After a while, she smiled. ‘D’you know, you’re right! … Am I going to have news for him when he gets back! I could hug you.’
The thought of a warm, enveloping hug from her set his pulse racing. He finished his drink and stood up. ‘Señora, I hope all goes well for you.’
‘It usually does, in the end, but I get a bit uptight at times. The trouble is, I’m the nervous type.’
Regretfully, he said goodbye and left.
At the corner of the eastern arm of the harbour, he bought himself a double cornet of ice-cream and when he’d finished that he strolled along the arm. Half-way along, he saw Collom in a boat, cleaning it down. He went to the edge of the arm and called out: ‘I want a word.’
Collom stood upright, balancing himself with legs slightly apart. He wore only frayed cotton trousers and his bronzed torso was taut and muscular.
‘Come ashore and get some news.’
‘Come aboard and give it.’
Alvarez picked up the painter and pulled, slowly bringing the boat in until he could jump on to the after deck. He went for’d and stepped down into the large, open well. ‘Getting ready to go out?’
‘I’ll be sailing this afternoon.’
‘And what about tonight?’
‘Depends where the fish are … Sit down, or you’ll fall overboard and I’m not bloody well going to dive over and haul you out.’
Alvarez sat down on the starboard fore-and-aft thwart.
‘I suppose you’ve got a thirst?’
‘I’ll not say no to a drink.’
Collom roared with laughter. ‘By God, that’s true, if every other word you’ve ever spoken is a bloody lie.’ He went aft, past the engine, to the stern locker, above which was fixed the large gas-light used for night fishing. Out of the locker he brought an unopened bottle of brandy. ‘Here you are.’
Alvarez unscrewed the cap, raised the bottle to his mouth, and drank heavily.
‘You know something? You drink like a real man. Like I’ve said before, if you weren’t a creeping policeman, I’d have you as crew.’
Alvarez lowered the bottle, rubbed the neck with the palm of his hand, and passed it back. ‘If I weren’t a creeping policeman and didn’t mind the look of a jail, maybe I’d sail with you despite my sea-sickness.’
‘Jail! There’s not been a jail built to hold me,’ Collom boasted before he drank.
‘You can’t always be lucky.’
‘Why not? I’m lucky because I kick life around, I don’t let it kick me. Make it respect me, that’s what. And that’s how I’ll stay lucky.’ He passed the bottle. ‘What’s the news that’s got you all steamed up? Has someone dared to sell a fish without a government licence?’
‘I’ve identified the murderer.’
‘Taken you long enough. What’s his name?’
‘Calvin. It wasn’t him up in the mountains, it was a man called Breeden whom he’d murdered to try and make it seem he was dead.’
‘Trust you to make a balls-up.’
‘Calvin is still very much alive.’
Collom’s manner suddenly changed. His eyes were hard when he looked at Alvarez. ‘Is he in Spain?’ He began to pull at his beard.
‘The last time he was heard of, he was in France.’
‘Then I’d say he’ll make certain he moves on and doesn’t come near Spain again.’
‘And I’d say the same. He struck me as a bloke who likes his neck the way it is.’
Collom relaxed. ‘OK. So let’s forget the bastard … Drink up, or the cognac’ll go sour.’
They drank. They discussed fishing, brandy, women, and life. When the bottle was empty, Collom slung it into the harbour.
Alvarez stood up and the motion of the boat — the water was flat calm — caught him out, but with a bit of a struggle he managed to keep his feet. He went aft to the accompaniment of Collom’s mocking laughter, stumbled up on to the after deck, pulled on the painter and scrambled ashore after being within a whisker of falling into the water. He waved at Collom, who’d begun to sing an obscene song, and walked with much dignity along to his car. Once behind the wheel, he lit a cigarette and smoked.
Later, and he had no idea how much later, he judged he was fit to drive. He backed, turned, and went along to the junction with the Llueso road, turning left on to that.
