Evan's Gate (22 page)
Authors: Rhys Bowen
“So he went to a lawyer?”
“We give him money. We take him to immigration lawyer—he is a good man; he will help us. He says he will find us the right kind of lawyer to help Johnny get back his child. He says don’t worry. We go to court and we show them you are good father, and the judge will say that child must be with you.”
“When did this happen?” Watkins asked.
“One month ago Johnny meets with the lawyer. They make date to go to court. Then one day Johnny does not come here anymore.” He spread his hands in a gesture of futility. “We don’t know where he has gone.”
The one with the braces put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I have Johnny’s things at my home. We wait for him to call us, but there is no phone call.”
“Is it possible that he went back to Russia?” Watkins asked.
“To Russia? Pah!” The man almost spat. “Why should he go back to Russia? No good there. Not good life. Johnny likes England. He says England is good place to raise my daughter.”
“Then he must have taken his daughter and gone into hiding with her,” Watkins said. “Look, I’m going to give you my telephone number. If he contacts you, will you please have him telephone us? If there has been no custody hearing—if the judge hasn’t decided—then he’s not going to get into trouble. It’s just that everybody needs to know that the little girl is okay.”
“Johnny would do nothing to harm his child,” the fat man said defiantly. “This child was the light of his life.”
Evan had been standing behind the group in the murk. Now he moved forward. “Perhaps he was afraid the judge wouldn’t let him have his daughter when they went to court.”
“Pah!” The man almost spat again. “The judge will see who is the good parent and who is the bad. Johnny does everything he can to make things good for daughter. He finds a job where he can work at night, and the daughter can sleep with my two girls. He finds a good place to live.”
“But maybe the judge would favor the English parent?” Watkins suggested.
“This woman? She can be called good parent? Huh! What about men?”
“Men?”
“She is not content to stay home and be a good wife, good mother. No, not she. She likes a good time. She wants to go
dancing, and she thinks it’s okay to flirt with other men. Johnny says no. He forbids her to act this way. That is why they fight.”
dancing, and she thinks it’s okay to flirt with other men. Johnny says no. He forbids her to act this way. That is why they fight.”
“It may just be that we’ve been looking at this the wrong way round.” Evan stood outside the tearoom, breathing deeply to rid his lungs of the smoke. “We’ve always assumed that Mrs. Sholokhov was the one in the right. But now we know she lied to us about the custody, don’t we?”
Watkins nodded. “Maybe not flat out lied, but she led us to think that she’d been awarded custody.”
“So what if she was scared that he’d get full custody, and she’s the one who took the child to a remote beach?” Evan asked. “It’s understandable if he wanted his daughter back and came looking for her, isn’t it?”
“That doesn’t give him the right to take the child without the other parent’s permission,” Watkins said. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“Well, from what those men said, it certainly doesn’t sound as if he’s gone back to Russia. I wonder why his wife was so convinced that he had?”
Evan opened the car door for the inspector. Watkins looked up at him as he climbed in. “I’m beginning to think that Mrs. S. may have been leading us up the garden path, Evans.”
“So what do we do now?” Evan started the engine and pulled out into the traffic.
“First of all we have to verify what those Russians told us. They’re obviously on his side. Let’s hear what the mediator at the child protective services really has to say before we go jumping to conclusions. But then I think we have to pay Mrs. Sholokhov a visit in Leeds.”
The caseworker at the child protective services remembered Ashley and her parents very well. “They both seemed to want what was best for her,” she said, “which always makes it easier. Then the mother decided to move back to York-shire, where she came from. Naturally we were going to make sure that this didn’t prevent the other parent from his share of the custody. We tried to persuade her to remain in London until custody was decided, but she just upped and went.”“She seems to make a habit of that,” Watkins muttered. “So at this moment they were supposed to be sharing her?”
“They were supposed to be working out how they could both have a relationship with the child that imposed the least stress and disturbance on her. Mr. Sholokhov was trying to be accommodating, I must say. He even volunteered to move up to Leeds so that Ashley wouldn’t have to travel when she went to her mother. Then we lost contact with both of them.”
“So have we, seemingly,” Watkins said.
The woman looked up from the file in front of her. “Please do let us know when you relocate them. I don’t like people taking the law into their own hands, especially not where a child is concerned.”
“That’s about it, then,” Watkins said, as the interview concluded. “Not much more we can do down here, so we won’t have to spend the night, thank God.”
Evan looked around him uneasily. “Of course, it is possible that Sholokhov’s Russian friends are the ones hiding him. He could be upstairs at that very tearoom right now.”
Watkins nodded agreement. “Always possible. I’ll have another word with the D.I. at the local police station and have his men keep their ears to the ground. Maybe we should post a reward—that brings people out of the woodwork, doesn’t it?”
“Not a bad idea,” Evan agreed, “if the D.C.I. is going to find you any money in the budget for a reward.”
