Evan and Elle (27 page)

The ruined restaurant stood at the upper end of the village, its stone walls etched in the dying light like jagged teeth.

“Terry?” Evan called. “Are you there, Terry? Your mum’s worried. She wants you home right now.”

Silence, except for the wind sighing on the hillside and stirring the ashes of the fire. He stood looking around, not sure what to do next. The Vaynol Arms sign squeaked as it swung in the wind. A car door slammed and a couple got out of a car. Evan watched them go into the pub, arm in arm and laughing.

He pulled the bike out of the brambles, then scrambled over the dry stone wall that bordered the road to the meadow beyond. As he began to climb, his nostrils picked up a smell, a little off to the left where a small track went up the mountain. Evan followed his nose until the smell became identifiable. He bent down to a large rock and sniffed. There was no visible
sign, but then the smell always lingered long after it had evaporated. Petrol had recently been splashed on this rock. A little higher up another whiff . . . . Someone had been carrying petrol up the mountain.

Idiot, he muttered to himself. He had wanted to believe that Terry was innocent, so he had refused to see the signs. Of course Potter was right. Terry was a classic case of someone who could become a serial arsonist. He’d even admitted to buying petrol. So what was his next target?

Evan climbed onto the wall and scanned the hillside. The meadow rose steeply until it met the dark line of fir trees—the spruce plantation the locals so disliked. Was that where Terry was heading? The peaks above, the Glyders, were still bathed in rosy sunlight, making their rocks glow red, in contrast to the gloom of the fir trees at their base. Suddenly Evan’s sharp eyes picked out a moving figure, not on the track, but farther over to the right, going straight up the mountain and moving fast. But it wasn’t Terry. It was a grown man and the impression was one of darkness—dark hair, dark jacket, swarthy skin. He was moving through the dry bracken with a kind of animal grace, furtively, as if he didn’t want to be seen, and Evan could almost hear Glynis’s voice echoing in his head: “He likes to be called the Tiger.”

Wait a second—hadn’t he just seen . . . ? He glanced back at the pub car park. Yes, he was right. He had noticed a red sports car there when he’d watched the young couple get out of their car. Now he heard Terry’s voice like an instant replay in his brain. “I saw that man again, Mr. Evans. The one who drove the red sports car and had the gun . . .”

Evan could feel the back of his neck prickle. The man
who drove the sports car and carried the gun and who had spoken to Terry Jenkins, asking about the restaurant . . . His heart racing, Evan took this one step further—and Terry was the one person who could identify him and tie him to a place and time. Had Terry spotted the red car? Had the man seen Terry and caused him to hide his bike and flee up the mountain?

For a second he stood poised on the wall, undecided. Should he run back to the pub and call for help or go after the man? This is no time for heroics, he told himself. What could he do against a man who called himself the Tiger, trafficked in drugs and had already killed at least once? And yet he had to do something to save Terry if he could.

He jumped down from the wall, sprinted across the street and into the pub. The bar was empty except for the newly arrived couple and two old men sitting in a corner. “Call 999,” Evan yelled to the barmaid. “Tell them to get units up here right away. Our suspect is up on the hill. I’m going after him.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He began to climb the hill. It was getting dark now and Evan could no longer see the man moving among the dry bracken. Which meant he had to have reached the spruce plantation. The boy must have made for the trees, hoping to hide himself in the dark forest, not realizing that there was no place to hide among the slim, even rows of spruce.

Was the man carrying a gun? That made all the difference. Terry was a smart mountain-bred kid. Evan hoped he’d know the area well enough to slip through the forest and double back down to Llanfair—or at least find a good
hiding place among the rocks until morning. Evan felt anger, as well as fear, welling up in his throat. He couldn’t let that monster get to Terry. He couldn’t wait for reinforcements to get there. He hurried on. Light was fading fast and sheep drifted like ghostly shapes, their mournful bleating echoing back from crags above. A bat skimmed low past him, making him jump.

Suddenly he stiffened as he heard a noise on the mountain above—a popping sound. His first reaction was gunfire, but then a motorbike appeared, bumping down the track ahead. Evan waved his arms. The bike swerved and for a moment it seemed to speed up.

