An Air of Murder

by Roderic Jeffries

  As they walked across the lawn, Laura said, with angry fear: ‘What are the school fees now?’

  ‘Approaching twenty thousand a year,’ Gerrard replied.

  ‘Then we simply haven’t a hope.’

  ‘No.’

  She came to a stop as they reached the steps in the wall. ‘Jerome promised the trust would see Dale through school and university.’

  ‘I know.’ He climbed down the steps and reached up to provide support as she followed.

  ‘Then you’ve got to make the trustees honour his promise, whatever that woman says.’ She stepped on to the ground.

  ‘Jerome never put it in writing; even if he had, I don’t know what force the promise would have.’

  She swore, something she seldom did. She started to walk toward Ca’n Dento, taking short steps to avoid losing her balance on the rock- and stone-strewn ground. ‘She wants five hundred euros a month for rent. How much is that in real money?’

  ‘Call it three hundred and sixty pounds at the present rate of exchange.’

  ‘Something over four thousand a year. If we have to pay her that, life is going to become really difficult.’

  They reached the front door, made from planks of wood which had become warped by time and striated by weather. He unlocked it and stood to one side to let her enter.

  She came to a stop in the middle of the sitting-room, under the overhead, locally made wrought-iron ‘chandelier’. ‘She can’t possibly be as hard up as she’s making out unless she’s become impossibly extravagant.’

  ‘Perhaps it will help if I have a word with her, explain just how financially strapped we are, and ask her to reconsider?’

  ‘A waste of time.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Charles, she’s not acting like she is just because she wants more money – she’s enjoying making you squirm.’

  ‘That’s rather dramatic.’

  ‘Have you really never understood how bitterly she resents you?’

  ‘Why should she? I’ve always been perfectly pleasant to her.’

  ‘Which she interprets as condescension. It doesn’t matter what your attitude really is, what counts for her is what she thinks it is. She’s convinced you look down on her because of her background and it gives her eñormous pleasure to get her own back.’

  ‘I find it hard to accept that.’

  ‘Because you’re too good-natured.’

  ‘You really do think she could be such a bitch?’

  ‘Without even trying.’

  Three

  GERRARD STARED AT THE SHEET OF PAPER IN THE TYPEWRITER.

  One day the words came in a rush, another, like the whining schoolboy, creeping unwillingly. But when one faced financial blackout, one’s imagination became fixed on disaster and the words vanished.

  Traditionally, younger brothers in families with landed estates joined the navy or the army or the Church, read for the Bar, or became sottish ne’er-do-wells. He had never wanted to kill anyone, had found it difficult to believe in a supreme being who allowed so much pain, had been reluctant to make a living out of other people’s problems, and had no wish to follow in the footsteps of his great-great-uncle who had become a seven-bottle man before he died with a liver in such a state of decay that mention of it was still to be found in medical textbooks. He had decided he wanted to become an author – an ambition his family had thought so bizarre, they had persuaded him to join a firm of commodity brokers in which a relation was a senior partner. It had taken little time to discover he did not wish to spend his working life buying, from people he never met, commodities he never saw and sold to whoever was at the other end of the telephone. He had quit the job, lived in one of the smaller estate houses and begun to write. Eventually, a script was accepted by a publisher who did not allow accountants to make all the editorial decisions. The first book had sold sufficiently well to encourage him to imagine his name on a best-seller list. He slowly learned that an optimistic author was one who lacked experience . . .

  ‘Lunch,’ Laura called out from downstairs.

  The morning’s work – one page which would have to be rewritten. He made his way down the concrete stairs to the sitting-room and went through to the kitchen.

  She looked at him, then down at the saucepan in which she had cooked her version of Arroz brut. ‘I’ve been thinking . . .’

  ‘She thinks too much; such women are dangerous.’

  ‘We can’t just laugh everything away.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking what on earth we can do.’

  ‘What else, but soldier on?’

