Ibiza Surprise

by Dorothy Dunnett

  The country beyond was all dark with, here and there, the finest sprinkle of lights.

  Johnson said: ‘I drive a harder bargain than you do. I’ll paint you if you promise not to go to Seville or Gibraltar. Or anywhere else where Clem can’t keep an eye on you.’

  ‘But Austin . . .’

  The bifocals flashed in the lamplight.

  ‘Austin Mandleberg,’ said Johnson pointedly, ‘I have no doubt belongs to Rotary, is head of the Lodge and chairman of the local hospital fund, loves his old mother, and is kind to little children and animals. Other people are not quite so pure-minded. I still want you under surveillance.’

  I was struck. ‘Was that why you drove all the way from Dolly to Casa Mimosa when Clem phoned you?’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ said Johnson. He was smiling, but his voice was perfectly level. ‘I wanted Clem with your mother. For if Coco was murdered, it was because of something he knew, which he might have passed on to your mother.’

  ‘But he didn’t,’ I said. ‘He was threatening us about it when Dilling took him away.’

  ‘So I am told,’ Johnson said. ‘I’m also told that several people now know that Mrs van Costa is Lady Forsey, your mother. Suppose then that your father was murdered also because of something inconvenient that he knew. Who is to know whether,’ said Johnson, ‘your father told Lady Forsey the night that he died? And whether she in turn has told you?’

  ‘She hasn’t,’ I said.

  ‘We’re talking about appearances, not what actually happened. Why did Derek come back?’ said Johnson, suddenly.

  I smiled.

  ‘To see Janey,’ I said.

  Johnson took my arm again and walked me slowly down the steep slope. ‘You’re a rotten-bad liar. I happened to be in the Telegrafos y Correos office the day you sent off your cable. What made you think Derek might have killed off his father? Surely he has made a life of his own by now in Holland? It isn’t likely, you know.’

  ‘You know,’ I said, ‘too bloody much.’

  He stopped. ‘Sarah. I don’t want another murder. Yours or anyone else’s. You don’t want scandal. I don’t want to be mixed up in an international incident. If it can be solved quietly, let’s do it. But I can’t work in the dark.’

  The lane was pebbly and steep, and you could almost touch the high, continuous buildings on each side with your two outspread hands. Even in the dark you could see they were fine houses, with crested stonework and heavy bossed doors and, lower, with deep sills filled with cactus and cages and flowers, and sometimes a high, rattan-roofed sunroom, with roses and creepers in round Moorish pots, spilling over in the glow from a lantern. Wire skeined the canyon below us, black against the near blue-black sky. The sound of a drumbeat, suddenly, just out of sight ̶ Tuck. Tr-r-uck. Tr-ruck, tuck tuck, and Johnson abruptly broke off.

  We had turned off the main passage by then and were plunging down something much more dicey: a broken lane bordered with dank, peeling houses, where the light hardly reached, except to pick out a sunken, barred window, a swaying curtain of reeds, a double door rotting in all its planks. Above us, the houses on each side suddenly joined forces, two stories high, and we entered a tunnel, utterly lightless, Johnson’s dry, warm hand gripping mine hard. Then the blackness became dimness, and we turned right and passed down between steps and walls and big buildings, the cobbles firmer and broad to the foot until we reached a wide flight of steps to the left, tumbling down against a high wall to what seemed a small square. Johnson took one step down, and I said: ‘Look.’

  They were passing through the small square far below: so silently that but for the drum I shouldn’t have seen them. They were roped together, in two long, thin lines, tall faceless men in long-sleeved black gowns sashed in purple, a crucifix glinting on each. Over each head was a long, slender cone sheathed in light purple which fell to the shoulders. Each nose was merely a cut triangle of cloth, each eyehole a circle of flesh. Drums glinted, with gold fringe and purple, and short bugles shone in the hand. But while we watched them, they were silent, picking their way up the difficult path, the tall spires swaying against the shadowed white walls, the shod feet and bare alike making no sound.

  They passed.

