A Maze of Murders

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘But even if he was tight, he was a very strong swimmer.’

  ‘A man can be so intoxicated that he becomes incapable of doing something which he does easily and well when sober.’

  ‘If he were too drunk even to remember how to swim, could he have walked out of the saloon on to the deck and across to the stern? Would he have bothered to in order to urinate?’

  ‘I am glad to say it is not a question I can answer. Have you traced the source of the money?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The banks are checking, but they say it’ll take time.’

  ‘Can you name anything on this island that does not take twice as long as is reasonable?’ He rang off.

  Alvarez replaced the receiver. If only Salas had remained at the conference until at least some of the facts could have been established with a degree of certainty … If every ‘if’ were a peseta, no man would be poor.

  CHAPTER 8

  The phone rang as he was about to leave the office for his merienda of a coffee and brandy at the Club Llueso.

  ‘It’s the Guardia, phoning from Torret. We’ve a dead man, in his twenties, in what’s almost certainly a hit-and-run.’

  ‘Torret’s in Inspector Cardona’s territory,’ he said with satisfaction.

  ‘We called him and he’s worked out that as the body is six kilometres to the east of the village, it’s just in yours.’

  Some would do anything to evade their responsibilities, he thought resentfully.

  * * *

  The road, which over the past two kilometres had become a switchback, turned sharp right round a bluff of exposed rock, then bore sharply down in a left-hand curve before levelling off. Evergreen oaks cast their shadows on the road and fields of almond trees stretched almost to the mountains. It was a part of the island with very little underground water so that only one crop a year could be grown to augment the almonds.

  Alvarez parked behind the white and green Renault, walked up to the driver’s door. The two cabos remained seated, enjoying the slight relief from the heat that the car’s fan provided. The driver spoke through the open window. ‘He went off the road down by the second telegraph pole.’

  Alvarez saw that a cistus bush immediately to the side of the pole had been partially flattened. ‘What was he riding?’

  ‘A Vespa. That’s been caught up a metre or so below the level of the road. From the look of things, a car coming up behind didn’t see it in time and smacked it over. There’s a fair drop on to rock and the poor sod landed on his head – wasn’t wearing a crash helmet.’

  ‘Do we know when the accident happened?’

  ‘The doc says rigor was fully established and that, plus body temperature, suggested twelve hours from death, only in this heat nothing could be certain.’

  ‘Where’s the body?’

  ‘With the village undertakers.’

  ‘Do we have identification?’

  ‘There was none on him and a check with Traffic gives the Vespa as owned by a bloke in Palma. He’s been contacted and says he sold it last year, but just didn’t bother with the paperwork for the transfer.’

  ‘Have any locals been reported missing?’

  ‘None we’ve heard about.’

  Alvarez walked down the road. A short distance from the cistus bush, there was a mark on the tarmac where something had recently scraped along the surface with considerable force. He reached the bush and looked down and immediately wished he hadn’t. The land was steeper than seemed likely from the road and there was a sloping fall of some seven metres. At the point where the Vespa had been held by a projecting rock, the land fell less steeply than elsewhere, nevertheless he would not have dreamt of climbing down had not there been two cabos ready to jeer at him if he did not.

  It was an old machine, in parts rusty, and now slightly bent though far from wrecked. It was difficult to disagree with the conclusion that a car coming up from behind had hit the Vespa and knocked it on to its side with such force that it had swept along the road to fall over the edge; yet the rear of the machine had not suffered the crumpling he would have expected to find in such an accident.

  Careful only to look up, never down, he climbed back to the road. He walked up to the car. ‘Call Traffic to collect the Vespa and take it to Palma for a full vehicle examination.’

  ‘What’s to prevent you telling ’em?’ asked the driver bad-temperedly.

  He carried on to his own car and drove off.