Amanda Goldstein opened the front door of Ca’n Setonia. ‘Hullo. You want another word with us? Do come in. I’m afraid the place is in a bit of a muddle because Perce is busy altering his filing system, but you won’t mind, will you?’
‘Of course not, señora.’
The sitting-room was littered with files and papers and Goldstein was in the centre, bent double as he checked the contents of a file. ‘It’s the inspector, love, come to have a word.’
Goldstein picked up the file and stood upright. ‘So I observe,’ he said coldly.
‘I’ve apologized for the mess.’
‘There was no need to do so. In any case, it is not a mess. I am perfectly well aware of the order in which everything is placed.’
Alvarez said: ‘I have come to tell you, señor, that the murdered man was not Calvin, but was Señor Breeden, from the Bank of England, who was investigating house purchases. Calvin murdered him and escaped the country dressed as Señor Breeden.’
‘Good Heavens!’ exclaimed Amanda.
Goldstein put the file down at his feet. He folded his arms in front of his chest. ‘Are you confessing that your suspicions concerning me were totally unfounded?’
‘Señor, you will understand … ’
‘I understand that you were unpardonably impertinent in daring to believe I could have had anything to do with his murder. I naturally have not the slightest intention of forgetting such behaviour merely because you have at last had the grace to come to apologize. The British Consul will receive the fullest report from me.’
‘Señor, I had to … ’
‘I am totally uninterested in any excuses you might try to make.’
Amanda said nervously. ‘Perce, don’t you think you … ’
‘Will you please not refer to me as Perce.’
Alvarez left. She followed him into the hall and as he slid back the lock of the front door, she murmured: ‘I’m sorry he’s like that.’
‘Señora, it is of no matter.’
‘And please don’t worry about the consul. Perce went and complained and the consul told him not to be so stupid. That’s why he’s just been even more pompous than usual.’
He smiled, said goodbye, then went out to his car. As he drove down the hill to the Cala Roig road, he checked on the time. He ought, he thought, to call on the Meegans, but it wasn’t long to lunch-time.
*
The late afternoon sunshine was cutting a wide swathe through the sitting-room of Ca’n Tizex when Meegan followed Alvarez into it. Alvarez sat and then noticed how Helen had begun to fidget with the buckle of the belt of her dress. It made him feel warmly benevolent, like a favourite uncle, to think that with a few words he was going to strip away all her fears.
‘Señor, I have hurried here to tell you something very important. I have identified the murderer.’
Meegan, who had been about to sit on the settee, stood very still and Helen drew in her breath with an audible hiss that sounded like pain.
When he saw her pitiful state of tension, Alvarez was sharply annoyed with himself for that moment of dramatic pause. He hurriedly said: ‘The murderer was Calvin and the murdered man was Señor Breeden. I am afraid that it has taken me a little time to discover the true facts of the case. I apologize to you.’
Meegan sat down heavily.
‘You … you mean … ’ Helen stared at him.
‘Señora, any suspicions I may have had were utterly wrong. No one but Calvin was concerned in the murder.’
‘Dear God!’ She put her hand to her throat. ‘Does anyone mind if I cry?’
Meegan jumped to his feet and crossed to her chair. He held her tig
htly against him. ‘I’m afraid Helen thought …’
Alvarez interrupted him. ‘Señor, other people’s thoughts should always be kept private. I am truly sorry I had to question you in the manner I did, but it was my job. It has also been my job to come here now, to tell you the truth, but this has been a job I have greatly liked.’
Helen held on to her husband’s hand as she said: ‘I think you’re a very wonderful man.’
Alvarez, to his dismay, felt himself blush.
‘This calls for a drink,’ said Meegan. ‘Lots of drinks.’
‘I think, señor, I had better not drink anything.’
‘Why ever not?’ she demanded. ‘Not drink now? That’s impossible. You’ve got to help celebrate.’
