Layers of Deceit (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 9)

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘I said, didn’t I? Old Jorge.’

  ‘And who’s he?’

  ‘Everyone knows that. Old Jorge Buades, lives first place on the right past the bottom of the hill.’

  They became silent once more. A red kite passed overhead. Bees were working a nearby jacaranda in late bloom. In the distance, a man was singing a song of unmistakable Moorish origin.

  ‘I’d best be moving on,’ said Alvarez, as he dropped his cigarette stub on the ground and carefully stamped it out.

  ‘Never known a bloke so restless.’

  Alvarez walked up the sloping lawn. Restless? Not by inclination. He should have stayed on the land, as his forefathers had.

  He reached his car and sat, mopped the sweat from his face and neck before he drove off. Beyond the entrance gates, he turned left and went down the hill. At the first farm Buades, an elderly man with bowed shoulders, was irrigating several rows of bush tomatoes — opening up channels to fill them with water, then closing them with a plug of earth. Alvarez waited, knowing it was not a job which could be interrupted, and it was a quarter of an hour before Buades turned off the stopcock on the estanque.

  After Alvarez had introduced himself, Buades rubbed his hands together to remove some of the dirt, then said: ‘D’you feel like something?’

  They sat in the shade of the patio and drank a harsh red wine, made by Buades the previous season and cooled in the refrigerator. Alvarez took two copy photographs from the breast pocket of his shirt. ‘Reinaldo, up at Ca’n Cullom, tells me you saw a couple of strangers around last Thursday?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Would you recognize ’em again?’

  ‘Never saw one of ’em that clearly, but I’d know the other.’

  Alvarez passed the photographs across. Buades picked them up, studied them for a long time with screwed-up eyes, then put them down. He drank.

  ‘Well?’

  He prodded one with his stubby forefinger. ‘He was one of ’em.’ The photograph was of Félix. ‘Thanks,’ Alvarez said heavily, trying and failing to hide his bitter sadness.

  He returned to Ca’n Cullom, parked outside the garage, and walked round the house. Artich had moved, but not very far; he was now standing in the shade of a fig tree whose sharply shaped leaves were bright and whose fruit was the size of peas. ‘Can you find a thin sack, roughly one metre eighty long?’ Alvarez asked.

  Artich considered the question. ‘I might,’ he admitted.

  ‘We’ll need to fill it with earth so you might think about where’s the best place to get it. And you’ll need something to do the filling with.’

  Artich left, to return a few minutes later with a plastic sack and a mattock. He then led the way over to the far edge of the lawn where he pointed to a wide bed of earth, dug but not yet planted up. ‘You can use some of that.’

  ‘I’ll hold the sack, you fill it.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ said Artich disgustedly.

  Between them, they filled the sack, a difficult operation with a mattock, but a mattock was traditionally the tool to use and Artich would never have broken with tradition by using a spade.

  ‘Now what?’ muttered Artich, who was sweating heavily despite the fact that he was in hard condition.

  ‘We carry it over to the point at which the señor fell.’

  They set the sack at the edge of the terrace and, at Alvarez’s order, upended it. Alvarez stepped back, leaving Artich to keep it balanced. Steven Cullom had been drinking heavily. He had reached the edge of the terrace, taken a step forward without realizing what was happening, and had fallen; or he had caught his foot and had gone sprawling; or he had jumped. It was impossible to imagine why, when drunk, he should have jumped. So whether he had merely stepped into space or had gone sprawling, his feet must have been close to the stone face as he began to fall. ‘All right. Let go.’ As Artich released his grip, Alvarez pushed the top of the sack as hard as possible.

  The sack fell in an arc which took its head well away from the retaining wall. Yet the stone edge of the next wall still lay a further two metres out. This was confirmation, rough as it was, of what he had accepted from the beginning.

  ‘That’s it, then,’ he said. ‘You can clear things up.’

  ‘On me own?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Leave the other poor sod to do all the work?’

