‘I am surprised to learn you are so devoted to your work.’
‘I have always held that if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well.’
‘That has not previously been obvious. Do you know why I am ringing now?’
‘Not really.’
‘You are unaware you have ignored a most important point in this case?’
‘Which one?’
‘You have ignored so many you cannot decide the one to which I am referring? How did Drew know Tyler was on the island and where was his house?’
‘You may remember I did pose that question—’
‘Had you raised it, you would by now be able to answer it. Can you?’
‘Not precisely.’
‘I presume that means you are quite unable to offer any solution.’
‘Since the English police would not have informed Señor Drew, it has to be someone else.’
‘That is logical. Who?’
‘A friend who’s in the police; a civilian who worked for them and does not feel bound by the rules.’
‘You can suggest no more likely person?’
‘I suppose it is possible Señor Howes learned the truth and told Señor Dawes.’
‘Have you not in the past said no English policeman would pass on such information?’
‘This would be different.’
‘Why?’
‘His daughter was killed. Circumstances can alter one’s attitude to one’s duties.’
‘It is to be doubted any would alter yours . . . How would Howes have learned the truth and told Dawes?’
‘He could be, or have been, a policeman.’
‘Then you have made enquiries to learn if that is the case?’
‘I had intended to do so the moment—’
‘Clearly, the possibility had escaped you. You will ask him what is his profession or job; if he denies he is or has been a policeman, you will get in touch with whatever force he might have worked for and get them to confirm he was in a position to learn about Tyler.’
‘I have your permission to do so, señor?’
‘You amuse yourself by asking inane questions?’
‘You recently made a point of reproaching me for not having received your permission to speak to a foreign force.’
‘You are unable to appreciate that an order to do something is giving you permission to do it?’
‘I just thought you might wish to be a little more specific. After all, if you order me to question X and I learn X lives abroad, do I travel abroad without asking for permission to make the journey?’
There was no answer, the line was dead.
Work was a virus multiplying at a lethal rate. Before Salas’s first phone call, Alvarez had been faced by what some – not he – would have termed a reasonable amount of work; now, after the second call, he had to question Dawes, Howes, Higuero, possibly speak to the English police (and how was he to know whom to contact if Howes denied everything?), re-examine all the evidence, question the other women in Tyler’s life (how to name them?), speak to Sophie Douste . . . And perhaps another dozen orders he had forgotten. His mind could no longer comprehend the future. He returned home.
THIRTEEN
‘Do what?’ asked the man in Vehicles, with angry disbelief. ‘You’re back, asking us to draw up another list and this time you can’t be certain of the colour of the car, still don’t know the letters of the registration number and the numbers might be wrong . . . Are you sure it was a car and not a donkey cart? It’s bloody impossible!’
‘The superior chief—’
‘Can get stuffed.’
‘I’ve no objection to that, but he’ll raise trouble if you refuse.’
‘Not half as much trouble as our boss will if the great Superior Chief Salas starts trying to tell him what we are to do.’
‘So I say you refuse?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You don’t think it might be calmer for everyone if you say you’ll try and then later on tell me you cannot succeed in providing a list which is short enough to make any investigation feasible?’
‘We don’t work like that.’
‘Then you must be new to the job. Thanks for all your help,’ Alvarez added sarcastically.
Some people were incapable of doing their job sensibly, saw trouble before it arose, felt no sense of shame at admitting incompetence. Still, the refusal did mean he was not going to be faced by hours of brain-destroying work, eliminating cars on a list a kilometre long.
He decided to question Howes, despite the long drive in the heat. If Howes was not a policeman, that would not only negate one possibility, it would annoy Salas, who seemed to believe himself omniscient.
He enjoyed an early merienda before he drove out of Llueso, joined the autoroute just south of Mestara and after an easy drive reached Camp de Mar.
Kirsty opened the front door. ‘You again!’
‘I am afraid so, señora.’ Face to face, he noted the irises of her eyes were large and an unusual dark shade of brown; they possessed a beauty that her other features did not.
‘What is it this time?’
‘I should like to speak to your husband again.’
‘He’s out.’
‘Do you expect him to return soon?’
‘There’s no knowing.’
‘Would you mind if I wait here rather than return to Llueso?’
‘If you must.’ She left the door open. ‘I’m cooking. You’d better go out on to the patio.’
As he did as suggested, he wondered yet again what persuaded a man to marry the woman he married? Love, lust, pity, drink? Not even Salas, perhaps least of all he, could answer that question. On the pool patio, chairs, sun umbrellas, table and two air mattresses were set out as they had been on his previous visit. He moved a chair into full shade, sat.
