Evanly Bodies (13 page)

Evan had just opened his car door when he heard his name called and saw Mrs. Williams, dressed in her Sunday best, black coat
and hat, bearing down on him.

"And where are you off to now, Mr. Evans?" she asked.

"To work, I'm afraid," he said. "I'm in the middle of a murder case."

"Criminal just, it is, making you work on the Sabbath," she said. "You should speak to your superiors about it."

"It's the murderers I should speak to," Evan said, smiling, "and ask them to plan better when they're going to kill somebody."

"It's no laughing matter, missing chapel." Mrs. Williams gave him a severe look.

"Actually, I'm on my way to church," Evan said. "A Catholic church."

"Catholic?" Mrs. Williams's hand went to her heart. "That's even worse than not going at all. Praying to idols, that's what
it is. What on earth would you be doing that for?"

"Orders, Mrs. W. I've got to spy on some Catholics."

"Oh well, that's all right then." She nodded. "I thought for one awful minute you were thinking of converting. Ever since
you had the wedding ceremony in one of those papist kind of churches, and I haven't seen you or Mrs. Evans at chapel recently,
I've been worried about you."

"Don't worry about us; we're just fine," Evan said. "And you better get a move on if you don't want to be the last one in."

"That would never do, would it?" she exclaimed, and waddled with great speed up the street to overtake Mair Hopkins.

Evan got into the car and smiled to himself as he drove down the pass. How simple life was around here. People worked all
week, went to chapel on Sunday, had an occasional drink in the Red Dragon, and reared their families in peace. Usually he
enjoyed his job and looked forward to driving down the pass to work every day. These last few days his job had felt like a
burden. He had to honestly admit that he did not enjoy working with DI Bragg. It wasn't just that he was treated as a brainless
junior. It was that constant state of tension-Bragg versus the world. He sensed that Bragg was the kind of man destined to
put the backs up of all he encountered, and he wondered why, out of all the officers in the North Wales Police force, Bragg
had been chosen for this particular assignment. After several years in the mostly pleasant, stress-free company of DI Watkins
and WDC Glynis Davis, he found this tension hard to take.

The problem was that the tension was now spilling over into his private life.

"I thought I might take a hike this morning," Bronwen had said, as she poured coffee. "It's so nice and bright now, but they
are forecasting another storm for later. I haven't been up the Glydrs for ages."

"I don't want you hiking alone," Evan had said.

Bronwen looked up, surprised. "Oh, you're dictating how I live my life now, are you?"

"There are too many strange people around these days, and it's not as if you'll encounter a lot of other hikers at this time
of year. And what if the storm comes in early?"

"So what am I expected to do-sit home with my knitting?" Bronwen demanded, her face pink with anger. "You're never free to
come with me, and I enjoy hiking. It gets out the frustration after the work week."

"I know, but . . ." Evan began.

"Then stop fussing over me. I've taken care of myself for most of my life. I hiked alone all the time before I met you, and
I intend to continue doing so."

Evan had stomped down the hill feeling anger and frustration of his own. He wasn't being unreasonable. He knew better than
anyone that there were crackpots who wandered the hills, and he didn't feel comfortable with Bronwen out on her own. But in
his heart he also knew that he'd come across as a dominating husband, and that had put Bronwen's hackles up. He'd have to
make it up to her. If he could get home early enough tonight, he'd take her out for a meal.

Evan had rarely been inside a Catholic church, apart from a school trip to Paris, when they had been taken around Notre Dame.
And he had never attended a service there. Used to the simplicity and lack of adornment of the chapel, he felt most uncomfortable
amid the statues and ritual. It seemed they were constantly standing, sitting, kneeling, and chanting in a way that was impossible
to follow, and he was glad he'd taken up position behind a pillar where some particularly bad-tempered saint was scowling
down at him. The hymns were unfamiliar and sung without the zest of the usual Welsh congregation. There was incense too, that
curled around the pillars and made him want to sneeze.

The church was by no means full. The majority of the congregation was over the age of fifty, but there was a sprinkling of
young families. As soon as mass was over, Evan made for the priest, now standing at the front door to shake hands.

It appeared that there was only one Italian family who were regular mass goers, the Salvatores, and they were in their seventies.
The priest had only been assigned to this parish for the past two years, and the name Luigi Alessi didn't ring a bell. Not
a regular churchgoer then. One item they could cross off their lists.

