Unseemly End (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 6)

by Roderic Jeffries

  He shook his head. ‘He’s rich and he knows all the right people: that sort of person never gets into trouble.’

  ‘That’s being cynical.’

  ‘Realistic.’

  ‘Then if it really is like that, appeal to his tender feelings.’

  ‘There’s no point in appealing to something which doesn’t exist.’

  A man, dressed only in shorts and sandals, his back and chest lobster red, hurried along the road. He stopped by the car and looked, with a very worried expression, at the closed main doors of the garage.

  ‘Mr Simonds?’ asked Trent.

  A look of relief came over the man’s face. ‘Blimey, you speak English! I was getting worried you’d be closed. Sorry I’m a bit after the time said, but we were on the beach and the kids made some friends and time just slipped by …’

  Trent cut short what could have been a long story. ‘Will you come in and sign the papers and then everything’s OK. The tank’s filled with petrol and I’ll be charging for that. We’ll give you credit for however much petrol’s in the tank when you get back here.’

  ‘I see … I say, it is right, isn’t it, that picking the car up this late means I’m not charged anything for today?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just wanted to make certain. I mean, with prices what they are and a family, one has to budget very carefully, you know.’

  Trent said to Carol: ‘Sorry I can’t make it. Be seeing you around.’ He led the way through the small doorway, to the side of the main garage doors, and into the office.

  Five minutes later, the two men returned. Trent locked the small door, then showed the other the controls of the Seat 133. The man drove off, very carefully keeping to the right.

  Carol, who had been looking in the windows of a newsagent and stationer further up the road, walked back along the pavement. ‘Don’t forget to add half an hour’s overtime to your wages this week.’

  ‘And give the boss all the pleasure of refusing to pay it?’

  ‘You obviously need a drink to cheer you up.’

  ‘I’ve one can of beer left and I’m going back now to my room to drink it.’

  ‘How awful if you’d happened to have had two! … George, will you tell me something?’

  He took a packet of Celtas cigarettes from his pocket and offered it: she shook her head.

  ‘You took me out to a meal last week and paid for both of us: so why won’t you let me take you out this week? Isn’t that what women’s lib is all about?’

  ‘I thought it was bra burning.’

  ‘Of course … Come on, what’s wrong with fair shares?’

  ‘I’m not letting any woman pay for me.’

  ‘Why not? And why get so vehement about it?’

  He looked at his watch.

  ‘All right, when it comes to stubbornness, compared to you a mule is just a beginner … What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, right?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘Just that I’m as entitled to principles as you are. I’m not going to have you paying for me. I agree, that’s thoroughly immoral. So I owe you four hundred and seventy-five pesetas.’

  ‘You what?’

  She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She brought a small purse from the right-hand pocket of the jeans, opened it, and produced a five-hundred-peseta note. ‘I want twenty-five pesetas change, please.’

  ‘What the hell are you on about?’

  ‘You paid for both of us at the restaurant last week and the bill was nine hundred and fifty pesetas, with the tip: I know because I peeked. So I’m paying you the half I owe you. And now that you’re in funds, let’s go out and have a meal, Dutch women’s lib style.’

  ‘You’re not …’

  ‘If you argue any further, I’ll hit you with a torque converter.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know one if you saw it.’

  ‘That’s immaterial. Anything heavy enough to hammer the message through your thick skull will do.’

  He finally grinned.

  ‘Thank goodness for that! I was beginning to think you were doing a Henry I.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to signify?’

  ‘He never smiled again … Come on, let’s get moving. If I don’t soon have something to eat, I’ll collapse.’

  They walked along the road, away from the direction of the bay. She wondered what had caused him to be so sharp and bitter when she had suggested paying for the meal?

  *

  For a long time, Rockford had expected to reach the top of his profession and retire an admiral. A naturally modest man, he was yet able to evaluate his own capabilities and to recognize that he possessed not only the ability to command but also that extra something, that resolution ruthlessly to identify and accept the truth through a fog of wishful thinking, which fitted a man to command from high places. But eventually he had had to accept that he would not rise to flag rank.

  After the war the Navy had become in many ways more democratic, but one thing had not changed since pre-war days because it could not be legislated against — the way in which an officer’s career could be affected by the behaviour of his wife. Cynthia had never been able to forget that she was the daughter of Admiral Sir Hugh and Lady Hobson. In her eyes this entitled her to say exactly what she thought to whomsoever she wished: also, it placed her in an unassailably high social position. This combination of rudeness and snobbery irritated far more wives of senior officers than it amused and their irritation was made apparent to their husbands. Eventually, a vice admiral, who liked and admired Rockford, took him on one side and said very tactfully that if Cynthia continued to antagonize so many people his chances of higher promotion must suffer.

  He had tried to speak to Cynthia to explain the need to be tactful but this had proved to be impossible. She had demanded to know if he really were asking her to gain his promotion by crawling to a lot of women who, by their every action, showed the lack of any background. If he had no pride, she had. If he thought she was going to …

  On the cornerstone of his life there was written in large letters, DUTY. No man could do more than his duty, no man should do less. So it never occurred to him that he had any choice in the matter: if either his marriage or his chances of promotion had to suffer, then it had to be the latter.

