‘Good morning, Mr Tatham. I’d like you to meet a very old friend of mine,’ said Lady Eastmore graciously. ‘Mrs Wade.’ Her graciousness did not extend to Christian names.
He shook hands with Mrs Wade. She was an extraordinary sight. A small, well-proportioned head was set on top of a vast body which grew in bulk as it descended, rather like a female Michelin tyre woman. Incredibly, she wore slacks. It was difficult to know whether to admire her courage or be astonished by the extent of her blind bad taste.
‘Mrs Wade flew over last night,’ said Lady Eastmore. ‘From her seat in Oxfordshire.’
And the rest of her stretched a long way, too, he thought.
‘It was a shocking flight,’ said the mountain, in a deep, rolling, cavernous voice. ‘Very uncomfortable. And the meal was so frugal.’
How on earth had they fitted her in, he wondered?
‘We’d like to have a word with Elvina,’ said Lady East-
more. ‘Is she in?’
‘No, I’m afraid she isn’t. She went out not long before you arrived.’
Lady Eastmore looked at the Fiat in the lean-to garage.
‘For a walk,’ he said. ‘She’s probably gone up the valley.’
‘I’d no idea she liked walking. Will she be a long time?’
‘I don’t really know.’ Why the questions? he wondered. And why the visit? ‘Why not have a cup of coffee and she might return before you have to leave.’
‘That is an idea,’ said Lady Eastmore. ‘Norah, shall we sit outside? It’s really warm enough.’
‘I should think so,’ replied the mountain dubiously, as she looked at the rather narrow-seated garden chairs.
Make yourselves at home, he thought. He went into the hall and brought out one of the wood and leather chairs which were considerably wider than the garden chairs. The mountain omitted to thank him and lowered herself. There was sufficient displacement of flesh to allow her to settle.
He went into the kitchen and made coffee, poured it into a jug which he placed on a tray, together with cups, saucers, spoons, sugar, milk, and half-a-dozen biscuits. Seconds after putting the tray down outside on the garden table, a bejewelled hand reached out and plucked a biscuit off the table. The mountain began to eat, pausing only to ask for five spoonfuls of sugar in her coffee.
‘Quite a nice little place your aunt has here,’ said Lady Eastmore, in the tones of one who could afford to be generous because any comparison with her own house was ludicrous. ‘Of course, it would have been very much nicer if it hadn’t been converted by a Mallorquin. Their tastes are so pedestrian.’
There was a silence, which he made no effort to break. Had Elvina been due to visit the Eastmores the previous evening? But she’d said nothing about any forthcoming date, which surely she would have done over an event as unlikely as that? And it was impossible to believe Lady Eastmore would call on anyone the day after that person had rudely failed to honour an invitation.
Lady Eastmore drank some coffee. ‘How are you enjoying it on our island?’ she finally asked, a note of annoyance in her voice because he had not the wit to conduct a social conversation.
‘It’s quite pleasant, but I’ll be glad to return home.’
‘He farms,’ said Lady Eastmore, to the mountain. The mountain swivelled round and examined him more closely. ‘Whereabouts do you farm, Mr Tatham?’
‘Right now, I don’t any more. I relinquished the lease before coming out here.’
‘Really.’ The mountain reached for another biscuit. ‘We have a few farms,’ she said, without any emphasis.
He could imagine it. Thousands of very profitable acres, expertly managed, and no more to her or her husband than figures on a balance sheet.
Lady Eastmore opened her crocodile-skin handbag and brought out a slim gold cigarette-case. She offered it to the mountain, helped herself to one of the cigarettes. ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t like one of our women’s cigarettes,’ she said, shutting the case and denying him the chance of finding out for himself. ‘We have them flown out from home. The Spanish simply have no idea how to make a decent cigarette.’
Was there anything in Spain which suited her? He flicked open his lighter for them.
