Troubled Deaths

by Roderic Jeffries

  She knew he had a passion for esclatasangs, she knew where to find the llargsomi which grew with them. Had she meant to kill or only to make him ill? Surely, only to make him ill. Because then she would have the chance to help nurse him back to health and enjoy the self-sacrifice involved in nursing her betrayer. But she had failed to appreciate the warning implicit in the description of the llargsomi. Its degree of toxicity depended on the victim. Geoffrey Freeman had been unusually susceptible and so he had died in agony.

  Now it was necessary to see the world as she had seen it. She had murdered him cruelly, caused him physical agonies beyond description. She experienced self-hatred, despair, and wild remorse. One evening, Edward Anson had come to her house. He was rough and wholly masculine and he had shouted at her that she was too dried-up for any man ever to want. Hatred and the pains of frustration bore down on her self-hatred, despair, and remorse and suddenly, in the turmoil of her emotions, she realized something that should have been obvious long before. If she died, suffering agonies as great as Freeman had endured, she might find atonement. If the flesh were to be sufficiently tortured, surely the soul was released . . .?

  The facts had all been there, but he had overlooked them or else refused to acknowledge them from the moment he had learned about the money. He had believed the murderer must be pursuing a fortune whereas the murderer had been indifferent to the fortune. That money had been an irrelevance.

  He poured himself another drink. Mabel Cannon had played a sad, thwarted, tragic part. But what part had he played? Had he truly believed money was the sole motive for the murder or had he merely needed self-justification for pursuing Edward Anson? Mabel Cannon had sinned, but in her madness her sins were forgivable. He had sinned but in his sanity his surely were not?

  He finished his drink and then took his glass through to the kitchen, washed it, and put it on the rack to dry. He returned to the sitting-room and picked up the plastic phial and put it in his pocket, replaced the book of poisons in the bookcase, and left, locking the door after himself.

  When he drove into Llueso he crossed the bridge and then bore right instead of going straight on and when he came to the following turning off to the left he braked to a halt. A car came up behind and hooted, but he ignored it and eventually it pulled out to pass. The driver shouted something at him which he failed to catch. He stared up the sloping road. Last time, he had promised himself never again.

  He turned right and parked in front of the house with dark green shutters. As he climbed out, two boys, perhaps ten years old, pointed at him and laughed. Laugh now, he thought, but in seven or eight years’ time you’ll discover it’s no laughing matter.

  He knocked on the door and it was opened by Beatriz. She was dressed modestly and had on only discreet makeup. ‘Enrique! . . . Come on in. It’s ages and ages since you’ve been to see me.’ She closed the door and kissed him chastely on both cheeks. ‘Why have you been deserting me? For weeks I’ve been saying to myself, where is Enrique, why doesn’t he come and see me any more?’

  He mumbled some excuse about being so busy at work.

  ‘You look tired. Or ill. Enrique, are you ill?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘But something’s the matter with you.’

  ‘I’m sick of myself. And I’ve been drinking much too much.’

  ‘Haven’t you always?’

  She led the way into the sitting-room and while he sat on the settee, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes, she opened the right-hand door of an inlaid cabinet and brought out of it a bottle, two glasses, and a silver tray. She put the tray on the table, then sat beside him. ‘No, don’t open your eyes. I’m going to put a glass in your hand and afterwards I’ll stroke your forehead and chase away all your stupid worries.’

  She gave him a glass. She ran her fingertips across his forehead and he began to drift away from the troubled world. She whispered words of love and he believed them even while he was certain she must whisper such words to many men. Her lips closed on his and he put the glass down, brandy untouched, and gripped her and in her warmth and womanhood he found both physical and mental release.

  ‘Father, I have sinned.

  ‘I have loved a young and innocent woman. It’s not that I’ve ever touched her . . . Look, I’m no good at explaining things. I’m a simple, uneducated man and I can’t make words mean what I want them to. But when I met her it was like meeting again my fiancee who was killed before we could be married. And I fell in love with this woman even though I’m twice her age and she’s so beautiful that the devil himself wouldn’t dare harm her. Because I loved her, I persecuted a man.

