Peril in Palmanova
A Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery (#15)
David W Robinson
Copyright © 2017 by David W Robinson
Cover Photography by Adobe Stock © DiViArts
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All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Books except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Printed in the United Kingdom
First Black Line Edition, Crooked Cat Books. 2017
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The Author
David Robinson is a Yorkshireman now living in Manchester. Driven by a huge, cynical sense of humour, he’s been a writer for over thirty years having begun with magazine articles before moving on to novels and TV scripts.
He has little to do with his life other than write, as a consequence of which his output is prodigious. Thankfully most of it is never seen by the great reading public of the world.
He has worked closely with Crooked Cat Books since 2012, when The Filey Connection, the very first Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery, was published.
Describing himself as the Doyen of Domestic Disasters he can be found blogging at www.dwrob.com and he appears frequently on video (written, produced and starring himself) dispensing his mocking humour at www.youtube.com/user/Dwrob96/videos
By the same author
The STAC Mystery series:
The Filey Connection
The I-Spy Murders
A Halloween Homicide
A Murder for Christmas
Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend
My Deadly Valentine
The Chocolate Egg Murders
The Summer Wedding Murder
Costa del Murder
Christmas Crackers
Death in Distribution
A Killing in the Family
A Theatrical Murder
Trial by Fire
Peril in Palmanova
The SPOOKIES Mystery series
The Haunting of Melmerby Manor
The Man in Black
Peril in Palmanova
A Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery (#15)
Chapter One
To Joe Murray’s way of thinking, the Palmanova Corona was just about the oddest hotel he had ever stayed in.
Set amongst a clutch of hotels at the top of a rocky hill on the outskirts of Palmanova, an area known as Terrenova, the Corona was, to all intents and purposes, upside down. Passing through automatic, double glass doors from the street into the smart, angular lobby, the guests found themselves on floor five of seven. The two levels above consisted of suites, and the four floors below were apartments and studios. Add to that a convivial lounge bar, part of it in the open air beyond the lobby on floor 5, two swimming pools, an open sunbathing terrace and large showbar on the fourth, and it made for a convoluted and confusing arrangement.
But, as he frequently reminded himself, he had not come to Majorca with his friends from the Sanford 3rd Age Club to puzzle his way through an architectural anomaly. He was on holiday, taking a much-needed break from the virulent and debilitating stress of the last two months. And if nothing else, the easy way of life, persistent sunshine and the view from of Palmanova Bay from his balcony helped bring a sense of peace to a world full of pain.
From the open plateau of the sun terrace, with its two swimming pools, and its paved floor crowded with sun loungers upon which the seekers of the perfect tan passed the daylight hours, lay an uninterrupted view of Palmanova Bay, a vast, natural indentation on Majorca’s south coast. Following the coastline on the far side of the bay, Joe could see all the way round to Palma, twenty kilometres away, further to the airport, and on to the resort of El Arenal, which he guessed was about fifty kilometres distant.
The calm waters immediately below the hotel were busy with private yachts, at least one of which, a gleaming white sixty-footer flying the flag of Spain, must have cost anything up to eighty million. Possibly more.
At times, other, local boats made their way out or back into the bay carrying what Joe assumed were tourists, and indeed one of them, named Esmeralda, boasted along its sides that it was a glass-bottomed. Jet skis could be seen zipping between the moored boats, and now and again he caught sight of a speedboat skipping along and drawing a water skier in its wake.
Away to the west, to Joe’s left, a small beach was populated with more sun-worshippers, and behind it was the town, a higgledy-piggledy arrangement of buildings; shops, restaurants, interspersed with the high-rise blocks of modern hotels. Palmanova appealed to the wallets of the lower middle class/upper working class, modern British tourist, and Joe was proud of his status in the latter category.
He and the other members of the Sanford 3rd Age Club had arrived two days previously, and if he were brutally honest Joe would admit that getting off the plane at Palma Airport came as a great relief.
The death of Denise Latham had been a huge shock. The police would not have it, but as far as he was concerned, it was murder, not a road traffic accident. The car had been deliberately run off the road, and the other driver had not stopped. Worse, Denise was driving Joe’s car and it was safe to assume that he was the target, not her.
Her death brought to an end a peaceful and stable period in Joe’s life. He could not recall any time when he had been happier, more content, than in the two years he had lived with her, and with her passing he had sunk into a depression tinged with an extreme caution, forever looking over his shoulder for her killer coming back to take another shot at him.
Palmanova acted as a release valve for that pressure, but in the quieter moments such as now, while Sheila and Brenda slept on loungers alongside of him, his thoughts drifted back to Denise and her violent end. She was younger than Joe; barely fifty years of age. It was not her time. She should be here with him now, not lying in a cold grave in a churchyard in South Leeds.
