Evan's Gate Read Free Page A

allowed a Calor Gas cylinder up here.”
    “The last people had one.”
    “Different planning board in those days. No more gas cylinders, unless you’d want to bury it. Eyesores, aren’t they? We have to think of the integrity of the landscape and the tourists. They want to see adorable shepherds’ cottages, not unsightly gas cylinders.”
    “Then how do you propose I heat the place?” Evan demanded. “Trek up to the high bogs and cut myself peat?”
    “You could have a buried oil tank and oil-fired central heating. Why don’t you get yourself an oil-fired Aga?”
    “An Aga? They’re bloody expensive.”
    “But they solve the cooking and heating problems in one go, don’t they? And resurrecting a listed building is going to be expensive. You could always change your mind and apply for a nice council house, mate. They give priority to local police, don’t they?”
    Evan wondered how Mr. Pilcher had managed to last this long on the job. Surely he must have stirred up equally violent thoughts in other applicants? He sensed that the bastard was goading him, waiting for Evan to lose his cool, so that he had an excuse to turn down the project. Evan wasn’t going to let that happen.

    “All right. We’ll think about the heating alternatives,” he said. “What else needs to be done? The place was already on mains water—we’d just have to get it reconnected. And there’s a septic tank in place.”
    “That would need to be reinspected—the sewage line and the tank itself. You’d need a plumber to certify its integrity.”
    Obviously integrity was Pilcher’s favorite word at the moment. Evan wondered if he had been given one of those New-Word-a-Day calendars for Christmas. “Right.” Evan nodded. “That should be no problem. Now, how do we set about getting the inspector of listed buildings up here?”
    Before Mr. Pilcher could answer, a loud beep came from Evan’s hip. He took out his pager. “Damn,” he muttered. “I’m afraid I’ve got to get down to a phone. It’s my boss. Feel free to look around as much as you want to up here, although as I’ve said there’s nothing to see. Four walls and a floor. That’s about it. Thanks for taking the time to come up here.”
    “We’ll need your septic tank inspection certificate and your heating proposal before we can proceed any further,” Mr. Pilcher said.
    “Right you are. I’ll get both to you within the next few days. I want to make the most of any summer weather that we get, don’t I?”
    “Could be like this all summer,” Pilcher said with a dry chuckle. “I understand it does nothing but rain in bloody Wales.”
    Evan had already started down the steep track.
    “You want to get yourself a nice council house, mate,” Pilcher shouted after him.
    “Where the devil have you been?” Detective Inspector Watkins’s voice boomed down the phone line. “I called you fifteen minutes ago.”
    “Ten,” Evan said, “and I was up on the mountain. It took me awhile to get down.”

    “I tried your mobile phone number first. Why didn’t you have it on you?”
    “Sorry, Sarge—I mean Inspector,” Evan said. “I suppose I’m not used to carrying it around yet.”
    “Then you’d better get used to it, pronto. You have a police-issued mobile so that we can get in touch with you at all times, Evans. At all times—do I make myself clear?”
    “You’re in a lovely mood this morning, sir,” Evan said. “And it is my day off.”
    “You’re in the plainclothes division now, boyo. There’s no such thing as days off. You work when there’s work to be done. And there’s work to be done right now. Do you know the caravan park at Black Rock Sands, just outside Porthmadog?”
    “I think so.”
    “Then get yourself down here as fast as possible. I’ll meet you at the entrance. It should take you what—half an hour?”
    “Twenty minutes if I break the speed limit,” Evan said and hung up.
    It was closer to half an hour by the time Evan