The heat made the plunge pool enticing, even though he was no great lover of swimming. A hoopoe, in undulating flight, went from right to left, its plumage enhanced by the sunshine. Once it might have been killed and eaten. Conservation was restricted to the rich when there was little money, but much hunger. A single lantana beyond the pool was in full flower – the red and yellow of Spain. He could just hear the tapping sounds of a rock breaker at work; preparing to build one more house when the island was already overburdened. In the past, dynamite had been used to blast out rock where excavations had to be made, but there had been cases of structural damage to nearby buildings and swimming pools and explosives had been banned. Now the hammering could continue for weeks. Perhaps only the national and local fiestas had not been altered by the influx of foreigners. He hoped they never would be or the soul of the island would be in danger.
He awoke suddenly when Kirsty said, ‘Well, are you?’
‘I’m sorry, I was thinking.’
‘Very deeply.’
‘Am I what, señora?’
‘Going to continue to wait here?’
‘If that doesn’t disturb you.’
‘I should rather you . . .’ She paused. ‘My husband has just returned.’
He had heard nothing. As she went into the house, he reflected sadly that age robbed a man of hearing, sight, teeth, taste, and that most brutal loss of all . . .
Howes came out on to the patio. ‘Good morning, Inspector. We seem to be very popular!’ A lock of hair, escaping imprisonment, had fallen across his forehead. It required a filmic heroine to ease it back with her soft, loving hand. ‘Has Kirsty offered you a drink, if it’s not too early?’
Yet again, that incomprehensible qualification. ‘One would be very welcome, señor.’
‘Brandy with ice. Is that correct?’
‘Thank you, yes.’
‘Shan’t be a moment.’
Several minutes later – after an argument inside between husband and wife, the words of which he had been unable to distinguish – Howes returned with two well filled glasses, put them down on the table, sat. He raised his glass. ‘Salud! . . . Wh
at brings you here today?’
‘To ask if you’re quite certain about what you told me.’
‘What did I tell you?’
‘The Drews had lunch with you here on Thursday.’
‘I am quite certain.’
‘You haven’t had second thoughts?’
‘I’m sticking with my first.’ Howes drank, put his glass down on the table. ‘Have you come all this way just to ask me if I’ve changed my memory?’
‘No, señor. But I needed to make certain before I asked you what was your job in England?’
‘A peculiar question.’
‘But relevant.’
‘I don’t see how it can be.’
‘Yet it is.’
Howes stared out at the trees beyond the patio. After a long pause, he said: ‘Before I came here to live, I was a police constable.’
Had his appearance caused ribald comments from his companions and the public? Or had he been careful to look less theatrically handsome? ‘You retired early?’
‘I became choked with all the petty regulations imposed by the politicians; by the paperwork; by the public who criticized until they were in trouble. Kirsty inherited a cheerful amount of money from her aunt, we gave ourselves a holiday here, loved it and decided to quit England and move. A decision neither of us has ever regretted.’
‘When you were still in England, I imagine you saw the Drews quite often?’
‘As often as was feasible.’
‘Despite the long journey?’ Alvarez noted the brief expression of uncertainty.
‘I like motoring.’
‘The Drews live where?’
‘Why ask me, not them?’
‘To hear your answer.’
‘I’m damned if I know where all this is leading.’
‘Perhaps you will do so, when you tell me.’
‘Sussex.’
‘In which part?’
‘What’s it matter? . . . Apologies, Inspector, but I’ve had a bothering morning.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’ Alvarez noticed Kirsty was standing behind the nearest window, watching them. When he met her gaze, she turned away and disappeared from sight. ‘Despite your many visits, you find it difficult to say whereabouts in Sussex they live?’
‘Near Brighton.’
It was time for the sucker lie. ‘I understood Señor Drew to tell me they lived in Lewes.’
‘I’m getting muddled up with other friends. I told you, my mind’s all over the place.’
‘But you will clearly remember their house?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it large?’
‘Just ordinary size.’
‘Old or new?’
‘Neither one nor the other.’
‘Señor Drew described it as old, with many beams.’
‘What the hell are you getting at?’ Howes spoke with nervous anger, immediately tried to erase the impression he might have given. ‘Apologies again. I must be even more worried than I thought.’
‘I don’t believe you knew Señor and Señora Drew before you met them at the beginning of this month.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘When you say you visited them frequently, but have no idea where they live or what kind of house they live in?’
Howes picked up his glass, found it was empty.
‘Can you explain what caused you to meet when you didn’t know each other?’
‘Whatever you say, we are old friends,’ Howes repeated with weak insistence.
‘Was it a common interest which brought you together? Yet how would you know there was one when you were strangers?’
Howes was sweating. He brought a handkerchief out of the pocket of his shorts, brushed his face and neck. ‘It’s like a bloody oven.’
Sweat from nervous tension, not heat. ‘It think it was the tragic deaths of Irene Drew and Blaise Newcome, who were knocked down by a drunken driver.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’ Howes picked up his glass.‘I need another.’
