“Ah, Evans. Good man.” It was Chief Inspector Meredith’s standard method of greeting, unless one had done something wrong, in which case it was just “Ah, Evans,” with the “good man” part omitted. So he knew he wasn’t in trouble.
“Glad you got here so quickly.” This was also part of the standard welcome. “Pull up a pew.”
The chief inspector was in his customary rolled-up shirtsleeves and Evan noted that the room was pleasantly warm. No cost-cutting attempts with the central heating going on here.
“So how are things up at Llanfair?” The chief inspector pronounced it awkwardly, not able to get his tongue around the double l, like all non-Welsh speakers. He was from North Wales, but from the coastal city of Llandudno, which had always considered itself gentrified and where Welsh-speaking was a rarity.
“Oh, about the same as usual, sir.” Evan perched himself on the hard wooden visitor’s chair and wished the chief inspector would cut the small talk and get to the point. The anticipation was killing him.
“No bodies for a while? You must be getting bored.” He laughed—a polite little ha ha. Evan smiled and wisely kept silent. He knew that his apparent knack for solving murder cases had not always gone down well with the top brass. In fact, he sometimes wondered if his track record was what had prevented him from being selected for detective training.
“I expect it’s pretty quiet up there in Llanfair at this time of year, isn’t it? No tourists around yet to get lost or stranded or lose their keys.”
“That’s right, sir.”
The chief inspector leaned forward in his chair. “Look here, Evans. You probably know that we’ve been given a directive from Colywn Bay to cut departmental costs considerably. One of the suggestions, of course, was to do away with the smaller outstations and consolidate our personnel at headquarters.”
“I thought that had been tried before, sir, before I got here. I thought they discovered that having an officer on the spot was a great crime deterrent.” (As if anyone with any sense hasn’t already figured that out, he thought.)
“True, but then the population out in the villages is shrinking all the time, isn’t it? In a few years they will only exist for the tourists—a sort of Walt Disney re-creation of Wales as it used to be. Bed-and-breakfasts, craft shops, ye olde blacksmiths—that kind of thing.”
“Not for a while yet,” Evan said. “We must have at least a couple of hundred people in Llanfair and we’re one of the smaller villages.” He looked directly at the chief inspector. A sinking feeling was growing in his stomach. He had rushed here, filled with expectancy, dreaming of possibilities. He didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “You’re not thinking of closing the Llanfair station, are you?”
“Not for the moment. However, I can’t afford to keep officers where they are not fully utilized. I know you have periods when you’re busy up there. I know there have actually been some major incidents since you joined our force and your presence has been most—” Evan thought he would say, “instrumental,” but instead he said, “—useful in solving them quickly. Then, on the other hand,” he picked up a logbook, “there are days when you seem to do little more than answer phone calls and make cups of tea.”
“It’s not quite as bad as that, sir,” Evan said. “I catch up on my paperwork when there’s nothing to do. And I imagine there are days down here when you’re not exactly run off your feet either.”
The chief inspector managed a smile. Evan couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. “So what are you planning to do with me?” he blurted out.
“Expand your territory,” Chief Inspector Meredith said. “At the moment you are confined to an area you can cover on foot. I know you’re a fine climber and you’ve been able to get up to accidents on the mountains, but the response time is naturally slow. We’re going to make your job easier by issuing you a motorbike.”
“A motorbike?” Evan couldn’t have been more surprised, or disappointed. “I’ve never actually ridden a motorbike, sir.”
“No problem. There will be training, of course. And that way we can justify keeping the Llanfair substation open. You’ll be able to patrol the territory from Llanberis on one side to Beddgelert on the other and the most frequently used mountain paths as well. Everyone carries cell phones these days. If we get a call from a climber or hiker in distress, you’ll be able to whiz straight up to them.” He beamed as if he was giving Evan a wonderful present.
“So—uh—when do I get this—motorbike?” Evan asked. He tried not to let his feelings show in his voice. He had never actually wanted a motorbike, even when his teenage friends were pleading with their parents to get one. They had always looked cold and uncomfortable. He saw no point in getting the rain in his face when he could be safely inside a car. Now he pictured himself riding up mountains in rainstorms in search of stranded tourists. It wasn’t a pleasant prospect.
“It’s already over at the motor shop, being checked out,” the chief inspector said. “There are five of you constables who are being turned into mobile units, so we have to find time to schedule each of you for training. Go and look at the master schedule in dispatch and see when you can fit in a training session. We want it done as soon as possible, so you can be out and about before the tourists show up en masse.”
Evan got to his feet. “Will that be all, sir?”
The chief inspector stretched, leaning back in his chair, extending his arms, and cracking his knuckles. “Yes, that’s about it. Off you go then. And no doing wheelies when we’re not looking!” He chuckled again.
Evan started for the door then turned back. “About my request, sir. My transfer to plainclothes. Any idea what chance I’ve got?”
“None at the moment with all the cost cutting going on, I’m afraid,” Chief Inspector Meredith said. “Plainclothes is having to pare down to the bare bones, just as we are. And I’m in no hurry to lose a good man, either.”
Evan came out into the hallway and made for the front door. He didn’t even feel like stopping at the cafeteria for a chat and a cup of tea. Megan, the cheerful carthorse of a dispatcher, poked her head through the window as he passed. “Seen the chief, have you? Did you like my little joke? Upwardly mobile, get it?”
“Very funny,” Evan said, and pushed the swing door open.
Chapter 4
He swung away from his car and instead walked through the car park to the maintenance sheds beyond where the new motorbike would be waiting. Might as well get it over with and take a look at it. He couldn’t understand why he had such a negative feeling about motorbikes. He had never owned one. None of the friends of his youth had ever owned one either. So why was he so sure he’d hate riding one? It wasn’t the cold and rain in his face that was worrying him. Anyone bred in the Welsh mountains was used to cold and rain in their faces. He’d had plenty of experience of it in his life waiting for school buses or playing rugby. And he never even minded the weather when he was hiking or climbing. It had to be something more than that … . Evan racked his brains. He had never been a speed freak, but then he’d never been too worried by speed either. An image came into his head of a motorbike leaning over at an impossible angle as it rounded a sharp curve. When had he ever seen …