“Probably not, mean bastard. I may just go over his head and ask the chief constable myself. Let me call the Met then and you can check in with Glynis, just to make sure she’s not sitting there doing her nails while we’re away.”
“That is definitely a sexist remark,” Evan said with a grin. “You’ll get yourself in trouble one day.”
“Nonsense. Men do their nails too, don’t they?” Watkins smiled back.
Evan got into the car to shut out the street noise before dialing Glynis Davies. He brought her up to date on their interviews.
“So he is really the good guy?” she asked.
“Maybe he’s not the villain.”
“So are we still going to pursue him? He hasn’t committed an offence at this point if he hasn’t tried to leave the country with her. We know Ashley’s being taken care of. It’s up to her parents and the social services to sort things out.”
“All assuming that Johnny S. is the one who has taken his daughter. Did you have any chance to do a background check on the Thomas family?”
“I couldn’t come up with anything on Henry Bosley-Thomas, except for his passing his law exams and his membership at a golf club. There are hundreds of references to Val Thomas. He’s quite famous, so it seems. He’s even got pictures hanging in the Tate
Gallery. The
Observer
called him one of the brightest young stars of the art world.”
Gallery. The
Observer
called him one of the brightest young stars of the art world.”
“Did they? Good for Val. What about Suzanne and Nick?”
“I haven’t had a chance to get around to them yet, but I will. It’s been quite busy in here, what with one thing and another.”
“One thing and another?”
“D.C.I. Hughes attempting to take over the whole thing and make me redo everything we’ve done so far.”
“D.C.I. Hughes? What’s he poking his nose in for?”
“You tell me. Maybe because the case is getting media attention, and you know how he loves the limelight. Anyway, he showed up and grilled me about everything we had done.”
Evan chuckled. “Tough luck.”
“You’re going to pay for this when you get back,” she said. “I’ll expect no weekends and assignments that end at five o’clock for the next month.”
“I’ll pass on the message to the D.I.”
“See you tomorrow then,” Glynis said. “Oh, and Evan, drive safely, won’t you?”
“If your friends at the rugby club knew that you’d asked to visit an art gallery,” D.I. Watkins muttered.
“It’s research,” Evan said. “I thought we should at least see one of Val Thomas’s pictures while we were in London.”
“And I thought I’d be home in time for the nine o’clock news. What a load of old rubbish this is,” he added. “They call it art?”
Evan had to agree. In this exhibit of current British artists at the new Tate, there were few pictures that were actual representations of anything he could recognize. There was one painting of a black square on a white background, which Evan thought even he could have done just as well. There was even a pile of bricks in the middle of the floor with a label beside it saying, “Destruction of civilization.” Art seemed to be an easy profession these days.
Then at last they saw the plate on the wall beside a large painting. “Valentine Thomas.
Lost Bird
. 1997.”
Lost Bird
. 1997.”
Evan stared at it for a long while, then the picture next to it, also by Val. These were no facile squares or piles of bricks, but dark, brooding, frightening scenes reminding Evan of his own nightmares. He saw the fear and the suffering, and he began to understand. Sarah’s death had affected Val as deeply as any of them, but he had only allowed his anguish to spill out onto his paintings.
“Not my cup of tea,” Watkins commented. “Wouldn’t fancy that on the living room wall, would you?”
They had just passed Droitwitch on the M6 when the phone rang.
“Inspector Watkins, it’s P.C. Davies here.”
“You’re working late, Glynis,” Watkins said. “Have you got some news for us?’
“I think I might have. Listen, sir, Evan asked me to check into the backgrounds of the Thomas family. I’ve been in touch with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It seems that Nick Thomas stood trial for child molestation two years ago. He was acquitted, but I thought you’d want to know.”
“Bloody’ell, Evans. You were right all along,” Watkins exclaimed, as Glynis hung up.
Evan shook his head. “Nick? I can’t believe Nick had anything to do with any of this. He couldn’t have had anything to do with Sarah—for one thing he was only a little boy at the time, and for another, he was king in the game they were playing. He was guarding the top of the hill. He couldn’t have come down without being seen.”
“But what about Ashley’s disappearance? What if you were right, and it wasn’t her father after all? Sometimes an upsetting event like that in early childhood can unhinge a person. You know that as well as I do.”
“But he’s a priest. He always seemed like a nice bloke.”
“You know damned well that even serial killers come across as
nice blokes. Do we know where to find him? He hasn’t left the country, has he?”
nice blokes. Do we know where to find him? He hasn’t left the country, has he?”
“As far as I know, he’s still at the Everest Inn. He and his brother were going to stay a couple of extra days.”
“Everest Inn, is it? Quite an easy drive down to the caravan park from there. Well, put your foot down, boyo. We’re going to call on Father Thomas tonight, before he vanishes on us like everyone else.”
