‘I’m telling you, he’s just refused a cognac. He wants coffee only.’
‘And you believed him? There’s one born every minute.’
‘Says cognac’s making him too fat.’
Rosallio studied Alvarez. ‘Too fat for what?’ He roared with laughter.
The waiter came to the table with two glasses of brandy and Rosallio reached out for one. ‘If you’re not drinking, Enrique, I am. I’ve a thirst that would empty Miguel’s well.’ He drank. ‘By God! there’s nothing like a cognac to put life back into a man.’ He dug his elbow into Alvarez’s side. ‘Pity you don’t drink yourself a new life: you look like you need it bad.’ He laughed again.
Vives paid the waiter. ‘Don’t you want another cognac, seeing there’s three of you now?’ asked the waiter.
Vives jerked his thumb at Alvarez. ‘He’s not drinking.’
The waiter looked curiously at Alvarez. ‘Sorry to hear you’re ill, Enrique. Hope it’s nothing serious?’
There were times, thought Alvarez sourly, as he reached over and picked up Vives’s brandy, when good intentions were as much use as confetti at a funeral.
Rosallio’s laughter boomed round the room. ‘Giving up drinking! Him! Just because he’s getting as fat as a pig? I’ll tell you, if he was as fat as two pigs, he’d go on drinking. Think a mangy old leopard like him is going to change its spots?’ He spoke to the waiter. ‘Bring another round.’
Two and a half hours later, Alvarez walked slowly up Calle Juan Rives and struggled to focus his eyes so that the two street lights merged into one. Mournfully, he cursed himself for having bought that chocolate ice-cream. That was what was responsible.
He tried to open the wooden front doors of his cousin’s house and after he’d pulled and pushed for a time he came to the conclusion that they were locked. He searched his pockets and his clumsy fingers found and finally subdued the key and he unlocked the wooden doors. The glass doors inside were unlocked. He went inside, locked the wooden doors, shut the glass doors, and congratulated himself on being a man who could really hold his liquor. He tripped over his feet and crashed to the floor.
The government should forbid the sale of ice-cream. He stood up unsteadily. How could any leopard change its spots when temptation surrounded it? And to tell the truth, that was a bloody silly saying because had any leopard ever actually changed its spots?
He climbed the stairs, grateful for the wooden rail, and went carefully along the short passage to his bedroom. He slumped down on the bed. The ceiling light began to dance around so he closed his eyes. He’d go on the wagon, never even look at a brandy again, never, never suffer the humiliation of not being in full control of his senses … Something about that leopard worried him, but when he tried to visualize the animal he imagined their neighbour’s tom cat. He hated cats.
*
Alvarez drove up the winding road to Ca’n Setonia and parked. The front of the house was a blaze of colour, thanks to a deep red and salmon pink bougainvillaea. Foreigners might have destroyed much of the natural beauty of the island around the coast with their greed for the sun, but they had returned just a little cultivated beauty with their gardens.
The ground sloped sharply and he had to walk downhill for three metres before turning on to the level path of the front door. Hanging from a wrought iron lion’s head on the door was a rectangle of cardboard, headed ‘Messages’, to which were clipped several sheets of paper and a pencil. He longed to write ‘Go home’ in block capitals. Instead, he rang the bell.
Amanda, wearing a brightly coloured frock that suited her somewhat juvenile, bubbly looks, opened the door. He introduced himself.
Immediately she spoke with nervous speed. ‘Do come in. Into the sitting-room. We love the view from there — Perce says … ’ She became uncomfortably silent as she realized she’d completely lost the thread of what she had been about to say. Her nervousness increased and she fidgeted with an edge of her dress.
‘Is your husband in, señora?’
‘Not at the moment. He’s gone down to the Port.’
‘Would you prefer me to leave and come back when he is here?’
‘Yes … No. What I really mean is, no.’
‘Are you sure that would not be more convenient?’
She said abruptly: ‘It’s much better if you stay.’ She turned and hurried into the sitting-room.