They had never talked about love. They were partners, they enjoyed life together, and naturally they shared a bed, and so it still should be. She should be here, alongside him, soaking up the ultraviolet, drinking down the vodkas with the tiniest dash of tonic, jiggling on the dance floor like a ridiculous born-again teenager, to music that Joe could barely comprehend.
It was all so sad, and the best he could hope for was that Palmanova would take away some of the pain.
Brenda stirred, reaching an arm down between the loungers, groped around until she found her wristwatch. Lifting it up, pushing her sunglasses up onto her forehead, she screwed up her eyes against the strong sunlight, and checked the time.
“It’s almost noon,” Joe told her. “Another hour before you need feeding.”
She rolled onto her side facing him, and the top half of her bikini fell away. She chuckled. “Look the other way, Joe. I don’t want you getting all hot and bothered.”
Joe obliged and studied the sleek lines of the billionaire’s yacht in the bay. “The way I feel just lately, you’d be hard-pressed to raise my interest beyond tepid.”
Brenda adjusted her bikini, reaching behind to fasten it safely into place. “I’m peckish, and you know I like the occasional snack between meals. Besides, I’m thirsty.” She sat up, swinging her tanned legs into the gap between her lounger and Joe’s. Reaching for her purse she asked, “Soft drink or something a little stronger?”
“Booze? At this hour?”
Brenda laughed again. “A glass of beer in the middle of the day doesn’t make you an alky. Now, what do you want?”
“I’ll just have a cola.” Joe turned his head in the other direction, and raised his voice a little. “You want anything, Sheila, while Brenda is at the bar?”
Sheila’s response was tired and sluggish, not much more than a grunt. “Lemonade.”
With that, Brenda got to her feet and padded off towards the pool bar.
As she wandered away one of the entertainment staff came towards them. There were three or four of them, and they could be seen roaming about the place at different times of the day making an effort to energise the holidaymakers. They were all slender and athletically fit, young women, responsible for pool activities such as table tennis, darts and even archery during the day, while presenting some of the entertainment in the evenings.
They were easily recognised by their blue shorts and bright orange T-shirts with the word ANIMACIÓN written across the back of the shirt in large, dark blue letters. Joe’s Spanish was limited but to him it translated as ‘animation’. Regardless of the potential losses and gains in translation, he did not feel animated and had no desire to be.
The woman, Anna according to her nametag, was carrying a bow and an empty quiver. It was a daily ritual. She was seeking wannabe competitors for an archery contest, for which the winner would receive a gold medal (or gold-coloured plastic, medal) a certificate of excellence (handwritten in garish blue ink) and a bottle of Sangria (value €4.99) none of which, so it seemed to Joe, was worth the effort of getting to his feet let alone faffing about with an ancient weapon taking part in a sport he had never practised in his life.
In the two days since they arrived, Anna, or one of our colleagues, had approached him and other members of the 3rd Age Club trying to encourage their participation, but Joe had always declined with a wan smile and rueful shake of the head.
He did it again as Anna came towards him.
“Ah, Mister Joe, you disappoint me.” Anna had a smile in her voice matched by the one on her lips and the sparkle in her green eyes. Her English was excellent but it was delivered with a strong, local accent. “You don’t want to pull the strings on my bow?”
Joe chuckled. “Do you know what we mean by innuendo?” He did not wait for an answer for no other reason than he did not want to get into the debate. “I’m sorry, Anna, but I’m no Robin Hood.”
The smile never left her lips and a small frown of puzzlement furrowed her brow. “Robin who?”
“He was a famous English Archer back in the middle ages and he used to… Never mind. It’d take too long to explain. Thank you, but I have no wish to demonstrate my lack of skills with a bow and arrow. I just want to lie here and steal some of your sunshine.”
Anna giggled and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Enjoy your day.”
Joe watched her shapely behind wander off seeking fresh targets.
Sheila raised her head, tracked his line of sight and tutted. “She’s far too young for you, Joe.”
“I’m working on memory, trying to remember what it was like when I was her age.”
“Whatever it was like you were not using a bow and arrow to aim at the bullseye.”
Joe grunted. It could have signalled humour or disapproval. “More innuendo.”
He lay back on the lounger, pulled the peak of his baseball cap down so the shadow shielded his Ray Bans and eyes from the powerful sunlight. The brief exchange had taken away thoughts of Denise, but as Sheila had drifted off to sleep once again, and he allowed his mind to wander, the memories and pain returned.
His powers of observation and skill as a private detective had made him his fair share of enemies down the years. Any number of people had been sent to prison as a result of his doggedness. Many of them were murderers, and he did not know just how many were out on licence. It was reasonable to assume that there would be people out there seeking to wreak vengeance upon him.
Denise, too, was a private investigator, but she worked almost exclusively for insurance companies. Prior to that she had been a Detective Sergeant with the West Yorkshire police, and once again it was safe to say that there were people out there, on the street, bearing grudges against her.
