Glynis shook her head. “No idea. She’s an American college student, doing some kind of course at Oxford University. The course finished before Christmas. She called her parents and said she’d like to stay on over here and do some traveling before she went home. She promised she’d be home by Easter, in time for her spring term at university over there. Her parents haven’t heard anything since February and she didn’t show up for Easter. They’re worried sick, naturally, and they’ve come over to look for her.”
“What makes them think she’s been around here?”
“Her last postcard said she was going to Wales. That’s all they’ve got to go on.”
“I see.” Evan frowned. “Tough order. She could be anywhere. I presume there are other police looking into this too?”
Glynis nodded. “The police in Oxford, obviously, and the Met as well. She stayed at a friend’s flat in London over the Christmas holidays.”
“I’ll be happy to put up flyers for you at the youth hostels,” Evan said. “She was an outdoorsy type of girl, was she? Might have come here to hike or climb?”
“No, she wasn’t. That’s the strange thing,” Glynis said. “Very quiet, studious, socially conscious, played the violin. But a good sense of humor. The last postcard she wrote to her parents said, ‘Gone to Wales. Got a date with a Druid.’”
“And that’s all you’ve got to go on?”
Glynis nodded. “Not much, is it?”
“And if she’s been wandering around since Christmas, she could be long gone by now. We’d be lucky to find anyone at a youth hostel who remembered her. These kids wander around for a month at the most then disappear again.”
“That’s exactly what Rebecca’s done—disappeared,” Glynis said. “She never showed up at her friend’s flat to collect the rest of her stuff.”
“Doesn’t sound too good, does it?” Evan said. “The flyers have a picture of her on them, do they?”
“Yes, but not a very good one. I’m hoping for a better one when we meet the parents. They’re due up here in a few days, working their way from the North of Wales to the South, leaving no stone unturned.”
“Poor people,” Evan said. “I’ve always thought that must be the very worst thing—not knowing. People can take bad news as long as they know the truth.”
Glynis nodded. “You’re right. I’ll bring Mr. and Mrs. Riesen up to meet you when they get here. You always know the right things to say.”
“All right.” Evan smiled. She was a nice girl. If she wasn’t dating the chief constable’s nephew and he didn’t have Bronwen in his life, he might well … he stopped short as they got to the police station door. “I’ve just remembered,” he said. “I don’t think I’d better stop for tea with you. I’m moving house today. I’ve got a ton of things still to do and I wanted to go round the charity shops before they shut. I’ve got to furnish the place somehow.”
“So you finally did it?” Watkins grinned. “You cut the cord and moved away from your landlady. Well, good for you, boyo. Now you’ll find out what life is really like. It will be beans on toast and washing your own shirts like the rest of us.”
“I’ll have you know that I plan to become a gourmet chef,” Evan said. He tried not to smile when Watkins nudged Glynis. “No, seriously. I’ve got a fancy cookbook that Bronwen gave me and I’m going to teach myself to cook properly.”
“We’ll expect a dinner invitation, won’t we, Glynis?” Watkins said.
“Absolutely.” Glynis Davies’s large brown eyes held his.
It was with some regret that he watched them go through to the cafeteria. In spite of everything he had to admit that he still found her fascinating.
Chapter 5
He left the last of the urban sprawl behind him and let out the throttle as the bike began to climb the pass. The engine gave a satisfying roar. The first of the zigzag bends approached. He was supposed to lean into it, but it seemed such an improbable thing to do. He felt gravity pulling at him, leaned, and smiled to himself as the bike hugged the curve. Very satisfying. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. He couldn’t wait to try it off road, but after several days of steady rain, he’d better let the hillsides dry out a little first.
Llanfair appeared ahead of him, nestled between green slopes. It was late afternoon and the village was bathed in sharp, slanting sunlight, making the gray stone of the cottages glow pink. The stream that flowed from the mountains was almost spilling over its banks, passing under the stone bridge with a thunderous roar and sending up droplets of spray to dance in the sunlight. Everything always looked its best after rain. All fresh and new. Just the sort of evening for a brisk hike. Instead, he had to finish painting the living room. Evan sighed. He had found a bright and cheerful rug for the living room, but it wasn’t enough to lift the gloomy, damp feeling, which even a roaring fire couldn’t drive away. The brown wallpaper on the walls hadn’t helped, so in a fit of enthusiasm that first night, he had started to tear it down. It had peeled off in satisfying strips and now he was left with bare walls. So he had started to paint the whole thing sparkling white. Only after he’d done a couple of walls did he realize that the whole cottage hadn’t been painted in half a century. Everything looked dirty and dingy in comparison. The ceiling needed painting too, and after the living room the front hall, the kitchen, the stairs … he had let himself in for a major project. For the first time he appreciated Sergeant Watkins’s constant complaints of weekends being filled with do-it-yourself projects.
He felt daunted by the whole prospect as he pulled into the police station yard. He was about to dismount when there was a shriek and someone sprinted across the street, arms waving.
“Constable Evans!”
It was young Terry Jenkins, the local tearaway who had been mixed up in one of Evan’s former cases. His face was lit up with excitement. “Is that your bike? Did you just get it?” He stroked the chrome handlebars lovingly as if the bike were a living thing. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Will it do a ton?”
Evan laughed. “Nothing like a ton, Terry. It’s not meant to go fast. It’s just so that I can get around my beat more easily.”
“I bet it can go pretty fast if you really try. And with those tires, you could do motor cross—you know how they come flying over the hill—whee—airborne!”
“It’s a police bike, Terry,” Evan said, grateful he wasn’t going to have to show off his nonexistent motor cross talents. “I won’t be doing any stunts.”
“Pity.” Terry’s face fell. “Still, you’ll have to go fast if you’re chasing a crook, won’t you? Like that guy in the red sports car that time.”
“I don’t think anything like that is going to happen around here for a while.” Evan put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come on, help me wheel the bike under cover in case it rains.”
After a disappointed Terry had gone home, Evan let himself into number 28. It still felt cold and inhospitable and he thought longingly of the smell of cooking that had greeted him when he opened Mrs. Williams’s front door. Now if there was going to be any cooking smell, he’d have to produce it. And after last night’s effort he wasn’t so sure the result would be edible. He had tried making a steak-and-kidney pie. He had followed the recipe faithfully, but the steak and kidney had ended up as unidentifiable shriveled morsels and the pastry crust needed a chisel to puncture it. Maybe he was being too ambitious, he decided. Maybe he should stick to egg and chips until he knew his way around a kitchen.