An Artistic Way to Go

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘I do not think we need to occupy ourselves with family reminiscences. Have you questioned this farmer?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Why not, if you somehow manage to regard him as a possible suspect?’

  ‘I haven’t had the time…’

  ‘The mark of an efficient officer is that he makes time. Even when it is only to follow up an idea that would seem absurd to anyone unacquainted with this island and its inhabitants. And the fifth possibility?’

  ‘A long-time friend of Señor Cooper’s, Señor Field.’

  ‘What is his motive?’

  ‘He has none as far as I have been able to ascertain. In fact, quite the opposite; it was in his interests for the señor to continue to live.’

  ‘Then why name him?’

  ‘He would know better than most how to make it appear that he knew nothing.’

  ‘On that score, you can add a sixth suspect. Yourself.’ Salas cut the connection.

  CHAPTER 15

  Even Jaime admitted that there were times when Dolores relaxed and openly allowed her fierce love for the family to envelop them all and touch them with the same deep happiness that she enjoyed. It was then that her cooking reached such heights that the gods would have forsaken Olympus to dine at her table.

  Alvarez lay on his bed, stared up at the ceiling, and decided that the dinner they had earlier eaten had lifted them to the pinnacle of human experience. Not even love could offer so clear a vision of paradise, since women sadly carried within themselves the seeds of the poison of possessiveness … At such a time, one should be generous. It wasn’t always the woman’s fault that love turned into a dagger. A man could be to blame. He drifted off to sleep, congratulating himself on his fair-mindedness …

  * * *

  He was awoken by the distant sounds of the telephone ringing. With the shutters closed, the light in the bedroom was dim, yet it was sufficient for him to read the non-luminous dial of his watch. 6.14. For anyone to ring this early in the morning there surely had to be an emergency. He mentally checked. Isabel and Juan had returned home and gone safely to bed the previous night; it was inconceivable that either of them would have risen so early and gone into the street to be run over. Dolores wouldn’t leave the house before she’d prepared everyone’s breakfast or Jaime until he’d eaten his. No immediate family could be involved …

  ‘Enrique.’

  The call was for him? ‘Who is it?’ he shouted back.

  ‘A woman.’

  Dolores had only spoken the two words and her voice had been muffled by distance, but even so he knew exactly what she was thinking. Why, he wondered as he left the bed, was the virtuous woman so quick to presume vice?

  She was climbing the stairs as he reached the head and he stood to one side. ‘She has woken everyone up by ringing at such an absurd hour,’ she said, as she stepped on to the landing.

  ‘I’m very sorry, but…’

  ‘Tell her, if she is capable of understanding, that there are people whose work is by day and who therefore need to sleep at night.’

  ‘It must be some kind of emergency.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I shall not be too surprised if it proves to be otherwise,’ she said, words crackling icily. She studied him briefly. ‘Could you not have put on a dressing-gown since you are wearing only pyjama trousers?’

  ‘There’s only the family…’

  ‘Whom I have to do everything in my power to protect.’ She swept on and along to her bedroom.

  Sweet Mary, but it was as impossible to understand a woman’s mind as foretell in which direction a flea would jump.

  He went downstairs and through to the front room, picked up the receiver. ‘Enrique Alvarez speaking.’

  ‘Oh, God, someone’s killed him. His head…’ She began to make a sound that was half sob, half cry.

  There was a pause, then another voice came on the line. ‘You must come here.’

  ‘Who’s speaking?’

  ‘Rosa.’

  ‘What exactly has happened?’

  ‘The señor’s lying there, his head … It’s terrible,’ she said, her voice beginning to tremble.

  Where had the body been hidden? An attic, a seldom-opened cupboard; who had visited the hiding place so early in the morning? ‘Rosa, try to be very calm.’

  ‘But … but it’s so awful…’

  ‘I am sure you can be brave. Tell me, is the body in the house or the garden?’

  ‘The house.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘In the señor’s dressing-room. On … on the floor.’

  His response was immediate. ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘I tell you, the señor’s on the floor. Haven’t I seen him, lying there, his head … Oh, God, his head!’

  It had never occurred to him to search the house because Cooper had been last seen leaving it and that fact had fixed in his mind the presumption that the other had died elsewhere. ‘Hasn’t anyone been in the dressing-room in the past four days?’

  ‘I can’t say when the señora was there…’

  ‘Of course you can’t. But what about you or Clara?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘We clean every day except Sunday. I dusted and hoovered in there in the morning. And now he’s lying there and his head … his head…’

  Alvarez said what he could to calm her. As he replaced the receiver, he wondered how he was going to calm Salas?

  * * *

  The very large bedroom was furnished with luxurious taste. The wide double bed was an antique Spanish half tester, the counterpane was made from the finest Mallorquin crochetwork; the large carpet was a Sanguzsko; two easy chairs were velvet covered, the heavy curtains had elaborate pelmets; the central ceiling light was a crystal chandelier, its graceful proportions preventing it looking pretentious; on the walls hung three paintings, so similar in style that they were clearly by the same artist – millennium-old, twisted olive trees were the favoured staple of island painters, but this artist possessed the skill to banish any sense of cliché.

