Free Evan's Gate by Rhys Bowen

a young policewoman raised her hand, “but shouldn’t we be checking him out? I mean it has been known before that someone who is mentally unbalanced goes after a little girl.”
    “This one’s harmless, I think, Gwen,” Watkins said.
    “And he was genuinely startled when he heard that the little girl was lost,” Evan said. “Given his desire to be arrested, I think we have to take it that he had nothing to do with her disappearance.”
    “And yet you still think we should search your bloody mountain, Evans?”
    “Just a thought, sir. To make sure we’ve covered all bases.”
    “Yes, I suppose you’re right. It would be easy enough to hide a child up there among the rocks and heather. How do you boys feel? Are you up to another search party before it gets dark?”
    “Of course, sir.” One of the constables got to his feet. “Anything we can do to find the little girl. You’ll want the dogs, won’t you?”
    “Absolutely. Then let’s get back there. We’ve got four hours before it gets dark. That should be long enough to give it a thorough going-over.”
    “There’s one more thing I thought I should mention,” Evan said, as the meeting dispersed and they walked to Watkins’s vehicle together. “You know Mrs. S. said that Ashley had had an operation ? Well, the park owner says that it was a heart transplant.”
    “A heart transplant? Bloody hell,” Watkins said.
    Evan opened the passenger side door and got in. “So she’d be on all kinds of drugs, wouldn’t she? So how could her mother have forgotten to mention them to us?”

    “We’d better pay her another visit on the way over,” Watkins said, as they pulled out of the car park.
    “I tried to as soon as I found out, but apparently the W.P.C. had taken her to get a cup of tea.”
    “She should be back by now. Did the park owner say anything else interesting?”
    “She said that Mrs. S. went out a lot, always coming and going.”
    “Bit of a nosey parker, this park owner, would you say?”
    “Definitely. She’s miffed with Shirley Sholokhov because she thought they could have some good chats, and then Shirley kept herself to herself.”
    Watkins chuckled. “But if she notices when Shirley comes and goes, you’d have thought she’d have spotted a strange car or a strange man, wouldn’t you?”
    “That’s what I thought, but she says there are several places where someone could slip through the hedge to a car parked in the lane.”
    Evan shook his head as they left the town behind. “You’d have thought someone would have seen something, wouldn’t you? It’s so exposed here. If someone grabbed Ashley from the beach, he’d have had to sprint across a couple of fields with the child in his arms. Don’t tell me that nobody would have noticed.”
    “It is pretty empty at this time of year,” Watkins said. “Even so, he would have been taking a terrible risk.”
    “If it were Ashley’s father, he was obviously willing to risk anything to get her. You’d risk anything to get your daughter back, wouldn’t you?”
    “Yep. I suppose I would,” Watkins agreed.
    And yet Mrs. Paul had described him as a bastard, moody, violent.
    They drove into the meadow and parked beside the blue car. This time the door was opened by W.P.C. Howells. “Oh, hello, Inspector, hello, Constable Evans,” she said. “Any news yet?”
    “Not yet. How’s Mrs. Sholokhov holding up?”

    “Not too well. The doctor’s given her a sedative,” she said in a low voice, glancing back into the van.
    “Is she still awake because we have to ask her something,” Watkins said.
    “You can try, but don’t upset her again if you can help it, will you? She was in a terrible state earlier, threatening to kill herself if anything happened to Ashley.”
    “It won’t take a minute.” Watkins stepped past her into the caravan. Evan followed. Mrs. Sholokhov was lying on the bed, looking pale and haggard. She opened tired eyes as Watkins sat down beside her, then