The Ambiguity of Murder
Page 20
‘Then he’s lucky. Most of the time, I can’t. How does one explain my running away?’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘It was precisely that. And that’s why I was found guilty.’
‘It was because you made it seem you didn’t believe what you were saying.’ She turned to Alvarez. ‘He wasn’t blaming himself for the girl’s death, but for the fact that James had learned about our relationship and was suffering the pain of that knowledge. He maybe subconsciously – I still don’t know – wanted to be found guilty and to be imprisoned because his own suffering would then in part atone for James’s.’
How accurately he had judged! Alvarez thought. But only long after an intelligent person would have done so.
Bailey emptied his glass, proved his mind was in turmoil when he refilled it without asking either of the other two if they’d like another drink.
‘What happened when you came to this island?’ Alvarez asked.
‘We found true happiness,’ she answered.
‘But only for a time,’ Bailey said bitterly. ‘We’d forgotten that life’s always waiting for the chance to kick one in the crutch … It just didn’t occur to either of us to connect Guido with the Zavala who’d granted the driver of the Jaguar diplomatic immunity until he started boasting how important he’d been in the Bolivian embassy in London. When we realized who he was –’
She broke in. ‘I couldn’t stay there, knowing I was looking at the man who’d made certain my husband died in mental pain as well as physical; had condemned Harry to prison. We came back here. He managed to calm down, because that’s the kind of person he is, but I’m not. I said that we had to go and see the bastard and force him to admit what he’d done and why, so that Harry could try to get a pardon and clear his name. Harry wouldn’t; for him, the past was the past. I called him a coward, and lots of other names I wish I could forget. In the end, I told him that if he was going to sit down, I wasn’t. I drove off, over the limit on emotion, not alcohol.
‘When I arrived at Son Fuyell, no one answered the door, so I went round the side of the house and saw Zavala down by the pool. As I approached, he went into the poolhouse and came back out with a glass which he held up and said, “Diana is reborn out of the foam. What nectar does she crave?” He put the glass down. It was so absurd, so corny, that I just stood there, wondering if this fool really could be the man who had so callously condemned Harry to jail. He’d obviously been drinking enough to think my hesitation was a woman’s subtle come-on, that I’d been so smitten by his charms earlier that day, I was hoping he’d now do me the honour of bedding me. He came forward and fondled my arm. The feel was like … Worse than a snake’s, and God, how I hate them! I lashed out, not meaning to do anything more than push him away, but caught him on the throat. He lost his balance and fell backwards, cracked his head on the chair, rolled over into the pool.’ She became silent.
‘And then, señora?’
‘I grabbed the skimming net and tried to keep his head above water and drag him along to the shallow end, but he was very confused and struggled with the net until he jerked it out of my hands. By the time I could get hold of it again, it was obviously too late. He’d drowned. I panicked. I rushed back here.’
‘You did not try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?’
‘I’ve just said, I panicked.’
Alvarez turned. ‘And you, señor, waited until it was dark and drove to Son Fuyell, knowing that if he’d been discovered, your arrival wouldn’t be seen to be significant, if he hadn’t, you’d have the chance to remove anything that might hint your wife had been there?’
‘Yes,’ Bailey answered.
‘You brought a glass away?’
‘I thought then it wouldn’t be obvious someone else had been present; it would seem he had slipped, hit his head, fallen in the pool, and drowned accidentally. And Fenella couldn’t remember whether she’d touched the glass before he put it down prior to touching her; if she had, her prints would have been on it.’
‘Since there were two glasses, how did you know which one to take?’
‘One was clean. Fenella didn’t try to hurt him when she hit him, that was a purely instinctive reaction. When he was in the pool, she tried to save him.’
‘I understand.’
‘What happens now?’