  On one side of the bedroom was a bathroom, fully tiled in marble and with deep-burgundy-coloured fittings, on the other was the dressing-room. Cooper lay in an untidy heap on an uncarpeted section of the floor, his left hand curled under his body, his right hand stretched out and almost touching the elaborately inlaid, highly polished dressing-table set in front of the window. Two full-length mirrors, one on each of the side walls, reflected the body, surrounding the onlooker with death.

  Cooper wore a short-sleeved silk shirt and linen trousers. His skull had been savaged, but despite this fact, the wounds were not as visually horrific as they might have been. His expression was one more of surprise than horror. The floor around his head was stained with blood.

  After three and a half days in the heat, one would have expected to see the first signs of staining on the visible flesh. There was none. The blood had not started to degenerate, either on the body or floor. Alvarez tried to move first one arm, then the other, but both had become locked by rigor. He straightened up. Cooper had not been murdered on the Sunday and his body hidden until now; he had died within the last twenty-four hours or less, depending on when Rosa had cleaned the room. Had he returned willingly – if so, why had he ever left? Had he been forced to return – if so, why and by whom? That he had bled on to the floor and that the pattern suggested no subsequent disturbance, suggested he had not been killed elsewhere and his body brought here. How could he have returned to the house without anyone’s knowing that? Who did, and who did not, have an alibi? And finally, remembering the one question Salas must ask, could this be accident or suicide? No surface on any of the built-in cupboards or the dressing-table bore any imprint, suggesting he had fallen on to that. As for suicide? Nothing which could have inflicted the injury (and although he was no doctor, he was certain the wounds could not have been self-inflicted) lay about the floor.

  He walked over to
the window and stared out, mentally listing what had to be done. Telephone a doctor who’d make the preliminary examination and give a working time of death. Search the house for any signs of forced entry. Question all those known to have a motive for Cooper’s death to find out if they had alibis. Exactly who stood to benefit from the death? What had been the true reason for the meeting between Cooper and White? Did White have criminal connections?…

  * * *

  Doctors who worked within the national health service were contractually obliged to give only a proportion of their working time to that service and were allowed to carry on a contiguously timed private practice. However, it was base calumny to suggest that there were those among the profession who demanded payment before committing their best efforts.

  Dr Pons wore a suit even in the height of summer, since it marked the distinction between himself and the common man. He straightened up, dusted the knees of his trousers with his hands. ‘You can turn him over.’

  Alvarez, trying hard to think of the body as a thing, not a dead man, sweated heavily as he struggled to move it, a task made difficult because of the stiffened arm.

  ‘You’re badly out of condition,’ Pons observed.

  The task would have stressed him considerably less had the other deigned to give a hand.

  ‘D’you smoke?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘D’you drink?’

  ‘Occasionally.’

  ‘Give up both, take exercise, and you might just live for another ten years.’

  ‘But would they be worth living?’

  Pons had a poor sense of humour and saw the question as impudent. He waited in disapproving silence until the body had been turned and he could continue his examination. After a while, he said: ‘Do you see that?’

  Alvarez moved forward and looked at the watch on the left wrist which had been concealed previously. The glass had been shattered and the sweep second hand was bent and motionless.

  ‘You will appreciate the significance of this, of course. In all probability, it marks the time of death.’

  ‘Nine twenty-three comes within the estimate of the time of death that you’ve gained from the usual indicators?’

  ‘Yes.’ The doctor stood, replaced the instruments in his case, peeled off the surgical gloves, dusted his trousers. ‘They provide a time of between nine and midnight.’

  ‘Can you give me the cause of death?’

  ‘That is not obvious?’

  ‘I have to have your given opinion for the records.’

  ‘He was struck repeatedly, but the apparent injuries inflicted are less than I would have expected to have caused death, suggesting that the dead man has an unusually fragile skull. It is my opinion that the number and nature of the blows points to loss of self-control on the part of the assailant. That is all that can be said before the postmortem.’ He picked up his bag, left, walking with short, springy steps.

  Alvarez locked the dressing-room and pocketed the key. He sat on one of the bedroom chairs. Still to organize were tests for prints, the taking of photographs, questioning the señora and the staff, questioning those known to have a motive …

  Would Rosa offer him a coffee and a coñac before he set forth?

  * * *

  The photographer had taken photographs, the dressing-room had been dusted for prints and those raised had been lifted on sticky tape, the señora’s doctor had said she could not be questioned before the late afternoon at the earliest. So now he had to make that telephone call.

  He used the cordless telephone in the sitting-room. The plum-voiced secretary told him to wait. He waited, his mind wandering.

  ‘Well?’

  The barked question startled him and it was a moment before he could say: ‘I have to report that Señor Cooper is dead.’

  ‘You have forgotten that you first reported this fact several days ago?’

  ‘Previously, señor, as I made clear, his death could only be surmised. Now, it is definite. The circumstances make it certain he was murdered.’

  ‘There can be no doubt that he fell accidentally or deliberately jumped?’

  ‘He did not fall over the cliff.’

  ‘Then where did he die?’