Reluctantly Evan drove on to police headquarters to meet with the rest of the team. Pritchard hadn't much to report from the
night before. Most of the customers at the pub knew Luigi. They could confirm that he was inclined to talk big and get easily
riled when he'd had a few, but the general feeling was that there was no real malice in him. Nobody with whom he sparred on
a regular basis, anyway. Another item to cross off the list.

"I've got a list of recent phone calls here." DI Bragg waved sheets of paper. "Nothing that stands out as suspicious. Mrs.
Alessi called her doctor quite a lot. Mrs. Rogers, on the other hand, hardly made any phone calls at all."

"No numbers in common then?" Evan asked.

"No, they didn't both call the same hired killer, Evans. So you can put that theory out of your mind." Inspector Bragg smirked.

"So where do we go from here?" Wingate asked, with obvious frustration in his voice.

"You have suggestions for things we're not doing and should be, Wingate?" Bragg asked.

"Well, no sir. Finding the link. That's what we've got to do."

"And how do you propose to find it?"

Wingate frowned. "Well, I thought one of us should follow up on Simon Pennington, the student."

"Can I assign that to you, then, since you're so keen?" Bragg said. "I take it you know how to contact Interpol and British
embassies and all that kind of stuff you're going to need to find out where in the world he is?"

"I think I could handle it, sir," Wingate answered stonily.

"Then you go for it, son." Bragg looked at Pritchard and Evans. "Any other bright ideas? Any volunteers?"

"I wouldn't mind tackling Dr. Brock again," Evan said.

"Brock?"

"The one they call Badger. He was the one who wasn't surprised that Martin Rogers had been killed. In fact he seemed delighted.
Dr. Humphries said he enjoyed baiting Professor Rogers. It might be interesting to get more of his take on things."

"Do that, if you think it's worth doing," Bragg said, with a resigned shrug. "Frankly I have a gut feeling that this has nothing
to do with the university. Okay, a faculty member could have shot Rogers, but what connection could any of them have with
a pizzeria ten miles away? None of them lives in Llandudno, do they?"

"No, they all live within reach of the university," Evan said. "But something's got to come out eventually. The killer had
the habits of the Rogers's household down pat. Exactly when Mrs. Rogers took the dog for the walk. The fact that Martin Rogers
sat at the window to have breakfast."

"Ditto for the Alessi murder," Wingate added. "Although it wouldn't be hard to establish that he cleaned the kitchen alone
late at night with the TV on loudly. Any one of the neighbors could have told him that."

"I'm going to stay here and take a look at old arrest records," Bragg said. "I want to see where Alessi's name comes up and
in what connection. As you say, we have to stumble upon something eventually."

"Bragg is about to throw in the towel," Wingate muttered to Evan as they walked down the hall together. "I get the feeling
he's never had to handle a complicated case before. He likes the sort of murder where they catch the bloke red-handed with
a smoking gun, and he hands over the weapon saying, 'I shot the bitch. She had it coming to her.' "

Evan chuckled. "It's true that most of us don't come up against a really complicated crime often. Let's hope that you and
I can get somewhere on our own. He might eventually come to trust us with a little freedom."

"Dream on, sonny." Wingate chuckled as they reached the exit doors.

"Hey, you're not allowed in here. Didn't you read the signs?" Brock shouted as Evan approached, then recognized who it was.
"Oh it's you. How did you know I was here?"

"I'm a detective," Evan said. "It's my job to find what I need to know. And right now I need to talk to you about Martin Rogers."

"I thought I'd told you everything I knew the other day." Brock sounded annoyed. He picked up a piece of plastic sheeting.
"The storm the other day blew off the tarpaulin. The students couldn't have secured it well enough. Now God knows what the
rainwater's washed away."

Evan looked down at the square pit, with a couple of inches of water sitting at the bottom.

"So this was a Roman camp?" he asked.

"Absolutely. They used this as a staging area for the final assault on Anglesey."

"I never knew any of this existed when I was a kid," Evan said, squatting to examine the pit, "or I'd have been over here
trying to help."

"Keen on archeology are you then?" Brock asked.

"I suppose I am. I've never had the chance to pursue it but I can see myself digging away and being excited at finding a bronze
coin or a broken beaker."

Brock nodded. "Yes, it is heady stuff. Most of the time it's boring, routine work, of course. Day after day of sifting through
soil, finding maybe a small fragment of pottery, and then one day, bingo-you find something so wonderful that it keeps you
going for years. I found a Celtic torque in Ireland once, you know. Fabulous."