Who, then, was the target of that hit and run?
There was no way of knowing, and even his niece, Detective Inspector Gemma Craddock, of Sanford CID refused to accept that it was anything more than a road traffic accident and the perpetrator had cleared off rather than face the consequences of his/her actions.
Joe was one of those people blessed with great self-knowledge. There was little anyone could tell him about himself that he did not already know but in this case he had to wonder if his suspicions were simply an attempt to rationalise Denise’s demise; a theory born of his investigative abilities to help him make sense of her death. At those times when his thinking was clearest, he would agree with Gemma. There was absolutely nothing to corroborate the notion that the car had been deliberately run off the road, and it was, indeed, the result of a moment’s dangerous inattention on the part of the other driver.
Accident or not, the driver should be brought to book. Analysis of paint scrapes deposited on Joe’s wrecked car told police that they were looking for a pale blue Fiat Punto, which was at least five years old. There was no CCTV anywhere in the vicinity of the collision, and there were thousands of such cars on the road. Without further evidence, without eye-witnesses, it was a futile task, and Gemma, acting as his main liaison, freely admitted that the driver was unlikely to be traced and prosecuted. It was a frustrating state of affairs, but it was as it was and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Sheila and Brenda, both long-standing widows, had been supportive. As well as working for him, they had been two of his closest friends since the schoolyard half a century ago, and they knew him better than his own mother and father had. Their experience of widowhood, after long and happy marriages, meant they understood Joe’s angst, and they sympathised, encouraged him to talk, urged him to get it all out of his system so that the grief could follow its natural course. Somewhere, in the not too distant future, life would return to normal. Denise would never be forgotten. She would be a permanent gap in that adjusted life, but the memories which brought him such pain right now would recur with greater fondness.
Brenda returned from the bar, snapping him out of his depressed reverie. She distributed drinks – lemonade for Sheila, cola for Joe and a light beer for herself – and perched on her lounger, sipping gratefully from her glass.
Sheila sat up and swallowed a mouthful of lemonade. Speaking across Joe, addressing Brenda, she said, “His lordship has been eyeing up the young women, again.”
A broad, lascivious grin spread across Brenda’s face. “I like ambition in a man, and let’s face it, if Joe fancies his chances with Anna, that is seriously ambitious.”
Joe savoured the bite of carbonated soft drink sliding down his throat, temporarily quenching his thirst. It gave him a few brief seconds to think up a riposte to Brenda’s jibe. “There’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle, and I’m still quite a catch, you know.”
And Brenda patted him on the knee. “Anna is only after your money, Joe.”
“Well, she’s wasting her time, isn’t she? I keep telling you, I’m a poor man, destined for a life of poverty on the pension.”
Sheila tittered. “That’s just your excuse; the one you roll out when we want a pay rise.”
“Pampered. That’s what you are, you two. If you’d work for my dad, you’d have known about slavery. Do you know, when I was thirteen years old, he was dragging me out of bed at half past four every morning to go to the wholesale markets with him and pick up the fresh fruit and veg for the café.”
“Here we go again, wandering down memory lane.” Brenda put down her glass and made to play an imaginary violin. “Now it’s me playing a good tune with an old fiddle.”
“With friends like you two, I don’t need enemies threatening to snuff me out.”
The come in was intended as a risible response to Brenda’s last gag, but it backfired and the general mood fell flat.
Sheila put it into words. “Please don’t start that again, Joe.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to. But it keeps coming back to me. I can’t get over thinking—”
Brenda cut him off. “The moment you have any evidence, then you can take it forward, but for now you have to force yourself to bury it. We’re here to help, Joe, but you have to help yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get the message.” He downed another mouthful of cola, and stood up. “I’ll take a walk around. See if I can shake myself out of this pit of misery.”
Determined not to give them the opportunity to respond, he sauntered off towards the safety rail at the edge of the sun terrace.
Weaving his way through the crowded area he passed Les Tanner and his lady friend, Sylvia Goodson, sheltering in the shade of an open sun umbrella. Sylvia was asleep while Les was sat upright reading an old Alistair MacLean novel. As Joe passed, Les gave him a curt nod of acknowledgement, which Joe barely returned. Although there was no real animosity between them, the two men had never been the best of friends. Les believed Joe to be administratively inefficient, especially in regard to the running of the 3rd Age Club, and by turn Joe considered Les to be a nit-picking pedant who, having once held the rank of captain in the Territorial Army, lived in the past, enraptured by tales of wars he had never fought.
Moving further on, he passed Alec and Julia Staines, enjoying the sun on their near-naked bodies, and from Joe’s point of view, for all their advancing years, they still looked good. Alec was still a slim, trim and muscular man, and Julia had a shapely figure which she was not afraid to show off under the tiniest of bikinis.
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