“I’ve seen something, something in the—the,” she said before her voice fragmented.
“Take your time, darling,” said Grenville. “Come and sit down. Oh, you’re shaking. Consuela, la botella de cognac, por favor.” The maid disappeared to fetch the brandy.
“It was in—in the rambla. I was walking home from La Paz. I was passing over the bridge. Something caught my eye. Something red. I looked down into the barranco. I wasn’t sure what it was to begin with. I knew there was something not right, but I didn’t know what. I just couldn’t take it in.”
“Violet? What was it?” asked Grenville.
“Blood on the rocks,” she said, taking a sip of the brandy that the maid poured for her. “And a shape, a body.”
“Who was it?” asked Davison. “Did you manage to see?”
“No, as soon as I saw it I ran here. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Was it a man or a woman?” asked Davison.
“A man,” she said.
“Do you think he might still be alive?” I asked.
The girl did not respond. Instead, she gazed in front of her with a horrified expression as if the body lay on the ground by her feet.
“Violet, listen to me,” I said. “It’s very important. We may still be able to save the person’s life. Do you think the man you saw is still alive?”
“He may be, but I’m not sure. There was so much . . . the redness on the rocks. Oh, Father!” She burst into tears and Grenville cradled her in his arms.
“Quick, we must do everything we can to try and save him, if it’s not too late,” I said. “I trained as a nurse in the war, so I may be able to help.”
I turned to Grenville. “Can we borrow your car?”
He hesitated for a moment. “Yes, but—”
“Thank you. Violet, you must come with us, and tell us where you saw this . . . accident.” I suspected it was anything but an accident, but this was no time for accusations of murder. That could come later.
“Do I have to? Oh, Father, it was so horrible. Couldn’t I—”
“Violet, I think you should do what Mrs. Christie suggests,” said Grenville. “Don’t worry, I’ll come with you.”
“And could you ask your maid to fetch the doctor from the hotel? Would he know where to find us?”
“Yes, of course, I’ll give him directions, but he should know the spot, all right,” said Grenville.
“Quickly,” I said. “We may only have a matter of minutes, if that.”
Grenville, Violet, Davison, and I all jumped into the car. But when Grenville tried to start the vehicle, nothing happened.
“Damn,” he said. “This Ford has always been temperamental, but it would have to be now.” He jumped out and started to hand-crank the car, but nothing happened. “Blasted thing! Come on!”
I felt the sweat prick the back of my neck. “How far is it? Violet, how far from here?”
“About ten minutes on foot,” she said.
Grenville continued cranking, but again the car did not turn over.
“Let’s go,” I said, taking hold of her arm and pulling her out of the car. “Show me.”
“But—”
“Come on,” I said, digging my fingers into her wrist.
“Father—”
“I’ll meet you down there,” said Grenville. “And if I get the car to start, I’ll pick you up. Do what Mrs. Christie says.”
We started to run along a dusty track that led from Mal País, along the back of the grounds of the Taoro, towards an abandoned onion seed farm.
“Was there any sign of breathing?” I said. The afternoon clouds had started to dissipate, and the sun beat down onto the back of my neck. My face felt flushed and lines of perspiration were soaking into my clothes.
“Not that I could see,” said Violet. “But I was only looking from the bridge. Do you think I should have gone down into the rambla to help? Could I have saved him? Oh, but I couldn’t. You’ll understand when you see.”
Gasping for breath, we arrived at the wooden bridge, our faces red and our clothes dusty and stained. I looked around me. There were no houses in sight.
“Where was—”
I stopped in midsentence. Looking down from the bridge, I saw a trail of blood splattered against the rocks below. A few feet farther down into the dry riverbed, surrounded by a clump of white wild oleander, lay what looked like a dummy wearing a soiled linen suit.
“Oh, my word,” I said as I started to ease myself down the side of the rambla. “You stay up here in case the doctor arrives,” I shouted back to Violet.
The rocks were sharp, and some of them cut into my hands. At one point I slipped, ripping my skirt and bruising my thigh. I strained my eyes towards the crumpled heap below, watching for signs of life. As I approached, my training as a VAD nurse came to the fore. I had seen some truly horrific sights in the war, so I assumed nothing would shock me. It was then, as I was able to get a closer look at the body, that I understood Violet’s words about her mind not being able to comprehend what she had seen. I too felt the same thing. There was something not right about what lay here in this ugly heap on the rocks.
I moved quickly, finding an arm to check for a pulse. There was nothing. I was too late.
I began to study the top of the body. The head was turned away from me and it was obvious that a great deal of blood had been lost. As I moved around to examine the face, I gasped in disbelief. The corpse was that of Mr. Winniatt. And sticking out of his right eye was the bloodied spike of a bird-of-paradise flower.
16
“Is there any hope?” called out Violet from the bridge.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Who . . . who is it?”
“It’s a guest at the hotel, Mr. Winniatt,” I shouted. “Did you know him?”
“No, no, I didn’t. How awful. Do you think it was a terrible accident?”
