Layers of Deceit (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 9)

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘Sit down there.’

  He sat at the end of the sofa which was not littered with newspapers and magazines. He reflected that she issued commands rather than invitations.

  ‘I suppose you want something to drink?’

  ‘There’s no need, thank you … ’

  ‘I’d like something.’ She left the room, to return with a four-litre flagon of wine and two glasses. She filled one glass and passed it to him.

  The wine was sourly cheap, imported from the Peninsula in tankers; or perhaps, as some islanders claimed, it was made from chemicals.

  She used a foot to push an empty cardboard box off a pouffe, then sat. There was no grace in her movements only a suggestion of whipcord strength.

  ‘I am very sorry about Señor Steven Cullom,’ he said. ‘It will be a sad time for you.’

  She made no acknowledgement of his commiserating words. ‘Your being here means you don’t think it was an accident?’

  ‘I am afraid that we are virtually certain he was murdered.’

  ‘Was he, indeed?’

  He had come expecting to find a woman who mourned. Yet if he were to judge by her present attitude, she was indifferent to Steven Cullom’s death.

  ‘Who killed him?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘I do not know yet.’

  ‘It’s no good expecting me to be able to help.’

  ‘You may not know that you can, but something you tell me may enable me to identify the murderer.’

  ‘All I can tell you is … ’ She stopped.

  ‘Yes, señora? I am so sorry, I mean Lady Molton.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’

  He couldn’t decide what had aroused her sudden ire.

  ‘I hardly knew him,’ she said.

  ‘But … but I’ve been told you were going to marry him.’

  ‘Then you’ve been told more than I ever knew for certain.’ She drained her glass, reached out for the flagon of wine, and refilled it. ‘The first time I was on the back of a horse was my third birthday. People don’t believe me when I tell them I can still remember that day perfectly, but it’s true.’ She looked up at the photographs hanging on the far wall. ‘When I was old enough to be interested in such things, I swore I’d never marry anyone who didn’t love horses as much as I did.

  ‘Alfred loved horses, but he also loved barmaids, especially if they weren’t fussy about using a whip on him. I was still young enough to find that disgusting rather than ridiculous, so I divorced him. My lawyers secured a very generous settlement — probably Alfred was scared I’d sell the story to one of the Sunday newspapers who delight in the odd quirks of the aristocracy. After me, he married number three and she stayed with him for five years. Maybe she’d discovered how to despise a man and yet go on living with him.

  ‘I’d always loved Arabians beyond other breeds and my overriding ambition is to meld the finest lines and breed champions of champions. There’s always been some wonderful blood in Spain and the cost of living used to be cheap so that’s why I came here originally. Then the cost of living began to rocket and I discovered the truth of an old adage of horse breeding: you never ask yourself whether you can afford to buy a horse you want until after you’ve bought it.

  ‘Things reached the stage where it began to be obvious I couldn’t afford to continue as I had been. But the more I tried to accept that, the more I “knew” that my breeding policy was just about to reach fruition and so I simply had to continue. I became quite desperate. I even wrote to Alfred to ask him if he’d lend me sufficient to carry on for long enough to reach success, but of course I never received an answer.’ She became silent, lost in her thoughts, her expression sad.

  After a while, Alvarez said: ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘I had an invitation to stay with friends in Llueso. At that time I was still employing one man and he was very reliable, so I could leave the horses for a couple of days and not panic all the time I was away. I thought the two days’ break, away from the immediate problems, might lead to an inspiration on how to save the stud. Instead of inspiration, I met Steven at a cocktail-party we went to in another house.

  ‘I knew what kind of a man he was immediately. You don’t spend your life with horses without being able to pick out the wrong’un. But I don’t think he ever knew what kind of a woman I am. He couldn’t understand that when I spent every penny I’d got on the horses I wasn’t hoping to make a fortune, I was searching for perfection.