  ‘And if she continues to demand rent?’

  ‘Remind her of the difficulty of getting blood out of a stone.’

  ‘Knowing her, if we don’t pay, she’ll have us thrown out of here.’

  ‘The Mallorquins are far too equitably-minded to allow her to do that.’

  ‘I wish . . .’

  ‘That I had a proper job?’

  ‘No. Bloody no! You’re doing what you want to do and I wouldn’t change that for anything . . . Get plates out, will you?’

  He opened the door of one of the units and brought out two plates which he put on the polished granite work surface by the cooker.

  ‘I’m going to ask her to change her mind,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘Yesterday, you vetoed the suggestion I should do so.’ She picked up a large kitchen spoon. ‘If I do the asking, maybe she won’t be so nasty-minded since I’m not of the family blood. I’ll remind her how Jerome always tried to help you if he could. I have to do something, Charles. And asking her can’t make things any worse.’ She spooned the mixture of rice, pork, green pepper, tomato, and garlic onto his plate. He carried this over to the small eating area at the far end of the kitchen, sat, picked up the opened bottle of wine, half filled the two glasses.

  She had served herself and was about to sit down when there was a knock on the front door.

  ‘Who on earth is so out of tune with local custom as to call at this time of day?’ He made to stand.

  ‘I’ll go as I’m already up.’ She left the kitchen.

  He drank. He wondered if reminding Heloise how well he and Jerome had always got on together would persuade her to become more generous. Might that not have the opposite effect? But as Laura had said, the situation could hardly become any worse.

  Laura returned. ‘Two people looking for Heloise, directed here by a local because of the same name.’ She sat. ‘The woman said she used to work at Stayforth, but I couldn’t remember her. Her only introduction was that her name was Dora.’

  ‘Almost certainly, Dora Coates. A large mole on her nose and a habit of hissing as she speaks?’

  ‘A sorry description, but accurate.’

  ‘Her name reminds me of one of my father’s with-the-port reminiscences. He knew a family who employed a parlour maid called Dora, who was always complaining about bad digestion. One of the under-gardeners claimed he had the gift of healing and if he laid his hands on her, she would never suffer stomach pains again. She discovered what a liar he was when the pangs of pregnancy began.’

  ‘Only a man could imagine a woman would be that stupid.’

  ‘I remember feeling sorry for Dora Coates because she seemed so clumsy, but for no good reason, I never liked her.’

  ‘You’d have liked her nephew even less, which is why I carefully didn’t suggest that they came in and interrupted our meal in order to meet you.’

  Moments later, he said: Tlis dirty rice is tasty.’

  ‘Perhaps it would be even tastier if you called it by some other name.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember. More wine?’

  ‘Just for once, yes, please.’

  He replenished both their glasses.

  ‘Dora is in for an unpleasant shock if she expects Heloise to welcome her, as a past employee,’ she said.

  ‘People on holiday tend to become irrational . . . Is there any more Arroz
brut left?’

  ‘You said you were going to diet.’

  ‘It was you who said I was.’

  ‘You are putting on weight.’

  ‘One of the benefits of middle age is a rounded personality.’

  ‘I suppose if you have what’s left, the scales won’t break. Pass your plate.’

  ‘I’ll get it.’ He stood. ‘Halve what’s left?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve never learned the art of persuading a mirror to lie.’

  He crossed to the cooker, spooned what remained in the saucepan onto his plate.

  Four

  AS DOLORES WENT THROUGH THE BEAD CURTAIN INTO THE kitchen on Tuesday evening, Jaime reached out to the bottle of wine; when she unexpectedly reappeared, he tried to make out he was picking up the salt cellar.

  She stared at him for a moment, her dark brown eyes filled with sharp suspicion, then said: ‘I have made some Capxetas de merengue.’

  ‘An unexpected pleasure!’ Alvarez remarked enthusiastically.

  ‘You think I am incapable of serving such a dish or that I am too lazy to do so?’

