Troubled Deaths

by Roderic Jeffries

  The house was small and hunched-looking. Most windows had no glass, only solid wooden shutters. In heavy rain the roof leaked in several places. There was no bathroom, only a cold tap in the kitchen. The privy was outside the back door. But as if to prove that time must always gain at least a foothold, there was electricity and in the sitting-room a large, much chromed television set.

  The couple looked old, but he guessed their ages at not much more than his own - life had been hard, though not without its compensations. On the battered desk in the sitting-room were photographs of two daughters, as babies, as girls at their first communion, and as brides.

  ‘A coñac, señor?’ said the man, obviously nervous about having a policeman in his home.

  ‘I could really do with one,‘he said.

  They bustled about, getting in each other’s way as they searched for the bottle of brandy and a clean, unchipped glass. Finally, the man poured out nearly a tumblerful of brandy for Alvarez.

  ‘Your health,’ said Alvarez. ‘And may your crops strain tight the granary doors.’

  They began to relax as they appreciated that he was of their kind. He talked to them about mules, the problems of maintaining the fertility of the soil when this was constantly being leached out, and the damage mole-crickets could do to a crop when the moon was in the first quarter. Finally, he led the conversation round to Ga’n Ritat.

  ‘He never used to talk to the likes of us,‘said the man and his wife nodded agreement. He did not say this deferentially or complainingly, merely as a statement of fact. He had a natural pride in himself, his family, and his work, and it would never have occurred to him that he might have considered himself socially inferior.

  ‘I’ve been told he was fond of entertaining the ladies?’

  The man laughed with Rabelaisian gusto. ‘If I’d a ram as active as him, I’d have a flock a hundred strong. Where’d he get ‘em all from, that’s what I want to know. They weren’t around like that when I was a young ‘un.’

  ‘Not that you could have done anything about it,’ said the woman.

  The man winked at Alvarez. ‘Here, is that right he ate a llargsomi? Couldn’t the silly bastard tell the difference from an esclatasang?’

  ‘It seems he couldn’t.’

  ‘Matilde says they was all esclatasangs,’ said the woman. ‘There weren’t no llargsomis among ‘em.’

  They stared at Alvarez with sharp interest. He shrugged his shoulders as if it were a matter of no consequence. ‘He must have picked up one from somewhere . . . D’you see him at all on Thursday?’

  They thought back. After a while, the man said: ‘Seems like it could be Thursday he turned up at the house after merienda with a woman. Skirt was so short there’s no knowing why she bothered to wear one.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have looked,’ said his wife.

  He laughed shrilly. ‘If wild asparagus grows in the lane, d’you think I’m going to walk past it?’ He rubbed his unshaven chin. ‘What d’you say that big car of his cost?’

  Alvarez had not seen Freeman’s car, but he guessed it was an expensive one because Freeman had obviously been a man who believed in show. ‘Maybe as much as a million.’

  They thought about that, but it was really beyond their comprehension that anyone could be so wealthy that he could waste a million pesetas on a car.

  ‘Did you see him in the afternoon or the evening on Thursday?’

  The man shook his head. The woman said: ‘The dog was barking and howling.’

  ‘It is always barking and howling,’ said the man. ‘The inspector’s not interested in that.’

  ‘But perhaps I am,’ said Alvarez, ‘because I need to know about everything unusual. What kind of time was this?’

  ‘It were dark,’ said the woman, as if that covered everything.

  ‘Soon after dark, or later on?’

  The man spoke testily. ‘I tell you, that dog were always kicking up a row.’

  ‘Not like it was then,’ she corrected him. She spoke slyly. ‘Perhaps Lopez had kicked it.’

  ‘Belt up,’ he said, his voice angry.

  It was obvious to Alvarez that the woman wanted to tell him something and yet either hadn’t the courage to come right out with it or else, like so many peasants, seldom approached a subject directly. ‘Lopez is the gardener, isn’t he? I’m surprised you think he might kick the dog: I’d have thought he was a different kind of a bloke to that. And come to that, are you certain he was around the place at that time? Did you see him?’

