Constable Evans 03: Evanly Choirs (27 page)

Mostyn shut his eyes and a shudder went through his body. “I did make him stop. He fell to the ground. I saw the blood. I tried to pull myself together. I thought I’d go and tell the police exactly what had happened. They’d understand. Then I thought, what if they didn’t—what if they locked me up for life?

“That’s when it came to me that I could make it look like an accident. I moved him across to the fireplace so that it would look as if he hit his head on that fender. It was hard work because he was so heavy. But I did it. There were blood spatters on the carpet. I moved the desk to cover them. Then I splashed whiskey around to make it look as if he’d been drinking and had fallen over blind drunk.

“Then I realized I had to give myself an alibi. For the first time in my life I was making full use of my brain—the fine brain I had been given and never had a proper chance to use.

“I knew he always recorded himself, every time he sang, vain bastard. I found a warm-up tape. I hid a tape recorder out of sight on the window ledge and I turned it on at full volume. That would give me half an hour to get safely away. That’s when I saw the radiator. I remembered reading that bodies didn’t stiffen up as quickly in a hot room. I went and switched on the central heating and turned the radiators in the room on full.

“Then I went into the kitchen to wash my hands. I’d been very careful but I’d got some blood on them when I moved him. I was just coming down the hall again about to leave when I heard someone knocking on the front door. And then it opened. I hid in the hall closet. It was a girl. She found Ifor and she ran out. I can tell you, Mr. Evans, that my heart nearly stopped beating with fright. I was sure she’d gone to get the police and I’d be trapped. I slipped out and then I found that she’d dropped her shoe. I picked it up with my handkerchief, so I wouldn’t leave fingerprints and tossed it back into the house, outside the living room door. That would give the police something else to think about.

“My car was parked over at the pub. Nobody was around when I got in and drove away … and anyway, if someone had seen me, they’d swear that Ifor was still alive. It was a perfect alibi … if you hadn’t stuck your nose in and ruined it for me.”

“What did you do with the murder weapon, Mostyn?” Evan asked.

“It’s on my mantlepiece, where it belongs,” he said. “I gave it a good going-over. You won’t find a trace of blood on it. You won’t find anything to incriminate me. I was meticulous. I wiped away every trace.”

“And Gladys?” Evan asked. “Did you have anything to do with Gladys?”

Mostyn sighed. “How was I to know she was still in the house, silly woman? I knew it was only a matter of time before she recognized the voice was mine.”

“So you pushed her under a car.”

“It wasn’t hard. I followed her and waited for the right moment. It’s funny how easy it is to kill someone.” He looked up at Evan and smiled. “But all this is just between you and me, Constable. I think you might have a hard time proving it.”

“Do you think you’re the only one who uses tape recorders, Mostyn?” Evan said.

“You mean you’ve recorded this conversation?” Mostyn asked indignantly. “That’s very underhanded of you, Constable Evans.”

“I’m afraid the police have to be underhanded sometimes, Mostyn,” Evan said. “Now we ought to take a ride to headquarters, don’t you think? It’s good to get the truth out, isn’t it? It would only have preyed on your mind and haunted you.”

“Do you think it hasn’t already?” Mostyn asked in a broken voice. “Sitting in there, listening to those other choirs … do you think I haven’t regretted my reckless act over and over. I would do anything in the world to undo it, Constable. I might have hated him, but I would never have wished him dead. He was … the greatest living tenor. I deprived the world of that talent. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Evan put a hand on his shoulder. “Come along, let’s go now.”

Mostyn came with him willingly enough. As they passed the next pavilion Mostyn hesitated.

“Just a minute, Mr. Evans,” he said. “I just need to get something out of my briefcase.”

Evan waited patiently. Mostyn rummaged around, then he said, “You really are very naive, aren’t you? Did you think I’d come without a fight?”

His hand emerged from the brief case and Evan saw that he was holding a gun. It wasn’t just a little pistol, either. It was a sleek new semiautomatic, the sort of gun Evan had seen in the hands of drug dealers but the last thing in the world he would have expected to see in the hands of Mostyn Phillips.

“Where on earth did you get a thing like that?” he blurted out.