  ‘The penitents,’ Johnson said. ‘They will have carried their image round the low town and are now delivering it back. Does penitence frighten you? No, I’m sure. As I’ve said before, you’re too young.’ He was leading me down the wide steps.

  ‘I’m frightened,’ I said. I hoped he’d forgotten.

  He hadn’t. He stopped and said quietly: ‘So. Did Derek come to Ibiza before? Before your father died?’

  I gave up. I needed help, and he was helping, more than anyone.

  I said: ‘Yes. Janey saw him. He came to see Daddy, and he had a quarrel with him on the Friday. That’s all he told me.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you what the quarrel was about? Not your mother, he didn’t know evidently that she was here.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then? Not you: you go your own sweet way, or so the evidence tells me. Not money, he’s one of the technical salariat and doing very well, thank you. Some other aspect of his job? Was your father queering his pitch? Making a display of himself with people Derek thought mattered?’

  He was quick.

  ‘It was because of his job,’ I said, my eyes on the square. ‘He had found out his employers regarded Daddy as a bad security risk. They thought he was an enemy agent.’

  ‘What?’ said Johnson. ‘Oh Christ, my dear girl,’ and he started laughing under his breath, so hard he had to take his bifocals off, and I looked at his eyes. I don’t know what colour they were because the surprise was somehow so great. His eyes were tired. He said, ‘And what did your father say?’ He had put the glasses back on.

  ‘Derek didn’t tell me,’ I said. ‘We sort of quarrelled ourselves, and I walked out. I haven’t seen him since till tonight.’

  ‘But Janey has,’ Johnson said. ‘Maybe Janey has had better luck. I should ask her, if I were you. If we’re not both in prison.’

  Austin Mandleberg’s workshop was not all that hard to break into. It couldn’t have been, Johnson did it so easily. We didn’t go into the garden. We walked along the dirt lane running behind Gallery 7 and found a row of windows, covered with fine, blue-painted netting, which must belong to Austin’s own rooms. Below them was another window, with no nets but a balcony, not too far up from the ground. Johnson’s theory was that this would lead us to a room off the inside first landing. When I remembered the slope of the ground, I realised he was probably right.

  I got up without any help on the balcony and crouched there, behind the pots of red-flowering cactus, while Johnson messed about with, he said, a hairpin. There was a click, and then he messed about a bit more with a knife. No-one came along the lane but a dog. It looked up at us and then trotted on. Then Johnson said: ‘How nice,’ with a rather satisfied sound in his voice.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘The burglar alarm,’ Johnson said. ‘A good make. But not very well fitted. One of the hazards of living abroad. Are we clear?’

  ‘No-one’s coming,’ I said. I was still frightened, the smallest bit frightened. Of Johnson. Then he opened the window, and in a moment, we were both inside Austin’s house.

  It was dark and stuffy, once the window was shut, and smelt of glue and fresh paint and carbonised metal and food. The room we were in appeared to be some kind of office. Producing a little torch from his pocket, Johnson swept it over the few elegant furnishings: a filing cabinet, a typist’s table and chair, a larger desk with a tape recorder and a telephone on its green leather surface.

  The door was open, leading on to a lightless landing, devoid of all sound. Johnson closed it and, drawing both blinds on the windows, proceeded to kneel at the desk. I said: ‘Hey!’

 
The first drawer was open, and Johnson, very quietly, was ruffling at speed through the papers. I said: ‘Hey!’ again. He shut the drawer and opened another.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. His voice was so low I could barely make the words out. He sounded mildly amused. ‘If I come across any love letters, I’ll tell you. I want to see the receipts for the production and sale of his jewellery. This is Gregorio’s desk.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. He went through all the drawers in turn, looking at everything but taking nothing out. He didn’t speak again, and neither did I, until he had finished and relocked the lot. I said: ‘That wasn’t Gregorio’s desk.’

  He grinned, a flash in the dark.

  ‘I know, dearie,’ he said. ‘But if he likes you enough to ask you to go to Seville, I feel we ought to view his credentials.’

  ‘And?’ I said crossly.