As he lit one of his own cigarettes, a dirty, dented Citroen 2CV came rattling round the corner and up the dirt-track. It parked close to the spotless, gleaming Daimler. Mayans, smiling broadly, forty-eight hours’ stubble on his chin, shirt unbuttoned to show much of his hairy chest, trousers streaked with dirt, stepped out and came across to where they sat. He spoke rapidly and at some length in Spanish. Tatham waited for Lady Eastmore to translate.
‘He has been eating an inordinate amount of garlic,’ she said.
‘Terrible stuff for humans, good for horses,’ said the mountain. ‘Had a damn good hunter once which fell ill and the vet couldn’t do anything with it. Fool man — came from up north somewhere. I crushed up a dozen cloves of garlic in some bran with castor oil and fed it and that hunter ran round the paddock as if it was at The Oaks.’
‘The flavour can be pleasant, if it’s only a hint,’ said Lady Eastmore, ‘but these people will chew the stuff. We had a maid once whom I caught chewing some whilst she was making my bed. She claimed it was to help ward off the evil eye. They are riddled with ridiculous superstitions.’ Mayans stared with growing surprise from one woman to the other. It was inconceivable to him, not having had the advantage of their highly educated background, that they could be rudely ignoring what he’d said, yet he couldn’t think why no one was answering him.
Tatham said: ‘Would you mind telling me what he wants?’
Lady Eastmore looked slightly annoyed. ‘He’s asking to speak to your aunt. The impertinence of these people is quite incredible. No hesitation in interrupting us.’
‘Could you tell him she’s out at the moment, so if it’s not urgent he’d better come back tomorrow … No, that’s no good because she’ll be flying home. If he …’
‘You say Elvina is returning to England?’ said Lady Eastmore. ‘Why?’
Her peremptory question angered him, but his manner remained cordial. ‘Her godfather’s just died and she was very fond of him so she’s going to the funeral.’
‘You are talking about Geoffrey Maitland?’ asked the mountain.
‘Yes, that’s right. Did you know him?’
‘My husband was acquainted with him. An extraordinary man.’ She grabbed the last biscuit. ‘Quarrelled with everyone, especially his relatives. I heard he’d died, just before I left yesterday. Very wealthy, but quite impossible.’
‘I believe Elvina was fairly close to him?’ asked Lady Eastmore.
‘I think she was, yes,’ replied Tatham.
‘She mentioned once that as his goddaughter …’
Tatham, meant to pick up the sentence and complete it, didn’t. He could imagine the puckish delight with which Elvina would have hinted at the possibility of her inheriting a fortune. No wonder Lady Eastmore had hurried round to try to discover the truth. Elvina comfortably off but not rich was one thing, Elvina very rich was another. A denial of the right and natural order of things. A threat to the Community. An invitation to her not to know her proper station.
Mayans, his smile now very laboured, gestured with his hands as he spoke again.
Lady Eastmore didn’t bother to look at him as she snapped out a few words.
‘Is he …?’ began Tatham.
‘The wretched man is still inquiring where Elvina is and demanding to speak to her. I told him she wasn’t here and she was leaving for England and that he should have the manners not to interrupt us. I find his Castilian accent atrocious and his Mallorquin is a mumble. Does he suffer from some speech defect?’
‘Not as far as I know,’ said Tatham.
‘Then he should take the trouble to speak his own languages distinctly. Sheer laziness, as always.’
Mayans, finally realizing the last word had been spoken, turned and left and went back to his car, more p
uzzled than outraged.
Lady Eastmore slid back the cover of her gold Rolex and checked the time. The large solitaire diamond — diamonds were so useful in times of currency crises — glinted in the sun. ‘Norah, I think we can wait no longer, or we shall have almost no time at all in Palma. It really is incredible, isn’t it, Mr Tatham, that in a so-called capital city the shops should all close for three hours at lunch-time. Really, one would have imagined by now that they’d have discovered a little business sense.’ She stood up. The mountain started to follow suit, but the chair had become stuck to her enormous buttocks and it began to follow her up. She hit the chair with clenched fists and knocked it off herself. Her composure remained complete.