Mostyn gave a satisfied smile. “You can buy them quite easily these days. I got it on my last trip to Ireland. Everyone is armed there. Nobody asks questions. I always sensed I’d have to protect myself someday.”

“Come on, Mostyn, don’t be—” he was about to say “a fool” and stopped himself. Being labeled as a fool and a failure had already made him kill once. He had to make sure that Mostyn didn’t do anything stupid with so many people milling around them. “Don’t make it harder on yourself,” he finished. “I’m sure the judge and jury will understand that there were extenuating circumstances. We can testify that Ifor goaded you to the limits of your endurance. You’ll probably get off with manslaughter—maybe only a couple of years.”

“A couple of years?” Mostyn’s voice was high and dangerous. “Do you know what prison would be like for a man like me? You saw how Ifor picked on me. That’s what it would be like every moment, only worse.” He shook his head. “I’m not going to jail, Mr. Evans. I’m going out in a blaze of glory. I’m going to make bigger headlines than Ifor, for once!”

Suddenly he dodged into the tent behind him, ran up the center aisle, and leaped up onto the stage. “Nobody move,” he instructed. “And nobody gets hurt.”

There were screams and the sound of chairs being knocked over as people dived for cover.

“I said nobody move!” Mostyn’s voice was almost a scream now. “And stay in your seats!”

But some people had already left. Spectators standing near the entrance had managed to slip away. It was only a matter of time before the police got here in full force, and then what would happen? Evan was sure Mostyn was serious about going out in a blaze of glory. He’d probably be quite prepared to shoot it out with the police, and how many other people would wind up dead?

Evan ducked out of the back of the tent and ran around to the stage entrance. He slipped inside and for the first time he was able to assess the true horror of the situation. Mostyn was standing in the middle of a group of young folk dancers. There were white dresses and flower garlands all around him. They were standing rooted to the spot with expressions of bewildered horror on their young faces. The audience also sat as if mesmerized as Mostyn’s gun swept over them, first left and then to the right. Then Evan’s heart missed a beat. Bronwen was sitting in the middle of the front row, her arms around two little girls. Nothing was going to be allowed to happen to Bronwen!

It was now or never.
Go on,
he commanded himself silently.
Get on with it, before it’s too late!
But his legs didn’t want to move. He was fairly sure that Mostyn wouldn’t shoot him in cold blood, but Mostyn was not himself tonight. He was already a man driven over the edge. Who knew what he would do?

Evan took a deep breath and stepped up onto the stage. Mostyn turned at the noise and pointed the gun at him. He heard gasps from the spectators.

“Come on, Mostyn
bach.
You don’t want to do this,” Evan said, fighting to keep his voice calm and genial. “We don’t want one of these little children to get hurt by mistake, do we?”

“Stay away from me, Evan,” Mostyn said, waving the gun dangerously. “I’m warning you!”

“Just think what you’re doing, Mostyn. Any jury would understand how you killed Ifor. But if a little child gets killed tonight, they won’t forgive you so easily. They’ll put you away for life.”

A spasm of pain crossed Mostyn’s face. “I don’t care,” he said. “Why should I care about anything? Who’s ever cared about me? Now get back. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Evan took a step closer. “I know you don’t. You don’t want to hurt anyone, Mostyn. You’re not a violent person. And you like children, too. You’ve devoted your whole life to children. Why undo all that good in one stupid moment?”

He took another step closer. “Give me the gun, please, before someone gets hurt by mistake.”

“Don’t come any closer!” Mostyn was crying now, the tears mingling with beads of sweat that ran down his face. “I’m not going to let them take me alive. I’m going out in a blaze of glory.”

“You call this glory?” Evan demanded. “Little kiddies getting hit by stray bullets is glory? Look at those little faces, Mostyn. Look what you’re putting them through. Don’t do this to them. Come on. Give me the gun.”

He took the final step. He saw the muscles in Mostyn’s forearm tighten, his fingers curl around the trigger. Mostyn let out an almost primal “No!” as Evan grabbed the gun and wrenched it out of his hand. Mostyn sank to the floor with a great sob as security men leaped onto the stage and yanked him to his feet.

“Go easy with him,” Evan commanded. “He’s sick. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Mothers scrambled onto the stage, sweeping up and enveloping now-crying children. Evan stood on the stage, unnoticed for the moment, too stunned to move. He was just coming down the steps when flashbulbs went off in Evan’s face.

