Sun, Sea and Murder

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘But,’ Jaime said, ‘I bet there are a dozen women you can name.’

  ‘What’s the difference between a lady and a woman?’ Juan asked.

  ‘You will take no notice of your father when he talks like that,’ Dolores said sharply.

  ‘Talks like what?’

  ‘In a manner unsuited to your young ears.’

  ‘Like when you said to father, she sounded like one of uncle’s . . . What was it?’

  ‘I do not remember.’

  ‘One of uncle’s foreign tarts,’ Isabel said.

  ‘How dare you speak such words!’

  ‘But you—’

  ‘You are making it up.’

  ‘No, I am not. And—’

  ‘Do you wish to make me very annoyed?’

  Isabel shook her head, but her expression was defiant.

  ‘I apologize for my children’s behaviour,’ Dolores said, without sounding in the least apologetic. ‘Sadly, their minds have been sculpted by their father’s manners.’

  ‘Why bring me into it?’ Jaime asked plaintively.

  ‘That you need to ask shows your unfortunate influence.’ She swept back into the kitchen.

  ‘She did say that,’ Isabel said.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Jaime muttered.

  ‘What is a tart?’

  ‘I can tell you,’ Juan answered with pride.

  ‘If you two don’t shut up . . .’

  Jaime’s threat was not completed. The phone rang several times.

  ‘Will someone find the energy to think of answering?’ Dolores called out.

  ‘Won’t be for me,’ Jaime said. He picked up his glass.

  ‘It’s for uncle,’ Isabel said. ‘From her . . . What’s she called?’

  Alvarez hurriedly stood and made his way into the entrada, where the telephone stood on a small corner shelf. He picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Have you forgotten what I told you?’

  ‘Who’s speaking?’

  The call ended.

  He replaced the receiver, stared at the telephone. He told himself he had not recognized the voice and there was no way of identifying her, so forget the incident. What had he forgotten? That her husband would be in Paris? What absurdity to think Sophie would have bothered to phone him in so provocative a manner.

  He returned to the dining room.

  Dolores stepped through the bead curtain. ‘Are you all right?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Looks like the bank manager’s told him he’s a thousand euros overdrawn,’ Jaime said.

  ‘Perhaps it was one of his—’ Juan began.

  ‘You wish to spend the next day living on bread and water?’ Dolores snapped. Her tone changed and became solicitous. As always, if she believed one of the family might be in trouble, she rushed to help; her tongue might be sharp, but her touch was soft. ‘Enrique, was that bad news?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He picked up the bottle and refilled his glass.

  ‘Was that your absurd superior chief causing still more trouble?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Has something happened to upset you?’

  He needed to explain his air of bewilderment. ‘It’s just one of the cabos reporting something very unusual.’

  ‘You have to leave immediately?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I will serve the meal. I have prepared Morula a la Riverina. Eat well and you will feel better.’

  His mind was not on the coming meal.

  He settled behind his desk and hurriedly lit a cigarette before he remembered he had promised himself not to smoke before midday.

  The phone rang.

  ‘It is now nine twenty,’ Salas’s secretary said reprovingly.

  He looked at his watch. She was correct.

  ‘I phoned at nine and there was no answer.’

  That was probably when he had finished his second slice of coca. ‘I was checking emails, señorita.’

  ‘The superior chief will speak to you.’

  What a way to start the day!

  ‘I have been expecting to hear from you, Alvarez, but where you are concerned, commendable expectations are seldom fulfilled,’ Salas said curtly.

  ‘I have been gathering as much evidence as possible, señor, in order to make a comprehensive report. Do you remember telling me I was wasting my time questioning Madame Douste?’

  ‘And forbidding you to do so.’

  ‘It hasn’t been time wasted, señor.’

  ‘Are you admitting you have disregarded my order?’

  ‘I thought it very advisable to speak to her. And by doing so, I learned she was very friendly with Señor Howes.’