  ‘It was just a way of saying how much I’m looking forward to enjoying your wonderful cooking.’

  ‘You have a strange way of expressing yourself . . . Put out some plates on the table.’ She returned to the kitchen, leaving the trails of the bead curtain clashing into each other with diminishing force.

  As Jaime refilled his glass with wine, Alvarez said: ‘What’s got her into a mood?’

  ‘How would I know?’ Jaime drank.

  ‘You’re her husband.’

  ‘What husband ever knows why his wife’s bitching?’

  ‘Have you been rowing with her?’

  ‘You think I’m a fool?’

  Alvarez thought him weak, not a fool. It was a husband’s duty to make certain his wife showed a proper respect for him, yet by admitting he would never willingly argue with her, he was failing in his duty. ‘Something’s upset her.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Women often get like that for no reason.’

  Dolores returned, in her hand a large plate on which were meringues of ground almond, lemon, and a touch of cinnamon. She put the plate down on the table, but did not sit. ‘I’ve every reason to be surprised, but of course am not.’

  They nervously tried to work out what was now annoying her, but failed.

  ‘You forgot I asked you to put out plates?’

  ‘No,’ Jaime answered hurriedly.

  ‘Then why are they not on the table?’

  ‘I was just going to get them.’

  ‘After you had refilled your glass and drunk until your mind rose higher than the clouds? Aiyee! If men did all they said they were going to, women would no longer have to spend their lives slaving.’ She put the meringues on the table, went around Jaime’s chair, opened one of the doors of the carved Mallorquin sideboard and brought out three small plates which she handed to Alvarez. ‘I hope you will not find it too onerous to pass these around?’

  Having done as asked, Alvarez helped himself to a meringue. It was delicious, as he had expected. Dolores was a wonderful cook; to such an extent that one tried to make allowances for her many faults.

  There was a shout from upstairs. Dolores, her expression shocked, hastily came to her feet. ‘Sweet Mary, what’s happened?’

  ‘Isabel’s having a nightmare,’ Jaime answered.

  ‘You calmly sit there when she has perhaps fallen out of bed, broken her shoulder, and is lying in agony?’ She pushed back her chair, rushed across the room and up the stairs.

  ‘One of the kids has a dream and shouts,’ Jaime said sourly, ‘and she imagines the very worst. Yet I tell her I’ve a vicious pain in my belly and she merely says that’s because I’ve drunk too much.’ He leaned across and opened a door of the sideboard, brought out a bottle of brandy, poured himself a drink, passed the bottle to Alvarez. ‘The husband always gets the rough edge, doesn’t matter what he says or does.’

  ‘A small price to pay if it keeps the wife happy.’

  ‘What about the husband’s happiness?’

  ‘That’s the price of marriage.’

  Dolores came downstairs.

  ‘Well?’ Jaime demanded loudly as she stepped off the last stair on to the floor.

  She approached her chair.

  ‘Come on, then, has she fallen out of bed and broken her shoulder?’ he demanded aggressively, enjoying the rare chance of proving his wife wrong.

  ‘You have been consoling yourself in case she had?’ She studied the bottle of brandy on the table.

  ‘It was just a dream, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Whilst I was upstairs, I had a dream. Shall I tell you what it was?’

  The question unsettled him.

  ‘I dreamt you realised I was very tired; that wishing to help me, you had cleared the table so that when I came downstairs, I had nothing to do but sit and rest whilst you made the coffee. Of course, dreams are always absurd.’

  ‘I was just about to clear.’

  Did he ever think before he spoke? Alvarez wondered.

  ‘Another just about? How busy your future must always appear to you, especially when you have drunk enough to imagine yourself a thoughtful husband.’

  ‘I’ve hardly drunk anything this evening.’

  ‘The surprise is that you can still speak absurdities.’ She began to clear the table by picking up the bottle of brandy and putting it in the sideboard.

