‘Are you Señor Trent?’
‘What if I am?’
‘My name is Inspector Alvarez, from the Cuerpo General de Policia.’
Trent tried to appear unworried, but his very unconcern betrayed him.
‘Perhaps we might have a talk together?’
‘Can’t it wait? It’s late.’
‘I shall not detain you for long.’
‘What are you on about?’
‘Shall we leave here and find a café and have a coffee together? It will be more pleasant.’
‘I want to come,’ Carol said abruptly.
Alvarez turned. ‘Señorita, nothing would give me greater pleasure.’
Trent said he’d wash and change and he disappeared for a short time. When he returned, he was dressed in loose shirt and jeans. He locked up the garage.
Alvarez led the way to a café on the Llueso/Puerto Llueso road and they sat down at one of the outside tables, set on the pavement. ‘The view is not nice, as it is from one of the front cafés,’ said Alvarez, ‘but the prices are not nearly as high. I console myself with that fact.’ A waiter came up and he asked them if they’d like a drink as well as coffee: they refused. Alvarez ordered three coffees.
‘All right,’ said Trent roughly, as the waiter went inside. ‘What’s the trouble? Someone denounced me, I suppose?’
‘Why should anyone do that?’ replied Alvarez blandly. Trent cursed himself for a fool.
‘Señor, you will have heard that an Englishwoman, Señora Lund, died last Saturday night, or should I say early Sunday morning?’
‘Someone mentioned something about it.’
‘Have you also heard that she was murdered?’
‘My God, no!’
‘I just didn’t believe it …’ It was clear Carol had heard the rumour: equally clear that she had not passed it on. ‘You knew the señora, did you not?’
Trent stared at the passing traffic. ‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ve just said, haven’t I?’
Carol murmured something in an undertone. The waiter returned with three cups of coffee, three packets of sugar, and a jug of milk. Alvarez offered a pack of cigarettes: Carol accepted a cigarette, Trent refused with a sullen shake of the head. Alvarez struck a match for Carol and himself, blew it out and dropped it in an ash tray, stirred the contents of a pack of sugar into his coffee. ‘Señor, I think that what you have just said is not completely correct. You knew the señora a little?’
‘No.’
‘Then why should she have mentioned you in her will?’
‘She’s done what? … Not in terms you can repeat, that’s for sure.’ He suddenly took Carol’s cigarette from her and began to smoke it. After a moment, he added: ‘All right, I did know the old bitch a bit.’ He dropped the cigarette on to the pavement and ground it out under his heel, oblivious of the fact that it had been Carol’s.
‘In her will she has left you a cigarette case. It is made from pewter.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you know why she has left you this?’
‘How in the hell would I?’
‘There is not some special sentimental story attached to it?’
‘Sentiment was an unknown word where she was concerned.’
‘I have understood this. So now I am curious to find out what is so special about the cigarette case.’
‘I don’t know. And as far as I am concerned you can take it and shove it where the monkey shoves its nuts.’
‘George, please don’t get so uptight,’ pleaded Carol, trying to stop him antagonizing a detective.
‘Señor, I have arranged to be given the cigarette case which was clearly described in the will. If I show it to you now, will you say if you have ever seen it before?’ Alvarez brought the case from his trouser pocket and laid it on the table.
Trent stared at it. ‘Never clapped eyes on it before. But I can tell you one thing, wherever that came from, she didn’t have it for long. She only went in for gold or platinum.’
Alvarez, believing Trent, tried to make sense of the facts. ‘Señor, will you tell me when you first met Señora Lund?’
‘Soon after I arrived in the Port.’ His voice had sharpened.
‘How was it that you met her?’
‘That’s my affair.’
‘George …’ began Carol.
‘Look, I’ve never seen that cigarette case before so what she was doing leaving it to me in her will I don’t know and I don’t bloody care. There’s the end of it.’
‘I think not quite, señor. There is something it is necessary for me to understand. Please tell me, where and how did you meet her?’
‘Didn’t you get the message? It’s my business and it’s staying that way.’
Alvarez continued to speak quietly and politely, but now there was authority in his voice. ‘When I spoke to you in the garage, you seemed worried: when we first came here, you assumed that someone had denounced you. Why?’
‘Because in this country half the population spends its time denouncing the other half.’
‘But why should you feel you are in a position to be denounced? Is it, perhaps, that you do not have a work permit, even though you work in a garage?’
Trent’s expression became sullen.
‘Señor, I think that perhaps it would be best if you tell me the truth.’
‘Christ! You people don’t believe in giving anyone a sporting chance, do you? Like the bulls.’ He hesitated, then spoke to Carol. ‘Suppose you take a bit of a walk …’
‘Suppose I don’t,’ she replied tightly.
‘Don’t you understand?’
‘I understand that if we’re to go on respecting each other, I’ve got to know. Whatever it is.’