  ‘At the end of the two days I returned here and continued struggling to find a way out of all the financial troubles … even though it was obvious there was no way out. Then, a week or so later, he turned up; said he wanted to see the horses because he’d always liked them.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘You’d only to see him ever so carefully tiptoeing round a pile of dung to know that that was a lie.

  ‘He kept returning. To begin with, I couldn’t make out what he was after unless it was to buy this place for a song when I was finally forced out and then to sell it for a profit. But after a while he offered to lend me money, at no interest, to help see me through. I asked him, what the hell was he after? He made some damn silly answer and went away. He returned on the day the local feed merchant had said he wouldn’t give me any more credit. You can probably imagine what kind of a state I was in. Steven drove off and when he returned he handed me a receipt for everything I owed. And that’s when he said he wanted to marry me.’

  She stood, walked over to the window, and looked out at the nearest paddock and watched the horses, somnolently standing in the shade of a couple of trees. ‘I’m old enough to know that men publicly praise the virtues of Penelope while privately preferring the vices of Helen. And any mirror tells me I’m no Helen. So why?

  ‘Maybe everyone’s searching for what he hasn’t got. I’m chasing the perfect Arab. Steven was chasing acceptance. God knows why. With his money, what the hell did it matter if there were some people who just didn’t want to know him? But you can’t understand other people’s longings if you don’t share them.

  ‘To begin with, I treated his proposal as a sick joke, a reversal of the favourite plot of women’s historical fiction — the beautiful young girl from an impoverished family being led to the bed of an old but rich man to save her parents being thrown out of their hovel. But that kind of offer is insiduously dangerous. I began to think that with his money I’d be able to expand my stud. Marriages made in cold blood never seemed to work out any worse than those supposedly made in heaven. What if he would be after every available tarty woman? They’d keep him occupied and leave me free for the horses … The devil doesn’t need to shout, just to murmur once.

  ‘He knew I’d begun to think seriously about the offer. Of course he realized why I’d agree, if I did, but that didn’t matter to him because he’d be getting what he wanted. He became impatient and pressed me for a definite answer. But I couldn’t forget how I’d been unable to live with Alfred because I’d despised him. How long would it be before I began to despise Steven? And for the first time in my life I seriously wondered if there was not a limit to the sacrifices a rational person could make in pursuit of perfection. And now that the choice is no longer there I still don’t know what answer I would finally have given … It’s a sordid little history.’ She returned to the pouffe to sit once more.

  ‘Have you ever met Alan Cullom?’

  ‘Once. A totally different character. Probably deliberately being as opposite as he can.’

  ‘Did he know that his brother wanted to marry you?’

  ‘I think he must have done … In fact, I know he did.’

  ‘How can you be certain?’

  ‘I rang Steven recently, but Alan answered the phone — I’d no idea he was on the island. He asked me whether he should yet welcome me into the family. All very ironic.’

  ‘How do you think the two brothers got on together?’

  ‘Like most siblings. There were ups and downs, but underneath they were conscious of t
he very close relationship. One of the troubles was that Steven would try to play the part of a paterfamilias and not surprisingly that annoyed Alan, who then went out of his way to cause trouble.’

  ‘Were there any rows between them since Alan Cullom returned?’

  ‘Something obviously made the air a bit frosty. A woman, I imagine.’

  ‘How d’you know this?’

  ‘Steven spent over five minutes on the phone one night telling me how he was going to cut Alan out of everything.’

  ‘What did that mean exactly?’

  ‘Cut him out of his will, I suppose. Very Victorian. I told him not to be so damned stupid.’

  He stood. ‘Thank you for your help.’

  ‘Another drink before you go?’

  ‘Thank you, but I’m hoping to get a plane back to Palma.’

  She refilled her own glass. ‘I don’t suppose you can understand that occasionally a person can betray herself and yet remain true to herself?’

  He answered quietly: ‘I am a peasant, born to love the land and the crops which grow on it. For a promise of hectares of the richest, finest soil, I might willingly marry Satan’s daughter.’