“Stop!” Evan yelled and made a grab for the rider.

“Constable Evans!” the rider gasped.

“Oh, it’s you, Bryn.” Evan felt a great wave of relief. “You haven’t seen young Terry, have you?”

“Terry Jenkins?” His eyes darted around warily. “I haven’t seen anybody. I’ve just been for a ride.”

“Up on the mountain? I shouldn’t imagine it’s very good for the bike. So you haven’t seen anybody? Not a man with dark hair?”

“Nobody.” His fingers twitched at the accelerator. “I have to get home, Mr. Evans . . .”

“I need your help, Bryn,” Evan put a hand on the handlebar. “Young Terry’s up there somewhere and a man’s trying to kill him.”

Bryn swiveled to stare up at the hillside. “Terry’s up there?”

“He probably went into the tree plantation.”

“Oh no, Mr. Evans, don’t say that!” Bryn leaped off the
bike and flung it down on the grass. “We’ve got to get up there, fast, before it’s too late.”

He started scrambling up the hill with Evan at his heels. “I hope we’re not too late, Mr. Evans.” Evan could hear the boy sobbing. “I didn’t mean any harm. Honest I didn’t. It was a bit of fun really . . .”

“What are you talking about, Bryn?”

“We’ve only got a few minutes before the fuse burns through, then the whole forest will go up.”

Evan grabbed his arm and spun him around. “What are you talking about, boy?”

Bryn was really crying now. Large tears were welling out of his eyes. “I set a fire up there, didn’t I?”

Evan grabbed the boy’s arm. “You set a fire? Are you out of your mind?”

Bryn shook him off and staggered upward. The hillside had become steep. Bryn was scrambling up on all fours, like a dog.

Evan saw how blind he had been—how blind they had all been. Bryn had sounded the alarm both times. Bryn had been first on the scene. “It was you!” he yelled. “You set the fires, so that you could look like a hero and put them out again!”

“I didn’t mean no harm,” Bryn said again. “They said I’d never amount to much—my dad and granddad and the teachers at school . . .”

“So you decided to show them!”

“Yeah. I only set fire to things that nobody wanted anyway.
Everyone was glad when that cottage burned down, weren’t they? And everyone hates the Everest Inn and the plantation . . .”

“Do you know how dry it is?” Evan could hear himself screeching. “It won’t stop with the plantation. The whole mountain will go up—sheep and Terry and all.”

The dark line of trees loomed ahead of them.

“We might just be in time,” Bryn gasped. As he ran toward the trees there was an explosion and a ball of flame shot up. The dry bracken crackled as the flames raced along the ground and the dry needles on the spruce trees spattered and sparkled like fireworks. Evan was yanking off his jacket as he ran. He reached the flames and began beating at them.

“It’s no use, Mr. Evans,” Bryn yelled. “I set a line of petrol all the way up. We’ll never put it all out before it takes hold.”

“We’ve damn well got to try,” Evan said.

They worked side by side, beating desperately as the flames rushed up the side of the plantation, feeding on the dry grass and bracken. Evan could feel the sweat running into his eyes. It was hopeless. They’d never do it. A dry twig caught on fire. He yanked it off the tree and stamped out the fire. He did the same with another and another, but it was only a matter of time before a whole tree went up like a torch and then they’d lose.

Out of the corner of his eye Evan saw Bryn flailing at the flames with his jacket, kicking up dirt over the flames. Then suddenly the wind swirled around, sending flame into Evan’s face for a moment. He jumped back and crouched, shielding his face with his arms, feeling the heat envelop him.
Then the fire passed them. It was gone, over to their left and racing up the mountain away from the trees. The wind had changed.

Evan grabbed Bryn’s shoulder. “With any luck it will burn itself out when it gets to the rocks if the wind holds,” he yelled over the roar and crackle. “Anyway, there’s nothing more we can do about it. We have to find Terry.”