  Torret, originally built about a hill for defensive purposes, had altered little, largely because it was well back from the coast and few foreigners ever visited it, even fewer lived there – those who did were of strange persuasions, some of which even the accommodating locals would have baulked at had they known about them. It was a village of uneven levels, narrow streets mostly without pavements, a church with a relic of St Boniface, a band which could play four and a half tunes, and a yearly fight between Moors and Christians of such violence that in some years there were almost as many casualties as tradition claimed for the original battle (which some historians were so insensitive as to claim never occurred).

  He parked in the main square and walked across to a bar which was built against one wall of the church, a juxtaposition the Latin character found perfectly natural. He ordered a coffee and a brandy, then said to the owner: ‘Where will I find the undertaker?’

  ‘At the edge of the village, on the Palma road. Moved there a couple of years back … You sound like you’re from Llueso?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Can’t mistake the accent!’

  ‘The purest Mallorquin,’ Alvarez responded, automatically defending the good name of his village.

  ‘I’ve a cousin who lives there, Lucía, married to Gustavo, a carpenter.’

  ‘I’ve had a word or two with him, but I’ve not met her.’

  ‘The last time she was here, she said Gustavo’s very successful. Could that be right?’

  ‘He’s moved into specially built workshops just outside the village and is doing cabinet-making as well as ordinary work. They say that last year he won a prestigious prize in the Barcelona exhibition.’

  ‘Is that right! If Lucía’s mother had lived to now, I wonder what she’d have to say. When Lucía told her she was marrying a man from Llueso, she had hysterics and burned candles by the score to try and stop it … You never can tell, can you?’

  ‘Not until it’s too late to do anything about things.’

  The owner moved away to serve another customer. Alvarez spooned sugar into the cup, drank some of the coffee, emptied the brandy into what remained. The Vergers would have married at least thirty-five years before. Then, Torret had, as had many inland villages, been relatively isolated, not only physically but also psychologically, so that Lucía’s mother’s hostility towards the marriage was understandable. Then, ignorance had often fuelled traditional rivalries; it had been a source of pride that the vocabulary of one village was noticeably different from that of another. Here a wife could plough, there to do so was to earn as much shame as if she were a puta … Easy travel and television had homogenized the island, thereby eliminating those fears and prejudices born of ignorance, but at a price that still couldn’t be accurately calculated. It would be ironic if when the price did become known, it would be seen that there had been merit in ignorance …

  He left the bar and returned to his car, drove through the steep, narrow, winding streets to the undertaker’s house and offices – the latter tastefully camouflaged as an ordinary extension.

  The undertaker was short and tubby, and he had a mobile face which could register whatever degree of mournful compassion seemed appropriate. ‘You believe you may be a relative?’

  ‘Cuerpo General de Policia.’

  ‘You have papers of authority to confirm that fact?’

  ‘Never bother to carry ’em around.’

  ‘Then I regret I cannot permit you to view the deceased
.’

  ‘Did he present his papers in order that you could accept him?’

  ‘Only a genuine policeman could say anything so ridiculous!’ He led the way through an inner doorway into a tiled room and crossed to one of four refrigerated cabinets, disengaged the locking bars, and pulled out a shelf. ‘His cranial injuries are very considerable.’

  They were, but Alvarez had no difficulty in recognizing Sheard.

  CHAPTER 9

  Alvarez watched a gecko scurry across the ceiling, then come to an abrupt halt a few centimetres away from the corner. Such action often indicated a potential victim had been sighted, yet he could see no fly or spider and it seemed possible the gecko had been tricked by the light into believing it had seen movement. Perhaps he, too, was being tricked into believing he was seeing connections where there was none.

  A detective quickly learned that coincidences were commonplace, yet when faced by one his first reaction was almost invariably to dismiss the possibility that it was genuine. So here he was, trying to identify the connection between the presumed death of Lewis and the death of Sheard, when it could be pure coincidence that one had died within four days of the other.

  The telephone rang.

