‘And he likes the ladies?’
‘Maybe he does, but when the señorita’s around, he keeps those kind of likes to himself.’
‘She watches him closely?’
‘If he so much as looks twice at another woman at a party here, she’s telling him to look elsewhere. Which is really funny, considering –’ She stopped abruptly.
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing.’ She crossed to the refrigerator. ‘D’you want milk or cream?’
‘Milk, thanks. What’s he like with you three?’
She didn’t answer as she put a small jug of milk in front of him.
‘Good at giving orders, I’d think?’
She spoke with sudden venom. ‘He lives off her, yet with us he acts like a great hidalgo.’
‘I’m not surprised. Still, I’m sure you don’t take much notice of him?’
‘That depends if she’s around.’
‘He complains about you to her?’
‘The other day, the señorita said the windows in the sitting-room needed cleaning and I was to do ’em right away. Then he turns up and can’t find a book, says one of us must have moved it and I’m to find it. I said, couldn’t he look as I was so busy? I mean, it wasn’t asking much. He told the señorita I was rude to him. She went for me all ends up. I couldn’t understand much of what she was saying, but it must have been nasty or he wouldn’t have been smirking so hard. I can tell you, if she wasn’t all right to work for and didn’t pay better than most, and if I wasn’t saving so me and my novio can get married, I wouldn’t put up with working in the same place as him.’
The coffee machine hissed and she switched it off. She filled two mugs, pulled up another chair and sat.
‘Aren’t you going to have a drink?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Don’t really like it. But you have some more if you want. The señorita lets us have what drink we want, though not the same quality as hers, of course.’
‘She seems a more pleasant character than he is.’
‘Maybe she’s a stupid old woman to pander to him like she does, but if he’s not involved, she never treats us as if we were dirt. Maybe it’s silly, but I sometimes wonder if she’s sympathetic because she knows what life’s like working for someone who’s rich when you have to watch every peseta.’
‘That’s certainly possible.’
‘Kind of makes me feel sorry for her.’
‘Because of the way he repays her?’
She sipped the coffee, then added more sugar.
‘I suppose that when she’s not watching him closely enough, he’s ploughing other fields?’
She looked uneasily at him, surprised he had understood what she hadn’t said.
‘Have you actually seen him with other women?’
‘It doesn’t seem right to talk like this when I take her money.’
He silently applauded her sense of loyalty, while working out how to circumvent it. He spoke obliquely about how justice sometimes called on a person to reveal what normally it would be morally right for her to conceal …
Initially, she spoke with great reluctance, but then, having taken the first few steps, she gained confidence and even enjoyed the chance to gossip. It had been Carlos who had reckoned that the pimp – as they’d nicknamed Ruffolo – was doing his duty at Ca Na Ada, but finding his pleasures elsewhere. Look how he often pressed the señorita to drink even more heavily than normal at lunchtime with the inevitable result that her siesta became very prolonged; how, when this happened, he drove away from the house as soon as it was obvious that she was well and truly asleep; how, on his return, he would be unusually pleasant to the staff. She and Marta had jeered at Carlos and said he was imagining things because he’d only room in his head for one subject, but once it had been suggested, they’d started to watch and judge. It was true. The pimp did encourage the señorita to drink so much she did not leave her bed until the evening, he did drive off as soon as he could be certain she was fast asleep, he was almost pleasant on his return. So what explanation could there be other than that he was seeing another woman?…
‘Have any of you seen him with someone?’
She shook her head.
‘Or learned anything to prove your suspicions true?’
‘No.’
‘No phone calls for him from women you can’t identify?’
‘Not on the house phone. But he’s got a mobile and he’d use that, wouldn’t he, so that none of us would know who was calling him … Here, you won’t let on what I’ve been saying, will you?’
‘Not a word,’ he promised.
* * *
Back in his office, he spoke over the telephone to a member of Telefonica’s mobile service and asked for a list of all calls made by Rino Ruffolo in the past three months to be faxed to him as soon as it could be drawn up.
* * *
He had passed his plate to Dolores for a second helping of calderet extremadura de cabrita when the telephone rang. She looked at him and then at Jaime. ‘Is everyone deaf?’
‘It can’t be for me,’ Jaime said.
‘No one’s going to ring me in the middle of lunch,’ Alvarez said.
She spoke to Juan. ‘Go and find out who it is.’
‘Why can’t one of them?’ Juan asked resentfully.
‘Because men are incapable of doing anything other than eating and drinking.’ As Juan left, she heaped two large spoonfuls of the kid stew on to the plate, passed this to Alvarez, sat.
Juan returned. ‘It’s for you, Uncle, even if you said it couldn’t be.’
Alvarez spoke through a mouthful. ‘So what stupid bastard’s ringing at this time?’
‘The superior chief.’ Juan sat. ‘Are you going to tell him he’s a stupid bastard?’
‘How dare you speak such rudeness,’ Dolores snapped.
‘But that’s what Uncle’s just said.’
