Ibiza Surprise

by Dorothy Dunnett

  He said to me suddenly, ignoring Janey’s fingers pressing his arm: ‘You didn’t think of telling me that. You could accuse me of killing Father with that woman sitting not ten miles away.’

  Janey said: ‘Sarah’s father committed suicide, and if she accused you of killing anyone, she was getting as bored with you as I am. Also, she had no idea Mrs van Costa was your mother. Neither had I. My God, would I have taken you there tonight if I had?’

  They stared at one another. She had diverted him all right. I shut the book on whether they’d got there ahead of Dilling’s towels or not.

  Johnson said: ‘Mrs van Costa sent him packing? Tonight?’

  I said: ‘Dilling and Clem took him off to dress and shove stuff in a suitcase. Someone was going to drive him to a hotel in Ibiza tonight.’

  ‘Dilling,’ said Johnson. ‘He left him to get the car keys, and when he came back, Coco had gone. Clem had already gone back to the party.’

  ‘Yes. I was with him,’ I said. ‘So, Coco gives himself a good fix, overdoes it, and wanders into the pond?’ I had meant to sound scathing, like Janey, but my voice sort of tailed away. The letter. The fake letter, I thought. Coco might have known I was sometimes called She-she. Coco might have suspected already that Mummy was going to give him the push. Coco might have had the whole nasty idea already written out in concrete poetry in his nasty little over-creamed head.

  ‘Picking three bulrushes first?’ said Janey.

  ‘If he were drowning,’ said Gilmore, ‘he might have come half awake and grabbed whatever he could.’

  I felt suddenly very depressed. ‘I believe in fate,’ I said. ‘I bet he was Capricorn.’

  ‘Are you Capricorn?’ asked Johnson. He was wearing a nameless, open-necked shirt and a botany jersey. He said: ‘I saw the papers today. It said your day would end drinking a modest white wine in the company of a dark man in glasses. Sarah, I know a place in the Dalt Vila where they continue to serve inebriating liquor until three in the morning. Will you join me? And of course, if anyone else . . . ?’

  Derek nearly said yes, he was spoiling so much for a showdown. But in the long run, intimidated by the flashing smile, they all turned it down, mumbling. Janey, turning the full lime on Austin, persuaded him to go back to the Lloyds’ house for the night, where he could dry out and recover, and then climbing into the Cooper, sat where I had sat on his lap. Derek, hamstrung by Johnson’s presence, sat in the back of the old Seat and glared, without a backward glance at the Cooper, while we rattled on into Ibiza and dropped him at his hotel. There had been a notice today in the market: no outside traffic in the town till 7 am, Saturday; no public music till Sunday. Johnson ran the car down to the quayside and parked it, and taking me by the hand, walked me up through the Perta de las Tablas into the Dalt Vila.

  After the heat and the noise and the beastliness, the old city was quiet and cool. Lamps lit Juno and her headless Roman Senator guarding the walls under which they’d been found, and there were lamps in the roofless courtyard inside and on the houses, blue and yellow, in the square to which it led. We stood there for a moment. Two dark-bereted workmen sat outside the bar, where in the daytime you could see Janey’s friends, with their long brown legs, their Labradors, and their casual boyfriends, reading the Daily Express. Or alone, in skinny sweaters and bell-bottomed corduroy trousers, sitting with a pack of cigarettes and an English paperback and some yogurt. In the old town were lonely people and dedicated people and people having fun working hard. The hippies were in the other town, outside the portals. Among the people whose island it was, life seemed to go on regardless. They had been there since Carthaginian times. Hairy coats and bare feet and Zapata moustaches weren’t likely to have much effect, I supposed, now.

  Johnson said: ‘Death is a sobering institution, isn’t it? Even Coco’s.’ He put his hand lightly on mine and said: ‘Look up, Sarah.’ I looked up.

  High in the sky, caught between the palms and the thick-ridged tiles of the roofs, stood a round, yellow moon, of the kind you always think you’re going to stand under one day, with a man. Somewhere, Coco was lying under it too. I wondered if there had been a moon when Daddy died.

