Deadly Petard

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘He actually used the word “tragically”?’

  ‘Why are you so surprised? Isn’t death always tragic?’ she asked bitterly.

  ‘That all depends . . .’

  ‘It is always tragic,’ interrupted Alvarez. He stood. ‘Señora, thank you for all your kindness. I am very sorry if we have distressed you.’

  ‘Surely . . .’ began Cullon hotly.

  Alvarez again interrupted him. ‘Goodbye, señora.’

  They left. The moment they were seated in the car, Cullon said heavily: ‘I don’t know if you realized it, but she was lying as hard as she could go. All we needed to do was tell her West’s wife didn’t just “tragically” die, she was murdered, and we could have broken her and got to the truth.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Alvarez turned the key and the engine started at the third attempt.

  ‘Then why head me off as you did and just leave?’

  Alvarez backed down to the road and turned right, in the direction of the entrance to the urbanizacion. ‘She has known much sorrow.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Do you really wish to add still more sorrow until you can be certain it is necessary? What is the truth about the death of señorita Dean? Suppose we are wrong when we believe West murdered her? Suppose he was not with señora Rassaud at all that night, yet nevertheless knows nothing about the death of the señorita?’

  ‘Suppose we believe in fairies?’

  ‘Sometimes, I do.’

  Exasperated, Cullon looked sideways and to his complete surprise realized from Alvarez’s expression that the comment had not been made facetiously. He slumped back in the seat. How could anyone cope on an island where a detective let a vital witness off the hook because he believed in fairies?

  They passed a field of orange trees in which a man was working the soil beneath the trees with a wooden cultivator pulled by a mule: coming along the road in the opposite direction was a donkey cart, driven by an old woman in widow’s weeds: just visible, beyond the field to their left, were two women and a man who were winnowing some sort of grain with large wooden shovels. They were, Cullon thought, centuries away from the world of packaged holidays. Perhaps in such a past there were fairies . . . He silently swore. He was in danger of becoming every bit as crazy as the locals.

  Alvarez slowly drove up the street in Llueso, stopped suddenly and without warning. There was a brief squeal of brakes. Cullon looked through the rear window and the driver of the car behind tapped his head. ‘1 think she lives in that house there,’ said Alvarez.

  Who? wondered Cullon. The ugly witch?

  Alvarez saw a vacant parking space and still without any signs made for it and parked. ‘I will go and make certain that Francisca does live there.’

  Cullon watched him walk past two women, who were sweeping clean the road outside their homes and taking the opportunity to gossip, and enter the house he had previously indicated.

  Alvarez returned a moment later. ‘She lives here and she is inside, so we can talk to her.’

  They sat in the front room, spotlessly clean and smelling faintly of spices. She asked them what they’d like to drink and poured out a couple of brandies. She was about to sit down when there was a call and a young child, just at the walking stage, staggered into the room. She picked him up an settled him on her lap and he stared with wide-eyed curiosity at the two visitors. Cullon was hardly surprised when the first ten minutes of the conversation, conducted in Mallorquin, clearly concerned the child and not the case.

  Finally translating all that was said, Alvarez began to question her. ‘Was señorita Dean ever at the señor’s house?’

  ‘She’s been there, yes.’

  ‘What about recently?’

  Francisca tickled the palm of her son’s hand to keep him contented. ‘I suppose she called a couple of times: something like that.’

  ‘When was this, as near as you can say?’

  ‘The first time was . . . must have been around the beginning of the month and the second wasn’t all that long ago. Matter of fact, the señor was out. I told her he almost certainly wouldn’t be back for hours, but she insisted on waiting for quite a while.’

  ‘Can you remember anything about the first visit?’

  ‘Only that they had a terrible row. She was shouting so, I thought something awful would happen.’

  ‘D’you have any idea what the row was about?’

  ‘Not really, because they were shouting in English and I don’t understand English all that well.’

  ‘Wasn’t there a single word you caught?’

