Evans Above by Rhys Bowen Page A

shiver.
    â€œLook you!” Mrs. Powell-Jones said dramatically pointing at the ground. Evan looked but wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking at. It was all newly dug earth with some sorry-looking bits of green stalk sticking out of it at crazy angles.
    â€œWhat exactly happened?” he asked at last.
    â€œThat’s what I want you to find out,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “Of course I have my suspicions. She’s eaten up with jealousy that I beat her every year at the show.”
    â€œThe show?” Evan was becoming more confused by the second.
    â€œThe flower and vegetable show down in Beddgelert,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “I’ve won first place with my tomatoes for the past three years. So this year somebody decided to take matters into their own hands and sabotage my tomatoes before they could get going.”
    â€œTomatoes?” Evan wasn’t much of a gardener.
    Mrs. Powell-Jones pointed at the little bits of plant lying on the soil. “Those were my prize tomato seedlings until yesterday,” she said. “Someone has deliberately trampled them in a vicious act of vandalism.”

    â€œAnd you think you know who did it?” Evan asked.
    â€œOf course. Mrs. Parry Davies. Who else would it be? I just happen to do most things better than her and she can’t stand it,” she said triumphantly.
    Evan was examining the soil. It contained the print marks of large boots with a marked tread.
    â€œMrs. Parry Davies wears a size twelve in boots, does she?” he asked.
    â€œOf course not. Don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said.
    â€œThen I’d say she wasn’t the leading suspect,” Evan said. “Look at the size of these boot marks.”
    â€œOh.” For a second she was speechless, then a smile lit her face again. “A clever ploy, so that I wouldn’t suspect her. After all, she does play all the character parts in the local dramatic society, and her husband does have very big feet. Go and confront her with the evidence, constable. Mark my words, she’ll break down and confess.”
    â€œI can hardly go and …” Evan began. “After all, we don’t know that … I mean it would hardly be fair to …”
    â€œWho else could it be, man?” Mrs. Powell-Jones exclaimed. Evan was beginning to understand why her husband gave such long sermons. It kept him out of the house an extra half hour. “Nobody else wishes my tomatoes to fail, except for her. I am most generous with my garden produce. Everyone in the village is amply supplied with the bounty of my garden. And it was just the tomatoes, mark you. The vandal didn’t hit my brussel sprouts, did she?”
    Evan thought privately that it might have been a blessing if the vandal hadn’t overlooked the brussels sprouts. His landlady didn’t believe in wasting anything and would cook them,
night after night, if Mrs. Powell-Jones donated them. Evan had never liked brussels sprouts.
    â€œI’ll do what I can, Mrs. Powell-Jones,” Evan said. “I’ll try and clear the matter up for you.”
    â€œMake sure that you do, constable,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said. “Make it your number-one priority. Vandalism can’t be allowed to flourish, can it?”
    Evan gave a little half bow and beat a hasty retreat. He glanced longingly at the swinging sign on the Red Dragon. After a long and trying day a good pint was just what he needed, but he still had paperwork to catch up on, and he wanted to do some more thinking about those two men who had plunged to their deaths.
    Â 
    Through a knothole in the shed door, a pair of eyes watched Mrs. Powell-Jones go back into her house. When the front door closed behind her, a sigh of relief escaped through clenched teeth and the pickax was slowly lowered. A grin slowly spread across the thin lips. People really were so stupid!

Chapter 6
    â€œGo on in,