  ‘I find life’s much easier like that,’ Alvarez replied.

  CHAPTER 16

  Alvarez sat at the desk in his office and stared through the opened window at the wall of the house opposite. Until he heard from the pathologist’s office he couldn’t officially call Steven Cullom’s death murder, but from the moment he’d found that the dog had had its throat cut he’d had no doubts.

  Murder was often a spur-of-the-moment crime, sometimes a carefully premeditated one. This murder came within the second category. So there had to be a discernible motive. Someone had once said that there were a thousand and one ways of murdering someone, but only two reasons for doing so. Money and sex. That was truer than most generalizations. Both elements were present in this case. Steven Cullom had treated women as disposable items and he’d been too self-satisfied to begin to understand that some women asked a high price — love; he had been worth a hundred and sixty-five million pesetas.

  Alvarez searched the drawers of the desk for a telephone directory and eventually found it in the bottom right-hand drawer together with a third-full bottle of Soberano and a glass. He poured himself a strong drink. When he’d finished that, he had another. Finally, he checked in the directory on how to make an international call.

  When the connection was made with Halscombe, Peeble, and Wraight, in Stentonbridge, a cheerful, youthful woman asked him whom he wished to speak to? He began to explain that he needed to discuss a matter concerning Señor Steven Cullom …

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t understand what you’re saying.’

  He spoke more slowly and simply.

  ‘Hang on a minute, will you?’

  He could just hear her say to someone else that there was some queer old man on the phone with a hilarious accent who wanted to speak to one of the partners about a Steve Cullom. Old? One was said to be as old as one felt. Right now, he felt a hundred and twenty …

  A man identified himself as Byfield and asked how he could help.

  ‘Señor, my name is Inspector Enrique Alvarez, of the Cuerpo General de Policía, stationed in Llueso, in Mallorca. I am investigating the death of Señor Steven Cullom. Do you know the name?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Did you also know that he was dead?’

  ‘I had no idea of that, no.’

  ‘It is very probable that he was murdered.’

  ‘Really?’ said Byfield in careful, neutral tones.

  ‘I have been through his papers and have found the copy of a will drawn up by your firm. I understand from his Spanish solicitor that his estate in Britain may be worth a hundred million pesetas or five hundred thousand pounds, very roughly. Is that right?’

  ‘Speaking from memory, yes.’

  ‘I also understand that he was intending to marry again and to make a second will in England. Would this second one cancel the first?’

  ‘That can be a little tricky. A second will revokes a first one if it expressly revokes it or the first one is torn, damaged, burned, and/or its clear revocation was intended. If there’s no express revocation, the new will will only revoke those clauses which clearly become inconsistent. Marriage automatically revokes a will unless the existing one specifically states that it’s made in contemplation of a particular marriage.’

  ‘Did you draw up a second will?’

  ‘I believe we did, yes.’

  ‘And did that refer to a coming marriage?’

  ‘I would have to consult it before I could answer you for certain.’

  ‘Would you be kind enough to do that for me, please?’

 
‘Certainly, but it’ll take a little time to check through our records down in the strong-room. Probably, it would be best if you ring back.’

  ‘Certainly, señor. And perhaps then you could tell me some details of the new will? And also whether his future wife is named.’

  ‘You don’t know her name?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Strange. But then I don’t feel I’m being unduly critical when I say that in some respects he was a strange man … Suppose you get back on to me in an hour’s time?’

  Alvarez looked at his watch. ‘I shall be having lunch then.’

  ‘You don’t have to make do with a sandwich at the office desk? Lucky fellow! … All right, let’s make it in two hours.’

  That would be siesta time. ‘Unfortunately, I have something very important to do then, señor. But if I might phone you at half past five, our time?’

  *

  Alvarez was late back at the office so that it was just after six when he rang England again.