  She drew out from the short sleeve of her cotton frock a small, lace-edged handkerchief and wiped her son’s nose, much to his vocal annoyance. Then she hushed him up before she answered. ‘There was some sort of name she kept shouting.’

  ‘What kind of name?’

  She thought. ‘It wasn’t Mallorquin.’

  ‘Could it have been Rosalie?’

  She was surprised. ‘That’s what it was! But how did you know that?’

  ‘It just seemed likely. Did you see the señorita when she left?’

  ‘Yes, but only for a second.’

  ‘How d’you say she looked?’

  ‘Like . . . Well, like someone who s just had terrible news. Her face was all twisted and she’d been crying. I felt ever so sorry for her. The señor . . . Well, there are times when he’s not the kindest of men. I know that from working for him.’

  ‘Thanks a lot for all your help, Francisca.’ Alvarez stood, put his hand in his pocket, and brought out some loose change, from which he picked out a fifty-peseta piece. He offered the coin to the boy, who stared at it for a while before snatching it.

  They left and returned to the car. Once settled, Alvarez began to tap on the wheel with his fingers.

  Cullon was determined that there should be no more talk of fairies. ‘It’s pretty obvious what happened the night of the row. Gertrude Dean had learned about the engagement and went along to West’s place to do her damndest to break it up. She’d have been jealous of Mrs Rassaud, of course, but far more to the point, bitterly furious that her over-close friendship with Mrs Rassaud must suffer if the marriage went ahead.

  ‘West was fool enough to laugh in her face. She threatened that if he didn’t do as she demanded, she’d tell us back in the UK that he wasn’t in her house at the time his wife died. That left him totally exposed and with only one way of escape—murdering her . . . Don’t you agree it’s time to go back and see Mrs Rassaud again?’

  ‘We must just wait for the evidence from the forensic laboratory,’ replied Alvarez, sadly prevaricating.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Institute of Forensic Anatomy telephoned at midday on Tuesday. The post morten on señorita Dean had been completed. She had died from asphyxia, entirely consistent with having a plastic bag over her head. There were no signs of any bruising, or other injuries, and there were no scrapings under the nails to suggest she had inflicted any defence wounds. She had taken ten grains of Seconal shortly before her death. She had not been suffering from cancer.

  ‘The complete carbon copy of Mrs West’s murder,’ said Cullon, as he stood by the open window in Alvarez’s office, trying to cool down. ‘So now can we go and tear up that alibi?’

  Alvarez scratched the side of his face. ‘We still have not heard from the forensic laboratory about the typewriter and the suicide note.’

  ‘You’re just goddamn stalling!’ Cullon spoke with a measure of frustration, but even so there was a note of understanding sympathy in his voice. He’d only known Alvarez since Sunday, yet in that short time he’d come to like him a lot, despite his obvious incompetence. ‘You know, Enrique, you’re too sentimental for this job.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right. But I find I can never be certain about some meanings. The meaning of guilt, of murder . . .’

  ‘For Pete’s sake, sometimes one can have a bit of an argument about that sort of thing, but not this tim
e. Gertrude Dean was killed to keep her mouth shut—even in a bleeding-heart liberal’s book that has to be straight brutal murder.’

  ‘I am getting old and old men often talk nonsenses.’

  Cullon grinned. ‘It’s not just the old. You ought to hear some of the blokes I have to work with back home!’ He stepped away from the window. ‘Forgetting Mrs Rassaud just for the moment, I’ve a confession to make. There’s one thing that’s really been puzzling me about your job, Enrique. Don’t you suffer the ordinary run of crimes in this neck of the woods: assaults, drunkenness, thefts, break-ins, that sort of thing? If this were back home, I’d be doing a balancing act with at least a dozen cases over and above the murder.’

  ‘There used to be very little, but recently . . .’ Alvarez sighed as he looked at the pile of muddled papers on his desk. ‘Recently, there have been so many crimes because people are less honest. Ten years ago there might have been a break-in and theft from a house in a month, now there can be ten in a day. If I tried to deal with everything, I would kill myself with worry and work. So I just concentrate on one case at a time.’

