Evan And Elle Part 15

"b.l.o.o.d.y 'ell," Watkins muttered as they opened the door and found themselves facing a table with a computer on it. He looked around hopefully. "So what do we do now?"

"Do you need help?" A large, motherly woman appeared outside the half-open door.

Watkin's face lit up. "We're actually not very good with these things," he said. "Do you think you could find us someone who could trace a back issue for us?"

The woman smiled, crossed the room and hit a key on the keyboard. "It's loading now," she said. "Just click on the date that you want. Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Just click?" Watkins looked at her dubiously. "Are you sure I can't blow up anything?"

She laughed. "It's ever so easy. It only took me a two-day course." She patted his shoulder rea.s.suringly. "So where are you gentlemen from? Wales?"

"That's right," Evan said.

"I thought so. I could hear the accent." She looked pleased. "You're a long way from home then, aren't you? I'll go and get you that tea."

"Humiliating, that's what it is," Watkins muttered as the woman walked away. "First our Tiffany and now a woman old enough to be my mother. I feel like a proper charlie. I'm going to take a course as soon as I get home."

"Maybe P.C. Davies will give you private lessons," Evan teased.

Watkins grinned. "I wouldn't say no to that, but I got the impression she'd rather be working one-on-one with you than with me." The program finished loading, leaving them with a screen full of choices. "You could do worse," he added.

"Oh, come on, Sarge," Evan felt himself blushing. "She was just being friendly."

"Friendly, my foot. She fancies you, boyo."

Evan nudged Watkins. "Go on, then. Click on the b.u.t.ton of the year that you want."

Watkins pushed the mouse in Evan's direction. "You do it. I'll probably wipe the whole thing."

Evan leaned across and clicked. "We don't know what month it was, do we? So we'd better start with January and work forward."

"I'm glad it's only a weekly and not a daily," Watkins said. "We could be here all night."

Items of local news flashed to the screen and vanished again. Borough council grants for improving the swimming pool. Hooliganism on the pier. The tennis tournament at Devonshire Park . . ."

"Surely it would have made the front page?" Watkins said in frustration.

"Unless it was a big week for news-it's not likely to shove out Martina Hingis winning the tennis tournament or the Eastbourne Show."

They got as far as September. "Wait." Evan put his hand on Watkins's arm. "Page three. There it is."

A somewhat fuzzy black-and-white picture of the devastated site came onto the screen under the headline LOCAL RESTAURANT BURNS DOWN LOCAL RESTAURANT BURNS DOWN.

Evan skimmed the article. There was nothing that the police hadn't already told them. Fire started in the middle of the night . . . quick response of local fire brigade saved owner's life . . . She was rushed to the East Suss.e.x medical center burn unit.

Then the article concluded, "This is the second tragedy to strike the vivacious Frenchwoman, whose husband died in a yachting accident three years ago. Since that time she had valiantly tried to keep the restaurant going single-handedly and was gaining a reputation for her haute cuisine."

"Nothing much there," Watkins said.

"Except for one thing," Evan pointed out. "Her husband didn't just die. He was killed-in yet another accident."

"So either this woman is a walking Jonah," Watkins began, "or she's good at making things look like accidents. We should check on how much the insurance policy was for-and whether there was a big policy on her husband's life."

Evan nodded. "Of course there is another option. It's just possible that someone's out to get her in a big way.

Chapter 17.

Watkins looked up sharply. "You think that could be it? A hate crime? A vendetta?"

Evan shrugged. "We've no way of knowing at the moment, have we, but you have to admit it's just as good a possibility as anything else. Her husband falls off his boat, her first restaurant burns down, and then her second restaurant burns down. Someone could be after her."

Watkins shook his head. "If you're right, you'd have thought she'd have got the hint by now and mentioned something of this to the police. She must at least suspect who's behind it."

"And may be too afraid to tell the truth. She was pretty upset the first night she came to me with a threatening letter."

Watkins started to get up. "I'm going to call home and see if they've made any progress on the fingerprints on those notes. I bet they haven't checked them against French lists. And I'd dearly like to know if this really was the beginning of the trail. What made her come to England in the first place? Had someone been threatening them back in France? Had they owned yet another restaurant which burned down over there?"

"Maybe we should just pop over and see for ourselves," Evan suggested, half joking.

"Go to France? You're not serious, are you?"

"I wasn't, but it's not so far-fetched. You can drive through the chunnel in half an hour these days."

"Not that we'd have any idea where to begin in France."

"We know she went to cooking school in Paris, and we know where Philippe du Bois is."

"Hardly enough to warrant charging across the Channel."

They broke off as the woman came back with two cups of tea and shortbread biscuits sitting in their saucers. "Here you go," she said. "How have you been getting along?"

"We found the article we were looking for," Evan said.

The woman peered at the screen. "Oh, that restaurant fire. I remember it. It was so sad-she'd lost her husband and then she nearly lost her own life. I remember because I'd just lost my husband around that time, so I felt for her."

"This man drowned, did he?" Evan asked.

She nodded. "He was a very keen sailor, apparently. Anyway, he went out in bad weather and they never found him. Fishermen found a mast floating in the area where his boat had been, but they never discovered either the boat or his body. Of course, that's not unusual around here. The tides can whisk a body through the Channel and dump it in France or out in the Atlantic."

"So the husband was never found." Watkins stared at the screen. "It gets more complicated by the minute, doesn't it?" He looked up at the woman. "Do you happen to remember when this accident happened?"

She chewed on her lip. "Not off the top of my head. I know it was at least a couple of years before the restaurant burned down and I know it was late in the year to be sailing-around this time of year, maybe."

