Read Online Constable Evans 02: Evan Help Us by Rhys Bowen - Free Book Online

voice a little. “We need to find out just how and where he fell into the river, so that we can prevent any more accidents like this, don’t we?”
    He started to move among the crowd, asking questions. On the pretext of asking people if they remembered what time the colonel left the pub, Evan managed to compile a pretty accurate list of who was there that night. The list included almost all the men of the village, plus some of the women as well. The only men not present were a couple of young lads out on dates, some fathers home with their wives, and the Rev. Powell-Jones who, unlike his rival at the other chapel, never touched the demon alcohol.
    That meant that almost every able-bodied man in the village had a cast-iron alibi for that night. Most of them had seen the colonel leave the pub, but nobody saw what happened after that. As Evan had guessed, all the other inhabitants of Llanfair were safely indoors with curtains drawn at nine o’clock.
    It was late Saturday afternoon when Evan finished interviewing the villagers and went to talk to Mrs. Owens, the colonel’s landlady. He skirted the police tape along the riverbank but crossed the river by the same little bridge from which the colonel had plunged to his death. Evan stood on the planks that spanned the stream, watching the water cascade over the rocks. It was true that the colonel could have hit his head if he had fallen onto those rocks, and the rushing water would have wiped away any trace of blood. But the bridge really wasn’t unstable, and it was wide enough for a man to cross safely, unless he was very drunk indeed.
    Mrs. Owens was quite distraught when she opened the front door. She dabbed her eyes with a sodden handkerchief as she led him into her kitchen and offered him a seat at the scrubbed pine table. Evan looked around with approval, thinking that this was just how a farm kitchen should look. One wall was taken up with an enormous Welsh dresser containing a set of willow pattern plates, another wall was dominated by a big cast-iron stove, now superseded by the smart electric range beside it. The walls were whitewashed stone and the floor well-scrubbed gray slate. The whole place was spotless. No wonder the colonel felt so comfortable here.
    “We ought never to have shown him that shortcut.” Mrs. Owens sniffed as she poured Evan a cup of tea without asking. “It’s our fault. We should have known an old man like that could have lost his balance on that bridge. I kept telling Mr. Owens that it was rickety and needed repairing, but you know how busy he is.” She blew her nose noisily.
    Evan nodded with sympathy. “Don’t upset yourself,” he said. “I’ve been across the bridge. It’s just fine and the colonel was as surefooted as an old goat, wasn’t he? Look where he hiked in the mountains and never had any mishaps.”
    He stopped talking, staring out of Mrs. Owens’ window at the green slopes that rose steeply. Surely if anyone had wanted to kill the colonel, it would have been much less risky to have done it up there. It would have been the simplest thing in the world to have followed him up into the high country and waited for the right moment to push him over a cliff. No one would ever have disputed that was an accident. So why risk doing it so close to the village?
    “… and he was always so happy here.” Evan came back from his thoughts to hear Mrs. Owens in the middle of a sentence.
    “I’m sorry, I was thinking about something,” he said. “What were you saying?”
    “Just that he always came here looking so peaky and down at the mouth and he perked up right away,” Mrs. Owens said. “I don’t think he had much to live for in London.”
    “Did he talk to you much about his life in London?” Evan asked.
    “I didn’t like to ask,” Mrs. Owens said. “He was a paying guest, after all. It wouldn’t have been proper to gossip. But I know it wasn’t much. He had his walks around the park and the library and his