  ‘This is Benito Vinent, manager of the Annuig branch of Sa Nostra. A day or two ago, I received a request for information concerning a foreigner, probably English-speaking, who had made a heavy withdrawal in cash in the past two weeks. I have information regarding such a withdrawal, but before going any further, I need to satisfy myself that the proper procedure has been observed. You have obtained the necessary permission to request and be given such information?’ He spoke with old-fashioned formality that was leavened with a touch of irony, as if he were smiling at himself.

  ‘It would not occur to me’, Alvarez answered reproachfully, ‘to act before I had done so.’

  ‘I’m sorry that I was obliged to ask.’

  ‘Think nothing of it.’

  ‘On the twenty-fifth of last month, Señor Clough presented a cheque in sterling for a large sum. He has not banked with us for long, but since he has shown himself to be a valued client, his account was immediately credited with that sum in pesetas. He withdrew one million in cash.’

  Alvarez searched amongst the sprawl of papers on his desk and found the one he wanted. Lewis had left Sheard’s room on the twenty-sixth to move into the Hotel Vista Bella. ‘What is Señor Clough’s address?’

  ‘Son Preda.’

  ‘That is all?’

  ‘It is a manorial house a couple of kilometres outside the village and so there is no need for any more. I know that even dirt tracks are being named and signposted these days – will they never cease to find ways of wasting our money? – but I’ve no idea of the name of the lane Son Preda is on.’

  ‘Is Señor Clough English?’

  ‘What other nationality so delights in a language which sunders pronunciation from spelling?’

  ‘What kind of a man is he?’

  ‘It is difficult for me to judge since he speaks almost no Spanish and I speak barely any more English and we have to converse through one of my staff. All I can answer is that he is friendly and has a ready sense of humour.’

  ‘Is he married?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Any family?’

  ‘None has been mentioned.’

  ‘Then that’s about it. Thanks for your help.’

  ‘One moment, Inspector. I should like to ask a favour. Can you indicate whether I might, perhaps, be mistaken when I believe the señor to be a valued client for the bank?’

  ‘All I know about him is what you’ve just told me. The only reason I’m asking questions is that, having identified him, he may be able to help me in investigations concerning an Englishman who has disappeared from a boat and is presumed drowned.’

  ‘An answer that would seem to leave room for considerable ambiguity.’

  ‘Don’t most?’

  ‘I think I will make a call to head office to confirm that the señor’s cheque has been cleared.’

  Alvarez rang off, began to doodle on the corner of a sheet of paper. If one were travelling from Port Llueso to Annuig there were two possible routes, one of which went through Torret. Clough had withdrawn a million pesetas the day before Lewis moved into the hotel. Just two more coincidences? The shepherd who found his flock constantly diminishing soon counted the sheep in his neighbours’ fields.

  * * *

  Son Preda had been owned by the same family for many generations. It was a large estate which encompassed both rich, fertile land and bleak mountainside. When labour had been cheap, up to thirty men had been employed full time, as many again part time at the busiest periods of the year. It had been almost self-supporting. Pigs, sheep, cattle, mules, goats, chickens, ducks, and pigeons had been reared; oil had been pressed from the ripe olives; figs had been sun-dried for both human and animal consumption; almonds had either been sold and the proceeds used for the few things needed from the outside or turned into turrón for a Xmas treat; cheese had been made with the help of vine leaves; wheat had been milled and the bread baked in ‘Roman’ ovens, fired by wood; oranges, lemons, grapefruit, pomegranates, loquats, cherries, pears, apples, tomatoes, peas, beans, cabbages, cauliflowers, lettuces, aubergines, sweet peppers, carrots, radishes, melons, and grapes had been grown; wine had been made; after summer rains, stone walls had been searched for snails; in January or February, shivering men had climbed the tallest mountain and cut out squares of snow which had been stored in the snow house to provide the supreme luxury of cold in the big heat …