  ‘A much-debased image,’ said Johnson’s voice, coolly. ‘But then, you can’t live on nothing but sugar. You can’t paint in nothing but pinks. You can’t pass your existence indulging in sex. Moons for romance are cheap moons.’

  He must have known what I was thinking. I said: ‘It’s an expensive moon now. And two weeks ago.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Johnson. He turned the hairpin bend round from the courtyard and began to climb slowly up the hill, taking me with him. He said: ‘Sarah. Why do you cook for the Lloyds? Did they ask you?’

  I didn’t look at him, but I remember I stuck my chin out. ‘No,’ I said. ‘They didn’t. They asked me to come for a holiday. I cook because I want to, that’s all.’

  I could feel him looking at me and I knew he was smiling. I wouldn’t look round. His nice voice said: ‘You may have the moon, Sarah. Your only real handicap is youth.’

  He didn’t speak again and neither did I.

  Johnson knew the Dalt Vila. We didn’t stay on the main road but went climbing through the steep, broken lanes, flattening once as a Simca loomed from the darkness reversing towards us, its engine cut off. There was, somewhere, a smell of incense among the other small, teasing smells in the air. I followed Johnson, without speaking, until he stopped and opened a door in a wall, and I walked through and found myself in a garden, small, dim, and latticed with vines, in which tables had been set under the palms, with low candles flaring.

  ‘Come in,’ said Johnson. ‘There’s no music tonight, but they’ll serve us some food and some wine. You don’t need to talk.’

  A young man came for the order, quietly, and then went away, leaving us nearly alone. One other table was occupied, by an old man half sleeping over his copita. Behind us, someone touched a guitar softly now and then, and sang under his breath absently, forgetting the embargo, only moved by the still night and the flowers and the dimness. Far off, you could see the steady lights lining the Santa Eulalia road and the bright lights at the end of the yacht club. The aperitifs came.

  ‘There’s Dolly,’ said Johnson. He was a restful man, in some ways. Or maybe all men were restful, and I’d never allowed myself time to observe it. I felt the way I did the last night at school, when I had to leave, and I didn’t know what to do. That was when Flo’s mother turned up and took me home for the weekend.

  I found I needed to blow my nose.

  Johnson said: ‘Clem should be back on board later on, Spry will wait up for him. I’m afraid it will be pretty rough going for your mother, now it’s known she was in Ibiza while your father was here.’

  ‘Does it have to be known?’ I said. I shoved my hankie away. ‘Janey and Gilmore won’t tell, and I don’t suppose Austin will if we ask him. Derek . . . “ I faded it out. I wanted, like an ache, to tell Johnson everything. And I couldn’t. Bloody, bloody Derek. I couldn’t.

  ‘Derek hasn’t told anyone so far,’ said Johnson. ‘According to Clem, who will keep his mouth shut also. Do you still think Derek murdered his father?’

  My tummy turned over. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But if he did, he probably murdered Coco Fairley as well. Coco was busy shrieking that he had seen something the night Daddy died, when Mummy had him turned out.’

  ‘You couldn’t guess what he’d seen?’

  ‘No. But from what he hinted earlier, he knew that Daddy had visited Mummy that Saturday night. He might have seen him leave or even followed him to watch where he went.’

  ‘Who heard Coco say that, Sarah?’ said Johnson.

  I thought. ‘Clem and Mummy. Dilling, perhaps, he wasn’t far away. Not Austin and Gilmore, they were in the shower with the Russians.’

  ‘And Janey and Derek?’ said Johnson
.

  ‘I don’t know. I saw them on the dance floor later, but I don’t know when they got there. If you want to imagine Derek listening outside the door, I suppose he could have been, at that. No one could identify anyone else. They were all wearing those bags.’

  There was a little pause, while we pushed down our drinks. Johnson had got me Anis del Mono. I liked it. Then Johnson said, thoughtfully: ‘You realise, if your father was murdered, then Coco was certainly murdered, although I doubt if anyone will ever prove that he didn’t take that shot and fall into the pond by himself. And with the exception of Gilmore, who you say was certainly under the shower, every single suspect from the death of your father was equally a possible suspect tonight.’

  ‘Except for Mr Lloyd,’ I said. ‘This time at least he was at home.’