  ‘I wonder how that system would go down back home,’ said Cullon.

  A member of the forensic laboratory telephoned Alvarez at 7.30 that evening. ‘The plastic bag displays one peculiar characteristic and that is a fault across a bottom corner: it’s only half a centimetre long, but it is obvious in a good oblique light. There were several fingerprints on the bag, all of which belonged to the deceased. In addition, there are two or three marks which might have been made by gloved hands—can’t be any more definite than that.

  ‘We’ve checked the typewriter for prints and the only one’s we’ve been able to raise are of the deceased. This was not the machine used to type the suicide note.’

  ‘Not?’ said Alvarez, his voice sharp with astonishment.

  ‘I know the impressions appear to be similar, but under close examination it’s clear they’re not. The typewriter you sent us is a new one and none of the letters have begun to show any signs of wear, whereas the suicide note was written by a machine which has seen considerable use.’

  Alvarez thanked the caller and said goodbye.

  ‘So he didn’t sit down after murdering her and calmly type out the note,’ said Cullon slowly. ‘He’s not as cool as we’ve been giving him credit for. And when you stop to think about it, something else is also pretty obvious, isn’t it? He knew the typing had to appear to have been done on her machine so that any cursory glance would assume it had been—remember, the whole murder was based on the near certainty that there’d be no detailed investigation of an apparent suicide. But he also knew that he had to get hold of a machine exactly similar to hers to do the typing because he could judge that the moment he’d murdered her he was going to have to get out of the house as he wouldn’t have the nerve to stick around, not even for the few minutes necessary to do the typing . . . We’re going to crack him far more easily than we thought.’

  Alvarez said in puzzled tones: ‘Perhaps you are right. But he would not confess to the murder of his wife.’

  ‘We never found a way to start really hurting him simply and solely because Gertrude Dean gave him an alibi and all the time he knew that, failing our uncovering direct evidence of his murder, he was laughing . . . Well, do we now go and see Mrs Rassaud and make her tell us the truth, or can you think up yet another excuse for holding back?’ He grinned, taking some of the sting out of the words.

  They arrived at Ca’n Piro to find Rosalie was out. As they stood by the front door, at the head of the steps, Cullon swore. ‘You don’t think she’s made a bolt with West?’

  Alvarez shook his head. ‘She would never do that.’

  ‘How can you be certain. She lied like a trooper over the alibi.’

  ‘Because she believes he had nothing to do with the señorita’s death. Therefore it cannot be wrong to help him. But to run away with him would be to admit his guilt. She could never ever live with a man who she knew had murdered.’

  ‘All this because of the look in her eyes!’ said Cullon, in exasperation.

  Fifty metres to their right was another bungalow, only vaguely visible through the growth. Sufficient noise was coming from that direction to suggest some sort of party was in progress.

  Cullon said: ‘It’s a bit of a long shot, I know, but the people living there might just have noticed whether or not West’s car was parked here that evening. If we could prove to her we know she’s lying . . . Don’t you reckon it’s worth the effort of finding out?’

  They walked down to the road and along to an elaborate entrance with wrought-iron gates. Just inside, built up at its southern end, was a small swimming pool and grouped around this were two men and two women, all in costumes: one couple were lying on towels, the other were sitting on patio chairs. A mobile cocktail cabinet was near the chairs and the pitch and volume of the voices—they were speaking French—suggested that full use had been made of it. As the two detectives walked up the drive and then climbed on to the pool patio the man in the chair, middle-aged, balding but with a mat of hair on his chest, stood.

  Speaking in French, Alvarez explained the reason for their call.

  ‘Of course we’ll help if we can. But before that, what’ll you drink?’

  ‘A coñac would be very nice, señor.’

  ‘And what about your friend?’

  Alvarez spoke to Cullon in English. ‘He’s asking what you would like to drink?’

  The man, in an English almost as fluent as Alvarez’s, said: ‘I have gin, whisky, Bacardi rum, brandy, and sweet and dry vermouth.’