  ‘When it was dark?’ asked the man scornfully.

  Alvarez looked a little put out, as if this was something he had overlooked. ‘You might have heard his voice and so known he was there.’

  ‘We heard him earlier on, that’s for sure,’ she said. Her husband glared at her, but she took care not to look in his direction.

  With infinite patience, Alvarez discovered what it was she wanted to tell him. As far as they knew, Orozco had left before dark as he always did. But before he left, and while it was still fully light, she had been out picking beans and had heard Freeman having a row with Orozco. ‘The English señor was always shouting at Lopez,’ said the husband. With obvious reluctance she had to admit that this was so.

  She still had something to tell him. ‘Was it,’ suggested Alvarez, ‘a worse row than usual?’

  ‘ ‘Course not,’ said her husband, interrupting what she had been going to say. ‘Anyway, Lopez don’t say nothing much but lets the señor go on and on.’

  She leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘Maybe you don’t know? He fought for the other side!’

  Alvarez stared at her, surprise stretching his face. So this was the big secret. Forty-odd years ago, Orozco had fought for the Republicans and this fact was still held against him.

  ‘I said right from the beginning we should’ve told the English señor. But he - ‘ she jerked her thumb at her husband - ‘he said it didn’t matter because an English señor wouldn’t understand. Is that right?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he answered disinterestedly.

  She was disappointed and scornful that he couldn’t appreciate the importance of what she had just told him.

  Alvarez, conforming to etiquette, put down his glass with a little brandy left in the bottom. He stood up. ‘Thanks a lot for all your help.’

  The man nodded. The woman stared at him, puzzled that a man of so little intelligence should be in the police.

  CHAPTER X

  When Alvarez entered the Guardia post, the duty corporal told him that Superior Chief Salas most urgently wanted to speak to him.

  He telephoned Palma. Superior Chief Salas asked many questions and made many suggestions. Where had the poisonous llargsomi come from? Had the dead man eaten it through negligence and, if so, the negligence of whom? If the gardener swore he had picked no llargsomi and the cook swore there had not been one among the esclatasangs which had been cooked by the dead man, where could it have come from? Could anyone reasonably continue to view the death as purely accidental? Had the inspector bothered to investigate whether there were any motives for murder? He had? Superior Chief Salas sounded surprised. There had been some sort of row with the gardener? And a very painful scene involving a woman who had been in love with the dead man? These facts must be investigated thoroughly. What was the row about? The woman who interrupted and the woman who was interrupted must be interviewed. And had it, by some chance, crossed the inspector’s mind that it would be a good idea to investigate the Englishman’s financial affairs? And where the nearest llargsomis grew? And who . . .?

  Sweet Mary, Alvarez thought gloomily, why did life have to get so dreadfully complicated?

  The bank manager was small and sharp and he dressed very smartly in a well-pressed suit and a shirt with a semi-stiff collar. He put his elbows on the desk, joined the tips of his fingers together, and rested his chin on his fingers. ‘He was very well off, but I don’t think I can tell you anything more than that. When I
spoke to him it was only about business.’

  ‘Did his money come from England?’

  The manager lifted his chin, parted his fingers, and lowered his hands. He made all movements with such preciseness that often they appeared rather affected. He opened a folder. ‘I can’t answer that question, Inspector. Whenever it was necessary, Senor Freeman paid into his account a sum in pesetas.’

  ‘Just pesetas?’

  That’s right.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit odd? Most foreigners must surely cash foreign cheques or pay in foreign currency?’

  ‘In banking, Inspector, it is a truism to say that nothing is unusual. Other countries have currency regulations which foreigners who reside or visit here are at great pains to circumvent. My job is to provide such people with banking facilities provided there is no contravention of Spanish law.’

  ‘Are you saying that because Senor Freeman paid pesetas into his account he was probably fiddling his money through to Spain?’

