Read Evans Above Online

Authors: Rhys Bowen

Evans Above

The bus groaned its way up from the coast, belching out a cloud of diesel smoke before it came to a halt outside the first house of a small village.
“Llanfair!” the driver called, looking back at the young man who sat behind him clutching a backpack.
“Is this it?” Tommy asked dubiously, peering out through the windshield at the row of slate-roofed cottages.
“This is the closest I'm going to stop,” the driver said in a lilting Welsh accent. “Ask at the village. They'll tell you from there.”
Tommy stepped down and hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders as the bus roared away, leaving a dark trail of smoke behind it. He stood there for a moment, taking in the unfamiliar sights and sounds—the neat rows of cottages, some whitewashed but most of them gray stone, built, Tommy suspected, with slate taken from the quarry he had noticed farther down the pass. The rows of cottages huddled under steep green slopes, down which ran parallel bright ribbons of water.
High above, Tommy could see white dots he knew must be sheep. Two dark specks that sped around them must be the sheepdogs, he decided. He watched, entranced, as the white dots came together into a big white blob that began moving steadily forward. Now that the bus had gone, he could hear distant baas floating down on the breeze.
It was so peaceful here—not at all as he remembered it. No sound except for the wind sighing through tall grasses and the splash and gurgle of rushing water in the stream that flowed under the humped stone bridge. Everything was so clean, as if it had been newly spring-cleaned. It smelled fresh too—a kind of green, moist scent. Tommy was glad he had decided to come after all. He needed to get away from the noise and bustle of the city, and he wanted to put some closure on this whole sad business. He was glad to know he wasn't the only one who still felt guilty about what had happened all those years ago, even though no one could be blamed. He glanced up at the distant peaks etched against a clear blue sky. How different it had been last time—the biting cold, visibility down to a few feet, the wind that took their breath away, and the freezing rain that had turned so treacherously to snow …
He hoisted the pack higher on his back. It would be good to see old Stew again, and maybe Jimmy as well. He presumed one of them must have sent the postcard … it had to be one of Danny's close friends in their little gang from hut 29.
He was about to cross the bridge when he noticed that someone was perched on the parapet in the shade of a mountain ash tree, sitting still as a statue. As he came closer he saw the mailman's uniform and was amused to note that the mailman was engrossed in reading the mail.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Am I going the right way for the Everest Inn?”
The mailman looked up and stared at him vacantly as if he was a visitor from Mars.
“Everest Inn?” Tommy asked again, wondering if the man could speak English.
The man hastily gathered the letters, shoving them into his bag, before he took off in the other direction with long loping strides.
Tommy shrugged and started up the village street. Not a soul was about. Even the pub seemed to be closed. Of course, they probably still observed strict drinking laws in this godforsaken corner of Wales. He remembered how unfriendly they'd been before, looking up with wary eyes and switching to Welsh the moment he and his mates had walked into the bar.
Across the street was a little row of shops. G. Evans, Butcher, stood next to R. Evans, Dairy Products. Only T. Harris, General Store, spoiled the Evans monopoly. He could see someone moving behind the counter in the butcher shop, so he pushed open the door and went in.
“Bore da.” A large florid man wearing a soiled apron greeted him in Welsh.
“Hello,” Tommy said in his cheerful cockney. “Nice day, isn't it? I'm looking for the Everest Inn.”
The man's face became instantly remote. “Everest Inn, is it?”
“Yeah, they told me it was around here.”
“You can't miss it,” the butcher said, then muttered under his breath, “Bloody great monstrosity!”
“What's the matter with it?”
“Nobody wanted it built here, did they? Brings a lot of foreigners and too much traffic.”
Tommy smiled. He hadn't seen a single car go past since he got off the bus. The man had gone back to chopping up a
lamb carcass on the marble slab, swinging a murderous-looking cleaver down with rhythmic strokes.
“So how do I find it?” Tommy asked cautiously.
The man didn't look up and continued chopping. “Keep going through the village, past the chapels, and up the hill. You can't miss it.”
“Thanks. Cheers,” Tommy said, and half raised his hand in a friendly wave. As he came out of the door into the warm, spring sunshine, a milk van had just drawn up and a tall, skinny man in a milkman's cap was coming up the steps. He gave Tommy a little half nod, then called out something in Welsh to the butcher and laughed loudly. Tommy turned back in time to see the butcher wave the cleaver at him with a threatening gesture, yelling after him what sounded like a torrent of Welsh insults. The words echoed from the narrow valley walls.