They said goodbye, briefly and slightly patronizingly. Tatham held open the passenger door and the mountain shuffled herself into the Daimler, causing it to list when she finally settled.
‘Tell Elvina we called,’ commanded Lady Eastmore, just before she shut the door. She started the engine, put the selection handle to reverse, backed with expert judgment, and drove down the dirt-track.
He went through to the kitchen and packed the freezy-bag for another picnic. He put five hundred pesetas in a used envelope and stuck this on the window over the sink for Catalina. That done, he collected travellers’ cheques and passport from his bedroom, made a final check that the deep-freeze remained locked — he’d lost count how many times he’d done this — and went out with the freezy-bag and the wine to the Fiat.
Elvina’s bank was in Puerto Llueso, on the small square and at right-angles to the church. The assistant manager — one of three men who worked at the bank — recognized him and smiled a greeting, asked in broken English how he and Mrs Woods were, then cashed travellers’ cheques for a hundred pounds after a brief look at his passport.
He drove to the travel agents, whose place was on the Llueso road just back from the front. He asked for a ticket to London on the following morning for Mrs Woods and explained it was at such short notice because of an unexpected death: would they see if it could possibly be arranged. The girl behind the counter, understanding far more English than she spoke, said she’d do what she could to help and would he return in half an hour’s time to find out the answer.
He walked the short distance to the harbour and went along the western arm. Many yachts and motor-cruisers were tied up, bow or stem on, and he noticed how high a proportion of the larger ones were flying the red duster or the flag of one of the better-known English yacht clubs: no wonder, he thought, it was difficult to persuade the average Mallorquin that not all English were millionaires. The light breeze was slapping halliards against masts with the sharp evocative sounds that were found in all harbours around the world.
On the bay side of the arm, there was a two-metre-high wall, built in two stages. He climbed this and gazed out at the bay. Blue water, lighter blue, cloudless sky, grey-green mountains. A medium-sized yacht, with spinnaker in red and blue stripes, sailed past. A power-boat, 120 h.p. outboard churning the water white, sped across towards the air force base, towing a water-skier who was criss-crossing the wake. Suppose, he thought, Maitland’s money eventually did come to him. He could buy a farm, work all hours, and make a lot less money than if he invested the capital, did nothing, and lived on the interest. Why not live here, in luxury? He rejected the idea. This was lotus island: initiative and ambition were killed so subtly that the victim didn’t realize it until too late. He couldn’t be happy doing nothing. In any case, Elvina wanted a memorial of green, fertile fields.
The travel agency said Mrs Woods was lucky. Because the season was not really under way, they’d been able to book her on the next morning’s flight to Heathrow. The ticket cost 8,300 pesetas. He paid the money and thanked the girl for all her help and she smiled and answered in traditional style that it was nothing.
He drove along the front road, past all the bars where everything cost at least twice as much as two roads back, past hotels still mostly shut, and turned on to the Parelona road which wound a tortuous way over the mountains, offering dramatic views, and down to the justly famous Parelona beach where the sands really did seem more golden and the water bluer than anywhere else on the island.
Roughly half-way to Parelona, on top of the mountains, was a parking area and viewing point, the latter out on a small peninsula of rock with sheer faces which swept dizzily down to the sea: a magnificent but vertiginous place. He parked the car and climbed out.
There was a path up and out to the actual viewing-point platform and this had rails, but, typically, the cliff edge on either side stretched away without any protection whatsoever. It would be relatively simple to roll the body over the edge at almost any point, though the left-hand side was the better because it was flatter and more regular. After a body had fallen from such a height, all signs of previous injuries would be lost forever.
*
The telephone rang and Ingham answered it. Judy watched his expression and was very thankful when she saw him smile and heard his voice lighten as he began to speak German. She understood nothing, but caught the name Naupert. Then the Germans hadn’t pulled right out of the house sale.
She lit a cigarette. She knew Lawrence was engaged in some sort of trickery, guessed it was centred around the painting on the far wall, but took care not to find out anything more. If she discovered for certain he was swindling someone, she would leave: all the time she only suspected he was, she’d stay. Her attitude was hypocritical, but she accepted the fact that she was a hypocrite.
