He had never liked suppositions or theories, because in the main he distrusted them all. He was of a simple nature, the kind of person who looked at a spade and saw no more than a spade. Where did such simplicity get him now? Meegan had been bruised on the face, he was very worried about something and his wife was very worried about him. Adamson was a hyena of a man, prepared to live off a woman, who appeared to lack both the warped courage needed to murder and the clever mind needed to set the stage for a bogus suicide (but Señora Calvin was not the fool she made herself out to be). He had had direct contact with criminals, amongst whom there must have been at least one good forger. Goldstein was an icicle, a parody of a loving husband, and his wife was to be congratulated on finding a pleasanter bed elsewhere — but could an icicle warm up sufficiently to murder in the name of passion? Collom was a bear, friendly to look at, dangerous if aroused. But clever enough to have conceived the suicide … ?
Meegan was showing the kind of mental strain the murderer might be expected to suffer. And his wife clearly feared the worst. But he didn’t fit the facts.
Alvarez poured himself out a second and larger brandy.
*
Meegan tried to find the words to type. They refused to come, as they had for so many days. People had often said to him how lucky he was to be able to write — he took his work with him, could live in the sun, didn’t have to commute, didn’t have to dress up and say yes-sir, no-sir, to anyone. But had any of those who’d envied him the slightest conception of what it was like to suffer all the mental strain of creating plus the additional bitter mental pain of knowing that what one was knocking one’s brains out for was totally ephemeral and eminently forgettable? Had any of them an inkling of how exhausted the mind became after a very few hours of creative writing? Oh, for the simplicity of the life of the bank clerk commuter!
He heard a car squeak to a halt and identified the inspector’s Seat and his hands began to sweat and shake. He heard a murmur of voices.
Helen came into the room. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Jim, but it’s that detective again and he wants to talk to you.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Jim … you’ve got to … ’
He interrupted her. ‘Stop worrying. There’s no need.’
She stepped up to his chair and took hold of his right shoulder and gripped him so hard that she hurt. Then, abruptly, she released him. ‘He’s going to have some coffee so I’ll make it for all of us.’ She turned and left.
He lit a cigarette, dragged the smoke down into his lungs, and tried to will his hands to stop shaking. After a couple of minutes, he stubbed out the cigarette. He left.
Alvarez was leafing through an art book on the low coffee table. He closed the book with care and then said: ‘Good morning, señor. I have apologized to the señora for interrupting your work, but I am afraid it is necessary.’
‘Has something happened, then?’
‘I have to ask fresh questions … Señor, you own a Seat six hundred?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you use it a lot?’
‘My wife shops with it and I often take it out for a drive. When I can’t get ideas for my books, it helps to potter about the roads.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can’t explain why, but maybe the movement jogs my brain up just enough. I quite often get results.’
‘In your travels, have you driven up the dirt track which leads off the Laraix road to the left, just past the bridge over the torrente? It goes right up into the foothills where, I was told, a German has built a very large house.’
‘I’ve probably been along it sometime, but I can’t remember a specific occasion.’
‘Señor Calvin’s finca is there.’
‘I know.’
‘Off this track is another and much smaller one which starts not far from Señor Calvin’s house and winds half-way up the mountain. Perhaps you have also explored that?’
‘No. I’d no idea it was there.’
‘Nor had I, until an old shepherd told me about it. You are quite certain you have never driven up that small track in your Seat six hundred?’
‘I’ve just said I am.’
‘Then you will have no objection to my examining your car?’
‘Examine it for what?’
‘I noticed the track at one point passes through an unusual kind of soil. I would like to make certain that none of this soil has found its way on to the underside of your car.’
‘For God’s sake, don’t you understand? I haven’t been there.’
‘Señor.’ Alvarez gestured with his hands. ‘Surely you will realize that I have to check everything? But nothing makes me happier than when I discover it is all exactly as I have been told it was.’