  He had retired a captain. He had been sad that he had failed to attain flag rank, Cynthia had been bitter. They had found it difficult to settle down in retirement in England. The weather was bad, the permissive society upset them for very different reasons (a man could not learn to do his duty when all was permitted: sex was a dirty subject), and they made few friends because each of them, again for different reasons, found it difficult to be in sympathy with people whose standards were becoming more and more materialistic. She had decided that the only thing to do was to live abroad. After reading a book, which painted the island in words of gold, she had decided that they would live in Mallorca.

  Before the final decision had been implemented he had pointed out certain facts. They were living in rented property and had no house to sell to raise the capital to buy one in Mallorca. During his career he’d managed to save only a little capital and he would, therefore, have to commute part of his pension and that might prove tricky. She had merely remarked, acidly, that since Spain was so much cheaper than England they would at least be able to enjoy the illusion of the kind of graceful living to which she had been accustomed before her marriage.

  Prices of houses in Mallorca had proved to be higher than he had expected from reading advertisements in the Sunday papers — largely because she had insisted that they live in the most expensive part of Llueso, itself the most expensive area on the island, and had refused to be in any of the urbanizacions (‘I have never lived in a housing estate before and am not going to start doing so now.’). They found a small bungalow in the Huerta of Llueso which was only just outside their price range. In the summer, when they bought it, it looked
reasonably attractive: or at least as reasonably attractive as any other locally designed bungalow. But in the first winter they discovered that the flat roofs leaked, rising damp galloped up the walls, the electrical wiring was a cat’s-cradle of dangerous improvisation, and the plumbing was a bad, i.e. smelly, joke. What they had not been told was that the bungalow had been built by a waiter in his spare time. Rockford accepted all the problems with wry amusement: Cynthia met them with shrill complaint and rapidly came to hate the island, the islanders, and most of their fellow expatriates.

  Inflation reached the island. A bottle of brandy — the index by which the British measured the degree of inflation — rose nearly fourfold in price. Maids asked six times as much per hour. All but the cheapest cuts of meat became a luxury … Because he had commuted part of his pension, the remaining part increased proportionally and not by the total amount by which pensions were raised. Their standard of living dropped, at first slowly, then more rapidly. He dutifully accepted what the fates had ordained: she railed against the fates and against him, castigating him for having dragged her out to the Godforsaken island when it had been obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense that inflation was going to make life impossible …

  People who knew them were astonished that he invariably treated her with good humour, kindness, and respect, no matter how bitchy she was to him or how embarrassed he became by her behaviour towards others. What they failed to realize was that as her husband it was his duty to treat her with good humour, kindness, and respect.

  He went into the post office in Llueso and joined the queue who patiently waited — it was no good being impatient — to collect their letters. He was wearing a casual cotton shirt outside linen trousers, yet despite such anonymous informality he was unmistakably a man of the sea. Perhaps it was the way his light blue eyes would suddenly focus on distant horizons, or because the skin about them was so wrinkled from squinting against the glare of the sun on the sea, or maybe it was merely his bluff, hearty, friendly appearance.

  Eventually, he reached the single counter. ‘Morning,’ he said in Spanish. ‘Any mail for me?’ Spaniards often thought he was speaking Portuguese, but at the post office they had learned to understand him.

  The letters were stored in racks of pigeonholes. All those in ‘R’ were taken out and carefully sorted through: a couple were extracted and handed to him. A quick check showed that one of these was for a man called Thompson. He handed it back. The postal clerk was totally unsurprised by his own error.

  Rockford went out into the street and stood in the shade. The letter was from his brother and he’d been expecting it for almost a month now. He used his forefinger to rip open the envelope, brought out the letter, and read it. ‘Bugger!’ he said. He put the letter back in the envelope and the envelope in his trouser pocket. Then he walked along the road and into the square.

  The land on which the square stood sloped to the south, but part of it had been raised to provide a level surface and on this a number of tables and chairs were set out in front of a bar. He walked towards one of the unoccupied tables. A couple nearby called to him to join them, but he shook his head and sat. He wanted to think.

  After a while, a waiter came to the table and in his execrable Spanish he asked for a brandy and soda. It cost him less than it would a tourist, but slightly more than if he had been a Mallorquin. He drank slowly, immersed in his thoughts, and remained at the table for some time after he’d finished. Then he stood and left, striding off at a rate which made little concession to the heat, past shuttered windows and bead-curtained doom.

  Nearing the end of the two kilometre walk, he passed the gateway of Ca Na Nadana. The diving-board of the kidney-shaped pool was just visible. He felt the sweat roll down his back and his chest. If envy were one of the seven deadly sins, then he was sinning heavily right then …

  When he stepped into the sitting-room of his own bungalow, Cynthia said: ‘The oven won’t heat up properly.’

  ‘I’d better see if a clean-up of the burners will do any good, then.’

  ‘And the water pump’s sounding funny.’