  ‘Why is that of any importance?’

  ‘Howes is married to a woman with considerably more money than he has, is something of a Tarta, very narrow-minded, and would throw him out of her house if she learned about it.’

  ‘So far, you might be reporting in Tartarian for all I have understood.’

  ‘They were very friendly.’

  ‘Must you keep repeating yourself?’

  ‘Perhaps you do not understand?’

  ‘I have just expressed myself on that point.’

  ‘“Very friendly” has a secondary meaning.’

  ‘Neither word is in the least ambiguous.’

  ‘It means they were having fun together.’

  ‘Friendship promotes pleasure.’

  ‘In this instance, it promoted an intimate pleasure.’

  ‘You are indulging in your reprehensible urge to find impurity in every relationship?’

  ‘She admits they were lovers.’

  ‘An admission which no doubt gives you satisfaction, but is of no account to others.’

  ‘When I explained to Señor Howes that unless he finally told me the truth, there would have to be a more intensive investigation into his life and this must mean his wife would learn what he had been up to, he confessed to avoid her knowing.’

  ‘Perhaps you would take the trouble to explain what was the truth to which he confessed?’

  ‘But that’s surely obvious?’

  ‘What is obvious to you is often mercifully hidden from others. Kindly try to give a comprehensible report.’

  ‘Señor Howes admits that Señor and Señora Drew were not with them that Thursday. So neither couple have an alibi. Further, Señor Howes explained why they had come to the island. The two wives thought that if Tyler would admit he had been driving the car which killed their children, they would gain relief from their mental pain . . . I agree with the two husbands that had Tyler confessed – of course, he refused even to talk to them – there would have been very little relief gained, but there are people who think differently from me.’

  ‘Which is a consoling thought.’

  ‘So you see, had I not set out to meet Madame Douste, we would not have determined that the alibi was false.’

  ‘You may possibly remember that the reason you gave me for wishing to identify her was you thought she might be able to name a husband who had learned his wife had betrayed him with Tyler. Has she provided many names?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Has she provided any?’

  ‘No, señor.’

  ‘As I said at the time, it was a ridiculous proposition and was not to be pursued.’

  ‘But we weren’t getting anywhere.’

  ‘You were not.’

  ‘It seemed right to try anything. After all, there could have been pillow talk with a man who was of a character to boast about his—’

  ‘You will not pursue the matter.’

  ‘If I hadn’t identified and talked to her, I would not have been able to persuade Señor Howes to admit the alibi was false.’

  ‘Persuading him in a manner alien to that required of a member of the Cuerpo.’

  ‘I don’t think you can say that.’

  ‘I have just done so.’

  ‘We know that Señor Drew—’

  ‘Are you
naming him the murderer?’

  ‘I’ve always said that’s unlikely, even if grief can change character, and there’s little, if any, hard evidence against him. No question, he had a very strong motive, but there’s no evidence he was at Es Teneres when Tyler was shot.’

  ‘Was he not seen leaving there? Why would he have been driving so dangerously except to escape the murder scene?’

  ‘We can’t prove it was his car.’

  ‘A false alibi presupposes a crime.’

  ‘But will we be able to prove its falsity?’

  ‘Have you not spent a considerable time saying, with much self-congratulation, that you have succeeded in doing so?’

  ‘Señora Howes was not present. Had she been, he might well not have found the courage to deny the falsity of his evidence. Since her return home, he may have managed to confess his relationship with Madame Douste in such a manner as to hide the truth and not enrage his wife to the point of throwing him out of her life. Without the threat of exposing his affair to his wife, he can deny everything he said to me.’

  ‘In other words, the matter has been handled incompetently.’

  ‘At least we do know Tyler possessed a small calibre automatic.’

  ‘What is the laboratory’s report on the cartridge cases?’

  ‘I haven’t been able to check.’