Meegan’s voice rose. ‘I’m not a liar. I’ve never been up that track.’
Helen hurried into the sitting-room from the kitchen. ‘Would you like a biscuit with your coffee?’ she asked Alvarez, her voice a shade breathless.
‘Thank you, señora, that would be very nice,’ he answered. What a wife, he thought admiringly, with what a sense of timing!
She picked up a pack of cigarettes. ‘Will you have one? We smoke rather heavily out here because the cigarettes are so cheap. If we were back in England, we’d probably have to pack it in altogether.’
He was kind enough to go along with her, to let her chatter on inconsequentially, keeping the conversation away from her husband. Eventually, however, they heard the hissing sound of the espresso machine as the coffee was made and she was forced to return to the kitchen. As she passed Alvarez, she stared appealingly at him, but when she saw his look of compassion her own expression became one of resigned despair.
Alvarez spoke to Meegan. ‘Señor, when I was last here I remember asking if you had recently been in any way physically hurt. You said you had not.’
Meegan stubbed out one cigarette and lit another. ‘Well?’
‘Was that quite correct? Did you not suffer some bruising on your face a short time ago?’
‘What if I did?’
‘Why did you not tell me when I asked about such matters?’
‘Because it was immaterial.’
‘Not necessarily, señor. As I explained to you, the man who throttled Señor Calvin must almost certainly have had injuries.’
‘You were asking about scratches on the hands and my hands were unmarked.’
‘I first asked about any form of injury, but perhaps we misunderstood each other. Now we can overcome that problem and you can tell me how you were bruised?’
‘I ran into a door.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘In this house.’
‘Why did you do such a thing?’
‘What’s it matter, why? Haven’t you ever run into a door in the dark?’
‘Was there no electricity?’
‘No.’
‘What day was this? I will confirm with GESA that there was an electricity cut and everything will then be explained.’
He seemed quite unaware of the fact that his question had barbed hooks to it, thought Meegan, as he desperately tried to wriggle out of the corner he’d landed himself in. ‘I didn’t say there’d been a cut. All that happened was I didn’t turn the light on. I didn’t want to wake up my wife when I went to the bathroom.’
‘Of course not. And you hit your face on … ?’
‘The door. It made me see stars for a while.’
‘I am sure it did.’
Helen returned to the room with a tray on which were mugs, sugar, milk, and an assortment of biscuits in a shallow earthenware bowl. Meegan spoke quickly, not certain how much she had heard of the conversation through the serving hatch. ‘The inspector’s been asking how I got that bruise on my cheek. I told him about walking into the bedroom door and seeing stars.’
She spoke lightly to the inspector. ‘I’ve told Jim more than once that he sounds like a herd of elephants whenever he gets out of bed, so it doesn’t make the slightest difference to my waking up whether he switches
the light on or not. It’s so silly to walk around in a pitch-black room. He could have hurt himself really badly.’
‘Indeed he could have, señora.’
‘I wonder why all you men are far too stubborn to take the slightest notice of your wives?’
Alvarez smiled. ‘Perhaps, señora, we do not believe wives should ever be able to feel that important.’
She passed the coffee and biscuits, sat down, and carefully kept the conversation light and inconsequential.
Alvarez put his empty mug down on a coaster on the coffee-table. ‘Señora, that was delicious coffee.’
‘Have some more — there’s plenty in the kitchen keeping warm.’
‘Thank you, but I have so much work to do that I must leave now.’ He stood up and turned to Meegan. ‘Just before I go, señor, will you come outside with me whilst I examine the underneath of your car?’
‘If you’re determined. I tell you, though, I’ve never been up that track in our car.’
Alvarez shook hands with Helen. ‘It has been a great pleasure, as always,’ he said, with grave courtesy.