“How does it feel to be a hero? Were you scared? What made you do it?” He was being buried under an avalanche of questions.

“I’m a policeman. It’s part of my job,” he said, squinting in the glare of the lights. “If you want to know any more, you’ll have to talk to my boss in Caernarfon.”

“Wait. Let me get to him,” a female voice yelled and someone pushed through the circle of media. “Evan, darling, you were wonderful! So brave! You saved us all! I was so proud of you!” Maggie flung herself into his arms as the flashbulbs popped around them.

“I realize now what a fool I was and how badly I treated you,” she went on. “Please come home and let’s start over.”

Evan removed her arms from his neck. “You don’t understand, Maggie. I am home,” he said. “I’ve no desire to go anywhere else, or to go back to any part of my old life. Now, if you’ll all excuse me…”

He walked calmly past the microphones and cameras. As he came down the steps from the stage he heard the wail of an approaching siren. It hadn’t taken the police long to get here. He had only just been in time.

Bronwen was standing now, her arms still around the little girls who were crying.

“It’s alright,” Evan said, bending down to them. “It’s all over.” He looked up at Bronwen. “Are you okay?” he asked simply, because that was the first thing that came into his head.

“More to the point, are you okay?” she said fiercely. “I never want to go through that again, as long as I live. Must you always be the Boy Scout and do the good deeds?”

“I was pretty sure he wouldn’t really have shot me,” Evan said, recoiling at her anger.

“Pretty sure?”

“I had to do it, Bron,” he said simply. “If I hadn’t got the thing away from him before the police got here he would have been happy to die in a Rambo-style shootout.”

Bronwen let go of the little girls and came up to him. “You were incredibly brave,” she said. She slipped her arms around his neck. “Just don’t ever do it again!”

“I can’t promise that,” Evan said, wrapping his own hands around her waist. “As I said to those media types, I’m a policeman. It’s all part of the job.”

“Miss Price, I’m scared. Can we go home now?” One of the little girls tugged at her skirt.

“I have to get them home,” Bronwen said regretfully.

“Of course you do. And I suppose I’d better make my way to HQ and file my report when they bring Mostyn in,” Evan said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He ushered them through the confusion in the center aisle, pushing aside persistent cameras that were still following him.

“Don’t you want to say good-bye to your girlfriend?” Bronwen asked as they reached the exit.

Evan glanced back. He could no longer see Maggie amid the chaos on stage. “That was all over and forgotten long ago,” he said. “She let me down rather badly once. When we’ve got time, I’ll tell you all about her.”

“Is that why you’re so reluctant to get involved again?” Bronwen asked.

Evan nodded. “Once bitten, twice shy, don’t they say?”

“Oh, she did that, too, did she?” Bronwen asked. There was a challenging sparkle in her eyes.

“Did what?”

“Bite?”

Evan took one of the little girls by the hand and put his arm around Bronwen’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get these little ones home. I said I’d tell you all the details later.”

Outside the activities were winding down. The outer booths were lit by kerosene lamps and the sky was glowing pink on the western horizon.

“We never did manage to go around the
eisteddfod
together, did we?”

“There’s always next year,” Bronwen said.

“Right. I’ll mark it in my calendar. No crime allowed that weekend.”

They stood smiling at each other.

“I really have to get going,” Evan said. “They’ll be waiting for me at HQ.”

Bronwen nodded. “Why don’t you stop by on your way home, if it’s not too late,” she said. “I’ll make you some cocoa.”

“People might talk.”

“Let them. And anyway, they’ll be too busy gossiping about poor old Mostyn to notice us.”

Evan smiled. “Alright. I’ll see you later then.”

He watched Bronwen disappear into the twilight, a little girl at either hand. Then he headed back in the direction of his car.

A burst of applause made him pause at the grand pavilion. On the stage were tiers of figures in white robes, their heads draped in what looked like tablecloths. In one case Evan knew that the headdress was a tablecloth. Although he knew that this was the traditional Druid dress, he still thought it looked bloody silly. His eyes scanned the rows until he picked out the Reverend Powell-Jones, sitting at one end and the Reverend Parry Davies at the other.