  ‘Clean as a whistle,’ said Johnson. ‘Now take me to this lair in the basement.’ And opening the door, we pussyfooted out on to the landing and then down the white marble stairs to the hall. Then we turned left, away from Austin Mandleberg’s ground-floor antique room, and opened the little green door.

  I found the creaking stairs and went down making very little noise, and I noticed Johnson did the same. At the bottom, all the lights were switched off except one, at the end where Gregorio had his apartment. It was a very dim bulb, encased in a lantern framework hanging with dirt: American efficiency obviously hadn’t penetrated belowstairs to the native quarters. To my horror, signing me to stay out of sight, Johnson felt his way first away from the workshop and towards where the dim light was hanging, listening at doors as he went.

  He saw the cat the moment I did, lying in the shadows by the far wall, curled inside its tail, fast asleep. He stopped, but the beast had sensed him. It raised its head, the end of its tail twitching, and then got up and let loose a meow like a train whistle. Then it stared at Johnson, stared at the last door of the corridor – the door farthest away from the stairs – and stalking towards it, meowed over again.

  There was a line of light under that door. I saw Johnson wait for a moment. Then, very softly, he leaned forward, and with one gloved hand, he turned the knob of the door. He did it slowly, and in absolute silence, while the cat watched him, its ears pricked, its tail switching. Then, when the latch was just disengaged, he pushed the door gently open.

  The cat stalked in, giving a view of a small, heavily-furnished room with a fire smouldering behind a wrought-iron guard. It was quite empty.

  Johnson smiled, and heaving the door slightly ajar, came back to me. ‘Come on,’ he said, and made for the other door, the workroom door right beside us.

  Seen in the light of the torch, the workshop looked like any room used by craftsmen. The broken floor tiles were littered with curls of metal and shavings, and the heavy benches were piled with raw materials and work in various stages of process, together with all the appliances – the vices, the lathes, the soldering and welding equipment – needed for the trade of repair and reproduction of jewellery.

  ‘Three men, perhaps,’ said Johnson. ‘Under Jorge, the old fellow you saw.’

  If you looked closely, you could see the empty packets of cigarettes, the greasy sandwich paper which hadn’t fallen into the square box of rubbish; the stained jackets hanging on rough hooks by the wall. On the opposite wall was a safe. It was the only receptacle with a lock in the room.

  I remember Johnson stood before it for a long time, just looking, until I got impatient and said: ‘Gregorio will be coming back. What is it?’

  ‘It hasn’t got an alarm,’ Johnson said.

  ‘Poor thing,’ I said.

  ‘What does it matter? We couldn’t open it.’

  Johnson walked forward briskly.

  ‘With the aid,’ he said, ‘of a stick of well-cooked spaghetti, any child over the age of six months could open that safe. Observe.’ And indeed, he had hardly touched it when it did actually swing open. Inside was a packet of gold leaf and some worn bank notes, packed beside a tray of rather dishy, reproduction antique rings. The total value of the whole thing was probably about twenty quid.

  ‘So?’ I said.

  “So there’s a safe somewhere else,’ Johnson said. ‘Not upstairs. If they’re doing anything shady, they don’t want to be carrying stuff about through the hall. I know.’

  I followed him along that hellish corridor again, bleating. He paid no attention but, reaching the door at the end, listened for a moment again, then gave it a push and went in.

  The cat, which had settled comfortably this time in front of the fire, looked up, recognised him, and bristled with superior hate. Johnson went on in, and I followed.

  It was a room devoted to the total dominion of cloth. You could tell a Spaniard, or so Daddy said, because he liked his cutlet frills done up with tassels. All the furniture was square, heavy and dark; the religious paintings were hellish; and the lampshade had bobbles and went up and down.

  ‘It would fetch a fortune in Lord and Taylor’s,’ said Johnson. ‘Where do you suppose he keeps his money?’

  ‘There,’ I said, lifting the Prodigal Son.

  ‘It seems a bit obvious,’ said Johnson.

  ‘It’s a safe,’ I said. ‘In the wall. Under the picture. Not everyone has seen as many old movies on telly as you have.’

