Part 1 (2/2)

”My, but it's been a lovely long summer this year, hasn't it, Mr. Evans?” Mr. Owens spoke with pride in his voice, as if he was personally responsible for the weather. ”I've got the hay all stacked and ready for winter, which is more than I can say most years.” He looked at the rope hanging from Evan's pack. ”You've been climbing today, I see.”

”I have. Up on Glyder Fawr.”

”There's some good climbing country up there-good challenging rocks.”

”A little too challenging,” Evan confessed. ”At one point I thought I'd got myself stuck. I'm afraid I'm out of practice. I thought I'd have to call for the mountain rescue.”

Farmer Owens slapped him on the shoulder. ”What you need is a pint at the Dragon.”

”That's just what I was thinking,” Evan said with a smile. ”A pint of Robinson's would go down a treat. Are you heading that way too?”

The farmer glanced at the lights of his farm, just above the houses of the village. ”Mrs. Owens is waiting for me, worst luck, and she doesn't like it when my dinner dries out in the oven.” His face lit up. ”But it's Sunday, isn't it? We usually have cold on Sundays! And she won't know exactly how long it took me to get up to the cottage and back, will she now?”

As the voices died away, a figure came out of the ruined sheep byre and stood watching. That was a close shave, having the local copper almost find him. One good thing-he now knew where the policeman was. He'd be safely in the pub until it was too late.

He could feel the blood pounding in his temples as the adrenaline raced through his body. He followed the track across the meadow to the cottage gate. A movement in the hedge to his left made him jump, until he saw an old sheep lumbering away into the darkness. Obviously hoping to get at those flowers again, he thought with a grin. Well, too late now. By the time he'd finished there wouldn't be any flowers.

The garden gate squeaked as he opened it. He walked up the newly flagged front path to the door. Then he paused and took the pack from his back. The can clanked loudly as it put it down on the front step and he felt his heart jump again. Calm down, he told himself. There's n.o.body for miles around. You have all the time in the world to do this.

He took the rags from his pack and put them down beside the path while he saturated them. Then, one by one, he dropped them through the letter box.

Then he went around to the back of the house. The windows were all locked but it was easy enough to break a pane and pour more petrol inside.

Then he used up the last of the can on the creeper growing up the front of the house and the bushes beneath the front window. It would take a bit to get a really good blaze going in an old stone cottage like this.

Lastly he took out a fuse. It was the kind they once used in the old slate mines-especially slow-burning, to give the men time to get back to the surface. By the time the fuse burned all the way down from the letter box to the rags on the floor, he'd be far away.

He secured the fuse through the open letter box, then, fingers trembling with excitement, he lit it. There was a gentle hiss, like exhaling breath, and the end of the fuse glowed red. He stuffed the empty can and any other telltale bits of rubbish into his pack and hurried back down the path. At the gate he paused and took a piece of paper from his pocket. The note was made up of words he'd cut from a newspaper. It said, GO HOME. YOU'RE NOT WANTED HERE.

He found a nail protruding from the gate and he stuck the note on it. When he turned to look, the fuse was glowing like a red eye in the darkness. Then he fled down the mountain.

Chapter 3.

The bar at the Red Dragon was crowded as Evan pushed open the heavy oak door and ducked under the beam to enter. A fire was burning in the big fireplace on the far wall. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke.

”Look you-there he is now!” A high voice rose over the murmur in the bar. Betsy the barmaid's face lit up as she spotted Evan. ”Noswaith dda, Evan bach!” ”Noswaith dda, Evan bach!”

Heads turned in their direction.

”We were wondering where you'd got to, Evan bach, bach,” Charlie Hopkins called. ”It's not like you to miss opening time. Betsy was all set to send out a search party . . .”

”I was not!” Betsy said, her cheeks flus.h.i.+ng. Evan was startled to see that Betsy's hair was a dark, rich auburn color this evening. Ever since she had almost been seduced by a famous opera singer who liked his women dark she had been experimenting with hair color. She was also wearing a leopard print velour tank top with a low scooped neckline. The result was disconcerting, to say the least.

”I know very well that Evan Evans can take care of himself,” Betsy went on, giving him a challenging smile. ”I mean, he's built for it, isn't he?”

”Unless he managed to find himself trapped by you someday,” Charlie Hopkins said, and his skinny body shook with soundless mirth, revealing missing front teeth. ”I'd like to see him fight his way out of that!”

Betsy smoothed down her tank top, pulling the low neckline to an almost X-rated level. ”When I manage to get Evan Evans alone, he won't want to fight his way out!” she announced to the a.s.sembled crowd. ”And it won't be bird-watching that will keep us busy, either . . . unless I decide to go ahead with those tattoos I've been thinking about.”

The low ceiling echoed back the laughter. Evan gave a good-natured grin and decided there was nothing he could say that Betsy wouldn't take as encouragement.

”So what will it be tonight, Evan bach? bach? Your usual Guinness?” Your usual Guinness?”

”I think I'll join Mr. Owens-the-Sheep and have a Robinson's tonight,” Evan said. ”I've worked up a powerful thirst.”

Betsy's hands deftly drew two pints of Robinson's bitter with just the right amount of froth on top. ”Here, get those down you, and then you can tell us where you've been.”

”I told you he went out climbing today,” Roberts-the-Pump said. ”I saw him heading for Glyder Fawr.”

There was nothing that escaped the Llanfair bush telegraph.

”I heard that Bronwen Price had a teachers' meeting at the university in Bangor,” Evans-the-Milk said with a knowing wink.

”Bronwen-b.l.o.o.d.y-Price!” Betsy muttered and set down a pint gla.s.s none too gently. Evan loosened his collar. It really was warm in here tonight.

”Young Betsy was dying for you to come back, Evan,” Charlie Hopkins said, ”so that you could invite her to the new French restaurant.”

Betsy gave Evan a challenging smile. ”I wouldn't say no to an evening with Evan Evans, but I don't fancy a French restaurant, thank you. They eat snails and frog's legs, don't they-and little birds with the heads still on them . . .”

There was a mixed expression of disgust and laughter from the crowd.

”They do,” she insisted. ”I saw a travel program once on the telly.”

”Just a minute-what French restaurant are we talking about?” Evan interrupted.

”The new one that's opening in the old chapel above Nant Peris,” Charlie Hopkins said. ”Reverend Parry Davies spotted it this afternoon, didn't you, Reverend?”

”Indeed I did, Mr. Hopkins. It made my blood boil to see a house of the Lord turned into a den of iniquity.” The voice came from a table in a darkened corner. Unlike his counterpart at Chapel Beulah, Reverend Parry Davies was not above an occasional pint at the pub-so that my congregation knows I am human, was how he explained it. In fact he often took the back exit from the chapel and the back path to the Red Dragon with other male members of his congregation on Sunday nights.

”It's a restaurant, Reverend,” Evans-the-Milk pointed out, ”Not a brothel.”

”How do you know, boyo?” Barry-the-Bucket, the young bulldozer driver, chuckled. ”It might be a front. I think I'd better go and check it out for myself, anyway. Chez Yvette, I like the sound of that-I bet she's hot stuff. I bet she wears black lace corsets-Frenchwomen wear that sort of thing, you know.”

”And how would you know that, Barry-the-Bucket?” Betsy's voice was scathing.

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