“Bethan!” she screamed, and dragged the lifeless figure out into the fresh air.
By midday Evan had completed his morning patrol of the area and was back at the station reporting in to HQ. It had been horrible feeling so powerless and cut off from Bronwen. He had followed the ambulance down to Bangor, only to be denied admission to the casualty ward where they had taken her. He’d called the hospital twice since but the news was the same both times. Miss Price was resting comfortably and they were conducting tests. He’d be able to see her during visiting hours that afternoon if she was done with her tests and back in the ward. What could it be? He asked himself over and over. It must be something terrible to make her collapse like that—cancer, heart attack, stroke. A terrible fear overtook him that she might die before he’d had a chance to explain and say he was sorry.
He looked up as the door opened and Glynis came in. “Hello there, Evan. How are you?” she asked, bright as ever. “I hope you don’t mind my popping in, but I’ve got Rebecca’s parents with me and you said you’d help me out with them. They are so devastated, poor people. Worried out of their minds. Terribly earnest types. God-fearing and all that.”
Evan got to his feet. “What do you want me to do?”
“Take them around the places you went before, maybe, and then I thought we’d run them down to the Sacred Grove so that they can see for themselves.”
“All right.” He sighed as he reached for his coat.
“What’s the matter?” Glynis asked. “You look terrible.”
“Bronwen’s in the hospital. She collapsed this morning and they don’t know what’s wrong with her.” It just came out, even though he hadn’t meant it to.
“Oh, I am sorry. How rotten for you. Look, it shouldn’t take more than an hour or so to do this and then you can sneak away to the hospital if you like. I’ll cover for you.”
“Thanks, Glynis.” He managed a smile. “All right then. Let’s go and meet Rebecca’s parents.”
“By the way,” she said as they walked out to the waiting car, “the hostile American woman posted bail this morning. We’ve had to let her go.”
“Emmy Court, you mean?”
Glynis nodded. “She had the money wired to her. It’s all right, though. She can’t go anywhere. We’ve got her passport. Not that we had enough to keep holding her anyway.” She opened her car door. “Mr. and Mrs. Riesen. This is Constable Evans I told you about. He was the one who went around with Rebecca’s picture.”
The couple sitting in the backseat of the squad car looked like a typical American couple to Evan. The husband was wearing a San Diego Padres baseball cap. The wife was dressed in colors brighter than the average Welshwoman would wear. They both looked gray and haggard, but they shook Evan’s hand warmly and thanked him for his trouble.
“I just wish there was more we could do,” Evan said as he climbed into the passenger seat beside Glynis. “So you’ve still heard nothing from her. There’s no possibility she went home to the States but hasn’t contacted you yet?”
“Oh, no, Rebecca would never do that,” Mrs. Riesen said. “She was a real homebody, if you know what I mean. We had the hardest time persuading her to go away to college, and my, was she homesick that first year! She really didn’t want to come over to Britain for the semester, but she was awarded the scholarship and my husband told her, ‘Honey, it’s a wonderful opportunity. It might never come around again,’ so she went.”
“I encouraged her,” Mr. Riesen said in a voice that cracked with emotion. “I made her go.”
“Honey, you thought you were doing the right thing.” She put her hand on his. “We all thought we were doing the right thing. We didn’t worry about her once. She was never any trouble, all the time she was growing up. Other kids went through the rebellious stage, but not Rebecca. Didn’t have to set her curfews or anything. She was never out late. All she cared about were her studies and her music. Only ever had one or two close friends—never the partying kind, you understand.”
Evan nodded. “Do you have any idea at all what would have made her come to the Sacred Grove?”
“None at all. A place like that just wasn’t Rebecca. She was always very involved in our church—she’d never have been led astray.”
“Do you think that maybe she wanted to convert the people at the Sacred Grove?” Evan asked. “Someone mentioned she did some of that kind of thing.”
“I can’t see Rebecca doing that either.” Mrs. Riesen looked to her silent husband for confirmation. “She was too shy. And she was tolerant too—live and let live. No, that doesn’t sound like our Rebecca.”
They had reached the top of the pass and Glynis pulled up outside the youth hostel. “Constable Evans asked about her here, but nobody recognized the photo,” she said.
“I don’t know why she’d come to a place like this,” Mrs. Riesen said. “I can’t see her wanting to hike with a backpack. How would she have carried her violin? She never went anywhere without it.”
“Then maybe we should go straight down to the Sacred Grove,” Evan said. “I don’t know what good it will do, but there was one of the maids who had become friendly with Rebecca. You could talk to her and see if there was any clue she could give you.”
Mrs. Riesen looked at her husband and nodded.
“Another thing I’ve been wondering, Mrs. Riesen,” Evan said as the car swung around to the right and started to zigzag down to Beddgelert. “What made Rebecca stay on after the end of her course? Had she made friends she didn’t want to leave? If she was the homebody you describe, wouldn’t she have wanted to spend Christmas with you?”
“You know, we were rather surprised about that,” Mrs. Riesen said. “I was quite upset at the time, wasn’t I, hon? ‘She doesn’t want to spend Christmas with her family anymore,’ I said to Frank. She had a couple of fellow American students who were taking an apartment in London and she spent the holidays with them. But they’re both back home again now and neither of them has been in contact with Rebecca since the first of the year. She stayed on alone in London for a couple of weeks, apparently, then she went touring. She said she wanted to see something of the countryside—which is understandable. But we were surprised she was doing it alone. She was always a little cautious, our Rebecca.”
“And I take it you’ve been to Oxford and seen where she lived?”
“Oh, yes. That was one of the first things we did. She lived in a dormitory for American students who were attending the institute. It wasn’t actually part of Oxford University, you know. It was a separate program just for Americans. They got the chance to audit lectures with the Oxford undergraduates, but they did their assignments for the AIAO. That stands for the American Institute at Oxford, I believe.”
“Everyone who knew Rebecca was gone, except for the faculty and staff,” Mr. Riesen said, leaning forward in his seat. “It’s only a one-quarter course, you see. All new students each quarter. Nobody had anything to tell us at all. The faculty hardly remembered her. ‘She was quiet and shy and hardly ever spoke up’—that’s what that one professor said, didn’t he, Margaret?”
“And she didn’t make any friends among the Oxford undergrads then?” Evan asked.
“She lived with other Americans, of course. And from what she told us, the British students were not particularly welcoming. Not that she was the social kind but she went to concerts and lectures with girls from back home. She loved her concerts, didn’t she, honey? Crazy about her music.”
Evan noticed they were using the past tense, as if they had mentally already accepted that she was gone from them.
Mrs. Riesen rummaged in her purse and produced a photograph. “That’s her, playing with the orchestra at home. Second from the left. She was assistant concert mistress. Very talented. You should have heard her play—it brought tears to your eyes sometimes, didn’t it, Frank?”