  ‘How do you know?’ said Johnson gently. And of course, I didn’t. For with Janey and Gilmore away, there was no reason at all why their father should not have left the house and successfully gate-crashed that party. Why not, in a paper bag?

  I finished my aniseed stuff in one positive gulp. ‘I give up,’ I said. ‘I’m going to Seville with Austin.’

  For a moment, Johnson’s glasses were still. ‘Alone?’ he said.

  ‘Of course, alone. For goodness’ sake,’ I said, my voice rising in spite of myself. ‘Austin and Gilmore and Clem are the only three boys I know who couldn’t have murdered my father.’

  ‘It’s a sweeping claim,’ Johnson said, ‘but I know what you mean. Unless they’re hunting in couples.’

  ‘Oh, my Gawd,’ I said wearily, and he laughed and poured me more wine and began to talk about other things.

  Later, when we’d had ice-cold gazpacho, and paella with all the right things in it – squid and octopuses and chicken and lobster tails and paprika and sherry and peas and onion and pimento and pork, all done with saffron rice and shimmering in the quiet air – he took me out of the garden, between walls and through archways, up steps and along passages, climbing further and further until we came out at the highest point in the town, the little piazza of the cathedral.

  In spite of the time, the doors of the cathedral were open. It was very small, with its high, square clock tower looking out over the flat sea and land far below, and the light from inside fell across the beaten pebbles and dirt of the little square, and the short old walls of the curia and the museum adjoining. A black lane led, Johnson said, to the castle now used as barracks, and a big double green door to the episcopal palace. The wall was peeling, but the palm branches laced in the wrought-iron balconies were still fresh from Sunday.

  The smell of Easter lilies and carnations came through the church door.

  ‘I can’t go in,’ I said. ‘Can I?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Johnson said, gravely. There was a scarf tucked in the neck of his tatty jersey: he hooked it undone and held it out.

  It was silk, and Hermes, at nine guineas a whack. He was so ordinary, one forgot. I folded it over my hair and my shoulders and slipped in, keeping well to the wall. I didn’t expect Ibiza to see eye to eye with polythene.

  It was only a little church, dim and Gothic, and filled with the smell of incense, wax, and massed Easter flowers. The altars were all draped in purple and the holy figures concealed. People were kneeling instead before a shrine decked with carnations and lilies and roses, with candles and silk. No-one looked up. We stood for a moment, looking at the dazzle of light, and then my eye caught something else in an alcove.

  ‘Look,’ I said.

  It was a hand litter, propped on two benches, bearing the Virgin, weeping, candelabra unlit at her feet. Her robes, of heavy velvet worked in gold thread were quite real, and the handkerchief she held in her hand was banded with gorgeous lace. There was a jewelled dagger stuck in her robe.

  ‘Are they going to carry that in the procession tomorrow?’ I said.

  ‘That and three or four others. Plus a cartload of flowers, a number of great whacking batteries and sundry cloaks, veils and robes with solid gold adjuncts. Or silver at least. Quite a load to carry down all these perpendicular lanes.’

  ‘I didn’t know they wore clothes,’ I said. ‘I mean, real ones. The stones in the dagger aren’t real, too, are they? What if somebody nicked them?’

  ‘Up there, in full view of the worshipping throng?’ Johnson said. ‘It’s not very likely. In any case, there’ll be someone here all through the night. The very best jewels will come out tomorrow, when the figures are finally dressed. People donate the stuff. Conscience money, maybe you’d say. In Seville, women lend jewellery, too. Sometimes the Madonnas wear hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of diamonds. But that’s Seville, not Ibiza. Ibiza’s only got the Saint Hubert.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘The Saint Hubert collar?’

  ‘It’s on all the postcards,’ Johnson said. ‘In fact, I thought we might see it here. It was left to the Church by a banker called Hubert, on condition it was worn by an effigy of his name saint alone. Wait a minute. Let’s try in there.’

