Alvarez’s car was parked near the Guardia Civil station, close by one of the schools. It was a beaten-up Seat 600, held together by bits of wire and the skill of the garage. One day he’d have to buy another. One day.
He hated La Huerta. A concentration of expensive modern houses and bungalows, the old fincas with but few exceptions taken over and rebuilt to the point where they bore little resemblance to what they’d been, the displacement of many of the farmers because not even the most skilful and intensive market gardening could equal the profit of selling land to the foreigners, the ghastly urbanización with the houses crawling up the sides of the mountain and debasing it, the large cars on national or tourist plates whose owners were not forced to pay the luxury taxes that all Spaniards had to …
Ca’n Manin initially surprised him because its exterior at the front had not been altered, except to fit glass windows in place of solid wooden shutters. Then he remembered it was still owned by a Mallorquin. He parked by the side of the empty lean-to garage and climbed out. Even in his present disgruntled mood he had to enjoy the setting: the small garden, the orange grove, the loquats bright with fruits almost ripe, the almond trees with well-formed nuts, the monastery mountain, Puig Llueso, the distant bay …
A man came out of the house. Not at all the kind of man he had expected. This one had the air of honest physical work and open air about him and his clothes didn’t look as though they’d come from a boutique.
Tatham introduced himself. Alvarez, who’d learned English partly from all the girls he’d known before he met Juana-Marie, partly from more formal teachers because a man who was going to be really important in the world needed to speak good English, said: ‘Inspector Alvarez of the Cuerpo General de Policia. Or, as you would say, the CID.’ His accent was good.
‘I do hope I’m not bothering you unnecessarily.’
The English, he thought, were always apologizing: as they kicked you where it most hurt, they apologized politely for doing it.
‘But I’m really worried. My aunt didn’t sleep in her bed last night, nor has she turned up to get ready to fly back to England.’ Tatham looked at his watch. ‘As a matter of fact, she’s too late now. She can’t possibly catch the plane.’
‘May we sit down somewhere and you will tell me all that has happened from the beginning?’
‘Of course. Would you prefer inside or outside?’
‘Outside, if you don’t mind.’ He wasn’t going to be outdone in the politeness stakes.
‘Will you have something to drink?’
‘I would like, please, a small cognac.’
Tatham left. Alvarez sat down on one of the small metal garden chairs and stared out across the garden and through the chestnut and pomegranate trees at the orange grove. His parents should have had a place like this, if the proper money had been paid to them. His father could have rested his sore back and his mother her worn-out body and they could have employed someone whom they’d have watched till the soil and grow three or four fine crops a year.
Tatham returned as two quick explosions — they were blasting out foundations at the back for a new house-thudded through the air and echoed briefly against the surrounding mountains. The brandy, Alvarez immediately recognized, was something like Don Carlos and not the Fundador he usually had. All the good things in the country went to the foreigners. He lit a cigar, asked for details of the missing woman, made a few notes in his book, and inquired whether the house had a telephone. It had.
The sitting-room was large, very high-ceilinged, and attractive. So the foreigners didn’t have a monopoly on good taste! The telephone was on a small corner cupboard and he lifted the receiver and when the exchange answered asked for the airport. The operator said there was an hour’s delay to the airport. He identified himself and was speaking to the airport inside seven minutes. Iberia Flight IB 501 had been called, all the passengers had been taken by bus to the plane, the plane would be leaving in under five minutes, and according to the passenger lists one passenger had failed to report, but they’d no idea at the moment what was the name of that passenger.
He returned to the patio. ‘It seems probable Señora Woods did not join the plane. I will make inquiries. Will you, please, inform me immediately if the señora returns here?’
‘Yes, of course.’
He left, driving away in the squeaky Seat. If he felt even more disgruntled than when he’d arrived it was, he was honest enough to admit, because the Englishman had not been a tailor’s dummy with squeaky voice and over-smooth hands, smoking scented cigarettes in a holder. Very annoying.
*
It had all gone off so much more easily that Tatham had imagined it would. The detective — he’d looked as if he’d slept in his clothes — had seemed unsurprised that Elvina should be missing and had almost shrugged his shoulders at the possibility of catastrophe’s overtaking her while she was searching for some flowers she’d been told might be in the area. But then this was the land of the mañanas. Never do anything that it isn’t absolutely essential to do, never look for trouble and if it insists on staring you in the face, step round it. If Elvina’s body was washed ashore somewhere it was going to seem quite obvious that she had fallen down the cliff while plant-hunting. Why trouble to seek any other solution to her death?
There was one thing he had not done — re-stock the deep-freeze. Since the only place he knew off-hand which had a deep-freeze was the supermarket in the Puerto, he must hire a car and drive down there.
He walked into Llueso, crossing the Roman bridge over the Torrente Ebrar, now no more than a thin trickle of water, and went along the Calle de la Huerta, past houses which looked empty because their shutters were mostly closed, down past the church to the square, and through to the old football pitch (now the dry-goods market-place on a Sunday) and the garage where Elvina always took her car for servicing. He spoke to the owner, who said something about Señora Woods. When he didn’t understand, the other roared with laughter. So different from most countries, thought Tatham, where one’s lack of understanding of the native tongue was treated with contempt. He showed his driving licence, signed a form he didn’t understand, paid the two days’ rent of six hundred pesetas, and drove off in a Seat 600.