Meegan led the way outside and then lifted up the door of the garage, which was balanced with counterweights, to send sunshine spilling inside and over the white Seat 600. Alvarez studied the car, decided the sunshine wouldn’t be enough and went over to his own car to return with a torch. Puffing slightly, he squeezed himself between car and wall, then got down on hands and knees. He switched on the torch and examined the underneath of the car, first from one side, then from the other. When he’d finished, he came out of the garage, brushed his hands together, pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his face and brow.
‘So what have you found?’ demanded Meegan.
‘I am happy to say, señor, exactly what you told me I would find. Nothing.’ He held out his hand. ‘Thank you for all your assistance. You have been most helpful.’
He left and crossed to his car, climbed in, started the engine, and drove off.
Meegan watched the car disappear up the slip road and desperately tried to evaluate what thoughts had been going on behind that broad, heavy, sad-looking face. It was a hopeless task. The detective’s expression had given nothing away. He walked slowly back past the shrubs and the rocks to the door and went inside.
Helen was standing in the middle of the sitting-room. ‘Why did you lie to him?’ she asked, her voice thin with worry. ‘You told me you’d got the bruises from a branch.’
He crossed to the chest in which the drinks were kept.
‘Jim, you’ve got to answer. Why did you tell him a pack of lies? What happened that you needed to lie? Where did you really get that bruise?’
‘On a branch. But how could I ever have explained to him about wandering around, just trying to kick my brain into working? He’d never have understood and he’ll get suspicious of anything he doesn’t understand. So I told him something he could understand and accept.’
‘But … Jim, I don’t believe you’ve told me the truth.’
‘Now you’re being crazy. Look, I … ’
‘I think something terrible happened and you’re frightened to tell me what. Don’t you understand? There’s nothing you could have done so terrible that I’d no longer want desperately to help you.’
‘I ran into a branch.’
She turned away. There were tears in her eyes.
He lifted out a bottle of gin and went into the kitchen for a glass.
*
Dolores, Alvarez’s cousin, said: ‘Enrique, what’s the matter with you?’
He looked across the supper-table at her, his thoughts still adrift and a puzzled expression on his face. ‘What’s that?’
Ramez, her husband, a round man, full of good humour, laughed. ‘All that’s the matter with him is he’s got too much cognac under his belt.’
She ignored her husband. ‘Enrique, you’re hardly eating at all. Aren’t you feeling very well?’
He looked down at his plate heaped high with Paella Valencia. ‘I’m feeling fine.’
‘I see. So perhaps you think the paella is no good?’ Now there was a sharp tone to her voice.
He hastened to deny the possibility. ‘How the devil could I think that? It’s a paella fit for a king. Only my mother could ever have cooked one like this.’
Her pride restored, she smiled. She was a handsome woman, tall, with longish black hair which she kept drawn tightly back on her head so that it emphasized the ovalness of her face. ‘My mother always said that your mother was a brilliant cook, especially when she had so little to cook with. But, Enrique, if it’s good and you’re not ill, why aren’t you eating?’
‘I was thinking.’
‘If I was you, I’d pack that in,’ said Ramez. ‘That’s the kind of thing what gets a bloke into trouble.’
She half turned. ‘Then there’s one load of trouble you’ll never get into, isn’t there?’ She looked back at Alvarez. ‘But what can you think about so hard that you don’t eat?’
‘It’s the case I’ve got now. It’s a pure bitch!’
‘You mean the Englishman who was throttled?’ Ramez was always enthusiastically interested, despite his cheerful nature, in any case of violence. ‘What’s happened now, then?’
‘The trouble is, nothing’s happened and I had the big man himself on the blower this morning, shouting for action. Action! Every time I take action, I hit my head on a bloody thick wall.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Look, it’s like this: I’ll give you just one example. The experts in Palma say the murderer must have scratches on his hands. So I check up on the suspects. Know what?’
‘What?’
‘No scratches on any of the bastards’ hands.’
‘Do try not to swear so much, Enrique,’ said Dolores.