‘Which is poor enough reason for repeating it.’
Alvarez went through to the front room, picked up the receiver. ‘Señor?’
‘Why are you not at work, but at home?’
‘It’s lunchtime…’
‘The efficient officer contents himself with a sandwich at his desk.’
Which probably explained why efficient officers were such humourless men.
‘I am ringing to inform you that the owner of Son Brau is Señor Claudio Zafortega, one of the most important men on the island. He informed me that he had considerable difficulty in understanding what you were trying to say to him. I apologized for your inadequacies and explained that regretfully there still remained in the Cuerpo a few officers who had been appointed in times when the standards of intelligence and education had not been high. In order to make certain he suffers no further embarrassment, should there be need to contact him, you will inform me and I will speak with him. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, señor.’
‘What progress have you made in the investigation?’
‘Right now, I’m not certain.’
‘It has never occurred to you that you are required to be certain?’
‘What I’m trying to say, señor, is that I may have a fresh lead, but I have not yet been able to follow it up.’
‘Spend less time at home eating and you might be more capable of doing your job.’ He cut the connection.
Alvarez replaced the receiver. A sandwich for lunch?
* * *
When he entered the post, the duty cabo called out: ‘There’s a fax for you. Came through an hour ago.’
He thanked the other, made his way upstairs and into his room, sat. The fax was a long one and consisted of columns of figures which listed the calls made through Ruffolo’s mobile phone. To check through them was a long, boring, tedious task, but at the conclusion he had picked out certain numbers which had been repeated several times. He asked Telefonica to identify the addresses of those numbers.
That evening, as he was about to leave the post, a second fax arrived which listed the addresses. C
a’n Nou was not one of them. So during the past months, Ruffolo had not frequently used his mobile to phone Sabrina when he could be certain that her husband was not at home. He swore. When one had a flash of inspiration, it was only right and proper that it should turn out to have been inspired.
CHAPTER 17
Strangely, it was while he was having his merienda the next morning in the Club Llueso – when his mind should have been resting – that it occurred to him to wonder why Ruffolo should have made so many calls to an estate agent when he was hardly likely to be intending to buy a house.
After a second brandy, to settle his stomach, Alvarez left the club and returned to his car, drove down to the port. The estate agent was one road back from the front and in the two show windows were displayed details of flats, villas, and fincas for sale, every one of which was in English, German, and Spanish, a wonderful bargain. It needed only a very brief study of the prices to confirm that bargains could be expensive. He went in. On the counter were many information sheets and a model of a flat in a block then under construction, sufficiently cleverly presented to make it appear spacious. Behind the counter worked two young women, very different in looks but both smartly dressed and smoothly groomed.
‘Can I help you?’ asked the blonde in inaccurate and gutturally spoken Spanish.
‘Do either of you know Señor Rino Ruffolo?’
The blonde looked at the brunette, the brunette began to fidget with the corner of the keyboard of the PC in front of her.
‘Why d’you want to know?’ the blonde asked.
‘Cuerpo General de Policia.’
‘Oh!’ She looked away and it became obvious that she was distancing herself as far as possible from whatever was going on.
‘I know him,’ the brunette finally, and to some extent defiantly, said in slightly better Spanish than her companion.
‘Your name is?’
‘Carol Murdoch.’
‘You are English?’ he asked in that language.
‘Welsh.’
‘It will be easier for me if we stick to English!’
She was uncertain whether that was a joke until she saw his smile.
‘Has Señor Ruffolo frequently phoned you here in the past weeks?’
‘Is there any reason why he shouldn’t?’
‘None at all. But if he has, I should like to ask you a few questions.’
‘What about? Why?’
‘Your answers might help me in an investigation I am conducting.’
‘Are you saying I’ve done something wrong?’ Worry raised her voice. She kept looking at the blonde for moral support and the latter, uncertain how the situation might develop, carefully refrained from giving it.
‘I am here only because you may be able to tell me something I need to know. But since this is not a comfortable place in which to have a friendly conversation, perhaps we could go and find a quiet café where we can talk?’
‘I … I don’t know. I only work mornings and Felix could raise hell if he found I’d gone out.’
‘If he is your employer, is he here now?’
She looked at the blonde, who shook her head.
‘When we return, I will tell him the circumstances.’
‘Then I suppose it’ll be all right.’ She spoke to the blonde in Spanish. ‘If he asks, say what’s happened.’
He drove to one of the few cafés in the port which did not cater specifically for the tourist trade and managed to find parking space close by. ‘Have you been here before?’ he asked, as they stood on the pavement.
She looked at the worn, bleak exterior, shook her head.
He smiled. ‘We have a saying, The tastiest lamb may not have the thickest wool. A drink here costs much less than at one of the smart bars on the front.’
The interior was dim, thanks to the very small windows, dark-coloured and stained wood panelling, and lack of modern lighting; on the walls was hung, in higgledy-piggledy fashion, ancient fishing gear. ‘Shall we go over there?’ He pointed at a table in the corner.