  ‘I’m a police officer, sworn to uphold justice, yet I persuaded myself that he was responsible for a crime and closed my mind to all the evidence which could have told me he wasn’t. I went out of my way to persecute him. I was trying to punish him because he was in love with her.

  ‘And because I was so ashamed of what I’d done, I visited a woman I’d known before and had carnal knowledge of her . . . But you must understand that she’s not the kind of person you’ll imagine. She’s kind and warm and . . .’

  Alvarez left the church, a somewhat uneasy mixture of primitive baroque with brooding darkness and patches of over-bright colour, and he walked along one of the echoing passages of the monastery to the main doors and down the steps to the oblong courtyard. On his left was the shop, selling postcards and religious mementoes from which came the sound of taped music, and the medieval rest cells for travellers along a gallery, while on his right was a cafe: here, the sacred and the profane co-existed. Why should they not also co-exist in one troubled man? His car was in the covered car-park, but he did not immediately go to it. Instead, he turned and looked up at the hill beyond the monastery on which stood a tall, very simple steel crucifix. He wondered if the priest had really understood? Not that it would be the priest’s fault if not. He knew he hadn’t been able to explain very clearly why his sin had been so much more complicated than if it had been mere jealousy and lust. He had never been able to define justice, but he had always been able to define injustice because it hurt. Yet he had been ready, eager, to perpetrate an injustice: he, who believed that the greatest of all sins was deliberately to hurt another . . .

  He continued up to his car and sat behind the wheel. Poor, poor Señorita Mabel Cannon. Justice called her a murderer, but would not a Presence all-knowing and therefore infinitely more humane understand that she was not truly a murderer, only a victim? He hoped so.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Alvarez was re-packing the single seed which he had found in the book in Casa Elba when a guard looked into the room. ‘There’s a gorgeous piece of tail downstairs who’s demanding to speak to the dashing, handsome Inspector Alvarez.’

  ‘Shove off and get lost.’

  ‘Well if you don’t want to entertain her, I’ll stand in.’

  ‘D’you mean there really is someone?’

  ‘D’you think I’d call in here for the pleasure of your company?’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘How would I know? She can’t talk Spanish. But give me ten minutes alone with her and forget the dictionaries.’ He left.

  Hurriedly, Alvarez packed in a last wad of cotton wool and screwed home the top of the container. He didn’t understand the younger men. Nothing was sacred to them, not even innocence. He hurried towards the door, but when he was half-way across there was a quick knock on it and Caroline entered.

  Tm sorry, but I had to come and see you and I managed to get one of the men to show me which was your room.’ She spoke breathlessly and it was obvious that she was very nervous. ‘I hope you don’t mind too much?’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind, señorita. Please come in and sit down.’

  He watched her sit. She was warm and kind and apparently defenceless, yet when there was someone who needed defending she possessed a sense of loyalty which became steel-like. Juana-Maria had been like that: insult her and her eyes
would fill with tears, insult someone she loved and her anger scorched.

  ‘I. . . I’ve come to ask you about Teddy.’

  He sat behind the desk. ‘Señorita, I am afraid that at this moment I cannot tell you exactly . . .’

  ‘You can say whether you still believe he murdered Mabel.’

  ‘I am trying to explain, señorita, that there are some facts which have to be . . .’

  ‘Can’t you understand the kind of person he really is? He’d never poison a person, knowing the terrible agony they’d suffer. If. . . if he did kill anyone, it would be with his fists or something he grabbed hold of and because he’d lost his temper and didn’t know what he was doing. I know he went back and saw Mabel on Thursday, but he’s told you everything that happened when he saw her. Of course he shouldn’t have said what he did, but. . .’ She became silent, unable to find any real excuse for his behaviour.