The supermarket was busy. Women — mostly English — pushed around wire trolleys or carried wire baskets and gossiped while the few men collected by the long shelves stocked with drink and, for the most part in silence, walked slowly up and down as they studied prices. He loaded his trolley with packets of frozen food selected at random and the bill was 2,400 pesetas.
When he returned to Ca’n Manin, he carried the two cardboard boxes through to the wash-room and emptied the food into the deep-freeze. He was surprised to find it was very much less full than it had been. But this was a point of no importance. He left the lid unlocked.
CHAPTER XIV
CATALINA WAS a handsome woman in her late thirties, dark-skinned, jet black hair, a long face with regular, determined features. She worked in the mornings for one English family down in the Puerto and in the afternoons for Elvina. She spoke no English, yet she understood a little provided it was simple and spoken slowly: in turn, she would speak a simple Spanish and make very expressive use of her hands.
As on every weekday, she arrived by bicycle at Ca’n Manin at three o’clock — an elastic three o’clock — in the afternoon. Tatham was sitting out on the patio and after leaving her bicycle leaning against the side of the garage, she walked up to him and asked him, with a cheerful smile, how he was. He said he was very well, but the Señora Woods was missing.
She put down the canvas bag in which she carried an apron and her expression was now one of concern. Was the señora not well?
‘I don’t know. She is not here.’ He pointed to the house and shook his head.
She understood that, but not what lay behind the fact. Her luxuriant black eyebrows rose in questioning surprise. Where was the señora if she wasn’t in the house?
He tried to tell her in French, since there was so often a similarity between that language and Mallorquin, but she shook her head. He went into the hall. On a shelf running along the outer wall between the large fireplace and the outer doors were many of Elvina’s reference books. He picked out the English/Spanish dictionary and returned outside. After a while, he was able to explain that Elvina was missing and had not returned to the house the previous night. However, he’d told the police and they would find her.
Catalina, frowning slightly as if not certain she had understood correctly, nodded and said that the police would soon find the señora and the señora would be well.
She picked up her bag and went through to the kitchen. In the next two hours she ‘dusted’ the house-in true Mallorquin fashion this meant flapping the dust away from where it had previously been — washed down all the floors, swept the patio and washed that down, picked some flowers, and did the little washing up there was. Any English daily woman, contemptuous of the lazy Spaniards, would have considered herself grossly overworked if asked to do that much in a full eight-hour day.
She left at a quarter past five, after expressing the hope that the señora would soon be back in the house. He watched her bicycle down the dirt-track and was quite certain she’d not the slightest idea that Elvina had been dead for ten days.
*
Alvarez lived with remote cousins of his in Calle Juan Rives. The street was four hundred metres long and it had at the far end an olive press, once worked by a blinkered donkey, that was still used by the small-holders of the district. The houses abutted the pavements and were nearly all joined together and in England they would have been called terrace houses, but here, by the use of brightly coloured exteriors and because everywhere was so clean, the total effect from the outside was one of cheerfulness, not sordid poverty. Inside, the houses were even more attractive since each had a small courtyard to give every room sun and in which flowers bloomed all the year round. He had a back bedroom, ate with the family whenever at home for meals, and sat with them in the sitting-room which had once been the stable for a donkey. He was part of the family and yet not part of it, because he refused to let the wife do his washing or mend his clothes or things like that, nor did he spend much time in the sitting-room on the grounds of not being more of a nuisance than he had to be. In fact, he was seeking independence at the same time as he gratefully forwent independence by living with them. There were two children in the house, a boy and a girl, and he spoiled them shamelessly and occasionally to the annoyance of their mother. They were the only people to whom he now dared give his whole affection.
He ate supper at home — soup, dirty rice (rice, peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and a very little chicken), and a sectioned orange — then left the house. He strolled through the narrow twisting streets, stopping for five minutes to discuss local matters with an old woman of eighty, almost blind, who spent every day possible on a chair in the road immediately outside her front door. He reached the square and the club.
Llueso Club was almost a second home to him: it was here he mostly came when, had he been truly part of the cousin’s family, he would have relaxed in the sitting-room and watched the very poor-quality television.
Several men greeted him as he entered the bar and one shouted an invitation to a game of chess. He refused.
‘Coffee and cognac?’ asked the waiter, Alberto, behind the bar. It wasn’t really a question: Alvarez had had the same thing every evening after supper for as long as many could remember.
‘How’s life?’ asked his neighbour, Torcuato, who worked in the small bottling plant nearby.
‘I could complain, but no one would listen,’ he replied.
Torcuato laughed. ‘You’re a miserable old bastard!’
‘Can I help it if I was born unlucky?’
‘Alberto!’ shouted Torcuato to the waiter, ‘pour Enrique a very large cognac to bring him back to life.’
‘The whole bottle wouldn’t do that,’ replied the waiter.
‘True enough — but it’s worth trying.’ Torcuato turned back to Alvarez. ‘There’s a good fight on telly tomorrow. You shouldn’t miss it.’