"It said in the article that her husband died three years previously," Evan pointed out. "Go back and try September three years earlier."

"Go back and . . . who do you think I am, Bill b.l.o.o.d.y Gates?"

The woman chuckled. "It's not hard, really it's not. Here, move over. I'm not supposed to do this for visitors but J've got a few minutes to spare. Watch. You just go back a screen, select the year here, and there you are. A five-year-old could do it."

"A five-year-old does do it," Watkins said bitterly. "That's just the problem."

The woman slid out of the seat and Evan took her place. "Of course, there might not have been a whole article on an accidental drowning. It could just have been an obituary."

They worked their way through several issues and then finally there it was. "Jean-Jacques Bouchard, Restaurateur." It was only a a few lines in the obituary column, with a photo above it. Evan stared hard at it.

"I wish the photo was better," he said.

"Why-do you think you know him?"

Evan took a deep breath. "He looks like a younger version of the man who came into the restaurant that evening."

"Are you sure?" Watkins peered at the grainy snapshot. The man was squinting into bright sunshine and his curly hair was windswept. He looked like a sailor.

"I wouldn't swear to it and the photograph's not very good, but it looks like him, right enough."

"Well, I'll be . . ." Watkins began. He looked up at the woman. "Is there a way of printing this out?"

"You just click on Print." She started to explain, then thought better and did it for them. A sheet of paper emerged from a printer in the corner. Evan took it. "This is wonderful. Thank you. You've been a big help."

She gave him a very nonmotherly smile.

"Finally we're getting somewhere," Watkins said as they left the newspaper offices.

"Yes, but where?" Evan asked. "Frankly I'm more confused than when we started."

"How about this-what if her husband didn't really die in the boating accident?"

"You mean he faked his death?"

"People do, don't they? Maybe he just wanted to get away from her and start a new life."

"Or maybe someone really was after him, so he decided to vanish conveniently," Evan suggested.

"But then, according to you, he shows up at the restaurant again. She wasn't pleased to see him and she stabbed him."

"There's only one thing against that. I saw him come in. I'd swear she didn't recognize him."

"She might be a good actress."

"Not that good." Evan shook his head. "That had to be an Oscar-winning performance. She was at our table at the time. There was no feeling of tension, no flicker of reaction. If you were Yvette and your husband who had been missing for five years, showed up, you'd react, wouldn't you?"

"Unless this was something they had planned between them. She might have been in contact with him, so she was expecting him that evening." Watkins put the key in the car door. "Five years. That's significant, don't you think?"

"You mean he can now be declared legally dead?"

"Exactly. So if there's a large insurance policy to collect on, this would be a good time to reappear."

"But then why would she stab him?"

"Because she wanted the insurance money for herself." Watkins slapped his hand against the car door as he opened it. "It's all fitting together nicely now. All we need to do is get some proof that our body is really her missing husband-dental records would do nicely-and I think we've got ourselves a case." They got into the car and Watkins started the engine. "I think this deserves a celebration, don't you? That pub we ate at last night wasn't bad. Let's go and see if they do a good lunch."

Half an hour later they were sitting over plowman's platters, with crusty rolls, four kinds of cheese, and pickled onions, as well as pints of Whitbread Pale Ale.

"Ah, that's better." Watkins put down his gla.s.s. "I'm beginning to feel human again. I think I could even face talking to the D.I. Now what did we need to ask him?"

He got out a notebook.

"About the insurance policies, for one thing."

Watkins nodded and scribbled. "And the fingerprints."

"And if there's been any news from France yet-about Philippe du Bois and who might have decided to apply for a pa.s.sport in his name."

"Right." Watkins got up. "I think the D.I. will have to be impressed with the amount we've ferreted out in one morning, don't you? Maybe it will prompt him to have another chat with Madame and see if she's more forthcoming."

"As long as he doesn't scare her off with his usual heavy-handedness."

He went to the phone on the pub wall. Evan finished his roll and double Gloucester and washed them down with the last of his pint.

Watkins was on the phone for a long while. Evan noticed him smiling and glancing in his direction. He was still smiling when he came back.

"That was young Glynis," he said. "She sends her regards, by the way. I've asked her to send the fingerprints from the two threatening notes to the Surete in France to see if they can find a match. There's nothing from the mental hospital yet. The D.I. is out working on Operation Armada-b.l.o.o.d.y silly name if you ask me. Still he always did fancy himself as Lord Nelson. . . ."

"The Armada was Drake," Evan pointed out.

Watkins grinned again. "b.l.o.o.d.y know-it-all. Anyway, I spoke to Constable Perkins. I gather they've removed various kitchen implements from the scene of the fire and they're trying to determine the murder weapon and come up with prints. I asked him to check on the insurance policies and see who benefits."

"So they're no further along, really," Evan said. "They haven't identified the body or found the murder weapon."

"I wouldn't mind betting my paycheck that the body is her vanished husband," Watkins said.

"And you think she killed him?"

"It's pretty obvious, isn't it? She thought she'd got rid of him five years earlier and was annoyed to find him turning up again, still alive."

A memory was beginning to stir in Evan's mind. He had been so preoccupied with making a graceful escape from her sofa that he'd forgotten until now. "She did say that he was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d and a monster and it was her happiest day when she escaped from him."

"Well, there you are, then. Perfect motive. We'll get this case sewn up in no time at all. Now all we need is positive identification of the body."

"Got any thoughts on how we're going to do that?" Evan asked.

"A wedding photo of the happy couple? That might shake her composure, wouldn't you say?"