Evanly Bodies - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,1

met Mair Hopkins on a similar journey.

"I'm putting Charlie on a diet," Mair confided, "So I thought I'd get some cottage cheese."

Together they walked in silence until they reached the shops, each knowing perfectly well the intention of the other, but each being too polite to mention it. The three shops were set back from the street on a broad stretch of pavement. The sound of hammering floated out of the former grocer's. Mair Hopkins's face lit up.

"So it's true what they were saying. There are new tenants in the corner shop. Thank the dear Lord for that. I'm that tired of having to catch the bus down the hill to Llanberis or sending Charlie out in the van when I run out of something."

"We don't know that it will be another grocer," Mrs. Williams said. "I'm just praying it won't be a betting shop, like that old chapel in Blaenau."

"A beauty parlor wouldn't be bad," Mair said. "Charlie told me it was about time I got my hair done more often."

"Well, I'd like to see the post office counter opened up again. You should see the line at the post office in Llanberis when I was there to pick up my pension."

"I know. It's terrible, just." Mair Hopkins shook her head.

The two women were about to cross the road to the shops when Mrs. Powell-Jones came flying toward them, seemingly out of nowhere, her pea green cardigan flapping as she ran.

"You've seen it then?" she said. "New people at the shop. I went in to welcome them to the village and to invite them to chapel on Sunday, as a minister's wife should, and you'll never believe it . . ."

"What?" The two women leaned closer.

"Heathens. Foreigners." Mrs. Powell-Jones almost spat out the words.

"You mean more English people?" Mrs. Williams asked. "Church not chapel?"

"Worse than that," Mrs. Powell-Jones whispered. "See for yourselves."

A man had just come out of the shop. He opened the back of the van and removed a long plank of wood. "Is this the size you wanted, Daddy?" he called.

"No, not that one, the thicker one," another voice called back, and an older man came out to join him.

"Escob Annwyl," Mrs. Williams muttered, putting her hand to her heart. The men were dark skinned, and the younger one had a beard and was dressed in a white, flowing overshirt and leggings.

That evening Detective Constable Evan Evans was driving home from work when he noticed a light shining out from the formerly empty shop. Even though he was no longer a community policeman charged with keeping the peace in the village of Llanfair, his curiosity got the better of him. He parked and pushed open the shop door. Two brown-skinned men were bending over a sheet of paper. There were wood shavings on the floor, and sawdust floated in the air.

"Good evening," Evan said. "Doing some work on the place, are you?"

Both men looked up at Evan's voice.

"That's right," the older one said.

"We're trying to get this finished in a hurry," the younger one said in a dialect that came more from Yorkshire than Asia. "So I suggest you leave us in peace."

"I'm only doing my job, sir," Evan said pleasantly. "I'm a policeman and I live in this village so naturally I wanted to make sure no vandalism was going on in an empty building."

"A policeman?" The younger man still looked scornful. "Can't they even afford uniforms in North Wales, then?"

"I'm in the Plain Clothes Division," Evan said.

"Then it's not really your job to be checking up on us, is it? You're just plain nosy like the rest of them. In and out all day they've been, poking their noses in on some pretext or the other."

"That's enough, Rashid," the older man said. He wiped his hands on the apron he was wearing over normal street clothes, then held out his hand as he came toward Evan. "How do you do, Officer. I'm Azeem Khan. I've just bought this place."

"How do you do, Mr. Khan. Welcome to Llanfair then." Evan shook his outstretched hand.

Azeem Khan nodded for his son to do the same, but the boy was studying the building plan as if they didn't exist.

"Please excuse my son. He's going through a militant phase. It happens to most of us when we are students, doesn't it?" Unlike his son, his accent was still the lilting Pakistani of his forebears. He was clean-shaven, dressed in normal European-style clothes, and his black hair, now streaked with gray,