  ‘I’ll have a brandy, if I may,’ replied Cullon. Everyone a bloody linguist, he thought, suddenly feeling rather inadequate. It was not a feeling to which he was accustomed.

  ‘Let me introduce everyone,’ said the man. ‘I am Henri de la Sap. Not, I am told, a very flattering name in English!’ He laughed very heartily. ‘The lady in this chair is my wife. Lying on the towels are Monsieur and Madame Messmer, who have the great misfortune to live in Paris, which is why Monsieur Messmer looks so very ancient.’

  They all laughed. They were at the alcoholic stage where even a weak joke was uproariously amusing.

  De la Sap poured out two large brandies and added ice. ‘No one has found you a chair! Jacques, if you can still stand, fetch these gentlemen two chairs.’

  Messmer, at times concentrating very hard on what he was doing, carried over two more patio chairs which he set within the shade of a brightly coloured beach umbrella. Alvarez and Cullon sat: glasses were handed to them.

  De la Sap leaned forward. ‘Now, satisfy our curiosities. What terrible crime brings you to us? Has someone stolen all the brandy in town?’

  Alvarez answered him. ‘Señor, can you remember Monday evening, the nineteenth of the month?’

  ‘Can I? Can I not!’

  ‘Almost certainly not,’ said his wife.

  ‘I remember everything,’ he contradicted loudly. He turned to Alvarez. ‘You will understand it was Adele’s birthday and we had a little quiet celebration here.’

  His wife said jeeringly: ‘He calls it a quiet celebration!’

  ‘It merely shows how little he remembers of what happened,’ said Messmer.

  Alvarez pointed in the direction of Ca’n Piro. ‘Have you met the French lady who lives there?’

  ‘Indeed. A very charming and beautiful young lady. And if Adele were not on holiday with me . . .’

  ‘She’s engaged to be married to a man half your age and twice as handsome,’ said his wife scornfully.

  ‘Mature Bordeaux is always more interesting than fresh Beaujolais.’

  ‘Not when it’s become corked.’

  ‘How did you come to meet señora Rassaud?’ asked Alvarez.

  ‘On the first day of our holiday,’ answered de la Sap, ‘the cooker in this place wouldn’t work properly and we couldn’t get hold of the courier to see if she knew what to do, so I went next door t
o discover if anyone there could help. The most charming Rosalie came and showed us what was wrong.’

  ‘Did you see her on the night of your wife’s party?’

  ‘Indeed. Do you imagine we’d let so charming a compatriot be on her own on such a night?’

  ‘She was in this house?’

  Madame Messmer, slightly more sober than the others, suddenly remembered that they were policemen and became worried. ‘We’ve asked her here several times. There’s surely nothing wrong in that, is there?’

  Cullon spoke with aggressive excitement. ‘Can you say what time she came here?’

  ‘I can’t be certain, no.’

  ‘Then as near as you can get.’

  ‘Well . . . I suppose it was around seven.’

  ‘And how long was she here?’

  ‘She wouldn’t stay to a meal, even though we tried very hard to persuade her. She must have left at . . . about half-past nine?’ She looked to the others for confirmation. They said nothing.

  ‘Was anyone with her?’

  ‘No, no one.’

  ‘Did you see her fiance at all?’

  ‘We asked her to bring him along, but she said he was going to be out all evening . . . Why are you asking all these questions?’

  Alvarez answered. ‘There is a something which we have to know, señora, and you have helped us.’

  The four were uneasily aware that a matter of importance had been decided, but they had not the slightest idea what.

  CHAPTER 19

  Rosalie sat in her brightly coloured sitting-room, hands clasped together in her lap. The harsh morning sunlight came through one of the windows on to a part of the tiled floor that was uncarpeted and it was reflected up to touch her hair with sparkling highlights: it also outlined her face too sharply so that her apprehension was obvious. ‘I’ve told you everything I can.’

  Alvarez said: ‘Señora, yesterday evening we spoke to the four French people who are staying at the next bungalow.’

  For a moment she couldn’t follow the significance of this, but then she remembered what she had told the detectives on their previous visit.