“Go boil your head, Evans-the-Meat,” the milkman called, still laughing. “I was only joking. You take everything too seriously.”
“Is that a fact? Well, I don't find your jokes very funny, Evans-the-Milk,” the butcher yelled back. “And don't think you can insult me. You come from a very inferior branch of the family.”
“Inferior, is it? To whom, I'd like to know!”
“Can
you
trace
your
ancestry back to the Great Llewellyn himself? Related to that dafty at the post office, that's what you are.”
The rest of the argument was lost as Tommy walked on up the street. Personally, he wouldn't have risked trading insults with a man who had chopped through a lamb carcass as if he was cutting butter.
The street was still deserted. The sign outside the Red
Dragon pub swung gently in the wind. As he passed the school he heard the sound of young voices and saw twenty or so little kids in uniform skipping in a circle around a slim young woman. She wore a long skirt, a white blouse, and embroidered ethnic vest. A single braid of corn-colored hair hung way down her back, and she looked as if she had stepped straight out of an Arthurian romance. Tommy paused to watch her as she clapped the rhythm and the children skipped and sang. He tried to pick up the words of the chant, but realized that they were singing in Welsh. That was the trouble with Wales—you didn't think it was a foreign country, but it was.
The pack was weighing heavily on his shoulders and the wind was now blowing briskly from the pass as he climbed up the street. As the road swung around, he could see the imposing shape of the inn interrupting the green sweep of hills at the head of the pass. As he came closer, he could see that it was built like an overgrown Swiss chalet, complete with gingerbread trim and geranium-decked balconies. No wonder the locals hadn't welcomed it—it
was
a bloody great monstrosity.
The last two buildings in the village were both Methodist chapels, as was usual in this part of the world. They were identical gray slate buildings with modest spires and notice boards outside. One announced Chapel Bethel, Sunday School 10 A.M., Worship Service 6 P.M. (Sermon in English). The other said, in Welsh, with a small English translation below it, Chapel Beulah, Sunday Worship 10 A.M. and 6 P.M. Sermon in English and Welsh.
Under these notices were billboards, each containing a text. The text outside Bethel read, “Keep watchful for ye know not when the end shall come.” Tommy was amused to see that the text outside Beulah read, “Judgement Day is tomorrow.”
Tommy chuckled all the way up the hill until the chill wind blowing from the heights made him suddenly shiver. He paused and glanced back down the valley. He wondered if he was doing the right thing coming here after all …
 
High above, the mountain watched and waited.
The sound of singing rose up from the little village of Llanfair, nestled high on the pass between the great peaks of Glyder Fawr and Yr Wyddfa. On the green slopes above, sheep looked up, momentarily startled by the burst of sound, then went back to their grazing, their wool tinged pink by the setting sun.
Guide me, oh Thou great Jehova
Pilgrim in this barren land …
The words of that favorite old Welsh hymn,
Cwm Rhonda
, resounded around Chapel Bethel as only Welsh voices can sing it. If Chapel Bethel had rafters instead of polystyrene tiles, the hymn would have definitely have made them ring.
Only one person was not joining in lustily. A tall young man with the broad shoulders of a rugby forward and a fresh, likeable face, was only mouthing the words.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty
Feed me with Thy willing hand.
Evan Evans was a constable with the North Wales police force, currently assigned to the village of Llanfair. He could feel the familiar flush rising at the back of his neck and spreading over his fair-skinned Celtic face. He knew it was stupid to be troubled by something that had happened so many years ago, but he couldn't help it. Every time they sang that particular hymn in chapel he was back in the assembly hall at Llanelli Road County Primary School, standing in the front row of top class boys and hearing the giggles behind him as two hundred young voices sang the chorus.
Bread of 'eaven
Bread of 'eaven
Feed me till I want no more …
Sang the worshippers in Chapel Bethel now. P.C. Evans could almost feel the digs in his back and hear the giggles and whispered comments: “What kind of bread have you got for us today then, Evan boy? Crusty, is it?”
 
He had only just arrived at the Llanelli Road school, a skinny, undersized kid of ten, fresh from the mountains of North Wales and no match for the tough dockland boys at his new school. Every time they sang that hymn Evan Evans cursed his parents for giving him such a stupid name. Now he was a grown man, liked and respected, and pretty handy with his fists too when needed, but that hymn still had the power to make him feel uncomfortable.
