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I’m going to teach myself to cook properly.”
    “We’ll expect a dinner invitation, won’t we, Glynis?” Watkins said.
    “Absolutely.” Glynis Davies’s large brown eyes held his.
    It was with some regret that he watched them go through to the cafeteria. In spite of everything he had to admit that he still found her fascinating.

Chapter 5
    A few days later Evan headed out of Caernarfon on the new bike. He had passed the course, ridden around cones without knocking them down, and knew how to start and stop. He was ready to become a motorcycle cop. He grinned to himself at the term, imagining himself involved in the kind of high-speed chases that always seemed to happen in places like Los Angeles. The only high-speed chase around Llanfair would be with a sheep that had wandered onto the road.
    He left the last of the urban sprawl behind him and let out the throttle as the bike began to climb the pass. The engine gave a satisfying roar. The first of the zigzag bends approached. He was supposed to lean into it, but it seemed such an improbable thing to do. He felt gravity pulling at him, leaned, and smiled to himself as the bike hugged the curve. Very satisfying. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. He couldn’t wait to try it off road, but after several days of steady rain, he’d better let the hillsides dry out a little first.
    Llanfair appeared ahead of him, nestled between green slopes. It was late afternoon and the village was bathed in sharp, slanting sunlight, making the gray stone of the cottages glow pink. The stream that flowed from the mountains was almost spilling over its banks, passing under the stone bridge with a thunderous roar and
sending up droplets of spray to dance in the sunlight. Everything always looked its best after rain. All fresh and new. Just the sort of evening for a brisk hike. Instead, he had to finish painting the living room. Evan sighed. He had found a bright and cheerful rug for the living room, but it wasn’t enough to lift the gloomy, damp feeling, which even a roaring fire couldn’t drive away. The brown wallpaper on the walls hadn’t helped, so in a fit of enthusiasm that first night, he had started to tear it down. It had peeled off in satisfying strips and now he was left with bare walls. So he had started to paint the whole thing sparkling white. Only after he’d done a couple of walls did he realize that the whole cottage hadn’t been painted in half a century. Everything looked dirty and dingy in comparison. The ceiling needed painting too, and after the living room the front hall, the kitchen, the stairs … he had let himself in for a major project. For the first time he appreciated Sergeant Watkins’s constant complaints of weekends being filled with do-it-yourself projects.
    He felt daunted by the whole prospect as he pulled into the police station yard. He was about to dismount when there was a shriek and someone sprinted across the street, arms waving.
    “Constable Evans!”
    It was young Terry Jenkins, the local tearaway who had been mixed up in one of Evan’s former cases. His face was lit up with excitement. “Is that your bike? Did you just get it?” He stroked the chrome handlebars lovingly as if the bike were a living thing. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Will it do a ton?”
    Evan laughed. “Nothing like a ton, Terry. It’s not meant to go fast. It’s just so that I can get around my beat more easily.”
    “I bet it can go pretty fast if you really try. And with those tires, you could do motor cross—you know how they come flying over the hill—whee—airborne!”
    “It’s a police bike, Terry,” Evan said, grateful he wasn’t going to have to show off his nonexistent motor cross talents. “I won’t be doing any stunts.”
    “Pity.” Terry’s face fell. “Still, you’ll have to go fast if you’re chasing a crook, won’t you? Like that guy in the red sports car that time.”

    “I don’t think anything like that is