  ‘It’s probably only vibration, but I’ll check it.’

  ‘Did you get the beans?’

  ‘Er … no. Afraid I forgot. I’ll go back and get some.’

  ‘It’s too late.’ She had been standing by the French windows which looked out on to the tiny back garden, as dusty and as tired-looking as the front one. She turned. ‘You’ll have to go without.’

  ‘No bean feast today, eh?’

  She said coldly: ‘I’ve had a very trying morning, Phillip. Would it be too much to ask you not to be stupid just for a little?’

  ‘Sorry, old thing … Have a drink to cheer yourself up?’

  ‘I don’t want a drink.’

  ‘Well, I do: that walk’s dried me right out. Are you sure you won’t change your mind?’

  ‘I am not in the habit of changing my mind.’

  True enough, he thought. He opened the lid of the chest and brought out the brandy bottle. He went through to the kitchen.

  The hatch was up. ‘I saw Dolly this morning, leaving her place,’ she said, her voice sharper than ever.

  As he took a tray of ice from the refrigerator, he wondered how many times a week she stared enviously at Ca Na Nadana, clearly visible from the bungalow.

  ‘She’s bought another new car.’

  He realized that the malfunctioning oven and water pump were symptoms of her discontent.

  ‘She only had the last one for a year. It’s ridiculous getting another new one already.’

  He poured himself out a very generous brandy, added soda and three cubes of ice, raised his glass, and drank. ‘She does it to show off. Flaunting her money.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she’s really doing that, old girl.’

  ‘What would you know about women like her?’

  He jiggled the glass, to send the ice cubes swirling round it.

  ‘This car’s so big it won’t be able to get round some of the corners in the village.’

  He sighed, left the kitchen, returned to the sitting-room.

  ‘Her husband probably was a scrap metal merchant, but at least he left her enough money to be able to live decently.’

  He sat on the settee and stretched out his legs. ‘I’m sorry I’m not rich and dead,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘That is a ridiculous thing to say … Since you forgot the beans, you’re going to have to put up with a scrap lunch.’

  ‘That’s fine by me.’

  ‘In other words, you don’t appreciate what I do for you enough to care?’ She walked the length of the sitting-room to the very short passage and turned off that into the kitchen. She spoke to him through the opened hatchway. ‘I suppose you did manage to remember to go to the post?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was there any mail?’

  It would have been easy to say there had been none. But a man did not lie to his wife. ‘Just one letter, for me.’

  ‘Who was it from?’ She often treated her own mail as secret: she always demanded to know everything about his.

  ‘Garry.’

  ‘How is he?’ Her tone became slightly less scratchy. Garry Rockford lived in a large house, had a smart with-it wife, and drove a Jaguar.

  ‘He says they’re all very fit.’

  Something about the way he spoke made her look through the hatchway and she noticed his expression. ‘Has something happened?’

  He finished his drink. ‘Look, old girl, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

  She walked out of the kitchen and into the sitting-room, where she stood in the centre, directly facing him. ‘Well?’

  ‘Some time ago, he wrote to tell me his business wasn’t doing so well. The recession and inflation have knocked an awful lot of businesses …’

  ‘You never told me this.’

  She had been in England when he’d received the letter: he hadn’t mentioned it when she’d r
eturned. There was a vital difference between telling a lie and merely keeping silent. He fiddled with the glass which he still held. ‘He was certain the trouble was only temporary and that a spot of cash would tide him over. Wanted to know if I could possibly help him.’

  ‘Naturally you said you couldn’t?’

  He looked up at her, hoping she’d understand. ‘He promised to pay it back within six months.’

  ‘Pay what back?’

  ‘The money I lent him.’

  ‘You … you lent him money?’

  He nodded.

  ‘How could you?’

  ‘I sold some of the government stock.’ By the time he’d retired, he’d managed to save some money, despite all her extravagances. When she had decided they would move to Mallorca he had spoken to a friend who was an accountant and had explained that he needed to buy a house and yet have sufficient income to live reasonably comfortably, how was he to do this? His friend had suggested that he commute part of his pension, buy the house, and then invest all remaining capital in high yielding tax free (when living abroad) government stock. He had done this and after buying Ca’n Bispo his investments had, when added to his reduced pension, happily come to slightly more than thfe full pension. What no one had then foreseen had been that inflation would come roaring in on the backs of the oil sheikhs and that it would need very few years to prove how wrong in the long term his friend’s advice had been.

  ‘How much did you lend him?’ Her lips formed a straight line: a small pulse in her neck had become visible.

  ‘What he asked for — five thousand pounds.’

  ‘When are the six months up?’

  ‘They were up a month ago.’

  ‘Then he’s paid you back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Things at home are still terribly difficult. He’s sorry, but it’s going to take a little longer.’

  ‘He’s got to repay you now. D’you hear — now!’

  ‘Look, old girl, he just can’t.’

  ‘I don’t care what ridiculous excuses he’s made.’

  He sighed.

  ‘If he won’t, you must sue him.’

  He was startled. ‘I couldn’t do that.’