Evan Blessed by Rhys Bowen Read Free Book Online Page B

wandered across the road, trailing children and pushing prams. Serious
climbers, with ropes slung over their shoulders and big, solid boots, seemed intent on getting out of the crush as quickly as possible. There was already a long line for the little train up Snowdon. If Paul Upwood’s girlfriend had come down the mountain and into this town, she could have drifted unnoticed among the crowd. Even if she had walked alone down the pass, or tried hitch-hiking, she would have joined a procession of other young people doing the same thing. A hopeless task, really.
    Anyway, first he needed to meet Paul Upwood again and get a detailed description of the girl from him, and hopefully a photo. Then they could make posters and he’d have a photo to show around on the Sherpa bus and in the cafés.
    Evan stopped off at his house as he passed through Llanfair to change into hiking gear. Bronwen was nowhere in sight. He suspected she’d be up at the new cottage, trying to put her belongings into some kind of order. He grabbed his hiking boots and an anorak and raced out again before the bush telegraph which worked so efficiently in Llanfair could alert his mother to his presence. As he drove past the two chapels he noticed that the minister of Capel Bethel, the Rev. Parry Davies, was out pasting up a new biblical text on the billboard outside his chapel. It read: Faith without works is dead. St. James.
    Evan couldn’t resist looking across at the identical billboard outside Capel Beulah and saw instantly why Mr. Parry Davies had made his selection. The other minister, Rev. Powell Jones, had chosen as his text: St Paul says, “You will be saved by your faith.”
    In spite of the grimness of the day, he smiled as he drove on. By the time he reached the youth hostel at the top of the pass, the cloud had closed in, so that the young people who loitered smoking outside the door were huddled in little groups, shivering in the cold wind. Evan changed into his hiking boots in the car, then hurriedly put on his jacket as he got out. Cloud swirled, turning the hostel into a ghostly shadow in the mist and obliterating the peaks beyond. If it had been a day like this when Shannon disappeared, Evan could have understood it. He’d been on the mountain enough times himself
when the world was suddenly swallowed up into the mist and one false step could have sent him tumbling over a cliff. But yesterday had been sparkling clear.
    He paused on the gravel outside the hostel, thinking. If someone had kidnapped her, how could he have done it? Where could he have taken her without being noticed on such a bare and well-populated mountain? Then he reminded himself that the bunker had existed, unnoticed, almost within shouting distance of a well-traveled path and a railway. The person who dug it had taken a terrible risk by situating it there. Obviously a person who enjoyed taking risks. He’d remember to mention that to Glynis when she was making her profile.
    Paul Upfield was sitting in the common room, halfheartedly flicking through a magazine, as Evan came in.
    He jumped up, letting the magazine fall to the floor. “Any news yet?”
    Evan shook his head and pulled up a chair beside the boy. “I’m afraid not. Have you been in touch with her family again this morning?”
    â€œNo, I’ve been putting off talking to them until I really have to. They don’t like me very much,” he said.
    â€œWhy’s that?”
    The boy’s face flushed. “They don’t approve of us going out together. They told her she was too young for a serious boyfriend, and she’s almost eighteen. Some people get married at eighteen, don’t they?”
    Evan nodded. The boy sighed and sank his head into his hands. “They’ll probably blame me for this. Her mum didn’t want her to go on this holiday with me, you know. She thought we’d get up to—you know. They keep her in a