He could almost hear the taunts now. He was sure of it.
Someone was whispering behind him. Any second now, someone was going to dig him in the back and whisper, “What kind of bread then, Evan bach?”
At last the desire to turn around proved too strong. He glanced back and saw two men standing by the side entrance. One of them was old Charlie Hopkins, the usher, and he was pointing directly at Evan. The other man looked familiar, but Even couldn't place him right away. He was middle-aged but fit-looking. His face was tanned but his age was betrayed by hair graying at the sides and combed across to hide a bald spot. He was dressed in a large polo-necked Nordic sweater and cords. As Evan stared at him in surprise, Charlie Hopkins beckoned furiously for him to come over.
Evan glanced around then tiptoed toward the door. Charlie Hopkins grabbed his arm and whispered in his ear, “They've been and gone and done it again, Constable Evans.”
Evan stepped out into the summer twilight. Here, between tall peaks, the sun set early. “Done what?” he asked, looking for help to the stranger who stood beside Mr. Hopkins.
“One of they climbers, that's what,” Mr. Hopkins said. “Got himself stuck on Yr Wyddfa again.” He called the mountain that the English knew as Snowdon by its Welsh name, even though he addressed Evan in English because of the stranger.
“Not again!” Evan said, raising his eyes in despair. “How many weeks has it been since we had a Sunday without a rescue call, eh, Charlie? What's happened this time?” He looked inquiringly at the stranger, trying to place him.
“This is Constable Evans, major,” Charlie said. “He leads our little rescue squad. He's quite an expert climber.”
“Really?” The man couldn't have sounded less impressed.
“You know Major Anderson, don't you, Evan boy?” Charlie
said. “He's the manager at the Everest Inn up the valley. You know the place I'm talking about, don't you?”
Evan gave the major a friendly grin. “It would be hard not to know it, wouldn't it? Takes up half the valley, doesn't it?” Privately he thought it was one of the ugliest buildings he had ever seen. He had never understood the reasoning behind building a Swiss chalet in the middle of Wales. It had opened only the season before, just after Evan himself had arrived in Llanfair, and its guests had kept the village mountain rescue team busy ever since.
But Evan kept his thoughts to himself. He thrust out a big hand. “How do, Major Anderson. Yes, we have met before. Got a climber in trouble again, have you, major? Why don't you teach those climbers of yours how to climb before you let them loose on the mountains?” He had meant it as a good-natured tease, but he saw the smile fade from the major's face.
“Rather worrying, what?” Major Anderson said in a throaty, upper-class English voice. “These chappies always say they know how to climb. Set off with all the right equipment and they always underestimate our Welsh mountains. Think they're not like the Alps or Himalayas, eh, what?”
Evan managed to keep the annoyance from his face. He remembered his last encounter with the major clearly now. He'd been called in to investigate the theft of a diamond and the major had been obnoxiously patronizing, calling him “My dear chappy” and implying that a mere village constable wasn't up to the job. Like most people in Wales, Evan didn't have much time for people who went around giving themselves airs and calling themselves major when they weren't in the army any more … or who referred to the mountains as “our Welsh mountains” when he probably hadn't a drop of Welsh blood in him.
Evan gave the major a congenial smile. “Funny, isn't it? There must be a lot of people who can't tell our mountains from the Alps. The people who built your inn, for example. It's a wonder they don't have you wearing short leather trousers and showing your knees.”
“Ah, quite. Yes. Ha-ha. Most amusing,” the major said.
Evan remembered with some satisfaction that the major had called again, later that same night, to say that the guest had found her missing diamond, hidden in the toe of her fuzzy slippers, where she had put it for safekeeping. He hadn't apologized.
Evan put on his most efficient manner as he turned to the major. “So you've had a message that one of your climbers is in trouble?” Evan asked. “Got himself stuck on Crib Goch, has he?”
“No message,” Major Anderson said. “Just hasn't come back down, that's all. Set off after breakfast this morning and nobody's seen him since.”
Evan looked up at the dark outline of the Snowdon range, silhouetted against a silver sky dotted with pink clouds. Wisps of cloud clung in the gullies like sheep wool caught on a fence.