  ‘Too busy disobeying my orders. You will find out immediately whether or not the cases you sent might have come from the same kind of gun as killed Tyler. You will try far more energetically to find proof that the car seen leaving Es Teneres was Drew’s car, driven by him. You will re-examine all the evidence, determine if, as is most likely, you have ignored something that is of great importance. I expect to hear from you regarding all these matters in the near future.’ He did not bother to say goodbye.

  Work, work, work. Endless toil drained a man’s being. Alvarez lifted the receiver and dialled.

  ‘Inspector Alvarez here . . .’

  ‘It’s never anyone else these days.’

  ‘Superior Chief Salas wants to know whether you have been able to check the cartridge cases I sent you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you come to any conclusion?’

  ‘They are from an automatic of the same calibre as the bullets which killed Tyler.’

  ‘The gun which fired them was the same one used to kill him?’

  ‘Anything more than I have said is pure conjecture.’

  ‘But reasonable conjecture?’

  ‘You decide what’s reasonable.’

  Alvarez leaned back in his chair, lifted his feet up on to the desk. Nothing had been learned to prove – as opposed to suggest – it had been Drew’s car which had driven furiously away from Es Teneres immediately after Tyler’s murder. Drew had expressed his disbelief that an admission of guilt from Tyler would have brought any relief to him. Murder held the harsh, bitter satisfaction of knowing his daughter had been revenged. And as Salas had remarked, if there was no guilt, there was no need to set up a false alibi.

  Why, he asked himself, was he so reluctant to accept Drew’s guilt when known facts pointed to it? Who else would have been driving his car?

  He suddenly remembered being told that Tyler would never go household shopping, would not be seen carrying a plastic shopping bag. That scrumpled up receipt found under Tyler’s desk. He had the vague notion that after it had been photographed several times beneath the desk, he had picked it up in order to put it in a small exhibition bag, only to find he had no such bags with him . . . He checked the pockets of his trousers and was not all that surprised to find the receipt. He smoothed it out. Dated the 13th of August. He skimmed down the purchases, stopped when he came to two items. Would a man have bought products peculiar to a woman’s needs? Wouldn’t he be embarrassed to do so, wouldn’t she prefer to make the purchases herself? Why would a husband have possession of the receipt for purchases made by his wife? . . .

  Yet Higuero had again and again identified the driver of the car as a man.

  EIGHTEEN

  The swimming pool at Aparthotel Vora La Mer appeared to be holding an even greater number of shouting children and fatigued parents than before. Alvarez walked around it, as far away as possible, yet still was splashed. Childhood today, he thought sadly and a touch bitterly, was so very different from what he had known. By eight, he had worked in the fields to help his father planting, hoeing, irrigating, cropping. School was for those who could afford the fees. He had been lucky. A close pal had attended the local school run by nuns and he had returned each day and repeated the lessons to him. It had surprised his parents to discover he could read. By ten, he had been responsible for much of the care of their few animals as well as being required to work harder and longer on the land. By fifteen, he had travelled no further afield than Inca. The foreigners, mostly English, who had visited the part of the island where he had then lived, had been regarded with unease; when, occasionally, they had handed him a few coins, with awed unease. Once, an elderly Englishwoman, noting the state of the clothes he had been wearing, had given him a ten-peseta note and his father had taken this from him, explaining they needed the food it would buy. It had needed time to overcome his resentment at the loss of an endless supply of sweets.

  He banged into a man in bathing trunks, apologized, realized he had been so deep in reverie, he had gone almost around the pool and the attendant was regarding him with watchful curiosity. He walked down to the Drews’ apartment, knocked. There was a call to enter.

  Husband and wife were seated at the small table in the main room; on the table were glasses, an opened bottle of cava with water-beaded surface, and a bowl of crisps.

  ‘I apologize for troubling you yet again,’ he said.

  ‘It’s no bother.’

  Their lack of surprise said he had been expected. Howes had phoned them to explain what had happened.