He swallowed heavily, looked back at the traffic. Then slowly, in a dull voice, he told them. He’d arrived in the Port, with so little money that eating was a luxury, to be almost dazed by the beauty of the place, so dramatically different from the slums he’d left only a fortnight before, when the firm he’d worked for ever since leaving school had made him redundant. For a man who’d reckoned he knew what the world was all about, he’d been strangely naive. He’d thought that because he was a skilled mechanic, he’d get work easily. He learned quickly. There were work permits and foreigners who didn’t have one either didn’t work or else agreed to work at well below the minimum wage. He could, of course, have returned to the UK and lived on the dole, but he was a fighter: and in any case he had learned the disturbing truth, unknown to all his friends back home, that there were places where life did not consist of squalor, booze-ups, and constant confrontations between them and us.
Dolly had telephoned the car hire firm for which he’d worked that first summer — it wasn’t the one where he now was — and he’d been told to drive a Seat 132 up to her place: she had only had one car then and it had broken down. The maid had told him to give her the keys and she’d hand them on to the señora, but he’d replied that he had to see the señora because she had to sign the insurance form. He’d been shown into the sitting-room. And there he’d waited, getting angrier and angrier as the minutes passed because the rich were so contemptuous of other people’s feelings. Finally, Dolly had come into the room. Dressed as if off to a fashion show, she’d looked at him with surprise before smiling and asking what he’d like to drink while she signed whatever it was he wanted her to sign.
‘I always thought I was wide awake, but when it came to her I was still wet behind the ears.’ He spoke as if still astonished by what had happened. ‘D’you know what I thought about her right then? No fooling. Here’s one rich old bag who’s different: actually doesn’t reckon the money puts her up above the angels.’ He picked up the cup and finished the coffee.
‘You saw her again?’ prompted Alvarez.
‘Oh, yeah, I for sure saw her again. She phoned the firm two days later and told ’em they could have the car back because hers had been repaired. So another bloke a
nd me drove up to the village to collect the one-three-two. When we got to her place, she said her car didn’t seem quite right after all and she’d hang on to the hire one for a few more days. That meant I had to return here for another insurance form and then drive back on my own for her signature. She gave me a drink by the pool and said I looked peaky and I ought to eat better than I obviously was. I wasn’t arguing about that. She said why didn’t I have supper with ber that evening …’ He looked at Carol, an expression of defiant pleading on his face: she was staring at the passing traffic.
‘That evening she gave me a meal that had my guts getting in a frenzy just at the sight and smell of the grub: a couple of steaks the size of battleships, chips, onions, a plateful of cheese, ice-cream pudding hidden under whipped cream … I tell you, I should have made the Guinness Book of Records with what I ate that night.
‘You’re not going to believe this, but the penny hadn’t dropped, not even then.’ He balled his fists. He looked at Carol, but she was still staring out at the road. ‘She said to go and see her again. I said sure, thanks, meaning I’d better things to do than spend the time with a middle-aged woman. But by the next evening I was so goddamn hungry that all I could think of was the meal I’d had the night before: trouble was, that had jerked me out of the habit of being hungry. I didn’t go that night, but I did the next. She was all sugary and solicitous: been expecting me the previous night and had had the servants cook a chicken with roast potatoes — why hadn’t I gone?
‘She talked about my work. Why was I wasting my time as an ordinary mechanic? Why didn’t I start up a business and run it efficiently so that I’d get all the work because the local firms were so inefficient and the staff off-hand? … Money, I said. She laughed. Money? How much did I need?
‘I knew there was an opening because with the two firms there were then you were lucky if you got a car with four wheels. I spent several evenings working out the figures: I talked to a bloke I’d palled up with and he agreed to come in with me: I looked around and found a place that would do a treat: I had a chat with a Seat distributor and got him to agree to knock off an extra five per cent over the normal trade terms … It needed fifty thousand quid to get the business running. In two years it would be making a profit of seven thousand, even if the number of tourists didn’t grow … I can tell you, I was bloody nervous about explaining to her I needed all of fifty thousand quid: for me, that sort of money was five fortunes. But she didn’t bat an eyelid. Just said I needn’t pay her back until everything was working really well … I’ve always wanted my own business. You’re out there fighting for you, not for some load of fat-arsed directors or the government. It was like being told I’d won the pools … I’d forgotten something. I hadn’t coughed up the stake money.’
Carol finally turned and looked at him. ‘Stake money?’
His voice became contemptuous. ‘When she first said to move into her place, I thought she was just being that much kinder. Offering me a home until I got the business moving and could rent or buy a decent flat … Then the truth finally sunk through my thick skull. If I was to get that business, she was to get herself a gigolo. I’m telling you, I was a bit shocked! But If I hadn’t been so bloody dumb, I’d have seen it from the beginning.’
‘Or if you had not been pursuing a dream,’ said Alvarez.
‘Why d’you say that?’ he asked, surprised.
‘Señor, when one wants something very much one often fails to see what lies on either side.’
‘George,’ said Carol, ‘why have you been so ashamed of what happened? At first you’d no idea of what she really wanted, but as soon as you did you refused to have anything more to do with her.’
‘No,’ he said harshly.
She was suddenly afraid.
‘I’ll tell you what I did. I looked at the swimming pool, the house, and the garden: I thought about the booze and the grub … I remembered my digs, scruffy and dismal even in midsummer … And I thought about the fifty thousand quid and how if I worked all hours God made I’d surely turn the business into a really profitable one … And I wondered how I could be such a bloody fool as to think of refusing to move in with her.’