She could still vividly recall the near-poverty that had followed the death of her father, could still mentally cringe at the sense of personal degradation of being taken to relations who were asked for ‘loans’. The change when her mother had married Lawrence had been dramatic. Suddenly, a decent school, home became a succession of large houses, with servants to do the work, in different parts of the Continent, life became the art of seeking pleasure. Spyridon, the dilettante poet, taught her that love was beautiful but, like all things, it needed freedom if it was to continue to flower. The man-made status of marriage destroyed freedom and strangled love. So much nonsense when one had reached maturity, heady stuff for one discovering the world. Spyridon had been a right royal bastard. He’d thought she was wealthy in her own right. When he’d discovered the truth, he’d left her, penniless, stranded, to seek better and more secure prospects to whom he could whisper his poems of love. Bloody awful poems. She’d returned to her mother, now married to Jacques, suffered endless recriminations of the I-told-you-so pattern, and settled in. Jacques had been a clever bastard. He’d flattered her, but so carefully he’d lulled her native shrewdness and he’d taken her by complete surprise when he’d invaded her bedroom whilst her mother was away for three days in England. She’d hit a trifle too hard in a delicate area and it had taken Jacques a long time to recover physically: his pride never made a full recovery. On her return, her mother was horrified. All right, Jacques should have kept to his own bed, but couldn’t she have shown a glimmer of discretion? There were more ways of dealing with a randy man (when he was rich) than hitting him in his family jewels. So she left that house. She asked if she could stay a while with Lawrence, whom she’d always liked, and Lawrence had immediately invited her to stay with him on a permanent basis. Since then, she’d been happy yet discontented, worrying because to him honesty was a word of elastic definition whilst to her it was not, slightly contemptuous of herself because she lacked the courage — if that was the right word — to make her own way in life.
Ingham replaced the receiver. ‘That was some officious secretary of Naupert’s telling me two surveyors will arrive tomorrow and would I please give them every facility to make their inspection. And had I considered the asking price further?’
‘To which you answered?’
‘Not a peseta less than twenty million.’ He went over to the door of the bar, opened it, and went inside.
‘I thought you always let a purchaser knock the
price down a little to make him feel good?’
‘Not this time, Judy, not this time.’ He came out of the bar with two glasses and handed her one in which was a gin and tonic. He sat down on the settee. ‘This time, Herr Naupert is going to feel more than good even without knocking the price down one single pfennig.’
She stopped herself wondering why. ‘Would you rather I went out tomorrow?’
‘Good heavens, why? It can’t possibly matter if you’re here.’
It was a lovely house, she thought, the kind of house she would give much to own. But it wasn’t worth twenty million. So why was Lawrence so certain the German — ‘the smartest, hardest bastard in Germany today’ — would pay something like five million more than it was currently worth? She found she was asking herself the question she had determined not to ask herself.
*
Marie Mayans finely chopped up tomatoes, onions, peppers (very expensive, still), and a clove of garlic, and dropped them into the warm olive oil in the frying-pan. She stirred the mixture.
‘Señora Woods was out,’ said Mayans. He poured himself a brandy.
She crossed the small kitchen to the table, pushing past him with more force than was necessary. She began to scrape off the flesh from the two cooked hindlegs of a rabbit.
‘But I will persuade her.’ He stared quickly at her, then pounded the table with his fist.
She did not look up from her task as she said, using a picturesque Mallorquin phrase, that many unlikely things would have to happen before the English señora would pay a single peseta more than the rent agreed to by a man whose brain had been addled by cognac.
He became almost tearfully indignant. ‘But when she signed the contract, it was a wonderful rent. It was more than anyone else was getting.’
She pushed past him again as she carried the rabbit meat to the stove and dropped it into the frying-pan. She stirred the mixture, then added a little more oil.
‘I’ll show you,’ he shouted, ‘that I know what to do.’
Mistakenly in Mallorca (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 10