  ‘Señorita, even though some things I do not yet know for certain, I can say this. It all seemed so complicated and I made mistakes, but now when this has been to the forensic laboratory - ‘ he tapped the plastic phial - ‘then I shall finally be sure.’

  ‘But what’s it all mean? Are you still so stupidly wrong that you think he could have murdered Mabel?’

  He had to answer her. ‘No, señorita, I do not think that.’

  ‘Thank God!’ she murmured. She was motionless for a while, then she sat more upright in her chair. ‘You shouldn’t ever have suspected him. You ought to have been able to see he wasn’t that kind of a person. Just because he’s not rich and doesn’t own a villa . . .’

  ‘Señorita, such facts have nothing to do with it.’ If she could guess the real reasons for his actions, he thought, she would know contempt for him, not anger. ‘Please understand that I had to ask questions of everybody and it did not matter to me whether the person was rich or poor.’

  ‘But at long last you know it wasn’t Teddy who killed her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then who was it?’

  ‘Señorita, I believe no one killed her. She killed herself.’

  ‘Mabel committed suicide?’

  ‘Think, please, of all that happened. Someone added a llargsomi to the esclatasangs which Señor Freeman ate. Why? Who had cause to hate him that much?’

  ‘The husband of one of the wives?’ she suggested uncertainly.

  ‘Many husbands may have hated him, but I do not think it was one of them. The señorita was very fond of Señor Freeman, was she not, so fond that she had helped him commit a big crime in England?’

  ‘Ted told me you said that. I still can’t believe it.’

  He spoke with sudden embarrassment. ‘A woman - or a man - can do strange and stupid things when in love. She helped him with the swindle because she was in love with him. They came to this island and here she saw him with many women, but always she told herself perhaps that it was just a friendship, no matter what people said. Then, one day, she made a bad mistake and arrived at his house when he was entertaining a lady and she saw . . . No longer could she believe her own lies about him. Her love became a hatred. But when a woman has loved a man, she can never hate him completely; always, there is a little hope left that one day he will truly repent and turn to her. So she decided to punish him, but never to kill him. If he were ill and she nursed him with all the self-sacrifice she longed to make, could he help returning her love?

  ‘She did not understand the poison and there was a dreadful mistake and he died. Now, her despair was total. And in this terrible despair she could see only one way of expiation - to suffer unto death as he had suffered.’

  ‘It’s horrible,’ she whispered.

  ‘Señorita, life and death are often horrible.’

  ‘But to know anyone could get like that . . .’ She stopped.

  He could find no words of consolation. Even she had to learn how the world really was.

  After a while her expression calmed. She stood up and came forward and shook his hand. ‘Thank you so much for telling me everything,’ she said, with simple gratitude. He accompanied her to the door, along the corridor, and down the stairs to the street door, where they said goodbye. As he watched her walk along the street he could still feel the smooth presence of her hand on his: the first time he had touched her.

  Caroline walked through the entrance of the boatyard and Mena, who had been standing by a car and talking to a couple, hurried over. ‘Señorita Durrel, how go you?’ he asked, in his laboured English. ‘Eduardo is speak to a man. Come to drink.’ ‘It’s a bit early . . .’

  ‘Is never early,’ he answered, with a gusto which Alvarez would have appreciated.

  They went into Mena’s office and he poured her out a large brandy and then, in a mixture of fractured English and Spanish, flirted with her with the breezy humour of a man who was too old and sensible to be dangerous, yet not so old he didn’t have ideas.

  He had left a message for Anson to come to the office, but when Anson arrived it was clear he had not been told that Caroline was there. He stared at her with considerable astonishment. ‘What’s brought you here?’

  ‘There’s something I had to tell you.’ She tried to speak casually, but could not hide her excitement.

  Mena smiled at her. ‘I will go and see everyone is working and not sitting around and wasting my money,’ he said, in Spanish. He drained his glass and put it down on the desk, stood up and walked to the door. As he passed Anson, he winked. ‘There is no hurry. And help yourself to a drink.’ He left, shutting the door behind himself.

