An Air of Murder

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘Señor Short has left the island?’

  ‘He was called back unexpectedly, which is why he hasn’t come here himself.’ She smiled. ‘I told Colin I wasn’t going to have you think I was trying to pull a fast one, so I made him write out a request.’ She opened her small handbag and brought out a single sheet of hotel notepaper, folded in the centre, leaned across to hand it to him.

  He read what was written. He looked up. Tm afraid there is a problem.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘The cash, the travellers’ cheques, and the locket cannot yet be handed to you.’

  ‘But Colin said he particularly wanted to have the locket because it was of such sentimental value to Dora and therefore to him. He’ll be very upset if I can’t give it to him.’ Alvarez’s thoughts quickened. ‘Did he say why it was of such sentimental value?’

  ‘It belonged to Dora’s mother and was the only thing of hers Dora had. Can’t you let him have it?’

  Not until he knew whether or not it was the solution to many questions as well as being stolen property. ‘There is something I must establish before I can release it.’

  ‘You won’t let me have it now?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Then you will make certain it’s safe?’

  ‘Of course. When are you returning to England, Señorita?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning, early; too early for me.’ Again that quick smile.

  ‘Obviously, you are seeing Señor Short again?’

  ‘Yes. We . . . we enjoyed each other’s company.’ Then in a rush of shared confidences, she added: ‘I told him I’d always dreamed of going to Barbados because when I was young, I’d read it was an earthly heaven, and he promised we’d go there as soon as I could get some more time off work. We’ll spend days and days lying in the sun, swimming and snorkeling in the sea, staring at palm trees, and drinking daiquiris . . . Inspector, I’m sorry, but I must rush because I’ve promised to drive a charming couple – she’s sadly crippled, yet always cheerful – out to the lighthouse and a picnic on Parelona beach.’

  A possibility suddenly occurred to him. ‘You’ve hired a car for today, Señorita?’ he asked casually.

  ‘I’ve had one all the time I’ve been here. Which turned out to be an awful waste, because Colin had one as well.’

  ‘So Señor Short was able to borrow yours when that was necessary?’

  She stared at him with sharp surprise. ‘How did you know . . .’ She stopped.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I think perhaps it does.’

  ‘Look, I couldn’t be certain.’

  ‘If I knew what happened, I might be able to judge.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to tell you.’

  ‘I’m afraid you must.’

  She fidgeted with a fold in her frock.

  ‘You couldn’t be certain of what, Señorita?’

  ‘That it was . . . One night, I had a head and went to bed early. Later, something woke me and I had the frightening feeling that someone was or had been in my bedroom. Of course, I switched on the light; there was no one there, so I decided it just had to have been a bad dream and I went back to sleep. But in the morning, I looked in my handbag for a handkerchief and it seemed to me that everything had been moved around.’

  ‘So what did you believe explained this?’

  ‘I couldn’t think. I spoke to Colin about it and he said I obviously didn’t keep my handbag nearly as tidily as I thought and no one could have been in my room. Only he spoke so forcefully, I had the impression . . . well, that he was trying to make me believe what he said. . . . Anyway, I asked him if he’d been in my room that night and he just laughed. But when I went to my car again, I was certain it had been driven somewhere.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘When I’d last parked it, I’d noticed the final four figures of the mileometer – kilometer? – were the month and days of my birthday. But they weren’t any longer.’

  ‘Could you have driven somewhere and forgotten the fact when you mentally compared numbers?’

  ‘There was almost sixty difference.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A little time back.’

  ‘You can’t be more precise?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Do you still have the car?’

  ‘I’m returning it this afternoon.’

  ‘Which firm did you rent it from?’

  ‘The hotel arranged that.’

  He stood. ‘Thank you for your help.’

  She hesitated, then said: ‘I don’t really understand why you won’t give me the locket; why you’ve been asking so many questions.’

  ‘Señorita, I fear that in my job, one becomes very curious, more often than not for no good reason.’

  He escorted her down to the main entrance and said goodbye. Back in his room, he phoned Hotel Monterray and spoke to Diego. ‘What car-hire firm are you using this year?’

  ‘I’m not certain.’

  ‘Scared I’ll whistle when I learn the commission they pay you? Come on, a name.’

  ‘Garaje Llueso.’

  He checked what was the firm’s number, dialled it. ‘You’ve hired a car to Señorita Hearn and the hiring comes to an end later today. Take another car to the hotel right away and tell her it’s to replace the one she’s been using.’

  ‘But if she’s returning hers . . .’

  ‘Make up some story about suspension; being a woman, she won’t know what you’re talking about. Hold the car until I say what to do with it.’

  ‘Who’s going pay for this?’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Then suppose I tell you to get stuffed.’

  ‘I’ll be along to look over your premises and cars and it wouldn’t be surprising if I found so many faults you’d have to close down.’

  ‘What a nasty sod you can be!’

  ‘It’s gratifying to learn I’m doing my job well.’ He replaced the receiver, leaned over and opened the right-hand drawer of the desk, brought out the bottle of brandy and a glass. As the poet Valverde had written, wine embraced health and comforted affliction, gloried success and dimmed failure.