‘But you did refuse,’ said Alvarez, making it a statement of fact.
‘In the end. But what makes me so bloody ashamed is that it took so long to decide.’
Carol reached across to put her hand on his.
Alvarez said: ‘It is easy to be pompous in such matters, but when a man is offered strong temptations it does take much courage to resist them. That it needs time to become courageous is to be expected.’ He signalled to a passing waiter. ‘You refused a drink before but I think that perhaps now you will have one?’
Trent nodded. He was a very proud man and his confession had hurt: but to his astonishment he was discovering that with the hurt came a measure of absolution.
The waiter took their orders and went inside.
‘Señor, there is one more thing I need to know. Why did the señora in her will leave you the pewter cigarette case?’
‘I’ve told you all I can. I’ve never seen it before.’
‘I was hoping that you really knew, but had not wished to speak before … If it had been made of gold, one could say it was an expression of her admiration for your courage.’
‘And one would be hopelessly wrong.’
‘In what way?’
‘There’s a saying about not being unkind to the dead, but where she’s concerned that’s asking too much. She’d never forgive anyone who balked her: if you didn’t do as she wanted, she hated your guts, now and for evermore.’ The waiter returned and put three glasses down on the table. They drank.
‘Perhaps,’ said Alvarez slowly, ‘it was after all a small token of her feelings, but not as I have previously presented it: perhaps it was an expression of hatred, not admiration. Yet why bother to express such hatred in so hidden and roundabout a way?’ Then, abruptly, he remembered the scratches on the locks of the desk in the study, almost certainly made by Erington when reading through her private papers and stealing money. If she had been as smart and as hard as Trent presented her, might she not have discovered that her money was being stolen and that her papers were being read? Might she not have set out to threaten Erington, without his realizing he was being threatened? Knowing he would read it, a will drawn up by the local solicitor instead of her Palma one — because she needed it in a hurry — under the terms of which the whole of her fortune was to be his if he were faithful to her. But the equivalent of a battered pewter cigarette case if he were stupid enough to betray her … ‘Señor, can you tell me something? Is Señor Erington friendly with a young lady who lives on this island?’ Carol and Trent looked at each other, their expressions similar. Alvarez, therefore, was not surprised when Trent said, in a harsh voice: ‘He’s been out with Carol.’
‘Recently?’
‘Yes,’ said Carol.
‘And did the señora know this?’
Trent shrugged his shoulders. ‘God knows. But in this place nothing’s private.’
‘I think we may assume the señora had heard rumours … Señorita, have you been out with him very often?’
‘Only once, really. George didn’t like my seeing him, but I was … Well, in some ways I was sorry for him. And anyway, when he wasn’t with Dolly he was good company.’ She said to Trent: ‘You don’t have to tell me what you’re thinking.’
Alvarez finished his drink. ‘Thank you very much for your help.’ He stood. ‘And please do not worry about certain other matters we briefly discussed: I am old enough to have a very poor memory at times.’
CHAPTER 17
Victoriana opened the front door of Ca Na Nadana and as Alvarez entered, she said: ‘He’s in the pool, having a swim.’ The tenor of her voice told him that she had begun to wonder what it would be like to be the señora of this luxury villa.
He walked through the sitting-room and round the house patio to the pool patio. Erington waved
before swimming three lengths of the pool, cutting through the water with a stylish, powerful crawl. Then, disdaining to return to the steps at the shallow end, he reached up to the coping stone and hauled himself out with lithe grace. Done to impress? Alvarez wasn’t certain. He only knew for sure that if he’d tried to swim one length of the pool at speed and then haul himself out like that, he’d have suffered a coronary thrombosis.
‘’Morning,’ said Erington. ‘Fantastic weather, isn’t it? Already thirty-one in the shade so it’ll be close on thirty-five by the early afternoon.’
Money made a man stand taller, thought Alvarez. ‘Señor, whatever it is now, it is already too hot for work.’
‘Then you’re not here in your official capacity?’
‘I am, but I am also too hot.’
‘A couple of iced drinks will take care of that. I’ll get Victoriana …’
‘Perhaps we might first talk?’
‘Business before pleasure? OK, if that’s the way it’s got to be. Let’s move to the shade.’
They walked to the covered patio. Chairs were set out round the glass-topped table and they sat, Erington placing a folded towel on his chair beforehand.
‘Señor, will you please tell me when you travelled to England and when you came back?’
‘Left on Thursday and returned on Monday.’
‘Did you return to this island between those days?’
‘Did I what? … Good God, of course I didn’t!’
‘Have you someone who can verify that?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Is there someone in England who will be able to say exactly where you were Saturday night and early Sunday morning?’
Erington picked up the gold case which lay on top of the table, opened it, offered Alvarez a cigarette, then helped himself to one. He flicked open the gold lighter. ‘I’d have to be dumb not to see the real significance of that question.’ He held the lighter out for Alvarez. ‘You can really think it’s possible I might have killed Dolly?’
Unseemly End (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 6) Page 13
