronwen. You’re working late tonight, aren’t you?”

“I could say the same for you,” Bronwen said, her gaze going past him up the street to a front door that was just closing. “Giving the tourists advice on the local attractions, were you?”

Evan couldn’t tell from her voice whether she was annoyed or amused. “She’s not a tourist. She’s just moved here. Came from Manchester, of all places, and never been out of the city before by the sound of it. The little girl thought a sheep was a bear.” He attempted to laugh but Bronwen was still looking at him with large, solemn eyes. She said nothing so he went on. “I imagine it won’t be easy for her, coming here and not speaking Welsh.”

“So you’re going to help her get settled in.”

“I think we all should help her,” Evan said. “It can’t be easy, alone with a little kid.”

“You know your trouble, Evan Evans,” Bronwen said. “You’re just an overgrown boy scout. You can’t stop helping people, can you?”

“Just doing my job, Bronwen.”

“Right,” she said, giving him a sweet smile. “You’d better go and close up the station then, hadn’t you? They’ll be wondering down in Caernarfon where you’ve got to.”

She turned away from the gate and Evan walked on, feeling annoyed and confused. Had she just been teasing him or did she really think he’d been unnecessarily attentive to Annie Pigeon? Why was it so damned hard to understand women? And why should it matter what she thought? It wasn’t as if they were engaged or even officially dating. And yet Evan knew that it did matter. He cared more about Bronwen than he dared admit to himself. He liked having her around. He had come to rely on her. Like Henry Higgins, he had grown accustomed to her face. And he was approaching thirty—an age when a man should start to think about settling down.

*   *   *

It was almost seven when Evan finally headed home. He had sat at his desk, thinking, and his end-of-the-week paperwork had taken him twice as long as usual.

“Aren’t you coming for a drink then, Evan bach?” Charlie Hopkins had called out to him as he passed him in the street. “It’s Friday night, isn’t it?”

“I’ll be there,” Evan called back. “I’ve got to go home and change first. Not allowed to drink in uniform, you know—bad for the image of the police force.”

Mrs. Williams’ house was on what was considered the superior side of the street. Rather than a row of cottages all joined together, the houses opposite the petrol station were built in three semidetached pairs. They were also simple gray stone buildings, hardly more than cottages themselves, but they were considered the upscale part of Llanfair by virtue of having what Mrs. Williams called a back parlor and a front parlor, neither used except on special occasions, also what Mrs. Williams grandly referred to as her front garden—in reality a four-foot square of earth with a couple of sad roses growing in it.

“Is that you, Mr. Evans?” Mrs. Williams’ voice sang out down the dark hallway as he attempted to close the front door silently behind him. He often wondered why the police force didn’t hire Mrs. Williams as a local radar unit. She had an incredible sixth sense that alerted her to his key in the front door, even if the TV was blaring away or she was shut in the kitchen at the back of the house. It was impossible to enter or leave unnoticed, although Evan still tried.

“No, Mrs. Williams. It’s a burglar,” Evan called back, “who just happens to have a front door key.”

Mrs. Williams’ face, red and beaded with sweat from cooking, appeared at the open kitchen door. “Don’t say things like that, Mr. Evans. You know I’m scared to death about burglars. It was the happiest day of my life when a policeman moved into my house. And you know what my daughter said? She said they’ll think twice about breaking in now, now that I’ve got a big strong man like you in the house. She thinks very highly of you, my daughter does. So does my granddaughter, of course. We all do.” She came down the hall to meet him and took his arm. “Come and sit you down now. Your dinner is all ready and waiting.”

“I think I’ll wait a while to eat, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Williams,” Evan said warily. “I told a couple of the lads that I’d meet them down at the Dragon. It is Friday night, after all.”

“But I’ve made you a lamb cawl,” she said, referring to the local thick Welsh lamb stew. “Your favorite.” Everything she made was apparently Evan’s favorite. “I got a lovely shoulder of lamb from Evans-the-Meat. And speaking of him,” she went on, “did you hear that one of those English women staying up at Morgan’s farm had the nerve to ask him why he didn’t stock any English lamb? The nerve of it. Evans-the-Meat has never sold foreign meat in his life!”

Silently Evans complimented the efficiency of the village grapevine, then he remembered his encounter. “Did you hear that we’ve got new people living up next to Charlie Hopkins?” he asked.

“New people? Renting old Mrs. Hughes’ cottage?” Mrs. Williams looked astonished.

“Moved in a couple of days ago,” Evan said, delighted to be able to score a point for once. “A mother and her little girl.”

“Well, I never,” Mrs. Williams said. “And we heard nothing about it, did we? But then I think it was let through that fancy estate agent down in Caernarfon. Are they here for the summer?”

“For good, maybe,” Evan said.

“And the husband will be joining them, no doubt?”

“I’m not sure about that,” Evan said tactfully.

Mrs. Williams sniffed. “Just watch she doesn’t try to get her claws into you,” she said. “A good-looking young chap like yourself and at the right age to settle down too. You want to find yourself a nice local girl, one that knows how to cook and look after you properly.” She broke off as if a thought had just struck her. “Now what does that remind me of?” She put her hand up to her mouth then a broad smile spread across her face. “Oh, by the way, did I tell you that our Sharon is taking one of these continental cooking classes at evening school? Last week it was spaghetti bolognese and this week it’s some kind of French fish stew—booly base, I think she called it. She’s a lovely little cook now and she’ll be coming to visit as usual tomorrow.”

Evan smiled politely. He hadn’t ever had the heart to tell Mrs. Williams that her granddaughter Sharon was built like a rugby fullback and had the most annoying habit of giggling like a teenager at everything he said. As Bronwen had told him, one of his problems was that he hated to hurt people’s feelings. Maybe he should start working on that right now.