‘The law demands I make a full report of all you both have told me and this must mean a further investigation into the death of Señor Zavala. Unfortunately, it must become known that you suffered a criminal conviction in England and prior to that that you and the señora had an affair when both of you were married to other partners. This evidence, because humans haven’t learned to enjoy a god’s dispassion, may so influence authority that they decide the drowning was no accident…’
‘It was!’ Bailey shouted.
‘Please let me finish. Regrettably, there is always a potential for conflict between justice and the law because there is always someone for whom the law will be unjust. Justice demands that the señora is not punished for something she has not done. Yet, as I have just said, one cannot be certain that a court will discard prejudice, that a judge will possess sufficient soul to understand that the confusion in her mind explains her actions when these perhaps seem inconsistent.’
‘You’re saying she’ll be held guilty?’
‘I am saying that if there is to be justice, there must not be two injustices. You were unjustly held responsible for the girl’s death in England. Señor Zavala is dead, it seems very probable that Algaro also is and therefore there is no one left to testify to the truth. Yet you have paid a heavy price. How can that price begin to be repaid except by making certain that no second injustice arises? Only four people know that the señora was on the road to Cardona Valley in the earlier part of that night. You and the señora, the eyewitness whose lips are sealed because a friendship which he values very highly rests on their being so, and me. I have already forgotten what you have been telling me.’
They stared at him, bewildered, knowing a growing hope.
* * *
Alvarez drove slowly down the dirt track. Dolores had shown – assuming it had been she who had reduced two tough Bolivian hit men to trembling wrecks – that when a woman was fighting on behalf of those she loved, there were no limits to the methods she would use. So was it not likely that it would be a similar situation when the fight concerned the past rather than the future?
Could Fenella have been telling the truth up until the moment Zavala had fallen into the pool? Then she had picked up the skimming net and used it not to try to save him, but to hold his head under the water until, too dazed by the blow to his head to struggle effectively, he had drowned?… He would never be certain because he did not wish to be.
He drew out on to the tarmac road, only to slow down for the corner that was narrowed where a house stuck a metre out into it. Beyond, in a field, a sow, surrounded by many piglets, rooted in the ground below a fig tree. Was there a chance that Dolores was cooking porcella for lunch?
About the Author
Roderic Jeffries was born in London in 1926 and was educated at Southampton’s School of Navigation. In 1943 he went to sea with the New Zealand Shipping Company and returned to England in 1949 where he was subsequently called to the Bar. He practiced law for a brief period before starting to write full time. His books have been published in many different countries and have been adapted for film, television, and radio. He and his wife live in Mallorca, and have two children. You can sign up for email updates here.
Also by Roderic Jeffries
AN ENIGMATIC DISAPPEARANCE
A MAZE OF MURDERS
AN ARTISTIC WAY TO GO
AN ARCADIAN DEATH
DEATH TAKES TIME
MURDER CONFOUNDED
MURDER’S LONG MEMORY
A FATAL FLEECE
TOO CLEVER BY HALF
DEAD CLEVER
DEATH TRICK
RELATIVELY DANGEROUS
ALMOST MURDE
R
LAYERS OF DECEIT
THREE AND ONE MAKE FIVE
DEADLY PETARD
UNSEEMLY END
JUST DESERTS
MURDER BEGETS MURDER
TROUBLED DEATHS
TWO-FACED DEATH
MISTAKENLY IN MALLORCA
DEAD MAN’S BLUFF
A TRAITOR’S CRIME
A DEADLY MARRIAGE
DEATH IN THE COVERTS
DEAD AGAINST THE LAWYERS
AN EMBARRASSING DEATH
THE BENEFITS OF DEATH
EXHIBIT NO. THIRTEEN
EVIDENCE OF THE ACCUSED
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
About the Author
Also by Roderic Jeffries
Copyright
THE AMBIGUITY OF MURDER. Copyright © 1999 by Roderic Jeffries. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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ISBN 0-312-26968-4
First published in Great Britain by Collins Crime, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
First St. Martin’s Minotaur Edition: May 2001
eISBN 9781250101853
First eBook edition: September 2015