I did not respond. I looked down at the body. There was nothing I could do to bring back the life that had been taken, but I still felt the overwhelming urge to give Winniatt respect and dignity in death. I would have liked to have reassembled the bent, twisted limbs in a way that I thought fitting, but I knew that the inspector would want to see the body in its original state. I couldn’t even close the poor man’s eyes.
In the distance I heard the sound of an engine.
“That’s Father,” Violet called down. “He must have managed to get the car to start.”
I had not particularly liked Mr. Winniatt, what with his talk of high literature and his project to document experience in an unmediated form. What was it that his wife had said? “Oh, he never goes anywhere without his notebook.” Without thinking, I stretched out my hands and began to look through the pockets of his blood-splattered linen jacket. I did the same with his trouser pockets, but still nothing. On the ground near the body were a pair of shattered spectacles, a copy of a German novel called Der Zauberberg, a bookmark, a fountain pen, a handful of Spanish coins, and a photograph of Daisy Winniatt, its top right-hand corner torn. Despite my feelings for him, the sight of the dead man’s belongings brought tears to my eyes.
“Mrs. Christie? Mrs. Christie?” It was Grenville from above. “Violet says we’re too late to save him. A guest from the hotel?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” I shouted.
“What a terrible accident,” he replied.
I thought of the clump of bird-of-paradise flowers I had seen in Grenville’s garden earlier.
“Could you send Mr. Blake down?” I asked.
“Of course,” shouted Grenville.
A moment later, Davison steadied himself as he descended the slope into the rambla. His first thoughts were for me.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his kind eyes searching my face.
“Yes, but . . .”
We both looked at the terrible sight that lay before us. I pointed out the head injuries, the bird-of-paradise flower, the fact that Mr. Winniatt’s notebook was mi
ssing.
“I don’t understand it,” whispered Davison. “First Douglas in the cave. And now Winniatt, like—like this. It seems so random, yet—”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Everything points to Grenville, doesn’t it? That stuff about the car not starting was nonsense. After a couple of attempts I told him that I would give it a go. He reluctantly agreed, and when I tried, the car started like a dream.”
“So you think he was trying to delay us finding the body? In case Winniatt was still alive and could tell us something?”
“It certainly looks like it. What are we going to do?” said Davison anxiously. “I suppose now it’s only a matter of time before Núñez arrives on the scene.”
“Which means that—”
“That I’m going to have to make myself scarce, I’m afraid.” He paused. “Agatha, I don’t like this, not one bit. I couldn’t live with myself if any harm came to you.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say that I would be all right, that no harm would come to me. Instead, I asked, “How much time do you think we have before Núñez arrives?”
I looked up at the bridge. Grenville and Violet were staring down into the dry riverbed, but I was certain they could not hear us.
“It depends where he is on the island. But half a day at the most.”
“What will you do?”
“I know a little hostal in Icod de los Vinos. I’ll go there. Let me tell you where it is in case you need to get hold of me there.”
The sound of small stones falling down the bank made me look up. Grenville peered over into the rambla.
“Do you need me to do anything?” he shouted.
With his great bulk, Grenville could easily pick up a large rock and hurl it down, crushing our heads or fatally injuring us. Davison obviously had the same thought.
“We need to get out of here,” he whispered to me before shouting up to Grenville, “Could you go to the hotel? We should fetch the doctor and inform the police.”
After giving me details about his hostal in Icod, Davison helped me climb back up to the bridge, where Grenville was waiting with a large, outstretched hand. I looked down at my clothes covered in dust, dirt, and even a spot or two of blood.
“I just don’t understand it,” said Grenville. “Do you think he fell? Or do you think he intended to die? Perhaps there was something in his life that was making him unhappy.”
“That’s for the police to decide,” said Davison. He kept the description of the body brief, and did not mention the detail of the bird-of-paradise spike projecting from Winniatt’s right eye.
“Yes, I see,” said Grenville as he helped Violet, who was still weeping, into the car. The engine started promptly. “When all this is over, we must get back to our little experiment, Mrs. Christie.”
“I’m sorry?” I couldn’t help the look of surprise from stealing across my face.
“Yes, indeed, I believe you must have a great deal of untapped energy,” he continued. “Didn’t you see the card that you had selected from the Tarot pack?”
I replied that I had not.
“It showed a figure, a skeleton dressed in armor, riding a white horse.”
“And its meaning?” I asked.
“The triumph of death,” he said.
17
After Grenville and Violet had left the scene of the crime, we stayed with the body until Dr. Trenkel and a couple of porters from the hotel arrived. We informed Trenkel, a steely type with cold Germanic good looks and ice-blue eyes, what we had found. No, we had not touched the body, we told him, except for checking for the pulse. Trenkel could not say for certain how long Winniatt had been dead, but he estimated it to be in the region of four to seven hours. He told us that he would break the tragic news to Mrs. Winniatt and would communicate all the necessary details to Inspector Núñez, who had been summoned and would no doubt want to question us at our convenience.
“Núñez is going to have a shock when he finds that one of the witnesses has disappeared,” said Davison as we made our way back to the hotel. “I suppose it will be only a matter of time before he puts two and two together and realizes that Mr. Alexander Blake is none other than the man he suspects of killing Douglas Greene.”
“Yes, but I can’t see what else you can do—apart from turn yourself in, that is.”