  The manager spoke with strong disapproval. ‘The word “fiddling” is not one I care to hear used in this context.’

  ‘But if you couldn’t care less how foreign money reaches you, why shouldn’t he bring in the foreign currency? Where did all the pesetas come from?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You don’t think that perhaps he was fiddling Spanish currency?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ said the manager, shocked by the thought.

  Normally, Alvarez loved the Port and Llueso Bay, as yet relatively unspoilt by tourism, but after tramping around to visit hotels and pensions for what seemed like hours he was so tired that he not only sat down at one of the front bars, he then had not the energy to enjoy the view. His misery became complete when he was handed the bill for one small brandy.

  He left the bar and walked along the pavement, past shops many of which were shut for the winter, to the Hotel Llueso which, like many other hotels, had been enlarged during the great tourist boom and was now in some difficulty because of the minor recession. The black-coated receptionist studied his ill-fitting, creased clothes and the frayed collar of his shirt and his manner became supercilious. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Cuerpo General de Policia,’ snapped Alvarez, with satisfaction.

  The receptionist became obsequiously polite. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize. What can I do to help? Do you wish to see the manager?’

  ‘All I want to know is if you have an Englishwoman staying here whose Christian name is Veronica.’

  ‘And her surname is?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

  ‘Oh, dear! It will be most difficult to try to discover just from a Christian name . . .’

  ‘Then the sooner you get started, the better. In the meantime, I wouldn’t refuse a coffee.’

  He went into the lounge and happily relaxed in a comfortable armchair and was peacefully drifting off to sleep when a waiter brought him a large pot of coffee, milk, sugar, cup, saucer, and spoon, on a silver tray. He poured out a cupful of coffee and added a dash of milk. He had just lit a cigarette when the receptionist hurried into the lounge.

  ‘I have found that we do have a señorita with the name of Veronica. She is Veronica Milton.’

  ‘Have you her passport?’

  ‘Yes, señor. It is here.’

  Alvarez opened the passport and looked at the photograph. ‘It obviously could be her. See if she’s in the hotel.’

  ‘If there’s some sort of trouble . . .’

  ‘I’ll tell you about it all in good time.’

  He helped himself to a second cup of coffee and was just stubbing out a second cigarette when a woman came into the room. He studied her. She was younger than she had looked in the passport photo and far riper. He stood up and shook hands. ‘Señorita Milton, I am Inspector Alvarez. Thank you for coming here to speak to me.’

  ‘But what’s the matter? Why d’you want me? What have I done wrong?’ Her voice became high as she remembered the Guardia with sub-machine guns she had seen on her arrival.

  ‘Señorita, please don’t disturb yourself, I assure you there is no need for that. Though I perhaps have to give you some bad news . . . Do sit down.’

  ‘Is it my family?’ she asked, as she sat. ‘Has Mum. . .?’

  ‘There is no bad news from England, señorita. The bad news concerns a person who lives here, on this island. I think you may know him. Señor Geoffrey Freeman.’

  ‘Geoff! What’s he been up to now?’ Her voice became sulky.

  ‘I fear he has died.’

  ‘He’s what?’

  ‘Clearly, you had not heard this?’

  ‘Of course I hadn’t. Why, on Thursday he was alive and . . . What happened? Was it an accident?’

  ‘Señorita, Señor Freeman died from eating a poisonous fungus and now it is my job to try to understand his life for the past few days. I think you saw him on Thursday and so perhaps you will tell me how you first met him and then what happened.’

  ‘I . . . I’d rather not.’

  ‘Please understand, it is very confidential with me.’

  ‘But. . .’ She fiddled with a strand of hair just above her ear. ‘I suppose . . .’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘It was like this. I was having a drink with Di - she’s my friend – at one of the cafes and he walks along and sits at the next table and gets chatting. You know how it goes, don’t you? People talk to strangers easier out here than they do at home.’

  ‘Of course, señorita.’