  He drank. He’d mournfully judged his trip to England to have been a complete waste of money and time, yet now he knew he had learned something which at the time had seemed unimportant, yet which might prove to be very important. Short had told Gemma his mother had given him the locket, yet in truth it had been stolen from Stayforth House. Why had he lied?

  Twenty-Five

  ALVAREZ HELD THE RECEIVER TO HIS EAR WITH ONE HAND, drummed the fingers of the other on the desk as tension tied a granny knot in his stomach.

  ‘Are you there?’ asked the man from Vehicles.

  Did the fool think he’d gone for a walk? ‘What’s the result?’

  ‘There’s not been time to examine the Ford Fiesta.’

  ‘What are you doing – teaching chickens to clean their teeth? This is priority.’

  ‘According to the docket, it’s a routine job.’

  ‘I said . . .’

  ‘You know as well as me that the only time priority is actually given to a job, it’s when a comisario or the superior chief says so.’

  ‘Salas said so.’

  ‘Give me his written order and I’ll believe you.’

  ‘I have to have the results as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Not a hope. Half the cars on the island have come in for examination. You’ll be lucky if your job starts before the weekend.’

  ‘But I’ve spoken to the Institute and they’ve promised any traces which reach them before too late in the afternoon will be examined immediately.’

  ‘Maybe they knew that’s a promise they won’t have to keep.’

  ‘Suppose I was to slip across a ten-euro note?’

  ‘You reckon we’re all down-and-outs?’

  ‘Twenty euros.’

  ‘You’re lucky I’m soft-hea
rted.’

  Yet again, Alvarez checked the time. A watched kettle never boiled, but a watched watch raced. Would, could the deadline set by the Institute be met? Failure became ever more certain; his theories were based on quicksand; his hopes were phantoms; his remaining time in the Cuerpo was numbered in hours. What remained but a noose, a gun, a hosepipe led from the exhaust to the interior of the Ibiza, a one-way walk into the sea?

  The phone rang. A woman reported that certain intimate articles had been stolen from an outside washing line where they had been hung to dry and she was certain the thief was the man who lived along the road and . . . He slammed down the receiver in an uncharacteristic display of curt bad manners.

  What could be more futile than waiting for something which was not going to happen? The workers at Vehicles were lazy and incompetent and couldn’t be bothered to check the Fiesta to discover if there were any traces which might prove the body of Jiminez had once been carried in it.

  The phone rang. Grains of sand and one woollen fibre had been found in the boot of the Fiesta and these were being taken immediately to the Institute by a man from Trafico who had volunteered to make the journey. Those who worked in Vehicles were painstakingly thorough and full of initiative, the men from Trafico were loyal comrades.

  He phoned the Institute and spoke to an assistant who said they had a moment before received the fibre and sand and comparison checks would begin immediately; however, it could already be stated it was unlikely the sand would offer any qualities which could provide meaningful comparisons.

  Time passed, his tension increased. The phone rang yet again. Since the tests appeared to be so important, the speaker had dropped all other work and carried them out. He could now say without qualification that the fibre found in the boot of the Fiesta matched in all respects the fibre found on the body of Jiminez. The sand offered no chance of comparison.

  Alvarez replaced the receiver. If Dora Coates had been murdered or allowed to drown when she could have been saved, Short would have been the prime suspect had not his lack of any motive, the fact that he seemingly benefited only when she was alive, seemed to mark his innocence. The only motive for Short’s murder of Jiminez had been attempted blackmail, yet blackmail over what if not the circumstances of Dora’s drowning? Before his trip to England, Alvarez could not have suggested answers even if convinced beyond doubt that Short was the murderer; now, he thought he knew what they were. But the only way to make certain was to take the risk of being wrong, knowing that if he were, Salas would order him to be beheaded before he was dismissed from the Cuerpo.

  It was the morning of the hearing, Alvarez went into the kitchen as Dolores walked in through the outside doorway. She put a loosely secured, brown-paper package on the table, unwound the ends. ‘I bought the ensaimadas from Ca Na Rosalia because they make the best ones these days.’

  He thanked her warmly. Because she was so worried on his behalf, knowing how much he liked a good ensaimada, she had cycled right across the village. There were times when one had to forget how sharp her tongue could be.

  Twenty minutes later, he phoned the bank and spoke to Fortega. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d do me a favour . . .’

  ‘You’ve got to be making a bloody awful joke! A favour! Do you a favour after the trouble you caused with the last one you wanted? Lady Gerrard created so much hell, we had an investigating officer out from Palma, trying to identify who had given you details of that woman’s accounts.’

  ‘But he didn’t name you?’

  ‘You think I’d still be working here if he had?’

  ‘Then there’s no harm done.’

  ‘That’s ripe! You weren’t involved, so never worry about anyone else; doesn’t matter what I went through. I’m not doing you another favour, not if you get down on hands and knees and beg.’

  ‘It’s really important or I wouldn’t bother you.’

  ‘Just forget it.’

  ‘I need to know if Lady Gerrard has withdrawn a large sum in cash since the twenty-first of last month.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Did you hear?’

  ‘I heard. And I’m asking myself, is the man insanely simple, or simply insane.’