  She came to her feet, holding the full glass of wine in her right hand. ‘Do you know what happens to his money?’

  ‘If we do not find a new will or wills, his brother will inherit almost everything.’

  ‘That’s as it should be. Money shouldn’t go out of a family.’

  He said goodbye. She murmured an answer, gazed out of the window to watch a mare amble out of the shade and into the sunshine. He knew that she was seeing a dream disappear.

  CHAPTER 18

  Alvarez parked just back from the front of Portals Nous and walked to the café at which he’d previously met Amadeo and Félix. He sat at an outside table and ordered a coffee and a brandy. He drank a little of the brandy, tipped the rest into the coffee. He watched the tourists pass, many of them wearing clothes that ten years before would have caused them to be warned off the streets and he was contemptuous of them for their lack of dignity.

  He saw Amadeo and was glad he was coming on his own. The matter needed a cool, subtle approach and Félix was often as subtle as a bulldozer.

  He shook hands, ordered two more drinks, and chatted inconsequentially, seemingly unaware of Amadeo’s growing sense of tension. A waiter brought the two brandies and took away the empty glass, cup and saucer. As the waiter moved out of earshot, Amadeo said, his voice hoarse: ‘What d’you want?’

  ‘Do you remember me having the photos on your ID cards copied?’

  He swallowed heavily. Was he likely to have forgotten?

  ‘I showed the copies to a farmer who lives below Ca’n Cullom. He identified Félix.’

  ‘That … that’s impossible.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘He was at the hotel all day and I was at the office.’

  ‘The last time I spoke to you, you both agreed you’d taken the day off on trumped-up excuses and spent it with a couple of married women.’

  ‘I … I was forgetting. That’s what we did do … ’

  ‘Look, Amadeo, face the facts. I’ve just told you, Félix was positively identified. And if the farmer’s memory improves, as often happens, he’ll identify you as well.’

  ‘I swear … ’

  ‘Just before you swear anything, think on this. We’re distant kin. That won’t stop me taking you in if I decide it was you two who killed the Englishman, but it does mean that if I reckon you were in the area but you didn’t kill him, I’ll do everything I can to help prove your innocence. But before I can be convinced, I need to know everything, exactly as it happened.’

  Amadeo finished his brandy. He kept moistening his upper lip. Alvarez waited with endless patience.

  ‘We … we were there. But I swear we didn’t kill him.’

  ‘How did you learn his name?’

  Amadeo’s expression sharpened as hatred momentarily overcame his fears. ‘I had a phone call at the office.’

  ‘From a man or a woman?’

  ‘A man.’

  ‘Was he a Mallorquin?’

  ‘No, a foreigner.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Just Steven Cullom, Ca’n Cullom, Santa Victoria. I thought he must be mad or drunk. But then he mentioned Beatriz.’

  Just like that?’

  ‘With some talking, but I can’t understand English.’

  ‘You’re sure it was English?’

  ‘I know enough about how it sounds even if I don’t know what it means.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I said as simply as I could in Spanish that I didn’t understand. After a bit he said ‘child’ and suddenly I realized what he was getting at.’

  ‘He said that in English?’

  ‘No, in Spanish — niño. Only to begin with he forgot there was a tilde on the second “n” and it didn’t make sense. But after a bit he remembered to pronounce it correctly.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘He rang off.’

  ‘So you’d learned the name of the man and where he’d lived. What did you do next?’

  ‘I told Félix.’

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘He said we … ’ He stopped abruptly.

  ‘That you must find the man and kill him?’

  ‘You know how excited he gets. But it doesn’t mean anything. I calmed him down and I said what we’d got to do was to talk to the Englishman and make him understand he must marry Beatriz.’

  ‘How did Félix take that suggestion?’