  Soon after she had returned from the kitchen and sat, watching the television with the other two, the phone rang. After a while, she said: ‘You are both suddenly very hard of hearing?’

  ‘This late, it has to be for you,’ Jaime said.

  ‘Naturally, since that provides an excuse for not disturbing yourself.’ She stood. ‘I have often wondered why the good Lord provided men with legs since they so seldom use them.’ She went through to the next room, soon returned. ‘It is someone from the Policia Local in the port.’

  ‘They want me?’ Alvarez asked. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Perhaps you wish me to return and ask if there is sufficient reason for you to bother yourself to speak to them?’

  He went through to the front room, used only on formal occasions and kept in apple-pie order. He picked up the receiver. ‘Alvarez.’

  ‘We have a problem. An Englishman says his aunt is missing; she went for a swim roughly half an hour ago and seems to have disappeared.’

  ‘Are you serious? Half an hour ago it was already dark.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You’re saying there’s someone goes swimming in the dark?’

  ‘She also is English.’

  The English, ever perverse, had developed to perfection the art of upsetting other people’s lives. ‘It’s likely she’s still swimming.’

  ‘Her nephew says she’s a very poor swimmer and would never go out of her depth; he’s searched close to the shore, but can’t find her.’

  ‘If she can’t swim, why the hell did she go into the sea when it’s dark and there’ll be no one around to see if she gets into trouble?’

  ‘She’d been drinking heavily.’

  ‘Considering her nationality, that goes without saying. If she’s drowned, why bother me? It’s not my problem.’

  ‘One of us went with the nephew to see if they could find her. A woman came up and when she heard what they were doing, told them she’d heard another woman crying out in English and saying something like, “What are you doing? Don’t. Please don’t.” ’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s the missing woman’s name and where’s she staying?’

  ‘Dora Coates, at the Hotel Monterray.’

  ‘You’d better get a boat out and see if there’s any sign of her in the bay.’

  ‘It’s up to you to search.’

  ‘Not when there’s nothing to suggest any criminal activity.’

  ‘You’re never going to die from over
work.’

  He replaced the receiver. The members of the Policia Local were forever trying to get out of doing their job.

  Alvarez made his way downstairs to the kitchen. Dolores, stirring the contents of a saucepan on the stove, looked up. ‘I called you long ago. Another five minutes and you’d have had to get your own breakfast since I’ve a mountain of work to do.’

  He sat at the table. Clearly, her perverse mood of the previous evening had not improved.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at work by now?’ she asked.

  ‘When there’s not much doing, it’s left to a person’s judgement as to when he starts.’

  ‘Whoever decided it should be left to you was no judge of character.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘When a man starts bleating something is unfair, one can be certain his conscience has finally been touched . . .You can have yesterday’s bread or you’ll have to go out and buy a barra.’ She ceased stirring, scraped the spoon clean on the edge of the saucepan, turned off the gas. ‘Well, which is it to be?’ Why hadn’t she made certain he had fresh bread for his breakfast? ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘You seem so . . . I wondered if maybe there was some sort of trouble?’

  ‘With two men and two children to look after, there is always trouble.’

  ‘But nothing serious, I hope?’

  ‘As my mother so wisely observed, “For a man, nothing is serious unless he is incommoded.” ’

  ‘She doesn’t seem to have had a very good opinion of men.’

  ‘How could she, having many brothers and a husband for fifty-one years? . . .You may have time to waste talking, I do not. Will you buy yourself a fresh barra or eat the one from yesterday?’

  ‘You could put that in the oven to crisp it up, couldn’t you?’

  ‘You are incapable of doing even that? Adam must have lost more than his rib to have left all men so hopeless.’

  ‘And what happened after his rib was taken?’ he asked, resentful of the suggestion that he was motivated by laziness. ‘Eve persuaded him to eat the forbidden fruit.’

  ‘No doubt only after she had prepared it for him. I suppose you want some hot chocolate?’