that she was feeling slightly better, hadn’t she? Evan shook his head and strode out in the direction of the police station. All the strange goings-on at the Sacred Grove had started affecting him. He was glad they’d found Randy Wunderlich’s body and he wouldn’t have to go near the place again.

Chapter 14

  Life in Llanfair went on smoothly—that is, apart from the occasional motorbike ridden by a screaming postman careening into a row of dustbins. Evan had delivered his stern warning to Evans-the-Post but it didn’t seem to be doing much good. Mrs. Powell-Jones rang the police station at regular intervals to complain. She threatened also to ring the postmaster in Llanberis and probably the postmaster general in London, but Evans-the-Post was not to be halted on his morning rides of terror.

There were no phone calls from Sergeant Watkins or Glynis Davies for the rest of that Tuesday or all day Wednesday. If the investigation was proceeding, then Evan wasn’t part of it. Evan gleaned from a phone call to headquarters that the autopsy had revealed no sign of a heart attack; also that the bandaged foot had minimal if any damage. Randy Wunderlich would definitely have been able to walk out of the cave. The death was ruled accidental, if puzzling.

Betsy had gone back to work at the Sacred Grove on Wednesday morning. When Evan tried to dissuade her, she claimed that she liked it there better than at the Red Dragon, where she wasn’t appreciated and had no chance to use her talents.

On Wednesday afternoon a board went up outside the Red Dragon, announcing Friday to be trivia night— Llanfair versus Beddgelert.

“He’s getting desperate, wouldn’t you say, Evan?” Charlie Hopkins muttered as he passed Evan on his way to the pub.

“Hurting for business, is he?” Evan asked.

“Indeed he is. Nobody in there but me and Evans-the-Meat last night. Quiet as a grave.”

“And he really thinks a trivia contest will help, does he?”

“Trying everything, isn’t he?” Charlie sucked through his remaining teeth. “It will be beauty contests next week, sheepdog trials, striptease acts … .” He shuffled on, his old body shaking with laughter as he walked.

It was just like old times when Evan entered the bar on Friday evening. Full of smoke and chatter and familiar faces. Evan was glad. He had had a hard week, spending every spare moment ministering to Bronwen while trying to drive two ministers’ wives away. The moment that Mrs. Parry Davies learned that Mrs. Powell-Jones had been tending to the sick, she had shown up on Bronwen’s doorstep with a bowl of homemade leek soup and some suitable reading material—mostly religious tracts on why everyone was going straight to hell.

Evan had had little enthusiasm for cooking since the Bronwen disaster. He had thrown the mound of spaghetti away, in case it was somehow poisoned, and he had lived on tinned soup and grilled cheese all week. As he made his way across to the pub on Friday, he decided that a couple of bangers and perhaps a meat pie would go down a treat.

“Here he is, the man himself,” Evans-the-Meat greeted him. “We’re going to need you on our team, boyo.”

“Team?”

“The trivia contest. We have to show those blokes from Beddgelert that we’re smarter than they are.”

“I don’t know if I’m much good at trivia,” Evan said, but Evans-the-Meat waved down his protests. “Went to that posh grammar school in Swansea, didn’t you? Of course you’ll know all the answers.”

Evan made his way to the counter. He remembered how nice it had been to see Betsy smiling at him and drawing his usual pint of Guinness. To the right of the counter, the blackboard had some words scrawled on it: “Not serving any food on account of the fact that the landlord only has one bloody pair of hands.”

Evan ordered his Guinness.

“Over here, boyo,” Evans-the-Meat beckoned Evan to join him. “We need to talk strategy.”

As Evan joined the group, Roberts-the-Pump leaned close to him. “We don’t hang around the bar these days. Harry gets that bad tempered. He wants Betsy back but he’s too proud to ask.”

“I don’t think he’ll get her back,” Evan said. “She’s having a good time at the Sacred Grove.”

“What, down among the loonies?”

“They’re loony enough to pay her for doing very little work, as far as I can see,” Evan said.

“Talk of the devil.” Evans-the-Meat nudged Evan in the side. The door had opened and Betsy came in, looking strangely elegant in a long dark coat and heels.

“What are you doing here, Betsy?” Evans-the-Meat asked. “Come to give Harry a hand?”

“Not likely,” Betsy said. “I just popped in to see how things are. I’m meeting Emmy and we’re going to dinner in Conwy. It’s her last night—she’s leaving tomorrow so she’s taking me and Mrs. Williams out for a treat.”

“I hope the restaurant can measure up to Mrs. Williams’s standards,” Evan said.

“She won’t even notice. She’s so upset, she’s been crying all day. She says she lost a son and now she’s losing a daughter. Terrible, it is.”

“Make up your minds. I haven’t got all day, you know,” came Harry’s gruff voice from behind the bar. “Dimple Haig? You bloody would—just because I have to stand on the stool to reach it!”

“He’s not exactly making it fun to be here, is he?” Betsy said. “Still, he brought it on himself, didn’t he?”

“So you like it down there, do you?” Owens-the-Sheep asked.

“It’s a lovely place. Of course, it’s very sad at the moment because Randy died, but they’re all being so nice to me. Lady Annabel says she’s coming to rely on me and even Rhiannon is being nice to me.”

“Rhiannon? Who the hell’s Rhiannon?” Evans-the-Meat demanded.

“She’s the Druid priestess,” Betsy said, ignoring the chuckles around her. “You can laugh, but you’d be surprised. Rhiannon says I’m a true Celt and all true Celts have the old religion, in their blood. She says we’re bound

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