He plunged into the forest. Dark smoke wreathed around the slim trunks and stung his eyes, making it nearly impossible to see where he was going. He wondered if the Frenchman had seen the fire and decided to abandon his quest and get out of harm’s way. He scanned the hillside below but it was too dark to pick out a person among the scattered rocks and sheep. He could hear Bryn’s labored breath behind him, but their footfalls made no sound on the thick carpet of rotting needles. Nothing moved. Ahead he could see the sunlight on the rocks at the top of the plantation. There was no sign of Terry.

As he came out on the far side Bryn grabbed at his arm and pointed. “There’s something up there!” he hissed.

Evan followed the direction he was pointing. Straight ahead of them the cliffs of Glyder Fawr rose sheer from the edge of the forest. Smoke from the fire curled around their base so that they seemed to hover, unlinked to reality. And just above the smoke there was a bright splash of red. It had to be Terry’s anorak—he was on a narrow ledge that petered out just ahead of him. The boy had worked himself into a position where he was as vulnerable as a duck at a shooting gallery. Whoever was stalking him could take his time to pick him off.

Evan crouched frozen, trying to decide what to do. If he went up after the boy, he’d also be an easy target. If he called out, he’d alert the man to the boy’s presence, on the off chance that the man hadn’t spotted him yet. Evan stood there, looking and listening. His senses were fine-tuned as he heard the distant crackle of the fire and smelled the herby smell of burning heather. He strained his ears to listen for any movement. Then he heard something. Over to his right, among the tumble of rocks at the base of the cliff, a crisp metalic click. And he knew what it meant. A safety catch had been released from a weapon.

Evan felt his mouth go dry and his heart hammered in his throat. Had the man spotted them, and was the weapon pointed at them, or at the boy? Not for the first time did Evan wish that ordinary British bobbies could be armed. He, too, was completely vulnerable, standing in the open at the edge of pencil-thin trees. He turned to Bryn. “He’s over there,” he mouthed. “Behind those rocks. Get down and try to find cover. I’m going after him.”

He moved forward as silently as he could, knowing that silence was useless if the man already had him in his sights. If he was a drug dealer, he surely packed plenty of firepower—something semiautomatic at the very least. He dodged behind the first of the rocks, his face close to its rough, lichen-spotted surface. Cautiously he moved around it and dodged from rock to rock until suddenly he saw a dark shape rise up ahead of him. It was him all right—a dark haired man in a dark leather jacket, and he was aiming up at the ledge.

Evan bent to pick up a rock. If he threw it at the man
as he fired, at least he had a chance of diverting the path of the bullet. As Evan drew back his arm to throw, the man’s finger began to close around the trigger and a shape hurtled past Evan.

“No, you bastard!” Bryn yelled as he flung himself at the man.

The gun swung around and exploded with a deafening boom that echoed back from the cliffs. The Frenchman staggered as the boy’s weight knocked him backward. Then Bryn let out a little cry and slid to the ground. In that fraction of a second Evan smashed down the Frenchman’s wrist, causing the weapon to fly out of his grasp and slide down the rock. The man let out a snarl of pain and lunged for the gun as Evan kicked it a farther away. Again they both scrambled for it. The Frenchman was the swifter, but Evan came at him with a flying rugby tackle. They crashed together to the rocky ground. As the man wriggled to get free, Evan reached out and snatched up the weapon.

The Frenchman leaped to his feet, his face distorted, snarling like a wild beast. Evan pointed the weapon at him, afraid he’d go for the gun again. Instead he gave Evan a look of sheer contempt, almost as if he was daring him to shoot, then turned and ran off through the trees.

Evan was conscious of Bryn’s body at his feet and Terry cowering up on the mountain. He longed to go after the fleeing man, to squeeze that trigger and to have the satisfaction of watching him sprawl to the ground. Instead he lowered the gun and let the man go, praying that the backup units would have arrived by now.

He dropped to his knees beside Bryn’s body. A red stain
was already running down the rock. Gently he turned the boy over. Bryn’s face was ashen gray. Evan felt for a pulse, then struggled to open his shirt. As he did so, the boy’s eyes fluttered open.