  Byfield said: ‘The draft of his second will is quite straightforward. It specifically revokes all previous wills and states that it’s made in contemplation of his forthcoming marriage. It leaves his estate to his wife, subject to five bequests; these are, four of one thousand pounds each to named charities, and one of fifty thousand pounds to his brother.’

  ‘What is his wife’s name?’

  ‘As far as I can make out, he never gave us her name. I’ve been through all our correspondence and quite recently we wrote to him pointing out that in the past the term ‘wife’ has led to legal problems where the testator’s marriage has subsequently been called into question and that it is essential to name the lady. And, of course, as I mentioned this morning, if a will made before marriage is not to be revoked by marriage, it has specifically to state that it’s made in contemplation of a particular marriage; the term ‘wife’ is clearly general rather than particular … We never had a reply to this letter. I gather you found no trace of the draft?’

  ‘None whatsoever. If the señor never signed the second will, is the first one still good?’

  ‘If the second will was not signed and witnessed precisely as required, it is invalid and the first will still stands.’

  Alvarez thanked the other, said goodbye, and rang off. In one English will Alan Cullom had been left a fortune, in the other fifty thousand pounds. Fifty thousand, on its own, was a lot of money, but not when matched against many times as much …

  He phoned the Institute of Forensic Anatomy and asked if Professor Fortunato had completed his post mortem on Steven Cullom and whether tests had been carried out on the dog. An assistant said that no, it had not as yet been completed, but it could be said that the bloodstained stones could not have inflicted the skull wound. Further, the traces within the wound were of grease; there was no sign of grease on either of the stones. The dog had been fed a meat-based mixture, to which had been added a lethal dose of a derivative of chloral hydrate shortly before its death.

  ‘Did you say a lethal dose?’

  ‘That’s right. The derivative’s only been developed and produced in the past few years and it’s very much stronger than the original. The dog ingested several times the amount that would have rendered it merely unconscious.’

  ‘How long would it have taken to work?’

  ‘Difficult to be precise, but certainly no longer than ten minutes; more likely, something under five.’

  ‘Would it have been obvious that the dog was dead?’

  ‘Unless the person were blind.’

  After he’d replaced the receiver, Alvarez began to tap on the desk with his fingers. Until now, he’d assumed the sobrasada had been fed to the dog to dull its alertness, create an air of friendship, and distract its attention long enough for the killer to get close enough to cut its throat. But the dog had been drugged and the killer would have waited until the drug took effect. Then, since it must have been obvious the dog was dead, why cut its throat? Unless it had been a perverse act of retaliation?

  *

  The Bovises’ home was on the side of the mountain at a point where this had become steep and so, in order to provide a firm platform for its foundations, it had been necessary to build it several metres above the level of the road. Thirty-three steps led up from the road to the front door and by the time he’d climbed the last of these, Alvarez felt as if he’d tackled Puig Mayor. As he tried to regain his breath, slow down his heart, and mop up some of the rivulets of sweat, he stared out at the view which led right across to the mountain-ringed Llueso Bay. No view, not even one as grand as this, was worth such agony.

  The front door was opened by Ana. Being cousins, if of the very extended variety, they discussed their families at some length before she led him through the sitting-room, one of the largest he’d seen, to the pool patio beyond at the side of the house.

  Palmer, an untidy, pot-bellied figure in bathing trunks, was dozing in a deck-chair. At first, Alvarez took him to be unfortunately deformed, but then he realized that the ‘deformity’ was a nose-shield. Margaret had been lying face down on a towel and when she heard them approach she raised herself on to her elbows and looked to see who they were. She was not wearing her bikini top.

  ‘It’s Inspector Alvarez,’ said Ana in Spanish.

  Palmer jerked awake. For a second he was too confused to do anything, then he snatched off the nose-shield. ‘Margaret, your costume,’ he snapped. He turned to Ana. ‘I’ve told you a dozen times, never bring anyone here unannounced.’

  ‘Señor?’

  ‘Can’t you understand simple English?’