  ‘Well, we got friendly and he said how about going to Palma for the day and having lunch at some wonderful restaurant he knew. Di was friendly with a bloke she’d met at the hotel so she wasn’t too keen, but I. . . I thought it’d be a bit of a lark. He picked me up in his car on Thursday and I asked him which restaurant we were going to and he said no restaurant but back to his place for lunch where his cook had prepared everything. So we went to his place.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a lovely house.’

  ‘Indeed it is, señorita.’

  ‘With that swimming pool and all the flowers. My dad would’ve loved to see it. . . You haven’t got a fag I could borrow, have you?’

  ‘I am so sorry. Please have one of these.’ He offered her a pack. ‘I fear they are black tobacco.’

  ‘Blue, black, or red, I just need a fag. Geoff dead!’ When she’d lit the cigarette from the match he’d struck, she inhaled greedily.

  ‘Did you have a pleasant lunch at his lovely house?’

  ‘You’ve just got to be joking! He was hungry, all right, but it wasn’t food he was after.’

  ‘Perhaps you could explain?’

  ‘Well, it’s all rather embarrassing . . . I mean, I don’t want you to think . . . Look, he mixed the gins too strong.’

  ‘Too strong for what, señorita?’

  ‘Too strong for me to remember that a girl’s best friend are crossed legs.’

  ‘He tried to make love to you?’

  ‘There was no holding him.’

  ‘And you and he . . .?’

  ‘It was all his fault - I mean what happened, not that we . . . Oh hell! It’s complicated. Look, I said to him, let’s go upstairs. I mean, if it’s going to happen a lady wants it to happen in privacy. But he said he’d told the cook to keep out so no one would bother us. The nerve of him, making all the arrangements before I’d arrived!’

  ‘So you were where in his home?’

  ‘In the sitting-room. We had some drinks - too much gin for me - and then he got fresh and before I knew what was happening, I was . . . Well, I wasn’t as I’d started, if you understand. Then this old faggot comes shrieking in.’

  ‘Old faggot?’

  ‘I don’t know who she was, do I? Looked like my Great Aunt Ida, the one whose husband gassed himself. She shouted her head off that he’d asked her to lunch, he said he’d told her to come on Friday . . . Went on and on arguing like that and there was me, in a state of complete . . . I’ll tell you. I was in a complete state.’

>   ‘And do you think she was upset?’

  ‘Upset? She looked like she was going to have a fit. And I’ll swear she’d have chucked something at me if there’d been anything handy and if she hadn’t been so busy trying to tell him he’d said Thursday. Then she began sneezing like her head was coming off and she cleared out.’

  ‘And what about you, señorita?’

  ‘You can imagine how I felt! I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life. I had said let’s go upstairs, after all.’

  ‘You make it sound as if he was not embarrassed?’

  ‘Honest, I don’t know what you’d have to do to embarrass him. Cool! There he was, caught in the act as you might say, but did that worry him? All he wanted was to get cracking again as if nothing had happened. I told him, I’d had enough. I wanted back to the hotel.’

  ‘How did he react to that?’

  ‘Got annoyed, but that was just too bad. I mean, one needs to be in the mood. And after being interrupted by that old faggot, I plain wasn’t in the mood.’

  ‘Did he cook you a meal before he brought you back here?’

  ‘Are you having me on?’

  T don’t think so, señorita, although I am not quite certain what you mean by that.’

  ‘After being embarrassed silly, d’vou think I was worrying about lunch? Even when I got back here, I couldn’t eat, I was so upset. I’m not used to having people behave like him.’

  You could have fooled me, thought .Alvarez.

  Orozco was transplanting late variety cauliflower plants, working with a slow, ponderous rhythm, when Alvarez arrived. He’d heard the car brake to a halt in front of the courtyard, the three short barks of the dog, and the crunch of feet on gravel, but he didn’t stop, nor did he look to see who had called.

  Alvarez reached where he was working. ‘D’you use plenty of dung? They say pig dung’s the best for cauliflowers, horse for cabbages. I reckon there’s not much difference if you rot it down well.’