  Then tourism had arrived. Wages had risen until self-sufficiency ceased to be an admirable objective and became an impossible luxury. The style of government had changed and democratic taxes had been introduced with the declared objective of preventing the rich living off the backs of the poor – as one wag had remarked, before long, the poor were living off the livers of the rich …

  But although Son Preda could no longer live in the past, its owner had decided it must survive to live in the future. Fortunate still to be wealthy because he was advised by an expert in identifying tax loopholes, he had invested much money in restoring, altering, and adapting. The land was cultivated by a few men and many machines. The very large, two-hundred-year-old house was carefully modernized and then let to whoever was willing to pay the very high rent …

  Alvarez braked to a stop in front of several stone steps leading up to a wooden door patterned with wrought-iron studs and striated by decade after decade of changing weather. As he stepped on to the gravel and looked up at the four-storey building, he was momentarily taken back to his childhood when the owner of such a house possessed an authority little less than God’s.

  He climbed the steps. On the door was a huge wrought-iron knocker in the shape of a ring hanging from a bull’s nose, while set in the stonework to the side was an electric bell push. Ever the traditionalist, he chose the knocker. The sound it made against the wood was the beat of past centuries.

  The door, hinges squealing, was swung back and he faced a woman in maid’s uniform, who looked as if she didn’t need to call for a man if a heavy weight needed lifting. ‘Is Señor Clough here?’

  She studied him. ‘And if he is?’ she finally demanded.

  ‘I want to talk to him. Inspector Alvarez, Cuerpo General de Policia.’

  ‘I suppose you’d better come in, then,’ she said bad-temperedly.

  He entered a very large hall, somewhat sparsely furnished. She led the way into the room immediately on the left.

  He looked around. The furniture was modern, better quality Mallorquin. Above the carved mantelpiece was a painting of a couple in traditional dress, the man playing Mallorquin bagpipes; ranged along the wall on either side were flintlock rifles. In a mahogany bookcase – almost certainly foreign – were a large number of uniformly bound volumes that had the dusty look of books respected but seldom read. On the tiled floor was a large carpet that to judge
from the crude patterns and colours had been made in the local factory before it had been forced to close many years before because of the cheaper and more sophisticatedly patterned carpets which had come in from the Peninsula.

  He heard a sound and turned to see a man enter. ‘Señor Clough? I’m sorry to bother you, but I wish to ask some questions.’

  ‘You speak English! A necessary prerequisite to my understanding the questions, let alone answering them.’ He was tall, well shouldered, and had a trim waist; his dark hair was thick and neatly trimmed; his face was oval, his eyebrows marked, his nose aquiline, his mouth full and firm, his jaw square; he had a moustache, not so small as to look an affectation, not so overgrown as to be ridiculous. He wore an open-neck shirt and fawn flannels which possessed the quality, which only money could buy, of being both casual and smart.

  A man who could be as sharp as he was pleasant, was Alvarez’s immediate assumption. Also one who was showing the touch of condescension that so many English did. This caused him no resentment. The man who condescended often failed to look where he was treading. ‘I will try to be as brief as possible, señor.’

  ‘There’s no call to rush. Sit down and let me get you something to drink before you tell me what the problem is. What would you like?’

  ‘May I have a coñac, please, with just ice.’

  Clough left the room, to return with a tray on which were two glasses. He handed one to Alvarez, lifted up the second, put the tray down on a stool, sat. ‘Your good health.’

  ‘And yours, señor.’

  Clough drank. ‘Do you smoke?’

  ‘Occasionally, despite the doctor’s advice.’

  ‘Ignore that. Doctors spend their lives wrestling with other people’s problems so they lead a miserable life and their only relief is to try to make everyone else’s life equally miserable. There are cigarettes in the box by your side.’

  Alvarez opened the chased silver box, brought out a cigarette, lit this with the small silver lighter to the side of the box.

  ‘Tell me, Inspector, have I inadvertently broken one of the many thousands of rules and regulations?’