  ‘It’s vital I know.’

  ‘To me, it’s vital you don’t know.’

  ‘You weren’t identified last time, so they won’t be able to nail you this time.’

  ‘Quite right, they won’t, because you’re not even learning what the time is from me.’ He cut the connection.

  Alvarez dialled again. ‘You rang off before I could warn you.’

  ‘Warn me about what?’ Fortega asked angrily.

  ‘That I have to have the information to complete my investigation. If I can’t finish it, I can’t guarantee I won’t be forced to disclose who gave me the information in the first instance.’

  ‘Has anyone said you’re the complete bastard?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, someone said something of the sort not so long ago.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Alvarez learned that on the 22nd of the previous month, Lady Gerrard had had twenty thousand Swiss francs transferred from a bank in Zurich, subsequently withdrawing twelve thousand euros in cash.

  He thanked Fortega for the information.

  ‘If you get run over by a bus, you’ll hear me laughing all the way to the nearest bar.’

  Filipe opened the front door of Ca’n Jerome and stared with surprise at Alvarez. ‘You’re the last person I expected to see here! Don’t you know the plague’s more welcome?’

  ‘I have to have another word with Lady Gerrard.’

  ‘She’s in such a filthy temper, Ana and I have finally given in our notice.’

  ‘How did she accept that?’

  ‘Like the fishwife she is . . .You still want to talk to her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must be a masochist. She’s out by the pool.’ Heloise was swimming from the deep to the shallow end; when she saw Alvarez, she stopped and stood, the water reaching halfway up her shapely thighs, her brightly coloured bikini offering little more than token modesty. Bitch that she was, Alvarez still knew brief desire. Man was born at a disadvantage.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded furiously.

  ‘I’d like a word, Lady Gerrard.’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘It will be to your advantage . . .’

  ‘How dare you try to tell me what’s to my advantage. Filipe, show him out immediately.’

  ‘Lady Gerrard . . .’

  ‘Filipe, phone the consul.’

  ‘What, please?’ Felipe said.

  ‘ My God, if I’d known you can’t speak the language.’ She faced Alvarez once more. ‘You will pay for this insolence, I promise you that. My complaint will be sent to the highest level . . .’

  ‘I am here to talk about a locket.’

  She stared at him, her expression suddenly strained.

  ‘In which is a lock of Sir Jerome Gerrard’s hair, taken when he was a very young boy.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Her tone was no longer arrogant and abrasive. She slowly walked through the water to the steps, climbed them, crossed to the pool patio and a chair.

  Alvarez moved a second chair and sat. ‘On the contrary, you know only too well. That locket has fuelled the blackmail you have suffered for many years, first at the hands of Dora Coates and then her nephew, Colin Short. Short has begun to blackmail you far more heavily than she did, hasn’t he? He understood the full potential value of the locket and that was why he tried again and again to persuade his aunt to increase the money she demanded, but she wouldn’t; as strange as this might seem, perhaps her conscience prevented her asking for what she considered to be too much. I am now convinced it was conscience which persuaded her to will her ill-gotten money to Señor Gerrard – an act of delayed contrition, one could say. Her refusal to agree to do what he wanted ensured her death because he has no such conscience or ability to
appreciate the benefits of moderation, as you have discovered when having to find ever more money to meet his demands.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about. No one’s blackmailing me.’

  ‘Then to whom did you pay the twelve thousand euros you’ve very recently withdrawn from your bank?’

  She made a sound at the back of her throat that resembled the mew of a cat.

  ‘Why were you being blackmailed?’

  ‘I’ve just told you I wasn’t.’

  ‘Was it because Sir Jerome was not the father of your son?’ She struggled to sound angry, not frightened. ‘How dare you suggest such a disgusting lie.’

  ‘Señorita Coates was your lady’s maid and this provided her with reason to know you were not pregnant before Sir Jerome went abroad on a business trip. You had an affair with a Frenchman . .

  ‘That’s a filthy lie!’

  ‘The staff at Stayforth House were not blind.’

  ‘They’ve made it up because they all resent me; they’re the worst possible snobs; they despise me because I’m from the same background as they are.’

  ‘It was a casual affair, but with an irony that is not unusual, you became pregnant. Circumstances allowed you to make out Sir Jerome was the father and therefore when he died in an accident, Fergus inherited the estate. But it should have passed to Mr Charles Gerrard, who became the legal fourteenth baronet.’

  ‘You can’t prove a thing.’

  ‘The locket can. Which is why Señorita Coates stole it. DNA tests can be conducted on the lock of Sir Jerome’s hair it contains and the results compared with the DNA of you and your son; the results will prove beyond doubt that Fergus is not Sir Jerome’s son.’

  ‘You haven’t got the locket . . .’

  ‘Then Colin Short never told you that when I searched Señorita Coates’s hotel room after her death, I found the locket as well as the blackmail money she had obtained from you after arriving in Port Llueso? The money and the locket are still under my custody.’

  Minutes passed before she said: ‘I don’t suppose you’re very well paid?’

  ‘It is true, I am not well paid in comparison to many. But it is your misfortune, as well as mine, that I try to be honest.’