His face was alight with joy as he spoke.

"You were not surprised that someone had killed Professor Rogers," Evan said, straightening up again. "You seemed more amused
than anything."

Brock flushed. "That's just my way," he said. "When I'm uncomfortable, I joke about it. Actually I was shocked."

"But still not surprised," Evan insisted. "Do you have someone particularly in mind who might have done it?"

"Good Lord, no. No one at all. I mean, Rogers could be a bit of a bastard. He was autocratic. He liked to act like admiral
of his own ship. His way or no way at all. He knew little about archeology, and yet he would tell Skinner and me how to do
our work and run our classes."

"There are rumors . . ." Evan said slowly, "that he was trying to get rid of you."

"What are you insinuating?" Brock demanded. "That I killed him to keep my job?"

"It's one of the best motives we've come up with so far."

"Then think again, mate," Brock said angrily. "I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in wars. I don't believe in killing. I've attended
antiwar rallies. And you should check on your facts-I gather Rogers was killed at eight o'clock in the morning. At that hour
I was kneeling in the mud here with half a dozen students to vouch for me."

"I'm sorry," Evan said, "but we have to rule people out to get at the truth. In your case, you've a bloody good alibi, unless
you bribed all your students to lie for you." He smiled. "That was just a joke, by the way."

"My students probably would lie for me," Brock said. "They think I'm the greatest. I'm not stuffy like the other professors,
you see. I'm quite happy to have a pint with them after we've finished at the dig."

"Not like Professor Rogers, one gathers," Evan said. "The students didn't like him?"

"He's had some nasty blowups with the Student Union, I know that. He was on the site council, so he had the power to veto
any activities he didn't like. And he was pretty narrow in his views. No gay/lesbian activities. Nothing religious or inflammatory
or controversial. He vetoed a speech by an extremist Muslim cleric last year. That caused a fuss with our Muslim students.
Big demonstration. Oh, and he vetoed a piece of artwork he found obscene. He was a bit of a prude. I thought the sculpture
was good, personally. And you needed a good imagination to spot that it was a couple having sex."

"How long ago was that?"

"Also last year. This year's been tranquil so far. Of course, students are still finding their feet this first month of classes.
There are more freshmen mixers than radical speeches."

"The rest of your History Department," Evan said. "Is there anything you could tell me about them?"

Brock laughed. "There's a lot I could tell you, but none of it would have any relevance to shooting Professor Rogers."

"Gwyneth Humphries, for example?" Evan asked. "She was sweet on Rogers?"

"Clever of you to notice that. Yes, she certainly had a love/hate relationship with him. She had been known to come on strong
to him, especially after a couple of glasses of wine."

"And did he respond?"

"Good Lord, no. Like I said, Martin Rogers was a prude. And Mrs. Rogers was always there, hovering in the background."

"So you can't see Gwyneth Humphries being driven mad with desire?"

Brock paused, then laughed. "No, I can't," he said. "And as for shooting somebody-she's so ham-fisted that she'd probably
shoot herself in the foot first."

Evan looked around. The breeze off the Irish Sea had picked up. It wouldn't be long before those clouds on the horizon came
rushing in. "I'd better leave you to put your tarpaulin back in place," Evan said. "We're due for more rain later."

"When are we not due for more rain?" Brock said. "I've lived in Wales for ten years now, and it rains with monotonous regularity."

"Where did you come from before?" Evan asked.

"Patagonia. I was born in the Welsh community there."

"Good God, were you? I've always wanted to meet someone who'd lived there. Is it true they still speak Welsh?"

"Absolutely," Brock said, switching to that language. "As you can see, I speak the language quite well."

"So we could have had this whole conversation in Welsh rather than English." Evan shook his head. "Well, sometime, when things
are not so hectic, I'd really enjoy hearing about your life in Patagonia. It's always fascinated me."

Evan could see why the students liked Badger Brock. Interesting what he had said about Martin Rogers and his blowups with
the Student Union. If that demonstration over the Muslim cleric had happened this year, Evan could guarantee that Rashid would
have been at the forefront of it. Evan wondered if those mates Rashid had found were equally militant.