‘I’ll try not to,’ replied Alvarez, knowing full well he would not bother to watch the bull-fight.
‘I saw your captain this morning, having a hell of a row with someone in the middle of the street. Thought there’d be murder done at any moment.’
‘He’s not my captain, thank God. My superior chief is way off, in Palma, where he can’t bother me.’
‘Lousy bastards, the guards, coming over from the Peninsula and throwing their weight about. As I said to the mayor, why the hell should we have to have all the guards from there so that they don’t know a thing about the island or us islanders?’
‘In order that you can’t get pally enough to be stupid enough to try to bribe them to overlook your little hobby.’
There was loud laughter from those who’d been listening. Torcuato was known to be a successful smuggler in his spare time.
The waiter pushed across the bar a large black coffee and a very large cognac. ‘Who’s paying?’
‘Him.’ Alvarez pointed to Torcuato.
‘By God!’ exclaimed Torcuato, ‘these policemen shake you down as bold as brass.’ He slapped some coins on the counter.
‘You call that a shake-down? You’ve got a lot to learn.’
Torcuato, never quite certain how to take Alvarez, beyond the fact that he was certainly incorruptible, muttered something he wras careful was not fully audible.
The waiter mopped the already clean bar, then stood in front of Alvarez and propped up his elbows. He looked as tired as he felt. ‘Did you find the woman?’
‘What woman?’ Alvarez sipped the brandy.
‘The Englishwoman who lives in José’s place. You were looking for her this morning.’
Alvarez shook his head. ‘No. She’s not turned up.’
‘They say she’s come into a real fortune.’
Several men nearby stopped talking: money was a subject about which all of them were intensely interested.
‘How’s that?’ asked Alvarez. ‘Has she been along to tell you?’
There was brief laughter.
‘She doesn’t need to tell me anything. Andrés’s wife works for the duchess.’
‘So who’s she?’
‘That Englishwoman with a grand name and a face like she’s a load of pig’s shit right under it. What’s she called exactly?’ he asked everyone.
‘She lives at Ca’n Lluxa,’ said one man. But no one knew her name.
‘Andrés’s wife works for her,’ continued the waiter. ‘The old bag doesn’t think the people she pays to work for her are human and have ears and she says anything in front of them … D’you know, she doesn’t let her husband into her bed!’
‘Now try telling us about the mule that sings but won’t talk,’ said a large butcher.
‘Straight. She doesn’t let him in her bed because she can’t stand it.’
‘So why doesn’t her husband clip her a smart one and teach her not to be such a stupid old bitch?’
No one could imagine why Lord Eastmore didn’t act in such a reasonable manner, but several suggestions were made, none of them complimentary.
After a while, and when the suggestions had finally finished, Alvarez said: ‘You were going to tell me about what Andrés’s wife heard?’
The waiter removed his elbows from the counter and stood upright. ‘Apparently this old woman who lives in José’s house has come into a fortune from her godfather who’s died in England. Millions and millions and millions of pesetas.’
‘Sweet Jesus!’ murmured someone reverently.
‘If she’s snuffed it,’ said the waiter, ‘it’ll be an awful lot of money wasted, won’t it?’
‘You’re ruining my evening by making me cry,’ said Alvarez. ‘Give me another large cognac, a Carlos this time and none of your cheap Fundador. My friend’s still paying.
’
‘Damnation!’ cried Torcuato. ‘I haven’t come into millions of pesetas. I’m just a poor honest workman.’ He waited for the laughter to finish. ‘If you’re drinking on my pocket, Enrique, you’re sticking to Fundador.’
‘Stop fussing,’ muttered the waiter. ‘There’s nothing but Fundador or Fabuloso in the place. People who come here can’t afford anything better.’
*
‘Charles,’ said Lady Eastmore, as she stared at the giltwood mirror on her Louis XV dressing-table and applied to her cheeks the special rejuvenating cream she had flown out regularly from Monsieur Massoni of Bond Street, ‘I had an interesting telephone call from Bertha earlier on.’
‘Did you, dear?’ Lord Eastmore was in his single bed and he was reading the previous day’s issue of the Financial Times. Politicians, he noted, were talking about boom times ahead and this argued ill for the country’s economy.
‘She says that there’s a very strong rumour that Elvina is missing.’
‘Missing what, dear?’
‘Charles, you have not been listening to me. You know very well how much I do dislike it when I talk to you, but you ignore every word I say.’
He laid the paper down on the bed.
‘I said, Charles, that it appears likely Elvina Woods is missing.’
‘Missing from where?’
‘Where on earth is she likely to be missing from, except her house? Really, Charles, sometimes I think you set out deliberately to irritate me. That nephew of hers has called in the police … One would have thought that even a person like him would have had enough sense of responsibility not to do such a thing so soon — it could be so detrimental to the Community. I sincerely hope there’s not going to be any sort of a scandal.’
‘There usually is, when someone is missing. And if it concerns her, the scandal will be twice as bad, no doubt.’ He picked up the newspaper and searched the share prices to see how ICI were doing.
Mistakenly in Mallorca (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 12