  He said, with slightly more interest: ‘This one has an alarm,’ and started in to disconnect it. I made no comment. The time one might expect Senor Gregorio to remain at his devotions was running out fast. I wanted out.

  The safe door creaked open, and Johnson’s black head disappeared inside. After a moment, he withdrew it.

  ‘About two hundred pounds in pesetas and nine thousand used dollar bills, a bundle of personal papers, some rather good silver plate, some old-fashioned family jewellery, and two tins of cat food,’ Johnson said.

  ‘Let’s put the cat in beside it,’ I said. I hated that cat. ‘No rubies?’

  ‘No,’ said Johnson absently. He was still staring at the safe.

  ‘Come on, then,’ I said. The cat moved, stretched, and arching its back, leaped from the hearth rug to a dusty, plush armchair and lay down again, watching us. Coinciding with the soft pad of its landing, I thought I could hear, somewhere in the house, a double click which could have been a key in a lock. I pulled Johnson’s arm.

  He shut the safe door with a blessed alacrity. ‘Back to the workroom,’ he said. The cat bristled.

  I said: ‘Someone’s coming!’

  ‘Well, if it’s Gregorio, he’ll come in here, won’t he?’ said Johnson reasonably. ‘Back to the workshop. I’ve got an idea.’

  I could feel all the little octopuses lying dead at the bottom of my paella. I said: ‘Why can’t we get out?’

  ‘Because there are two people on the floor above,’ said Johnson. He had, I admit, a logical brain. He also had nothing wrong with his hearing. As we hared along the dark corridor in the direction of the other room at the end, I could make out the quiet footsteps too, coming along the hall above from the direction of the front door. They walked up to the head of the stairs and went, so far as I could judge, to the study.

  ‘Hell,’ said Johnson, placidly.

  ‘Why?’ We were in the workroom again, with the door shut.

  ‘They’ll feel the draught from the window.’ He was moving, very fast, back to the safe, and in two seconds, he had it open again. He said: ‘Stand behind the door, Sarah, will you? If they come in, try and slip upstairs and out through the front door.’

  All the time he was speaking, the beam of his little torch was probing inside the safe. I saw the small circle of light dim as he put his hand in and heard him say something, quietly under his breath as I felt my way, in the dark, to the door.

  I had hardly got there when it opened, slamming into my arm.


  Light from the main switch sprang, dazzling, into the room. I had a picture of Johnson turning, his arm dropping from the still-open safe, the other hand in his pocket. There was a terrific report, like a lorry backfiring, and a sort of popping sound immediately after. Johnson crashed to the ground, and behind my door, someone yelped sharply. There strode into the room a tall, heavily built man followed by another clutching his rib cage and groaning. The wounded man was Austin Mandleberg. The other was Anthony Lloyd, Janey’s father, and he had a smoking gun in his hand.

  EIGHT

  Letting go the door, I ran round it to Austin, and held him up. He looked fearfully surprised, in a dazed kind of way, and then let me ease him down on to a stool. I can’t bear to see people hurt. It’s the retriever instinct, Daddy used to say. Then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to, and looked round at Mr Lloyd and at Johnson.

  Johnson wasn’t hurt, he had just taken cover in time. There was a hole in his jacket pocket, and a gun with a long thing on its muzzle was still in his hand.

  Mr Lloyd said: ‘Good God.’ Then he said: ‘Put your gun down.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Johnson. He put down his gun. ‘Have I hurt you, Mr Mandleberg? But really, you shouldn’t let your friends fire on people unseen. Mr Lloyd might have killed me.’

  Austin Mandleberg’s voice had got very high.

  ‘He was doing me a favour,’ he said. ‘Anyone is perfectly justified in defending his home against thieves.’

  ‘I’ve lost my pipe,’ said Johnson, hunting. ‘Oh, there it is.’ He picked it up and, fishing out tobacco, started to load it.

  Moving very quietly for a man of such bulk, Mr Lloyd walked forward and confronted Johnson. His revolver made a small movement.

  ‘We’ll have your attention, please,’ said Janey’s father. ‘What are you doing here? And Sarah?’