‘What’s the panic?’ asked Ramez. ‘The kids are in bed and can’t hear.’
‘Who’s talking about the kids? I don’t like hearing swearing all the time.’
‘You!’ He roared with laughter. ‘Haven’t you ever listened to yourself when something goes wrong?’
‘Nonsense!’
Ramez spoke to Alvarez again. ‘Look, I don’t get it. If none of the blokes you looked over got their hands scratched, hasn’t it just got to be someone else?’
‘Yeah. Only there isn’t anyone else I can find who could’ve wanted to knock him off.’
‘What about … ’
‘Give over,’ said Dolores firmly. ‘If you two go on like this the food’ll be cold before you eat any more of it.’
‘First things first,’ said Alvarez. He refilled his glass with wine and then ate in silence, concentrating on enjoying the paella. And when he’d finished the very large helping she’d given him and she offered him a second one, he passed over his plate.
There was fruit on the table and they finished the meal with apples.
Ramez leaned back in his chair until he could reach round for a nearly full bottle of brandy. ‘Give us your glass, Enrique.’
‘Not too much, thanks.’
‘Sure. Not more than half what’s in the bottle.’
They drank in companionable silence, while Dolores cleared the table and washed up in the small, but well equipped, kitchen which overlooked a tiny courtyard, always bright with flowers.
At ten-thirty Alvarez, feeling mellow thanks to several brandies, said goodnight and left the other two to watch a very old film on television. He went upstairs, cleaned his teeth very carefully — he was very proud of his regular, white teeth — and in his bedroom changed into pyjama trousers. He pulled the sheet back and lay down. He yawned, began to read, yawned again, and decided it was ridiculous to continue to read so put the book down and switched off the light.
With the same irritating perversity he had recently suffered, sleep which had seemed about to overwhelm him now retreated at a gallop. He turned on one side, then the other, was finally seemingly about to drift off when a bead of sweat trickled down from his ch
eek and across his nose, making him swear as he brushed it away and dug his thumb into his face as he did so.
His mind insisted on concentrating on Superior Chief Salas. A cold fish of a man. What did he know about the problems of the case? It was so easy to sit on a well padded chair in Palma and moan about the lack of progress in Llueso. How much progress would he make if he were in direct charge of the case?
To hell with Salas, to hell with Calvin. What was so wrong with having an unsolved mystery? Instead of being disturbed, future tourists might well be intrigued and attracted by it. ‘Ladies and gentlemen — not forgetting any English among you — that is the house owned by a man who was most foully murdered, yet whose murderer was never identified because he didn’t have any scratches on his hands. So, ladies and gentlemen — and English people — somewhere in Llueso or the surrounding area there is a man who throttled the poor, unfortunate … the smart, crooked Señor Calvin upon a rocky ledge on the side of the mountain where the view is God-possessed …
Was it a white Seat 600 the shepherd had seen? A clapped-out, moving wreck of a Seat … Old Seats never died, they simply rusted away.
Leopards never changed their spots. Why? Because they couldn’t, that’s why, even more than an elephant could pack its trunk. Pack its trunk … No, not very funny. Of course, cheetahs cheated and changed their spots … Wasn’t a cheetah a kind of a leopard?
He was suddenly fully awake. He stared up at the ceiling, very faintly outlined by the light which crept up through the shutters, and heard a mosquito begin to manoeuvre around his head. If leopards didn’t change their spots, what had happened to them when they were no longer spotty?
Sweet Jesus! he thought, why couldn’t he stop thinking? Ramez had been right at supper — half the troubles of the world arose because people thought. But why had the faked suicide been staged up the side of a mountain, sheer enough to give a middle-aged bloke heart failure? Wasn’t it possible it was because …
He switched on the bedside light and looked at his watch: nearly midnight. Surely the problem could wait until the morning? But even as he came to that decision that it could, he swivelled round on the bed and put his feet on the floor.
Two-Faced Death (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 17