“Now, we don’t have much time,” he said. “As soon as I get back to the Taoro, I’ll leave for Icod. And there are certain things you need to know, things that I didn’t tell you.”
“Such as the fact that Greene and Mabey are brothers?”
“Yes, and there’s more. You see, we’ve suspected Rupert Mabey of being a Bolshevik agent for some time. The last time he was in England, he met someone who works for a joint-stock trading company called Arcos. The name may not mean anything to you, but we believe that Arcos—the All-Russian Co-operative Society, based at 49 Moorgate—is a front for a range of highly subversive activities. Perhaps Douglas found out something about Mabey, something that linked him to the Soviets.”
“I see,” I said. “So you think that Mabey could have killed Greene?”
“It’s certainly a possibility,” he said. “When I came over to Tenerife last year, I felt it was my duty to tell Douglas about his blood link to Mabey. Of course to begin with, he didn’t believe it, thought it was some surreal game I was playing, but then he realized I was telling the truth. He asked me how long I had known about the connection and he was—quite rightly—angry that I had kept the information from him.”
“But would Mabey have gone so far as to kill his own brother?”
“I suppose he would never have thought of him like that. And agents have done worse things.”
What an empty world Davison inhabited. Was it all worth it? All those killings and double crosses and betrayals. For what? King and Country. Yes. And freedom. But still . . .
“Look, I wouldn’t mind in the least if you decided that this was all too much,” he said. “I know you have your life, your daughter, your own work. Hartford, back in London, would completely understand.”
I thought of the delicious prospect of bundling up Rosalind and taking her back on the first boat to England. I would see the old familiar face of Torquay with its creamy villas and seven hills and lovely bays. I could walk where my mother and father had once walked, where I had played as a child, where I had learnt to read and tell stories, where I had been bathed in happiness.
But what would happen to Davison? He would no doubt be arrested for the murder of Douglas Greene, perhaps even that of Winniatt, too. Even if he escaped that charge, evidence of his intimate friendship with Greene would get back to his seniors and he would face certain disgrace. Recently he had lost his best friend, Una, and his closest companion, Greene. I would not fail him now.
“My mother brought me up better than that,” I said. “No, I’ve given you my word, and my word is never broken.”
“Thank you, Agatha,” he said, his voice breaking. “I won’t forget this.”
We parted before we entered the Taoro’s grounds. Inside, I tried to slip upstairs to my room unnoticed, but Helen Hart and Guy Trevelyan spotted me.
“Oh my goodness, Mrs. Christie, what on earth has happened to you?” shrieked Miss Hart, looking at my disheveled appearance.
“Are you all right?” asked Trevelyan.
I told them that I had suffered a fall while riding. Of course the news would leak out soon enough, but I could not face the inevitable series of questions that would accompany the truth. I just hoped I did not meet poor Daisy Winniatt, as I was sure I would not have been able to lie to her. Fortunately, I managed to enter my room unobserved; even Carlo and Rosalind were out. I undressed rapidly and ran a bath, scrubbing my skin hard to rid myself of the traces of violent death.
Davison had packed his things and left the hotel before the gong sounded for dinner. The noise, instead of promising the delights of the evening, only struck fear into my heart. W
ith Davison gone I had only my wits to protect me. Thank goodness I had brought my secret leather pouch containing the selection of poisons. As I walked through the corridors of the hotel I recited some of the names silently to myself—aconite, belladonna, cyanide—an alphabet of death that, in a strange way, soothed my spirits.
18
Another dinner marred by news of death. There were two empty spaces at the table: those belonging to the late Mr. Winniatt and his wife, Daisy, who remained under heavy sedation in her room. Professor Wilbor had raised the idea of trying to get a couple of acquaintances to take their places, but it was decided that this would not do. And no matter how hard we tried to change the subject, the talk always ventured back to the strange manner in which Howard Winniatt had died.
“I just can’t understand it,” said Mrs. Brendel, who was in her element. “Do you think he fell? Or did someone push him? How awful if he was murdered. But who would want him dead?”
“It’s a matter for the police now,” said Professor Wilbor. “Don’t you agree, Mrs. Christie?”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” I said. It had been announced that Inspector Núñez would arrive later that night.
“Can you go over it once more time, my dear?” asked Mrs. Brendel. “I really do fail to picture it.”
“I think Mrs. Christie is still recovering from the shock of the discovery,” said the professor. “Isn’t that so?”
As I nodded in agreement and took a sip of iced water, I saw Helen Hart’s blue eyes flashing. What kind of mischief would she start to make now?
“Witnessing a death like this is just beastly, is it not?” said Helen. “When I saw Gina do . . . what she did, I simply fell to pieces. Well, you saw me. I was hysterical with shock. I didn’t know what I was saying, or doing. I think I talked nonsense for the whole second half of the journey on the Gelria. Wasn’t that right, Mrs. Christie? You saw the kind of state I was in.”
“Well, each of us is affected by grief in different ways, of course,” I said gently.
“And by the way, I heard that you made the discovery with this mysterious man of yours you’ve been keeping secret,” she added.
A Different Kind of Evil Page 11