As soon as he entered, she said, in a bright, hostess voice: ‘Isn’t it a magnificent view?’
‘Indeed it is, señora.’
‘The mountains are so lovely, especially in the early morning or at sunset. Do you like mountains?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Please sit down. Anywhere you like. The chairs are quite comfortable.’
They both sat.
She left her dress alone and rested her hands in her lap, but seconds later she began to twist a button backwards and forwards. ‘When people in England hear we live in Mallorca, they turn up their noses and talk about concrete jungles. I tell them, they don’t know what they’re talking about. This end of the island is just beautiful. All the mountains, the fields, the drystone walls, the old farmhouses … But you know all about that, don’t you? I mean, you live here.’
‘Yes, señora,’ he answered politely.
‘I was just being stupid.’ She looked at him, drew a deep breath, then said abruptly: ‘Why are you here?’
‘I am enquiring into the death of Señor Calvin.’
‘Is it true he was murdered and didn’t commit suicide?’
‘Quite true.’
‘And you’ve come here … because you’ve heard … What have you heard?’
‘That you were a friend of Señor Calvin,’ he answered quietly. To his surprise, from the moment he said that she became very much more composed.
‘Who told you that?’
‘Señora, I have made so many enquiries that I cannot remember exactly.’
‘And you think my knowing John is important?’
‘It could be.’
‘Then you’ve got to understand it’s not quite like some people think.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘Look — if I tell you the absolute truth, do you have to tell anyone else?’
‘If it proves to be of no importance, certainly not.’
‘Not even Perce?’
‘Señora, it will be a secret between us.’
‘Then I’m going to tell you. I’ve never been really friendly with John. He kind of amused me, because he could be such fun and he was a really terrible flatterer — knew just how to say what one wanted to hear, if you know what I mean? But I never … I didn’t have an affair with him. I only tried to make Perce think I had so I could deny it. Can you understand?’
‘Not really, señora.’
‘It’s rather embarrassing to explain.’ Her blue eyes were deeply troubled as she stared at him. ‘You see, I met someone and … and we fell in love: terribly in love. I did everything I could to hide it, but Perce began to be suspicious and tried to catch me out. I’m so hopeless a liar that I knew if ever he guessed at the name of the man he’d challenge me and I wouldn’t be able to hide the truth, so I deliberately let John get friendly at parties because then Perce would be sure it was him. That’s what Perce did think, but when he accused me of having an affair with John I just laughed at him and he pretty well stopped being suspicious because I’m so terrible a liar he had to believe me and so he decided he’d been making a fool of himself with all his suspicions. So you see, I really can’t help you over John. And now there’s no need at all for you to speak to Perce.’
‘I am sorry, señora, but I fear I must still speak to him.’
‘Why? I’ve explained everything … ’
‘But suppose he didn’t disbelieve his own suspicions quite as thoroughly as you think he did?’
She began to fiddle once more with a button on her dress. ‘Suppose he didn’t? You can’t really think that even if he’d been absolut
ely convinced it was John, he’d have gone out and murdered him from jealousy?’
‘I don’t know. But I have to check all possibilities.’
‘Perce kill someone? He’s only enough courage for shouting at women,’ she said, with sudden and withering contempt.
‘Nevertheless, I must question him.’
‘Then you … you’re saying you will tell him what I’ve just told you?’
‘No, señora, I am saying nothing of the sort. You have my promise that your husband will learn nothing from me unless it becomes absolutely essential.’
‘I … I don’t want to hurt Perce — even if he likes hurting me. He’d never get over the humiliation.’
How in the name of hell did one ever learn to understand the English with their sentimental hypocrisy? he wondered irritatedly.
‘And I can’t let Perce hurt my … my friend. He’s married with a wife who’s a cripple and he has to spend all his money in supporting her. He’ll never leave her because that would be so unfair to her — otherwise we’d have gone off together.’
Cheerfully humiliating Perce! The worst part of their hypocrisy was the way in which they claimed merit from their twisted actions. ‘When will the señor be back?’
