Evanly Bodies (22 page)

"Rashid!" Mrs. Khan shouted out. "Rashid, come and talk to your mummy. Let us talk quietly, Rashid. Enough of this nonsense."

"Nonsense?" Rashid screamed. Without warning he punched Evan in the face, snatched the backpack from him, turned and ran with
it, back up the hill toward the crowd. Suddenly he stumbled on a slippery rock and went sprawling forward. There was a blinding
flash, a boom, and Evan found himself being hurled backward with all the air sucked out of him.

"Rashid!" Mrs. Khan screamed again. Evan picked himself up, his eyes watering, his nose full of the acrid smell of gunpowder.
He looked at where Rashid had been and then looked away, sickened. He picked his way back down the hill where the Khans were
standing with Bronwen, openmouthed and horror-struck, behind them.

"I tried to reason with him," Evan said. "I managed to get him out of the middle of the crowd. I even got the backpack away
from him, but this was something he really wanted to do."

"My boy, my son," Mrs. Khan was still screaming, rocking back and forth in an orgy of grief.

Mr. Khan looked at Evan. "I suppose you think you're some kind of hero now, don't you? First you take my daughter from me
and now my son. My only son. My bright, beautiful boy. . . ."

And with that he broke down into noisy sobs. His wife put her arms around him, and they stood clinging and swaying together,
overwhelmed by their misery. Bronwen came over and slipped her hand into Evan's. "You did what you could," she said.

Evan stared hopelessly up at the site where Rashid's body was not even recognizable as a human being. "But it wasn't enough,"
he said. "That's the problem, isn't it? You try your best, but it's not always enough."

Bronwen squeezed his hand. "You were very brave to have tackled him like that. Brave and stupid, if you want my opinion. I
don't want to be a young widow, you know."

Evan looked down at her and managed a smile. "I couldn't let him detonate that thing among all those kids, could I?"

"No, you couldn't. But there are times when I wish you weren't such a bloody Boy Scout."

"What?" Evan was enjoying a day off and a real Welsh breakfast, neither of which happened often anymore.

"Bloody Inspector Bragg," Bronwen said. "Talk about aptly named! A whole big article about how he solved the murders single-handedly,
and his stupid face grinning from a picture. He's taking all the glory for himself. Listen to this: 'I saw the wives as the
primary suspects from the beginning, and it was just a question of finding the link between them. Luckily one of my team stumbled
upon that link at a women's shelter.' He doesn't even name you by name, Evan."

Evan smiled as he went back to his sausage. "That doesn't worry me, love. Let him get the glory if he wants it, although personally
I can't see how anyone with any feeling could get any satisfaction from solving this case."

Bronwen nodded. "Those poor women. I feel terrible for them. Evan, when we get a second car, would you mind if I signed on
as a volunteer at that shelter?"

"You do what you want to, love," Evan said. "It's your life. You don't need my permission to do anything, you know that. I'm
not about to turn into a domineering bully like those men."

Bronwen came over and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "That's lucky because I don't think I'm the type who would stand
for bullying. Although who can say? Those women might have started off as brave and confident and just been gradually worn
down by years of abuse."

"And we've seen for ourselves that sometimes women try to be brave and stand up for themselves, and it pushes some men over
the edge. Jamila was lucky to escape with her life."

Bronwen rested her cheek against his. "It sounds terrible, but in a way I'm glad that Rashid was killed. Now at least she
can come back to her parents, and I don't think they'll be in a hurry to let go of her again."

"I wonder what the Khans will do now?" Evan asked. "They idolized that boy."

"What can they do? Go on with their lives without him."

But the corner grocery store stayed locked and shut the next day and the day after. Mrs. Williams, basket over her arm and
needing some custard powder in a hurry, arrived to find the shop in darkness and the door locked and had some unkind things
to say about unreliable foreigners.

"Probably yet another of their heathen feast days, I shouldn't wonder," Mrs. Powell-Jones commented, when she came across
a very irate Mrs. Williams standing at the bus stop.

Thanks to tight police security, the nature of Rashid's real intention had not been allowed to leak out, and for once the
Llanfair underground telegraph system had not picked up the true story right away. Of the other young men in the house, two
maintained complete ignorance about Rashid's true intentions and his building of a bomb. The third, the one who visited Pakistan
frequently, had vanished by the time the police arrived back at the house with a warrant.

But snippets of news of the Khan's tragedy eventually filtered through to the villagers, and there were mixed feelings in
the Red Dragon.

"Nothing but trouble, didn't I say it from the first?" Charlie Hopkins stated. "We'd have had a terrorist cell in the village,
you mark my words."

"I suppose they'll be moving away again now," Barry the Bucket said. "They won't want to stick around here after a tragedy
like that."

"Good riddance, I say," came muttered from a corner.

But the women did not reflect their attitudes.

"I hope they're not thinking of moving out and shutting up shop," Mair Hopkins said to Charlie. "Just when I've become used
to having eggs and baked beans on the doorstep again and not having to ride in that drafty old bus. I tell you, Charlie, if
they go, you're going to have to buy me a car and teach me to drive. I'm sixty-nine years old and I've had enough of waiting
in bus queues."

Mrs. Khan managed a smile. "You're most kind," she said. "Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?"

Other women followed suit, and by the end of the next week Jamila had come home and the shop had opened again.

"I suppose one can say that occasionally good things do come out of tragedy," Bronwen said to Evan as they walked together
up the track to their cottage. "I think the women showing up on the Khan's doorstep with food like that really touched their
hearts. Maybe it will lead to better understanding."

Evan smiled at her. "If it leads to the Welsh welcoming foreigners, it will be a bloody miracle," he said, and looked back
fondly at the village nestled below, bathed in afternoon sunshine.