  ‘Do sit down. And will you have some cava?’

  ‘Thank you, no.’

  ‘Whisky, brandy?’

  ‘May I have a coñac, please, with just ice?’

  Drew went into the compact kitchen. Sandra initiated a conversation about the beauty of the mountains which they had explored by car and asked why did he think so few visitors enjoy visiting them?

  Drew returned with a well filled glass, handed this to Alvarez, sat. ‘What is the problem this time?’ He tried to speak lightly, failed.

  ‘Has Señor Howes spoken to you recently?’

  Drew hesitated, finally said: ‘Not for a couple of days.’

  ‘Then you do not know I had reason to ask him again about the alibi he and the señora had provided you. I persuaded him finally to speak the truth. You are not old friends. The first time you will have seen each other was at the inquest in England when, no doubt, you only had the briefest acquaintance. So when you met here on the island, it was very much as strangers.’

  Sandra muttered something, her expression was despairing.

  ‘And you were not at their house at any time that Thursday.’

  Drew said nothing. The shouts and laughter from the pool became an ironic background noise.

  ‘Señor, on that Thursday afternoon, you were driving the car which left Es Teneres at excessive speed and caused the gardener, Higuero, to fall off his Mobylette.’

  ‘I was not.’

  ‘Did you know Tyler had a small automatic?’

  ‘How could I?’

  ‘Did you mean to scare him and he thought to defend himself? If so—’

  ‘He killed our daughter.’

  ‘However much one may think he deserved to die, modern law does not allow a life for a life.’

  ‘He was so rich he bought himself out of trouble.’

  ‘You must know that money cannot cover guilt in England, just as it cannot in Spain. He was not charged with the death of your daughter and the son of Señora Howes because the evidence needed to convict him might be on the car and that was missing. When it was finally found,
it had been repaired, making identification of it as the fatal car impossible until further tests were carried out. Unfortunately, he was murdered before these could be done.’

  Drew, his voice strained, said: ‘He was so scared, I thought he was going to kill me.’

  ‘No!’ she cried out.

  Drew picked up his glass and drained it.

  ‘No, please no,’ she said, now speaking in a low, pleading voice.

  He reached his free hand across and briefly took hold of one of hers. ‘As the inspector has suggested, I have been a blind fool to go on denying the truth. When we learned Tyler’s name, we went to his house to ask him to confess. The maid told us he wouldn’t speak to us and to clear off. We had to leave. Later, I determined to face him, make him understand what a worthless bastard he was. I drove to his house. The front door wasn’t locked so I walked straight in. There were sounds from a room and I went into the library. Tyler was sitting behind the desk. I went round that and started telling him why I was there. He became scared, opened one of the drawers, pulled out a small gun, aimed it at me and ordered me out of the house. He was in such a blue funk, I was afraid he’d fire by mistake, so I lunged forward and grabbed his wrist, twisted it. The gun went off twice. He collapsed, fell over with the chair. I panicked, lacked the courage to call for medical help, fled.’

  Sandra was crying silently, her head fallen forward. Tears dropped on to the table.

  ‘So now I suppose you arrest me?’

  ‘Further enquiries will have to be made, to confirm it was an accidental death despite your admission you went to the house in an aggressive mood. In the meantime, you will give me your passport and you will agree not to leave Port Llueso.’

  Drew stood, left the room.

  She raised her head. ‘You don’t know what it was like. You can’t understand. You don’t care . . .’

  ‘Señora, I can try to imagine what it was like for you and the señor, but bitter sorrow can only be known for its brutality by those who experience it.’ As he once had. ‘I am very sorry for both of you, but I have to obey the law and the law does not allow sympathy.’

  Drew returned and handed over his passport. Alvarez stood, wished he could say something helpful and couldn’t, left the apartment. There were fewer people in the pool now that many were having lunch, but the shouting and splashing continued. In front of him happiness; behind him, fear. Life.