  ‘There’ was through a couple of doorways and into a long, marble-flagged room at the back, with tattered notices directing traffic to the cathedral museum. It was a robing room, clearly, with stacks of ancient old cupboards and a chest of drawers in black oak, labelled like an apothecary’s with the names of the owners: Canon Gimenez, Canon Tamas, Canon Anton. Heavy, gold-embroidered vestments belonging to the top dog, I supposed, lay out on a table, beside a broken electric candle and a saucer containing a slice of dry bread and a lemon. Johnson went across to look at a dim painting done on cracked wood, which hung on the plain, whitewashed wall. I began to look at some postcards.

  They were presumably for sale on less exalted occasions. One was of the float with the Madonna we’d just seen inside. The other was of the Saint Hubert.

  ‘Strewth,’ I said. ‘Madame Tussaud’s.’ In fact, Hubert, robed and bearded and mitred, looked rather a patsy, with one hand uplifted in classical blessing and the other parked on the head of a stag. The litter was huge, with lots of ormolu, candles, and frills and a sort of tree at each corner.

  ‘Saint Hubert,’ said Johnson. ‘You’ll see him tomorrow. Or are you going to Seville with Austin?’

  ‘We haven’t settled it yet,’ I said. I was thinking of something else. I said: ‘I’ve seen that collar somewhere before, do you know that?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Johnson obligingly. ‘Where?’

  The incense was making my head ache. I stood still and tried to think back. Then I remembered.

  ‘In the exhibition,’ I said. ‘In Austin Mandleberg’s exhibition. Or no, it wasn’t. It was in the basement downstairs. I sneaked off to look at the workshop, and I didn’t take more than a glance, because someone turned up. Jorge, the old boy who works there. But I’m sure the necklace lying on one of the benches was exactly the same shape as that. Rubies?’

  ‘Rubies,’ said Johnson with interest. ‘That’s it. They were red. I thought they were there for mending or cleaning.’

  ‘No. The Saint Hubert rubies,’ said Johnson thoughtfully, ‘are cleaned, they say, in Barcelona.’

  ‘Oh. Then I must have been wrong,’ I said.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Johnson. ‘Describe the room and the old man you saw in it.’

  I did, and also Gregorio, the director. ‘He lives in the basement, I think. The rest of the staff seem to come in daily. Why do you want to know all this?’ I asked. It was rather exciting. ‘D’you think someone’s pinched them?’

  ‘Maybe. Or maybe even just made a copy. But it would be nice to know which. Do you think Mandleberg knows?’

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t,’ I said. ‘Anyway, he’s been away for months and months, Janey checked when we were sleuthing. He really was in Paris when he said he was.’

  ‘Then the staff of the
Mandleberg gallery may be indulging in a fiddle without him,’ said Johnson. ‘I wonder if Senor Gregorio believes in the power of prayer?’

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘Because I’d like to pay him a visit, and I’d like it even more if he were safely in church,’ Johnson said. ‘But I’ll take you home first.’

  I had nothing to lose, except a trip to Seville and Gibraltar. ‘I’ll come with you, if you’ll paint my picture on Dolly,’ I said.

  The black brows shot up. ‘Are you sure? I’m not wholesome at all.’

  ‘I don’t want to eat you,’ I said. ‘Just to get painted.’

  He took my arm. ‘We may end up like your mother, phoning the Consul de S. M. Britanica, from jail.’

  ‘She phoned the Consulado del Estados Unidos,’ I said. ‘I’ll come. Will you paint me?’

  We walked back through the church and out into the square. The moon was still there, and the leaves of the three little trees stirred in front of the lanterns, throwing flickering shade over the old, grey carved stone and worn steps and the tops of the trees in the small, dusty garden underneath. From the barracks unseen behind us, a faint beat of undistinguished pop music made itself heard, from some invisible transistor.

  The view was fantastic. At our feet, the blocks of white houses stepped down into darkness. You could see the dim lights of the market and the few neon signs in the low town: a bank, a cinema, the red Philips shields. There was floodlighting near the harbour, and far out, the big aviation petrol installation blazed with blue flares. But elsewhere there was little. The new road to Talamanca, bridging the harbour, with its lights pooling the dust and the water. On the right, the dark spit of land dividing the bays, and the flashing beam of the lighthouse. On the left, the line of lights round the marina, ending in emerald green.