‘Señora, this morning I confess I celebrated a little too well, though quite what I was celebrating was never clear.’
‘Then you need a large hair of the dog which bit you. Jim, hurry up with a brandy on the rocks before he runs away.’
‘There is little fear of that,’ murmured Alvarez. ‘If I ran anywhere in my present state, I fear I should suffer alarmingly.’
*
Helen watched the dented, rusting Seat 600 rattle away up the slip road. She turned. ‘Jim, may I have another drink?’
‘Why on earth ask me if you may?’
‘I don’t know, really. Or maybe I do. Perhaps I was hoping you’d say I’d had enough already. Then I could tell myself I needed Dutch courage to go ahead, but you’d refused me any so I could keep quiet.’
Meegan spoke in a strained voice. ‘To go ahead with what?’
‘You know as well as I do.’
He didn’t answer her, but led the way back inside. ‘What d’you want to drink?’
‘I’ll stick to vermouth. My mother always warned me against mixing my drinks or some nasty man would try to take advantage of me.’
As he poured out two drinks, she sat. He crossed past the fireplace and handed her a glass. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we … ’
‘We’ve got to have it out, here and now. I must know why you were so scared. Where were you on the Wednesday? Why didn’t you get back until God knows what time of the night? Where did you get that bruise which you kept on lying about?’
He drank.
‘We’ve had our troubles, God knows! We’ve had arguments that have turned into rows because we’ve both been silly when we ought to have been living a happy life. Then I was the prize idiot on the island when I decided that if you were going to be bloody-minded, I was going to enjoy myself so I encouraged John. But when it came to the final crunch, I discovered that I hated what I was doing because I loved you, however nasty the rows … Jim, there’s no need to tell me everything, but you met your own crunch, didn’t you?’
He stared at her for a moment, his expression twisted.
‘Because I’d been such a bloody fool, you decided to get your own back on me. You went out with another woman?’
After a while he nodded.
‘What happened?’ she asked, almost in a whisper.
‘I discovered you meant far more to me than the rest of the world put together.’
‘Was … was she someone I know?’
‘I think you do.’
She lit a cigarette with fingers that shook slightly. ‘You think? Or you know?’
‘Just think.’
‘Is she pretty?’
‘So-so.’
‘Prettier than me?’
‘No.’
‘But passionate?’
‘She reckons she is.’
‘And what do you reckon?’
‘I’m not a very good judge.’
‘Does she love you?’
‘No.’
‘You sound very certain of that?’
‘I am. I thought you said there was no need to tell you everything?’
‘Was it purely a physical attraction?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you weren’t emotionally involved?’
‘No.’
‘The bruise. Things were getting very physical?’
‘According to her, not physical enough.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean that, like you, I discovered I hated what I was doing.’
‘But … but being a man you had to do it?’
‘No. That’s why I was clouted.’
‘You … She hit you because you wouldn’t tup her?’
‘That’s right. At the last moment, I refused. Sounds bloody silly, doesn’t it?’
‘Jim, it sounds like the most wonderful news I’ve ever had. Just think. Neither of us cut out for adultery! That must make us unique on the island … D’you know why I needed another drink? Because I was certain I had to find the strength to forgive you for bedding another woman. And then I was going to need another drink to stop trying to imagine who she was so I could rip her eyes out. Why wouldn’t you tell me all this, instead of making me so scared that you’d something to do with John’s death?’
‘I was terrified you’d leave me if you knew about the other woman. But when you were scared I might be a murderer, you came much closer to me than we’d ever been before.’
‘Jim, my darling, hurry up and finish your drink and come and kiss me and don’t stop kissing me until tomorrow.’
He finished his drink and went over to her.
*
Alvarez lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, lit by the bedside light. There wasn’t a shadow of doubt, life, despite everything, was good. There might be Goldsteins in the world but, far, far more important, there were also women who suddenly lost the fears which had been choking them and then they looked at one with an expression of such dazzling relief, such overwhelming joy, that one was offered a tiny window into Heaven.
