The Thread of Evidence Read Online Free

the third man, a ruddy-faced old boy with ‘farmer’ written all over him. ‘What I want to know is, why you think it’s anything to do with Roland Hewitt’s missus?’
    â€˜Well, stands to reason, don’t it?’ said Ceri. He moved away for a moment to draw a pint for another customer. The small low room held a dozen or more regulars, and they sat with their ears almost flapping to catch the scandal that was being dispensed from the bar as freely as the ale.
    Ceri rang the price of the pint into his till and draped himself back over the pumps.
    â€˜Stands to reason, I said – how many other women have we ever had vanish from Tremabon, eh, Jenkin?’ His piggy eyes challenged the man with the battered hat.
    â€˜How do you know this here body is a woman, anyway?’ Jenkin had come in later than the others and was a step behind in the gossip.
    â€˜The doctor told Griffith. That’s all he could say about it, according to Lewis John’s wife – that and the fact that the body had been cut up into little pieces.’
    The constable’s mention of one saw cut had already been magnified into utter dismemberment by the villagers. The landlord slapped a podgy hand on the counter.
    â€˜So there, Jenkin – I ask you again, what woman has gone from Tremabon in suspicious circumstances, eh?’
    There was dead silence in the bar. All heads were turned to look at the great fat publican.
    He savoured the moment, his drooping lips rolling a cigarette butt around, before delivering the denouement.
    â€˜Mavis Hewitt, of course – you know that as well as I do.’
    Crumpled-hat nodded grudgingly. ‘Ay, it was a rare old fuss at the time. But, damn it, that was more than thirty year ago – a hell of a long while back!’
    â€˜And these here bones go a long way back, too, by the sound of it,’ Ceri hissed triumphantly.
    A young man wearing a bus driver’s uniform moved up from the end of the bar.
    â€˜What’s all the mystery about old Hewitt, Ceri?’ he asked. ‘You old jossers seem to know something pretty salty about him.’
    Ceri looked down from his six foot frame of gross obesity. ‘You’re too much of a kid to remember, boy. But your dad would know about it.’
    â€˜Remember what?’
    â€˜You know Roland Hewitt, you say?’
    â€˜Yes, everybody does. He lives in that blue cottage up off the Cardigan road. Came from Canada a few years back to retire here. It’s his nephew that’s courting the doctor’s daughter.’
    The publican nodded condescendingly. ‘You’ve got it – but did you know that he was born in Tremabon and lived here at Bryn Glas farm until nineteen twenty-nine? Then he skipped out of the country, he did. Just after his wife vanished, it was.’
    The young man stared at Lloyd over his glass. ‘What d’you mean – skipped the country?’
    Jenkin of the crumpled trilby hat took up the story. ‘Things were getting too hot for him – I remember it like it was yesterday. The papers had a hold of it, and the police were nosing about Bryn Glas. So Hewitt packed up and cleared off to Canada. Mighty quick, he was, too.’
    â€˜Well, what did happen to his wife, anyway?’ asked the bus driver, looking back to Ceri Lloyd.
    The landlord took up another glass to polish.
    â€˜Nobody knows – or didn’t until today,’ he leered. ‘She just vanished. Her sister came down from Liverpool and started the ball rolling. Raised a devil of fuss, she did; but nothing came of it. Old Hewitt was too clever for all of them.’
    The young man looked scornful.
    â€˜I think you’re all a lot of bloody old women making a scandal out of damn all!’
    The publican was outraged at the bus driver’s impudent challenge to his leadership of the gossip.
    â€˜And what d’you think you know about it, Gareth Hughes? You were still