  ‘He didn’t like it, but in the end he agreed it was the only thing to do. So I phoned his hotel and said he was ill; he phoned my office and said I was ill. Then we drove to Santa Victoria.’

  ‘Intending to do what?’

  ‘I’ve just said. To make the Englishman understand.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘We never saw him … I swear that’s the truth. We never saw him, not to speak to, that is. We were walking along and this very expensive car drove out. We guessed it must be him. If he wasn’t there, there was no point in us going up to the house.’

  ‘You must have tried again.’

  Amadeo went to speak, checked the words. He looked at Alvarez, then away.

  ‘I’ve got to know everything if I’m to help.’

  ‘We … we returned after dark. But there was a dog near the gate and from the way it was acting there was no chance of being able to get inside the grounds.’

  ‘You were reckoning on breaking in, then?’

  ‘Félix … Well, he’d started talking crazily again and it was difficult to make him see sense. But when he saw that dog … He was bitten very badly by one when he was a small kid and ever since then he’s been afraid of them. We decided there wasn’t anything we could do and returned home.’

  ‘What time was it when you got back?’

  ‘I dont know … Maybe it was just before midnight.’ ‘Has either of you been back?’

  ‘No. I mean, we read about his death in the paper. What was there to go back for?’

  ‘What did you feel about him dying like that?’

  ‘That it was the hand of God.’

  If said by a sophisticated man, that would have sounded naïve to the point of being sardonically ridiculous. But, despite living in so changing a time, essentially neither Amadeo nor Félix was sophisticated and they still believed that sooner or later good was rewarded and evil was punished. So the fact that Amadeo had said Steven Cullom’s death was by the hand of God convinced Alvarez that neither he nor his brother had had anything to do with the murder, despite the fact that there was as yet not the slightest proof of this negative.

  CHAPTER 19

  Alvarez drove along the winding lanes towards Ca’n Cul-lom. Félix and Amadeo had been drawn to the area to inculpate them if the death of Steven Cullom was ever identified as murder. Whoever had made that telephone call to Amadeo had known that Steven Cul
lom had had an affair with Beatriz — a fact of which even her own family had been unaware.

  Palmer’s wife had been having an affair with Steven Cullom. Had Palmer known this? Even if he had, it was almost impossible to visualize him committing murder. Would he have employed someone to commit it for him, knowing the risks of being betrayed or blackmailed? How could he have known about Steven Cullom’s affair with Beatriz?

  Since Alan Cullom had been staying in the house, he had had the greatest opportunity. There were considerable differences of character between the two brothers and they had rowed, as brothers often did, but until recently Steven had regarded the relationship with sufficient depth of feeling to leave all his money to Alan. Which suggested that he might often have boasted about his conquests to Alan, as men often did, and had mentioned Beatriz … Then Steven had decided to marry. In view of this he had new wills drafted in which his wife (assuming they married) was to inherit everything except for fifty thousand pounds that were to go to Alan and a further four small bequests. But then Alan had returned to Ca’n Cullom and Susan had been there and she’d been the cause of a row between the brothers; so heated that Steven had decided to cut Alan out of his wills. So Alan under the existing wills would inherit roughly eight hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds and under the new wills, which would be executed if/when the marriage was definitely to take place, either a fraction of that or nothing …

  It was often difficult to prove whether a death was accidental or deliberate. So frequently murder was committed in the guise of accident. But a clever, far-seeing man would acknowledge that there must be occasions when an ‘accident’ would be correctly identified as murder and therefore he’d cover himself by trying to make certain that if this happened someone else would become the prime suspect or suspects …

  He reached Ca’n Cullom. Susan, wearing a towelling swimming robe, opened the front door. She led the way through to the pool terrace, where Alan Cullom was sunbathing. He came to his feet and faced Alvarez, his expression antagonistic and wary.

  Alvarez sat under the shade of a sun umbrella set in the middle of a metal table; when asked what he’d like to drink, he replied, ‘A brandy.’ She left them and returned into the house.