If Juana-Maria could walk the earth again, she would look at him like that. Then he smiled sadly. Or would she? Wouldn’t she see a paunchy, middle-aged man whom life had almost passed by and wouldn’t her smile be wistful, not ecstatic?
He switched off the light and turned on his side. And as he prepared to sleep, he suddenly thought that a left-handed man impersonating a right-handed man wouldn’t necessarily look clumsy: but a right-handed man impersonating a left-handed man impersonating a right-handed man inevitably must do.
CHAPTER XIX
Alvarez entered the Guardia post, grunted an ill-tempered answer to a bright good morning from a corporal, and went up to his room. He slammed the door shut, opened one of the shutters, and then slumped down behind his desk.
Contrary to what he had decided the previous evening, life was a bitch. How could he destroy the light in a woman’s eyes? It would be as if he were the driver of the car which had pinned Juana-Maria against the wall, killing her, so that all light, and even all terror, fled from her eyes.
He swore. Collom was right and he wasn’t born to be a policeman. He distinguished law from justice, believed unhappiness to be a serious crime, and was forever becoming emotionally involved in the lives of other people.
Sweet Mary, if only … But ‘if onlys’ belonged to the world of children. He picked up the telephone receiver and dialled. When the call was answered, he said: ‘Señor, I am very sorry to disturb you once again, but there is a point I must examine before I make my report to Palma. So will you please come right away to my offlce at the Guardia post?’
After ringing off, he lit a cigarette. He drummed on the table with his fingers. He knew exactly how Juana-Maria would look at him now, with her liquid eyes which translated emotion into statements.
*
There was a brief knock on the door and a Guard showed Meegan into the office.
Alvarez stood up and shook hands. ‘Good morning, señor. I am most grateful that you have come along. Can I offer you coffee?’
‘Thanks, but I had some before I came out.’ Meegan spoke abruptly.
‘I think that perhaps you were very wise. The coffee here is rather peculiar.’ Alvarez nodded at the Guard,
who left and closed the door behind him. ‘Please sit down, señor. The chair by your side is not as unsafe as it looks.’
Meegan sat down. ‘What’s … what’s suddenly cropped up?’
‘Señor, it is a matter of a nature which I thought was best discussed solely between you and me. Will you tell me, please, exactly how you received the bruise to your face?’
‘You want to talk about that!’ Meegan managed to smile. ‘Then I can only admire your sense of discretion in asking me here. But as a matter of fact you needn’t have bothered because after you’d gone yesterday I confessed the truth to Helen.’
‘What truth was it that you confessed?’
‘That the bruising came from a woman.’
‘May I hear the circumstances?’
‘I was fool enough to play hard and loose with a woman and we ended up stripped and ready for action. She was more than willing, I suddenly discovered I wasn’t. That got her really furious and she let rip with everything she’d got.’
‘She sounds a very passionate woman.’
‘She is.’
‘You know, señor, it was apparently an extensive bruise.’
‘She has a great right hook.’
‘I feel that few men would be able to resist so formidable a lady when events have reached a certain point.’
‘God knows how I did!’
‘You did not tell your wife the truth until last night?’
‘I was too scared stiff that she’d be so sick and angry she’d leave me.’
‘Leave you because you had resisted this woman?’
‘Because she couldn’t and wouldn’t believe I had resisted.’
‘But, señor — and forgive me for recalling the fact — the señora had been in a somewhat similar situation and she had resisted: would she not have had great sympathy and understanding?’
‘I suppose I just wasn’t thinking straight. I was far too scared of losing her.’
‘So scared that you were careless that others might believe you had received the bruises in the course of murder?’
‘I knew I hadn’t murdered Calvin. On the other hand, I knew I had been with this woman.’
‘Will you please give me her name?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
Two-Faced Death (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 20