When she was seated, he said: ‘Would you like coffee and something to have with it?’
She asked for a cortado and a dry sherry.
He went over to the bar and ordered a cortado, a coffee with milk, a Tio Pepe, and a Soberano.
‘Not seen you around for a while,’ said the owner.
‘Life’s been one long rush.’
‘With you sitting on the side watching it go past?’
Alvarez returned to the table and sat. ‘Do you smoke?’
‘No,’ she answered.
‘D’you mind if I do?’ He lit a cigarette. Because she was, if anything, more nervous than before, he did not immediately question her about Ruffolo, but started a general conversation, asking her how long she’d lived on the island and what had first brought her there. He had the knack, which he now employed to the full, of being able to project a sense of friendliness which almost always provoked a response. By the time the coffee and drinks were brought to the table, she had lost her uneasy reserve and was telling him how she was hoping to buy a small flat if – and it was a big if – she could persuade Félix to forego the usual excessive commission.
He stubbed out the cigarette and judging she was now sufficiently at ease, said: ‘Señorita, I must ask you some questions of a personal nature which may disturb you. Please understand that what you tell me will not be repeated to anyone else. Has Señor Ruffolo phoned you on many occasions during the past weeks?’
She nodded as she fiddled with the glass of sherry, now almost empty, twisting it between thumb and forefinger.
‘How did you first meet him? How close a friend is he?’
He needed considerable patience to coax her to tell him the facts, yet he judged it was not merely embarrassment that made her reluctant to speak. She had been shopping one afternoon, perhaps three months before, when Ruffolo had started talking to her. Normally, of course, she snubbed any approach from a stranger, but something … She tried to explain, then said simply: ‘It was electric,’ leaving Alvarez to make of that what he could.
They met in the afternoons, whenever he could get away; he’d phone to tell her he was driving over. And she would wait for him …
How could she, he wondered, become so deeply enamoured of a man who was interested only in the gratification of his own appetites? Not that she was the only woman to be such a fool. Ada had found him in the streets of Naples and lavished her wealth on him; Sabrina might well have had an affair with him; there would have been others. He possessed the power of a Don Juan, able to seduce in the space of an aria.
He realized his expression had betrayed his thoughts when she said with angry defensiveness: ‘The world’s not like it used to be. I suppose you think I don’t know about the old woman?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘He told me all about her, soon after we first met. He explained how he’d been living in such terrible poverty that it hurt just to hear about it. When she saved him from that, his gratitude was so terrific, so overwhelming, he determined to do everything he could to repay his debt. That’s why he stays with her. It’s very noble of him.’
Alvarez could not prevent himself saying: ‘You don’t think his friendship with you rather contradicts any sense of gratitude towards Señorita Heron?’
‘If she doesn’t know, how’s it harm her? Why are you asking all these nasty questions?’
‘Because I am investigating the death of an Englishwoman, Sabrina Ogden.’
She stared at him, her expression shocked. ‘God Almighty! You can’t think he knows anything about that.’
‘It’s possible he may be able to assist me.’
‘That’s absurd!’ Then, immediately contradicting this flat denial, she said: ‘How could he?’
‘Señora Ogden may have told him something that is important, even if he doesn’t realize that it is. I have been told that he was very friendly with her.’
‘That’s a lie.’
‘How can you be so certain?’
‘Because he explained how she just wouldn’t leave him alone, but kept on and on…’
‘Yes, señorita?’
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Trying to seduce him … I suppose you think that’s funny?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because women aren’t supposed to behave like that. But she fell for him and that’s the way she acted.’
‘And he denied her?’
‘Sneer away if you want, but the truth is that even though she was attractive, he wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she was married.’
Only someone deliberately blind to character, Alvarez thought sadly, could credit Ruffolo with such a sense of honour. ‘Why did he tell you about her?’
‘Because of the scene.’
‘What scene?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘It might.’
She spoke sullenly. ‘I was in the office one morning when he came in…’
‘When was this?’
‘Who cares?’
‘It is important.’
‘Then I’m damned if I’m going to tell you.’
‘Are you afraid that he may know something about Señora Ogden’s death?’
‘Of course I’m not.’
‘Then if it does prove to be important, that can only be to show me how correct you are.’
She finished her sherry.
‘Señorita, it will be much easier and more private to tell me here, when only I hear what you say.’
After a moment, she said: ‘It was soon after we’d met.’
‘What happened when he entered your office?’
‘He said Ada was at the hairdresser’s and would be there for at least an hour and we could go and have a drink. I told him, I couldn’t leave the office because of Félix. He started fooling around, trying to make me change my mind. Sabrina saw us and came rushing in. She was like a madwoman. Screamed at him and called me every filthy name she could think of … She was so jealous she didn’t know what she was doing or saying.’
‘How did it end?’
‘He managed to calm her down by making her believe that he often joked with me because I was engaged and wouldn’t go out and have a drink with him. He left with her. That’s all.’
An Enigmatic Disappearance Page 11