He drove on toward Bangor, looking wistful as he passed the Caernarfon Police Station, deserted on a calm Sunday. Would he
ever be sent back there again, he wondered. He stopped to pick up a hamburger at a McDonald's, which was one of the few businesses
that opened on Sundays, and continued on to Dr. Humphries's house.

"I didn't expect to see you again," she said. "Has new evidence come to light?"

"Something has come up, actually," Evan said, "and I thought that you probably knew Martin Rogers better than anybody so you
might be able to shed some light for me."

"I'll be happy to do what I can." She led him through to a cluttered sitting room. It wasn't messy, just overfull of things,
ranging from piles of books and magazines to stuffed teddy bears and photos of Gwyneth around the world.

"You like to travel?" Evan said, taking a seat where directed in a chintz armchair.

"Oh yes, it's my passion," she said. "Every vacation I'm off somewhere. Italy mainly, but I've covered most historic sites
in my life."

"I don't think Professor Rogers shared your passion," Evan said. "There are no photographs of pyramids or leaning towers in
his house, and his wife said she hadn't seen her sister in Provence in years."

"No, Martin was a stick-in-the-mud," she said. "His books were his travel. He liked his life to be orderly. He liked his food
plain. He was not a good candidate for adventures abroad."

"His wife, was she similarly minded?"

"Who knows what Missy might have wanted had she not married Martin," Gwyneth said. "She deferred to him in everything. They
ate what Martin wanted, when Martin wanted. I think she worked so hard at making his life perfect that she forgot she was
entitled to a life of her own."

"This may seem a rather delicate subject," Evan said carefully, "but was it possible that Professor Rogers had a mistress?"

She stared at him, openmouthed, then she laughed. "Highly un likely, I should think. When Missy was away, a few weeks ago,
he was like little boy lost. He invited himself to my place to eat because he didn't know how to fend for himself. Very much
the hangdog without her."

"So Mrs. Rogers went away," Evan said. "She didn't mention that."

"She was probably embarrassed," Gwyneth said. "She went into hospital for a few days. Some feminine complaint that one doesn't
talk about."

"Oh, I see. Nothing serious though?"

"Oh no, I don't think so. She was gone a few days and Martin never mentioned it again, so I presume whatever it was went okay."
She smoothed back her hair. "Look, I was about to have a glass of sherry, would you like one?"

"I'm on duty, unfortunately, but please don't let me stop you," Evan said. "We should all make the most of our time off. I
get so little these days that I've almost forgotten what it's like."

"I know the feeling." She poured a generous amount from a crystal decanter. "See that pile of papers. They have to be marked
by tomorrow. I'll probably be up half the night." She resumed her seat, took a long sip, and then looked up suddenly. "So
what was this new evidence you've come to see me about?"

Evan phrased it carefully in his own mind. "Did Professor Rogers ever mention any connection to a pizza parlor in Llandudno?
Did the name Alessi ever come up? Luigi Alessi?"

"A pizza parlor? Martin loathed pizza. He wouldn't be caught dead near a pizza parlor. When we were working late at a staff
meeting and someone suggested sending out for pizza, Martin said over his dead body." She put her hand up to her mouth. "Oh
dear. That's not funny anymore, is it?"

"I don't think that anyone killed him because he refused to eat pizza," Evan said.

Gwyneth sighed. "I've been thinking and thinking about who might have done it, and frankly I've drawn a complete blank. I'm
sure it had nothing to do with the university-and yet the university was Martin's life. He lived and breathed his work. I
hate to admit it, but he was a very good historian and quite a good department head as well."

"So who will take over the department now?" Evan asked.

She flushed bright red. "I hadn't really considered it. I suppose I will, for now. Until they hire someone permanently, that
is."

But she had considered it, Evan thought. She had considered it from the moment she heard about Martin Rogers's death.

At the end of another long and fruitless day, Evan finally headed for home. The predicted rain had begun and came at his windscreen
in great squalls, almost too much for the wipers to handle. The clouds had come down almost to road level as he passed the
lake beyond Llanberis, and the tiers of slate cliffs loomed out of the mist like castle battlements. A whole day's work, and
they were no further ahead. Simon Pennington had been located, with relative ease, in Florence, where he had been staying
for over a week. The arrest record on Luigi Alessi had shown no activity for several years. Before that only a couple of citations
for disturbing the peace, and one on which the police were called out to a domestic dispute. But it seemed Mrs. Alessi was
telling the truth that he had cut back on his drinking, and consequently, his bad behavior had improved.