‘He said he’d return at twelve.’
‘Then I shall call back to see him. One last thing, señora. Have you any idea where you and your husband were on the twenty-first of July, a Wednesday?’
She stood up and crossed to the large desk. ‘Perce keeps a diary of absolutely everything he does. Ask him what he was doing eight years ago and he’ll give you chapter and verse.’ She opened a large desk diary and checked through the pages. ‘We can’t have been doing anything much because all he’s written down are the temperature, weather, and that he drove down to the Port and collected the papers in the morning.’
‘You weren’t with him?’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t have been or he would have put that down.’
‘Might you have been with your friend for some part of the day?’
‘I might have been. I can’t tell you.’
‘One last question, señora. How many cars have you and what are they?’
‘We’ve got a Renault and a Citroën. The Citroën’s mine.’
He thanked her, promised once more he would say nothing to her husband unless absolutely forced to do so, and then left. Thank God he’d never married, he thought, as he drove slowly down the road with its three acute hairpin bends. Then he chided himself. If he had married, he would have married Juana-Maria and not in a thousand, thousand years would she have betrayed him, not even with a glance, let alone her body. Only the English treated marriage as a bad joke because they were hypocritical heathens.
He reached the Llueso/Puerto Llueso road and turned left to the Port. He parked in Calle Bunyola, immediately outside Collom’s house.
Collom’s mother said: ‘Señor, my son is out in his boat and, with God’s help, catching many fish. I cannot tell when he will be back.’
She was dressed all in black because she was a widow and he saw in her all the tremendous moral strength and fierce loyalty of the Mallorquin peasant. She would never have visited other beds when her husband was out in his boat. All her life, she had known a sharp, unambiguous line between right and wrong and had never ever dreamed of crossing that line. He smiled warmly at her. ‘That’s all right. I’ll have a word with him some other time.’
She hesitated, but the sudden friendly warmth of his smile freed her tongue. ‘Señor, I must tell you. Pedro is a really good boy. Ever since his father died, he has looked after me and given me a wonderful home and if ever he marries — which God willing he will do — he has promised I shall live with him and his wife. He cannot do a great wrong to anyone.’
Alvarez nodded.
‘You do not understand,’ she said, peering intently at his face. ‘You think me an old woman who’s too fond of her only son. I love Pedro, I am mightily proud of Pedro. But I have eyes and a mind and I know him as he is. He can be wild — Sweet Holy Mother, how wild! — but he cannot be wicked. Perhaps he has sold a few cigarettes … ’ Her voice died away. Then she spoke fiercely. ‘What fisherman from this port has never caught anything but fish? Tell me that.’
‘Few.’
‘But to kill a man when it is not in the heat of an argument, to strangle him as if he were an unwanted puppy … Señor , that is not Pedro. Now, do you understand?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘Then remember what I have just said.’
‘I will remember it exactly. Now tell me something: has Pedro a car?’
‘Indeed. He bought it to take me to see my brother, the one who lives near Laraix and suffers the devil’s torments from arthritis. Nine years younger than me, but I’ll outlast him to the grave … I want to see Pedro marry soon and stop being so wild. There is a widow not very far away … Whore! Jezebel! He needs a nice girl. Then I will be able to lie down and let the Good Lord take me to meet Rafael. He died fifteen years ago: that is a long time.’
‘A very long, sad time, señora.’ Alvarez was respectfully silent for a time. ‘Señora, this car that Pedro has bought you — I suppose it is a nice small one, cheap on petrol?’
‘Cheap? May the saints preserve me, but my son is a fool when it comes to money. Money, he says, is made for spending. Save it, I beg him: next year may be the year of the lean cows. But he just spends and spends … Colour television set, this enormous French car when there are only the two of us to sit in it when we visit my poor brother, and who knows how much goes to that painted harlot? Spend less and keep money under the mattress, I tell him. But he just laughs.’