“It's not even dark yet,” he said. “Give him time. He was probably enjoying the sunset. Beautiful day, wasn't it? I was up there myself, earlier today. Did you know there's a red kite's nest with babies in it? That's good news, isn't it? Haven't seen one of them for years.”
“Er, quite.” Major Anderson cut him off. “But to get back to the point, constable. I wouldn't have come to you if I wasn't concerned.”
“He was definitely planning to come back to you tonight, was he then?”
“Oh yes, definitely,” Major Anderson said. “He told the staff he'd be in for dinner.”
“And you think he was planning to go climbing, not just walking?”
Major Anderson sucked his teeth as he thought. “I couldn't actually say,” he admitted. “He asked for the easiest way up Snowdon and said he was meeting a friend up there. But he was wearing pretty decent boots and he did have a pack. So maybe he was planning to do some climbing with his friend, once he was up there.”
“There you are then,” Evan said. “He met the friend and they decided to go down another way together. Probably went down on the railway to Llanberis. Like as not they're having a drink there now and the friend will run him back here later in his car.”
“But he said he'd dine here,” Major Anderson said patiently, as if Evan was a slow two-year-old. “And he knows that dinner is at seven o'clock sharp. He'd need time to change, wouldn't he? We have a very strict dress code in the dining room.”
“Maybe he's changed his mind,” Evan suggested. “People are allowed to change their minds, you know.” He turned to wink at Charlie. “It's not the army, is it?”
A spasm of a frown crossed the major's face. “Obviously you don't share my concern, constable. I have my hotel to think of. People stranded on the mountain are bad publicity for us. Rescues always seem to make the TV news, don't they? If he's stuck up there, I want him brought down right away.”
“Hold on a minute,” Evan said, putting a calming hand on the major's shoulder. “If the gentleman was going up the Pig Track or the Miners' Track, straight to the top of Snowdon, he'd have been on a well-travelled route. If he'd hurt himself,
or got himself into trouble, we'd have heard about it. There's nowhere on that route that he could have got himself stuck, is there? Like a bloody great motorway, isn't it? And just as well travelled.”
He found himself thinking back to his early childhood spent among these mountains and to the happy days with his grandfather up in the high country. In those days it seemed that it was just the two of them, alone on the roof of the world, sometimes in the clouds, sometimes above them, with eagles soaring below their feet.
But now it was hard to find a place of solitude, even for someone like Evan who knew these mountains like the back of his hand. Most frequently he'd be settled and sunk into contemplation when laughter and loud voices on the path below would announce the arrival of another group of tourists. They'd stagger up the path, often clad in the most unsuitable clothes—shorts and T-shirts—no foul weather gear in case the cloud came in, sandals or city shoes, videotaping as they went. It was all a big lark to them. They had no idea that a storm could roll in and blow them off the path with gale force winds, or that the cloud could come down and blot out the way back, that one step off the path could lead to destruction, and that a night on the mountains could finish them off.
“Give him until morning, major,” he said, drawing his mind back to the present problem. “I can't have my lads missing their chapel over every climber who comes back late, can I? Likely as not you'll have heard from him by morning. I'd wager your boy shows up late for dinner, or gives you a ring from Llanberis. And if he is stranded up there for the night … well, it's not going to be too cold, is it and he could always make for the kiosk and shelter there. It might teach him a lesson about taking our Welsh mountains more seriously.”
He smiled at the major. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to chapel. I don't want to miss the reverend Parry Davies' sermon. Heard about him, have you? He's a famous orator. Goes to the eisteddfods every year and wins prizes, and gives powerful good sermons—all hellfire and damnation. You can almost smell the brimstone. The Reverend Powell-Jones has had to have double glazing put on his windows.”
His gaze drifted across the street to the other chapel, Beulah, where the Reverend Powell-Jones was conducting his own evening worship. He made up for his lack of Parry Davies' power of oratory by giving his sermons in Welsh and then in English. Since this took well over an hour, his congregation was considerably smaller than Bethel's—mainly old women who had grown up as Welsh speakers and ardent nationalists. Still, it was hard to compete against Bethel's added advantage: A footpath behind it that led to the back door of the Red Dragon.
Even though all the pubs in Wales were now officially allowed to open on Sundays, Llanfair was one of those pockets of religious righteousness where Sunday drinking was still outwardly frowned upon, and the front door of the pub remained firmly shut to strangers. The back door, however, was open to admit regular customers, which was why most of the men of Llanfair attended evening services at Chapel Bethel.

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