Rain peppered the windscreen and flew off the wipers as Evan drove as fast as he dared. Giant lorries hauling one, two, or even three trailers threw up curtains of spray, making passing them a breath-holding experience, but Evan was driven by the same sense of urgency as the inspector. Nick Thomas—the quiet one whom everyone liked. Was it possible that he had anything to do with Ashley’s disappearance. If so, would they get him to confess? He didn’t want to believe it, and it still didn’t explain what had happened to Sarah. Did Nick know something about her disappearance that he’d kept to himself? Had he witnessed something from his hilltop vantage point that day?
The miles seemed to pass frustratingly slowly as they were swallowed into darkness. They turned off at Chester, then had to endure another eternity on the A55, almost deserted at this time of night and made unreal by pockets of mist that floated in the valleys. Then finally the twinkling lights of the outskirts of Caernarfon. The mist grew thicker as they passed Llanberis and climbed the pass. Llanfair loomed like a ghost town, then the monstrous shape of the Everest Inn, its lights only dimly visible across the car park. They hurried toward the front door, raincoat collars turned up against the bitter chill.
“Like the middle of bloody winter again,” Watkins complained.
The Thomas brothers were sitting together in the bar. They looked up as the two policemen approached them.
“Any news yet, Inspector?” Val asked.
“I wonder if we could have a word, sir,” Watkins asked.
“By all means. Grab a pew,” Val said. “Can we get you gentlemen a drink?”
“No, thanks all the same, sir,” Watkins said. Evan’s gaze met Nick’s, and Nick gave him a big smile of recognition. “It’s actually Father Thomas we’d like to talk to—in private, if you don’t mind.”
Val shot his brother a questioning glance.
Nick rose to his feet. “Of course. Maybe we should go up to my room. See you later then, Val.”
They followed Nick up the staircase. The room on the first floor was spacious with windows opening onto a balcony.
“Take a seat.” Nick indicated leather armchairs beside the desk. He waited until they were seated before he said, “You’ve found out, haven’t you?”
“We’ve been in touch with the Canadian police, yes.”
Nick sighed. “I was trying to keep it from my family. It was bound to come out in the end, I suppose, and obviously you’d pick up on it. The charges were dropped, you know.”
“Yes sir, we know. Would you like to tell us about it?”
“It’s still too horrible to think about,” Nick said. “You probably can’t imagine what it’s like to stand in the dock and see people staring at you with loathing—people you trusted and liked.”
“We know none of the details of the case, sir. You were accused of molesting a child?”
Nick looked down at his hands, toying with the signet ring on his little finger. “It was all part of the epidemic of priest bashing. Half the Catholics in the world were suddenly accusing their priests of molesting them. The motives weren’t always the purest, I have to tell you. There was a bob or two to be made when the church was still paying people to keep quiet.”
“We’re only interested in your particular case, sir.”
“I’m coming to it,” Nick said. “It’s not easy to talk about. I’ve always been a friendly sort of guy. I love children. So when I talk to a child, it’s natural for me to put an arm around them, to take little kids on my knee—that sort of thing. Well, a do-gooding woman in my parish saw me with my arm around a little girl. She
had been crying because she’d lost the doll she’d brought to school with her. I told her I’d help her find it.” He looked up at them. “This woman interviewed the child after I left her. She twisted the child’s words—that I’d tried to lure her into my study with the promise that we’d find her a doll there, that the child had felt uncomfortable with my arm around her, that I’d made her cry, that it wasn’t the first child I’d touched. Next thing I knew I was relieved of my parish duties and I was up in court. I can’t begin to tell you—it was like a horrible nightmare. You try to wake up and you can’t. Fortunately the charges didn’t hold up in court. There were plenty of witnesses to speak up on my behalf. I was acquitted, but the damage was done. Everywhere I go now I can hear the whispers, ‘He was the one who molested that little girl.’”
had been crying because she’d lost the doll she’d brought to school with her. I told her I’d help her find it.” He looked up at them. “This woman interviewed the child after I left her. She twisted the child’s words—that I’d tried to lure her into my study with the promise that we’d find her a doll there, that the child had felt uncomfortable with my arm around her, that I’d made her cry, that it wasn’t the first child I’d touched. Next thing I knew I was relieved of my parish duties and I was up in court. I can’t begin to tell you—it was like a horrible nightmare. You try to wake up and you can’t. Fortunately the charges didn’t hold up in court. There were plenty of witnesses to speak up on my behalf. I was acquitted, but the damage was done. Everywhere I go now I can hear the whispers, ‘He was the one who molested that little girl.’”
He looked away and sighed. “I’ve been reassigned to the cathedral, where I’m safely shielded from contact with real people. I’ll probably never be a parish priest again. They made me a handsome cash payment for my suffering, but what good does that do? All the reasons I wanted to become a priest—they’re all denied to me now.” He got up and went to look out of the window. “You know what it was like? It was like going through Sarah all over again.”
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