‘I should prefer you to remain and answer my questions.’
He stood, went into the house. Alvarez again heard, without understanding the words, a conversation which was sufficiently excited to suggest argument.
Howes returned, sat, drank.
‘Señor, for a time, the whereabouts of the driver of the fatal car was unknown. But after we were asked to help, it became certain where he was. You would have wanted to learn who and where that person was for many reasons. Using your friendship with a serving member of the police force, you did so. Has your wife been married before?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was her previous husband named Newcome?’
Howes finally muttered, ‘Yes.’
‘It was your stepson who was killed together with the Drews’ daughter. You had a sad, bitter common interest with them.’
Howes drank until the glass was empty.
‘The alibi you have been giving Señor Drew is false.’
‘No.’
‘You will know that deliberately to give false evidence is a serious offence.’
‘That my wife lost her son, I, my stepson and they lost their daughter, doesn’t begin to prove we would lie about seeing them. When I say they were here last Thursday, that is the truth.’
Alvarez stood.
‘Can’t you . . .?’
‘Yes?’
‘Forget it.’
He walked to the French windows, opened one, went into the house.
As Alvarez stepped out on to the road, a black estate, Kirsty Howes at the wheel, drove away.
A dark green car could, under certain conditions, look black; a black car would not seem to change colour whatever the conditions. Whatever Salas claimed, an estate car of one make did look very much like another. A stepfather could develop a similar degree of affection for his stepson as a father for his son. The alibi had cleared Howes as well as Drew. Yet he had noted the number and there was only one 3 in it. Could shock cause memory repetition?
He turned. A middle-aged man, short of stature but solidly built, dressed in hard-used working clothes, came across the road. ‘You’re a private detective, aren’t you?’ he asked in Mallorquin.
‘Cuerpo,’ Alvarez answered curtly.
‘Guessed you was something like that.’
‘I am nothing like that.’ He was a qualified, highly trained detective. ‘Who are you?’
‘Andrés.’
‘Surname?’
‘Ollers,’ he answered, his manner subdued.
‘Your identity card.’
‘Why d’you want it?’
‘Just show it.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s at home.’
‘You are required to have it on you at all times.’
‘But I work in the gardens of foreigners and if I—’
‘At all times,’ Alvarez repeated, with the aggression of authority about to strike. ‘Not to do so is an offence.’
‘I’ll get it. Won’t take five minutes on my Mobylette.’
Alvarez said nothing until satisfied he had gained revenge for having been mistaken for a private detective. ‘I’ll forget it this time.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Ollers said obsequiously.
‘What caused you to make so ridiculous a mistake?’
‘Because you looked . . .’ He did not finish.
Dolores had suggested before he left the house that his shirt needed washing. ‘Well?’
‘Like someone of standing.’
‘A private detective has none.’
‘Of course not,’ Ollers hastily agreed.
‘Then explain why you were so stupid.’
‘I’ve tried to.’
‘One does not look at a man and think he is a private detective unless one has reason to believe he might be.’
‘I don’t understand that.’
‘I spoke very clearly.’
>
‘But you said . . . I said . . .’
‘You have said nothing that makes sense.’ Alvarez understood the satisfaction Salas felt when browbeating his inspectors. ‘What has happened to make you think it likely a private detective would be here?’
‘The Englishman.’
‘Señor Howes?’
‘If it’s him what lives there.’ He pointed at the house.
‘Why would someone be interested in him?’
‘She could want to know what he was doing.’
‘Who is “she”?’
‘His wife.’
‘Why wouldn’t she know what he was doing?’
‘She was back in England and . . . He had a woman here some time ago. I thought maybe his wife had learned about it.’
‘A friend providing company while she was away.’
‘She was giving him company, all right.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Only had to look at her. Know what I mean?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe you ain’t interested in women?’
‘Your mistaken ideas will get you into deep trouble. Are you trying to say she was attractive?’
‘Never seen anyone like her before. Wasn’t that she was like one of them you see on the telly, all perfect. Look at them and you can’t believe they’re real because you never seen them on this island, more’s the pity.’
‘You’ve said what she wasn’t like, now tell me what she was like.’
‘If you was ninety, you’d still be hoping.’
Alvarez decided to bring the conversation to an end. There was little point in discussing what one would never be able to enjoy. ‘How long have you been working . . .’ His imagination suddenly went into overdrive. Not exactly beautiful, yet instantly attracted a man’s eager attention . . . ‘Describe her.’
‘I just done.’
‘I want more details. What did you first notice about her?’
‘She was wearing something open and showing a bit of tit.’
‘Colour of hair?’
‘Blonde.’
‘Straight or curly?’
‘More wavy.’
‘Colour of eyes?’
‘How would I know that?’
Sun, Sea and Murder Page 12