  ‘He’s rather nice, isn’t he?’ she said.

  ‘Sure, provided you’re not trying to do business with him . . . What have you come to tell me?’

  ‘I’ve just been to see the detective, Teddy. I went along to where he works and asked him if he was still so silly as to believe you’d poisoned Mabel.’

  Anson stared at her for a while, then poured himself out a drink. ‘I reckon I need this.’ He drank. ‘Carrie, didn’t anyone explain to you that you don’t ever speak to a Spanish policeman like that?’

  ‘Why not? He didn’t mind.’

  He shook his head. Then, his manner became once more worried. ‘So what was the answer?’

  ‘He told me he wasn’t being stupid any longer. Mabel committed suicide. She wanted to hurt Geoffrey because of what she’d seen in his house, but made a terrible mistake because although she’d only meant to make him ill, the Uargsomi she put with the esclatasangs killed him. She was so shocked and upset that in the end she committed suicide.’

  He walked over to the window and stared out. ‘Poor old Mabel. She just couldn’t get a single thing right.’

  ‘I keep thinking of how frightfully she suffered . . .’

  He turned back and his voice sharpened. ‘Forget it. You did everything you could for her, unlike most of them round here who just thought her finding him wrapped round another woman was funny . . . Look forward, Carrie, not backwards. Grab life by its head, not its tail.’

  ‘All right. I’ll start looking forward. What about us?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Teddy, now you’re being thick.’

  He became uneasy. ‘Look, I’d better get back to work because . . .’

  ‘What have I got to do, then? Wait until leap year?’

  ‘Carrie, I . . . I’ve got nothing.’ He jammed his hands into his pockets. ‘Not even a bloody spare peseta to throw at the wind.’

  ‘And that’s important?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Aren’t you being incredibly old-fashioned? I thought these days everyone had learned to be much more sensible about things. In any case, how can you say you’ve nothing? You’ve your skill, your enthusiasm, and your ambition. And I’ve the money. So we just put them together . . .’

  ‘Didn’t the detective explain to you?’

  ‘Explain what?’

  ‘That it seems all the money Mabel and Geoffrey had came from the swindle t
hey carried out back in England? So the money in their estates will all be claimed back.’

  ‘Oh! . . . So I’m not rich after all?’

  ‘No.’

  She thought for a while, then smiled. ‘Now I understand. You’re not interested in me any longer because I’m poor instead of being rich?’

  He strode up to the desk, took his hands from his pockets and thumped diem down on the top. ‘How in the hell can you say that? God .Almighty, do I have to spell it out for you?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  He stared at her with longing. ‘I loved you the first time I saw you, Carrie. Just like all the fairy stories you’ve always believed in and I never have. But I was a boat-bum and you were the beautiful princess. You didn’t patronize me, or cut me, or treat me like the social undesirable so many of the others reckon me because I work with my hands, and like a fool I began to dream. I dreamt that there’d be a miracle and I’d find a job that would pay enough for me to be able to ask you to marry me. And you’d say yes and we’d live happily ever after. But I knew it was a dream. Then Mena offered me the partnership and it seemed perhaps it could be more than a dream . . . It became a nightmare. The detective thought I’d killed Mabel for her money . . . But now . . .’

  ‘But now?’ she repeated softly.

  ‘Now I’m right back at the beginning. The nightmare’s gone, but so has the dream. I can’t take the partnership because I haven’t the monev and there’s no way of finding it.’

  ‘If only you’ll offer him as much as I can rake up . . .’

  ‘I’m not taking a penny from you of your own money.’

  ‘That’s being stupidly stubborn.’

  ‘Perhaps. But that’s the way it’s going to be.’

  ‘Then how are you going to get the partnership?’

  ‘I’ve just told you. I’m not.’

  ‘Teddy,‘she said softly, ‘do you know something very strange about us?’

  ‘What?’