‘It’s the way all the youngsters look at things today.’
‘It’ll do them no good.’ She sighed. ‘But you can’t tell them. They have to learn and be hurt.’
He agreed, they had to learn and be hurt. He said he must go and she refused to let him leave until she’d given him a long, rolled-over pastry filled with the jam known as angel’s hair, and this gift suddenly and poignantly reminded him of his mother, who had never known security or comfort, but who had cooked better than anyone else in the world, even Juana-Maria.
He drove down to the harbour and parked in front of the harbourmaster’s office on the eastern arm. The office consisted of two rooms, an inner and an outer one, and in the outer room a man with very long hair and an overflowing moustache was working.
‘You want to know whether the motor-cruiser Felicity cleared harbour on the twenty-first of last month? Hang on a sec and I’ll find out.’ He yawned.
Alvarez yawned. He turned and stared out of the window and watched a yacht move astern from the quay and turn to make for the harbour entrance. Could anything be more peaceful than to set sail in one’s own yacht, leaving all one’s problems ashore?
‘The Felicity left harbour on the twenty-first at twelve-zero-five hours and returned on the twenty-second at eleven-seventeen hours.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ Alvarez scratched his right ear. ‘No idea who was on her, I suppose?’
‘Couldn’t tell you that, no.’
‘Or where she was bound?’
‘She reported her destination as Menorca.’
Alvarez thanked the other and went outside into the burning sunshine.
CHAPTER XV
‘Listen,’ said Adamson fiercely, ‘I didn’t knock the old bastard off.’
Alvarez stared across the sitting-room of the flat, in its usual state of untidiness. Adamson, he thought, was showing signs of strain.
‘He couldn’t possibly work out anything as complicated as faking a suicide to hide a murder,’ said Brenda, her voice thick with worry.
‘Could you, señora?’
‘Me?’ She stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘For Heaven’s sakel Everyone knows I can’t think of anything more complicated than what to drink next.’
‘I believe you are unkind to yourself.’
‘And just what’s tha
t supposed to mean?’ demanded Adamson, with a weak display of belligerence.
‘That I feel certain the señora is far more clever than she wishes to show.’
‘It’s very sweet of you to say that,’ she said, ‘and I dearly wish it was true, but John would have disillusioned you. He used to get terribly angry because I couldn’t understand anything complicated. But I’ve always preferred the fun things in life. I mean, Wagner’s all right if you feel like examining your soul, but who wants to do that more than once? And why read books which don’t end happily ever after? Otherwise it all gets too much like real life.’ She stood up. ‘Now you’ve made me feel all solemn and unhappy. So let’s have a drink and cheer up.’
‘Señora … ’ began Alvarez.
‘Come on now, stop being serious. I’m sure you can be a real sweetie if you relax. You’ve got kind of cuddly eyes. What are you going to drink — brandy? D’you know, I still haven’t heard your Christian name! Isn’t that incredible? What is it?’
‘Enrique.’
‘Adorable. It makes me think of the full moon on the bay. Names are so terribly important. Who can ever snuggle up to, and feel soulful with, an Adrian? But Enrique … It’s warm and cosy and cuddly, like your eyes.’
‘You are very kind, señora, but no matter how kind, I cannot forget I have come here to question Señor Adamson.’
She stared at him, hands on her hips, a fierce expression on her face. ‘Then I think you’re just a nasty block of ice.’
‘That is a great pity.’
‘I’m not sure I’m even going to give you a drink … But maybe I will. I suppose you can’t really help it, it’s just your job and you’d be a sweetie if you were allowed to be.’ She crossed to the drinks table. ‘Will you have a brandy?’
‘Yes, please, señora.’
She searched for a clean glass amongst all the dirty ones beside the bottles.
Alvarez spoke to Adamson, putting his question with deliberate abruptness. ‘When and where were you in trouble with the Spanish police?’
‘Oh my God!’ exclaimed Brenda, and dropped a glass which smashed.
Two-Faced Death (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 15