  ‘In his dressing-room.’

  There was a silence. ‘You had not, of course, thought to search there?’

  ‘Señor, he was known to have left home…’

  ‘I should blame myself. I should have explained as simply as possible what you should do, even to the extent of advising the necessity of so elementary a task as searching the house.’

  ‘I would not have found him.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s correct. However, someone more alert would have done.’

  ‘No one would have found him because he wasn’t there.’

  ‘Forgive me, Alvarez, but at this relatively early hour in the morning I am finding it rather difficult to understand you. Are you, in inimitable style, reporting the fact that the body had been moved to where it was found?’

  ‘Señor Cooper died last night, possibly at nine twenty-three.’

  There was a longer silence. ‘You are now saying that for several days you have been investigating the murder of someone who was alive?’

  ‘In a sense, señor. But it has not been time wasted.’

  ‘That has to be a matter of opinion.’

  ‘My previous work has enabled me to discover who has a motive for the señor’s death.’

  ‘I had forgotten. You claim to have identified a man willing to murder for a bucketful of water.’

  ‘Señor, in the old days when a farmer could only rely on what he, himself, produced…’

  ‘I am sure we can find more important things to discuss than the hydraulic history of a backward island. Has the body been medically examined?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  ‘Have photographs been taken?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  ‘Have all relevant surfaces been examined for fingerprints and other marks?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  ‘Has the Institute of Forensic Anatomy been notified that a full postmortem will be required?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  ‘Mirabile dictu.’ He cut the connection.

  As Alvarez replaced the receiver, he belatedly realized that he had forgotten to confirm with Salas that a request for information concerning White had been made to the American authorities. He judged it advisable not to ring back.

  CHAPTER 16

  Clara, being considerably older than Rosa, could remember a time when no sensible person spoke his mind except in the company of trusted friends – how else to be certain that the secret police were not listening? So it was only after Alvarez had chatted to her for some time that he was able to persuade her to speak relatively freely.

  ‘He sounds like he was a difficult man,’ he said, as he sat at the kitchen table.

  ‘He could be, that’s for sure. Never said how delicious the meals were.’

  A good cook needed imagination, inspiration, forty-three spices, and praise without end. ‘Wasn’t he interested in food?’

  ‘He was quick enough to say if he didn’t like something.’

  ‘The typical foreigner!… Did Rosa have any trouble with him?’

  ‘Not if you mean, did he try to get a handful. She’d have told him what was what. In any case, if you ask me, the señor didn’t think of us as ordinary sort of people. We’re servants. Another thing. He’d the señora to keep him happy.’

  ‘D’you reckon she did?’

  ‘As busy as he could manage.’

  ‘I’ve been told she has a friend and sometimes, when they’re alone, they have a swim together?’

  ‘So Jorge says, but he has an imagination that needs washing.’

  ‘Only it’s not imagination this time. D’you think the señor knew she was dancing to someone else’s band?’

  She accepted that there was small point in continuing loyally to deny the affair
. ‘If he’d had his wits about him, he’d have guessed right enough from the way she made an extra fuss of him. But being the man he was, he just thought that that was because she adored him even more. Many’s the time I’ve said to Rosa that England must be a strange country when someone as blind as him can become so rich.’

  ‘In any country, when a woman puts her body as well as her mind to it, she can make a man believe the earth is square.’

  ‘Until she starts carrying a bastard.’

  ‘Life can be full of little surprises … So you don’t think he ever suspected?’

  ‘If he had, he’d have been shouting the house down. Men like him can’t stand being made to look stupid.’

  ‘Tell me, were you in this house last night?’

  Her manner changed abruptly. She stared nervously everywhere but at him and began to fiddle with a small bowl that was on the table.

  ‘There’s no need to worry,’ he assured her. ‘I could never believe you had any part in the señor’s death. What I’m asking is if you were here, you saw or heard anything unusual?’

  ‘There was nothing.’

  ‘Suppose you just remember everything you can about yesterday evening. It’s as important to me to know everything seemed normal as that there was something strange. The kind of thing I want to hear is who was around, what you were doing, whether anyone telephoned.’

  She spoke hesitantly to begin with, then gained confidence. The señora had left the house soon after breakfast without saying what she wanted for the day. Unless there was a party, only she or Rosa had to be on duty during the evening and so Rosa had left quite early to be with her novio. She’d spent the early evening worrying. Should she prepare dinner or shouldn’t she? If she did and the señora didn’t want a meal when she returned, it would be food wasted; if she didn’t and the señora demanded a meal immediately, there would be a row. The señora expected everything to be exactly as she wanted …

  Eventually, it had become clear that the señora would not be returning for dinner – it was always served at the same time, on the señor’s orders. So she’d locked up, after switching on the alarm system, and had left and gone to the staff house. She’d watched television for a while and then decided to get some supper. After switching off the television, she’d heard a car. She’d thought it was the señora’s, but when she’d crossed to the window and looked out, she’d seen it wasn’t and the car was leaving, not arriving – she hadn’t heard it before because of the television and, she had to admit, she wasn’t as sharp of hearing as she’d once been …