  ‘Please, more slowly … ’

  ‘Hopeless!’ He waved at her to leave, impatiently watched Margaret secure her bikini top. ‘Well,’ he said to Alvarez, ‘who are you and what do you want?’

  Alvarez explained. He heard Margaret draw her breath in sharply. Palmer, in his most pompous tones, said: ‘Why bother us in this matter?’

  ‘Because I understand you may be able to help me since you were friends … ’

  ‘We certainly were not. We barely knew the man.’

  ‘But I have been told … ’ Alvarez suddenly stopped. He’d been looking at Margaret and he had seen the fear in her eyes. Clearly, now was the time to tackle her over her friendship with Steven Cullom — when she would be off-balance and unable to lie convincingly — but equally obviously to do this would be to subject her to a great deal of unpleasantness at the hands of her husband. And the case had already caused so much suffering and unhappiness …

  ‘Well?’ Palmer demanded loudly.

  ‘I have been told you were friendly with him, señor.’

  ‘Then you have been incorrectly informed.’

  ‘Darling, don’t you think …’ Margaret began, her voice sharp with worry.

  He interrupted her, certain she wanted to suggest he were more polite. ‘Is that quite clear? We were the most casual, and on our part reluctant, acquaintances only.’

  Margaret stood, picked up the towel she’d been lying on, and hurried into the house.

  Alvarez said: ‘Thank you for your help, señor.’

  Palmer nodded.

  Alvarez returned to the house. In the hall, he called out: ‘Ana.’

  A door on his left opened and Ana stepped from the kitchen into the hall.

  ‘Ana, I want to get a message to the señora, but I’d prefer the señor not to know about it. Could you have a word with her on her own?’

  ‘That’s easy enough. But if I speak in Spanish, the señor won’t understand even if he is around.’

  ‘Then tell her to ring me at the guardia post in three-quarter’s of an hour’s time; that’s at half past six.’

  She looked curiously at him and he wondered if, absurd as the thought might be, she imagined he was trying to fix an assignation?

  *

  The telephone on Alvarez’s desk rang. ‘What is it you want?’ Margaret asked, her voice high.

  ‘Señora, I woul
d like to speak with you, please,’ he answered, with cold formality. ‘I think it will be better if your husband does not hear what I have to say. So will you meet me somewhere that is convenient?’

  ‘I … I can’t help you.’

  ‘I am certain that you can.’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘Can you drive to Playa Nueva?’

  ‘Yes, but … ’

  ‘In the port there is a bar on the front which is called Bardino. I shall meet you there in half an hour’s time.’

  ‘But what am I to say to Ray to explain why I’m going out?’

  ‘Perhaps you can give the same reason you have given in the past, when you have been meeting Señor Steven Cullom.’

  He heard her stifled cry and it made him think of a child who suddenly discovered that the world was not made exclusively of sugar, spice, and all things nice.

  *

  Playa Nueva consisted of three distinct entities. There was the old town, once ringed with a fortified wall, whose history went back to Roman times; the port, which in turn consisted both of a commercial port serving ocean-going ships and a marina for the ever growing number of yachts; and the modern tourist development which stretched along, and blighted, what had once been one of the finest beaches on the island.

  Bar Bardino faced the marina and, since the prices were only twice what they were in the backstreet bars, was popular with yachtsmen. Alvarez settled at one of the tables set out on the pavement, under an awning, and ordered a brandy. It had just been brought to the table when he saw Margaret, walking along the pavement.

  He held a chair out for her and she sat. She stared at him, frightened, trying to summon up a resistance and failing.

  He offered her something to drink. She chose a coffee.

  ‘Do you smoke?’

  She accepted a cigarette and smoked it with nervous urgency.

  ‘Señora, earlier you heard me say to your husband that I am investigating the unfortunate death of Señor Steven Cullom.’

  She looked out to sea. Within a few days, she had experienced longing, despair, rejection, resentment, anger, and shock, and now she wasn’t quite sure what her emotions were.